I don't think it's good. If you've read any in depth articles on this industry that has popped up in Asia and in Eastern Europe our fervor for these easily acquired game assets is fueling a gaming sweat shop craze over there. I am probably underestimating this, but I think it was $200 million in 2004. Anyways, I think that each player should have their unique identity to their experience. I haven't thought this through so I could see everyone's take on this, but why not make items non-tradeable if they hold any significance. Please feel free to comment, I intentionally left myself open for counter-argument.

Could it be our experiences are not fulfilling enough to be played and now we're breeding a group of gamers that feel a need to spend their real life money to catch up with the hard core's status quo? This is spoken from my perspective, and I have bought game currency in a game before. That's my rationalization of my decision to do it.

-Sentientv2

The issue you raise about gamers that feel a need to catch up w hard core....  i think thats very real.  I feel it.   Its like:  if im not doing the uber path i am wasting time.    The beta testing community is simply awash with hardcore gamers and then they are first in game with all the advantages of familiarity.   It is hard as a casual gamer to not be effected by such.

I'm currently playing the Star Wards Battlefront II Beta. It is really fun. I can't tell you how rewarding it is to play hard for the first five minutes, and once you're on top, you get offered (depending on the faction you are playing as): General Grevious, Obi-Wan, Darth Vader, Princess Leia, Yoda, Boba Fett, or Han Solo.

My whole reason for mentioning this is the dynamic in the game is pretty neat. You have a clean slate upon entering the map, but the opportunity to achieve high honors in a short time. The same goes with the regular gameplay, to a lesser extent, but not insignificant. During a gameplay session, players get rewards based on accomplishments. I like to use a  shotgun, because up close it is very powerful. After 4-6 successive kills on a single life, the game awards me with a more powerful shotgun for a certain amount of time. The final release of the game is going to have legendary reward system that allows players that go on a real hot streak to keep the upgrades they earn forever.

It parallels the rewards for MMOs and paradigm of allowing people to feel rewarded, but it does not totally separating the rest of the players from achieving great things as well. A specific example in the beta would be my ability to be playing real well, but a player that out-thinks me and defeats me has an equal chance at any given time. Planetside was neat in that aspect, you had some degree of honor and accomplishment,  but you were not put in an insurmountable position.

-Sentientv2

I think the experience as a whole (the sum of all the time a player has developed)  in a typical role playing game is what is defining the experience. As I'm typing this, the idea of episodic battles seems like a possibility. I am trying to come up with an idea, but I think the only ones I have are extremely strong parallels to Guild Wars and their format. It's almost like a hybrid of an mmo play (free roam character development with quests) and then you have an infrastructure similar to what Blizzard gave the players in their BattleNet system. You have rankings, quick missions, and similar to BattleNet, the game is free. I heard they just hit 1million or 2 million sales. Anyways, just wanted to keep the conversation going, it's great to exchange these ideas and broaden our invidual perspectives. Take care.

-Sentientv2

usually players will buy and sell items for cash when they have found it too boring to actually play the game and get the item. the problem is that even if 90% of your players never get involved in these transactions because you have a well designed game. you still have the 5% who happily garner items and cash to sell to the 5% who are willing to buy them.

some games like project entropia, there, and 2nd life have gone full into real dollar values for all in game assets. this makes sense if you want to cut out the middlemen but once you involve real currency you take away some of the fun of its just a game.

i think the best solution is to offer your in game currency at a ridiculously low real world price so that no one would ever seriously pursue in game cash farming and restrict how many times an item can be traded in game or restrict them to subsets of the ingame community. i.e. dwarven armor won't fit any other races in a fantasy game.

I know this is an older topic, but I was wondering what cons you guys think would arise from a game with no coinage system, only an item based bartering economy. I was thinking about how something like that could avoid the problems Xenite had mentioned. You would have local economies throughout the game world (granted access between these economies were limited based on  in-game travel time and geographical limitations) that are all setting the precedent for the value of one item over another. I know the game Asheron's Call 2 was not a huge success, but it's economy system was enhanced by a lack of NPC's. If you wanted a good item, you needed to front the coin (you could transmute items into coin at any time) to another player that was skilled at crafting. It also enriched the experience because you could benefit from friendships fostered in the game, garnaring better rates and favors, perhaps bringing them raw materials when they needed, etc.

Like I said, I would welcome any cons you see to this format. As an aspiring designer, I'd like to find some new ways to avoid the pitfalls of past endeavors.

Take care,

Sentientv2


p.s. talking with my girlfriend before submitting this, I suppose people could still sell the items for a real world amount. Now the sub-question would be how to make this amount not stand up over time, so the need for players to seek these items out on ebay, etc. is lessened as much as possible