There’s an increasingly popular trend in MMOs these days that is showing up in more and more games. It isn’t gold farming (although that ticks me off), but instead is the sale of in-game items for real money through means supported by the game’s developer.

Sony Online Entertainment uses its Station Exchange program for Everquest 2 so players can buy and sell items, gold, and accounts. The game has a few Station Exchange enabled servers, so those who do not want to play the game with this system can chose one of the many servers that do not allow it. In it’s first year of operation, Station Exchange oversaw over $1.8 million in transactions. A single seller made almost $37,500 in that year from 351 auctions

Second Life uses a program based off its in game economy. Linden Dollars have a real life exchange rate for US Dollars. People are allowed to create and sell items in game for Linden Dollars and when they accumulate enough of those virtual dollars, they can exchange them for the real money equivalent. Furthermore, you can buy or rent land in the game for real life sums, and charge access fees to users in the game. Project Entropia works a similar way, popularized by a user who payed $100,000 (that’s real US Dollars) for an island in that game.

I was reading the newest issue of Business Week yesterday and interestingly enough they had an article on the MMO business, in particular about Maple Story. Maple Story was a huge success in Asia, so now it has been brought to North America. It’s simplistic gameplay make it perfect for both hardcore and casual gamers. You can buy clothes or hairstyles for just a few cents a pop, or turn around and sell them again. In 2005, Maple Story’s parent company Nexon reaped in $250 million worldwide revenues, 85% of that figure being from virtual items alone.

The MMO industry as a whole is expected to produce revenues of $760 million this year alone and that figure is expected to triple within the next four years. The sale of virtual items via a parent company is becoming an increasingly popular trend, and it is becoming an effective way to combat illegal trading that is happening on Ebay or across the web.

Will Perpetual jump on the bandwagon? Unless Perpetual finds some really innovative and secure method that will prevent the illegal sale of accounts, items, and money on the internet, then this illegal activity is bound to happen. Now, I don’t mean illegal as in “against the law,” but as in “against the game’s EULA.” We’ve yet to see a legal case regarding the validity of the EULA in regards to the exchange of virtual material.

Having the incentive to make money from the game is a great way to attract users. I’m sure many non-fans will play Star Trek Online of they knew that they could bank on selling items or power leveling accounts. However, I don’t believe that this should be something that is commonplace in STO. I am more of a fan of the Station Exchange method SOE uses, where only a select few servers have the option to exchange items. I think that would be the best way for Perpetual to approach this, as it will give users the choice as to whether or not they want to use the program and it will add incentives for non-Star Trek fans to try out the game.

By using this system from the game’s launch, it will easily carve pathways for potential players: those who are in favor of the exchange program will go to those servers, while those who are not will go to normal servers. This will reduce the amount of farming and selling that is done on the net for normal servers, because the majority of the players on the normal servers are not in favor of such activities. If it is launched later in the game’s lifetime, then it would put the players who wish to use the program in a tough position, since they must decide whether or not to sacrifice their reputation, game time, items, friends, and other personal accomplishments they have made on their native server in order to switch or transfer over to an exchange server.

In conclusion, using an exchange server will benefit Perpetual and STO in that it will bring in non-fan players with incentives to make money, it will curb the amount of illegal trading that happens on the web, and it will keep STO up to par with an increasingly popular trend in the MMO industry.

I recently stumbled across an article regarding 3D imaging and it introduced me to the DAVID Laserscanner. What DAVID does is it uses laser range scanning to create 3D models of an object you scan. The site shows an example of scanning a sculpture and the final results. The coolest part is that it’s all low-cost. All it uses is a simple webcam and a laser that projects a line, and of course a PC.

Immediately I thought, “what if this was applied to gaming?” Say you play Second Life and you’re really not good with all the technical modeling stuff, but you’re extremely creative with wood. So you have an idea of a really cool object that can be very beneficial in SL and you make a model of it out of wood. So how do you get it onto your computer and into Second Life? Using the DAVID Laserscanner!

