quote:

---

Original post by Machaira
No, the reason companies don''t want people selling in-game equipment on Ebay is that their selling intellectual property that doesn''t belong to them. The game and everything it contains belongs to the company, not the player. You don''t buy the actual game, you basically buy a license to play the game. The game doesn''t belong to you, otherwise you could reverse engineer it, change it and sell it.

---

IMO, the reason is unwarranted. Never was the game, in part of in full, been the subject of such trade, but merely the access thereof granted by the license therein which properly was the property of the player. On the other hand, the very same argument can be use to ban in-game trading by its very own logical implications. It is properly a political issue, I''d concluded though.

If the user has rights to resell outside the game, they can also make claims that the provider of the service is required to maintain the platform indefinitely. That's just one of many bad implications.
The user is granted only the rights explicitly stated in the EULA, and that's how it should be. The only attempt at creating a game which recognizes users' right to convert in-game property to real-world values (and vice versa) that I know of is Project Entropia, for which I personally have very little hope. PE already had run-ins with property contamination by cheaters if I understand correctly (cheater gains property by rule-breaking - game does nothing, other users are at disadvantage and game maker looses money, or game tracks "hot items/assets" and may punish both guilty parties but also unknowing victims as the offender attempts to launder hot assets in trade).

No, in-game assets must stay in the game, must be made to stay in the game. I don't see how this could be made to mean in-game trades should be disallowed. The game is its own context, and under the complete control of the maintainer/provider.

Disencouraging pack-rat behaviour should also lessen the twinking and hence, the out-of-context trade of in-game property.

For many good discussions of this topic and many other similar ones, visit the MUD-dev mailing list archives, here. MUD-dev is a mailing list where many professional and enthusiast developers of MUDs and MMORPGs discuss any topic related to their games.

(My projects and ramblings...)

(Edits: typos and one clarification)

[edited by - Teodric on December 7, 2002 1:05:24 PM]

quote:

---

Original post by rmsgrey

Original post by debaser
Minor adjustments to equipment will solve the former…

---

For those of us who lack your insight into the problem, could you please give us an example of a minor adjustment which you expect to solve the economic injustice problem?

Well, I suggest reading the above thread, unless if by "economic injustice" you are refering to the coming class struggle, in which case I recommend "Das Capital" by Marx…

By economic injustice, I mean the fact that twinkies have a (potentially) large economic advantage over genuine newbie characters as they have access to a large pool of equipment/resources that the true newbie doesn''t - the twinkie has a (potentially) much larger net worth because of his inheritance. In most cases, an economic advantage translates into a survival advantage because, eg, the twinkie can afford/already has the armour of invulnerability, while the newbie is stuck with the armour of tissue paper...

Maybe, in the actual game world, things aren''t quite that extreme, but the character who inherits vast wealth (in items or money) is going to have an advantage unless money/items are completely pointless in the game.

I''ve read this thread several times, and still haven''t seen how minor adjustments to equipment would solve this problem.

The only kinds of "minor equipment adjustments" I can think of that would help alleviate twinking is stat/skill requirements and/or item degradation based on stat/skill levels. If the first time a level 1 character took a swing with a sword meant for someone level 10 or above and the sword broke or would never hit, it might help stop twinking.

quote:

---

Original by Machaira
The only kinds of "minor equipment adjustments" I can think of that would help alleviate twinking is stat/skill requirements and/or item degradation based on stat/skill levels. If the first time a level 1 character took a swing with a sword meant for someone level 10 or above and the sword broke or would never hit, it might help stop twinking.

---

this will shrink the current market, and deflat the price. after all, twinks always get the highest utility from any item, and therefore will pay the highest price precisely because they have the resources. however, people won''t value less their labour required to get the items. moreover, there is still a potential market for such high level items, people will therefore be unwilling to trade below its potential value. and as long as there are low level people, aka potential customers, with value always higher than the market price, the market will continue to shrink to a minimal. after all, although lvl 1''s can''t use some sword that lvl 10 can use now, they will become lvl 10 eventually, right? keeping everything in the bank, for anyone - both high levels and twinks, translates to higher furture returns, aka an attractive way to invest and that means no one will want to trade.

on the other hand, which i''m not going in full details, trying to stop pack ratting will, instead of shrinking the economy into a minimal, collapse the whole economy.

the problem with twinking is inequity, but every and all measures that are designed to prevent twinking will decimate the economy. there is not a way that i can think of which lets you get the best of both worlds.

quote:

---

Original post by tanikaze
on the other hand, which i''m not going in full details, trying to stop pack ratting will, instead of shrinking the economy into a minimal, collapse the whole economy.

