March 2002

Currently, there is a group that professionally farms MMOGs for content to sell on auction sites in order to earn a living for those employed by the group. Most of the other game sites are running stories about the lawsuits and accusations as this story unfolds; however, I think it is appropriate to discuss the basic idea of selling MMOG content for profit by the players that invest the time.

Certain aspects of the current, public confrontation aren't really germane to the main point; hacking and cheating should never be tolerated. The real question is, is it fair (I'll leave the legalities up to the courts), or relevant to the gameplay, to deny players from selling, for real money, the content they acquire in a game? Is it good business? Is it in the best interests of company-player relations? Yes, I know what the EULAs state; that isn't the point either. The question is about the concept of allowing players to sell game content to other players for real money.

On the one hand, you have the argument that it creates all sorts of problems in the game; where people horde camps in order to harvest salable goods. The ability to horde or aggressively farm certain areas of the game in order to produce profit presents some challenges to the programmer; however, in my opinion, the flaw lies in the desire of the programmer to produce content/reward that simply is not appropriate to the venue. It's simply poor programming to have "X" in the game be rare, and make it so that obtaining "X" relies solely upon your ability to invest professional levels of play IN the game. This sets up a real-life farming/money-making potential that someone is going to capitalize upon; and further, they are going to do everything in their power to monopolize "X" for their own capitalistic benefit.

The appropriate answer is simple, and if developers really wanted to put an end to this type of aggressive farming, they would simply have two types of items; those that specifically dropped off of certain MOBs or quests would be nontransferable and "lore" (you can only have one in your possession at a time), and all other items would be curve-randomized by level throughout the game. This would effectively end the problem of aggressive item farming and eliminates most camping-competition problems; however, it still leaves open the question of people legitimately selling game content they acquired normally in the game, as a matter of course and without aggressive farming, or through non-intrusive and fair professional techniques.

In other words, if I progressed down smithing skill tree XYZ and am one of the few that can make Magic Mithril Armbands, is it appropriate to allow me to sell those for real money if I so choose? This is really the question we face, because fraud, cheating, hacking, etc., is not the core issue, and aggressive farming is simply something that needs to be coded against in any event. People ARE going to try to sell their in-game "stuff" for real money; my question is, why not let them?

What if the game company set itself up as an official "go between"? They could take items that players wished to auction and act as the middleman for 10% of the transaction. This would eliminate fraud on the part of the seller, but would, of course, be wide open to abuses by the company. However, fraud (illegal manufacture of game items for the express purpose of profiteering) by employees of the game company itself are also not really part of the discussion. The black market, fraud, profiteering, and other illegal, unethical activities will always occur in any venue as long as there are humans involved, and we do what we can to prevent it.

However, would such a system of virtual-world trade, which would use real-world money, be intrinsically any different than, say, the way people already buy and trade "Magic, the Gathering" cards in order to obtain an edge in playing the game? If someone started manufacturing "fake" Magic, the Gathering Cards, would it not be an ethical, appreciated move for the producers of that game to set up their own in-house auction system, where they could verify cards as "real" to cut down on fraud and ensure the integrity of their game?

Personally, if you clear away the associated seamy underbelly of the MMORPG auction market, the things you should code against anyway and the things that are illegal and unethical in any event; what you are left with are people that honestly, and without infringing upon the play of others, acquire items in the game, or through honest investment of time and effort create a salable account, and wish to sell their time and effort or good fortune for real world money. EULAs notwithstanding, what exactly is immoral, unethical, or reprehensible about that?

If I buy an account, and level a character up to salable level without infringing on the play of others, and I sell that account to someone, the argument could be made that the purchaser is potentially a greater risk to others in-game because they "bought in" at a higher level and may not understand how to effectively use their character. Frankly, this is a skimpy argument. That's like saying that uninformed investors put other investors at risk because they don't know what they're doing; it's technically true. But that's part of the equation you take into account as you play the market. Similarly, in-game, it's just not smart to trust risky situations to people you don't know much about.

