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Role Playing (Games) Entertainment Games

Star Wars Galaxies Auctions Afoot 259

Posted by timothy from the chortle-like-a-hutt dept.
Fusty writes "Game Girl Advance is running a story about the first wave of Star Wars Galaxies auctions on Ebay. Items, credits and characters are already selling for over $250, not even a month after launch. Will Sony/Verant shut down SWG auctions, like they did the EverQuest Auctions?"
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Star Wars Galaxies Auctions Afoot More

Star Wars Galaxies Auctions Afoot

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  • I think the real question is... (Score:4, Funny)

    by banal avenger ( 585337 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @09:52PM (#6439288)
    Does anyone care? If someone wants to spend $250 on a virtual light dildo (err, I mean saber), let them. It's their money.

    • Re:I think the real question is... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ergo98 ( 9391 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @10:48PM (#6439572) Homepage Journal
      Seriously, though, to make it even worse about -- One second I'm sqeezing out a statistic [grunt] -- 99% of "newsworthy" auctions are outright frauds, whether it's for a town or for Eminem's childhood home: There are virtually no identification checks on Ebay for bidders, so I can go and auction off my Slashdot UID, auction myself up to a million dollars, and run around talking about the intrinsic value of Slashdot UIDs. Of course then The Turd Report (god bless his soul) will come along and set new records for UID value.
    • Your post may have set the record for most number of moderation categories


      Offtopic!! Bring it on!!
      • I'm surprised it didn't get "funny." Of all the categories, "Insightful" and "Interesting" describe it least. Some people just don't get high-brow humor these days. :)

        At any rate, I'm glad to see those valuable moderator points going to good use...
    • Since these dorks are selling things that don't actually exist. I'll pay with MAD money. If that's no good, I have Monopoley money, too. Better yet, I'll write you a check. Dumbasses!
    • I used to play Asheron's Call..... I would say that it was probably an addiction. Every new patch I scoured the land for new items and while they were valuable I would trade them in game.
      Then one day, I found out about ebay. I took a look and saw that a particular piece of armor I had was selling for 300$ US. Having this piece of armor didn't really make or break the game for me. I could do without it so I decided to give ebay a whirl.
      I sold the piece of armor for 300$US and at that moment decided

  • $250? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 14, 2003 @09:53PM (#6439298)
    Wow! That's more money than VA Linux will report on their next quarterly earnings release.

  • e-bay (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rmarll ( 161697 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @09:54PM (#6439309) Journal
    Sony only succeded with e-bay, and only partially. playerauctions.com provides all the same features outside of sony's grasp.

  • shame on you guys... (Score:5, Funny)

    by joq ( 63625 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @09:54PM (#6439319) Homepage Journal

    The question shouldn't be: "Will Sony/Verant shut down SWG auctions, like they did the EverQuest Auctions?" The question should be did you guys get permission to use the name Sony/Verant.
  • $250 will buy a lot of drugs, sex and rock and roll in the real world. Then again, SWG is addictive like drugs, you can get plenty of no-hassle porn online, and P2P will get you many gigs of rock and roll if the RIAA can be kept at bay.

  • Against eBay policy (Score:5, Informative)

    by AntiOrganic ( 650691 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @09:55PM (#6439321) Homepage
    It's worth noting that eBay's AUP forbids the sale of non-tangible items via its service.

    • Re:Against eBay policy (Score:4, Funny)

      by Klimaxor ( 264151 ) <[jdunn] [at] [sosbbs.com]> on Monday July 14, 2003 @09:59PM (#6439350)
      try arguing that to someone who "LIVES" in one of these non-tangible worlds.

      ebay: that's not real
      player: huh? what are you talking about? Not Real? Psh. If i have this, i can rawk the world.
      ebay: but it's not a real world either
      player: YOU'RE LYING. YOU BAD BLASPHEMOUS MEANIE HEAD

    • Re:Against eBay policy (Score:5, Interesting)

      by JudgeFurious ( 455868 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @10:14PM (#6439415)
      I wonder if at some point ebay decided to crack down on this and started shutting down the auctions maybe sellers would start auctioning things like pennies or buttons that also came with a complimentary in-game item. Kind of like those people selling software that has to be bundled with hardware who send you an old floppy drive mounting kit with it to comply with the rules.

