Time, that fickle mistress, sometimes smothering you like giant flannel, other times flitting out of reach like an escaped pet hamster with a jet pack. Currently I’m experiencing the latter (lack of time, that is, not an escapee hamster with a jet pack, I don’t think rodent technology has progressed that far). Not much time for playing, still less time for blogging, though that itself prompted this post… Time is money, as they say, and as another round of “RMT: alternative payment model, or satanic abomination from the lower reaches of Beelzebub’s pit?” sweeps the blag-u-spore, I say to you this: a man doth have two sons, and to one son he gives land and geese and sugar and socks, and to the other he doth give but a tangled slinky… no, wait, wrong parable.
A man doth have two sons, and one son toils for forty hours in Lord of the Warquest to gather the materials he requires and creates a Helm Of Teh Uber. The other son toils for forty hours in a small newsagent or shoe shop, and with ten dollars from his paycheck he buys a Helm of the Uber. Which of these brothers truly earned his helm, hmm? Ahhhhhh! For bonus points, would any of the following affect the answer:
i) Buying items for real currency is forbidden in the EULA of Lord of the Warquest
ii) Items can be bought with real currency from the publishers of Lord of the Warquest
iii) The gathering of materials for the helm in-game is a long, involving quest sequence featuring much travel and fierce battles
iv) The gathering of materials for the helm in-game is a tedious, repetitive business that could be performed by a ‘bot with five lines of BASIC programming (10 RUN UP TO MOB 20 KILL MOB 30 LOOT MOB 40 PRINT “LOLOLLOL” 50 GOTO 10), if such things weren’t forbidden in the EULA
An interesting study in Situational Ethics Zoso.
I suggest a very simple rule for determining whether or not RMT is ethically acceptable:
If it doesn’t interfere with other peoples enjoyment of the game then it is OK.
If on the other hand RMT does inconvenience others – perhaps distorting the game economy or perhaps giving an unfair advantage in a competitive element of the game then it is wrong.
By the I really like the sound of “Lord of the Warquest”. When is the Beta starting?
I think that’s a very sound rule to work by.
Lord of the Warquest is nearing alpa testing, I just need finish the itemisation. I’ve come up the the Helm of Teh Uber, Breastplate of Teh Uber, Greaves of Teh Uber, but I’m stumped on what to call the hand and foot protection…
I would consider a similar rule as mbp suggests. I was thinking about this after reading your post and decided that I don’t really care about RMT per se, as it is not at a stage where it particularly affects me. I would rather not face griefing from gold farmers, although competition for certain mobs is natural, so as long as everyone played fairly I wouldn’t mind.
However, what pisses me off about RMT is not RMT itself but the gold spamming that accompanies it. In fact, I would go as far as saying that it’s not gold spamming that annoys me, just spamming. Spamming is disruptive, and can make normal communication channels difficult to use, whilst adding nothing positive. Moreover, there is very little that can be done about it, and that’s what really pisses me off.
I can report the spammers for being spammers, but with throw-away accounts they don’t last long enough for a complaint to be sent. You can’t mock their avatar, because they don’t care. You can’t whisper expletives to them, because they won’t be around long enough and they won’t care. There is nothing that can be done about them. Filing a complaint is just a way to release some tension, to make it feel like you’re fighting, but inside you know that it’s a futile effort and that another will be along in a couple of minutes, or less. You have to resign yourself to the annoying, disruptive CRAP that’s spewed in to comms whenever you’re in a city.
I recently installed the SpamMeNot add-on in WoW, which helps a bit (when configured properly), but it can also introduce false positives and get in the way of expected and wanted situations.
I don’t think legitimising RMT would make the spam go away, either.
You’d be surprised about those hamsters. They not only have jet pack technology, they’ve moved on to interstellar travel.