Do we actually need RMT?

Ysne58

Money laundering....

eventHandler

I don't want to give a thread like this more attention by posting (or reading all the comments), because its absurd, but I better post (emphatically) "NO" to make sure its not only people who are into rmt responding. I want to play a game. I want to pay a sub to get content updates focused on content, not on making micro transaction money, and I want people who buy gold to get banned for trying to ruin the game. If you don't like playing the game, then you don't need game gold. If you play the game, then you make game gold while playing it. People feel a lot more pressure to pay more to keep up with everyone else if stupid things like RMT are added.

What we need is for Zeni to hire some good economists, if they haven't already, and let them come up with a phased plan to correct the mess in stages from the dup'ing and so on. I'm confident almost none of us posting in this thread know how to fix it (in a feasible, realistic way, cost effective for Zeni, and not to the detriment of early players), so don't respond with "it's too late and already beyond hope." That's why I said they need to hire experts and make a plan to fix it over the next few months.

And before any free-market capitalist complain, we absolutely don't want to "let the market take care of itself" since the "market" is "these people are rich from duping, these other people bought things dup'd without knowing so they are victims but still using stuff that is hurting the economy, and these people are poor and can't make money because the prices for things they have are diluted from bots and the prices for things they want are ballooned from people with too much money."

It can all be fixed, if its being planned at a meta level for the long term picture and then carefully manipulated in stages to get us there with carefully monitored metrics. Then using that data to keep making adjustments and re-analyzing the plans as needed, not just rubber stamping a plan, setting it in motion, and calling it good. And of course it requires keeping any more insanely disastrous bugs like the dup'ing from the live server.

RMT would just throw all that out and have Zeni say "throw money to us so you can be cool in game, because you ain't gettin' anything in this game economy any other way." I don't think that's the game they meant to make, and I hope its not what they'll do to fix this problem. I have to say, that $15 palomino horse in the store has me worried though. We'll have to see where they go with the cash store. That seems like the kind of thing they'd know better than to be doing after the Oblivion horse armor crisis...

Back on point, I do worry they might not be hiring the needed experts and instead relying on developers to think of ways to fix it. I haven't seen them say anything about who they have working on it. They really need a team of experts on economics, not programmers to solve it. That's not to say anything negative about programmers, because I studied CS myself. And I know I'm not qualified to develop a solution to this game economy dilemma.

Attorneyatlawl

Xancathb16_ESO wrote: »

30% of mmo subs make use of RMT services? That's absolute nonsense. Show us your source for that ridiculous figure please lol.

The rest makes sense, it probably isn't viable for a company to dedicate enough resources to conduct a "crusade" wiping out 100% of RMT. The problem is the RMT/botting problem is SO prevalent it appears as if they are doing nothing at all.

Goldbuying is against the ToS... that alone should be enough to make people not do it, but for those of you who still want to, remember that these "goldsellers" are the guys running bots, using hacked accounts to farm with and empty of the player's gold, stolen credit cards etc. to buy gametime cards to spam your in-game ,and all that good stuff. Think of who you're supporting... and then think of how trivial it makes the game for you as well. Why do what amounts to putting in a singleplayer cheat code into a multiplayer environment? It simply makes anything you do in-game hollow and pointless for anyone to care about. Introducing RMT into the equation basically says out loud, "I couldn't cut it", and if a game company offers it, the integrity of the game world and anything earned in-game is greatly diminished.

Phantax

If this game every starts seriously doing RMT they will lose a lot of players (rightly so). This is a subs game and ALL content should be included/available for NO additional money !

zaria

No RTM is not needed.
However with the huge up front gold sinks in ESO I can see fools do it.
Take wow, 300k gold at start would be pretty pointless and would not give any benefits unless you spent like an drunken sailor in the auction.

In ESO 300k at start would give you good horses and an far more conformable bank and bag limit. Now the fun is that this is start up costs you only need once it will be interesting to see if the marked for RTM takes an nosedive by it self.

Phantax

Yeah the bag space thing is stupidly high. That definitely need lowering, not drastically, but lowering !
Making in-game items such as bags easier to obtain would remove some of the need for people to purchase gold. You'd think a company the size of Zeni would have realised this !

Ojustaboo

Phantax wrote: »

Yeah the bag space thing is stupidly high. That definitely need lowering, not drastically, but lowering !
Making in-game items such as bags easier to obtain would remove some of the need for people to purchase gold. You'd think a company the size of Zeni would have realised this !

While I fully understand what you are saying, I disagree.

Otherwise we might as well say that Zenimax should give us all the motifs, any rare item etc as by doing so removes the need for some to purchase gold.

Then we have a game where we have nothing to look forward to.

