Comments on: China, Gambling, And Virtual Conflict

By: Mix RMT MMO’s with Las Vegas « Nuyan’s Hangout

Mix RMT MMO’s with Las Vegas « Nuyan’s Hangout — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 12:37:48 +0000

[...] I originally found out about this on Rock, Paper, Shotgun! [...]

By: Meat Circus

Meat Circus — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 12:41:19 +0000

@No Picnic:

Steer well clear of Hello Kitty: Island Adventure. It will ruin your life.

By: No Picnic

No Picnic — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 08:10:38 +0000

I’ve contemplated playing a MMO, but I’m not going to touch them. There’s too many more useful things to do with my time. Even without a MMO monkey on my back I have trouble doing said useful things.

Heh, time for me to get offline.

By: malkav11

malkav11 — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 03:18:25 +0000

Perhaps I’m wrong, but isn’t it pretty much essential to stay in empire space if you don’t want to participate in PvP in Eve (and even then, it’s not a hard guarantee)?

By: Meat Circus

Meat Circus — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 14:36:11 +0000

He makes some damn good graphs and slideshows

I would point out that, to an economist, that’s the very pinnacle of achievement.

By: Jon

Jon — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 14:05:59 +0000

CCP have created a completely unregulated market

Except they haven’t, if the market were completely unregulated then there would be no price limits and everything would be dictated by the market. However things like refining NPC bought goods and insurance on ships being tied to “base cost” means that there are prices for certain items which wont ever be reached no matter how little supply or demand there is for the item in question.

And on the matter of the economist, I’ve never had much faith in him. He makes some damn good graphs and slideshows but hasn’t really done anything for the Eve economy, I’m not sure if he even could do anything about it, I’m not sure he holds that much power.

By: Meat Circus

Meat Circus — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 13:32:56 +0000

Problem is, once one conglomerate controls the majority of 0.0 space, they’ll also control enough of the supply of materials that it will become effectively impossible to mount an effective resistance against them. Once that happens, people will simply stop playing unless they’re forcibly split up or forced to divest assets.

CCP’s challenge is to ensure it never gets to that point. They have to keep the wars flowing.

By: AbyssUK

AbyssUK — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 13:19:39 +0000

EVE needs an unregulated market, to force wars and infighting.

By: Meat Circus

Meat Circus — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 13:02:50 +0000

From what I’ve heard of the China Eve server [admittedly hearsay from the hideous source of knowledge which is “they”], “they” say that most of the 0.0 areas of EVE [the most profitable areas] are under the control of an isk selling conglomerate.

That’s interesting, if true, because it means that the correct solutions is probably something approaching the real-world one- anti-trust ‘legislation’.

EVE needs something like a Competition Commissioner that has the power to split up corporations or alliances that control far too much of 0.0 space, or force them to divest assets or similar, just like happens in the real world.

CCP have created a completely unregulated market, with all of the problems that entails: monopolies, duopolies, price fixing, price gouging and sundry anti-competitive behaviour. They need to move to a regulated market because real life shows that a completely unregulated market tends to destabilize itself.

As far as I know, CCP are the first MMO dev to actually employ a full-time economist to consider these kinds of issues though. This is exactly the sort of thing he should be thinking about.

By: Jon

Jon — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 11:30:43 +0000

From what I’ve heard of the China Eve server [admittedly hearsay from the hideous source of knowledge which is "they"], “they” say that most of the 0.0 areas of EVE [the most profitable areas] are under the control of an isk selling conglomerate.

I believe this to be more CCP’s fault than anything else, the Chine Eve Server went from nothing to essentially a mirror of the normal one. This means that there was a very very large power vacum and it was filled by the people who were most prepared and most determined, which in this case were the isk farmers. But any other faction could probably have done the same job with enough people and support.

By: Piratepete

Piratepete — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 11:28:05 +0000

Unfortunately after reading the experience of Lu-Yuang in the article I think that this may already be the golden age of MMO’s. If people want to pay to be powerful in a game, I don’t think it will be long before all MMo’s adopt the model of ZT online. I mean to say just look at the money that game has brought in, its phenomenal. I think MMO’s in the future will be nothing more than cash generating schemes offering little to the player unless they open their wallet.

Damn it I used to think MMO’s were ace but the longer I am away the more down about them I am getting. Which is a shame because after 6 months of single player gaming I realise I miss the commeradery of raiding.

By: Meat Circus

Meat Circus — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 11:15:30 +0000

Age of Conan has 80 levels by the way, and a similar leveling curve to WoW’s 1-60 (aka easy; casual or otherwise).

I think the number of levels is an irrelevance, it’s how quickly you get there. I hit the level cap in Guild Wars in about two weeks of play, and I understand that Age of Conan promises something similar.

Since WoW-heads always claim that “the game begins at 60″, it makes sense to get the levelling, if you really must have it, out of the way as quickly as possible. Unfortunately WoW doesn’t. Even after the recent XP boost, it still draws out the 35-50 doldrums for far too long. Mind you, now they’ve added a big wodge of new quests and a quest hub to Dustwallow Marsh, perhaps it won’t be as necessary to spend so much sodding time in Stranglethorn Vale.

Which is nice.

I mean, the Burning Crusade did try to vary the nature of WoW quests somewhat, but there’s only so much that Blizz can do within the limited mechanics of MMORPG 1.0.

Still, I can’t wait to find out what Bioware and Blizztivision have planned for their next-gen KOTOR and Starcraft MMOs. Maybe something that’s 50% EVE, 50% Planetside would be interesting.