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Mythic Rips SOE a New One

GameDailyBiz has a statement by Mythic's head honcho Mark Jacobs. The CEO of Dark Age of Camelot's developer takes great exception to the aforementioned EQII auction site. From the article: "I'm disappointed with the decision from a leader in the MMO industry to go down a path which in the past, has been an anathema to them and remains so to just about every other MMORPG company in the industry. I think that not only supporting the sale of in-game characters, items and currency, but also taking a 'cut' of those sales, is not only a mistake but one of the worst decisions in the history of the MMORPG industry..."

115 comments

  1. Damn straight! by FAUrrego · · Score: 2, Funny

    *Raises his fist* Fight the power!

  2. SOE will have bigger plans... by dhakbar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    SOE is always looking for a bigger slice of the pie. If they can be hypocritical enough to open a sanctioned auction site after years of banning players for auctioning things off in their games, they will do anything. Be prepared for a whole new breed of micropayment based MMORPGs.

    Would you like to loot this UberSword of Might +7? That will be $0.10, tyvm.

    1. Re:SOE will have bigger plans... by rmarll · · Score: 1

      Would you like to loot this UberSword of Might +7? That will be $0.10, tyvm.

      Just like X-Box live!

    2. Re:SOE will have bigger plans... by shoptroll · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But apparently that's up to the devs.

      This is from Mike Capps, Epic Games President on downloadable content for Unreal Championship 2:

      "available via Xbox Live as downloadables. And no, we're not charging you for downloads, that's lame."

      http://www.beyondunreal.com/daedalus/singlepost. ph p?id=8113

      Regardless, this just looks like SOE being stupid with EQ2, especially in light of the /pizza command. If they think allowing in-game pizza orders and an official auction site are going to draw people to EQ2, they seriously need to get their head out of the sand and realize what's REALLY wrong with their game.

      --
      Insert Sig Here
    3. Re:SOE will have bigger plans... by Admiral+Ackbar+8 · · Score: 1

      And those plans might be to trick the farmers into selling tons of crap. They can then watch their play and bust them for farming. This could be a STING operation.

    4. Re:SOE will have bigger plans... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      This is a smart move by SOE and long, long overdue.

      You can't fight the black market, then you better try to control it, and you get your cut in the process.

      I'm amazed it has taken THIS LONG for any of the game companies to do it.

    5. Re:SOE will have bigger plans... by Anonymous+Custard · · Score: 3, Interesting

      micropayment based fantasy games...

      Hey, it worked for "Magic: The Gathering"

  3. Sure by Goldberg's+Pants · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The twat will change his tune when he sees how much money they make. The activity will ALWAYS go on. Why NOT make it legit, and make a percentage?

    It's just sour grapes.

    1. Re:Sure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Because then we'll wind up with games designed around the purchase of important items and not around game play, which - wait, what am I saying, Final Fantasy XI came out three years ago.

    2. Re:Sure by Sancho · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I agree.
      There have been two reasons I've read about for companies banning the sale of in-game items. The first is that it promotes farming/camping which is detrimental to the game because it prevents players who aren't trying to make a buck from getting the items. This inherently implies that making a buck is a bad thing (it's not). Also, with the farming that still goes on in WoW, it's pretty clear that banning auctions isn't a total solution to this problem (although I see that WoW auctions still pop up on Ebay pretty regularly--hadn't they quashed that?)

      The second reason for preventing sales of in-game items has been the claim that it makes people with lots of money advance more easily than people without much money. I've always taken offense to this argument, largely because these games are already biased towards people who have a lot of /time/. If you have 16 hours a day to grind in a MMORPG, you are going to advance faster than someone who can play for 4 hours. In a world where time is money, I think it's only reasonable to allow the equalizer of paying a bit more for a benefit. Let's face it, if you're playing 16 hours per day, you're probably not going to be able to pay real money for in-game items. Conversely, if you've got a real job that takes up most of your day, you likely have enough disposable income to pay a little extra.

      The only thing I can blame SoE for is not thinking of this sooner. EQ2 probably wasn't designed with this sort of thing in mind, and that means things could break. If a game was designed from scratch to allow auctioning (with appropriate restrictions kept in mind), it could truly be a fair system to those with either more time or more money.

    3. Re:Sure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You kinda goofed up problem #1. The problem is that the games are poorly designed so that players can get monopolies on certain resources.

      Just like in real-world economies, monopolies are bad.

      Of course, the solution to this isn't to disallow real-world trades of in-game resources, it's to prevent the creation of monopolies in the first place. So far, no game - not even World of Warcraft - has really succeeded in doing that. Partially because they haven't really tried.

      Problem #1 really is monopolies, and so far, most game companies "solve" it by banning real-money trades. Not surprisingly, this doesn't really solve anything.

    4. Re:Sure by Tantrum420 · · Score: 1

      > people with lots of money advance more easily than people without much money.

      Ohhhh.... I get it. You mean that it's like real life....

      T

      hehe

    5. Re:Sure by chris_mahan · · Score: 1

      Wanna fix it? make monsters that don't have weapons/treasure. kill 800 wolves and get nothing. You won't be hunting wolves. But if the tower is in the middle of the forest and there are 800 wolves in the forest, along with 80,000 deer to "support" them, and you want to get to the tower (for the loot left from an ancient age) then you 're gonna have to kill a few wolves.

      Farming? Make real farming a job. And this can be a fine activity for the people who can't play a lot, because you'll need to be "working the land" 1000 hours before you get your pitiful little harvest. Of course, if there's no other way to get food in the game, the adventurers will have to sell their loot to buy the bread. And if there's more loot than bread, the price of bread will go up, so the farmer will get more loot :)

      Anyway. I'm pretty tired right now, So nite nite.

      --

      "Piter, too, is dead."

    6. Re:Sure by ZiakII · · Score: 1

      It may seem like this is a fair solution but I can almost grantee you don't play any MMORPG, These games you need the time to learn your class I'm an avid player of everquest and you can tell when someone bought their character, most of the time these people are greedy, selfish, don't care about anyone else. If 20 people die because they decide to run for their lives and train the entire zone they'll do these people are why I can't stand doing anything else then the people I'm friends with in games.
      Also not to mention you then have people camping/farming a single spot over and over and over again because they can sell the item for real cash it never lets a person get the real item the right way.

    7. Re:Sure by Sancho · · Score: 1

      How much is your guarantee worth?

      I've mudded for years, and only recently gave it up (as the last mud I played on had shitty admins, and they pretty much spoiled the experience for me.) During my times of mudding, I played Ultima Online through the first expansion. UO only held my interest as long as it did because I loved the world. I'd played all the Ultimas (not in order, sadly) and was infatuated with them, so UO was the next obvious extension. I never spent a dime on virtual goods there.

      Next was Everquest, which I picked up relatively cheap and put down relatively quickly. I don't think I even paid for a month of it, honestly. In large part, it was because it seemed like there was no soloing past level 10, and since I was a dedicated student at the time, I didn't want to spend the time it would have taken to keep up with my friends. This got boring quickly, so I stopped playing it.

      Then I tried Dark Age of Camelot. I loved the game and world, and for whatever reason, it didn't seem like I had to play as often to keep up. Maybe my buddies weren't playing as often either, so we were always around the same level. Regardless, I eventually put it down as the inevitable boredom with any game set in.

      Then, Diablo 2 (although Diablo 2 is not a persistent MMORPG, certainly), which did get QUITE a bit of playtime. Diablo 2 was where I first shelled out a little money for a particularly hard to get item. Why? Because I didn't have time to run through the Sanctum 40 times just to get a chance at one item. I learned my characters and could play them well, but I also wanted them to improve. Past a certain point, improvements come largely through equipment (the diminishing returns for XP made levels hard to get, and you certainly can't buy those.) I never bought a character/account, but I did purchase some items.

      Most recent is World of Warcraft. Here is where I see a true flaw in your argument. You can learn your characters and still be short in-game items/gold that really makes them shine. But also, you need in-game gold in order to try different talent builds with the same character. It's unreasonable to assume that a person will start multiple mages to see if Ice/Arcane is better than Fire/Arcane--that would probably take longer than the time it would take to respecc, even for a small 20 levels, to say nothing about higher levels. Then come the "bug fixes" and nerfs, which mean an entire set of equipment or talent build might become virtually worthless. Blizzard did a good thing in making it so that talents could be forgotten/relearned, but the cost of doing so in the case of a nerf is significant enough that it can put a pretty big dent in your overall plan. Here's a case where I wouldn't mind paying someone a little real money for the gold I need to respecc, or to buy my new spells (which really starts adding up), etc.

