There is few things that players hate more in a game than an item shop where they can buy power. These games are called "pay to win" where playing and becoming better in playing is usually seriously sub-optimal way of winning. World of Tanks is an infamous example: you can be the best player in the game, if I have gold ammo (and I'm not a total idiot) you don't have a chance. These games are making their income from short-playing casuals who spend in the shop for a time to "be awsom lol" and then move away to the next shiny after they got bored of oneshotting anyone. MMO and power item shop don't match as the main selling point of MMOs is the community which can't exist if people rotate in an out in a month.
However there is a clear demand to buy cheats which is usually filled by illegal goldsellers. There is a way for the company to harness this: the PLEX-trade of EVE and the RMAH of Diablo 3 are good examples. In these no powerful items are created, they are traded between players. From your point of view player A buying currency or item from player B for game time or real money is no different from B gifting it to A who is his buddy. While living on charity of others is by definition being a leech and a loser, it doesn't change the fact that such RMT between A and B did not damage your game. Actually made it easier as the power moved from the good playing B to A who sucks therefore will be an easy target for you.
This would be a pointless repost if World of Tanks wouldn't turn me into a paranoid. You know, they probably rig the matchmaking and the random generator calculating penetration to keep even the most atrocious players over 40% winrate. What if they aren't the only shady players on the scene? What if CCP and Blizzard are secretly running the most hated thing in a game: a power item shop.
How could they do it? By placing server-side characters to the marketplace who get resources from nothing and trade it "legitimately". For example a legit-looking EVE char having trillions of ISK and buying up all the PLEX in Jita below 490M. Or a Diablo 3 character that sells extremely powerful items by dozens and "giving" the real money coming in to the developers. These simply can't be catched by players without extreme amount of third-party data collection, which is impossible because the system is benefiting the bad players who will obviously won't submit data. And even if they somehow could collect representative data, the developer can always point finger towards illegal RMT bots.
Using the secret item shop in Diablo 3 the bad player can buy top gear that wouldn't be available yet because legitimate players have not farmed enough for him to sell and the few they did are extremely overpriced. The infinite supply coming from the developer push down the price to the level the developer finds optimal, which is by definition something that is accessible for most. In EVE server-bot prevents the PLEX price to drop to the level where one had to convert a dozen to fit a semi-decent ship. Also, by constantly removing PLEX from the playerbase they limit the multiboxing that makes the life of the bad players harder.
If it exists - and I'm not even sure if I believe it does - this system would be very profitable to gaming companies as they have a good item shop without the negative consequences. Just like in World of Tanks, players live under the assumption that they could do better if they would be better players, instead of recognizing the truth: you must pay in the item shop. Granted the system is not so blatant as "The One Ring for $10" as every power the shop sell is something that some players do reach legitimately, so it is (at least theoretically) possible to outperform someone who pays a lot in the shop. In EVE it isn't a high barrier. I mean, with the current price a bad player has to spend 500 Euros a month to outdo me in making ISK.
What to do then? I stopped playing World of Tanks after figuring out that it's probably a cheat. Shall I stop playing EVE and Diablo 3 too unless the companies don't prove that they are free of cheats? (for example by getting a third-party audit, or in Diablo publish a complete item database by telling that Ubersword has 1854 pieces ingame, followed by a list of telling every items unique ID and a complete ownership history of it) No. There are two questions to ask. The first is: "do I enjoy the game as it is now, as I am in it now?"
While playing World of Tanks, we very often did not enjoy the game. We were upset about our performance, or even worse, blamed each other with my girlfriend for sucking to the point of recording and replaying practically all the matches to figure out how could we suck less. We kept on playing under the assumption that if we become really good in the game we'll enjoy it greatly. The cheat destroyed that hope and we stopped playing. The important lesson is to never have hopes about a game because there can very easily be a cheat somewhere making it impossible to fulfill your hopes, even if they were otherwise modest and reachable.
I'm enjoying playing EVE and find the current PLEX price acceptable. I don't think it breaks my plans in EVE. If the price would jump to 2B where I could no longer reliably claim "learn to trade and you can be competitive even with the PLEX-buying losers", I'd stop playing since I couldn't hope that with better trading strategies it can be turned. The point is that may be I could come up with strategies that allow my readers to keep competitive at 2B (after all, I'm making nearly 20/month), but the possibility of cheating on CCPs side makes it irrelevant as they can rise the price to 5B overnight. For the same reason I play Diablo 3 only as a content-game for fun with my girlfriend: we play to complete the game, to kill Inferno Diablo. I won't use the RMAH in the first month until the prices settle and I can see if the prices worth serious attention. I can still post some Diablo 3 goldmaking tips using the gold AH.
The second criteria is "equal playfield". Even if CCP really buying up PLEX and pour ISK in its place, that affects everyone alike. The inflation doesn't hurt you more than the next guy and this applies to PLEX buyers too. So competition can exist and a better player will win over the worse (even if the RMT-er is better off assuming equal playskill). Such games can be played for win. The other kind is unfair, helps the bad players (and those who can effectively game the system). World of Tanks punished you for being good, being better just increased the unfairness towards you and not your winrate. If you have even the suspicion that your game is doing that, you should uninstall that in that moment. You won't have fun playing that game because you don't receive feedback for your actions (which is necessary for the flow), as the response of the program depends on a the cheat and not your actions (simple example: imagine an FPS where the bullets hit totally randomly regardless where you aim).