      • Re:Against eBay policy (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Night Goat ( 18437 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @10:22PM (#6439456) Homepage Journal
        I've seen people do that when selling bootleg CDs. They'll list it like "Pencil... sharpened and chewed. Win my auction and I might throw in some goodies, like a Phish CD from 01/01/01!" I don't know whether they got away with it, but it's a great idea. However, I remember that one guy who was selling CD-Rs of his own band, and E-Bay was giving him a bunch of shit about counterfeit merchandise, even though he had never pressed his CD, and he owned full rights to it. So you never know what E-Bay will do to your auction.
        • I love it when I go on ebay and search for PowerBooks and up pops ten to fifteen auctions for 17" PowerBooks selling for $1500. You might be able to click on one or two of them to see the guys pitch but usually they're closed almost as fast as they open. The times I've been able to see the auction he's usually only taking Paypal and he's got to unload these things FAST!

          I guess if someones mind works that way then all they need to do is get one person to bite and their night is made.
        • I've seen people do that when selling bootleg CDs.

          eBay will end that kind of auction too, if people notify their rules department about it. Giving away a bootleg is still illegal.
          • Giving away a bootleg is still illegal.

            Not necessarily.

            Giving away a bootleg absent persmission from the copyright holder is a technical violation of the U.S. Code. It's not a crime, but a minor infraction and a tort against the copyright holder. (You need to get to a rather large scale for criminal copyright behavior. I could make and give away two copies of everything I own and not be criminal.)

            A good bootleg of a band that authorizes the trading and selling of bootlegs is exactly the sort of thing

    • It's worth noting that eBay's AUP forbids the sale of non-tangible items via its service


      Whatever that means. Is a book nontangible? The paper is worthless. Or perhaps I can sell the Star Wars items under the AUP if I burn them to $0.10 CDR first?

  • You know... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Squidgee ( 565373 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @09:57PM (#6439340)
    You know, I've always wondered what kind of people partake in these sort of auctions. Why not (and especially in a new game, where resources are still plentiful) EARN what you can in the game; it makes it much more worthwhile, and you earn a sense of accomplishment.

    Sure, buying property in UO makes sense, because property is scarce. But in SWG or SB, you can still earn things. So go earn things, and feel good about them; not like you merely bought them.

    • Re:You know... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Zebbers ( 134389 )
      i personally think its a waste of money
      but to some
      having more in game stuff leads to a more valuable game experience, ie more fun

      to them, it is worth RL money...

      they dont really play for a sense of life achievement, its a game made to entertain

    • Re:You know... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Cylix ( 55374 ) * on Monday July 14, 2003 @10:32PM (#6439493) Homepage Journal
      Depends on a few factors to determine worth on something such as this.

      If you are a casual player and do not spend enormous amounts of time it can create a higher cost over time. Especially when a player is still feeling out a world, mechanics and general leveling practices.

      If it takes several months to fully flesh out and develope a character those monthly fees can add up. However, if you immediatley purchase an experienced character you have bypassed months of treadmill activity.

      Remembering, earnings are based on player time and skill level. Thus, someone else with enough effort could generate a feasibly well rounded character in a shorter period of time.

      It is however a difficult matter to debate whether or not removing this treadmill playing time will harm the providers funds. Players may or may not stay with the game longer.
      • removing this treadmill playing time

        Wouldn't that pretty much remove the entire game? I mean, MMORPGs are chatrooms with a levelling treadmill underneath. Take away the treadmill and you have a nice, graphical IRC channel.