      Also, a death in WoW particularly isn't all that horrible. You get a 10%-35% durability hit and potential resurrection sickness (only if you can't find your corpse). This means that those people who don't know how to play their class don't do nearly the damage to you as, say, losing levels or experience in other MMORPGs. Someone can't play worth a damn and gets you killed? Don't party with them. It's easy enough.

      Also, remember that I suggested that things needed to be balanced with regard to how much could be spent in a RL auction (which assumes that the auction is held on the game producer's servers). A hard limit of currency, or perhaps decreasing how much you can spend based on how many hours you logged last month would go a long way towards coming to the balance I proposed was needed--that is, time vs. money. The company can take a cut to line their pockets/help pay for updates, the seller gets a little help paying for their account, and the buyer gets an item they would otherwise have had to spent days looking for.

      Oh, and as for training, WoW solved that, too. The game just has to be designed so that the idiots don't ruin the fun for everyone else, then who cares if they buy their way up to the max level?

    8. Re:Sure by Pluvius · · Score: 1

      Problem #2 stems from bad game design as well; if getting stuff in the game wasn't so tediously time-consuming, then most people wouldn't feel the need to buy things with real-world money. Some still would, but it would cut down on the practice a lot. Of course, this bad game design is done on purpose, since there's no other way that any of the current MMORPG developers have thought of to keep people playing for longer than a few days.

      Rob

    9. Re:Sure by Doomstalk · · Score: 1

      The activity will ALWAYS go on. Why NOT make it legit, and make a percentage?

      Well, like TFA says, it opens you up to numerous legal issues. Once they have real world value it becomes much harder to argue that they're the property of SOE (or any other publisher/developer). Whenever you do something that weakens the value of an item, you open yourself up to lawsuits. Here are just a few I thought of off to the top of my head:

      1) Server goes down? They get sued for potential earnings lost during the outage (similar to someone suing a webhost for downtime).
      2) The designers rebalance a weapon? Well, they just negatively affected its value.
      3) A crash loses someone's items? Destruction of property and/or negligence.
      4) They shut down the game? Take a wild guess.

      Legal issues aside, it encourages them to make weapons that are unbalanced. Why cut back the power of that weapon that makes the game no fun for anyone else in the area? It's going to fetch a ton of money at auction. And the more it makes, the bigger Sony's cut is.

    10. Re:Sure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree. Not only that. EQ2 gamers may end up making enough of a profit from their item and character sales, to effectively play the game for free.
      If not make a profit every month.
      What does this really mean?

      You get paid to play EQ2 while you pay 15 bucks a month to play WOW, plus wows silly mentally retarded admins harass you everytime you say a swear word?
      I think not.
      I think EQ2 swithcing to allow trade will have a massive draw on all serious MMORPG players and for many that enjoy thte idea of being able to play a game and make a profit at the same time it will be a deciding factor on what game they choose to play.

      WOW admins and their behavior and policies are too strict. They don't use good judgment.
      The game rocks but who says EQ2 isn't just as good?

      I personally will be buying my copy of EQ2 tomorrow.

  4. Could sales offset subscription prices? by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 4, Interesting
    What if Sony made enough money from all these sales that they could discount the monthly costs of the service for everyone else? Or what if it was enough so that all the "peon" accounts would be free, though if you didn't want to toil through the dreary lower levels and work your way up, you would have to pay to power up?

    I think that really would be great! I mean, you sell a lot more crack when you fist hand it out for free. Oh, even better: Maybe all the free accounts would have perma-death (unless they can secure in-game means of resurrection) while the paid accounts have a "guardian angel" that auto-resurrects them. Or how about this: a flat-rate direct withdrawl of $5 from your bank account for every time you click "Yes, resurrect my character"? Mark my words, somebody is going to try this, and if they do it right, they will succeed!

    If they really use the crack model, they will even let you download the game itself without cost, knowing that sooner or later, you'll find something in the game worth paying for with real money.

    But before they do any of this, they need to get the bugs out of the in-game paying system, and maybe that's what this is.

    So is this a something we should fear? No way! It will be great!

    1. Re:Could sales offset subscription prices? by Kaenneth · · Score: 4, Interesting

      the price would scale by level, $0.10 for a level 1; $5.00 for a level 50...

      reminds me of a 'potion vendor' I coded in a MUD:

      stats were scaled from 1-20, if a stat reached 0, you would die.

      my potions would add 4 to a stat for 100 turns, then subtract 1 for 2500 turns, once a stat was lowered, it made it more likely you would need to use a potion to survive a fight.

      and the price formula increased the price the lower your stat. That shop made a lot of gold, and killed quite a few players.

    2. Re:Could sales offset subscription prices? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There's not a chance in hell of any reduced prices.

    3. Re:Could sales offset subscription prices? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A company would never lower their monthly fee once they start making moeny from another stream. The whole idea is to make as much money as you can.

    4. Re:Could sales offset subscription prices? by Dachannien · · Score: 1

      Now that's insidious. I congratulate you ;)

  5. It's just software... by rsilvergun · · Score: 0

    that Sony's trading in, and not 'items' in the traditional sense. That +10 Axe you just bought? It's software, and Sony's no more bound to guarantee it's value than Microsoft is bound to gaurantee Excel won't eat your work. Most states allow for minimal or no damages caused by defective or faulty software, so the most you'll get out of Sony for losing that $500 dollar sword is $5 bucks (except in Nebraska, of course).

    Put another way, can you sue Microsoft because Word XP won't read your Word 5.0 documents? It's the same for Sony. You can't sue just because your sword's worth half what is was in EQ 1.0.

    And before you jump up and say the law should be changed, don't forget what would happen to your favorite open source project is there was as much accountablity for software as there is for real products.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:It's just software... by analog_line · · Score: 1

      No, Sony is running a commodity exchange with this, not "selling software".

      The commodity is control of items on game servers. If the NASDAQ or NYSE unilaterally delisted a stock or did some other action that killed its value that didn't follow they'd be facing so many lawsuits so fast they'd drill a mile into the earth's crust, they'd be spinning so fast.

    2. Re:It's just software... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wish there was a "-1 Stupid" moderation option.

    3. Re:It's just software... by c.emmertfoster · · Score: 1

      OMG YOU ARE RETARDED

      I'm sorry, but your analogy is garbage. You did not PAY MONEY for the document that you are editing in Excel, and Excel documents can be backed up. Items on MMOs cannot be "backed up."

      --
      We can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die!
  6. I don't play MMOGs... by bluephone · · Score: 1

    I don't play MMOGs so can someone explain to me why this is bad? I never did understand why companies banned this type of activity. If it's a matter of rich players being able to get really strong because they can just buy stuff, isn't that the case in real life too? Rich folks can get nice cards, big houses, and live-in call girls. We can't. Why is it wrong in a MMOG?

    --
    jX [ Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler. - Einstein ]
    1. Re:I don't play MMOGs... by Propagandhi · · Score: 1, Insightful

      For one it undermines the very purpose of the game: Roleplaying. It degrades the entire game world into "a hunt for loot, camp spawns" power gamer fest. Sure, this has always been an element of any given MMORPG, but before there was at least some kind of line in the sand between the real world and the virutal one.

      By that I mean the economics of the real world (money) had never legally invaded the game world, sure people sold stuff, but it was kept in check. Now, the whole game's prupose could well degrade into a money making scheme of a few ultra dedicated players. Not fun, not role playing.

      Rich folks can get nice cards, big houses, and live-in call girls. We can't. Why is it wrong in a MMOG?

      This is just the wrong attitude to take to an MMORPG, and I'm not at all surprised you left the "PR" out of your acronym there. These games are *supposed* about being enthralled in an interesting alternate universe, not just about collecting phat loots. This development truely destroys any shred of an RP environment left in the game world, turns it into a business.

    2. Re:I don't play MMOGs... by Cecil · · Score: 1

      Well, yes. But they're a pretty poor "RP" in the first place. Everyone starts off the same. In a real RPG (ie, pen-n-paper) I can be whatever I want if the DM doesn't consider it powergaming. If I want to be a rich snob with robes made out of spun gold, and all sorts of magical trinkets, because my character's family made money buying and selling 'x' during the great 'y', I can do that. In most CRPGs, and all MMORPGs, I cannot, and that's not true roleplaying.

