Justifying RMT is justifying speculation

You keep capitalizing words like THAT, and people are going to start making fun of YOU for the way you're writing your rants lately.

I think the main problem is the equation "time invested" = "progress" as the basic MMO design principle. I was a very competitive FPS player until a few years ago, and in FPS, which took some radically different design approaches, the RMT problem is totally absent. FPS, unlike MMO, allowed you to jump in right to the fun part. You could use the rocket launcher without having to fight two months bare-handed so you can advance to the plasma rifle and then another two months working on the shock rifle so you can learn to use the grenade launcher. And the longer you played, the better you got and the more satisfaction you got out of playing.

You make good points there. If they could deal with the repetitiveness, if they could deal with the good stuff not being available until you chew up too much of the bad stuff, if they would make a game where you can still be with your friends and enjoy the game together even though you cannot afford all the time they are spending with the game, that would totally undermine the need for RMT.

The bottom line is that RMT is a symptom of failing game mechanics. And the majority of people are too dumb to argument anything against the game mechanics "Because this is the way it has always been". Until we get rid of the causes we will not cure the symptoms, no matter how "radical" the measures against the symptoms are.

MMORPG are moslty based on time invested while other games like RTS and FPS are based on skill and the games and the world is not persistant.

In RTS/FPS games, you jump into a game everyone starts equal then the game end and you start a new one.

In MMORPG the game never ends, your progression is based on the time you put in your character. That is part of the fun seeing your character grow and get stronger, you always have something to look foward to. The ecomony adds an interesting twist in those games.

RMT is basicly cheating, its like playing Monopoly and instead of starting with 1000$ you start with 5000$.

Look at Guildwars while you can get to the top level in a few weeks and have the best gear in the game just like someone playing for over 1 year. The problem is the many players like progression, knowing that no matter how much you play you wont progress is not motivating. Yes you do it for the challenge and to get better playing skill, but still its better when you actually make your character better.

Honestly I dont know how you can ever eliminate RMT in a game based on character progression.

First, like many veterans of the genre, you're assuming RMTing is wrong. I appreciate why. Everyone's got their own reason. Your's has always seemed to be about some artistic/innovation issue, that RMTing is a way to cheat a game, used by players to cheat because some fundamental flaw in the design that designers should be fixing rather than justifying.

But RMTing isn't right or wrong. It just is. These games aren't built around RMTing. That's just a byproduct, like other things have been byproducts (powerleveling, buying characters, twinking, etc).

What these games are build around is achievement, in a linear RPG-esque setting (lore is optional but some do play or that). The diku-inspired formula has been well-proven. "Design a better game"? Why? The game already works. Players like them. Some choose to cheat, but as you yourself note, there's very little to actually buy. That's Blizzard's primary approach: disallow RMTing through BoP. But their core experience still works, but it has.

It would be financially irresponsible for a company to not consider diku at least as an option. And that means financially managing the creative process. Anyone is capable of designing a game, but industries only reward those who eventually go build one.