    • Skip the grunt work (Score:5, Insightful)

      by The Tyro ( 247333 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @10:46PM (#6439557)
      Makes sense to a degree... don't you have more fun when you have a powerful character that can roam the land freely? One who doesn't have to fear the first bunch of orcs they run across?

      If people want to purchase a pre-leveled character and skip the grunt work (let's be honest... you're just doing it to get a higher-level character and the fun/freedom that comes with that character), then why not?

      Personally, my time is valuable... I'd be a bloody fool to spend hours scraping up experience points in an online world. If there's someone who has more time on their hands, and they are willing to sell it that cheaply, then bully for them. If I am willing to spend real world dollars for their time, then good on me.

      Enjoyment comes in all shapes and sizes... if someone wants to spend dollars for it, then somebody will fill that market.

      I wouldn't do it... those kind of online games are not my thing. However, I can see there from here. Yes, I know money theoretically shouldn't provide an advantage, but all online worlds have to have SOME resemblance to the real world in them... this is perfect. What real-world element could be more appropriate than this "golden rule?" (ie. the one with the gold makes the rules)
      • YOU INSENSITIVE CLOD!

      • You have no idea of what you speak (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Illserve ( 56215 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @05:54AM (#6440958)
        It's apparent that you've never played such a game for any appreciable length of time. When it's kept reasonable in length, the treadmill is very rewarding (and not just in an addictive/fix kind of way).

        It's *fun* to be scared of those little orcs at first.
        It's fun when you can first start killing them.
        It's fun to reduce killing them to a methodical science (shortly before you move on to killing trolls).
        And it's the most fun to return to a dungeon that used to have you twitching in fear and be able to walk through it with orcs bouncing off you like spitballs.

        Someone who buys a high level character misses this experience entirely. The spitball effect is only truly rewarding when you remember being scared of those things 2 months ago.

        I'm not against player auctions by any means. Different strokes and all, but you are completely missing a huge part of the appeal of MMOG's.

        Furthermore, there's a huge skill component gained in levelling your own character. Back in the EQ beta days, a brother of the CEO (kelly Flock) and a friend of his came through Runnyeye decked out in top notch gear.

        They were a disaster. They had no idea what they were doing, fell off ledges, got surrounded by goblins that they would have been able to handle easily if fought properly, and ended up dead. We were a few levels lower than they were, relatively poorly equipped, and helped them get their corpses if memory serves.

        It's like giving a 10 year old boy an M1 Abrams tank. They just don't do well.

        Disclaimer: I am not a treadmill player kicking Innoruuk's head around at level 60. I bailed out at level 28. I think the treadmill gets far too flat at the upper levels of EQ.

    • If I'm making $70/hour and I enjoy acquiring the most powerful characters in Galaxies, is it not worth it to me to pay a college kid what amounts to $1-2/hour to get the character I want?

      Saving 200 hours of my time is well worth $250. $250 at the end of the semester for beer is well worth it for the college student. Everyone wins.

      Note: Hourly wage inflated to protect my ego.

  • The short answer: (Score:3, Interesting)

    by psoriac ( 81188 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @10:00PM (#6439356)
    Yes.

    (Lucas Arts is even more of a control freak than Sony.)

    • Re:The short answer: Not as simple as that (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 14, 2003 @11:03PM (#6439636)

      Actually, this is a bit of a dilemma for Lucas Arts.

      I was at this year's Game Developer's Conference in San Jose listening to Raph Koster (the Creative Director of SWG) during a full ballroom packed presentation he gave on designing and running MMPORGs.

      He was wearing two hats during the presentation: With his corporate business hat on he said (something to the effect) "eBay is very bad and it is against the terms of service and all violators will be prosecuted" then with the developers hat he said (stte) "eBay is vey good and will tell you how well your game's economy is doing and you should watch it religously."

      Basically, all the MMORPG devs use eBay to see the going rate for different virtual property thereby having one extremelly good metric for the health of their game's economy.