Personally, I think that the virtual-game market IS going to have to, eventually, allow the real world trade of customer-created and acquired game content. Because, frankly, you can't stop it, and the actual practice (not the illegal and unethical associative hacking, exploiting and fraud) of selling accrued game content to others doesn't really harm anyone in any way, and would actually be good for the real economy by opening up a virtually endless resource - the virtual world of MMOGs. I think it should be taxed; I think that game producers should fall under a regulatory branch of the government like the FTC that would oversee activity and investigate corruption and "insider trading"; and I think fraud and illegal activities should be prosecuted to the maximum extent of the law.

People should be able to sell accounts and items they get in the game through ethical, non-aggressive, non-monopolistic efforts for real world money, with the caveat that programmers need to understand this and design their games appropriately.

Fill out my preferred seller's rating here
.

Recently SOE has issued a statement describing their intent to make sweeping
changes, both fundamental and cosmetic to their game Everquest. The first
of these changes have reached the test server; new, lower level resurrection
and group escape spells; raid chat channels; and new race/character combos
such as gnome and halfling paladins and shadowknights; the elimination of
hell levels; and last, but most impressive, the "new death" for
newbies, which finds them reincarnated at their bind point with all their
gear.

Years ago I predicted most of this would come to pass for likely the very
reason it has; competition. Other companies producing MMOGs realize that most
of your MMOG players really only have the time to invest in one such game,
and generally are only going to pay to be in one, where they can focus most
of their entertainment time. To attract these fairly loyal customers, new
producers of games seem to be focusing on one main goal; to make the game
as fun as possible for the most people possible, while avoiding the pitfalls,
downtimes, and frustrations players dislike in current games.

This competition has "softened the heart" of SOE like no outcry
from customers ever could. Since the inception of the game players have wished
for more, and lower level, resurrection spells to ease the blow of the experience
penalty incurred for a death. The designers refused, saying that the risk
and difficulty was a "good thing". Allowing newbies to begin their
characters without fear of losing all their gear is a good thing, a VERY good
thing, but it doesn't go far enough.

The corpse run in Everquest should be done away with entirely. I predict
that it will go away entirely before December, 2002. Why? Because, for your
average, casual player, forced corpse runs aren't fun; they just take up most
of our game time when we'd rather be doing something else. Also, the substantial
risk of losing everything earned up to that point keeps a lot of casual players
from attempting higher end, hard to reach areas of the game, even at invitation
from more organized, more professional players. And other games coming out
soon, especially Asheron's Call II, realize this - and are capitalizing on
it by making death essentially a no-penalty experience. What better fosters
a positive sense of adventure and fun, even when exploring new zones or engaging
in PvP, than making death a simple matter of temporary inconvenience?

I have an alternative plan for Everquest, which I doubt would actually just
allow you to reincarnate with all your equipment. So instead, my idea is to
install a new spell called "Manifest Corpse", and give it to magicians,
necros, and clerics - and to soul binder NPCs. What this spell would do is
allow you to summon a corpse from anywhere in the game at the cost of being
unable to cast resurrect on it. In other words, you can easily get all your
items back, but you lose the capacity to get your experience back. Or, you
could resurrect and corpse run the old fashioned way to get items AND experience
back. Your choice.

The way the death penalty is now, it actually puts at risk most the gear
of the casual player, who might take want to take an invite from some Uberguild
into the Plane of Hate, but knows that, if he goes linkdead, or if the raid
goes badly, if anything goes wrong then his/her body might realistically never
be recovered from Hate - or many other places he/she might explore or enter
for the first time. More professional players generally have more resources,
more high level friends, an Uberguild membership, and their gear is always
at little risk, or at least not at risk in the same way that the casual player's
gear is at risk. This new spell would really do nothing more than level the
risk playing field and eliminate the forced corpse run - arguably the least
enjoyable aspect of the game, and one area where SOE has a true vulnerability
that other games could capitalize on.

