A Changed Perspective on Release (rmt)

Yes yes !!! you say your english isn't good, but its perfectly fine

Thing is, we're using unity, and every single action, transaction and detail is recorded and accessible through very convenient functions of the engine, that is how the devs follow the player stats and spot if there is blatant hacking.

This is not so far fetched, and the devs know it because it is the work done on ultima online that helped me shed light upon these matters. Without their work, I would not be here talking about it, so it was their original intent.

But you are right that the game lets people be non-virtuous, except when it deals with PvP, then the oracle comes to put sticks in your wheels.

Since economic "warfare" which we admit we cannot stop is often like PvP, especially when trader guilds get serious about it, I don't see why the oracle would turn the blind eye.

 

No that is what I already do. I'm not a seller.....

 

I'm doing the reverse side of what you are thinking. The things I buy are then given away for free use to the players. I'm still doing RTM for them but using my RM to help others. So not all RTM are pulling in profits.

 

I'm just gonna say this as plainly as i can. I don't get it. Example let's take just this portion: "...assuming it is the game we are actually here for...". I wonder when I read comments like that if people stop to think where this game would be without RMT.

Games do not develop themselves. Development requires people and that means money. The question must present itself as to what well the needed funds are supposed to spring from. Somebody has to fund the project. In SotA, that somebody is us.. the collective community. I'm but a bit player on this grand stage; I know there are a good many people out their with a lot more $ into the project than myself. With that said though...I look at the items I own and the fact is, I didn't buy many of them with the intent on using them personally. I looked at it another way.. I figured I'd just help the project along as an investment in a virtual world I'd like to be a part of. As with any investment in a startup, I have the hopes that I will later be able to recoup my initial investment, preferably with a modest profit. Does that make me a bad guy? Fact is, I could have put every dollar into any number of things that would give me a far better ROI if that was all I was after. It's also a fact that I could see the project go belly up and kiss my $ goodbye. The fact is, I'm not alone; many players have made fairly significant investments in this project. I would submit though that the amount of cash that has flowed in would only have been a fraction of the amount we've raised if there had been a condition when we made our purchases that we would be prohibited from divesting ourselves of those holdings later. In short, for all of you that wanna talk about how RMT has ruined the game the newsflash is this. You wouldn't have a game to complain about if it weren't for us.. the horrid RMT folks. Like it or not, the power company won't take payment in IGG.

Because of our ability to trade assets (and do so openly instead of some shady back alley type deal) I've met some very cool and interesting people; and in some cases, I've been able to assist somebody at a time when they really needed it

Life is funny., who knows? Tomorrow that might be me. Should I not have the option to sell my assets because somebody doesn't think that's "pure" in their eyes.

As far as I'm concerned... those who have been involved in the trading of goods and or services have been helping keep this ship afloat, including for all the so called "purists" who look down their noses at the very people who make their gameplay a possibility. Folks really need to broaden their horizons a bit and try and wrap their heads around the concept that nobody is impacting the way you want to play. The world is big enough for all playstyles. If you don't like RMT fine, but don't try and impose your playstyle on someone else.. What difference should it make to me if somebody wants to compensate my friend Mac for his time? Does it matter if they are able to outpace me by so doing?
Some people have more time, some more disposable income. Another thing which may just be a personal bias it kinda gets me that some people have the expectation that they should benefit from the efforts of others purely gratis. I have a lot more respect for the player that offers some type of compensation than I do for the freeloader; the ones that are always all about "hey can you take me out for some sweet XP.. oh and how about hookin me up with.."

Anyway.. I've rambled on enough..

I applaud the devs for taking a sensible approach to RMT and. The road may have been a little bumpy at times, but I think their intentions have been in the right direction.

ohh ya.. also. thanks to @DarkStarr for his timely clarification of policy today

 

Backing a kickstarter is not equal to buying stock in a company. Conflating the two is ridiculous.

 

Ya know since you brought up kickstarters.. I didn't hear about Shroud during the KS time. The first $ I put into this project was for a $45 account when some other company (I think it was Alien) was matching that with the other $20. By the time I started increasing my holdings things were reasonably well underway but still what I'd call the "startup phase". That said, if I were to back a kickstarter and in return get items I may someday be able to sell is that really a lot different from putting some $ into offerings on the pink sheets? By the by, if it makes you feel any better, I also own stock in port. Do you?

 

It is funny watching everyone contort themselves around this topic - it has been super popcorn material for me the past few days.

I mean this game's economy is designed around RMT. THAT is the big thing that makes it different from games that outright ban RMT. The Developers in games that ban it don't care what the real money value of a particular item is in those games, or whether a development change they make impacts the real money value of items or services. You could be sitting on a grey market goldmine one day, and it would be worthless the nest. It is not a consideration when they make major game changes. This is a big thing to keep in mind.

In SotA, they do - and the devs build the economy around those RMT concerns. So while everyone is going "OMG THERE IS RMT IN EVERY GAME" - which is true - how it impacts the game design is very different.

Not that it matters - at this point it seems like most of the population left in this game are RMTers or people with significant sums pledged. Not really a healthy population to sustain a virtual game world and that makes me sad more than anything else.

 

I am perfectly happy with fact that people with more time to play/have a better understanding of game mechanics than me or indeed anyone else will inevitably have the strongest characters. Thats good, thats how it should be.

If someone gets to that point from a cash for xp exchange in whatever way that undermines the foundation of a game to me especially when it is officially endorsed by Port which I find totally bizarre.

I really dont care where I fit in the "hierarchy", I do care about the ethos of the game.

I hadn't realised that cheating was one of the Virtues promoted by @Lord British or @DarkStarr

 

I had understood very well don't put thoughts in my mind please, I'm just diving deep into the abyss

Even better, if you use RMT to enhance the community, even more power to you

 

and if a player gets "guild bumped" up in levels instead of paying what then? Do you still have the same outrage?

