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

[Madman Across the Water]

Brian 'Psychochild' Green wrote:
> 
> Using the 45-year-old exec and the 14-year-old student example above,
> why would the exec want to play in a game where time spent in the game
> is rewarded, as it is in most commercial MUDs?  The student will almost
> always have more time to dedicate to the game, and will therefore always
> be more powerful than the exec.  Why is this "fair"?

I realize that I am strongly in the minority when it comes to this
concern, but the reason I find it more "fair", or at least acceptable,
to give the advantage to time over out of game money is that it isn't
fiction breaking. If I am playing Goldenflame the Paladin, as I so often
do (he's had  his share of deaths in both text MUDs and UO :), and I
devote hours of time and Goldenflame acquires the longsword "Ezwilden",
then _he_ earned it. He spent the time and overcame the obstacles and
earned it.
I'm sure someday someone will come up with (or has already come up
with?) a way to make spending real world dollars on an item work out
within the game. But I am a stickler for fiction breaking. (That's
another discussion entirely, really.)
Now in some games the feeling of being "in game" is so weak that this
might not be such a big deal. But even the ammount of immersion I get in
UO would be broken if someone could acquire something through a RL
transaction (in the same way it is broken when someone gains an item by
duping, for instance).

  Adam



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