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

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Thu, 14 Sep 2000 yvesk at brutele.be wrote:

> If you think about it, it is almost the opposite of role playing, 
> instead of trying to immerse in an imaginary personality, you carry
> on your real life social status, as well as its related problems, in
> there, it' rather be a Massively-Multiplayer-Online-Role-PAying-
> Game.

Right. You mean just like the way you carry the amount of free time you
have, the language you speak, the fundamental assumptions in your
worldview, etc etc into a mud?

 
> on Thu, 14 sept 2000, Matthew Mihaly wrote:
> >...
> >Better equipment will improve mychances some, but a truly good
> >skiier is going to trash me no matter howmuch I spend on 
> >equipment. Similarly, I could go out and buy the bestestgolf clubs 
> >in the world and still have not a chance in hell against 
> >TigerWoods, even if he was using only a putter.
> >...
> 
> That is right, whatever the price of your equipment, your skill
> matters much more, of course, and specially if you include the 
> laymen in the comparison, but now, if you speak about a 
> professional level, earning an advantage thanks to lots of money 
> generally involves either corruption or doping, that is cheating, 
> because people indeed expect sport to be a fair game. They may 
> be disappointed at the reality of it and that is also maybe why 
> some expects something more idealized, maybe utopic... well, fair, 
> in a designed virtual reality with the purpose of being entertaining.

Erm, no, earning an advantage with lots of money _generally_ involves
better training facilities, better trainers and coaches, the latest in
performance analysis technology, and so on. 

 
> Now, business is business, I have no intent to prevent some to try
> this kind of plan, and I could even wish them good luck. However,
> what I allow myself to criticize is the usual lack of information
> about what they are really selling, which, at some point, becomes
> hypocrisy, "this game may cost you more than the monthly fee if 
> you want to be competitive", have you read that on any game official
> homepage, whatever their eyebrows angle on the subject of Ebay or
> even if they offer that service to their players themselves? I don't.

No, and why should they? I don't see any advantage in it for Everquest to
post that sort of thing on their web page.
--matt




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