[MUD-Dev] banning the sale of items

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Wed, 12 Apr 2000, Ryan Palacio wrote:

> 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.

Unethical, unschmethical. A lot of people consider it unethical to charge
for muds. So what. They are a fairly poor customer base, as they're cheap. 

If the RPG environment and game should be a level playing field devoid of
RL influence, then why has Verant set up its game so that your success in
it is dominated by an RL factor: time. Time is a resource, and it is
one that must be spent to play Everquest. However, because of bandwidth
concerns, player time has negative value to you. You don't WANT them to
spend that resource on EQ if you can help it.

Money is also an rl resource. It is, however, one which you want players
to give you, and as much as possible per player. A player who gives you
$1000 at once for something is worth more than 100 players paying you one
month subscription fee, because that single player isn't going to use
anywhere near the bandwidth. 

Again, I'm not saying that selling items IS the way to go, but I AM saying
that all the arguments I've heard against it are pretty ill-thought-out.

--matt




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