[MUD-Dev] banning the sale of items

[Ryan Palacio]

Matthew Mihaly wrote:

> This might be horribly naive, as I haven't given it much thought, but if
> people want to buy these things, why the hell is Verant making them go
> offline to do it? If Verant believes that it is impossible to stop, why
> not try to exploit it? We supplement our income quite nicely by selling
> items. We've not sold characters, but there's no reason we couldn't.
> Personally, if I were Verant, I'd mainly be pissed that I'm not getting a
> piece of the action.

By a large number of people, it is considered unethical and detracting from
the game.  The use of OOC resources to affect in-game experiences pits
people vs people.  Some people do not have the funds to acquire objects that
others do if this was implemented.  To these same people, the environment is
an RPG, and therefore mutually exclusive of RL.  This leads to the
perception that the RPG environment and game _should_ be a level playing
field devoid of RL influence.

Richard Garriot proposed a while back to allow people ingame to actually
make money thereby transferring the middleman position from eBay and like
sites to EA/Origin.  When first proposed it was a very controversial issue.
I believe it still would be in any similar game.  It would also alienate
alot of the player/customer base, since most tend to be "casual" gamers with
other financial responsibilities.  They do not want to be in a
work/business/RL oriented environment when that is exactly what they are
trying to escape.

~Ryan Palacio




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