First off, let me say that I'm *not* against the buying and selling of in-game currency with real world funds. I think that Sony really hit a home run with the Station Exchange (their service where they actually serve as the same middle man that these guys are trying to become - except for the whole legality thing).
Since the early days of UO, people have complained that the kiddies that don't have to work get to play all day and all night, and those with jobs, families, etc, couldn't keep up. Now, the other side of the coin shows up, and those with jobs are able to afford to spend a little money to "keep up". If I can spend $25 bucks to buy a few gold or platinum, and negate the need to farm for money in game for several weeks, sign me up.
I do understand that some people are strongly against this, and in response I'd suggest that more game companies just build servers where this wasn't allowed. If they'd do like Sony did in Everquest 2, and set aside exchange servers and non-exchange servers, I feel like they'd not only resolve a long standing battle with those who are going to do this anyway, they'd also have a nice tidy new revenue stream. As I said, when EQ2 introduced the exchange service, I jumped at the chance to move to the "legalized" server. When iTunes released, I bought alot of MP3s; it only makes sense to legalize (and I realize that talking about the TOS/EULA of a game in legal terms is shaky ground, but I don't know how better to state it) something that a large contingent of your user base wants.
I don't have a specific question for the guys looking for free publicity, really. I'd personally much rather pay a premium for it directly from Blizzard, Turbine, etc.
So I suit up in my tights, and head out for an evening of fighting crime. In said evening, I may see the hospital 1, 5, or 20 times. In CoH, the death penalty (the hospital) is much more forgiving than in games past, where you might have to retrieve your corpse and all your gear, lose experience, lose levels, or even permanently lose items, but it still seems like a mechanic that needs some real serious foreward thinking.
I guess my question is, whats the infatuation that MMO games in general seem to have with dying (ok, losing)? Is it to force grouping with healers? Is it to protect higher level content from lower level characters? Can the bright shining minds in the game development world not get past this age old issue, and give us some really well designed new mechanic? Unconsciousness, stat loss, or perhaps even something as progressive as losing control of your character as his mind enters a strange psychosis, and the AI forces your character to flee to safety. To me, any roleplaying game should encourage the hero to actually survive!
Like one of the posters above, I do it purely as a security measure. Very rarely do any of the programs I write contain data that I'm interested in once given to the end user, and thus I have no reason to want access to it except for their own benefit.
By the same token, I have refused backdoors requested by other people (usually in the form of emails or messages when certain actions occurred) because I didn't want to feel morally responsible for what they might do with that information.
Backdoor is a really broad way to describe what is, very often, a time-saver or even security measure. I personally wouldn't build one with malicious intent, but I can see where it could be a problem...we install programs every day (windows environment) that we have no idea who wrote, and what motives they may have had.
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First off, let me say that I'm *not* against the buying and selling of in-game currency with real world funds. I think that Sony really hit a home run with the Station Exchange (their service where they actually serve as the same middle man that these guys are trying to become - except for the whole legality thing).
Since the early days of UO, people have complained that the kiddies that don't have to work get to play all day and all night, and those with jobs, families, etc, couldn't keep up. Now, the other side of the coin shows up, and those with jobs are able to afford to spend a little money to "keep up". If I can spend $25 bucks to buy a few gold or platinum, and negate the need to farm for money in game for several weeks, sign me up.
I do understand that some people are strongly against this, and in response I'd suggest that more game companies just build servers where this wasn't allowed. If they'd do like Sony did in Everquest 2, and set aside exchange servers and non-exchange servers, I feel like they'd not only resolve a long standing battle with those who are going to do this anyway, they'd also have a nice tidy new revenue stream. As I said, when EQ2 introduced the exchange service, I jumped at the chance to move to the "legalized" server. When iTunes released, I bought alot of MP3s; it only makes sense to legalize (and I realize that talking about the TOS/EULA of a game in legal terms is shaky ground, but I don't know how better to state it) something that a large contingent of your user base wants.
I don't have a specific question for the guys looking for free publicity, really. I'd personally much rather pay a premium for it directly from Blizzard, Turbine, etc.
Actually, this is a sad day for alot more of America than that..its just that the "moral majority" is too stupid to realize it.
So I suit up in my tights, and head out for an evening of fighting crime. In said evening, I may see the hospital 1, 5, or 20 times. In CoH, the death penalty (the hospital) is much more forgiving than in games past, where you might have to retrieve your corpse and all your gear, lose experience, lose levels, or even permanently lose items, but it still seems like a mechanic that needs some real serious foreward thinking.
I guess my question is, whats the infatuation that MMO games in general seem to have with dying (ok, losing)? Is it to force grouping with healers? Is it to protect higher level content from lower level characters? Can the bright shining minds in the game development world not get past this age old issue, and give us some really well designed new mechanic? Unconsciousness, stat loss, or perhaps even something as progressive as losing control of your character as his mind enters a strange psychosis, and the AI forces your character to flee to safety. To me, any roleplaying game should encourage the hero to actually survive!
I personally backdoor quite often.
Like one of the posters above, I do it purely as a security measure. Very rarely do any of the programs I write contain data that I'm interested in once given to the end user, and thus I have no reason to want access to it except for their own benefit.
By the same token, I have refused backdoors requested by other people (usually in the form of emails or messages when certain actions occurred) because I didn't want to feel morally responsible for what they might do with that information.
Backdoor is a really broad way to describe what is, very often, a time-saver or even security measure. I personally wouldn't build one with malicious intent, but I can see where it could be a problem...we install programs every day (windows environment) that we have no idea who wrote, and what motives they may have had.