Selling online items and eBay

[Nadril]

hehe I can already see some people rolling their eyes here. :D Anyways:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Just for the note: I have little exact knowledge of the details of both WoW and EQ2's economies, although I do have a rough idea in what sense they differ from RuneScape's economy).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I do believe that those powerful items are very comparable with RuneScape's discontinued items in the sense that it are the most sought after items in the game. Such items, in every MMOG, suffer from inflation due to the way most of these games economies are set up in the first place. You have to be really wary in attributing any of that happening due to other reasons.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ofcourse they are not comparable in the sense that you don't "need" / use rares for anything other then showing off. This is not true for those powerful items in other games so I am aware that, with regards to RMTing it's not perfect to compare them like that, however with regards to general game inflation they can be compared.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bg difference is that runescapes discontinued items can no longer enter the economy, only exit. the 'rare items' in games such as WoW and EQ II will generaly cotinue to be put into the game (but also taken out because once its on a guy its on them forever).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have an issue with the way you claim he could have had 100g so easily - keep in mind you are more or less talking about higher inflation / overall wealth because of that too, but I'll get back to that later in this post.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't see where the problem is. Its pretty easy to hop online and pay, say, $50 for 100g. What I'm trying to get at isn't inflation but the fact that this lower level payer can get an abnormal ammount of cash for his level. 100g may be common at higher levels but at lower its quite different.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A contraversional assumption already. Realize that most legit individual sellers are people who initially had no intention to sell at all, but who do it as a way of "cashing out of the game". Generally, individuals start selling gold when they have enough of the game and want to quit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I can see plenty of people joining the RMT allowed server for merely that reason and many of them may never show up on the buying side (and as long as they play not at the supply side either) of the RMT market.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes there are sellers but it can be asumed that there are going to be plenty of buyers, right? You are right that not *everyone* does but I would think its safe to say a decent percentage does. (enough to make a difference)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Again, realize that you're implying an overall higher wealth / gp total. That is a whole different topic and still should not matter to those who don't participate in the RMTing, back on that in a second.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why not? It is a direct effect of what RMT causes. If you buy money in game chances are you probaly will be richer than a lot of players who do not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I like it that you come up with this example, because it allows me to explain why there are some fallacies in your theory. You more or less seem to claim that the overall wealth on RMT allowed servers is higher then on the RMT disallowed servers and that therefore the prices are higher (read: China vs America).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keeping the RL analogy, you should also have mentioned that wages in China are significantly lower than in America. Therefore (let's assume this for a second, it's not completely true in RL, but I need to make a point) people in China can buy just as many products with their monthly salary as American's in America. However, this also means that the standard of living in both places is the same. Compare this with the RMT disallowed versus RMT allowed servers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now yes, someone who moves from America (RMT allowed) to China (RMT disallowed) is extremely wealthy, however this is not possible in these games!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In short I am more or less just saying: if we double the amount of money people have then the relative prices of everything stays the same and so does the overall standard of living. Thus it makes no difference.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ill put it a different way:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Think of a man from china working on an average wage gain (for china) but living in a world where things cost like they do in america. Sure, he could get lucky (in the MMO sense now) and find a good item that could sell well but that would be all based off of luck there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The procentual arguement would go for anything though and that would mean that everything in the game should be priced higher by a certain factor, but I don't believe that's what you were saying earlier.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I do admit I think I screwed up right there in the theory(ness). From what I think would happen is that the higher end up items would gain a larger boost in price than the lower end items.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I could see that one comming, but you are focussing on the wrong aspect. Point is that both a person who practices little and a person who practices much begin completely equally in any match of chess. This is simply not true for someone who starts playing RuneScape now versus someone who started playing a year ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you want my full opinion: I don't believe (full) equality in MMOG's is needed and perhaps not even wanted. I personally don't even think we should be calling these things "games" but rather refer to them as "virtual worlds", because that is what they are. However, that's a whole different topic and I'd suggest a new thread for that if you want to discuss that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, I do believe allowance of RMTing makes it so that a new player can 'equalize' himself with someone who started a year ago by buying a certain amount of gold. For example, say person A starts a year ago and only merchants and has now 100mil and person B starts now and buys 100mil with real money then the game is equalized for person B, which seems fair towards both players.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't forget: player A still has the advantage of game knowledge, but that is comparable to the practice advantage someone who plays soccer 5 hours a day has vs someone who plays soccer 1 hour a day and such an advantage is widely accepted as "fair" too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah to be honest I wasn't sure to try and use that argument or not. RMT'ing has the largest effect on games which are more inclined to be gear based while in games that are largly based off of player skill RMT'ing has less of an effect. I might try and expand on this idea a bit later, nearly off work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those goals are still not widely accepted as ultimate goals though. There are no ultimate goals for MMOG's.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok you are correct that there are no 'ultimate goals' in MMO's, in fact, the ultimate goal can be different for every kind of player. It isn't a go from "A to B" kind of deal such as single player games are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However what I was trying to get across was that in PvP RMT has a good chance of imbalancing things such as gearing out a large guild greatly or even perhaps having enough money to throw into 'zerg rushes' (if the game is really open PvP full loot rules).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Less true for the third age armour, but their prices merely seem to reflect their rarity. There does not seem to be some sort of "additional RMT fee", that you'd suggest there is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't really think runescape is effected that much by RMT's, at least, not compared to the general community. Since most of runescape is generaly played by younger players they don't have acess to or even know of the ability to buy online gold (albit illegal in game).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

my god this post is huge

[Duke_Freedom]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The problem I have with the claim that RMTing has a negative effect on the games economy is that I simply cannot come up with a reason why it would. Even if I assume that it somehow influences it, I cannot figure out why it would.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Basically we can describe a game with RMTing as follows:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sellers (of gold)

 

 

 

Neutrals

 

 

 

Buyers (of gold)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The neutrals just play their game as usual, nothing changes about that. The sellers need to get gold in some way to sell to the buyers, they have several ways of doing that:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Merchanting / pking / staking: This does not change anything to the amount of gold nor the amount of items in the game and therefore can't change anything to the prices of said items. Let's call them together market neutral.

