[MUD-Dev] Are eBay sales more than just a fad?

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Wed, 13 Sep 2000, Nathan Clemons wrote:

> On Wed, 13 Sep 2000, Matthew Mihaly wrote:
> 
> 
> *Some* players do. Most admins don't. A lot of players don't. A lot of
> players do NOT want to have to compete against people who have advanced by
> thier IRL merits as opposed to their IC/IG merits. I stand in the latter
> two categories... as an admin of a "hobbyist" MUD, I'd never countenance
> the enhancement of characters via IRL payment. As a player of EverQuest,
> the concept of what eBay has made possible for the idiots who say "sow
> plz, d00d" makes me shudder inside and instinctively want to recoil.

So basically you want a game completely devoid of any sort of skill
that a total moron can play successfully, right? Skill and intelligence
are, after all, real-life merits. That's all fair enough I suppose, but I
don't have any problem with real-life attributes making a difference, and
frankly, neither does anyone I know, including you. You just don't want
one particular real-life attribute to make a difference (money...nevermind
that you can't even play Everquest without regularly paying money), but
I'd imagine you're happy to have "free time devoteable to Everquest"
affect the game, no? I don't see why one is any better or worse than
another. In Everquest currently the people with the advantage are the
people with the most free time 'irl'.

As for Everquest and Ebay, shudder all you like, but fighting against it
is just beating your head against a wall. Small text muds might be able to
regulate it to some extent, but the large muds don't have a prayer of
stopping it. Better to ride the wave than to try, without success, to
fight it. 

In the end, we live in a delightfully capitalist world, where anything of
value can be bought, sold, and traded. To expect games to be any different
is silly. Contrary to what some people might like to claim, there's no
such thing as truly being "in-role" in a way that is seperate from the
person playing that character. Your character is just part of the real
you, and things in the game are part of the real world. 

--matt




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