RMT, the Economy and plans for the future

Think about it this way. If some random youtuber claims that his private SotA RMT forums are 'official' SotA endorsed and scam free, and then he personally makes a large number of high value purchases from people, and a day later does thousands of dollars worth of chargebacks, how is Port going to enforce the rules against scamming if they don't have access to the trade agreements and the persons IP address to track down their accounts because they're not done through SotA forums??

And for that matter, if there are several private trading forums for RMT, how are we the players, not to mention staff, supposed to monitor for corruption of staffmembers acting as individuals generating items to sell if ALL RMT are not done in plain view??

It's in everyones best interest that ALL real money trades be done right here on SotA forums, that's why there's a rule saying it must be done as such, and that action will be taken against anyone who does what the guy in the video did. I admit that I am biased in this regard, because I have been doing RMT, even giving discounts on warez to make a reputation for myself as a safe trader, so I want maximum views of my product offers without having to track down various private trading forums, but I would strongly recommend that people only do their RMT on the forums because it's the best protection you have against scams and chargebacks.

I know that staff is super busy right now with implementing r34, but I hope we will get some clarification from them about their policy.

 

I believe you are reading that wrong. It's simply saying that if you are doing RMT sales you can't advertise them in game or on the forums except for in the player market place. It's not saying that you can't run your own private site selling SoTa items/services.

And if my interpretation is the right one, it really casts the rest of your assertions into doubt.

 

Actually I read it right, it's written wrong. Pretty much continued along in the thread to find out that Port doesn't have any issue with listing items on external site just as @Sir Frank clarified it.

What the post indicates is that you're not allowed to even discuss RMT's outside of the player marketplace, and goes on to further clarify that any discussion of RMT's is also against the rules and will carry consequences. He should have just updated the OP because not everyone wants to read the comments to find out what the rules of the game are. In fact most people prefer an actual page on the website to be finding out the rules, not using the forum search tool.. lol

Some tidying up needs to be done here, I've practically begged staff to make an official post about how to log on the game using AMD A8 series processors, which is simple to do, but they won't even sticky a post about it. For whatever reason I can't tell you.

In reality though, since the game is in Alpha and the economy is important, I think all RMT should be done here on SotA's website, in the proper place, for the reasons I've already stated.

 

@Sir Frank

I never said they're liable, but scamming is still against the rules, and so by doing trades via the Player Marketplace you help staff enforce that rule by providing as much evidence as you can in terms of the scammer's forum identity and therefore the IP address they used to make the transaction.

Just because Port might be able to seek out and ban a player who scams you doesn't always mean you're going to get your items back, in the case that the scammer already passed off the hot merchandise and Port clearly won't or at least should never be generating items for people in these cases, but at the very least it helps remove the scammer from the game.

 

Seems a pretty strong statement.

Also I tried a transaction and it allows one to purchase 300 city deeds if desired (right to the paypal screen with $315,000 if you tried to continue) despite only 195 being in the store. via Portalarium.

Maybe Portalarium sells to him in bulk or something. Or maybe there's a referral link.

Either way it seems really odd to see Portalarium endorse an re-seller, or to allow someone who obviously has lots of access to developers to claim to be endorsed if he is not and still grant access.

 

Fav Quote of the day.

 

sigworthy or nah

 

I doubt it. I think he is just boasting.
That said: if not the tradeing metagame is killed.

So, @Berek tell us what this is all about please ;-)

 

Doing the sensible thing and reading the thread on RMT it appears as though you can sell stuff externally. So anyone could advertise RMT on a private forum or even offer to sell items in a Youtube video or stream (not by typing it into the game obvs) as its not in-game nor on the forums. The reason Port keep it to one forum here and out of the game is so it doesn't break immersion for people (fair enough although passing rows of houses with vendors with massive white text over their head and huge badly placed statues of dragons and what not kinda does that anyway ).

My point with the video was that the creator appeared to say that they were selling in-game items for cash and Port were taking money. They have a store selling items from the official store which is not too much of an issue as I can just get it from the official store if I'm concerned about it (although some clarification and transparency on that store and where the items come from if it is "official" would be needed). They mentioned scamming and the marketplace though and so my assumption, rightly or wrongly, was that we were talking about items not in the official store like gold, weapons, armour, resources etc and that they mentioned that Port were taking a cut. I don't think that anything dodgy is going on from Port and looking at the persons history it appears as though they have a history with RMT. Again just some clarification is needed.

Boasting about UO experience on a forum for the spiritual successor of Ultima games is like boasting about having one eye at a lodge meeting for the guild of Cyclops.

Your only specific that I can see is that you said RMT allows people without the time to get things in game to get them. The specifics against are gold farmers, bots, the economy, long term health of the game etc. A lot more specifics really. The fact the game has an online single player mode though (the real reason you probably should have stated that RMT is not a problem here with all your experience ) mean maybe that's all irrelevant. As a dev said farmers will farm in single player mode or if it comes to it, we can. It's almost as though that part of the game was designed around RMT.

 

Yeah if you take a pair of scissors and cut the context right out of it, sure. I guess.

The official statement made by Darkstarr regarding RMT trading says specifically that trading outside of SotA forums marketplace is illegal, and then follows with clarifying that conversation in other official SotA areas or inside the game is punishable and illegal, and then in the following comments it's further clarified that trading outside of the player marketplace is fine provided that it's on an external website...

