MithraPride

Yup, you can't sell your character, Gear, and/or characters on eBay anymore. Only exemption of the ban is Second Life because according to their TOS the player owns their character and their gear.

Nice... if only IGE would leave FFXI alone.

Pointless,

Very little of that is sold on Ebay anymore anyhow. Individual IGE type sites and playerauctions are where it all occurs.

It's a start

Shirai wrote:It's a start

Yes, some improvement is better than no improvement.

People who quit tend to sell their characters on eBay

Not really, Ebay has been yanking player character auctions for all games for years now. This is just a formal announcement of a policy they have effectively had since Sony rode their ass about selling EQ accounts. This is a PR move, nothing more.

Mainly due to Blizzard pushing eBay to do something about their rampant RMT transactions on eBay. Seems like WoW is finally gonna start doing something about RMT, too.

I am a bit skeptical about that, there are alot of rumors that a number of RMT are throwing kickbacks at Blizzard and blizzard is accepting them. One of those rumors indicate that this is one of the driving forces that wow is in the millions of subscribers, not hundreds of thousands like other MMOs. While it is a rumor I cannot discount it completely, while wow is a decent game all in all, it is not good enough to attract 6 million+ accounts when the most successful MMO previous to that capped at 400k, just by being a marginally "better" game.

It is a rumor of course, but one that gives one more then a bit of pause.

I know a couple of people who sold their characters on eBay one get theirs back recently

Don't really care what Blizzard are doing about it, lolWoW

Unfortunately, rumors of companies accepting kickbacks from RMT companies are just that, rumors. Obviously, the company is going to keep such a thing very hush-hush, and the rumors were probably most likely started by someone getting mad and going "I'll bet X-Company is getting paid to let them do what they want." I see this all the time in FFXI, "Don't bother calling the GMs, the RMT just pay them off anyway".

Oh I agree, there really is nothing to substantiate rumor. I just to this day have a hard time swallowing WoW coming in and sweeping up 6 million+ I think the figure it closer to 8 million subscribers, in a market where the largest predecessor was a scant 400k.

I played wow, multiple toons to 60. Honestly I just never really found it any more engaging or fun then any other good mmo on the market. But I am tired and randomly speculating now so I will just drop it.

Tivia wrote:Oh I agree, there really is nothing to substantiate rumor. I just to this day have a hard time swallowing WoW coming in and sweeping up 6 million+.

They're advertising 7 Million now Tivia.

Also, I can beleive it. There's 5 kids in my school that play WoW. ANd as for FFXI? 1. Myself.

Bye bye Littlecater and Hahagirl (Rusty cap gilsellers).

/bows to SE.

Sakino wrote:Bye bye Littlecater and Hahagirl (Rusty cap gilsellers).

/bows to SE.

*sends cupcakes +1 to Sak*

Enjoy!

One thing I've been curious about, how does Blizzard count their population?

I know SE tries to make a difference between accounts and actual characters but does Blizzard? If they lump accounts and characters together then that might boost their numbers significantly, or even if they were just counting characters.

Fiye wrote:

Sakino wrote:Bye bye Littlecater and Hahagirl (Rusty cap gilsellers).

/bows to SE.

*sends cupcakes +1 to Sak*

Enjoy!

:9

ScarlettPheonix wrote:One thing I've been curious about, how does Blizzard count their population?

IIRC they count every person who has registered for an account. If FFXI did that they'd probably be in the realm of 3-4 million.

Keavy wrote:

ScarlettPheonix wrote:One thing I've been curious about, how does Blizzard count their population?

IIRC they count every person who has EVER registered for an account. If FFXI did that they'd probably be in the realm of 3-4 million.

Fix'd.

I do believe that both companies count each account as a separate individual.

Tivia wrote:Not really, Ebay has been yanking player character auctions for all games for years now. This is just a formal announcement of a policy they have effectively had since Sony rode their ass about selling EQ accounts. This is a PR move, nothing more.

Yeah -- it's really really old news for ebay to make that announcement. It was new like 4-5 years ago. I'm wondering what prompted them to come out and make a statement like that. Most character "sales" are to friends and acquaintances, not on auction sites. The auctions have always been more of a teaser to generate interest and support for sales in other channels.

BTW, pretty much the only thing that is keeping me from ever selling off any of my characters in any MMORPG is that I just can't bear the thought of someone else running around with *MY NAME* overhead. If a game ever had a way to force a name change on one of your characters, I wouldn't hesitate to sell when I quit.

Well, the other things keeping from doing it are that I might come back and want to play again and that I really don't need the money. So far the only mmorpg that I've actually quit and couldn't care less if all the characters got deleted was WOW. I can recreate a WOW character in a couple weeks -- including endgame stuff. The other games all had significant time invested. WoW was a lot of fun, but it's fluff compared to other mmorpgs.

Okuza wrote:BTW, pretty much the only thing that is keeping me from ever selling off any of my characters in any MMORPG is that I just can't bear the thought of someone else running around with *MY NAME* overhead.

That makes me safe. I can see someone buying my charachter, finding out the name is Igihstehr and demanding a refund.

I too could not bear to see my Agentblack being controlled by someone else. You'd think that everything you've gone through with your character good or bad, you'd have somewhat of a bond with it. But then again, some ppl are just after money. Once again, its the source of all evil.

Money corrupts,
And if the price is high enough people will sell it.
RMT have even gone so far as to approach people in game making offers on their characters.

Shirai wrote:Money corrupts

Nothing can't be truer about that, but in reality, we will never get rid of RMTers.

The best way of doing it is having SE open up a RMT website of their own, and make any trading on other RMT sites using FFXI based items illegal. Then, with their website, just tax people for anything they sell.

More money for SE, and it will help control RMTing.

so do eBay reputations. 3 people I know selling mmorpg accounts on eBay has gotten a bad user reputation by me, well one deserved it, that's for selling me an item on eBay then yanking it off the listing before I can negotiate shipping >.>

I just make it clear what their doing is not legal in that it violates a user contract with the mmorpg companies, I have yet to have anyone contact me to dispute me xD

SE trying to stop RMT, is like Bush trying to Stop terrorist. It aint gonna happen.

well, actually I think we have a better chance of the RMT being stopped, but anyway.

Kintrra wrote:well, actually I think we have a better chance of the RMT being stopped, but anyway.

ya? At least Square is DOING something. Which is more then I can say for all the other MMORPG Companies.