Take it a step further: suppose you want to scan your face (eyes closed of course). You successfully scan your head with DAVID and now there is a 3D model of your face on your PC. What if you could integrate that into a game so your avatar could have your face? Plenty of games are already doing full facial customizations, and some are letting you save the customizations as templates. What if you could upload the results from DAVID into the game and just fill in things such as skin tone, eyes, hair color, etc. using the in game customizing features?

It’s only a matter of time before something like this is made available in the gaming realm, and I bet the first testbed will be Second Life.

OK, I’m finally drawing the line here. Today I read the Producers Letter for Star Wars Galaxies and I almost threw up. Not cause it was so full of BS that it could be simply summed up in five sentences, but because they’re going to attempt to balance out Jedi and Commandos. Now this isn’t going to be centered around SWG, virtually all MMOs out there do this. They try to “balance” out all classes, so that they’re all equal. If Class A has an ability that is a ying, then Class B must have an ability that is a yang. This is total crap and it pollutes the games we play. Instead of making the games fun and diverse, it is making them cookie cutter and dull. It is a pain in the ass for both the developer and the player.

Here’s how it works. Say I’m making an MMO about global law enforcement. Two of my classes are police officers and 00-agents. In the real world, police officers are naturally underpowered compared to 00-agents, which are vastly overpowered. I want to make this MMO realistic, so I incorporate everything possible regarding each class. Police officers are generally better at crowd control, when working in groups, and operating by the book. 00-agents are good at covert operations, are lethal at 1v1, they also have a good chance of taking on more than one opponent at the same time, and are specialists at changing the rules of the playing field to fit their advantage.

So what happens? The game runs smoothly at first. Everyone is having a good time. Then PvP is discovered, first at the low level and then at the high. The players notice an inconsistency: Police officers keep getting demolished by 00-agents. There simply is no way to win unless you zerg/gank them. So the police officer community begins to riot and demand adjustments to be made to the game play system so it could be more fair. So the developers, not wanting to upset their customers, decide to reduce the power output of 00-agents and make them much more vulnerable. This way, police officers have a chance to 1v1 a 00-agent and actually win. But something goes wrong, it seems that the developers made 00-agents too underpowered. The 00-agent community is in an uproar, demanding that the nerf-bat be put away and that the power of police officers be reduced so that 00-agents have a chance of winning.

This pattern goes back and forth like a pendulum until finally the devs all put their heads together and completely rework the officer and agent combat system. They make a chart of every agent ability and every police officer ability. Their decision is to make each and every ability from one class equally counterable by an ability from the opposing class. The result is a success. Both classes now have an equal chance of winning in PvP. The riots fizzle and the community is happy.

This example can be seen in almost every MMO out there to some degree: Jedi vs Bounty Hunters in SWG, Scouts vs Warriors, Warlocks vs Shamen in WoW, and the list goes on. In the end, it not only takes away the uniqueness of each class, but it completely nullifies any realistic aspects of the game. Life isn’t about playing fair. By pampering the players with classes that are equal to one another we remove any sense of realism and uniqueness to the game. We SPOIL players this way. And in the end, it wastes more resources to end up making things equal than to make it more real by leaving things unequal. What’s the point of playing a 00-agent when a cop has the same chance of success at a far easier pace? People chose certain classes because they want to play those classes, they want to play them for what they are and what they represent. If I want to play a Jedi, I better be able to kick some major ass like Obi-Wan did in Episode III. Some asshole MEDIC should not be able to defeat me. I’m a Jedi for crying out loud! If I’m a Rogue that lurks in the shadows, and I stealth and backstab you, you better believe that you will be dead, if not significantly damaged by it.

Bring realism back to MMOs. Games are entertainment, they help us escape our issues in real life. But lets not dumb them down so much that we give false impressions of utopia to the player. Younger players are affected the most by this. With MMOs being a form of social interaction in their adolescence, they get a fake impression that the world is fair, that things are all balanced. This is a negative impression on society as a whole. Bring back diversity to MMOs. Bring back the fun. Make things realistic. Make the cops be cops and the agents be agents. Remember, life is not about following rules and fairness. It is about making your own rules and trying to be #1. Quit spoiling the player, let them in turn figure out how to spoil themselves!