      One example Raph gave was when one particular monthly update for Everquest(?) caused the exchange rate of in game currency to US dollars on eBay to plummet. This was a very good indication they had really screwed the pooch with the update.

      -)----- B

      My memory is fuzzy so facts could be wrong. Raph has a web site where he discusses such things if you are really interested.

  • Wow, Great site (Score:5, Funny)

    by SlashdotLemming ( 640272 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @10:01PM (#6439359)
    I was gonna post a comment, until I scrolled down on the reference page [gamegirladvance.com] and clicked on the "rez + vibrator" link.
    Funny, Star Wars MMORGP just doesn't seem as important to me at the moment...
  • ...they'll figure out how to make money off what the punters want.

    RIAA?!?!?!?!!! Hello?!??!!!!!?!?!!!!
    • Ultima online did that to some extent. If you pay the company $35, you can start a character off with high stats and skip the annoying first half of the grunt work.

      I expect them to eventually offer a service where for $100 - $150 or so they give you a fully levelled character with lots of good items.

  • Shutdown!? That's for pussies. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Maul ( 83993 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @10:06PM (#6439376) Journal
    George Lucas is going to freeze their balls in carbonite.

  • Who cares? (Score:5, Funny)

    by autopr0n ( 534291 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @10:19PM (#6439439) Homepage Journal
    I'd much rather just read this article [gamegirladvance.com] again... mmm...

    • Seriously, if you go "mmm" at the idea of a little insignificant no one on the internet holding a vibrating thingy against her underwear while getting off on her boyfriend playing a game, all as a rather good marketing stunt, (Hey, it worked, that's for sure... poor taste but it worked!) then you've got some real issues.

      Game Girl Advance: No original stuff, no real news, but I'm a girl so why should I bother with actual content when I can make my cheap site run good with a underwear shot?

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @10:21PM (#6439454)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • what they should implement (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Enrico Pulatzo ( 536675 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @10:30PM (#6439476)
    is gambling! Go to the local cantina, and try to win a starship. What's more Star Wars than that? The answer to that question seems to be killing womp rats, from everything I've heard about the game (I haven't played it).

    • Re:what they should implement (Score:5, Funny)

      by realdpk ( 116490 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @10:44PM (#6439551) Homepage Journal
      Starship? They don't have starships. Maybe you're thinking of the *other* Star Wars, the one that involves space.
    • Well, besides the fact that there aren't any starships to win (as others have pointed out), there's nothing stopping a player from running a gambling operation in the cantina or out of their own home. You can find or craft sets of dice, everything from a standard 6 to a d20 and publicly roll them. With the /tip command, players and the house can easily exchange money without trade screens when someone wins or loses. I haven't seen anyone do this yet, but I've seriously considered it myself. One perk is

  • *waves hand past sellers face* (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 14, 2003 @10:30PM (#6439477)
    Republic credits will be fine..... ....these are not the droids you are looking for.

  • Interesting... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Psychor ( 603391 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @10:33PM (#6439499) Homepage
    This means one of two things: -
    1) People who started playing SW:G are getting bored/annoyed by the bugs already, and are selling their accounts.
    2) People started playing the game with the intention of investing a large amount of time to farm cash/items, and sell them.

    In either case, this is interesting, it means either SW:G sucks, or there are some people who really need to go out and get jobs (I find it hard to believe that the cash that can be made from playing online games is a reasonable substitute for a paying job).

    I've never really understood the people who buy items for use in an online game, surely if they don't have the time to invest to actually earn cash and items themselves, with the accompanying sense of achievement, it's not worth playing the game at all? As an ex-player of Ultima Online though, I can sympathise with some of the sellers. For example, I sold my account when I quit, which was easily enough to recoup the subscription fees I'd payed for playing. There seem to be no reasons why people would be selling accounts this early in the game though, except for those I described above, both of which are a little worrying.

    • Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by retto ( 668183 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @11:09PM (#6439661)

      People started playing the game with the intention of investing a large amount of time to farm cash/items, and sell them.

