SE will never succumb to Diablo III official RMT

This is why:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Preypacer

So the attitude, then, is pretty much "Why try to beat them, when you can just join them"?

The idea is that RMT has no place in the games to begin with. This is why companies like SE continue to fight against it - because they *don't* want it in the game in the first place.

By supporting the idea of a system like this, you're essentially supporting RMT.

That some are looking at it as a "money making opportunity".. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't FFXIV supposed to be a *game*? Something done on one's leisure time for entertainment, not a place for people to open their own personal store front?

Honestly, there are other online worlds for that kind of thing.. Second Life and Project Entropia being two of them. It works fine for those worlds because they're created from the ground up to support such a thing. It's core to their entire design.

FFXIV is not created with the goal of being a "virtual storefront for enterprising gamers".

Needless to say, I disagree with a system like Blizzard's wholeheartedly, 1000%.

Using an example made earlier..."If it takes someone 2 years to get a piece of gear then someone's spending the same amount of money, only they're getting it that much sooner!". Aside from the idea of spending 2 years worth of sub fees on a single in-game item being absolutely ridiculous, this is flawed on several levels...

1) Time and chance are the two equalizers in a system like this. No matter who you are or what walk of life you come from, the game doesn't care... You have the same odds of achieving or acquiring something as anyone else, you have to put the time in to achieve or acquire something like anyone else.

Anyone who wants a piece of gear, or to achieve something, has the same chance of obtaining or achieving it. They have the same in-game resources available to them. They all have to put in the same time and overcome the same obstacles. It's part of what keeps the playing field level for everyone.

Everyone pays the same sub fee, everyone gets the same game.

"But people with more time to play can make more progress and that's not fair!" I can already hear some protest... Being someone, myself, who has less time to play than many, I still strongly disagree with that assessment. It's an argument from entitlement, made by people who feel that somehow having less time to play makes them a 'special case', and entitles them to special treatment; an easier ride. It's not unfair that people with more time to play make more progress... It's common sense. It happens in everything and will happen in everything. Even with the fatigue system in place limiting how much people could level, people with more time to play *still* made more progress in terms of leveling different classes and completing more content.

Allowing for extra time for wipes, etc... if an activity requires about 5 hours of in-game time to complete, some people are going to have 5+ hours available to do it in one shot. Others are only going to have an hour or two at a time, and will have to complete it in parts. At the end of the day, both people have spent about the same amount of in-game time to achieve that goal.

Perhaps if people learned to stop valuing their own play experience only in how it compares to "how far along others are", and start worrying about their own progress and enjoyment instead, this perceived "problem" would go away.

2) A flaw with the quoted line of reasoning is that for 2 years of paid playtime, players are getting access to the *entire game*, not just a single piece of gear. So they are not spending "2 years paying for the item". They are spending 2 years playing the game.

3) People around here seem to hate "elitism", and with good reason. I can't stand it either.

It should be noted that with a system where you can buy gear instead of earning it in-game, you end up replacing one kind of elitism with another... It goes from "those who have the most time get the nicer things first" to "those with the most cash to spend on in-game items get the better gear first... or even at all".

I've spent a notable amount of time in various F2P with Cash Shops, particularly those that sell gear via their cash shops. You better believe that in F2P/Cash Shop games where $$$ spent is a deciding factor, that same "elitism" rears its ugly head. People will not invite you to their raid groups, etc. if you haven't dropped $$$ on those high ticket gear items. You're not "committed" or "serious" enough for them.

Imagine that... being deemed "unworthy" not based on your skill or preparedness as a gamer.. but by how fat your wallet is as a consumer. Yeah. Wonderful idea, that. /sarcasm

In a system where $$$ is that important a factor, should SE decide to take that route, you can bet your ass it would become a problem in this game as well; especially with how caught up people are already showing themselves to be with "optimal setups" for things.

3) Adding a "Buy It Now!" option to acquire items that would otherwise have to be earned by playing the game would only undermine entire portions of the game itself. Why do those quests when you can just buy it outright! Why level crafting and put all the time into creating good gear items when people can just buy them with real $$$! And so forth...

Bringing real world money into a virtual world takes the experience from that of being in a virtual fantasy world *separate* from our own, to becoming a virtual shopping mall with quests and xp that is merely an extension of our own.

I can't think of a better way to completely ruin any sense of being in a virtual world than by having real world $$$ attached to items in the game.

SE's stated in the past that they didn't agree with the RMT path, because it detracts from the game overall... Here's hoping they still hold that position.