      Now, admittedly, most people playing these games are pretty cheesy roleplayers, and prone to excessive powergaming, so I can see why things like this are restricted. But you can't say that simply having the ability to start (or augment) your character with specific items he or she could not otherwise afford or obtain, well, if you're using it as an RP device, it seems to me that it would enhance roleplay, NOT detract from it.

      I understand this is not how current MMORPGs are, in reality, but the concept is sound.

    3. Re:I don't play MMOGs... by Adammil2000 · · Score: 1

      What these MMOGs are *supposed* to be is defined by the dominant market demographic, because they are businesses.

      Don't confuse the reason they made the game with the reason you play it. They want money, you want to be entertained in the way that works for you. Do you really think any of these companies care about roleplaying? Only if the money there.

      So far the roleplaying schtick has worked and netted more cash than anything else, because it pleases most of the players. However, the roleplayers are slowly being outnumbered by us regular people who don't take roleplaying seriously and play for other reasons instead (exploration, pretty graphics, killing things, collecting loot, plain old social interaction, interesting game systems, etc.). As we start becoming their cash cow, your desires are going to start taking a back seat.

      There needs to be significant growth in the roleplayer crowd if you want to see things change back to the way they were.

    4. Re:I don't play MMOGs... by trevick · · Score: 3, Insightful

      1) Its a roleplaying game. You aren't truly playing a role if you're real life monetary situation comes into play.

      2) Every one starts out in the same boat (literally, in EQ2). Your choices dictate where you go from there. There is some element of competition to it: people want to be one of the first to get some item, or to defeat some bad guy. This takes effort. Being able to buy items without the effort is viewed as cheating.

      If rich football teams could pay extra to get their opponent's goal posts raised, would the NFL be as interesting? Probably not. If I get a score of 100,000 in Pacman by actually playing the game, it could be rather irritating to see some other player on the high score board with his score of 110,000 because he paid someone to put his name there.

      For the same reason, being able to buy advantages in an MMO with real money changes the nature of the game. The victories (getting the gear, beating the boss monster) don't mean as much when people can buy them instead of actually doing it within the game itself.

    5. Re:I don't play MMOGs... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because if we could get rid of that in real life, we would.

    6. Re:I don't play MMOGs... by bluephone · · Score: 1

      Very enlightening. Thanks.

      --
      jX [ Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler. - Einstein ]
  7. Jacobs is high, this is a good idea. by Adammil2000 · · Score: 1

    Mark Jacobs is upset because he didn't have the balls to do it first. He fell for the imaginary ethics dillemma about not selling in-game items, and someone exploited this weakness against him.
    Today, Asian farmers are making the profits from character and item sales. Publishers get none of that money, so there is zero chance that this provides cash for a better game. Let the publisher get a slice of the action and you've given the companies more incentive to stay heavily invested into the games and perhaps expand them. This might even help startup MMOGs, because they have an alternate revenue stream that is not limited to monthly fees. Any time you make an industry more profitable, it opens up to more people.
    I challenge the old "it will ruin the game!" argument, with the simple fact that this sales activity has been going on for several years now.
    Watch the other companies trash-talk the idea at first, then later start doing it themselves. It makes complete sense to do this, and the arguments against it are rather nebulous and some are just emotional in nature. Many people are just angry at the idea that someone with cash has a big edge. And that differs from real life how? If you want to play a game that has absolutely no intrusion of real-life issues, then I suggest a single-player game.
    This idea opens up the games for casual players, who would happily spend $40 to skip 100 hours of playtime to keep up in levels with their power-gamer peers. Who does this actually hurt? Other than hurting some feelings, it hurts no one.

    1. Re:Jacobs is high, this is a good idea. by Dachannien · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Today, Asian farmers are making the profits from character and item sales.

      Actually, the Asians involved (usually Chinese) make a normal working wage from their farming work. The head honchos are frequently from other countries (US, Canada, etc.).

      I challenge the old "it will ruin the game!" argument, with the simple fact that this sales activity has been going on for several years now.

      Talk to the many, many people who left Lineage 2 or FFXI for WoW due to the rampant unchecked item farming. It's not merely the out-of-game transactions that cause the problem (though it does cause problems - inexperienced players at the helm of experienced characters can result in party wipes for unsuspecting fellow players, for one example; and unwitting buyers who purchase characters with severe reputation issues on a server are another example). The real problem is the sheer scope of the efforts made by the item/cash farmers, and the impact that a full-fledged industry has on a microcosmic playerbase. These games aren't designed to be leveraged in this way, so when someone(s) does leverage them by camping the same mobs 24/7 to the detriment of normal (even hardcore) players, it causes a significant CS issue. Additionally, the behavior of gold farmers has been demonstrated to be destructive to the game economy, causing rampant inflation. In at least one case in WoW, a known gold farming team bought out every item in the Auction House and re-auctioned them at astronomical levels, ruining the economy for casual gamers who suddenly can't augment their gear with new gear within their purchasing capacity, and damaging the economy for hardcore gamers who find themselves paying insane prices to outfit their alts.

      This isn't sour grapes, and Mark Jacobs raises a legitimate and important concern. It's a wonder he hasn't said something earlier, though. SOE has always been eager to exploit their game for a quick buck. They have on numerous occasions changed their original tune on a variety of CS issues so that they could charge money for it (character name changes, transferring characters from one server to another, transferring characters from one account to another), and they also have taken an incredible step by running the first pay-to-play MMOG to include some form of advertising/branding in their game with the /pizza command (AO doesn't count, since the ads are served to those who choose to play for free).

    2. Re:Jacobs is high, this is a good idea. by Soul-Burn666 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The solution to item farming (and generally "endless levelling"), can be something like they did in Guild Wars where:

      1. Every area is instanced for the party visiting it, therefore no "kill stealing", "training" or other non-PvP things players can harm others with.

      2. There is a level of cap of 20, which can be reached in about 20-30 hours of gaming. What CAN be still upgraded are skills. The idea behind the game is that the winner of the battle won't be the one who played for more time, but rather the person who planned the best skill combination (you can have 8 skills per battle, out of 150~ unlockable) and has the best cooperation with party members.
      Since everyone is pretty much the same, stat-wise, there's no reason to sell players. To an extremety, it would be like selling your CounterStrike or Warcraft3 player.
      The game is then in a sense a lot like M:TG. It's not about the time you waste "levelling", but rather on how you strategically choose your 8 skills to use (think a 60 card deck) and how you use them. Just like a skilled M:TG player can beat a lower level player with a much weaker deck, simply by playing smarter.
      Also, think first person shooters... as you near the end of the game, sure you get better weapons, but generally still use the weaker ones. The game becomes much harder, but you, as the player, can handle it better because you know when to use what.

      3. Another reason I think people buy high level items for real cash, is that most MMORPGs have a monthly subscription fee, people think: "instead of paying 30$ for levelling my char for 2 months, i'll just buy one". GuildWars is free other than the initial cost (again, think M:TG).
      What is planned tho, are optional expansions, which btw will be balanced with the previous "chapters", but will let you have more variety. Again, think about expansions in M:TG, the new cards are generally balanced like before, but since you have more choises, you can have better skill combinations.

      --
      ^_^
    3. Re:Jacobs is high, this is a good idea. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Talk to the many, many people who left Lineage 2 or FFXI for WoW due to the rampant unchecked item farming.

      Actually, most of the people that left FFXI and Lineage 2 did so because those games suck, not because of any item farming.

      In FFXI, at least, you basically needed to buy these expensive items, but Square-Enix provided no way to do so. So you'd have to instead go out and find sites to that for you, unless you wanted to waste days at a time camping mobs that spawn every two hours to a day or so.

      So, yeah, I wouldn't say people left FFXI due to item sellers, but because there weren't enough item sellers to produce the items they need.

    4. Re:Jacobs is high, this is a good idea. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Many people are just angry at the idea that someone with cash has a big edge. And that differs from real life how? If you want to play a game that has absolutely no intrusion of real-life issues, then I suggest a single-player game.

      So, because money in real life can buy you nice thingg that must pass onto a game? People play games to experience something other than real life. The games have an economy to allow people to gain wealth in game and experience a world outside of reality. To link the two worlds with a means of purchasing virtual items with live cash destorys the entire idea of what an online game is about. Sure you have to be at a level of real wealth to own computers (or pay to access an internet cafe) and to purchase games/subscribtion fees, but that doesn't mean it has to go even further that to even have a shot at owning some powerful weapon/armor that you have to pay even more. Item farmers pretty much hinder other players from being able to obtain these items in a regular manner and force them to pay even more money for a game they are already paying for. To even suggest to someone to go and play a single player game because they don't like rich people having an advantage in a game is rediculous!

