Hey playmates, I'm selling cheap diemonds, 20 pieces for only $1! Now for real, wouldn't this be ... awkward? Reading the thread dragon-tombs-where-are-they it seems to me that there are still many members who not only accept, but advocate selling in-game stuff for out-of-game money. Thinking again and again about that, I find it ... weird ... perverted. I do not want to restart (or continue) the discussion about what that means for EMC economy now. I just want to inspire the EMC community to think about that per se, to think if there is a possible way out of this situation. One idea was that, generally, all members should support server expenses, maintenance and development and that having like 700 supporters contributing $3 monthly each ($36 per year) is better than having 105 supporters with $20 each. The objection was that many (how many?) members can not afford $3 per month or can not pay because they don't have a credit card and/or a bank account nor can they ask parents or anyone to do that for them (although they did somehow buy the game / the account?), possibly because they have to hide the fact that they are playing Minecraft. Perhaps it would be possible to have members who support younger or members in need until it is not necessary any more. Something like that diamond supporter would contribute for her/himself and 6 members who can not contribute themselves. Please think about this ... is there a way? PS: Just don't say "everyone is doing it" and "this is normal." AFAICT, EMC owners, staff and members do want EMC to be different (in positive way) than other servers and games. And generally, what the mass does, especially in the world of on-line video games, is not the measure of good...
Its a choice for us whether or not to donate. I don't do it out of 2 reasons, I'm underage and I don't have much use for the perks.
I have heard about this kind of thing but with other games not mc or EMC, I guess there will always be someone that tries it. I disagree with it though but I don't think you can stop it. :/
I think Manic's comments are referring to Kilmannan's suggestion in the Dragon Tomb thread yesterday that maybe we could be allowed to buy eggs with real money: http://empireminecraft.com/threads/dragon-tombs-where-are-they.18493/ Technically we already can, since the eggs will cost Rupees to use and you can buy Rupees now. There are hardly any games that don't do something like this. Whether it's right or wrong is a matter of opinion. I don't intend to expend the same level of energy that Manic does discussing this, but my feelings are that a buff's benefits are limited more by the mind behind them than by money and whether I would buy one would really depend on how useful I thought it would be to me and its relative cost.
In my opinion, I find this to be an awesome thing to do. It's an opportunity for people to make real money by selling virtual currency to others, I dig that to the absolute maximum. In the same way the Empire Shop was the original model to undercut good prices with, the Donation-For-Rupees feature could act as a model for people to price rupees. Of course, problems would arise, as money would be going to players instead of EMC, but this could be circumvented through 2 measures. 1. Have the admins change the Donation-For-Rupees values to undercut and compete with rupee-to-money traders. 2. Introduce one-time purchase perks and allow gifting of these perks to other users. If rupee-to-money exchanges become commonplace, we could attract an entirely new userbase with the proposition that real, tangible cash can be made by playing on this server and selling goods to others. I think this feature could be expanded on by making a new command, /trade. Basically, a vault-like interface allowing you to store items for online trade. In the online trade interface, you can send players a trade request, a message explaining what you have and what you want. What you want or offer could be items, rupees, or money. A player you send a trade request to may reject it, propose a counteroffer, accept it once they have the specified goods in /trade, or block you so you cannot continue to bother them. Should you ask for money, when they accept they will need to select a choice of payment, and pay money into your account, and you will need to pay if you offer that or they offer it and you accept. Once this is done, the trade will be completed. As well as creating a secure medium of trade for item-to-item trades, this method more importantly ensures all tangible money is exchanged correctly and nobody is screwed over by glitches.
The selling of In-Game currency from players to other players is never going to happen. It will never be allowed. The whole reasoning for the 'buy rupees' feature, was because we had a couple of people attempt to sell rupees for real world money. We told them that was not allowed, but we were made aware that players who were not interested in supporter statuses, were indeed willing to donate small portions of money in one time fees for rupees. So the system was made. The players begged for that one long ago. The buying of items out of game will probably never happen. I say probably, because I can not account for what future changes may affect something like that. But, the big point is here, from your quote above 72volt. The selling of items, rupees, and whatever else you can think to sell for real world money, is not allowed, and is actually illegal in some countries, so be careful. Before anyone chimes in saying that EMC would not allow this because of things stated above like 'money not going to the server'. Those are not the main reasons, even if they were factoring reasons at all they would be miniscule. We can not gurantee the safety of anyones funds outside of EMC. So that is a big reason. There is no contractual agreement for anything like that happening here. I know people steal in EMC, so what would stop these people from stealing your REAL money? "Hey 20 dollars for 100 Diamonds!" "Hey! Here is 20 Dollars!" --- leaves forever--- We can not prevent things like that from happening. Adding money into something like that safely has high legal precautions. Imagine if EMC was shut down because it was involved in some kind of money scandal like that? Its just never going to happen. It can not be allowed. Not because we think it is a horrible idea. I do not think as staff we have even weighed in on it. Its just not possible to do it safely and correctly.
We have previously ruled that selling rupees for real currency is disallowed - though it was a long time ago. We do offer the donations for rupees as an incentive, but that once again directly finances the server and is a donation. So while you can donate for rupees, I don't see in game items becoming for sale for real dollars anytime soon. Sure - theres the point that you can donate a dollar and use the rupees to get items, but that's indirect. The difference between them being 1) a sale of a virtual item for money 2) a reward for a donation to run the server. Technically, as a donator / supporter, you aren't paying for the rupees or perks, you are donating to help run the server. The perks and rupees are a prize / reward for your donation. EDIT: I've been SMOOCHed! - though we both covered different parts, so I suppose it's not awful.
Hm, okay, maybe a microtransaction system can be set up where users can buy 'Empire Gold' or something like that, which they can trade between other users and sell it back to EMC for less money than it is bought for? EMC would be making quite a bit of money if this were the case, not as many legal precautions would need to be taken as with direct player-to-player money exchanges.
I am curious as to why you think that at any time EMC will put forth the time and effort in putting one of the most complicated and 'iffy' systems into our infrastructure, so you can make money, when there are staff members who work many hours a week unpaid to ensure you have a good playing experience.
Please do not request for Threads to be locked. If you have an issue with a post, report it, and it will be looked at. Moderators know when to lock a thread. The only non-staff member who can request a lock is the Creator of the Thread. (M4nic_M1ner in this case). This is a healthy discussion, of which breaks no rules in exisitng. Simply posting in someones thread requesting it to be locked, is like walking into a conversation and saying 'Everybody SHUTUP!'. That guy does not make many friends.
I also don't really intend to expend my energy into writing an essay. Just some short to the point info. There are members on here who are under the age of 18 and have to ask their parents. If their parents don't see it as something to spend their money on then they say no. They aren't having to hide that they are playing minecraft. The parents more than likely bought the game for them since it's like most other games, one time purchase, the end. Or they got it as a gift since that is an option they have on the Minecraft site. Some people live on Budgets and never know if or when they are going to have the extra money for supporter. Wasn't someone permanently banned once for selling things on Ebay from EMC? Just because Diablo 3 lets you sell stuff with real money doesn't mean it's a good idea. Everytime someone mentions Diablo3 I never hear about the gameplay, just the whole "ERMAGERD I SOLD THIS STUPID PIXEL SWORD FOR $80 REAL MONEY!!!!!" system.
Every time something like this is brought up it makes me think of the gold farmers in WOW, Guild Wars, etc. I'm always seeing people pop into an outpost, spam an advertisement for a ingame gold advertisement then they leave so they can't be reported. If there's enough money in it, you get things like this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/25/china-prisoners-internet-gaming-scam and this: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/magazine/17lootfarmers-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
