Ditto… except…
WoW character recustomization is one form of RMT* that I find acceptible, however. It does nothing to affect gameplay, so let the newbs swap genders and get DragonballZ haircuts all day long (their micropayments may even help subsidize an eventual monthly payment decrease).
Character Transfers are another form of RMT that I’m not opposed to. The only exception would be if the game used a finite material-like system (like UO’s original system) where transferring a character with items could throw off the balance by removing material from one “shard” and adding it to another.
Restrings and color customization is also an acceptable form of RMT for me unless the customized form of the item is also available in the loot pool. If colored armor sets are available in drops, they should not be available via RMT because they represent a player’s “hard earned effort” to collect said armor. Another form of this is organizations. If I am a member of the Order of the Blue Star, I wouldn’t mind paying for a cloak bearing my guild’s crest.
Any form of RMT that is visible in-game to other players should be flagged as such (possibly by a badge next to the player’s name or in his profile). This could do several things: advertise that the red armor set is only available via RMT, advertise that the player is a lazy, spoiled rich kid, advertise that the player is narcissistic, or advertise that the player is very centered on roleplaying.
The key to incorporating RMT in a game is to not spoil the core gameplay by tipping the balance toward the RMTers.
* For the uninitiated, RMT = Real Money Trading – a form of virtual economy where players can spend real money for virtual goods/services in a game.
December 29th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Agreed… except that as far as I’m concerned, the “balance” is presently heavily skewed to the subscriber with way too much free time. To find a better “balance” point, the economies will have to lean to the RMT side, at least compared to where they are today. Ideally, neither the time-rich nor the money-rich should have an edge over the other.
Whether that means they have access to the same stuff, or there are exclusive-but-balanced items for each group, I’m not much fussed over. Either could work… but a dual currency model that gives everyone access to the same stuff, purchasable via time or cash, would mean less dev time trying to suss out the balance of two groups of exclusive stuff, and would be more “fair”.