      I bet a lot of people figured there would be an obsessive group of star wars fans who have to have everything and would be willing to pay for it. I've met some people who have sunk a lot of money into star wars stuff, so it wouldn't be a strech to think they would spend a lot for in-game items.

      I wouldn't be surprised if a large number of the early players were 'professionals' who were just interested in selling off items and characters.

      Maybe MMORPGs will become the next big speculative market. People will play a game when if first comes out not because they enjoy it, but because if it becomes popular they can sell their items and characters for a lot of money.

      I'm surprised no one made a joke about SW:G auctioning "a foot."

  • As an avid mmorpg loos^H^H^H^Hplayer, l'll explain (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Usagi_yo ( 648836 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @10:37PM (#6439511)
    There are basicaly 3 types of players

    1. Your casual player, just having fun. They extract their enjoyment from playing and figuring out quests, discovery, and exploration, and achievment within the confines of the game.

    2. Your Ebay player. They have fun playing, but additionaly, the have fun from actually transfering the time they spend in game into real life money. Auctioning can be quite addicting, and the money can be quite good ... enough to offset the monthly price, cost of game, and typicaly all the upgrades to your computer to play the advanced ones.

    3. Your automated player. These types I'm sure that the peeps (mmorpg slang for people) from /. understand, not only get their enjoyment from playing, ebay'ing, but also derive a certain snug satisfaction by "beating" the game somewhat. I mean creating elaborate unattended play scripts or macros for their toons (slang for their characters).

    Now of course there are others, mostly variations of the above with different levels of dedication and interest.

    Like, the "Corporations". Power gamers intent on making huge $$$ by selling items, money and toons from the game to those casual players who really have little hope or little time to get them through ordinary games means. These are peeps, few in number mostly, but share the common trait of having multiple computers and multiple accounts. They bludgeon their way to riches, then as the prices come down, they auction of thier toons on ebay and move on to the latest games.

    Then of course there are the "outside devs", they are the ones that break the program, hack the packets and develope automated play tools, then sell access or subscriptions to the tools, occasionaly even offering and fufulling support.

    Then, on to the 'Sploiters. The ones that don't really develope, but find and abuse and exploit bugs to their advantage. The mmorpg addage goes, exploit early and exploit often, because once discovered, they are quickly fixed. Typicaly with no punishment to those that abused.

    All in all, each category is deriving fun and satisfaction from some aspect of the game. Even if it is an unattended aspect.

    On to next topic ... It's a delicate balance that the mmorpg game developers and server and fees maintainers tread when they enforce their COC and license rules. Just like in real life, these are the Enforcers. They understand that a little bit of hanky panky is going to happen, they just don't want it rampant to the point were it hurts the name brand and the game itself. They also dont' want to come down too hard and chase off revenue. And they will chase off revenue if they do come down hard. The reason is, they are limiting the types of players to those of basicaly the worst sort ... the casual gamer who loses attention to the repetativeness of the game.

    Anyway, before you go off knocking those who enjoy these games in the myriad of ways that they provide, look closely at what you do for your own personal entertainment. I havn't watched TV for over 5 years now. Have two top of the line computers, programming tools, and books all provided for by my hobby. I've met good people, bad people, learned certain aspects about myself (that I am inherently good and incapable of true evil), and I get to communicate with my children in a playfull and rich medium that these games provide, even though they live 1500 miles away.

    MMORPGS are a sort of entertainment and therapy that perhaps most of you don't understand. I see nothing but positives with MMORPGS for the future. I see military training possibilities, I see Prisoner rehabilitation, advanced learning, and a whole new economy that is just in it's infant stage. 30 to 40 years from now who knows what value mmorpg will have been passed off to the next generation of young people. It may be that we'll all be living like thx1178 and our only real freedoms will be virtual freedoms, or it could be that we all spread out a bit and report into work every morning by logging into our work based mmorpg.