    5. Re:Jacobs is high, this is a good idea. by mabhatter654 · · Score: 1
      remember too, MT:G got in a lot of trouble when card prices went thru the roof... even though they were "just a publisher". Magic took the correct road in the matter by being the "publisher" rather than "gatekeeper". If SOE's server's wipe out, they're responsible for the $$ value of your missing items... espically if they recieved a cut of the profits!

      I've mentioned before, the key is to make all things in a game limited... it means that games need to rebalanced to make outside auctions irrelevent. After all, again with the Magic, but they limited the allowed play formats so that everybody had relively the same access to any given card... sure there are rarities like the Black Lotus, but it's only playable in certian tournaments... normal tournaments are very easy to get good cards in... so the card prices stay "sane" versus the early days.. the key that WOTC realized [much to the ire of collectors] is that they make money selling CARDS... not based on how much a card is worth...at the most a rare is worth $3 to a seller because that's all a pack sells for!

      I think WOW may get it in line soon, but then you're in a "damaged" genere... normal people have abandon MMORGS because of these issues long ago... and the only people that still play, only play because they can "cheat" at it...

  8. The guy is right by KingSkippus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well I, for one, think that Mark Jacobs is 100% right.

    I don't want to get all nostalgic, but does anyone else in here remember the ancient days of yore when an RPG was played with maps, miniatures, and funny-shaped dice, when the object of the game was to have fun by escaping into fantasy worlds and pretending you're someone else, someone who may be like you or may be as different from you as night and day? We used to make fun of people who got too much into the game mechanics. We called them "roll" players.

    I feel sorry for people who have grown up recently and only know of RPG's as computer games. Something important has been lost when the creativity and imagination of a game master was replaced with a computer's unrelenting adherence to game rules and regulations. The goal is no longer to escape and have fun, it is to WIN. Now, players will do anything to have a bigger and better sword than the next guy has, who is trying to have a bigger and better axe than you have.

    Don't get me wrong, I like some of the games out there today. I play City of Heroes myself, and I enjoy it a lot, but it's not the same. It's hard to feel very heroic when you have to deal with typical conversations like, "Hey, can you help me with a sewer run? I'm trying to get to level 38 and need to farm some krakens. We don't need to kill the hydra, because I'm only two bubbles away." When I stick solely to roleplaying and completely avoid game-speak, I get accused of being a weirdo and generally avoided. (Disclaimer: Yes, there are exceptions, very few and far between.)

    The whole online auction stuff is a wonderful illustration of just how non-RP computer RPG's have become. I have a question for people who participate in such silliness: If you're not going to acquire your goodies by playing the game, why bother playing at all? Why not just stick to Progress Quest and save yourself all of that tedium of having to actually earn stuff?

    As for Sony, I guess Mark covered it pretty well. Can't you see that what you're doing is hurting the genre of RPG's more than they already have been? What the hell does buying a sword on "Station Exchange" have to do with role playing? Nothing. In the article, Mark says:

    We will gladly 'leave money on the table' to ensure that whether or not you like our games, that they remain as that, games and not an entertainment version of day-trading.

    I say hooray for him and for Mythic for not selling out, once and for all making the R in RPG meaningless. As for me, I've never played EverQuest, and now you can count me out for good. Apparently, there's a large market of people out there playing this game who believe owning virtual goodies is more important than role playing, and because of this, it is obviously not a game I would be interested in.

    1. Re:The guy is right by Nairoz · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Different people play the games for different reasons. I used to play Anarchy Online back in the day, and I played for the social aspect - I didn't really level that much once I hit level 60 (the level cap was 200 in the basic game). And I still played for a good few months after hitting level 60, until other circumstances meant I had to stop playing.

      Some people are hardcore grinders and powerlevellers - who want to get ahead however they can. Including buying stuff with real money. But... since they're paying for their game with real money anyway... isn't that their choice? How does it really hurt your experience... apart from that flash of jealousy when someone runs past you with a bigger sword? Can't you just shrug and keep on playing the game the way you want to, and get just the same enjoyment out of it? Or do you get hung up on the fact that people aren't playing the game the way you want them to?

      For the record, I play several pen and paper RPGs, including D&D, Cyberpunk, and GURPS.

      --
      Just another harmless drunk
    2. Re:The guy is right by nekoes · · Score: 1

      I still don't see how what you typed has anything to do with how this is wrong. It's obvious that today's MMO's are completely different games from the PnP games you remember so fondly. I don't see why you get so caught up in this fact. Sony's decisions has no relation to ruining or hurting the actual genre of RPGs, more or less only affecting the future decisions of similar diablo-esque MMO designers. There's a reason that you're viewed weirdly when you roleplay, and that's because today's MMO games offer no emphasis on or facility for roleplaying. Perhaps if it was your favorite MUD that was RP-only, offering the option to sell your character, would it seem out of place. However, in all these games that follow the same treadmill style, selling the equipment or characters that will allow you to enjoy the higher level content (or lack there of) only makes sense.

      However, the other concerns that Mark brings up are a bit more valid, in that farming may become more viscious, and how will that affect the players now that it's technically sanctioned. Not to mention the lawsuits that may come from in-game bugs and other things.

      It is just that the fact remains whether or not the company producing the game supports it, players and (mostly) farmers will still sell their accounts or items. I'd love to say that Sony is doing the right thing out of kindness (offering a safer route for players to go and trade things in) but they probably see the potential revenue.

      --
      Hey, it's my OPINION that dogs have eight legs and make a sound like a car horn every time they take a piss.
    3. Re:The guy is right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IN some of these games you actually have to fight against other players. Also, even when they're on your side, the people who buy all of their stuff tend to be the biggest assholes in the game.

    4. Re:The guy is right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You probably already know this, but Virtue is the unofficial Role-Play server (whatever that really means). You might have more luck if you're on that server (unless you're already there). I believe there are quite a few RPers that most in the Virtue server on the official forums. Of course, it'd be a pain to start a new character if you're pretty high level...

    5. Re:The guy is right by pommiekiwifruit · · Score: 1
      does anyone else in here remember the ancient days of yore when an RPG was played with maps, miniatures, and funny-shaped dice

      You mean the vast array of miniatures and castles etc. that you could buy using real-world cash for each item?

      Your point is?

  9. What the game manufacturers might not know by CrazyJim1 · · Score: 1

    Ebay can be seen as a meter of your MMORPG's health. If there are a lot of auctions selling in game content, people still want stuff and the economy is flourishing. If there are no ebay auctions, theres nothing in the game that people want, and your game sucks.

    If you don't have ebay, you have givers. Givers just give items to noobs. They mess the 'economy', just the same as ebayers do.

    If you really want to fix the economy, don't do item decay, that sucks. Do this: Allow users to flip a coin on extra equipment. If its heads, the item gets better, if its tails, the item is destroyed. Suddenly handme down items could possibly be the next big thing.

    Also its good to have equipment for every situation. Elemental defense on armor, elemental attacks on weapons, weapons of slaying. You need lots of reasons to diversify equipment.

    I wish Mythic would do less time complaining and spend more time making a new game. Hey maybe one where your team isn't forced upon you.

    1. Re:What the game manufacturers might not know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm astounded by your ability to consistently produce ridiculous ideas.

    2. Re:What the game manufacturers might not know by 2megs · · Score: 1

      I wish Mythic would do less time complaining and spend more time making a new game.

      You're referring to Imperator, perhaps?

    3. Re:What the game manufacturers might not know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That might be his only talent.

  10. Big Deal by EnglishTim · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Online RPGs have always been less about roleplaying - it's difficult to see how they could be any other way, without the presence of a gamesmaster/referee to help guide play.

    You say that Sony is hurting the 'genre of RPGs', but I don't see how that's the case. What they're doing is expanding the genre - you'll still have your tabletop RPGs, and if you don't like MMORPGs that have auctions, fine - play the ones that don't.

    1. Re:Big Deal by KingSkippus · · Score: 1

      It's mainly the players that determine how much (or how little) an RPG is an RPG. I was mainly just lamenting that in all MMORPGs the vast majority of players invariably slide towards rollplaying instead of roleplaying.

      However, I'm VERY disappointed that not only is Sony not discouraging this type of play, they are now actively encouraging it, facilitating it, and taking part in it. There's a huge difference, and it's all for a few lousy bucks. I echo Mark's sentiments when he says, "Shame on you."

