[MUD-Dev] Blacksnow revisted

[Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com]

From: Caliban Tiresias Darklock [mailto:caliban at darklock.com]
> From: <Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com>
 
>> In the Anarchy Online case, the items they were selling were
>> apparently all duped/farmed using exploits which is how the BSI
>> characters were identified.
 
> The AO statement about exploitation isn't really relevant to the
> Mythic case. The Mythic case is about Dark Age of Camelot, and no
> similar allegation was raised by Mythic.

So its forunate I'm discussing the AO side of things here right? ;)

>> Does it really matter if BSI is allowed to sell things online -
>> the issue in this case is if games are allowed to ban players
>> when it can be demonstrated such action will cause financial
>> loss.

> That's an instructive way of putting it. I don't think anyone
> would dispute that someone who cheats at some game or other should
> be banned and the game's administration is perfectly justified in
> doing it.

Thats exactly what black snow are arguing in the AO case. They are
arguing that its causing them enormous financial loss. Whether or
not they take it to court we don't yet know as frankly solicitor's
letters are worthless by themselves.

> But that's not what you said. You said the issue is whether games
> can ban players when it will cost them money. That's an issue that
> doesn't even seem to make any sense.

I agree, but it's not my contention. It's black snow's.

> There are still *several* issues in this case. Who "owns" the
> character? Who "owns" the items the character has in his
> inventory? Can a player legitimately transfer his account? Can a
> player legitimately transfer his character's inventory? Is the
> legitimacy of either transfer affected by whether real-world money
> changes hands? Can you ban a player from your game because you
> don't like what he does *outside* the game?
 
> Ultimately, however, only one or two issues will be resolved. The
> rest of them will stay up in the air for people like us to discuss
> on lists like this. ;)

One has to wonder if they can actually run their business profitably
without cheating. In AO there are so many items flowing through,
only certain rare items are worth a lot. Their chances of getting
them are no better than anyone elses without cheating. DAoC is so
completely anti-twink, using equipment targetted at higher levels is
worthless.

In the end, if it was that easy to farm items in these games there
wouldn't be much demand for them surely? I just looked at the prices
on EQ items, and frankly the time vs money to get the items is
probably worse than working at McDonalds. This suggests its not a
scaleable enterprise and supports my suspician that one needs to
cheat to make it viable.

Dan
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