The moron of the day was sent without signature. The sender is buying skillbooks from NPCs and sell them in other regions where no NPC sell them. The competitor came up with the "great" idea to buy them all out and relist higher. Well, let us wish him good luck to buy out the Science and Trade Institute:
EVE Business report: Wdnesday morning 19.9B(2 PLEX behind for second account, 0.3B spent on Titan project)
Remember that you can participate in our EVE conversations on the "goblinworks" channel (60-80 people on peak time) and your UI suggestions are welcomed.
However there is a clear demand to buy cheats which is usually filled by illegal goldsellers. There is a way for the company to harness this: the PLEX-trade of EVE and the RMAH of Diablo 3 are good examples. In these no powerful items are created, they are traded between players. From your point of view player A buying currency or item from player B for game time or real money is no different from B gifting it to A who is his buddy. While living on charity of others is by definition being a leech and a loser, it doesn't change the fact that such RMT between A and B did not damage your game. Actually made it easier as the power moved from the good playing B to A who sucks therefore will be an easy target for you.
This would be a pointless repost if World of Tanks wouldn't turn me into a paranoid. You know, they probably rig the matchmaking and the random generator calculating penetration to keep even the most atrocious players over 40% winrate. What if they aren't the only shady players on the scene? What if CCP and Blizzard are secretly running the most hated thing in a game: a power item shop.
How could they do it? By placing server-side characters to the marketplace who get resources from nothing and trade it "legitimately". For example a legit-looking EVE char having trillions of ISK and buying up all the PLEX in Jita below 490M. Or a Diablo 3 character that sells extremely powerful items by dozens and "giving" the real money coming in to the developers. These simply can't be catched by players without extreme amount of third-party data collection, which is impossible because the system is benefiting the bad players who will obviously won't submit data. And even if they somehow could collect representative data, the developer can always point finger towards illegal RMT bots.
Using the secret item shop in Diablo 3 the bad player can buy top gear that wouldn't be available yet because legitimate players have not farmed enough for him to sell and the few they did are extremely overpriced. The infinite supply coming from the developer push down the price to the level the developer finds optimal, which is by definition something that is accessible for most. In EVE server-bot prevents the PLEX price to drop to the level where one had to convert a dozen to fit a semi-decent ship. Also, by constantly removing PLEX from the playerbase they limit the multiboxing that makes the life of the bad players harder.
If it exists - and I'm not even sure if I believe it does - this system would be very profitable to gaming companies as they have a good item shop without the negative consequences. Just like in World of Tanks, players live under the assumption that they could do better if they would be better players, instead of recognizing the truth: you must pay in the item shop. Granted the system is not so blatant as "The One Ring for $10" as every power the shop sell is something that some players do reach legitimately, so it is (at least theoretically) possible to outperform someone who pays a lot in the shop. In EVE it isn't a high barrier. I mean, with the current price a bad player has to spend 500 Euros a month to outdo me in making ISK.
What to do then? I stopped playing World of Tanks after figuring out that it's probably a cheat. Shall I stop playing EVE and Diablo 3 too unless the companies don't prove that they are free of cheats? (for example by getting a third-party audit, or in Diablo publish a complete item database by telling that Ubersword has 1854 pieces ingame, followed by a list of telling every items unique ID and a complete ownership history of it) No. There are two questions to ask. The first is: "do I enjoy the game as it is now, as I am in it now?"
While playing World of Tanks, we very often did not enjoy the game. We were upset about our performance, or even worse, blamed each other with my girlfriend for sucking to the point of recording and replaying practically all the matches to figure out how could we suck less. We kept on playing under the assumption that if we become really good in the game we'll enjoy it greatly. The cheat destroyed that hope and we stopped playing. The important lesson is to never have hopes about a game because there can very easily be a cheat somewhere making it impossible to fulfill your hopes, even if they were otherwise modest and reachable.
I'm enjoying playing EVE and find the current PLEX price acceptable. I don't think it breaks my plans in EVE. If the price would jump to 2B where I could no longer reliably claim "learn to trade and you can be competitive even with the PLEX-buying losers", I'd stop playing since I couldn't hope that with better trading strategies it can be turned. The point is that may be I could come up with strategies that allow my readers to keep competitive at 2B (after all, I'm making nearly 20/month), but the possibility of cheating on CCPs side makes it irrelevant as they can rise the price to 5B overnight. For the same reason I play Diablo 3 only as a content-game for fun with my girlfriend: we play to complete the game, to kill Inferno Diablo. I won't use the RMAH in the first month until the prices settle and I can see if the prices worth serious attention. I can still post some Diablo 3 goldmaking tips using the gold AH.
The second criteria is "equal playfield". Even if CCP really buying up PLEX and pour ISK in its place, that affects everyone alike. The inflation doesn't hurt you more than the next guy and this applies to PLEX buyers too. So competition can exist and a better player will win over the worse (even if the RMT-er is better off assuming equal playskill). Such games can be played for win. The other kind is unfair, helps the bad players (and those who can effectively game the system). World of Tanks punished you for being good, being better just increased the unfairness towards you and not your winrate. If you have even the suspicion that your game is doing that, you should uninstall that in that moment. You won't have fun playing that game because you don't receive feedback for your actions (which is necessary for the flow), as the response of the program depends on a the cheat and not your actions (simple example: imagine an FPS where the bullets hit totally randomly regardless where you aim).
The moron of the day was sent without signature. The sender is buying skillbooks from NPCs and sell them in other regions where no NPC sell them. The competitor came up with the "great" idea to buy them all out and relist higher. Well, let us wish him good luck to buy out the Science and Trade Institute:
EVE Business report: Wdnesday morning 19.9B(2 PLEX behind for second account, 0.3B spent on Titan project)
Remember that you can participate in our EVE conversations on the "goblinworks" channel (60-80 people on peak time) and your UI suggestions are welcomed.
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