      I can't imagine EverQuest being any fun when the people who run it have such a crappy attitude towards their own game. What's next, for an extra fee each month, you'll level 10% faster? Again I ask, what's the point? At least let's be honest and start calling this genre MMOG's instead of MMORPG's.

      Hmmm... I wonder how an MMORPG would go over if it got some of the players to rotate in and out as gamemasters and/or NPC's using some sort of /.'ish karma system (mod -1, irl-speak)? Maybe have some sort of in-game player-voting character ratings system (84% roleplayer, 12% court jester, 4% power leveler), with the ability to seek out characters with like traits? And if it would hide some of the game mechanics to keep people from obsessively stat-crunching? I dunno, those are some ideas off the top of my head.

    2. Re:Big Deal by Soul-Burn666 · · Score: 1

      "What's next, for an extra fee each month, you'll level 10% faster?"
      There are several korean based MMOGs where it goes exactly like that, except that the game is a free download and there's no subscription.
      You're not FORCED to pay anything, but you can buy double exp cards for about 10$/month, or various items which are just for show off like cool clothes.
      Again, the game is free to download and play, the company only profits from these "cash items", and even tho not everyone buys, they make big bucks.
      Anyways, after 57 levels, I realized i'm doing the same thing all the time, repetitive "level grinding", and now I consider moving to a game like Guild Wars which is based more on player skill than level grinding (and btw has no monthly fee, like diablo or starcraft).

      --
      ^_^
    3. Re:Big Deal by EnglishTim · · Score: 1

      However, I'm VERY disappointed that not only is Sony not discouraging this type of play, they are now actively encouraging it, facilitating it, and taking part in it. There's a huge difference, and it's all for a few lousy bucks. I echo Mark's sentiments when he says, "Shame on you."

      But if the majority of people seem to prefer 'rollplaying' as you put it, why should Sony put obstacles in their way? I realise it's not to your taste, but it evidently is to the taste of the majority of their customers. I don't see why for some strange reason it's Sony's duty to bear the torch for pure uncorrupted roleplaying. They have made a game which people enjoy and are positively reacting to their customer's needs.

      If you don't like it, find a MMORPG that doesn't have levelling - there's gotta be one somewhere, and it's not like there isn't a precedent from tabletop roleplaying - Traveller had hardly any character development to speak of - once you'd set up your character, their stats, skills etc stayed pretty much static.

  11. FUCK SOE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    MOD me as you wish, bu tthe facillitation of sold goods s noting but a game of cheaters!!!!

    This move by SOE has totally ruin thier game. Thank god to a few folks at guilwars.com

  12. You know, in FFXI... by MMaestro · · Score: 1
    Increasingly, our customer service department has had to bear the brunt of futily attempting to assist these players when they are cheated by unsecure transactions.

    I donno what EQ2's policies are towards item buying/selling in the EULA, but in FFXI if you buy/sell an item for real money through a 3rd party system and you get scammed, you're basicly screwed. So why can't SOE simply follow this same policy? Why go through the hassle of trying to deal with it even though they've tried before (*cough*EQ1*cough*) and failed? This just makes SOE look shortsighted and trying to cash in on something they won't or can't fix.

  13. Competition is Good by Staats · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The more I think about this, the more it makes sense for Sony to do it.

    Think about it - these games cost ten to fifteen bucks a month. Most people are only willing to pay for one of these a month, the diehard maybe two or three. Thus, only one MMO is being paid for per person per month (and only those willing to pay 10 to fifteen play)... and if one steals everyone's thunder (WoW) then everybody else doesn't even a chance.

    However, if you could lower the cost without lowering the quality, more people will have multiple MMOs installed. I'm not just talking about brokering deals (though this has the added benefit of lessening the time a person has to spend in a given MMO to make it worthwhile, which is also good for this purpose) but the inclusion of ads, etc.

    Point being, if people can play more than one MMO at a time (and if people like me can use the hours they spend at work to give them a shot of playing at a level close to their friends), this will almost certainly raise the number of MMOs the market can support - and I think competition will certainly improve the product.

  14. Power to the casual gamer! by Squiggle · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think this is a good thing.

    MMORPGs have generally catered to the time-rich. The eBay and other markets sprung up as the time-poor (but money-rich) struggled for fair treatment. Anyone complaining about buying and selling of items is usually time-rich and enjoys the advantages they have playing a game designed for the time-rich. Most of them believe you have to "earn" your character, paying in labour far beyond the price you paid for the game and the monthly fees. They must be the sort of customers accountants dream of. :)

    The MMORPG industry is filled with exploitive businesses producing badly designed games that are inherently discriminatory based on the amount of time commitment players can make to them. This isn't about how much practice a player puts in, but giving their avatar/character advantages based on time invested. Skill becomes a secondary factor, slave to the monthly fee driven treadmill. I suppose for non-competitive MMORPGs, whatever floats your boat, but for games involving PvP this makes casual gamers into second class gamers.

    Thankfully, companies like ArenaNet are producing games like Guild Wars that are starting to make positive changes.

    The more these games can start focusing on role-playing and meaningful interactions (including competition) between players and less about time-based character development the better. Item markets like SOE's are a step down a sidepath, but I'm happy to see anything that allow more types of gamers, not just the time-rich, get their gaming fix. In the end, the industry will greatly profit from making MMORPG games more accessible and fair - and so they should.

    --
    Complexity Happens
    1. Re:Power to the casual gamer! by drekmonger · · Score: 1

      You've come to the conclusion that a particular game is a treadmill that rewards time spent playing over all other considerations... ...so you spend even more money on it, on top of the subscription fee, in order to get to the part of the game you actually want to play, ie the part that isn't such a treadmill. In response to all those dollars, the MMO market is flooded with treadmills....exactly the sort of game you obviously don't want to play.

      Anyway, in a PvE game like Everquest, your buying the chance to bash a dragon shaped 3d model instead of a rat or goblin shaped 3d model. What's the frigging point?

      Agreed that Guild Wars is a step in the right direction. EQ2-Ebay isn't....it's just feeding more dollars into a tedious game; the result will be "EQ3: Even Bigger Treadmill" instead of Sony branching out to make a MMO that doesn't vacuum up dollars/time/human souls.

    2. Re:Power to the casual gamer! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You and many others agreeing with EQ2's decision are basing your decision on the fact that players with more time will have an advantage. So rather than spend a bunch of time grinding, we'll just buy an account and skip all that unpleasant leveling.

      What you're saying, is that people who dedicate themselves more than you do to the game, have an unfair advantage. So what does this mean? Well, It means that the more time you spend at something, the better you become. I'd say that plays to our experience, no?

      Look at anything in life, school for example. It has been my experience that if i spend a lot of time studying and come to understand it well, I will probably do better on the test than if i hadn't.

      The point is, by playing the game for a long period of time, you aren't somehow given an advantage by the game develpers, like you would have us believe. You've earned it. It took you all that time to aquire, to EARN, what you got.

      You're close when you say: "MMORPGs have generally catered to the time-rich." More appropriately, you might say "MMORPGs are built on the idea of character advancement" This makes a little more sense. I mean come on, you're not going to think that it's unfair that the doctor makes a million dollars a year just because he took the time to go through medical school are ya?

    3. Re:Power to the casual gamer! by Pluvius · · Score: 1

      You would be right if this "character advancement" you speak of actually had more to do with learning and growing than spending most of your time sitting around and waiting for a spawn with a rare item to pop up.

      Rob

  15. Gambling by Neo-Rio-101 · · Score: 1

    As soon as a game becomes something you can win money at, it becomes GAMBLING.

    Sony better check their local ordinances.

    --
    READY.
    PRINT ""+-0
    1. Re:Gambling by Filiks · · Score: 1

      I think you mean EARN money, not win. Buying and selling items for your character is the whole foundation of Project Entropia.

    2. Re:Gambling by analog_line · · Score: 1

      But when a random number generator decides whether you get the really valueable weapon you can sell for $50 or some piece of crap loot, or a couple gold pieces, that IS gambling.

      You're playing the equivalent of craps.

  16. Just how the market works by illumina+us · · Score: 1

    Napster was free. Industry didn't like it. Napster now charges. Same concept. People are going to do it whether you try to stop them or not. If you can't beat them, join them (and make money too).

