SOeBAY

Over the last 24 hours I’ve experienced a myriad of gushing emotions. And boy, did they gush. Astonishingly, these emotions, gushing thusly, were not the result of drugs. More importantly, they were not my own.

After posting my initial canned response to the announcement that seemed so much of a better April Fools joke idea than “We are a smorgasbord. Heh. Heh.”, I bit my tongue. Hard. I knew my opinion to this announcement, but was I the only one experiencing this conundrum? Reactions to Smed’s Excellent/Bogus Adventure ranged from the bipolared academic, the middle-ground mainstream, to the staunch no-noers, and then over to the liberated future virtual entrepreneurs. Once the gushing emotions began to ebb, it seemed I indeed was left alone on my crappy little island. And not one friggin’ coconut to be had either. (What the hell does that mean?)

Let me say this right now, just to clear up any confusion;

I. Do. Not. Like. The. Secondary. Market.

I’m with Aggro, Lum the Still-Mad-But-Holding-It-In-For-The-Sake-Of-Employment, and Sir Richard Bartle, Savior of the Universe. The secondary market bends a MMO in a way it was not designed to be bent. And as a game designer this miffs me. It’s the exact same reason I put all those sleepless nights into fixing bugs and exploits. It’s that same reason I pour of a design document for hours on end outlining the boundaries of what a player could possibly want to do, and then giving them enough room to achieve it. This is done because whether you like it or not, even the game that offers the most freedom for a player has the strictest rules set down in stone. Perhaps you can call it egotism because I’d like a game to be played the way it was designed, but hey, I thought that was the point of a game – to have fun with dynamic laws within a predefined boundary.

What the secondary market attempts to do is infringe upon those invisible, yet clearly set boundaries by bringing in not just any outside influence, but the biggest outside influence of them all – cold hard cash. To pick at some analogies, no, this is not like creating unfairness on a sports field by paying some extra cash so Coach A’s team is better than Counch B. Hell, that happens all the time in professional sport. It’s called having a rich franchise. And no, it’s not quite like paying $20 under the table for an extra Ace in poker or an extra +2 to your Stamina in D&D, although those two are coming awfully close to hitting the nail on the head.

Simply put, MMOs and the secondary market are an analogy all of its own. When you’ve got someone as wonderful and frightening at the same time as a community of humans directly affecting one another with their actions within an artificial world, well, you throw out the Big Book of Analogies. Instead we’re left with people executing influence on a game from outside it’s boundaries; people buying a sword made special for a reason  (which doesn’t necessarily mean needing to camp 5 eye-gougingly hours for it) instead of, you know, actually playing the game.

And this is the point in my blind semi-hops induced state where I say “Don’t get me wrong”. I’ve got no problem with buying things in exchange for real world bling-bling… if the game was designed to handle it and use that exchange within its rules. Or in the case of Second Life, its lack of rules. But, as it stands, no MMO has done so. And honestly, who will be brave enough to make that leap? I’m sure many will be watching this SOeBay experiment with baited breath.

And so, that leads us into the topic at hand - SOeBay. To understand the reasons for this backflip (part 45 in a series!) from SOE you’ve got to, well, understand their reasons for it.

1) Money. It makes the world go round. Have enough of it and the world might even let your session go all night. It’s unashamedly clear SOE is now in the secondary market brokerage for the money. John “Don’t let this chance go to waste! Invest now!” Smedley admits it. We had the entrée with /pizza.

But really, who can fault them here (there’s already so much we can fault them for)? If someone is making money – a shitload of money- off your game, why shouldn’t you have a piece if that’s what you’re in the business for? If you’re in the business for making a fun game you might have that special thing Lum calls “integrity”. Take a guess at which theory SOE subscribes to.

2) When you can’t beat them, join them. Which is kind of an odd thing to say when you consider the recent bannings of EQII bots/farmers caused IGE listings of EQII items/cash to all but vanish. But apparently SOE felt they couldn’t win. Either that, or point 1) has greater pull.

