The XMEN Clan Forums

You've seen it happen, I'm sure. Someone offering to sell virtual cash or awesome items for real-world moolah. Sony has finally decided to stop trying to squelch that market and try to make a buck off it themselves by creating a "Station Exchange" for these folks. You've probably already seen this if you play Evercrack.

No word yet on whether WoW and other MMORPGs will attempt to follow suit. I suspect they'll adopt a "wait and see" attitude. Blizzard, almost certainly, won't be making any over-hurried changes...

So, what do you think about the practice in general?

Personally, I don't really mind buying and selling virtual goods, but it does bug me when I see a low-level guy with super-duper high-level equipment. I can propose a couple of solutions to this...

1) the olde level-limit gimmick. As in, this vorpal sword is designed for use by level 25+ players, so no player below, say, level 20 will be able to use it. I've seen this, but not in MMORPGs. Does anyone do this online?

2) (goes with #1) Alternately, allow the lower levels to use the item, but at a reduced level of efficacy - smaller bonuses. Could also make this operable for all items, so that almost every item is a super-item, if used by a super-character, and a wuss can't help but have wussy items.

3) Third option - your items "grow" in ability with you. As you level up, the items customize themselves to you personally, complimenting your own strengths and weaknesses. If you trade the item, it doesn't "know" its new master, so it can revert to a default state immediately or adjust over time to the new owner.

It's only a matter of time, before the other companies come around to that line of thinking. It's sad that players would rather buy their items for real cash from someone else, than take the time to quest for it, or the items to make it.

Yes, I've seen this for CoH as well. Thankfully, it's not a huge problem there, though.

Cash (influence) in the game starts off rare. You're strapped for cash at first, but you can buy what you need up until about L10. Once you hit L12, and then all the way up to L32, you're in some serious hurt if you don't watch your money carefully. If you avoid buying costumes or capes, and make sure to sell everything at the right stores, and buy new enhancements as you need them (read: old ones go unusable), you can make it up to 32 by your fingernails and no outside assistance.

Very very hard, though.

Once you get over L32, though, things change. Cash comes rolling in, and you'll think nothing of blowing four million to get a fresh set of enhancements. Up until L50, unless you spend prolifigately, you'll never be short on money.

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That said, twinking is alive and well in CoH. Heck, I do it myself. Every serious new character I create gets two million influence from my L43 scrapper. 2M combined with what one earns normally is enough to see one all the way up to the mid 30s.

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The really nice thing about CoH is that they went and used a combination of items #1 and #3 in Gambit's list: Enhancements.

Enhancements, well, enhance aspects of your powers. You can put as many as six of them into a single power, and over the course of the 50 levels in the game, you can have approximately 65 of them slotted into your powers.

Enhancements have a level range. A L10 enhancement, for example, can be used by anyone as low as L7, and as high as L13. A L6 simply can't equip a L10 enhancement, and a L14 can use it only to be combined with one he aready has to buff its effects. If you are lower level than the enhancement you have slotted, it has a bonus added on to its default (as high as 3 percent), and if you are higher, a penalty (as low as -3 percent).

What this results in is people either saving up and buying a fresh set of enhancements at levels 3, 7, 12, 17, 22, 27, and so on, or buying them as they can afford them. It works pretty well, even though characters are pretty low on cash in their 20s.

Everyone can buy these, and they're commonly dropped by enemies and can be sold for cash. The economy in CoH is fairly warped due to lack of any real money-sinks (my L43 scrapper blew 4 million on enhancements when she hit L42, out of 8 million she had stocked, and had earned it all back halfway into L43), but it does tend to result in less goofiness in players due to lack of real 'phat lewt'.

Post L45, though, things get weird. There's a raid one can partake in to get Hamidon Enhancements, which are very powerful stuff. They cannot be bought, only earned. These are the things that get sold on eBay most often. However, they don't really affect the lower-end game at all, due to the minimum level required to use them of 45 (out of 50).

Frankly, I wish more MMOGs worked like CoH or Planetside when it came to equipment. Remove the loot, concentrate on the game, but maybe throw in a small bone for the l33t players to chew on.

Here's a follow-up:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/04 ... e_reviled/

Apparently SOE customers hate the idea, at least in the UK. Given some of the scenarios mentioned in the article (Far Eastern "sweat shops," basically), I would be forced to agree. Selling characters on such a scale would indeed ruin the game for a lot of people.

I still think an individual should be able to sell virtual goods & characters, but I'd tolerate total lockdown if it prevented abuse of this nature.