    --
    -illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."
  17. free market... by cahiha · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It was your choice to subscribe to a commercial on-line gaming service. Presumably, you think you're getting something for your money. Well, your vendor made a business decision. If you don't like it, go somehwere else.

    Of course, you could get off your lazy butt and actually contribute to an open source MMOG; there are several existing ones and several new ones in the works.

  18. Sony just set themselves up for a fall by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sony controls the market for their games.

    By officially sanctioning their own in house exchange site, they are openning the door for companies like IGE to file restraint of trade and monoply complaints.

    Surely SOE legal looked at this scheme right?

    1. Re:Sony just set themselves up for a fall by Pluvius · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This would make sense if everything in EQ2 wasn't Sony's property to begin with. An EQ2 player owns absolutely nothing about his character; he's paying Sony for the right to play a game using Sony's property. Similarly, players who are trading items aren't really trading items, they're just shifting Sony's property around the server. Therefore, saying that Sony is somehow "restraining trade" by reserving the right to profit off of its own property is ridiculous.

      Rob

    2. Re:Sony just set themselves up for a fall by grumpygrodyguy · · Score: 0, Troll

      Similarly, players who are trading items aren't really trading items, they're just shifting Sony's property around the server. Therefore, saying that Sony is somehow "restraining trade" by reserving the right to profit off of its own property is ridiculous.

      Actually you're a fucking moron.

      --
      The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
  19. You all are obviously missing the point by Yuioup · · Score: 1

    Look guys. The reason why this is so controversial is because they're trading in virtual objects. Those objects are not real. They're nothing but records in a database. All a programmer has to do is push one button and the systems spawns about a hundred thousand rare artefacts or with one hack upgrade all the characters to level 1983710301E+23.

    That's the problem really. The value of an object is rated by how rare it is in the real world. Supply and demand. The virtual objects in the game are not real and can easily be modified or cloned.

    It's really pointless and you're an idiot if you fall for such scams.

    Y

    1. Re:You all are obviously missing the point by Attaturk · · Score: 1


      That's the problem really. The value of an object is rated by how rare it is in the real world. Supply and demand. The virtual objects in the game are not real and can easily be modified or cloned.

      Ahem, global banking is mostly electronic these days. If you'll excuse the weak-ass pun, there's an awful lot of stock and trust placed in "records in a database" these days.

    2. Re:You all are obviously missing the point by genus+babbage · · Score: 1
      An awful lot of the pleasure in this world is virtual or at least ephemeral. You can also look around and see that there are a large number of people who enjoy doing things that you wouldn't do if they paid you to - the point being, just because you think it's a waste of money doesn't make it so, and it doesn't make those people who enjoy that sort of things idiots.

      I fail to see how paying to watch a movie is different to paying for a new sword in your favourite MMORPG; you haven't bought anything real. (Leaving aside that the assertion that the only things worth purchasing are things you can hold in your hands - a very materialistic point of view :p)

      Falling for one of these "scams" is no different to someone who pays a couple hundred pounds to watch a live football match instead of watching it on TV, or who goes on a beach holiday - it's all just memories in the end; do you enjoy either of those things? I don't, and I wouldn't pay for them either.

      As for your point about duplication, Sony can't do that unless they want to kill the goose; if they ever do that once, then they will loose whatever trust they have. Hackers could do that, but if you've been playing any of these sorts of games you'll have an idea of how hard these companies come down on people exploiting duplication bugs or similar activities.

      On the subject of the main story, I don't think that anyone who has followed EQ over the years will be very surprised at this; First came character transfers between servers, then transfers with items, then buying longer subscriptions to gain powers for your charactesr (and how is that different to buying a sword?) - then the move to EQ2 where they change from 8 characters per server to 4 characters total... 8 if you buy the premium service... I'm sure others can add to this list: I'm only surprised that it took so long.

    3. Re:You all are obviously missing the point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, except most countries with any significant amount of their currency in electronic circulation tend to be stable, and while the value of their currency does wax and wane with the country's popularity, it's not nearly as mercurial as an MMOG ... to say nothing of the fact that their monetary policies tend to be more sound (they do if people want to hold on to their currency -- the dollar is so low because it's being sold off by the truckload)

      What's a house go for in UO these days?

    4. Re:You all are obviously missing the point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes very true.
      BUT the banks' records are an electrical representation of a real thing. A glowing orb of ownage is not. (unless they really exist, in which case i'll take 20!)

  20. Implicit vendor support by wyoung76 · · Score: 1
    On the whole, I agree with the parents views to allowing the trading of online items to happen.

    The only proviso I have to this is that anyone providing an officially sanctioned site for trading of the items makes it crystal clear that the cut they are taking from each and every trade is in the same manner as the service provided by companies like Ebay.

    The important difference with SOE providing the service is that they are also the ones providing the product (the vendor) in the first place and may implicitly be saying that they're giving more support for the items if they don't live up to the expectations of the buyer, as consumers are usually accustomed to the attitude of "I spent good money on this, so I have a right to complain to a Fair Trade authority/law since this isn't the thing I expected it to be" with anything they normally buy in any other real-world transaction.

  21. Cherry picking the facts... by Attaturk · · Score: 3, Informative


    ... has been an anathema to them and remains so to just about every other MMORPG company in the industry.

    Umm, I can, think of several that are quite happy to associate in-game goods/wealth with real world money. I'm too lazy to post all the links - google it up Mr Jacobs - you're missing some important market research. ;-)

    1. Re:Cherry picking the facts... by code-e255 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but how many people play those games? A few hundred? Maybe a few thousand? I wonder why they aren't very popular. Maybe they just suck, but maybe most people who are going to spend some time playing games actually want to play a game in which IRL rich people can't cheat their way through.

    2. Re:Cherry picking the facts... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, but those games blow.

  22. Other view by tomee · · Score: 1

    I think this is a good idea. Just like laws in real life, these rules in the game that you can't do certain things and will be punished if you do don't prevent everyone from doing it, and sometimes such rules cause more problems than they solve. So rather than create a kind of a black market on ebay by forbidding the real life trade, make a sanctioned site on which it can be done totally officially. That way SOE will have much more control over the situation. For example, they could limit the number of items sold or bought per player per month or something.

  23. Nerfing class action lawsuits by u2pa · · Score: 0

    As a very long time Dark Age of Camelot player, i can say this:

    Mark Jacobs loves nerfing classes, items, etc. and has a long history of pissing off players this way.

    In his statement he briefly touches on his real objections to official sale of items.. he is afraid the players will sue Mythic...

    Mythic's business model, is based on releasing a non-free addon every 12 months. Containing new super items, which makes the player with the addon 30-50% more powerfull than the players who havent purchased it. (Shrouded Isles, Trials of Atlantis)

    This would mean 2 things for Mythic, each addon would bring the trading system to an almost standstill in the months leading up to the addon.

    The people that have purchased items, will be pissed off to see them made almost worthless by new much better stuff.

    And more people will be pissed off when Mr. Jacobs realises that the new Sword of Uberness is TOO disrubtive on gamebalance, and decides to nerf it. Pissing off all the players who just purchased it, and opening up for class action lawsuits.

    --
    Officially: "No comments"
    1. Re:Nerfing class action lawsuits by mabhatter654 · · Score: 1
      again, that argument was used againt magic...already been there. The current policy of the MMORGS to "own" all the stuf on their servers is to prevent exactly the situation you discribe... you can't sue them for monetary damage because it wasn't your property to sell in the first place. nice legal argument.

      Being able to publish new items is what their position is all about... they're "publishers!" after all. They make their money selling a game running a place to play fair... Imagine competitive sports if you could buy and sell points from the "loosing" teams to add to your score at will. Things like the superbowl would be meaningless. This is where the genere needs to change.. and if "spore" [from will wright] is any indication then user created items will be valuable! Then people with interesting ideas will be more valuable players than hackers and people buying their way in.

  24. I take issue with the statement: by deanj · · Score: 2, Funny

    I take issue with the statement:

    "one of the worst decisions in the history of the MMORPG industry..."

    No, I believe that releasing Anarchy Online when they did was one of the worst decisions in the history of the MMORPG industry.

  25. Get a clue, Mark by petrus4 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Auctioning of in-game stuff is something that players want, and have wanted, for years...to the point where they're going to do it irrespective of whether an MMORPG's parent company supports it or tries to stop them. By supporting it, SOE are being highly insightful and intelligent...and by taking a cut of the cheese from it, they're also doing something which I've advocated that such companies do for a long time, in order to create an incentive for themselves to do this. SOE should be applauded for this in the strongest possible terms, and most definitely NOT criticised for it. SOE will find that by doing this, not only will they notice a large boost in revenue, but they will enjoy an equivalent boost in positive public relations as well.

