RMT

[MortalEnjoyer42069]

Real Money Trading was one of the downfalls of MO1 and history is repeating itself with MO2. It is very easy to tell what groups of people are engaged in this behavior. RMT not only destabilizes the in game economy, but it also hurts player adoption and retention as you cannot effectively fight against players that can out spend you IRL to win in game. Additionally, hacking and exploiting goes hand in hand with RMT as it is easier to cheat to make money compared to playing legitimately. This issue needs to be addressed further by the developers and a zero tolerance policy needs to be adopted.

Solutions:
1) Stop all game sales outside of NA and EU AND/OR standardize game sale price to be $40 USD EVERYWHERE.
2) Permanently ban players for RMT (buyers and sellers) + (IP and HWID).
3) Publish guild names of the players being banned for RMT.

 

[Jackdstripper]

Yup. The solutions are easy, as you say, but SV doesnt care that much about it. They would rather have a few more people on their server than crack down hard on it.
The addition of a sub was the perfect chance to make this game unaffordable for RMTers, but SV dropped the ball again.
Now the economy is so insanely overheated that legitimate players (those that dont buy gold) are faced with huge farming grinds just to be able to gear their characters for pvp.
New players are in an even worse situation.

Usual SV never learning from their mistakes.

 

[finegamingconnoisseur]

Stopping game sales outside US and EU means players from Australia like myself and others (who don't RMT at all) won't be able to play. It also won't solve the RMT problem.

I wouldn't say RMT is a phenomenon that occurs only outside of the US and EU. In all likelihood it is a global one on an individual case-by-case basis that needs to be addressed rather than a regional one.

Currency conversion is a standard practice which means if the game price is USD 40 or whatever it says on Steam in the US, it would cost AUD 56 here on Steam and the rates would adjust from country to country.

If SV wants to crack down hard on RMT, then it probably needs to hire specialised banking-level security experts who can detect anomalous activities inside the game that might indicate RMT.

RMT can come from any player from any country, and the more sophisticated ones might outsource the RMT to more than one player or entity in a manner not unlike money laundering.

 

[azezal]

A competitively priced P2W cash shop could stop RMT, if gold can be bought cheaper from SV than from someone in the developing world. Simply pricing out goldsellers to the point its not worth the time vs profit for them to sell anymore. A p2w cash shop would also remove the need for subscription since it would raise a lot more money for SV than subs ever can.

Banning RMTers simply won't work. Only one game managed to prevent goldsellers, being Black Desert. Simply because you can't trade directly and price of items on market are regulated by staff. But a regulated economy like that and no direct trades is boring.

 

[fartbox]

Runescape tried to end RMT crica 2009ish? with trade restrictions and it almost ended their game instead. This has been trialed and errored by other titles. RMT is apart of MMO's, you either insert a PLEX into the game yourself or you just look the other way. The alternative is too oppressive to general population. (trade restrictions)

 

[Amadman]

I personally would still like to see a tradable sub token that SV sells for real money.

Let sv make the money and at the same time open the game up to more players.

 

[Princey]

I personally would still like to see a tradable sub token that SV sells for real money.

Let sv make the money and at the same time open the game up to more players.

This is the best solution for the game.

Good known counter to RMT is a system like this.

Make characters sub based.
Make it buy to access.
Basic membership allows one character with some skills locked like thieving
Make myland like a free continent.
Make other continents as expansions you can pay for to gain basic access.
Make membership have access to all expansions but also option to buy outright for basic access.

Basic access is basically first and second tier skills let say

You can chop wood but you can't gain skill in more advanced skills

Just a example. But yeah i would suggest allow unlimited characters with first character having basic access. Character slots can be sold as well like 20 dollars.

Allow name change but cost money.
Introduce a American server.

Eventually introduce more temp servers into the game to essentially restart the game with new characters because let be honest servers can't hold many people as they like to think and they can do league worlds like different rulesets and stuff maybe in future. Just a spin like more hard-core speeded up TC for those who like hot action where there no timers etc

Characters are world specific as well so this is much better business model.

Subscription model is so outdated and with smaller population your main concern would be expanding and retaining population.

 

[Hodo]

I personally would still like to see a tradable sub token that SV sells for real money.

Let sv make the money and at the same time open the game up to more players.

Thats how CCP got around that issue in Eve Online.

 

[azezal]

Just deleting all trinkets would greatly reduce RMT. Sure a few will still go out each time in oghmium plate, but at least would be easier to know who is involved.

 

[finegamingconnoisseur]

There is no quick fix for RMT, it is a rampant industry that affects every mmorpg I know of. The best SV can do is active monitoring and cross-referencing of player activity to detect and ban those who engage in it.

The fact of the matter is, if there is a demand for something, human nature will find a way to get around whatever mechanisms there are in place, no matter how draconian or restrictive they may be.

 

[Robmo]

Feel free to check out our latest ban report for June