This is why:

Quote Originally Posted by Preypacer View Post
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?
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.