    This is a case of an entertainment company (SOE) actually supporting what their customers want, and existing in harmony with their customers, rather than trying to dictate every minute detail of what they're able to do, and suffering economically (and in other ways) as a result, which is the more normal form of behaviour.

    The customer is not the enemy, Mark. They're the person who pays your bills, and gives you a profit. If SOE have the vision and intelligence to be able to recognise this fact and utilise it in order to prosper from it, don't whine because them doing it makes you look bad because you're *not* doing it.

    1. Re:Get a clue, Mark by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most people who play Mythic's game, Dark Age of Camelot, don't want this.

    2. Re:Get a clue, Mark by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some players want. Majority tend not to.

      I wonder what will happen when they have a rollback, or loose an item due to a bug.

  26. Parallels to the War on Drugs, perhaps? by TrebleJunkie · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This kind of interests me, because it parallels the mostly liberal reaction to the war on drugs -- rather than wasting our time and resources tracking down these "outlaws", let's "legalize what they're doing," "regulate what they're doing," and "take our cut of what they're doing." and watch all the related problems goes away.

    The nice thing about this situation is that (and, granted the criticism is coming from a competitor, so the mileage may vary,) somebody is standing up and saying "there will be unintended consequences of this, and here's a few of them." Now if only someone would do that on the "legalize drugs" front so we can finalize realize how stupid that idea is, too.

    --

    Ed R.Zahurak

    You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.

    1. Re:Parallels to the War on Drugs, perhaps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is a terrible comparisson.

      This is about Sony making money and not your political gripes buddy.

      When gold farming costs tens of billions and peoples lives in poor countries we can start your comparison. Oh, and when gaming addiction is also deemed a medical addiction by an organised body of health. The list goes on.

      "Now if only someone would do that on the "legalize drugs" front so we can finalize realize how stupid that idea is, too."

      Someone obviously can't see beyond the borders of their own country and ideology. You are the best.

    2. Re:Parallels to the War on Drugs, perhaps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I too have decided that legalized drugs are a bad idea. I just wish someone would come up with a reason for me to think this.

    3. Re:Parallels to the War on Drugs, perhaps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      black - white
      stop - go
      good - bad
      all - none
      right - wrong
      legal - illegal
      con - lib
      yes - no

      tv pundits go go go!

      Your only option with changing drug laws is complete and total legalization. Only option.

    4. Re:Parallels to the War on Drugs, perhaps? by TrebleJunkie · · Score: 1

      What, you don't think that legalizing drugs is not mostly about the government getting a cut of it?

      --

      Ed R.Zahurak

      You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.

  27. Make leveling a positive experience by kongjie · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Disclosure statement: I hate SOE for making Mac players eat the leftover crumbs off a very cold plate. That being said...

    The statement I find most damning by SOE's Smedley is this one:

    It is clear to us that we have many loyal and honest players who simply don't have the time to take multiple characters through the game's higher levels of play and want a sanctioned, secure means to broaden their play experience.
    Look, if you made those levels and the time spent attaining them worthwhile, instead of just grinding, then "loyal and honest" players would want to experience them.

    In my mind, the IGE-type solution sucks because

    • It encourages farmers, and a true farmer is not someone experiencing game for the entertainment value that most players are. That creates imbalances in the game universe.
    • It betrays a deficiency in gameplay. It creates the equation paying for weapon X is more desirable then spending Y amount of time attaining it. This is because, in the case of SOE, you're more than likely required to grind to obtain weapon X, senseless and boring.
    Make the game only a game. Don't allow people to buy their way through it.

    Either improve gameplay or accept that some people are not going to be willing to expend hundreds of hours in mindless grinding. I think the real problem is that SOE is not willing to lose customers who aren't happy with gameplay, and they think that by allowing said customers to buy content, they'll keep them in the fold.

    1. Re:Make leveling a positive experience by trevick · · Score: 1

      Look, if you made those levels and the time spent attaining them worthwhile, instead of just grinding, then "loyal and honest" players would want to experience them.

      This is so true. Grinding is what I have always though of as a design flaw in MMORPGs. And now that the game producers have found a way to make money off of this design flaw, if this succeeds, it will be a long time before anyone moves the genre forwards.

    2. Re:Make leveling a positive experience by will_die · · Score: 1

      Grinding has always been in the mind of the player. If you want to get to a different level and go somewhere else then what is currently available to your character then you have to grind in order to get that.
      At level 40 in EQ2 I don't feel I have ever had to grind to advance my character, something I felt I had to do in WoW to advoid ganking. I have always had huge amounts of quests for both solo and groups and can easily solo for decent exp.
      The biggest problem has been I have far to many quests I want to complete, and some that are bordering on grinding because I want to get the reward to decorate my house but the mobs no longer are worth any exp.

  28. this is stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    farming doesnt break the game, the game is broke in the first place. Farming and selling is just a exploitation of a broken economy system.

  29. I don't know about you... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...but I got my trusty piss jug ready for the long haul! *types in /pizza* Heh, see you at 4 am when I sign off, losers.

  30. awww by prurientknave · · Score: 1

    awww, poor game character and item auctioning folks won't be able to charge illegal activity surcharges now :( Let's all feel sorry for them and join in the collective whine. 'They took oer jeeerbs!!!'.

  31. I don't know about you... by Construct+X · · Score: 0, Redundant

    ...but I got my trusty piss jug ready for the long haul! *types in /pizza* Heh, see you at 4 am when I sign off, loosers.

  32. Legalizing Drugs by Taulin · · Score: 1

    This is why legalization of some drugs, like Majuana, will never happen in the US. One State might try, but because it steps on the financial toes of another, they will be stopped. Sony is trying something new. If others are making profit, Sony should too.

    1. Re:Legalizing Drugs by Mike+Buddha · · Score: 1

      WTF are you smoking, dude? We're talking about video games, nothing illegal here. Try posting when you're not high, you might be more coherent.

      --
      by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
    2. Re:Legalizing Drugs by Taulin · · Score: 1

      Since you either didn't read my whole post, or your comprehension skills are low, I will explain it in a simple manner. I am talking about how when one person breaks the norm for the first time, especially when it brings a profit that others will not get, those left behind will try to stop them. This is what is happening here. All companies could do this. Sony is the first. The other companies like Turbine wish they did it, but instead of going back on their word, they choose to attack Sony instead, even though they too will follow the same practice soon enough.

    3. Re:Legalizing Drugs by Mike+Buddha · · Score: 1

      See? When you lay off the pipe, you can write coherently.

      --
      by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
    4. Re:Legalizing Drugs by Taulin · · Score: 1

      Look...I'm trying to quit..OK?!?

  33. Diablo 2 is RP! by Shihar · · Score: 1

    I am sorry, but MMORPGs have absolutely nothing to do with RP. They don't even attempt to try and intergrate RP into these games. Further, even if they did attempt to make the games more RP friendly, starting everyone at level zero would not be one of the things to do to make the game more RP friendly. The idea of starting at level 1 and leveling up has nothing to do with RP. In fact, any decent RP game worth its salt won't even have levels.

    If you want to see a real RP game, I suggest www.armageddon.org. It is an old text based MUD with perm death set in a desert wasteland. If I had the time I would still be playing that game.

    Some day a small developer is going to develop a truly RP centric game. The current crop of MMORPGs are not that game though. Some auctioning going on isn't going to make the game less RP friendly.

  34. SOE's response by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Its only some server that will be 'auction - enabled' dont like it? Dont play on an auction - enabled server problem solved!

    'In satisfying the broad player demand for a service such as Station Exchange, SOE is again innovating, and any innovation is bound to have its critics.

    Unsanctioned virtual property auctions are now rampant, and will continue to grow whether or not publishers implement their own auction sites. Every MMO company has to assess the needs of its own player base. It is clear to us that we have many loyal and honest players who simply don't have the time to take multiple characters through the game's higher levels of play and want a sanctioned, secure means to broaden their play experience. Increasingly, our customer service department has had to bear the brunt of futily attempting to assist these players when they are cheated by unsecure transactions. Station Exchange will enable these honest players to use an auction service without concern that they will be scammed.

    We want all of our players to have a positive experience and since our player base has been divided on this issue, with increasingly more support for real world monetary transactions, we have determined that offering new servers that are Station Exchange enabled is a great way to strike that balance. However, we will continue to maintain our strict policy against exploiting, using macros or bots, duping items, and transactions through 3rd party auction sites.

