I agree that it may not be possible, but it is possible to minimize the impact of RMTs. This is probably been best showin in WoW, from the games I've played. Money is easily made, and the best of the best gear is mostly only available via Bind on pickup items from instances and raid instances (a few exceptions, but for the most part that's the way WoW is designed). But this really was designed into the game. Blizzard saw the issues and took serious pre-emptive steps to have this not happen.
Where IGE and it's bretheren hit hardest are games that were designed prior to the big boom of RMTs, games like EQ1, and FFXI. They were either released or were in late design phase prior to when RMTing became huge, so they were created with flaws which wouldn't have been so horrible if these things weren't in existance, but since they are, they can merely try to fix what plat/gil/goldfarmers and sellers break, which is not an easy prospect since portions of the game were designed like this, and that would mean a total redesign of an aspect of the game, post release.
Where are these lower prices you speak of? Because they certainly aren't on the consoles themselves. At most, the Revolution might be low ($200~), but that's not confirmed. PS3 is being estimated at a price of $500. 360 clocks in at $300 for the bare minimum set, and really you will probably end up buying the other bits, so it's basically $400. And the 360's games sure aren't showing this either, with many of them going for $60, new. So as of right now the only one that seems like lower prices is the Revolution...
Of course, there is the counter argument that since the Revolution and PS3 aren't out yet, so the 360 doesn't really have any competition to keep it's game prices in check, so maybe things will change later...
That's one of those debatable subjects... Beyond the appearance of Kane as an advisor to Stalin in RA, there are other little things that pop up here and there, that definately imply that RA was a quasi-prequel (time travel makes details so fuzzy), like the image of a Soviet Apocalypse Tank in the Temple of Nod in Renegade. Hearsay says Westwood folks were in the process of developing a complete and offical timeline that would tie everything together into one timeline (well, other than Generals, b/c that's probably an EA only project with the C&C name slapped on it).
Okay, thanks for clarifying what you meant. I was asking b/c some use challenge and fun interchangably. I was about to go into a rant about how fun is subjective, and all that jazz, but then realized you may really mean challenge... glad I asked. I would of looked like a real dumbass.
When you say challenge, do you mean as in something that's fun, or are you really referring to something that challenges you? I want to reply, but I don't want to misunderstand you.
The problem is it takes control of the economy out of the normal player's hands, and puts it, pretty much, in the hands of the farmers and their companies, like IGE. While goldfarming is an issue, it's a relatively minor one, with things such as soulbound items, being able to sell items to a vendor for a decent price, high value global drops, repair costs and AH fees taking money out of the economy, and instances with mostly Bind on Pickup high value loot. All of these steps were taken and they allowed gold farmers to have a much smaller impact upon the economy.
On the other hand, you have games like Final Fantasy XI, which was in the design phase during the start of goldfarming. I'm not certain when the "big boom" of gold farming started, but IIRC it was in the early 2000-2001 timeframe, which would put FFXI at the final stages of development in Japan, and thus steps that Blizzard took with WoW were not implemented, leaving many facets of the game, which would have been fine or minor irritants without gilfarmers, have become crippling issues. Monopolization of NMs, high quality gear being crafted, a strong reliance on rare dropped items for crafting, and a lack of regularlly available ways to siphon gil from the economy have all led to almost crippling situations with economy. An example of this situation would be IGE's christmas sale, where (I believe) they cut the prices of all of their currency in half. This lead to FFXI gilbuyers flooding the market with gil that had been saved up by the gilfamers, and prices on almost everything on the market at least doubled, in some cases tripled or quadrupled.
With a minority of the people holding onto a large percentage of the funds, and willing to give it out with little regard to the in-game economies can (and usually do) cause high amounts of inflation. This basically leads players to either be forced to buy in-game money or to have to spend more time than they would in a situation w/o gold farming just to afford basic things like potions or food or other things (depends on the game).
Of course the counter-argument is that inflation on items without a control (i.e. the only place to get the item is in the field, not from a vendor) makes everything go up in price, thus meaning you are making more gil/gold/whatever per hour, which is true, but there are two things to take into account: First, inflation is not universal, so item A (which you are farming) goes up by 100% while item B goes up by 150%, so you have to farm item A more to get item B. Second is competition, specifically other gold farmers. Odds are you aren't getting the best farming spots because they are already taken and held by individual, or more often groups (gangs) of gold farmers. These people practice this day in and day out, and become perfect at it, making it extremely hard to actually get the prime farming locations, which leaves normal players relegated to farming less ideal places which means the process is drawn out even longer.
