iNfeck7ed
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Posted - 2011.07.04 03:24:00 -
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When I first learned about MT, I was scared because I thought it would mean that all my work in-game would be toppled by people using credit cards.
But, after talking with a friend of mine who has played Eve for many years as well as other MMOs, I have switched my opinion. For the very reason that I love Eve, I want it to profit financially.
Everything that people are afraid of that MT will bring already happens with the official plex and character bazaar. Or by RMT which is bad because it cuts CCP out of profiting for a game that it pays to upkeep, patch, and expand (But, in reality that each of us who pays CCP cash or isk that is sold into cash).
In essence, isk (which can be used to buy anything) and skills are already purchasable by the type of people who buy game money and items with real money. The only difference is now it's getting attention.
Either you're the type to buy in-game money, or you're not. I'm not, although once when I lost my Tengu I was sorely tempted to just buy a plex and sell it for the isk, which there is nothing wrong with that! It's a legitimate deal. Someone with money buys from CCP a plex and sells that plex for isk to someone in-game who worked for that isk, which can then be used to buy anything, even a new Tengu. That is a legitimate deal. It supports the Eve economy, and it's great.
Now, all micro transactions should follow this model - where the players who don't MT get something for making that product that people with money want to buy.
So, if MT has to continue, which it will because it already does, and it's profitable, it should follow this model.
Considering skills and faction standings. These things should also be player bought and sold. For example, consider a pvper who no longer cares for his mining skills, or a pilot who has very high Caldari standings who wouldn't mind selling 2 or 3 points of his standing?
If skill points and faction standing are sold in this manner, the community will not be flooded with an inexhaustible amount of skill points and faction standings, but rather with an exhaustible, and expensive, and profitable item of demand.
For pilots with unwanted skills, this will bring them income, and selling faction standings will bring in a new trade for PvErs who run missions.
As for the skills, the skills themselves are not being sold. The number of skill points ARE being sold. So if player A sells mining skill points, player B can apply those number of skill points to any skill of his choosing.
Essentially, this is the same as buying with a credit card a nicely skilled toon from the character bazaar.
The medium to buy these are Aurum. Aurum is bought by real cash. The supplies in the Nex store, which is bought by Aurum should be entirely supplied by players (except for the possibility of purely vanity items with no gray area), which will then be paid in Aurum to the player-supplier who can then use his newly acquired Aurum to buy items from the Nex store or trad into plex, or isk.
SoundWave, thanks for not pulling a Zulu and freaking out on us, and for keeping it classy and polite.
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