His words…they spoke to my soul…
I’m saddened to discover that one of Ellwood’s ideas actually makes some slight amount of sense, despite the horrible problems it has with respect to actual implementation.
I like the idea of enabling bidirectional micropayments, so that as a player you can be paid real cash through the game’s mediation for your virtual stuff. This is not an original idea by any mean, but so far as I know, it hasn’t been implemented yet in a successful game except inasmuch as unreliable RMTs do a gray or black market business as third parties.
Needless to say the whole notion is fraught with many problems, from security to fiduciary liability to customer support drama nightmares, but if there was a middleware/infrastructure layer that enabled reliable payments like this (and no, Bitcoins is not the answer), it would be cool to see that infrastructure made use of in MMOs.
Idle Thumbs contributed $10,000 earlier on, but then they withdrew the contribution. Booooooo!
Please wash that soul before leaving the bathroom.
Sure if you want to see goldfarming shops take over literally every area where valuable loot drops.
Well, the ‘really cool’ rewards for coming up with the title are tempting though… Perhaps, if I’m incredibly lucky, I’ll win a mug! With his face…on…it…
‘shivers’
Heh, no kidding. They practically ran my wife and I out of WoW on release based on how rampant it was on our server.
It also made the invasions of the other realm so much more rewarding in Aion when you would come upon groups of farmers and kill them over and over again. They were automated, but it was still fun killing them :).
So if you pledge $10,000 then you get all those privs. But what privs is he expecting himself? I mean, he’s the king of the game, so he’s gonna have a palace, harem, statues of himself everywhere,…
Obviously for a traditional MMO design, rare loot should not be campable in that way; payments should always be in lieu of a more or less fixed quantum of time invested by a player, with no ability for other players to exclusively control or monopolize the resource, or else the cash value of the resource will drop as players abandon the game. Although Stephenson’s REAMDE game is terribly broken from a design standpoint in a great many ways, it’s significant in that it was at least intended to support RMT. Obviously any game that would have the ability to pay off players in any way would also be designed from the ground up with that capability in mind.
Of course this kind of payment system doesn’t have to be used solely in support of a standard narrow-genre MMO, but could also be used in other kinds of games, worlds, and other online activities. Also of course, ever since the Internet was first commercialized people have been working on various kinds of two-way Internet micropayment and currency schemes, and there are good reasons none have any traction; it’s a very hard problem to deal with.
Wow. This is just like a “I’m making an MMO” forum post from some kid who drops it a week later when he realizes he has no idea how games are made.
I love how he says he’s an idea man, but his prime examples for better rewards are t-shirts and mugs…
I can’t understand all this negativity. This game will have vedors in it. Vedors!
It will be awesome.
Also, If I had money I’d go for #15 to see how he extracts my mansion from any server I’m not playing on.
“I’m an ideas man Michael” - GOB
I wonder how much of that lottery money he’s already wasted on other dumb ideas.
Well, considering the quote posted above:
I have not, but I never owned an investment company or a pizza shop before, but I do now…
I’d say all of it.
Why is it a surprise this guy has nothing but dumb ideas? He’s a lottery player.
Yeah that’s pretty stupid. He’ll never win… oh wait.
I like how the OST is a reward at the $5k level.
Edit: Wow. I just found the page where he explains all the AMAZING STUFF the game will let you do.
Now to show off your race you will be able to run off all your armor so your race could be seen as is. Well with underwear that is. You can’t run around buck naked. Or will you in some areas? We have got to give you some mystery to think about.
Now combine the picture in John Many Jars post with the running around buck naked…
!
Better don’t…