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I agree that it may not be possible, but it is possible to minimize the impact of RMTs. This is probably been best showin in WoW, from the games I've played. Money is easily made, and the best of the best gear is mostly only available via Bind on pickup items from instances and raid instances (a few exceptions, but for the most part that's the way WoW is designed). But this really was designed into the game. Blizzard saw the issues and took serious pre-emptive steps to have this not happen.
Where IGE and it's bretheren hit hardest are games that were designed prior to the big boom of RMTs, games like EQ1, and FFXI. They were either released or were in late design phase prior to when RMTing became huge, so they were created with flaws which wouldn't have been so horrible if these things weren't in existance, but since they are, they can merely try to fix what plat/gil/goldfarmers and sellers break, which is not an easy prospect since portions of the game were designed like this, and that would mean a total redesign of an aspect of the game, post release.
Where are these lower prices you speak of? Because they certainly aren't on the consoles themselves. At most, the Revolution might be low ($200~), but that's not confirmed. PS3 is being estimated at a price of $500. 360 clocks in at $300 for the bare minimum set, and really you will probably end up buying the other bits, so it's basically $400. And the 360's games sure aren't showing this either, with many of them going for $60, new. So as of right now the only one that seems like lower prices is the Revolution... Of course, there is the counter argument that since the Revolution and PS3 aren't out yet, so the 360 doesn't really have any competition to keep it's game prices in check, so maybe things will change later...
That's one of those debatable subjects... Beyond the appearance of Kane as an advisor to Stalin in RA, there are other little things that pop up here and there, that definately imply that RA was a quasi-prequel (time travel makes details so fuzzy), like the image of a Soviet Apocalypse Tank in the Temple of Nod in Renegade. Hearsay says Westwood folks were in the process of developing a complete and offical timeline that would tie everything together into one timeline (well, other than Generals, b/c that's probably an EA only project with the C&C name slapped on it).
Okay, thanks for clarifying what you meant. I was asking b/c some use challenge and fun interchangably. I was about to go into a rant about how fun is subjective, and all that jazz, but then realized you may really mean challenge... glad I asked. I would of looked like a real dumbass.
Go me... pressed the submit button by accident. Anyways, was trying to link to: http://www.cad-comic.com/comic.php?d=20040521
Am I the only one who, upon seeing this, got a mental image of this comic from CAD, only with dozens of Jack Sparrows instead of dozens of Neos?
When you say challenge, do you mean as in something that's fun, or are you really referring to something that challenges you? I want to reply, but I don't want to misunderstand you.
The problem is it takes control of the economy out of the normal player's hands, and puts it, pretty much, in the hands of the farmers and their companies, like IGE. While goldfarming is an issue, it's a relatively minor one, with things such as soulbound items, being able to sell items to a vendor for a decent price, high value global drops, repair costs and AH fees taking money out of the economy, and instances with mostly Bind on Pickup high value loot. All of these steps were taken and they allowed gold farmers to have a much smaller impact upon the economy.
On the other hand, you have games like Final Fantasy XI, which was in the design phase during the start of goldfarming. I'm not certain when the "big boom" of gold farming started, but IIRC it was in the early 2000-2001 timeframe, which would put FFXI at the final stages of development in Japan, and thus steps that Blizzard took with WoW were not implemented, leaving many facets of the game, which would have been fine or minor irritants without gilfarmers, have become crippling issues. Monopolization of NMs, high quality gear being crafted, a strong reliance on rare dropped items for crafting, and a lack of regularlly available ways to siphon gil from the economy have all led to almost crippling situations with economy. An example of this situation would be IGE's christmas sale, where (I believe) they cut the prices of all of their currency in half. This lead to FFXI gilbuyers flooding the market with gil that had been saved up by the gilfamers, and prices on almost everything on the market at least doubled, in some cases tripled or quadrupled.
With a minority of the people holding onto a large percentage of the funds, and willing to give it out with little regard to the in-game economies can (and usually do) cause high amounts of inflation. This basically leads players to either be forced to buy in-game money or to have to spend more time than they would in a situation w/o gold farming just to afford basic things like potions or food or other things (depends on the game).
Of course the counter-argument is that inflation on items without a control (i.e. the only place to get the item is in the field, not from a vendor) makes everything go up in price, thus meaning you are making more gil/gold/whatever per hour, which is true, but there are two things to take into account: First, inflation is not universal, so item A (which you are farming) goes up by 100% while item B goes up by 150%, so you have to farm item A more to get item B. Second is competition, specifically other gold farmers. Odds are you aren't getting the best farming spots because they are already taken and held by individual, or more often groups (gangs) of gold farmers. These people practice this day in and day out, and become perfect at it, making it extremely hard to actually get the prime farming locations, which leaves normal players relegated to farming less ideal places which means the process is drawn out even longer.