RMT Wins. Fatality!

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GeorgAnatoly wrote:

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b15h09 wrote:

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TheAnuhart wrote:

Well, conflicting design and contradictions run deep throughout PoE.

+1000

Hoping for a sequel with some lessons learned.

To be fair GGG probably shouldn't have attempted to include a full-blown economy in their first game, especially when none of the devs had the capacity to do so.

To be fair, the 'full blown economy' IS the game.

Chris has stated that the economy is the most important part of PoE to them.

It's just a bit of a shame that the otherwise best aRPG ever, to date, was attached to this.

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TheAnuhart wrote:

To be fair, the 'full blown economy' IS the game.

Chris has stated that the economy is the most important part of PoE to them.

It's just a bit of a shame that the otherwise best aRPG ever, to date, was attached to this.

That's like saying nate robison's entire game is his dunk. If chris really feels this way about the economy then they shouldn't have made an ARPG to begin with. ARPGs already aren't well suited for an economy let alone an economy that itself is archaic in design.

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That's far from the truth. The economy in PoE is currency based, where orbs function as gold aka currency. Bartering means you are switching end products with other end products, without intermediary. Though you can barter in PoE, nobody does that, everybody uses orbs akin to gold intermediary for transactions.

Shady transactions can be identified on this basis, as nobody will give you 100 exalts for a white iron ring.

Orbs have a value based on the observer or receiver, so it is perfectly fine to trade an iron ring for 1000 exalts without it being a shady deal.

This in itself prevents cases like this to be used as evidence. they wont hold up.

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Boem wrote:

Orbs have a value based on the observer or receiver, so it is perfectly fine to trade an iron ring for 1000 exalts without it being a shady deal.

That's pure theory. In reality orb market values are determined and don't vary much. Even noobs (who certainly don't have stacks of exalts) will be able to determine orb market values, just by glancing at trade chat.

It sounds like an excuse. "our economy is barter-based so anything can have any value". It's BS. In reality it's easy to determine if a deal falls in line with (league) current economy, or it's blown off the charts -> something smells fishy...

GGG could even write algorithms to evaluate items in terms of currency (since that's the exchange mechanic in 99.9% of cases), therefore evaluate transactions and single out those that fall off the charts and warrant further human examination on what's going on.

But whatever. I've read to many people's claims about exposing RMTers to GGG, but GGG doing nothing or barely anything about it. I myself don't follow the show, but mostly trust those people claims. If GGG is really so mellow on cracking down RMTers, its either because they don't have the resources, or they don't want to prod the wasp nest too much (stepping on toes of big streamers that bring viewers = players, & MTX cash).

coming from a game like ultima online, where players were literally selling their irl car to buy items in game, the rmt in PoE is pretty minimal.

Literally, in ultima online, you could sell the right account for 10k+ USD, on ebay. (we are talking legacy castle, 8+ years of unselected veteran rewards, the stupid(aweome) blue gloves that spawned once every three months or w/e per server and you had to be a thief to steal them from the game, unselected AoS rewards, select legacy goods (specifically bugged items or legacy server first spawns etc)).

People actually became famous irl for UO RMT (see markee dragon).

I see RMT as far less impactful in PoE, for a few reasons:
1.) GGG public denounces the use of RMT
2.) GGG does something occasionally about RMT (even occasionally this is a deterrent)
3.) It is an arpg with ladders instead of a MMO with limited availability player housing.
4.) Ladders expire after 4 months, with a new economy (which means less large ticket rmt, and more fresh economy low ticket rmt, a net positive)



But dont get me twisted, I thought it was absolutely fascinating that you could potentially play the game for several years and 'cash out' with an account sale. I will also admit that I did buy a second account for UO that had unselected veteran rewards, it came out to be roughly the same price as a fresh second box purchace (and all expansions). I was considering writing a paper about the wave of impact of pixel goods having such large real world value, but then the advertising market took off and demolished any impact rmt would have had on real world economies (lots and lots of money changing hands for basically nothing)

I think those UO days of RMT are a bygone era, where normal play practices could lead to massive account value. Now RMT is officially frowned upon, and is most effective if you change your play habits to support many smaller transactions rather than single large ticket purchases, meaning it is easier to spot and police RMT feeders now a days.

There is a demand though, and the world at large will meet the supply needs when money is involved. It is a fact of life. But GGG does not need to throw away the game they designed due to that one fact of life, and actually will not change that fact, just make it swing back to single large purchases of accounts which also make harder to identify potentially feeders if the game retains any interest of players at all (i would predict it as a death knell).

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GeorgAnatoly wrote:

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TheAnuhart wrote:

To be fair, the 'full blown economy' IS the game.

Chris has stated that the economy is the most important part of PoE to them.

It's just a bit of a shame that the otherwise best aRPG ever, to date, was attached to this.

That's like saying nate robison's entire game is his dunk. If chris really feels this way about the economy then they shouldn't have made an ARPG to begin with. ARPGs already aren't well suited for an economy let alone an economy that itself is archaic in design.

Well, that is how he feels, there's a post somewhere saying so (not that it isn't obvious any way).

The thing is, though, for Chris, it isn't that aRPGs aren't well suited, it's rather; economies are what aRPGs are about.

Remember, finding an awesome loot isn't 'Wow!!! I'ma roll a xxxxx build'

No.

Finding an awesome loot is 'This will be great for someone and net me some wealth'

Unbelievable, I know, but Chris actually believes this is 'THE core aRPG element'.
The core element for him and the D2**p people like him, maybe. THE core aRPG element? No.

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Chris has stated that the economy is the most important part of PoE to them.

That's just false. I follow all GGG posts/interviews/Q and As very closely. He never said that.

Don't spread false information to push your agenda in a discussion.

Okay so I've been saying this forever. It's obvious there's a huge amount of botters and RMT, think about it... People sitting on literally HUNDREDS of eternals and DOZENS of mirrors or more. I personally have not found an eternal or mirror in approx. 2000+ hours of play. They traded their way up to that you say? Not impossible, but not really believable either.

Not to mention, if someone sells their mirrors/eternals/other orbs for money, they no longer have that capital to continue trading for profit. I can't believe people even question the fact that botting/RMT is prevalent.

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kasub wrote:

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Chris has stated that the economy is the most important part of PoE to them.

That's just false. I follow all GGG posts/interviews/Q and As very closely. He never said that.

Don't spread false information to push your agenda in a discussion.

I'm sure someone will link the post.

Why on earth you have trouble believing this if you indeed follow all posts, it's quite apparent.

Edit, lol.

That didn't take long

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/55102

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Dev Diary: Rethinking Gold as a Currency
Path of Exile’s economy is the most important element of the game to us. It’s why we designed it to be played exclusively online. We examined the economies of other online RPGs and looked at how players interacted with each other in trade. In order to make gold a viable currency, the developers created many artificial sinks that do not have any real gameplay benefit. In some games, rather than using these built-in gold systems, players seem to prefer to barter item-for-item, inventing their own currencies and relative values. This development diary entry describes how we used these lessons to design the trade systems in Path of Exile.

It is fairly obvious every design decision coming from up top is made for the good of the economy as a whole. Devs treat the player base as a homogeneous mass and don't really care about individual player experience as far as obtaining items is concerned.

This is off-topic but the latest proposed drop changes follow this same logic.

If there are 10 copies of unique X on the market currently, increasing the drop rates by 20% would make it so there are about 12 copies at the same time next leagues given equal population. They don't care who has item X or who can get it, just that there are 2 more available for trade.

The way atziri content is supposed to be accessed is also proof of this, from day one "the correct way to farm midnights" has been to buy them, if you want to do multiple runs.