[MUD-Dev] RE: A world without charity

[Dave Rickey]

From: "Castronova, Edward" <ecastronova at Exchange.FULLERTON.EDU>
> Eamonn wrote:

>> I started to wonder why players can trade items for money, and
>> the answer is simple, because in game mechanics generally allow
>> you to hand an item over to a player and to recieve nothing in
>> return, an act of charity. So this got me thinking, if the game
>> prevented acts of charity such that all you could do with an item
>> was junk it (i.e. remove it from the game world, not drop it) or
>> trade it for an equally valuable item what would this do to the
>> game world?

> I've had exactly the same questions and come up with exactly the
> same answers: ban financial and material charity and you eliminate
> 99 percent of eBaying, as well as a host of other problems. And I
> am just as eager to hear what the devs have to say. I haven't been
> behind the scenes, so I can't see much of a downside. What are we
> missing?

One man's twinking is another man's community-building excercise.
How can you tell people "You can't help out your buddy" and expect
them to form a community?  Guilds originally formed as
twinking/powerlevelling tools, after all.

--Dave
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