On RMT, and ideals (Magneto Vs Xavier)

Time-invested meritocracy?

That's not really a value. The fact that you are playing a game, single player or online, implies that you have some time to dedicate to it.

Even if you play God of War or a Final Fantasy in your house you are going to be stronger and improve if you dedicate time to it.

What's important isn't how often you can log, how much time passes from a game session to the other, or how long the session is. What's important is that you can still enjoy your time whenever you decide to play the game. And that the fun you have is about the best that the game can offer you.

The point isn't about being the biggest one or the richer one. The point is about playing the game and having fun. Having all the best fun that the game can offer easily accessible for the largest group of people. Not for a minority, a sub group of players who's richer than the other.

The point is: I play ten minutes and I want them to be as valuable and worthwhile as the ten minutes of another player who played for a week five hours each day. I don't care if he's playing another chunk of content. What is fundamental is that what he does doesn't have a negative influence on my experience. That I can still play the game at my pace without any loss.

Lum explained this quite well:
- Make the game world RMT-resistant - by that I mean make the economy liquid enough that players can participate on their own labor and gain what they feel is enough of a reward whether or not someone else “inherited a lot of money”

So not the idea that everyone is uniformed. But the idea that richer or bigger players just won't get in the way of the fun for those players who don't share the same wealth.

The only time-invested meritocracy is the one who is worthwhile for the game and positive for everyone. The most dedicated players who spend a lot of hours in the game are important and should be rewarded because often they are community builders. So they can take the role of leaders and provide a positive context for everyone else.

For an example about these points I'd take WoW. Then cut all the cases about the epic mounts, cut the endgame, and then look at the number of players in percent who went through RMT practices outside those cases.

I believe that the rate is really, really low. And I believe that it's because the rate is low (read as: the game is always fun) that the game is successful.

You are paying for everything with the most basic human currency, time. People who go the RMT route just take an intermediary exchange. They trade their "time currency" for "real money" and the "real currency" for "game currency". The anti-RMT front just camps with their "time currency" for "game currency", skipping the middle step. This is no utopia, and we are not created equal because we don't all have the same "time currency amount" to invest. I'm sorry that capitalistic society has won the long-term race against communism, but it is a know fact. You can lament all you want for an equalitarian utopia in MMOs, they never have been made that way. If my VISA buys me an epic mount with the money I already worked 5 hours for IRL, I'm going to go that route and screw farming another 5 hours in virtual life. I have a family and I have kids to spend my time with. To the guy going the "in-game route", more power to him and his 5 hour farming.

Also, it is not a thing of game design. It is a trait of human inhabited societies, so all games of this type will suffer from it. You want utopia and skill-governed worlds, you should get rid of all persistence. Persistence = status symbols + convenience shortcuts. Like someone before mentioned, there's always BF and Quake.

I took part in a five mile race the other day. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to do it so I paid to be allowed to start at the half way point.

I won, too.

I'm really good at running five mile races I am.

Ahaha, what a fitting comparison.

So, a game is a "race" that would require any kind of "effort" and "will" other than "time invested"? It does not. If you were to win your race by simply sitting on your butt 5 hours a day pressing your left mouse button, yeah, you would be good at "racing" a game. If someone else would pay a third person to sit there for him because all he cares about is getting through the five miles as fast as possible, it's his problem and it does not lessen your mighty "achievement". Well, not unless you think you are so uber because you made five miles.

Humour and your comparison aside, no, we are not talking professional sports here, and there is no inherent competition ethic behind levelling in an MMO. You want to claim it is "just a game", deal with the downsides. But if you want to make it serious business and have it "prove you are good at racing five miles", deal with the downsides too. Often enough in sports the winners have the best financial backing and can concentrate on the quintessence of the sport, without dealing with unwanted side tasks. To put it even more clear in game-related terms: If I want to be good at skill-based PvP, I'd better concentrate on PvPing and not on whacking 30/30 mindless fozzles to level up or farming crap for my PvE epic mount. No, having paid real money for my epic mount that I can use to get fastest from A to B in PvP to waste people does not mean I'm "good at playing the game". It means I can "enjoy what I like about the game without dealing with the useless and boring timesink crap".