  • Sony/Verant should welcome this. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 14, 2003 @10:37PM (#6439513)
    Some individuals can't invest 3-4 hours a day to create a high level character. So by purchasing an item/char they are making the game more fun for themselves. Maybe if buying an item/char was not possible these individuals would not even be playing the game.

    The question is whether or not Sony/Verant wants these kinds of people to play their game. Even if they are just out for making bucks they should facilitate the sale of virtual goods/chars.

    Then let's say they took a 3% commission off each sale they could make some extra cash while at the same time give people the assurance that their sale is authorized by Sony. This could cut down on people cheating others on virtual sales.
  • ill Sony/Verant shut down SWG auctions, like they did the EverQuest Auctions?

    It only makes sense to me for them to keep it going. People pay to play to get paid and others who always have to be winners buy this stuff and play who would otherwise get frustrated and fed up and after a shot while not pay!
  • who read "Pehaps you can measure the popularity of an MMOG based on its auction potential", and immediately thought of this story [slashdot.org]?

    • Re:Was I the only one... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by 1of0 ( 597417 )
      Not entirly true. While the popularity of the game determines the demand for the items, it does not determine their intrinsic value.

      For example people may think that water is the best thing ever since sex, but its pure abandance does not make it the most expensive resource.

      The underlying value of the item depends more on the skill and time required to attain it. Those that require simple time investment will fall in price over time as more and more people spend time playing the game (That and MOST people
  • Anything crazy like this should actually be a good thing to the makers...

    Any publicity is good publicity.

    • Missing a big point (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Cali Thalen ( 627449 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @12:50AM (#6440063) Homepage
      As I've seen on more than one game (Diablo 2 comes to mind as the best/worst example), when items become worth big $$ IRL, there always comes a huge problem with cheating. People finding ways to make hacked items to sell, or ways to raise the odds that THEY will get all the best stuff (sometimes at the expense of other players).

      There have been weeks when game servers are virtually unplayable when some new hack comes out, and the script kiddies are rushing in to get the latest uber item and sell a few hundred on Ebay before the bottom of the market drops out.

      Now, if you're not a gamer (and if not, why are you even reading this? :P ), none of this will matter to you. But...if you're one of the people who use the game as recreation, let alone one of the people who is giving up a large chunk of life for the game, this just plain sucks. Either way, the company takes a popularity hit, and loses players (and thus future customers).

  • Whatever (Score:5, Insightful)

    by August_zero ( 654282 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @10:56PM (#6439607)
    Hardcore StarWars fans: one of the most fiercely loyal, and ravenous fan-bases. They eat up anything with the starwars tag on it.

    Hardcore MMORPG players: Willing to spend 2/3 of their waking lives playing a game that is largely clicking on a monster and then getting a few imaginary credits for said action.

    Combine the two, and what did you expect? No matter how bad the game is (I personally think it's terrible, though I respect other opinions) people will:
    A) play it
    B) Spend REAL money to get imaginary status

    Fools and their money, thats what i say. If sony was smart, instead of banning these sales all together, they would charge a 10% transaction fee.

  • I can't be the first to think of this (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BelugaParty ( 684507 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @11:03PM (#6439635)
    but why aren't slashdot accounts for sale? you know... good accounts for ... good purposes?!

  • The problem is (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bruha ( 412869 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @11:22PM (#6439714) Homepage Journal
    In Asheron's Call they didnt have any rules against this at first. In time there was a lot of high level characters for sale on Ebay. Well a meanharted group of players bought up a bunch of accounts and begain to take over the worlds, most notably Darktide which is 24/7 Pvp and caused trouble on other worlds such as quest jumping among other things.

    Now while any group of people can still level up the normal way on Darktide you ended up with a guild of players that could go out and kill any group of players in the game. It ruined things for many who played there and before they came there was a thriving sense of certian guilds owning certain areas of the game. These guys ruined it. SO many left the game never to return.