Six years of EQ has shown that an EULA and a stern “No, don’t sell items. You are bad.” doesn’t cut it against the secondary market. Unless players don’t mind seeing a band-aid fix such as the NoDrop tag on every and all items, or a limit to how many trades a player can make per month (and I strongly suspect they would mind), redesigning the game to exclude this unwanted practice isn’t feasible. Hence why until we see a game designed from the ground up to incorporate a closed market, the secondary market will continue to thrive in today’s MMO market. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

 

So today we are left with the current SOE – the little dutch kid with his fingers in the dyke to temporarily plug up the hole, whilst taking a big gulp of water for himself whenever possible.

So, will SOE’s actions, rather than actually taking on the big job and fixing the damn holes, have the desired effect? Will the farmers and sellers migrate to the designated servers so we can have a happy happy la la ending where everyone ends up on top?

My gut says is no.

The reason for that is two-fold.

1) Competition. Picking up all the people that want real money for their items and throwing them into the one place (why do I get images of a prison?) is going to cause problems. “WTS 3P for $100! $90! Ok, ok, $70! $40?” types of problems. You know, over-supply types of problems. And the players know this. This is why many item/currency (irrency!) sellers will remain on their current servers. Hell, even SOE admitted they have a tough time catching them and have to devote 40% of their CR time to it. They’ve gotten away with it before – why stop now?

2) Community. Most irrency sellers aren’t loners. Believe it or not. They have friends. They have guilds. They have friends in guilds on the same servers as them. They even have repeat business. This, to them, is a good thing. Why any sane person would up and leave on a community that has fostered their individual and working relationships is beyond me. It’s also beyond them. A server or two that allows them to do something they have been doing up until now won’t tear them from friends nor business.

Smed’s Brave New Virtual World may also have an unfortunate side-effect in the form the blurring of the lines that determine irrency selling is bad on most servers, mmmkay. “If people were doing it before, and all those people on SOeBay servers 1 and 2 are doing it, why can’t I? I mean, I don’t want to leave my friends just for a couple of sales.”. A larger can of worms may just have been opened.

This drama of course needs to be played out before we can cheer or jeer the results. Or make fun of SOE because of the lawsuit brought against them for a lost weapon due to a server crash. But damned if it’s not going to be one interesting ride. Meanwhile, I’ll just nod my head to Bartle’s comment “If other virtual worlds follow suit, in 5 years' time people will be wondering why anyone ever used to think these things were ever fun.” and sadly increase the limit on my credit card.

Comments

[D-0ne]

"used to think these things were ever fun."

They aren't fun now. This is why I buy plat now. If I didn't I couldn't enjoy your games as the time required to obtain fun is fucking too steep. Stop putting work in your fucking games. Go ahead poo poo me, I went over my pay pal statements last night, SOE didn't get my $4k dollars over the last year SOE got $99.99. How that integrity treating ya? Its not integrity it a stupid and flwed notion that tedium is required for fun to be fun.

Guys if you were right there would be no secondary market. Raph? Raph? Raph? Someone think about this shit correctly and now.

This is the point where we need Raph who is generally old school, yesterday's news, been there, done that, tried, true, broken, rinse and repeat to actually say something as this is one area where he can still add value.

Come on Raph tell them why people buy plat when all they'd really have to do is two box if they could... Two boxing secondary market same thing isn't it Raph?

[D-0ne]

One new thought? Why is unlimited play time and two boxing okay but when the only resource I can throw at your fucking games is cold hard cash I'm evil? I'm sorry I enjoy your game but I'm not the child of the wealthy or someone who is willing to lose their job or flunk out of school or abandon my family to play your game.

[Zam]

D-one you make good points. Which is probably why i've given up on sinking time into online games and putting it into working for real money.
I'll play Guild wars when it comes out for one reason - it's just Diablo 2 rapped in a PvP shell. Fun, but ultimately not time consuming.

[Grinless]

D-One,

I am exactly in the same position you are, my freetime is almost non-existent and I sure do hate with a burning passion the current "timesink" design of current MMORPGs...

The thing is: when a game no longer support my casual playstyle, I simply quit the game.

Try it, it works everytime.

