How to massively reduce RMT

A lot of you guys are really missing the point. Also I'm not even sure some of you really understand the entire concept.

You're using the term "RMT" like its a bad thing.

'Real Money Transfer' has been around in EQ since OG classic. You've always been able to sell plat, characters, and items for real cash. It is almost impossible to police unless vast amounts of resources are spent by DBG to police it. Those are resources (time, money) of the owners that could be spent on additional game design/development.

The issue isn't so much that there are people making a living (or maybe its more of a side-hustle) playing this game (and other MMORPGs, by the way), and selling pixels.

Hell, an argument could be made that the FBSS was the World's first NFT!

The real issue arises when people doing this end up 'monopolizing' the game, or aspects of it, and essentially prevent others from playing the game without paying a toll to do so.

I GZFs if some dude has an army in Sirens Grotto AEing the zone along with all the picks. I would have a problem if the same dude charged me $10 for a siren hair so I can complete my Shawl Quest (I could live with a few k, plat ).

I GZFs if some dude has an AOE PL crew selling AA's or Max Level to people that want to pay his rates. I would have a problem if said dude has all (or the best) leveling spots locked up, and I have no choice but to pay him.

The RMT aspect of a game like this (or WoW, or any of the many iterations) will never go away. The best the game designers/owners can do is to 1) minimize it, 2) take advantage of it, 3) ensure it doesn't lead to toxic behavior and cause the game to die.

I feel that to some extent DBG minimizes things. It's not exactly the wild west, however, they could certainly do better. They take advantage of it by the use of in-game Krono. Essentially, its the defacto currency of EQ. The most toxic behavior really isn't all these guys with their bot armies. Its the a-holes using mods that allow them to warp around, taunt from distance, and steal mobs.

Does anyone really care about the AOE groups sitting in some zone farming Plat/items that are then converted to Krono? I get that inflates the price of Krono, and then people take that plat to buy items, which inflates the price of those items.

I'd agree with that Umul. I'd assume most of the Krono are probably sucked by the AOE groups in one of two ways 1) they are killing so many mobs and getting so much loot, they then convert that to Krono, 2) they have a few extra people in the group they are selling the XP to at what ever the going rate is. I'd bet they likely make more Krono with #1 than #2. Those dudes then sell Krono at discounted prices for cash on various sites. People then buy that krono, turn around and convert it to items/gear in game. Then the krono is recycled in the market. Smart people buy that krono at $9ish and use it to pay their subscription, rather than pay full freight.

You've certainly got the one-off situations where someone sells an SoD, Gnome Mask, etc, but those transactions are pretty limited in comparison to the Krono being utilized by the AoE crews.

Then you've got dudes like me, that just sorta play the Krono market for what it is. Just playing the game I build up plat/items, that I then convert to Krono. Its obviously much easier to do early on in a server life, cause Krono prices haven't inflated.

All that being said, those AoE crews are using Krono to sub their accounts, as are many others. So, people are obviously buying Krono in the DBG market place. Otherwise all the Krono would get eaten up by people using it pay for their sub fees.

What's real money transfer? Do you mean real money transaction?

Yep, that’s what I mean

Trying to remove RMT from mmorpgs is like trying to remove narcotics from society.

You eventually need to accept it is not possible all you can do is simply make the best choices in your own life to interact with it or not.

Always people who want their dope hits whether its pixels or powder man.

Always dealers willing to supply this in exchange for currency.

If the game disallowed player trading of Kronos and allowed in-game sales only via a krono merchant, people would still RMT plat and desired in-game items. That has been done and is happening now, its just that the main focus has become kronos.
So instead you would have players buy krono and sell to the krono merchant for plat. You would be adding plat to the game. Its not duping but adding plat would typically raise item prices. (basic economics)
I have no problem with the RMTers as long as they do not monopolize players' ability to camp the items themselves. Mischief was good about this in that the flood of items kept prices down and also allowed more players to camp desired items themselves.

RMT is not the problem, it's the box armies and the fully automated groups that run 24/7 that are. Even when documented and reported it seems DBG is extremely slow to act on it.

350p works just as well (just saying).

I hate the fact they (un)nerfed that.

Half the challenge was chasing down Hasten while encumbered with gold pieces. Part of the woosification of America.

New TLP idea - bring back coin weight!

May as well make it pvp too.

No kidding. I'm sure that wouldn't be abused at all, lol.

Let's do it. People out here calling for a GoD-start because "it's never been done before". Meanwhile, multiple PvP servers existed in the live time-line and we haven't seen that in a TLP format either. Time to throw those Zek players a bone.

There is so many good pvp level brackets prior to live.

Multiple servers that have all ended up dying and being combined into a single low population server that is still one of the lowest population servers that is still around.

yes! it could be a great feeder into the live server to refresh the population! Great idea!

Something that wouldn't happen for years down the road and a dead server feeding into a dead server doesn't help the other server much. The devs have said many times that if you want a PvP TLP server you have to show evidence that there is demand for PvP in EQ. Given the the only PvP server allows for free to play players you should be able to get people to start that would want a TLP PvP server. Given that they don't want to play on a free server what is there to suggest that they want to pay to play?

Live is a different game compared to TLP. There's some populations that share interest but to say "just play on live" is just ignorance.

And people who can't be bothered to spend a little time on a live server that is free to play in order to demonstrate that there is a demand for a TLP PvP server can't be depended on to play on a paid TLP PvP server. If there was really a lot of demand for a server like this why isn't anyone willing to put in a little work to show that demand?

Ya bubba, let me log into WoW Shadowlands pvp to show my desire for a everquest pvp TLP server.