---

I don''t have a problem with packratting. If a player wants to keep stuff in the bank until his character can use it, that''s fine. At least you won''t have a level 1 character running around with gear meant for a level 20 or higher.

This is probably rather late in the thread to bring this up, but is twinking really something that should be stopped?

Is twinking automatically evil, or is the twinking problem actually symptomatic of a systematic flaw in todays MMORPGs?

quote:

---

Original post by rmsgrey
This is probably rather late in the thread to bring this up, but is twinking really something that should be stopped?

Is twinking automatically evil, or is the twinking problem actually symptomatic of a systematic flaw in todays MMORPGs?

---

I think it''s a question to be asked, at the very least.

I personally think that it''s a symptom of "time-investment related advancement". The longer you keep a character alive, the more enjoyment you reap, for reasons of accumulating wealth, experience, and rare equipment. All three of those are based around keeping your character alive, and all three amount to any beginning character sucking.
This is in contrast to how most other popular multiplayer games are set up, where there is usually very little difference in absolute power of a newly spawned character and one that''s been around for ages (aside from maybe a stockpile of ammo). A "fresh" character is usually just as dangerous, or almost as dangerous, as a "seasoned" character, if player skill is equal between the two.

The reason people "Twink" is because they perceive they have a right to a better character than your-bog-standard "fresh" character. They have already invested significant amounts of time in the game with a character that they have now bored of, and want change. They feel (and perhaps rightly so!) that their in-game-time is penalised as they start over. An Unreal player does not give up anything significant should he or she choose to wear a different "skin" in the next game, while a MMORPG player is basically resetting his own ability to zero when starting over.

One possible way you might get around it is by having a resource that is unique to the player, but not the character. Call them "time points", or "skill points", or whatever, but make it so that a long-time player can keep those points when playing different characters, using the points to buy higher stats or better gear than a player who hasn''t spent as much time in the game. Basically, it amounts to building twinking right into the game, for every player equally. Twinking between players is probably still possible, but even if you keep getting wasted as a "newbie" player, your skill points will accumulate to the point where in the end you will be able to put up a fight.

quote:

---

Original post by MadKeithV
This is in contrast to how most other popular multiplayer games are set up, where there is usually very little difference in absolute power of a newly spawned character and one that''s been around for ages (aside from maybe a stockpile of ammo). A "fresh" character is usually just as dangerous, or almost as dangerous, as a "seasoned" character, if player skill is equal between the two.

---

FPS and MMORPG are two different genres and work totally different. An FPS "character" isn''t really a character in the same sense as that of a MMORPG character. A FPS "character" doesn''t exist between sessions of play the way a MMORPG character does, so the rules of having to build up power and items doesn''t apply. Think of it as a robot that the player turns on every time they want to play. It''s not a real "person" the way a MMORPG character is meant to be. A real person doesn''t start off with the abilities and belongings of another person. They accumulate these during their life. So it is with a MMORPG character.

quote:

---

Original post by MadKeithV
The reason people "Twink" is because they perceive they have a right to a better character than your-bog-standard "fresh" character. They have already invested significant amounts of time in the game with a character that they have now bored of, and want change. They feel (and perhaps rightly so!) that their in-game-time is penalised as they start over. An Unreal player does not give up anything significant should he or she choose to wear a different "skin" in the next game, while a MMORPG player is basically resetting his own ability to zero when starting over.

---

This is an incorrect perception. If in playing a single player FPS that did not allow you to change the model you were using during the course of the game, would you expect to start off in the same place if you got bored of the model you were using and wanted to change? This isn''t an exact analogy perhaps, but the idea is the same. Your analogy of an Unreal player vs. a MMORPG is not exact as an Unreal player has no permanent possessions of value within the game, merely tools that he uses during the course of the match. If an Unreal player could take the weapons, ammo, and armor that he gathered during a match and sell them after the match and buy a new uber-weapon, then perhaps the comparison might be closer. Or if an Unreal player could only use the default weapon until he got a couple kills, then could pick up a rocket launcher or other more powerful weapon. While that wouldn''t make sense in a FPS it''s the way MMORPGs are built and meant to be played.

quote:

---

Original post by MadKeithV
One possible way you might get around it is by having a resource that is unique to the player, but not the character. Call them "time points", or "skill points", or whatever, but make it so that a long-time player can keep those points when playing different characters, using the points to buy higher stats or better gear than a player who hasn''t spent as much time in the game. Basically, it amounts to building twinking right into the game, for every player equally. Twinking between players is probably still possible, but even if you keep getting wasted as a "newbie" player, your skill points will accumulate to the point where in the end you will be able to put up a fight.

---

While this is a good idea, it defeats the whole purpose of an RPG. The growth and increase in power/abilities/treasure of the character is the backbone of an RPG, along with the adventuring of course.