What really makes me laugh is that I recall a year or so ago blizzard staff proudly claiming that in their game the ebay-character-purchasing wasn't going to be a problem.

Yeah, well. THat sentiment didn't last long, did it?

Being able to obtain ultra powerful items fo real money real is bad thing for the game play and the online economy of those people playing on them. I'm wondering why would someone be stupid enough to spend his hard earn money from his own job and use that money in the game which means he wasted time he did at his own real life job to use that money to buy virtual items instead of other more important commodity of life.

If they would have spent that same amount of time playing the game online they would have most probably been able to get the items or level they wanted without sacrificing their real money providing of course that they weren't stupid enough to drop their jobs or go part time to play more in order to get those items faster.

The only "viable" reason I see in those people buying items with real life money would be that they are not patient enough to start from scratch and build their own character. I don't agree with this at all though because when a person plays an MMORPG he knows that it needs patience to build up a good character and that's part of the game. You buy it from eBay or whatever and start playing you kill the fun plus you don't get as attached emotionnally to the character as you would if you were to start it up from scratch which makes the buyer really miss the point of an MMORPG in the first place but being attached is not that good if someone was to become totally addicted about his character leading to real-life disorders if that person was to lose his character like depression or something else similar. Being the kind of guy that enjoys building up different parties of Final Fantasy 1 characters to Level 99 just for fun I may be a bit extreme but I'd never buy an items online, i'd rather find it by myself and be satisfied with the results once I have it because that's what those games are all about.

It does get boring sometimes but we have to put up with it since the game was intended to be like that to make sure people play for long and pay the monthly fees for long. I wished those games could be more than the same game with a different graphical package though but that's another story and also another thread :)

Quote:

Quote: Quote:Original post by Cosmic One
Buying outside of the game also defeats the very purpose of the game... being Role Playing. If you are playing a role within the game, it would be impossible for that character to go and purchase an item off of the internet...

No, only a small minority of people who play MMORPG's want to roleplay. This is widely known and well documented (google for it).

Ah, how easy it is to pick apart my weaker arguments...

Sorry, I know most people don't actually role play, let me rephrase... I didn't mean to roleplay in the most hardcore sense, by putting on a different personality and talking in part, but, you are still 'playing a role'. Your interaction with it is strictly a 'put yourself in his shoes' issue. vNistelrooy was right, in the game, it IS getting it for free.

The legality issue is still where I stand firmest. Read the frigging EULA, if you don't like it, don't play it. Simple as that.

As ever,
**Cosmic**

Quote: Original post by Edward Ropple
I fail to see their problem with this. It does not affect their profits.

Then you don't have a good imagination. Blizzard's profits are directly tied to how happy people are. If people are unhappy with their playing experience, they stop playing. Since this is a subscription game, that means Blizzard loses money (much then making a disapointing single player game).

The idea of rich people being able to run circles around you (and due to PvP literally beat you up) just because they have lots of money to buy their way is a big turn off for many people (same with games that fall victim to massive hacking - like Diablo 1's online experience). Imagine if you where on a highschool basketball team, and you went to play some fancy prep school. At game time however you find that instead of playing guys like you, you found out that they just payed some big money to stack their team with 7ft players from the NBA. You really wouldn't feel like playing at all if you knew that no matter how skilled you where or how hard you trained, you only had a one in a million chance of beating some guy who spent 10 minutes buying a character online.

Funny thing is that in some games (Risk Your Life) you could buy in-game money for real money legaly.

In Eternal Lands we (owners) are also selling items for money, and I wouldn't object if our players would do the same. In fact, I would even feel honored to see some 1337 item of ours being sold on Ebay. Of course, our game is free and this is our only source of making some limited money.
If he game would be pay to play, we wouldn't sell items, but wouldn't mind others selling them either.

Quote: Original post by Raduprv
In Eternal Lands we (owners) are also selling items for money, and I wouldn't object if our players would do the same. In fact, I would even feel honored to see some 1337 item of ours being sold on Ebay. Of course, our game is free and this is our only source of making some limited money.
If he game would be pay to play, we wouldn't sell items, but wouldn't mind others selling them either.

I'd be carefull about this, you too could end up like Redmoon. Make sure you're EULA fully states that you ARE NOT cannot be held liable for loss of items (or anything else they can purchase for that matter).

Be VERY VERY carefull! You might find it hard to believe your dedicated players might do this to you, but when someone loses money they want it back.

I know, we have a clause in the license that they can't sue us in case shit happens.
But if something happens (they get hax0red, etc.) we are willing to help anyway, it's bad PR not to help those who pay.

If you think about it, how would you feel if someone was making a profit off of a product you've poured your heart and soul into and you weren't recieving a 'royality' for it. It's an interesting aspect of a game, but how many games out there actually want/designed for that kind of 'trade'?

The first couple of MMORPGS/games wouldnt have. But since then every MMORPG certainly should, its become a part of the genre.

[Edited by - kooktroop on December 15, 2004 10:24:58 PM]