Hell, you might even considered quitting the whole hobby if you cannot commit enough time to it.

Please, just do not rape a game (a.k.a. buying friom the secondary market) because it was not intended to support people with your (or mine) busy lifestyle.

- Grinless

[Rand 'al Thor]

"SOE didn't get my $4k dollars over the last year SOE got $99.99"

Before I respond just want clarification

Eh 4k...on game items????

[Michael]

The problem is that game designers can't come up with anything better than to waste your time farming for items and then have the gall to call it fun. Newsflash! It's not fun! If that's the best you can come up with as a game designer, you need to look for work elsewhere. Perhaps as a prison warden.

There is so much fun to be had in MMORPGs, but grinding for items is not one of the fun things to do. Having the item is fun. Questing for the item is fun. Killing the same mob for 4 hours or doing the same 4 hour instance over and over again to get an item is not fun.

If you think your games fun will be destroyed by placing a monetary value on the items in your game as opposed to a random time value, your game was never fun.

An idea? Instances drop loot, instances are a challenge, once you have defeated an instances let people who choose to, pay for the loot that can drop in that instance. They haven't skipped any content, they haven't bought their way through content, they have just traded a time sink for a money sink.

From the developers point of view, your content has been utilised, from the publishers point of view people either pay more long term (because it takes longer to get their items) or they pay more short term (just pay for the items), from the players perspective time rich players can laugh at the money rich players for having to pay for something they got free, and the money rich players can laugh at the time rich players because they did something else with their time.

[Spekdah]

It's the clash of ethos!

For a little while in those virgin years, this terrain was free from RL, hell you could say it was too much of an escapism for many, how the hell else would we come up with terms like catarse :p

But commercialism seeks out anything that has potential, weather that vendor/product likes it or not.

I remember a long time ago playing EQ, and hearing a student blag about his virtual items, he had a one-up on his commercial reality. It just isn't the case anymore unless a product goes well out of it's way design wise to avoid being used by a secondary market. Too some thats a sad day.

Persoanlyl I don't play these games anymore, IMO they are crap when compared to the current crop of single player games and I am waiting, likely for a long time for a decent one to come out that simply does not suck.

[Tale]

This D-One poser writes about how MMOGs are not fun. He says he can't enjoy them until he spends bucketloads of cash cheating, to buy in-game items.

That is not something that should have received the response "you make some good points" and "I am in the same position you are". He should have been told he's a fucking addict with a problem.

[Brask Mumei]

Why shouldn't instances ALWAYS drop the item?

Why should I have to kill Mob X more than once to get the shiny? If killing Mob X is the journey, why should I keep doing the same journey until the random number generator smiles on me?

You know that thing called integrity? It cuts both ways. Game developers have already sacrificed their integrity!

When you put in delaying tactics to keep people in your game so as to extract another monthly bill from them, you have chosen money over gameplay! You have already broken the back of "fun" on the altar of "keep people playing longer". So don't go lecturing the players about "integrity" until you make a game designed around fun and not addiction.

A simple litmus test: a game designed around fun will have people quitting the game *happy* rather than quitting the game *burned out*.

[Michael]

You've hit the nail square on the head Brask. Developers need to get real about making games fun, not getting worried about the secondary market removing the monotony masquerading as content.

[D-0ne]

"Eh 4k...on game items????"

Various games. All on coin.

I'm a game raper!

[D-0ne]

"He should have been told he's a fucking addict with a problem."

When the average played time for one of these games is 20 hours a week... I find a way to play at most 4 hours a week. I think I solved a problem my way. You solve it your way.

Anyone here havea TV show or hobby they spend 20 hours a week on? Anyone? I mean other than these stupid tedium = work = fun MMORPGs?

Now just because you're able to function as a human macro and thus feel that's some how superior to my just plopping down $100 that your right.

That fact is and will remain, there is no real difference between the two. Hours (which have a $ value. My hours are just worth a fuck ton more than yours.) doing repetitive senseless button mashing or paying some one to mash those buttons. Same thing. Same end result to the game.