 

 

 

- Gathering of gold: Leads to increase in total amount of gp ingame, however in most games the gathering of pure gold is not the best money maker; I don't know how this is for WoW and EQ2 ofcourse. Even if it is, an overall increase of gp leads to higher prices of all items, in theory at least.

 

 

 

- Gathering of materials: Leads to lower prices of materials.

 

 

 

- Gathering of high-end items: Leads to lower prices of said items.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now if you ask me, I'd say that most "legit" sellers are either players who quit the game (and should thus have an equal relation of gold, materials and high-end items compared to the total economy) and those who get too much cash by 'just playing the game' (the market neutrals). Getting high-end items, materials or pure gold is simply not an option for *"legit" sellers, as that is not cost effective in time at all (aka you better get a real job then ;)).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Ofcourse in reality a lot of RMTing also takes place by people running bots gathering materials: but again, it is the macroing that effects the economy in that case, not the act of RMTing)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(* = This is indeed more complex if we consider chinese farmers who don't use bots, as I already mentioned more or less earlier in a post and that is, in my opinion, the only weak point of allowance of RMTing. Even then I still don't know how bad that would really be though)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now the buyers spend their cash:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Buying of materials: Should even out with the gathering of materials by the sellers.

 

 

 

- Buying of high-end items: Should even out with gathering of high-end items by the items.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now there is one reason why this doesn't exactly even out. The sellers could have gained most cash by market neutral ways. Market neutral itself means redistributing wealth from other players to yourself. By selling gold the market neutrals simply redistribute the money they earn from theirself to another player. This is roughly the same as if that other player gained the money himself by merchanting / staking / pking and should thus not have extreme effect if you ask me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope this post was not too vague so that you could follow what I am saying.

[Duke_Freedom]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bg difference is that runescapes discontinued items can no longer enter the economy, only exit. the 'rare items' in games such as WoW and EQ II will generaly cotinue to be put into the game (but also taken out because once its on a guy its on them forever).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hm I would consider them quite similiar due to draining effect. It ensures a large, continous drain on those items, keeping them rare.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't see where the problem is. Its pretty easy to hop online and pay, say, $50 for 100g. What I'm trying to get at isn't inflation but the fact that this lower level payer can get an abnormal ammount of cash for his level. 100g may be common at higher levels but at lower its quite different.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The problem is is that you are claiming players have much more money while at the same time claiming that this is true for many players. This implies that you are more or less claiming that there is much more gold in such a server compared to one without, which already explains higher prices without needing to speak of RMTing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes there are sellers but it can be asumed that there are going to be plenty of buyers, right? You are right that not *everyone* does but I would think its safe to say a decent percentage does. (enough to make a difference)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just remember that everything bought needs to be sold as well. :P And if there are many buyers while the price of the game gold is not extreme this implies that there are many sellers as well. If there are many more buyers than sellers then this doesn't make sense with higher prices on powerfull items, because most buyers would probably be buying smaller amounts then and not large amounts which they'd use for powerful items.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Think of a man from china working on an average wage gain (for china) but living in a world where things cost like they do in america. Sure, he could get lucky (in the MMO sense now) and find a good item that could sell well but that would be all based off of luck there...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...I do admit I think I screwed up right there in the theory(ness). From what I think would happen is that the higher end up items would gain a larger boost in price than the lower end items.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The analogy is not very (completely) applicable though because you agree that other items that normal players use to get cash in the game seem to rise in price too.

[meili]

However I have yet to see a good way of handeling RMT other than their own special servers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maplestory and other Asian-based games. :roll:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nice posts Duke and Nadril.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I just stand by my view that RMT is not inherently evil. It gives game developers a good alternative to traditional subscription-based MMORPGs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Besides the whole RMT (as in buying in game gold/money) is based on a heavily item/wealth oriented game... er in other words games like RS. :mrgreen: This is not necessarily true in other games though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plus, the casual player has no need for "enormous wealth" anyway as most games are structured so that you are well able to get as much as you need for your level. For example, I am playing as a lvl 29 paladin in an MMORPG - what would I do with 10 million gold? My armor can be bought for 20,000! At each level armor prices go up but the drops from mobs also become more/better, allowing you to gather as much gold as you need anyway. Buying higher level armor in advance won't help because my char doesn't have the level to wear it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's nothing a low/mid level player can do with RMT in that kind of game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hmm in conclusion, RMT only harms if

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- the game was nto designed for RMT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- the game is heavily dependent on wealth (rather than levels)

[Soulfire21]

I look at it like this - as long as the seller recognizes that Jagex is the intellectual owner of the property, and not him/her, than it is fine. So long as it is stated in the auction that Jagex is the owner of the item(s).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In fact, Jagex could capitalize off of in-game services for money. Some would argue that "it takes the fun away" - but if people have the money and are willing to spend it, why should Jagex turn them down? Jagex should encourage the market, not seek to destroy it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For instance, UO (Ultima Online) offers in-game services to their players for money. It's a neat idea, and works to generate extra revenue. Granted, there are limits that UO sets on their services, you can't just buy your way to the top.