 

How is someone going to get to that point from buying exp from another player? For example, I am lvl 123, so how is someone I exp going to get MORE then me when we are in the same party? Do you see how this is impossible?

 

What makes me more sad is that people are so intensely defending themselves or trying to find a rationale to this that they forget when I say that for a virtual collector steam punk sims on steroids RMT is fine and at home.

Second life did it best... some of my RMT® ex-friends made thousands just selling commodities like milk and doing tatoos for people, stuff like that. When you enter the game tho, you aren't entering a RPG, it isn't pitched as one either, while at the same time it allows you to play any role you like.

What the team is attempting here is a hybrid... but you have all to realize that in the violence of those two colliding moons and ideologies, there is alot of collateral damage, and the finest most sensitive and vulnerable members of our community are those who will be most affected by it.

What I'm trying to say here, is create more space, not create a debate about if its ethical or not. It's ethical in a sims, its not in a RPG, we need a game mode that allows this separation. Thats what portalarium brags about isn't it ? Revolutionary multiplayer capabilities... the more game modes, the more happy people, the more chance of success.

Why I brought up ethics is because I think its the logical way to reach a consensus on what the game /aka the oracle right now decides to do to enhance the RPG feel of the world (since we're stubborn and refuse to create a second server/game mode). If that is impossible then please just tell us to be patient in our suffering but that there is light at the end of a tunnel, and some solution is being designed maybe in the two year plan ?

Siege perilous is not copyrighted, it is the seat of the missing knight of the round table, the missing link to divine ratio : in this case the ratio of separation between the ideologies to reduce collateral damage as much as humanely possible.

 

Think we used to call that twinking back in the good old days of UO.

To be honest no I don't as that is IN GAME co-operation between players which used to be one of the foundations of MMO's rather than how big your wallet is but guess times have changed....

Don't get me wrong I really like this game and hope it succeeds fully. I was going to log on last night for my two hours of grinding xp but in all honesty the knowledge that others could be gaining far more than I possibly could at a similar AL by simply being afk while paying someone else to effectively level them made me feel I just could not be bothered so I went and did something else instead.

In the end its up to all of us as individuals if we are happy with the policy, are unhappy but can live with it or decide we can't.

I suspect I will live with it as I enjoy the game greatly at present. Does not mean I think its right though.

 

Interessting point and for sure something to keep in mind.
But that isn't unusual.
Eve online, where you can sell gametime bought by hard cash for isk.
Albion, where you can sell premium currency for in-game currency.
And, yes, wow, where you can sell gametime for gold.
All those games have to take care that the value of in game gold doesn't slip, otherwise they would devalue their RMT counterparts and vice versa. So they have to think carefully about every change they do because every change you do is connected to the in game currency.

Please explain this assumption.

 

Describing in game items as "holdings" and stock as "pink sheets" LOL I just cant with this. I don't even know where to begin.

 

@Gorthyn

There's a distinct difference between a player selling XP and 'the game' selling XP.

If a player is selling XP, the XP is not artificially created - its not just someone changing a value in a database and saying here you go, that'll be $50.
This scenario I agree would 'have negative repercussions and be a rather irritating "pay to win" scenario - Pay more money, get free levels, that nobody had to earn. Potentially someone could dig deep, drop $50,000, and be the highest level in the game. I mean sure, it'd be a nice cash infusion to the developers, but would as you say, undermine the foundation of the game itself. This is why I'm so glad we don't sell XP potions and crap, because it gives an advantage to 'folks with money'.

However, there is a subtle but significant difference between that, and what is actually happening here.

With a player selling XP, its the same as a player selling anything else - the fruits of their time investment translated into a value. Whether that player spends the time mining ores and selling them, or spends the same time killing mobs for XP and selling that - its still a function of player time translated into value.

A player selling XP cannot do so ad infinitum, the amount that can be sold can only ever equal a portion of what they themselves can earn. So the 'customers' in this scenario can't ever 'buy their way' past the service providers, as there are only 24 hours in a day and I'm pretty sure @Mac2 can run his service for 22 of them. Even if someone were to use non-Mac hours having their character sit and smile prettily for another 'leveller' they would still be hard pressed to get ahead of people attending to their own XP with the same time investment.

I understand where you're coming from - you've played the game a year, and you see this upstart who just created a new character blow past you because they dropped several thousand dollars getting their character levelled up. You are of course free to think whatever you like of this person, if you know (or suspect) that they didn't "earn" it. But it doesn't really affect you, your journey through the game or your interaction through the world. That player is still going to have to gear their character, create and learn how to use a deck, learn the skill system etc. They're just cutting out the months of 'xp grind' to do what they really enjoy. Getting mad at them makes no sense, its not productive, and its not going to change the situation.

As @Solazur pointed out, its really not any different than me dragging a low lvl guildmate around to get them XP for several days to get them up to speed so they can do stuff with the bigger folks. They didn't "earn" it either, the sticky fact here is that they didn't pay "cash" for it either. It still ends up with the same result, a player who is higher level than they normally would have been through means outside their own efforts.

Taking it a step further, I dragged my freshly-created-alt account around with my main account. That 'character' has not earned a single point of XP on her own to get to adv lvl 80, but I personally invested my own time to do it. Is that any different?

By embracing the RMT philosophy this is the situation we're left with. Time is money. As long as someone has to put in the time, I can live with it.

 

Ditto.

 

I think this song speaks of the chaos that lit the eternal blue flame of mages, the nights of wonder.

With friends surrounded.

Good night everyone.

 

Did you forget they offered stock recently for us to buy?

 

How is that relevant to that post?