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Dream mmorpg - How to solve RMT through "communism"

Submitted by Abalieno on October 1, 2005 - 14:33.

Saving another old discussion about my fancy ideas.

Darniaq:
How do we "solve" the "problem" of RMT?

Really, solving this problem is extremely easy and can be done in hundreds of ways. What lacks is the will to do so.

To explain some more my idea (that is just one of those hundreds other possible ways):

I divide the "objects" in the game world in two groups:
- Player-centered tools
- Commodities

All the objects in the first group are the traditional loot we have in other games. Weapons, armors and other stat-enhancing items. Since these objects are directly tied to the PvE experience, they are cut out completely from the economy. They are not tradeable.

The concrete form of this idea is that the magical items develop personal paths. Think to WoW talent tree, a similar system will be used for each object and it will be the object itself to provide more skills and powers to the player. So there's a personal tie and uniqueness between one item and its owner. If the item is traded it will lose all its proprieties and the player will have to restart the path. So no twinking, the PvE experience and its patterns are untouched and cannot be messed from the outside. There's no external intervention.

This first system is completely closed.

Then there's a second group. The objects in this second group (the "commodities") don't hold a value for the single player (they aren't used in "solo") but they are meaningful for the wider community. For the guilds and for the realm. On The PvP conquest system the players will have to manage their territories, gather resources and move them between places, commerce within the borders of the realm and outside (think to elements of an RTS joining the PvP metagame to simulate a world).

This is the level that already by design is "shared" and communal. So it's this level that will be flagged as "tradeable" and so part of the economy (while the first level above is completely precluded from an economy). In this case the trading system doesn't affect nor can ruin the PvE experience of the players. It's not an external violation of something that was supposed to remain closed (the PvE, the fights, the quests, loot drops and so on). It's instead the REAL commercial level working properly along with its premises.

The players will commerce those goods that have an effect on the meta level, those goods that are already designed to have a communal use, so already designed to be shared and reused. The economic system exists outside the single players, where these players gain a status already dependent on their role within the community.

This is how the PvE experience is preserved without being violated by an external, unexpected intervention, and how the economic system remains stronger and even more deep and meaningful because already part of that "shared endgame" that is usually completely lacking from this games (where everyone just think to himself and his uberness).

This system is completely impermeable to something like IGE because it would require them to play the game.

Noel:
If there is a market for something, someone will provide that service or good. In other words, so long as someone is missing something they want (be it a game item or a new car), someone else will be willing to provide that to them. I think the real question isn't 'What's the problem?', but rather 'Is there a solution that doesn't make a game less fun?'

The fact is that the example is a recursive system that doesn't seem to possibly work in another way. It's a paradox because it recursively implies itself, so there's no escape (as you said).

As for every paradox the only way to solve it is to break the model. If you break the model you'll see where the paradox was blind.

The paradox, in this case, is that in a game where only the single players has a value (is a goal) nothing can be accepted from the outside. Because this disrupts the experience. That experience that the players is supposed to live instead of "buy".

An economic system (that doesn't suck), can exist only if the game has already shared/truly-communal processes. Right now the games have nearly zero persistence and depth, so nothing matters outside the personal level and the economic systems we have now are often "exploits" to break the game (twinking, for example).

EDIT- I anticipate discussions. Some relevant points also in the comments here below.

Filed in: Ravings | Game Design | Dream mmorpg

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Re: Dream mmorpg - How to solve RMT through "communism"

Stranger (not verified) on October 3, 2005 - 15:58.

So what happens when IGE builds the First Catassian Empire, hires gankers to guard the borders, and starts making RMT for resources shipped out to other empires?

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Re: Dream mmorpg - How to solve RMT through "communism"

Innsmouth on October 3, 2005 - 20:19.

It's simple, they become an in-game entity and not anymore an out-of-game one.

IGE works on other games because they can contol the environment and the resources. The basic of my game is that the economy exists on that second layer I described. This means that it exists on a full PvP world.

Defending and conquering territory is a game mechanic that would require IGE to become a game reality. At that point they lose completely their "alienated" nature and become justified in the game.

IGE may control a province or a mine. They own accounts for the game and they wouldn't be different from any other guild since the conquest requires a guild infrastructure behind. At that point other players can always decide to fight IGE and conquer their territories, if they want.

The point is about forcing them to play within the rules. And make the game fair and fun for everyone. Those ideas should do the trick.

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Re: Dream mmorpg - How to solve RMT through "communism"

Stranger (not verified) on October 4, 2005 - 15:41.

So it's bad and wrong for somebody to farm gold to sell for real money, but perfectly alright for that same collection of somebodies to "play within the rules" in the world, buying protection for real money and selling resources, also for real money?

Here's a hint. Gold/rares farmers are all "playing within the rules" as much as they're forced to - sure, every now and again they might dupe something or other but in the main they're extracting gold out of the game through perfectly "legal" means. And defending themselves in PvP zones through "perfectly legal" means. They're not magically going to have no advantages over people trying to play the game for fun, just because you throw in a layer of abstraction.

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Re: Dream mmorpg - How to solve RMT through "communism"

Innsmouth on October 25, 2005 - 12:47.

Those aren't the "rules" I'm implying. I'm not accusing gold sellers to not respect the game rules, I'm accusing them of breaking the "design" rules.

If you buy items or gold you are actively replacing an experience that wasn't designed that way. So you "jump" content that wasn't supposed to be jumped or experienced in this alternate way. The RMT is, in fact, a prevarication of real life on the in-game rules. It is an intrusion in an environment that is supposed to be self-consistent and as impermeable as possible to the rules outside it.

The system I proposed above can be surely criticized and is surely a rather daring and foolish idea, but it definitely doesn't offer the possibility to the gold farmers and sellers to bend the design of the game to their "OOC" rules. It just doesn't work. In DAoC there isn't any company that I'm aware of that defends and conquers keeps for real money.

There are two different fronts when we deal with this problem. And these two fronts must be treated in two different ways. The system above applies just to one of these two fronts. In fact it wouldn't prevent a company to level and equip directly the characters for real money. That's a completely different aspect that must be dealt with in another way.

The idea I explained above goes far beyond the implications of the RMT. In fact it defines the achievement process, the commerce, the possibility or not to "twink" and so on. The partial solution to the RMT is just one of the elements it affects and not the principal reason that brought me to it.

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Re: Dream mmorpg - How to solve RMT through "communism"

Innsmouth on October 25, 2005 - 13:29.

Adding a few quick notes that I may need/use in the future:

- This idea in particular applies to the concept of "property" which is what currently fuels the RMT and related debate.

- Nothing will ever prevent an organization, commercial or not, to "take over" the game and control it. This has never happened before (that I'm aware of) but it would still remain a possibility. In general these commercial companies are isolated as much as possible from the game and do not participate to it directly.

- In this case, the impact of the organization on the game is supposed to be a SOURCE of gameplay instead of a removal of it. The goods and current status of the organization in the game-world are "exposed". Everything that matters on this level is open to PvP and, as previously defined, the players can build custom factions to fight whatever they want and in the form they choose.

- This is why these ideas wouldn't prevent an external association to exist, but they would prevent, as much as possible, to let it have a negative impact on the game that damages the experience of the other players.

- I believe the coherence and consistence of these ideas come from their natural role. In fact what I did was to move the commercial aspect and the actual dynamic relationships on the PvP field, where these parts show at best their qualities and where the "virtual world" concept has a true meaning. It's here that the other players start to matter and can finally directly affect and shape the game-world.

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