Perhaps the new "death no-penalty" for lowbies on test is SOE's
way of instigating an outcry for lessened death penalties throughout the game,
so that they can get rid of it before AC II comes out. Perhaps this is their
intent on many fronts, to make the game more fun and less frustrating all
around. I predict that the pre-35 spell book screen will be a thing of the
past soon. I predict that a "raid" experience sharing system will
be enacted shortly. I predict that, as more games come out, new changes and
directions and policies in Everquest will prove what many of us have been
saying all along; that competition will prove the difference between what
profession gamers-turned-developers want in a game, and what your masses of
gamers enjoy in a game.

They aren't the same thing, and this is why Everquest is making such dramatic
changes in game philosophy. Much of what they assumed was blatantly wrong,
and while before they could largely ignore this and only begrudgingly make
small concessions to those of us that played only for the fun of it, as more
- and better - competition looms on the horizon, they are forced to eat crow
and make the hard choice between their skewed ideas and the actual desires
of the gaming public.

That said, kudos to SOE for having the guts to take it on the chin, admit
they were wrong about many things, and for their attempt to actually make
the game better, and more fun, for EVERYONE. The current changes on test are
small steps in the right direction. I hope bigger steps are coming.

Reincarnate here
and manifest a response.

Over the weekend, instead of playing Everquest (which has simply become a
nightmare of disconnects, bizarre lag, and error messages), I fired up Diablo
II and started up yet another Paladin. As I hit level 12 and was able to combine
combat skill "Sacrifice" (where health is sacrificed for increased
damage and attack rating) and my "Prayer" aura (which regenerates
health quickly), and watched as my character cleaved through a pack of Bone
Mages with his +4% health-per-hit very fast Mace of the Leech, I started thinking
about why EQ ... or any MMOG ... wasn't more like Diablo II.

This struck home when I picked up up a Death Protector Sash (or something
like that), which prevented my Paladin from being frozen and added a huge
AC bonus for such a low level. DII is a short-lived game that is about 10
times as much immediate fun to play as Everquest. In the amount of time it
takes me to kill one experience-giving creature and recuperate from the battle
in Everquest, I can literally kill every creature in the Den of Evil, find
several usable items, and gain at least a level in DII. Accomplishing something
similar in EQ takes is the equivalent of going to the dentist and having your
teeth pulled so you can manufacture the thrill of "finding" that
gold filling. You knew it was there all along, but getting it is a painful
effort which generates no real sense of accomplishment - and it certainly
wasn't "fun".

SOE claims that rewards in EQ are hard-fought, even painful, in order to
create a sense of pride and accomplishment when you are finally successful
in your task. This is why experience is slow, why the death penalty is harsh,
why money is scarce, and why there are virtually no randomization of drops
and the best items are places only hardcore, professional players can journey.
Or so they say. Over and over. They want you to EARN your reward, buddy. No
pain, no particle-effect weapons for you.

I challenge that maxim. I challenge the idea that reward in an MMOG should
be that tied to pain and effort, because as we know from EQ, while people
will stubbornly keep pushing that rock up that hill to accomplish the goal,
they're not happy about doing it.

Why can't they be happy about doing it? Why can't it be fun? Why are developers
so focused on the idea that they must provide most MMOG players with a "hard-fought"
sense of pride and accomplishment? Do they assume that most players are looking
to achieve a sense of "hard fought pride and accomplishment" by
playing an online game? Is that a reasonable design assumption?

I'd rather just be able to outrun just about everything, thank you very much.
I don't want to have to search for my corpse for two hours. I don't want to
lose half my experience or my cool items because I decided ... *gasp* ...
to have some fun and explore a little. I don't want penalties so severe that
I simply can't risk stepping into an unknown area for fear that my character
will never be able to recuperate. Does it trivialize the "risk"
if you can just RUN AWAY from Venril Sathir after you engage him and realize
that you don't have a dark-elves' chance in Odus of winning the fight? Gee,
we can't have that, because then EVERYONE would try fighting him. Imagine
the horror.