    This can happen to any game and I'm sure SOE/Lucas Arts do not want it to happen. And I applaud any gaming company efforts to stop this.

    Also unlike the real world where money = class in the virtual world a poor kid can become very rich. What becomes unfair is Rich kids becoming very rich in the game becuase his pocketbook is supporting his character while the poor kid now has to struggle to maintain his level of fun/play against the more well to do kids.
    • What is the world coming to when we need to maintain "fairness" in virtual worlds so poor kids can feel equal to rich kids?

      Poor kids should do what poor kids did to rich kids when I was growing up...

      Beat them up and take their lunch money.
    • This can happen to any game and I'm sure SOE/Lucas Arts do not want it to happen. And I applaud any gaming company efforts to stop this.

      There is no FFA server on SWG yet, so this statement does not apply.

      In the example you gave, the game was ruined becuase people were oppressed by a strong regime of players.

      However, in SWG, if you are not an "overt" PvP player, no other player can kill you, and therefore PK griefing techniques are kept to a minimum for those players who choose to remain neutral or cover

  • Why This is Bad(tm) (Score:5, Insightful)

    by thelandp ( 632129 ) on Monday July 14, 2003 @11:26PM (#6439734)
    Alot of people are saying there's nothing wrong with this, if you spend time earning credits why shouldn't you be able to sell it in real life, etc, etc.

    The problem is it weakens the game. Because now when you meet that High-Level Jedi master with the double-ended lightsabre, how do you know it's not just a newbie with a trust fund, who decided to take a crack at "that new star wars game" but didn't want to go through the effort of earning anything himself in SWG anymore than he does in real life?

    It's better to keep the game world and the real world from spilling over into each other as far as resources and wealth, to maintain the internal consistency of the game world.

    • Why you are mistaken (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 1of0 ( 597417 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @12:30AM (#6439984)
      If you can not tell the difference between a newbie with a trust fund and a legitimate player, I have to seriosly question you knowlage of that particular game. As somebody who has played EverQuest at hiegh levels I can tell you with absolute certanty that an ebayers does not have a snow balls chance in hall of hiding the fact. An expirienced player will pickup on a dozen ques, from the reletive position of the character, to timing in responses both to the world and other players and not the least of all questions and comments. Think of it as hiring an English Major for system level development. His lack of knowlage and etiquete will stand out like a sore thumb within minutes for anybody worth their salt. Anyway, there is nothing wrong in practice in principle. If somebody is able to buy an account and play it with skill that the level demands, what is the difference?

  • Holy Shit! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by happyhippy ( 526970 )
    People can actually get on the servers to play?!?!?!

    Next youll tell me that hunting rats,hitting them twenty times with blasters, and running for twenty minutes at a time is Star Wars!

    • Re:Holy Shit! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by RobinH ( 124750 )
      People can actually get on the servers to play?!?!?!

      Only once I couldn't get on a server, and I've been playing since day 3.

      Next youll tell me that hunting rats,hitting them twenty times with blasters, and running for twenty minutes at a time is Star Wars!

      Last night the group I was in got jumped by some bandits on Corellia. Three of us stayed back and opened up with our blasters, while a fourth circled around and jumped them from behind. Then I went down and checked out their land speeder. Is that

  • They _have_ to shut it down... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gizmonic ( 302697 ) * on Monday July 14, 2003 @11:40PM (#6439802) Homepage
    IANAL, but the way I see it is that if they allow people to sell in game items as "real" property, then those in-game items take on "real" tangible value. And with our society the way it is, in America, anyway, that means lawsuits. So, if your $3000 lightsaber is lost due to a server crash, you could sue them.

    And what of theft? If you have $5,000 real-life worth of in-game items, and I kill your character, and steal them, could that consitute theft in real-life? Would they be liable for allowing that to happen in-game?