Seriously what is it with this trend to monetize video games? Yeah! Instead of having players actually earn things in-game as rewards for *playing*, let's just side-step all that nonsense and attach a price-tag to it instead!

How about we let the experience of playing a game be about the gameplay and not about how much real world $$$ we have to spend on virtual items. Novel idea, isn't it?

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Just wanted to show everyone what preypacer said because it makes a lot of sense and can hopefully get people to realize how silly it is to ruin a game with official RMT. It's an evil in many MMOs that ruins the game. So after many attempts to prevent this, regulating it officially in a game will only make that same game breaking organization an official one.

Regarding Diablo III, I actually wanted to play that game until official RMT system was announced. I really hope people don't support this system it's just rediculous to me.

Thanks for reading.

In my opinion Blizzard already poisoned the MMO genre, so this right up the same alley. You can bet that if they make a ton of money off the transactions you'll see game sanctioned RMT become the norm, just like developers are all scrambling to copy WoW - regardless of the impact it has on the health of the game or the genre. I don't think SE is immune to this mentality, especially after the losses they've taken on FFXIV so far.

I agree with everything quoted in the OP though. I will never play any MMOs that adopt this.

we didnt need another thread on this

next step will be allowing any and all 3rd party tools, everyone having them instead of some? same concept then. why let 3groups outclaim everyone with bots ...let us all have them on equal ways. lol ...i don't think i like this idea but i can see ff17 trying to do all of this if diablo succeed. every gaming company would happily milk more money from the populous if they could, that is all they are about.

though i would have to say doing it outright isn't horrible, at least most the players then will either be rmt or won't be, no secret hidden lines between them like there are in most mmo's these days. i've seen billions of bank gils get stolen and leaders running off to sell there accounts leavin ls to his mates, only to come back a month later. lot of shadyness that maybe can be ended.

maybe even prices drop so badly cause every little kid with 10hrs of gameplay after school will be undercutting each other that rmt prices will be next to nothing? i dunno just trying to think of the positive possibilities. but either way all mmo's and gaming for that matter worry me, they are all on a path to milk the customer for every cent they willing to give them, from dlc's to costume packs, and whatever else they can think of that they can charge u for. none of it will change till people just finally say nooo, and of course there be enough people that say it. till then we are on a straight path to this industry sucking eggs.

Never say never! :P

Who knows what the future of gaming holds? You don't. For better or for worse, it is changing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jaide

In my opinion Blizzard already poisoned the MMO genre, so this right up the same alley. You can bet that if they make a ton of money off the transactions you'll see game sanctioned RMT become the norm, just like developers are all scrambling to copy WoW - regardless of the impact it has on the health of the game or the genre. I don't think SE is immune to this mentality, especially after the losses they've taken on FFXIV so far.
I agree with everything quoted in the OP though. I will never play any MMOs that adopt this.

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+100000000

RMT or cashshops in -> Rinsui out.
(One of the very few things that could really drive me away forever).
Just not my style of game.

I more readily belive that the organized RMTers will still have an edge above ordinary players even if RMT is legalized, since they can bot-farm 24/7 and coordinate their never-resting efforts. What will happen most likely is that the real money market will be dominated by China, and the money will be sucked out of the pockets of wealthy US buyers.

(Funny how game worlds have come to replicate reality!)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ventus

This is why:



Just wanted to show everyone what preypacer said because it makes a lot of sense and can hopefully get people to realize how silly it is to ruin a game with official RMT. It's an evil in many MMOs that ruins the game. So after many attempts to prevent this, regulating it officially in a game will only make that same game breaking organization an official one.

Regarding Diablo III, I actually wanted to play that game until official RMT system was announced. I really hope people don't support this system it's just rediculous to me.

Thanks for reading.

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Heh, that other thread must have gotten nasty after I posted this morning. Have been at work, so I couldn't follow it, other than a quick glimpse while on a short break.

It's definitely a divisive topic. The way I see it, however, is this... Up until Blizzard announced this new system for Diablo III, no one in XIV - at least that I've seen - even seriously *considered* being able to sell or buy things in this game for real world money. Even if it's been touched upon in the past, it certainly hasn't been a "major topic", as those tend to come up repeatedly.

People were concerned about the the rate of sp, about the difficulty of dungeons, about the amount of content, interface issues, MW issues, etc... things specifically relating to the gameplay and balance. Now all of a sudden, Blizzard makes this announcement, and all of a sudden people are up in arms about it being implemented in FFXIV.