I'm probably not going to wait on winning the lottery to make my own MMORPG company. I'm pretty sure I can make a game that allows mega Epeen and allows for people like me to have fun and not invest huge amounts of resources and still have fun.

I'm your MMORPG Messiah.

[Grinless]

No.

You're just a pathetic loser.

[D-0ne]

And the "I got 20 hours a week to spend playing a game" crowd chimes in with a brilliant rebuttle of, "You're just a pathetic loser.".

Thanks for getting "you're" correct.

No. I'm trying to make it clear that investing time or investing money is the exact same thing.

It isn't rocket science to design a game based on epeen where people get to build a character and in the very same game allow people to have Temporary Characters with good enough gear to function at the level needed. That's my fucking idea (I think) and now it will be stolen.

All you have to do is mark the temps as such and the social pariahs will be just giddy as fuck all to lord over them but they'll still group with them and the secondary market goes, buh bye.

[Huey]

The future of guilds? Guild recrutiment and charter could read like this.... We "guildname" are a Non-Exchange guild recruiting non professional,community oriented,fun to be w players.Charter reads....1.Do not join w the purpose of perma farming,botting,building a char to sell off the work of your guildmates.2.If you have a problem w perma camped 24/7 spawns the entire guild will take the extra time to help you.Please post these areas and how long they have been camped on the guild forums.Would LOVE to see these type of guilds on an exchange server.Wonder who would get banned?Why open such a guild?Would be worth it just for a few newcomers and vets experience a sense of community,not cash.

[Grinless]

Quoting D-One

"And the "I got 20 hours a week to spend playing a game" crowd chimes in with a brilliant rebuttle of, "You're just a pathetic loser."."
(...)

Yeah right.

Im not sure I've got 2 hours a week of playtime. This is not a discussion about catassing, it's a discussion about you being too addicted to find another hobby.

Remember, you can always quit a game that is not made for you.

[Huey]

Remember where and who these virtual items may be coming from.People farming and botting the same area 24/7 while someone who pays their subscription fee sits on a hammock ,takes a nap,only to wake up seeing that they will never leave.Contributing to the problem only makes it worse for those who like to play the game.Endorsement of this is simply $ > community.Maybe the next fan fair should be somewhere else other than Vegas because the Vegas mentality is sure settling in.

[Rand al Thor]

Ok now that you answered that I can respond

"I'm not the child of the wealthy "

You aren't the child of a wealthy family...yet you can spend 4k on games

" or someone who is willing to lose their job"

I sure as hell hope not..otherwise how the hell would you pay FOUR THOUSAND dollars (enough to buy a pretty decent car or hell buy an ATV or Jetski) on online games/items

"doing repetitive senseless button mashing ."

Yet you have to do some of those same seseless button mashing to get to the levels to use those shiny items you bought.

=============

I don't care if you buy everything in the game with cash, what I have issue with is the fact you think it makes you better than someone else who played the game and got the item.

I'm a casual player in an MMORPG yet I have my fair share of "phats" it just took me longer. I MIGHT play 4 hours max a day. All one needs is patience, when I decided hey I'm tire dof leveling for the night maybe i'll go see if I can get that item I wanted. If I didn't get it..oh well i'll try again later, but man if I DID get it it was anawesome feeling.

The problem arises for the casual player (and how one can spend 4k on games/game items and consider themself casual I have no idea) when they think they have to have the uber items at every level. I was quite happy going along with my equipment that got me by, and then when I got that "uber phats" it made me that much more happy.

The biggest selling point in any game is the sense of achievemnt of getting a really nice item through ones own work in the game. By buying it you yourself have taken a large portion of what fun there is to be had in the game (especially a MMORPG).

Seriously what do you have to look forward to in the game (whatever game it happens to be) if you bought everything you have? Do you need the ego stroke when people see the item and go OMG how'd you get that, that's so uber? Instead of having a good story to tell about how hard and fun the fight was...you get to go oh I bought it on Ebay. Somehow I doubt you are running around in the game telling people you bought all your "phats".
===========

Having said all that I don't care how you got your items, I just can't understand what sense of fun/accomplishment you (or anyone else who has bought their items) have left in a game when you buy everything.