    These are all questions they do not want to have to deal with. By taking the stand that they do not allow real-world selling of in-game assets, and by enforcing that stance by account deletion, etc, they are creating a legal barrier to prevent any of that from happening. If they turn a blind eye and allow the sales to continue, they are giving de facto approval, and thus allowing real-life value to be assigned to in-game items. I can't imagine any other action than them shutting down these sales.

    The annoying part in all this is that we, as a society, have only ourselves to blame for ruining our own fun.
  • Just send a couple of bounty hunters after anyone who auctions off their gear, and track down the person who bought it. The black market should exist, thrive even, but it should have its risks.
  • The client is free, but they get their money from selling items.

  • Who wants afoot? Maybe if it's Luke Skywalker's foot or something. But what people really want to get is ahead...

  • Natural turn of events. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by 1of0 ( 597417 )
    This is a perfectly natural turn of events.
    This has happend with every MMORGP ever released. Items and characters themselves are a comodity and represent the time spent by players achieving them. The fact that they're sold does not,with-in itself, mean that players are bored, or that the game itself is boring or that G. Lucast is out to make money. This is simply players choosing what parts of the game they want to expirience and how.

    No doubt the reason Sony is against these auctions is to reduce their lia

  • Advice to Sony: Enforce your rules! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by swordgeek ( 112599 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @12:49AM (#6440058) Journal
    Quite honestly, I don't care what they decide to do. If they want to allow selling, then ignore it. If they say it's not allowed, then come down as hard as a hammer on those selling.

    But under no circumstances should they do what Mythic has done to ruin Dark Age of Camelot: Ignore their own rules, let cheaters prosper, and destroy the integrity of the game, all for the sake of not losing accounts.

    I spent countless hours leveling up with my own money and crafting my way to legendary, only to be undercut by people who used cheats to craft and obtain money, and level.

    Mythic did NOTHING when handed damning evidence, because they'd lose accounts if they banned people. As a result, there's no point in playing for anyone or any purpose except your own damned skin. Thanks Mythic.

    So Sony, do what you will. Just do it for real.

  • Here's a though: read the fscking article (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @05:06AM (#6440826) Homepage

    > "Most of the auctions are for credits (20k credits on Bria server, etc). Some are for buildings, or accounts."

    What this highlights is that the in-game markets aren't working. If SOE provide better in-game fora for these transfers, they can nip this in the bud right now.

    Of course, it's far more exciting to debate how stoooopid people are for paying $$$ for blasters. You can get back to doing that now.

  • The fact is, they are already taking down auctions through the VeRO program. You can even see some of these mails that users has posted on the official SWG forums. One warning first, do it again and you're screwed, basically. For some reason, they let most of them remain, though, and I think this is because they are trying to track down the sellers and tie them to one/several game accounts. I wouldn't be suprised if they are bidding on the auctions themselves.

  • Wow... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by almiki ( 686143 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @09:11AM (#6441718)
    I play Galaxies, and my character is not really built up that much... but I can honestly say that in one hour, I could easily accumulate 20,000 credits, which is going for upwards of $20 on eBay?!?! That sounds like a sweet summer job to me (I'm still a lowly college student, so that's not a bad rate at all). Hooray for dumb rich kids!
  • I used to be a big MMORPG player a year ago approx. I quitted this way of life when i got tired of seeing people with better wallets and the will to spend favored by the companies maintaining these games. Since then, i vowed never to spend a single buck on a game that wouldn't restrict the players' investments with a strict rule set and/or an environment which favors strict investments from its community. I guess the less time you spend on the game, the more incline you will be to buy those bits on Ebay, th
  • I started playing SWG a few days after it came out. I am new to MMORPGs and after the initial shock of the gameplay learning curve I am having quite a bit of fun.

    I have noticed reciently that a vast majority of old school MMORPGers get there thrills from bitching and complaining about EVERYTHING. I have all but stopped reading the general message boards at the SOE site as its all ranting on various stupid crap.

    I can honestly say that in the last two weeks of game play, I have not been effected by people s

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