Pan'Theon: Rise' of th'e Fal'Len - #1 Thread in MMO
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Dullahan
Golden Knight of the Realm
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That's nothing but state sponsored RMT.
The better option is to have a team of people that investigate, track em down and drop the hammer. The thing about a game like Pantheon is that it will be painful to lose accounts used for RMT when they take considerable time to level. It's really not that complicated, most games that police it ban the accounts in a day. I hear trion with AA is really good at it.
I don't personally think it's that big of a deal when it's small time deals between friends, but monitoring the sites where people deal in those sort of virtual items honestly makes it pretty easy to track down.
Arden
Blackwing Lair Raider
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You can't stop it entirely, but you can mitigate it. But like I said, you have to build in tools from the ground up. A big part of successfully mitigating RMT is requiring that every account be linked to a real world item like a credit card. Free trial accounts that don't require authentication are exactly the kind of fodder RMTers use for advertising and delivery.
Second thing you need are tools to track items and currency so that fluctuations and transactions can be monitored and traced.
Third thing you need is a GM staff that knows how to identify RMT and exploits and has the time, resources, and tools to do something about it.
Edit: Full disclosure, that's what I was hired to do at Sigil. We had a small team that did that type of thing (and other stuff, like internal monitoring). We didn't have a lot of what we needed as far as tools (one of the reasons I'm mentioning this now for Pantheon) but we managed to do a little good for the brief period Sigil was running Vanguard live.)
Second thing you need are tools to track items and currency so that fluctuations and transactions can be monitored and traced.
Third thing you need is a GM staff that knows how to identify RMT and exploits and has the time, resources, and tools to do something about it.
Edit: Full disclosure, that's what I was hired to do at Sigil. We had a small team that did that type of thing (and other stuff, like internal monitoring). We didn't have a lot of what we needed as far as tools (one of the reasons I'm mentioning this now for Pantheon) but we managed to do a little good for the brief period Sigil was running Vanguard live.)
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Arden
Blackwing Lair Raider
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Arden They didnt give a fuck once Sony took over. I told Sillius about the duping method in Vanguard and showed him in game and it took 2 months to fix a goddamn dupe method.
Yeah I know. Running a game like this is all about prioritizing and resource allocation. You know that, of course. I'm sure everybody in this thread does. But the reason I mention it is because you are always short on time, money, and manpower. So you really have to make it a priority if you intend to try and tackle RMT stuff.
I hope Pantheon does, though. It's a difficult challenge, but I think it's a fight worth fighting
But, again, this is something Pantheon needs to start thinking about asap. You can't wait
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Dullahan
Golden Knight of the Realm
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I think it's very possible to work to prevent most RMT without anyone feeling like it's a "police state". The only people who should feel policed are the people trying to break the rules.
You'll never catch all of it, but I don't think that's important. It's preventing the gross abuse that comes from major RMT hubs that is most important so it doesn't become widespread.
You'll never catch all of it, but I don't think that's important. It's preventing the gross abuse that comes from major RMT hubs that is most important so it doesn't become widespread.
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Arden
Blackwing Lair Raider
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First thing I thought of was EVE. I made a lot of currency moving product from one hub to another. Most of that may have only worked due to the PVP ability though.
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Utnayan
I Love Utnayan he’s awesome
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The only reason why publishers want to stop RMT is because they aren't seeing a cut/all of the money. On the flip side, if people care enough about spending real money for in game items/money in the game itself, the publisher also sees that as a good thing because people are playing their game.
Ethics in the MMORPG industry died before it was even born.
Only way around it is for the publisher to sell in game currency and under cut the businesses/countries doing it so the publishers get the cash.
Ethics in the MMORPG industry died before it was even born.
Only way around it is for the publisher to sell in game currency and under cut the businesses/countries doing it so the publishers get the cash.
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ZyyzYzzy
RIP USA
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I'm not a fan of the WoW tokens/krono system, and would rather just a sub fee.
I'm more inclined with the latter to give a new player cool items or help put with in game plats because I'm not going to go to a third party site to sell (or buy) shit. With the token system, I'm more inclined to sell everything, hoard tokens for game time or amassing plats like a greedy one of
them)
I'm more inclined with the latter to give a new player cool items or help put with in game plats because I'm not going to go to a third party site to sell (or buy) shit. With the token system, I'm more inclined to sell everything, hoard tokens for game time or amassing plats like a greedy one of
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Arden
Blackwing Lair Raider
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I can tell you with full certainty that the crew I worked with at Sigil was fully dedicated to stopping RMT because everyone believed RMT was not a good thing for the game.
I can't speak to other studios.
Yeah the token system isn't perfect.
Maybe we just don't give a fuck? I never cared about RMT when I played EQ.
If we just prevent the annoying spam then who cares if people buy accounts. We will know if they are shit.
Oh and we have to stop gold FARMING. If not every FBSS camp will have 6 rangrangs 24/7 on it.
Utnayan
I Love Utnayan he’s awesome
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Studios yes. Notice I said publishers.
Either way, don't think for a second that if there was a way to make money off it without pissing off the fan base it wouldn't have been done. Those meetings are higher level obviously.
As it stands, there is no way to fight it unless you make money a no drop item which would kill off an in game economy. So the only way to really do it, will be to sell it yourself and undercut. Unless there were a massive amount of security systems/tricks in place which are not going to be invested in anyway.
End all, when people are buying in game currency via farmers, they paid money to advance faster or make life easier. They are still playing the game. Another reason for being concerned about it was due to the fact EQ had a long leveling curve with items that were sought after on long spawn timers, hence, longer subscriptions for players to keep them vested. Buying the carrot ate into that. So that's why they gave a shit to begin with - not because of ethics in gaming. Another reason we saw trivial loot tests for EQ in early EQ. Twinking ate into subscriptions because they thought people would level faster and go through content faster, hence, quitting faster. (Obviously twinking was a way to keep the game fresh and that never happened so they dropped the idea after the feedback and data came in)
In the end, some designers and developers care about the ethics of it, most don't. The some gamers do, some gamers don't, and in the end, the publisher will do whatever makes them the most - and high management will do whatever it takes to bring in more royalties.
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Arden
Blackwing Lair Raider
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If you have an open-market in-game commerce system (as I definitely favor), you can't stop RMT. I think that's ok. The worst part of RMT (imo) isn't the out of game money changing hands, it's the effect it has in game a la spammers and farmers who are hogging game assets for the sole purpose of RMT.
So if you can stop the worst offenders and reduce the in-game impact as much as possible, I'd call that a victory. But, again, even just stopping the worst of it and letting the small stuff go takes a significant investment of resources-- an investment I think is worthwhile.
So if you can stop the worst offenders and reduce the in-game impact as much as possible, I'd call that a victory. But, again, even just stopping the worst of it and letting the small stuff go takes a significant investment of resources-- an investment I think is worthwhile.
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