Sure bag space is expensive and sure everyone would probably like it cheaper but it's not that out of reach really. So far I haven't joined any crafting guilds, I don't sell to guild mates and I haven't sold anything to players. All my money has been earned questing/pvping and selling to npcs.

I have fed 3 horses every day since release, have spent 8k on a respec, yesterday I spent 11k on another bank upgrade, I have bought back pack space for 3 characters etc.

I also sometimes have repair bills of over 1k and so far I've never found myself unable to pay for them.

This is with me placing a LOT of mats in my guild bank for guild mates to use, if I hadn't done that my bank and back pack space would easily be maxed.

I'm only level 37 and it's not even 2 month since release. I like it that it takes a bit of time to get everything, it wouldn't be so much fun for me if in the first week I maxed out bag space, maxed out crafting etc.

RazzPitazz

How is this thread not locked?

stefaan.de.wasch1b16_ESO

IF saying only games with RMT can be a success.... euh... 2 things....

1) WOW doesn't have it and is still the mother of all gaming success stories

2) Diablo had it and... well... just fill in the rest

Phantorang

To remove enormous gold sinks like the skill resets are would be a huge step to get rid of the gold sellers and RMTs. Mounts should be cheaper too, only reason for this is to make it less interesting to buy gold for real money.

Make the gold sinks cost something else, a quest, a time limit etc, there are many ways to make skills for example cheaper, but still limited by other means. Same with mounts, introduce other ways to pay than tens of thousands of gold.

AlexDougherty

stefaan.de.wasch1b16_ESO wrote: »

IF saying only games with RMT can be a success.... euh... 2 things....

1) WOW doesn't have it and is still the mother of all gaming success stories

2) Diablo had it and... well... just fill in the rest

Yep, swtor let a diluted version in (cash for special currency, which bought items from shop), and it had a slightly negative effect overall.

Three out of the six skill lines became effectively useless (artifice, armourmech and armourtech), and two became minor irrelevances (Armstech and Cybertech), only one was left unaffected (biochem).

Real cash damages games, I liked the Swtor cash shop, but I have to admit afterwards crafting was a joke. It devastated one of the key aspects of the game, which is why I won't support one here.

Pretext

This is organised botting, which uses solen credit card details to fund accounts. It should and is being taking seriously by Zenimax.

As we have no auction house, the gold sellers are having a limited impact on the game fortunately.

ebunts14_ESO

Since most botters use 3rd party programs that can be easily obtained, why cant ZOS obtain these same bot programs and then simply make it so these programs stop working? Of course the ones that design the botting programs will create new programs, and again ZOS can obtain these on day one and block them.

Most botter use sites such as Viper or other sites to get their bot programs. These can be stopped. The ones that each person creates and use, use a general script which can be stopped. The ones that can write their own elaborate bot might be harder.

nerevarine1138

ebuntsb14_ESO wrote: »

Since most botters use 3rd party programs that can be easily obtained, why cant ZOS obtain these same bot programs and then simply make it so these programs stop working? Of course the ones that design the botting programs will create new programs, and again ZOS can obtain these on day one and block them.

Most botter use sites such as Viper or other sites to get their bot programs. These can be stopped. The ones that each person creates and use, use a general script which can be stopped. The ones that can write their own elaborate bot might be harder.

Developers observe how bots exploit weaknesses all the time. That's how they're able to break the stupid things.

Catflinger

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

ebuntsb14_ESO wrote: »

Since most botters use 3rd party programs that can be easily obtained, why cant ZOS obtain these same bot programs and then simply make it so these programs stop working? Of course the ones that design the botting programs will create new programs, and again ZOS can obtain these on day one and block them.

Most botter use sites such as Viper or other sites to get their bot programs. These can be stopped. The ones that each person creates and use, use a general script which can be stopped. The ones that can write their own elaborate bot might be harder.

Developers observe how bots exploit weaknesses all the time. That's how they're able to break the stupid things.

Yep. But just like cockroaches, bot developers adapt constantly.

silent88b14_ESO

I've unplugged my scriptable keypad just to avoid becoming collateral damage when the bot accounts are banned wholesale.

My antipathy toward botters is that with three or more characters acting on the echoed keypresses of the one live character controlling them they slaughter bosses I have to make several runs at to overcome. The consequence is that the numbers the developers crunch to evaluate the average difficulty of that boss is skewed by the exploitation of scripting.

The ability to make useful add-ons Zen afforded to the playerbase is endangered by the abuse of that ability.

Empassioned pleas to the botters to restrain themselves are pointless. Theirs are business decisions. Businesses have different values from players. In their eyes fairness and sportsmanship are myths. Like religion, they are no more than cultural opiates.