    When SOE launched PvP enabled servers and dedicated role-playing servers for EverQuest, we knew that those communities would develop in a different way. In that same fashion, we fully expect that the Exchange-enabled server communities for EverQuest II will develop their community in a different way. When a player chooses to play on an Exchange-enabled server, they know that they will be playing with other like-minded players and that they will have the option of supplementing their own character's evolution through the Station Exchange. It will be an optional way to play our game.

    However, we will continue to enforce our right to ban the accounts of players not only for explicit forms of cheating on all servers but also for disruptive gameplay. The game design of additional content for EverQuest II will remain focused on the original intent of the game and we will not allow the gameplay experience to be hindered by unfair play, whatever form that may take.

    We are excited about Station Exchange and feel that we are taking the needs of all our loyal fans into account. Station Exchange simply gives the players a choice, and security for those whose choice is to utilize an auction service to enhance their game play experience.'

  35. Because obviously... by Moo+Moo+Cow+of+Death · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I think Mythic has missed the ball here and is trying to make up for not doing it first honestly. It's sheer idiocy to think that the "black market", which has an estimated $300-$800 million dollar market, would just dissappear if you said you didn't like it long enough. You could of course, ban accounts, say it's bad, and continue to put forth 40% of your technical force into solving claims of "missing items", "stolen accounts" and "bugged quests"...

    OR you could come into the little world I like to call "reality" and eliminate those problems by offering a service that is so automated and straight forward its a money making MACHINE.

    Let's look at the alternatives shall we?

    40% technical support put toward account/item stealing asshats that don't really tell you what the problem is...or

    Put forth minimal effort after initial work (auction site) is up and running and profit...

    The ONLY thing that would effectively stop these so called "black market" auctions would be to have NO trading in your game whatsoever and to not allow a credit card to change on the said account unless there was voice and social security number checking.

    It was inevitable one way or the other.

  36. Hey Sony, why just just skip to the next step? by nunchux · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why go through all of the bother of brokering auctions? Just create an in-game store that takes real-life cash for ultra-rare artifacts. Make it so we can buy experience points and skills, too. I'm tired of being lvl 1 every time I start a new character, I want him to be godlike and I want it now. Everquest 3 should have one central location, let's call it "The Mall." You go to the mall and outfit your character with as much cool stuff as you can afford. Then you go next door to "The Gym" and max out all of your skills and stats. Now you have a legendary hero who can go kick the ass of every monster in the realm without fear (not that you had to fear anyway, because there's no permadeath.)

    In fact, let's do away with all that adventuring and killing monsters and digging through dungeons crap all together. It just takes way too much time. I want a game where you all you do is buy stuff and then strut around town showing it off.

  37. Mythic Rips SOE a New One by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't see it as fair to people that actually play the game well out of skill and taking the time and effort to play the game.

    It goes back to the real-world thing of "those with the money have the power".

    Video games are about entertaining yourself away from reality, not being reminded in another medium that because you can't pay to make your character all powerful, that you "suck" or should be looked down upon by others playing the game.

    I do agree with the suggestion for free accounts for permadeath on your character. I also like the idea of having to pay for an account that allows you to resurrect your character and to have multiple characters on a paying account.

    I think large game companies are getting too greedy for their own good. I think charging your faithful users of your games for every little thing to enhance the experience, whether in downloadables or MMOGs, is a cheap way out, and is relating to your users that you think they aren't smart enough to play or learn the game, "So why don't we just let them pay their way up the ladder".

    My thoughts...

  38. This is the reason that what Sony is doing is bad by MilenCent · · Score: 1

    It's because the entire point of a virtual world, or at least with these game-oriented fantasy ones (not things like Second Life), is to provide its users with a pretend reality that's supposedly separate from the real one.

    It's true that people with more time to spend on the world tend to advance faster than those who don't, and that's a real-world concern. That's a flaw in these designs, and not a strength. Outright selling the items just intensifies the flaw.

    People don't play things like Everquest so they can be subjected to the same kind of gigantic disparity of wealth that infests the real world, but to escape that kind of thing. It may be impossible to escape that kind of thing completely, but you can bloody well not give it a big hug and call it brother, too.

    I'm right! Hooray!

  39. Re:This is the reason that what Sony is doing is b by MilenCent · · Score: 1

    Argh, I could have explained that a little better. Let me correct myself before one of you gents does it for me.

    Gigantic disparities of wealth? They may or may not be unavoidable in a virtual world. What is more likely to be avoidable is people transferring their real-world wealth into the virtual setting.

    That's what I'm right about. That's what I'm hooray about.

  40. Re:Gambling..again with the Magic.. by mabhatter654 · · Score: 1
    but that's been dealt with before too.. in the early days Magic was played for Ante... in other words you lost a random card from your deck if you lost a duel.... That didn't last long when Black Lotus started hitting $300... and local authorities tried to ban the game...

    I can't see how SOE is doing anything different...and again they're actually recieving compensation for the allowed "gambling" so that really gets messsy.

  41. A Few Thoughts... by SirBruce · · Score: 1

    1. Mark is the kind of guy who is not afraid to say what he thinks. He honestly doesn't believe embracing the exchange of in-game goods for real money is good for the industry and for the games themselves. That's his honest opinion and there are certainly many others who feel the same way. 2. Mark is also a shrewd businessman. He understands that, now to SOE has taken the move, if he genuinely doesn't agree with it, then he should not simply say nothing. He should get Mythic's own take on the issue out in the public discourse and work it as a product differentiator. Don't like what SOE is doing with their approach to gaming? Hey, come play Mythic's games, we don't do that lame shit here! 3. In the end, I don't think this is as big an issue as Mark makes it out to be. For YEARS people have been saying "Why don't we ..." and we all have heard the reasons why it shouldn't be done; SOE finally decided to give it a try. Good for them for trying to innovate and to expand their business in a new direction. The market is big enough to support games for folks of different beliefs - some people believe the primary factor in progress within a game should be time; others believe money should be allowed to play a role. 4. If the experiment is a success, then Mythic will still see success in its role catering to those people with different tastes, and SOE will grow their business by catering to the players Mythic doesn't want. If the experiment fails, the exposure to SOE is going to be limited to only those few servers, even if some horrible legal decision costs them big bucks, and Mythic can capitalize on any fallout from SOE's weakened position in the marketplace. Bruce

  42. A Few Thoughts... by SirBruce · · Score: 1

    1. Mark is the kind of guy who is not afraid to say what he thinks. He honestly doesn't believe embracing the exchange of in-game goods for real money is good for the industry and for the games themselves. That's his honest opinion and there are certainly many others who feel the same way.

    2. Mark is also a shrewd businessman. He understands that, now to SOE has taken the move, if he genuinely doesn't agree with it, then he should not simply say nothing. He should get Mythic's own take on the issue out in the public discourse and work it as a product differentiator. Don't like what SOE is doing with their approach to gaming? Hey, come play Mythic's games, we don't do that lame shit here!

    3. In the end, I don't think this is as big an issue as Mark makes it out to be. For YEARS people have been saying "Why don't we ..." and we all have heard the reasons why it shouldn't be done; SOE finally decided to give it a try. Good for them for trying to innovate and to expand their business in a new direction. The market is big enough to support games for folks of different beliefs - some people believe the primary factor in progress within a game should be time; others believe money should be allowed to play a role.

    4. If the experiment is a success, then Mythic will still see success in its role catering to those people with different tastes, and SOE will grow their business by catering to the players Mythic doesn't want. If the experiment fails, the exposure to SOE is going to be limited to only those few servers, even if some horrible legal decision costs them big bucks, and Mythic can capitalize on any fallout from SOE's weakened position in the marketplace.

    Bruce

  43. Next step, taxes by Jaeph · · Score: 1

    I wonder how long it will take for governments to get in on the action? After all, if you're selling something for real-world dollars, then a local jurisdiction can tax it.

    Where are the servers located? :-)

    -Jeff

    --
    Please learn the difference between a dissenting opinion and a troll before you moderate.
    1. Re:Next step, taxes by will_die · · Score: 1

      EQ2 servers are located in san deigo, CA and in Virginia. In addition to the various international sites, but I doubt that they will be putting one of theses new types of servers there.
      For billing and tax purposes they are in CA. For example on how taxes are handled look at ebay, since that is all this system is going to be like.