Two things happened last weekend: Gevlon posted of having reached the 214k gold cap of World of Warcraft, and on this blog in the player classification thread there was a small discussion about EVE's legal RMT option. mbp challenged me to try to earn 100 million ISK without firing a shot, and I refused that challenge as being pointless, due to the option of legally buying 300 million ISK in exchange for a PLEX game card.
Grats to Gevlon, there aren't many players who ever reached the WoW gold cap. But one major reason why few people do it is that the amount of gold at which making gold in WoW becomes pointless is a lot lower than 214k. I have 35k, three characters with epic flying mounts, a bunch of crafted or bought epics, and no good idea what to use the rest of the money on. Well, new recipes drop in Ulduar, maybe I can buy some even better epics. But I guess my priest will get epics from raiding, and my two non-raiding characters basically don't need epics as they don't raid. So while I'm still trying to get rid of the last unsold glyphs, I'm not putting any effort into making more money I don't have a use for anyway.
There are a lot of reasons why I don't play EVE. I don't like PvP, and I never liked the EVE mining activity that is at the base of the game's economy. But if I found a way to avoid PvP, and to play a trader instead of a miner, the fact that I could legally buy 500 to 600 million ISK for $34.95 would pretty much kill my motivation. EVE does not have character levels, only skills which are learned in real-time, thus your total skill level is a function of how much money you paid to CCP in subscription fees. If you don't do PvP, your only "achievement" would be making ISK by mining or trading. But it would take months to earn 500 million ISK. What's the point in even trying if other players just get that much virtual money in 5 minutes for less than the cost of video game?
That is a bit as if Blizzard started to sell the best epics in the game (iLevel 226 currently, I believe) on their website for $9.95. Sure, for some time they would sell like hotcakes. But ultimately that would destroy World of Warcraft. Not only does it destroy the achievement of those who actually worked hard to get those epics in game by raiding; but also once you have the best gear in the game, there is no more motivation to play further, as you already got the best possible reward. I doubt people who ever bought a fully equipped high-level character on EBay actually ended having a lot of fun playing that character. The fun is in *getting* somewhere, not in reaching some destination.
Even Gevlon apparently had more fun getting to the gold cap than being there. He is now trying to buy a raiding guild with the gold, having run out of other sensible options. Fortunately for him he is a sociopath, and won't notice the difference between a guild who wants you to join them, and one you had to buy your way into.
No comments:
Post a Comment