Regarding your statement, Ventus, about how SE's been fighting it... that's another detail that I wonder if people have seriously considered. SE has been aggressively dead-set against RMT, and keeping real-money transactions out of the game. They've gone to great lengths to combat it in FFXI and vowed to do the same in XIV. They said from early on that RMT/MTs was not something they were seriously considering as they see the ways in which it detracts from the game, and makes it instead about how much $$$ people are able to spend.

In light of all that, it would put them in a very precarious and uncomfortable position to suddenly come around and say "Oh hey, remember how we said we were completely against RMT, have been fighting it tooth and nail month after month, and said we'd never implement it into our games? Yeah... Forget all that. We've decided that it's actually A-OK (as long as we're getting a cut), so we're going to officially endorse it now!"

That would completely undermine all their past efforts to combat it, and the outward stance they've had against it all this time.

I realize there are some who wouldn't care about that, because it would suit them personally if SE did so... However, I think they've put themselves in quite enough hot water as it is with how XIV launched in the first place. Essentially re-negging on their own stance in the midst of all that? Not a good idea.

Maybe some years down the road, when FFXIV is past its hey-day and is slowly winding down, like XI is now.. But not at this point. Too many wounds are still too new and open to run the risk of opening yet another one.

Also.. Just to clarify something I said in my post which you quoted.. When I said I was against the system Blizzard is implementing 1000%, I meant in terms of it being implemented in XIV. I really couldn't care less what Blizzard does in their own games anymore. The "Activision" part of Activision Blizzard started becoming apparent some time ago already. This move on their part is just par for the course.

Finally, I share your sentiment.. The moment SE turns that corner and decides to bring real world money into purchasing in-game items... I'm gone as well.

It *sounds* great in theory to say "if you don't like it, just don't buy the items and get them yourself instead..." However, per my personal experience with similar situations in other MMOs... it never pans out that way. The effect of such things becomes too pervasive for anyone to "avoid". Everyone ends up being affected by it in the end.

Great post Preypacer!
On the D3 front, I won't be buying the game despite being a huge fan of the first and an avid player of the second. They messed with their formula so badly on so many levels. The RMT decision they made is about an extra 500 nails more than was ever necessary to close up that coffin. I wouldn't touch a game that supports RMT with a 20 foot pole.

I'd rather have SE with a endorsed RMT market and funds to make more content, that have a empty game where money can't buy power (but where time spent grinding is power).

It's only a matter of balance, like Eve showed us.

Oh my god will the economy drama ever stop?

(Thank god at least Monster Hunter 3 has balanced money/gameplay ratio that has nothing to do with other players. At least in that game one can concentrate on playing the game instead of dealing with this bs in the game and on the forums.)
Will the final step of MW to AH ever happen?

People voted for it in the poll and they've already fixed a lot lower priority poll results.

The idea is great. Get with times, deal with it. I much prefer having fun in the game, not spending years getting to the fun part. So im all for it.

And we dont need another fking thread on it.

"Getting to the fun part" is a matter of opinion. I found the "getting" to be the fun part. Again that is my opinion. Your opinion and my opinion has absolutely nothing to do with "getting with the times". Stop forcing your opinions on others just because few agree with you

Just wondering what you all think Crysta is going to be used for ...

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Originally Posted by Naqaj

Just wondering what you all think Crysta is going to be used for ...

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Doesn't really matter what we "think" or "assume" it will be for.

People can offer theories all day long, or express what they *hope* it will be used for.

We wont' know for sure until SE reveals and details it to us them self.

Well, Diablo III is not really an MMO, and if you pay attention, you will see people selling items on ebay, which is unsafe and does not promise what you pay for. Now, I would rather play and earn my items rather than buy them, but other people are different, and in a game that is basically single player, who cares if someone buys an item? On top of that, if anyone can sell items legit in Diablo III, it will actually hurt RMT, due to so many competition they would not otherwise have.

I would also like to point out to people who did not know or did not notice that when FFXI had a huge RMT problem, SE officially stated that the reason RMT was against the ToS was specifically because of how easily people can be scammed. SE went on to say, before FF14 was even announced, that they would PROBABLY remove RMT restrictions in their future game. So, SE has already said they were concidering doing exactly what Blizzard is doing. Just letting you guys know.

I will edit my post when I find the actual link from long ago about this.

Here, I found the quote.