They don't want to trivialize the risks or the efforts of those that play
their game as if it was the only reason they're not putting their head in
the oven. If you worked hard for that Sash of Ultra Haste (and I mean worked
hard, by committing twelve hours a day at a sitting six days a week staring
at your computer), you deserve the satisfaction of walking around with an
exclusive graphic. Something important. Like a weapon with sparklies or an
extra word, like "Poobah" in your name. Something appropriately
obvious to let others know that you EARNED your badge of recognition with
pixelated blood, sweat and tears - and, of course, the Navy Seal rigor of
parking your ass in a chair for a week. God forbid anyone trivializes so important
an achievement by daring to strut around in some RANDOM DROP loot that looks
"as cool" or out-damages your "Epic" gear.

Do I want an easy game? You bet. But stifle that flame before it spills onto
your screen and listen: I want it easy in playability. In fun. In adventure.
I don't want to be afraid to try ANYTHING in the game. That doesn't mean I
can beat anything in the game with a rusty dagger, or that a horde of demons
will never claw my struggling body down and kill me. That doesn't mean that
I can waltz down the mithril mine and come back with a bucketful of ore without
a scratch; what it means is that the game is designed, from the very first
spec paper, to be fun - and NOT (particularly) to try to provide real-life
underachievers with a virtual-world sense of pride and accomplishment. I don't
want the content of my game designed around people than need the game to fill
gaping self-esteem holes in their psyche.

How do you do this? A few simple suggestions, based on Everquest.

1) No real death penalty. No, I don't want to be afraid to die. Period.
Make it an inconvenience, sure. Make it so you can't exploit some creature
by dying and going back or being resurrected into the fight, sure. But I do
not want to fear death. We have enough of that fear in real life, thankyaverramuch.
I don't care how unrealistic it is. I don't care that it gives all those unprofessional
noobs license to run around and whack things. You see, it doesn't bother me
that other people can have fun in the game without living up to my expectations
of intelligent play. If they want to run around getting their butts whipped
and dying all day, so the hell what?

2) Let me outrun - or be able to hide from - most things in the game
at normal weights. Dying ten times while I try to figure out how the heck
to get through Highpass is ridiculous, it's not fun, and it ruins the sense
of adventure.

3) I want the named or cool creatures that are obviously special to
drop cool stuff I can use every time I kill one. EVERY TIME.
I don't play a game to experience disappointment 100 times in order to falsely
escalate a sense of euphoria when the thing that creature was SUPPOSED to
drop finally drops after two hours of killing it repeatedly. Make it lore,
no drop, can't carry two of them, can't GET two of them, whatever, but don't
disappoint me. I don't enter a MMOG to feel "disappointed". Get
it? When I run into Ratbah the Spiked Armadillo, I want to immediately feel
that pleasure of knowing that ugly sucker is going to drop something and chase
after him madly. I don't want to shrug in ambivalence because the odds are
he's not going to drop anything unless I stalk him for a few months while
pizza boxes and beer cans pile up on my computer desk.

4) If you're going to have rare items in the game, do not, under any
circumstances, make them so that ONLY professional players can get them. I
don't live in your game. I have a life. Quit programming games like
the rest of us don't have jobs and families. We want rare and cool
items too, and yes, we have a friggin' RIGHT to expect an honest chance of
getting them. Ever hear of random drops, bud? What, random drops don't provide
a sense of pride and accomplishment? Who cares? 90% of us don't play to get
a sense of pride, we play to have FUN, and getting a rare or powerful item
every now and then is FUN. Get it?

Design games to be fun. We'll get our pride and sense of accomplishment from
real life. You know, where it actually matters. Believe it or not, most of
us play to have fun - not to feel good about ourselves as human beings.

Elevate your self-esteem ... or just have some fun .. here.