[Tale]

> "Now just because you're able to function as a human macro and thus feel that's some how superior to my just plopping down $100 that your right."

See, that's why I think you're sick. You have an inferiority complex and try to compensate for it with cash spending.

You think everyone else is playing for more hours than you, so you "save" time by spending more money to buy progress. But the truth is, we're not. My current game is WoW and I've been playing since December. My highest level character is level 36, because I am a producer working in TV network news and I simply don't have the hours to grind. That's your average casual player.

I get to enjoy the game for what it is, and I have exactly the same game experience as everyone else, but it is spread out more. Same happened in EQ - I did things FoH and Afterlife had done, but I reached those points about two years later.

Your sickness is that you can't enjoy the game for what it is, and you can't accept going slower, because you think everyone is getting ahead of you. This obsession is costing you thousands of dollars.

[D-0ne]

Now that was some interesting ranting.

Problem. Games require unfun catass play. solutions:
1. catass
2. catass over time forever as these things called expanions keep getting released.
3. Quit doing something you enjoy because Connie Catass thinks you should.
4. Go to IGE and spend $100 on what takes Connie Catass 40 hours.
5. Discover what really pisses Connie Catass off, allowing him to discover his time in game farming is really worth about $0.05 an hour and for that he trashed his life.

?enjoy?

[Tale]

> Problem. Games require unfun catass play. solutions:

1. Decide not to play game, because games are meant to be fun.

That is the only rational solution. It's why I don't play Anarchy Online or EverQuest 2, and it's why I quit EverQuest 1. I enjoyed SWG but boycotted the jedi grind because I didn't want to be one. I now log on to my level 36 in WoW and have fun every time I play (honour system woes aside).

I saved $4000 and had fun. You spent $4000 on buying unfun.

[Rand 'al Thor]

D-One you already said (in your very first post)every game out there for you is not fun..yet you went ahead and spent FOUR THOUSAND dollars on these games.

I can tell within the first couple days of playing whether or not a game is going to be fun for me....and lo and behold all it would cost me is the price of the game or a couple days of a free trial.

You on the other hand continue to play a game you already said is NOT fun to you...not only do you keep playing it, and paying the company to play..you are spending money on items in a game you aren't having fun in.An ITEM is never going to make a game fun or not. If you can't have fun just playing the game..that Uber Sword of Doom isn't going to suddenly fix the underlying issues you have with the game.

That's like buying a black and white television..getting pissed because it's not color tv like you want..but buying a kickasss surround sound/home theatre..and keeping the same crap television. You didn't improve the source of your displeasure in any way...you just spent money on stuff that didn't help at all.

==================

"3. Quit doing something you enjoy because Connie Catass thinks you should"

You already said you don't have fun playing these games.

My question stands...if you buy every item you want...what sense of achievement is there to be had in the game?

And maybe...just maybe you buying everything you need and never earning it (and getting that sense of accomplishment)..is why you aren't having fun in these games anymore.

[Rand 'al Thor]

"5. Discover what really pisses Connie Catass off, allowing him to discover his time in game farming is really worth about $0.05 an hour and for that he trashed his life."

Let's see you are going to either be buying from a professional farmer..who is getting paid by the company he works for..not you..so you have no idea what they are paid.

Or you are going to pay someone who has HAD his fun in game, and wants to give you the stuff he doesn't want/need anymore

Or you are going to be giving it to some lil kid who doesn't have/need a job and to whom your 100 dollars just paid for his entire account for a year.
==============

Absolutely none of that involves trashing ones life...it's people taking advantage of YOUR burning to desire to have all the phats without any of the effort.

Spending enough money to buy a car on games/game items...hmmm maybe it should be YOU who discovers something about their life.

[Michael]

hhmmmm Tale, WoW is all good up till level 60. Then there is nothing to do but waste 4 hours of your time doing the same boring arse instances over and over again. Once you beat the instance, I see no problem with purchasing the items that can drop in the instance.

[Moncler Outlet]

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