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Dec. 8, 2004 10:05 [PST] From: PlayOnline


Regarding Real Money Trade (Dec. 8)



With respect to game titles operated by the PlayOnline service, including FINAL FANTASY XI, it is specifically prohibited to sell game currency, characters, or any other in-game items for real money or any other consideration for value (known as Real Money Trade "RMT"). This prohibition is expressly referred to in the following two clauses, which are part of the respective agreements which all registered users of the FINAL FANTASY XI and/or PlayOnline services have agreed to abide by:

*PlayOnline Member Agreement: Article 4.4
*FINAL FANTASY XI User Agreement: Article 3.1

This prohibition is due to the possibility of fraud during transaction in the real world which may lead to legal sanctions, including possible criminal sanctions, being imposed on those involved in such trade. In addition, Real Money Trade was not initially a part of the design for any of our game titles.

We are already investigating this issue and putting into effect appropriate measures for such actions within the game environment, and we will continue to do so in the future. Players found to be participating in Real Money Trade will be deemed to be in breach of the clauses set out above and will be subject to any appropriate legal sanction. We expressly reserve our rights in the event of such a breach, including the right to cancel the PlayOnline account of any user in breach of the clauses above, without any prior notice to such user.

Many of you have recently made GM calls or contacted the Information Center to report such Real Money Trades taking place at various online auction sites. Please note, however, that our ability to take appropriate action in such cases is very often dependent on the cooperation of the respective websites, which is not within our control. While we are grateful for your help, please note that it is not necessary to make a GM call or to contact the Information Center to report such issues.

While it is not possible to change our policy regarding Real Money Trades for any current online Square Enix title, it is possible that our policy might change for future titles, although no decision in that respect has yet been made.
Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

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http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/polnews/news3374.shtml

sigh i do alot of hating on this game but i always come back yet if they were to do this id never come back or buy another FF

lol, we lost the california make pot legal almost defenetly cause drug dealers were voting no, this is probably the only people that can have a problem with this, i say let them all sell it who cares.

....and lol lets hope next year cali wins !!

I don't see why they can't just do their own RMT instead of be the RMT middle man...oh right they want to sell even the packaging instead of following the F2P world.

I don't see how this is going to work from an economic or business model standpoint. The flaw is the "players" or the "consumers".

All blizard is trying to do is convert "ingame money trading" into real life money trading. Like everyone stops trading in dollars and instead in Yen.

The bigger problem is that everyone is in the same market, thus the only difference is the amount of time you spend on it. Thus RMT who is working shift after shift after shift will always beat out independent players. This also means it will create an buyers market without buyers.

There is pretty much no buyers in this market, because they are in the game to sell. That's why F2P models try very hard to make sure that they are the only seller and everyone else is the buyer.

There maybe a handful of casuals that might be buying without selling in D3...but the barrier of entry is too high and the market too competitive that it'll just crash at a moments notice.

Blizzard is under the impression that buyers are also sellers. That is true when it's in-game money, but when you use real-life money, there is a distinct problem there. Players are in the game to stop working, not work some more. The definition of the "counter" verus "money.

Though you never know, gambling uses real money as a medium for entertainment. But I just don't see it when the only means of getting ahead is more labor.

They've fully embraced 'micro transactions' as you're branding them RMT. They have a facebook mafiawars clone. Perhaps they refuse to do so in their mmos for the time being, but they are very much so actively seeking revenues from that aspect of the market.

the micro transaction model is here to stay, it's only a matter of time before it's in most modern games due to the extreme profits driven from that type of economy.

Microtransactions are NEVER a bad thing for a game

the difference in what kind you should put in a game is based on its model


never put power ups/gear in a p2p store....cosmetic only is ok though(race changes, costumes, etc etc depending on what game it is)

in a f2p game though you can do almost anything and get away with it(its your income after all)

neither model is rong, both make really good money if done right


but what diablo is doing is NOT the same as micro transactions.....its just straight dealing real money into a game

i don't really see this working but i can be wrong, i hate ebay, i never use it, i always put my used ps3 games up on craigslist cause it's free. paying a fee no matter what if sells or not is just a waist of money for most people, specially if it don't sell. the only ones making out is blizzard, they will get tons of money from these charges and most players won't even sell what they trying to only to have to put it back up for sale again for another cost.

The fact that they aren't supplying the items to the market isn't really a big difference, they take a flat fee + a % cut transaction fee. They already have a vested interest in fostering and supporting that market place. Technically speaking, the only logical difference between directly supplying the items, or supporting a market to supply the items is the setting of prices and the availability of the items, which, when examined more closely, is exactly the same issue as availability will have a direct impact on price. It is in their best interest to take this approach, as limiting the number of very rare items will dramatically increase the prices of those items in the market place, and thus they get a bigger cut.