Anyways that's just not a professional way to be introducing rules to the community and while I disagree with allowing external site listing, I realize it would be difficult for a small staff to patrol and enforce it.

In relation to my experience and how it pertains to this subject, I can tell you with confidence that if Port is generating and fencing then they're doing it wrong and far from maximized. I'll give it a 99% probability rating that they aren't and haven't ever done so.

Incase you missed the part about why being a UO veteran specifically gives an advantage in this regard, it's because, even though SotA is it's 'spiritual successor', SotA and every other MMO is one economy and one set of staff, whereas UO has had probably around ten thousand economies and sets of staff in the 19 years it's been around. So yes, I've seen countless shard owners try to peddle behind the scenes influxes of currency and the various methods they've used to distribute it.

Could Port be generating expired items and having the guy in the video distribute them for a profit share? Possibly, but then that's not going to cause problems with the economy, and I don't see why they'd bother when they can simply make a couple hundred thousand by running a telethon and just make a few new items while keeping their hands clean. Like I say, it's possible, but not probable.

You really have nothing to worry about. The only thing anyone has to worry about from allowing external website listings is that they open the door to scamming. SotA forums won't be losing that many hits from it but maybe a few sales which burns me up inside like a hot pepper filled with cheeze and wrapped in a hefty amount of ground beef. I can't tell if you're saying that SPO is good or bad based on what you wrote, but I'm pretty sure staff can enter SPO instances and do random checkups for botting and other dynamics would make it pretty pointless to bother doing so.

What are your 'specfics' against RMT being allowed? The long term health of the game and gold farmers, bots and the economy? That's just your opinion. In my opinion the gold farmers help those who haven't got the time but want to do the shopping, which boosts activity and hence is good for the long term health of the game. There's plenty of gold sinks around, so the economy is fine regardless of RMT, and like I said, botting is inevitable regardless of RMT being allowed or not, because RMT will happen even if it's not allowed, so the best thing to do is keep RMT in plain sight and hire volunteer staff to check up on suspicious bot activity 24/7.

 

I've also been a huge advocate of transparency and policy regarding staff/player interaction for close to a decade. I have pushed that there needs to be an actual rules page for players and staff to follow, leaving no grey areas and nothing to common sense, and in that time I have never seen a crowdfunded game or freeshard (which is essentially crowdfunded) adopt a single rule for a staffmember to follow regarding player interaction or pretty much a firm policy on anything that didn't interfere with their income.

Right now we're in alpha, but the game is in persistence so it's a good time to be hashing out these issues.

 

That's essentially the point of why I started the thread. Some clarification on the points brought up. Nothing so far.

 

Sorry, but as nice as that would be it is not possible to formulate rules like that as long as humans will behave like humans. And as long as this is not possible I am a strong advocate of following common sense instead.

 

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/community-rules-guidelines.54804/

See under the marketplace section.

The tl;dr, in official SotA space, you're only allowed to advertise or solicit RMT trades on the marketplace. External websites are allowed to advertise however they like. Players are responsible to do due diligence of their counter part themselves, which is why we have used Lord Andernut as a middleman for transaction.

Anything else beyond what's on that link will have to be clarified by Berek.

 

There's no need to apologize. It's absolutely possible. Really though, we're pretty far from professionalism when it comes to getting most information across to players and I'm not entirely sure why, other than because it's still alpha. Game rules and policies belong on the main website and not on the forum. Forum rules belong on the forum. Links to updated rules should be made available in game, so there can be no question when a new rule is made. Otherwise it makes it difficult for staff to enforce it.

Troubleshooting things like crashes on launch deserve to be on the website as well, and in the patch notes, but really I couldn't even get the information stickied to the forums, which has resulted in one person this month totally abandoning the game for the last couple weeks. Poor bastard probably tried to format his hard drive to fix the problem and ended up with the blue screen of death, never to be seen again and it's just sad to me that it was completely preventable but for a lack of policy and proper format for getting information across to the playerbase.

Here's another example. Did you know that I wouldn't even offer to sell guildmates my warez for RMT because our discord chat is outside of the player marketplace?? Here I am trying to play it legit and now I sure look silly. People shouldn't have to piece together game rules using the forum search tool. Kinda ridic.

 

The overall community (in-game and out of game) rules should be all listed here https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/community-rules-guidelines.54804/

If not, then just PM Berek for clarification.

 

The problem with any game when real money is involed in trading ingame items or services is, that those making the real money will always want to make more of it and will do anything to do so. Even if they stick to the rules their real money business WILL have an impact on the virtual economy. Be it, because they are flooding the game with certain wares or with money or even both. I strongly doubt that this can be good for the game. I remeind about china-farmers in many many other games... It takes great effort to keep such things under control and only drains Portal's ressources which are way better spend for developing this game. And simply because someone claims to be cooperating with the developers doesn't means he's telling the truth. As long as Barek or some other high ranking Dev doesn't say so, I don't believe any such claims.

 

you guys are silly , the second there was an add on store port turned the game into rmt . They created the market and keep adding to it . They also control the prices and value of items. just be thankful they didnt drop commission free vendors to 50$ and lots to 20$ than we would all be F*****.