Planning ahead one: Build in RMT prevention, Essays on important pre-Alpha considerations Options

[Brotoi]

I haven't been involved in MMORPGs since the beginning, but I have been here for the worst of it. I remember the very first time an Ultima Online Guild House was sold on Ebay. At the time, I naively thought that was pretty cool.

Now I realize it was a harbringer of the worst abuses of capitalism the modern world has ever seen.

Right now, before going into an Alpha structure, while still building systems one by one, remember to put in place some form of economic control that will enable the management team to pinpoint and eliminate both the buyers and the sellers of RMT transactions.

Providing mechanisms that discourage bulk storage is one possibility. Item and material storage should apply to an account rather than an individual character. This makes it impossible for one person to use multiple characters to build up large stocks that they can then sell to IGE or offer on EBay. Granted, this also enables a player to "twink" a new character using left over equipment from an advanced one, but this "twinking" is highly desired among players who feel that time invested in one character should help their overall game experience improve. Since a subscription based profit model encourages long-term loyalty, "twinking" is a behavior that wins loyalty by rewarding time invested.

Crafting is one area that game designers always overlook when combating RMT transactions. If a player must have 400 skins to make one suit of armor I garauntee you they will buy those skins from RMT providers. Normal players will not be willing to grind out massive material quanities in order to perform simple crafts. Craft requirements should be realistic, reasonable, and calculated on the basis of game-time required. For example, in the real world, one adult cow and one calf provides enough material to craft two sets of standard leather underarmor or one set of layered, hardened leather body armor. So why does a game require a player to hunt down twenty wild bulls to perform the same craft? Such a requirement is intended to keep players playing, but all it really does is fuel the RMT market by making crafting unavailable to casual players with more money than time, and those players are the buyers who fuel the growth of RMT transactions.

Any abnormally large transfer of cash or materials between two individual accounts needs to be flagged for closer inspection. If one account is consistently collecting large blocks of cash or materials from several others (farmers providing their output to a mule) and then retransferring those blocks to other accounts, the entire network needs to be removed from the gameworld including all the recipient accounts! Guilds that regularly buy large amounts of ingame currency from a single supplier and then finance the activities of their members are particular culprits to watch out for. These are the people that keep the RMT providers in business and it is the providers that cause the most damage to your community. The only way to eliminate the providers is to remove their market at the same time as you remove them.

Of course, one way to short circuit the system entirely is to put caps on individual transfers of materials. If there is a limit to how many skins one person can transfer to another, then there will be both less incentive to farm skins and less profit in selling bulk lots through EBay, IGE, and other markets.

Account-based storage
Realistic crafting requirements
Flagging, review, and when necessary, banning of bulk transfer networks
Quantity limits on money/material transfers between characters

These are just the beginning of the many ways game systems can be designed from the ground up in a manner that will make RMT unprofitable and therefore unattractive in your final game.

Keep in mind that all of these will result in a quiet hum of discontent from the playerbase. They are inconveniences, but they are not gamebreakers. People will grumble, but they will keep right on paying subscription fees, enjoying their communities, and playing the game. Not all player complaints are equally valid because the simple reality of humanity is you cannot please all the people all the time.

Understand the trade-offs that build longevity, comfort the players who feel disappointed and always provide open, honest explanations of the choices you've made during the design process.

[Jerky]

Very good post. Thanks for that well-thought-out and insightful idea. This is not something that has gone unnoticed by yours truly. In fact, I have a post here with an idea that is directed toward twinking specifically, since I detest the idea.

Gimme some time to mull this over and I will link in the other threads and ideas that fit in here. Perhaps I will have some time tomorrow while at work to post my thoughts.

[RicoSuave]

Brotoi,
I agree with Jerky. You obviously feel quite strongly about this topic and have put considerable time into coming up with feasible conclusions. I look forward to read more ideas from you.

-Rico