While they may not place 'Ormuse's Armor of Awesomesauce" into the market, they do set the rarity, and thus the price of the item. Realistically it's not much of a difference between setting a price and listing it themselves in the first place. It's just clever marketing/PR BS where their method of implementation is almost exactly the same as other implementations while making it seem as if they are above such base levels of directly injecting items into the economy to make a buck.

If they really, truly were not approaching this from a 'micro transaction' marketing standpoint, they would make DIII have a small subscription fee to support maintaining a money-based market run by the players, and not the transaction fee ebay schema.

I dislike the idea of micro transactions. It is, for the time being at least, unavoidable that companies will research using the model as the revenues are sickening when compared to subscription based methods. No companies 'ideals' put them above implementing something that gamers see as high treason, they (SE, in this case) just hasn't found a way to implement it in their mmo's yet.

i'm picturing se with like 50 ..10$ mini expansions this time around lol, lots of small zones to jump into that u gotta pay extra for, after the 3 mini expanisions in ffxi, this is what i was thinking when the microtansactions threads back in day blew up. i don't think ...at least in this ff mmo series that they will every try this type of thing. but without a doubt i see them going anywhere the money takes them.

Okay... I really need to ask...

You went out of your way to research a direct reference to SE's stance on RMT so you could provide it in this thread... +1 for that; it's far more than most people would ever even bother to do; preferring instead to pull things out of thin air and argue them as fact.

However... Even having the direct quote from them in front of you, and actually highlighting it in bold text, you still manage to completely misrepresent it in your statement... although you made the statement before you posted the SE quote. Same result in the end...

In other words, how do you read, copy, paste and highlight this:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nvr

While it is not possible to change our policy regarding Real Money Trades for any current online Square Enix title, it is possible that our policy might change for future titles, although no decision in that respect has yet been made.

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... and then completely misrepresent it as support for your statement, highlighted here:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nvr

I would also like to point out to people who did not know or did not notice that when FFXI had a huge RMT problem, SE officially stated that the reason RMT was against the ToS was specifically because of how easily people can be scammed. SE went on to say, before FF14 was even announced, that they would PROBABLY remove RMT restrictions in their future game. So, SE has already said they were concidering doing exactly what Blizzard is doing.

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That statement by SE does not even remotely support nor reflect what you stated.

Their statement is basically, "it's a possibility that our stance on RMT might change in the future... however we haven't even made a decision in that regard yet".

In other words, at that point, it wasn't even on the table.

Regarding the history of this topic where SE's concerned, however... Here's a few tidbits.

In an interview around July, 2010, the question of microtransactions and RMT in FFXIV was raised during an interview... Tanaka responded per the following summary:

Quote:

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Questions 10 & 11 are about RMT and item malls (microtransactions), including ones operated by Square Enix.
The first answer says that no outside RMT will be tolerated. The next reply indicates that there are no plans for microtransactions at this time but that Square Enix will add them if it is in high demand. Tanaka-san explains that their motivation is to keep players on level ground and not allow anyone to buy power in-game.

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Source Here

Now, they do concede that if there is high enough demand, it's something they would do... Even at that, the over-arching goal is to keep players on level ground... I'd take "not buying power in-game" would mean no gear, weapons or anything else that contributes to a character's strength or ability would be sold. People won't be "buying a win" in other words. At most, and I'm guessing at this, it'd be purely cosmetic.

They would, ideally, be receiving monthly sub fees, so they wouldn't have to depend on Cash Shop transactions to "pay the bills". This is good for players as it means they wouldn't be in the position purely cash-shop driven MMOs are, where they *have* to design ways into the game to drive players to the cash shop, because that's the only way they make their money.

It wouldn't be so good for those who just want to buy their way through the game, but really... those aren't the people SE should be catering to anyway. Frankly, those folks would probably resort to buying gil in the secondary markets instead, defending it with their vacuous cries of "the game forced me to!"; hopefully they'd be caught and banned in the process.

Wada did discuss the possibility of adding it in another interview, but again, doesn't go into specifics of how it would be implemented or what would be sold.

A couple pertinent quotes here:

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“The basic model hasn't changed,” he said. “It's a monthly flat rate service with additional charges for items that users want to buy.

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and...

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“We soon learnt that there are a lot of people who want that kind of model, so we would like to introduce more pay-as-you-use items into the game. But there were too few items in FFXI – however we don't want to take it to the other extreme entirely for FFXIV.

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Source Here

People will recall them selling things like the charm, which included an in-game item, the security token which provided a mog satchel, etc. etc. I have a feeling it would remain along the line of those kinds of items.

Overall, as of right now, there has been no official word from SE to counter or contradict anything they've already established regarding their stance on all-out Cash Shop style Microtransactions.