Of course. I think all of us understand why that's not allowed. There wasn't any confusion about EMC items for real money. The confusion arose over non-EMC items. There were (at least) two reasons why there was confusion: It seemed like you weren't allowed to sell real items for real money. That doesn't make sense, EMC doesn't have anything to say about that. It was unclear how the rules were on selling non-EMC items for EMC money. Apparently things from other sites aren't allowed, but they are allowed if they're meant for use on EMC. In my opinion, this creates for loopholes. Have someone send you a T-shirt for 100k rupees, then take a picture of it and use it as your EMC avatar. There, meant for use on EMC.
A perfectly legal transaction. This is not a problem at all. Payment goes to the selling party. Ouch! Owner sells something legally obtained and that's unfair towards original seller? You have a severe fault in that logic. Oh, that argument again. The question is, given the justification of "it's pricey", how far can you go? What other kinds of indecency and ignorance can be justified by "it's pricey". This is not far fetched. It's perversion pure. I don't think so. It does not make sense at all. PS: I'm not advocating trading in-game items for real money. Very contrary to that, I'm advocating that no one should do that. But the example you've brought up isn't even about an in-game item, but an item that is originally obtainable with real money.
Legally "obtained" whilst knowing up front that there were usage restrictions applied to said object. But to go into flaws, I can't help share that I think the fault lies withing your reasoning. Because first and foremost: you never really obtained anything. Any items you own in-game are just that, virtual items in the game. And who owns the gaming environment on which we're playing? This is not much different from Mojang which denies commercial use of its products. Or Mojang which restricts you from selling your Mojang account.
As I see it, it is confusing because - there is no clear explanation of intention for that rule (no matter how obvious it may be for some people) - instead of saying what is not allowed on the forum and in the in-game chat, it tries to disallow trading, tries to draw a line where it is not possible to do so - naturally, it gets more and more complicated - you're trying to enumerate what is allowed and what not instead of stating clear intention and one clear rule - trading is something that is so natural to people and the community and restricting that is always confusing - people here are trading in-game items for RL-something all the time, perhaps some of them without even realizing. Making some of it allowed and some prohibited is just confusing if there is not clear intention to why to do that. Since when? I remember the 10 commandments ... unfortunately I don't have a copy. I strongly support "no RL trading with in-game items." But I'd suggest to take a different approach when making that a rule. The question to answer first is "why". Why to prohibit that kinds of (otherwise legal) trading? Can you describe the intention? We are not any more - most notably since the selling of rupees was removed from the website. That was a long way, from quite heavily "pay-to-win" in 2012 to the EMC economy now. Thinking about this process, I fail to see any staff initiative against "pay-to-win" aspects. What is your position on this topic?
Where? The website / EMC even supports transfer of vouchers. It is common practice from the beginning of EMC that a person buys vouchers or supporter status (a person that has a credit card) for others who happen not to have a credit card. By paying real money for a voucher you didn't obtain anything? Seriously? Voucher is not an in-game item, even if it can be represented by that renamed paper. You can't craft it in-game, and you can't use it in-game. You buy it with real money and it is a RL service you expect for it. Yes, there are pay-to-win aspects connected with it, but still - or therefore even more so! Where?
# If you bought a game disc in a store, you own the game disc. You can sell the game disc and the game company can't stop you. Ruling has been that sales are legal, regardless of whether it seems fair or not. For online games the picture is different. Even if someone buys a key for access, the value of the key is the account data which resides on the company's servers. The company owns the data and has authority over who can access the data. The company can declare the access non-transferable. Usually the rules around this are provided in the form of a EULA.
I think you answered your own issue: Small side step: you don't always need a credit card to utilize Paypal. They also support money transfers. But then you said: So if I now follow your logic you didn't trade an in-game item, only a RL service. Seriously though, small side step, there's one thing I don't quite understand: what is the goal of all this? Because you're raising a lot of theoretical "what ... if" situations and make it sound as if there's a huge problem. But... I can't help wonder when the last time was when staff actually banned someone from doing this? 607 thinks that he might have violated this rule, yet he hasn't been banned yet... It's not as if this rule is used to start some kind of witchhunt or anything, and IMO the same applies to the other rules. And well, I can confirm what Krysyy said above to some extend: this rule has been in effect for quite a while, I recall it being there when I first came onto the Empire (when I joined I actually read those rules ). Thing is: I get the feeling that we're going around in circles here.
I don't know why you're getting hung up on the legality of trading. We're talking about EMC's own server rules. Something doesn't have to be against the law to be against EMC's rules; in fact, I don't think any other rules are. In fact, if it was, it wouldn't even need to be listed as an EMC rule! Griefing and stealing and swearing and all these other things are not against the rules because of laws; they're against the rules because we don't want them on the server. Anything can be against the rules if the admins wished, and it's up to the players to decide if they want to play on a server with x rules. So why don't we want this particular thing on the server? Well, probably because it would give people an opportunity to exploit the server for their own real-life financial gain. You shouldn't be able to turn playing with EMC's economy into your actual real-money job. You're mining ores here, not Bitcoins.
Keep in mind that EMC is a private server. Therefore, we have every right to ban someone for this activity because we said it wasn't allowed. There is no validity to it being legal, because our server rules are the law here. The rule is there for multiple reasons. Primarily, it's a real life scam waiting to happen and we want to protect our players from others that want to exploit them for monetary gain. We have had to ban someone for selling in-game promos for real money. This is a game for players and not a source for monetary gain. Vouchers are NOT in place for RMT allowance. They are in place to gift supporter to other players easily and be a giveaway item. There is a healthy trade pattern to them as in-game items once purchased by players, but there is no exchange of real world money between players and the item itself is given away as a prize at events on occasion, making it not required to have the inclusion of real world money at all. Our cursing rules apply to anything on EMC so our RMT rules do as well. This is why this had never needed clarification. We can't and dont try to control if you curse in non-EMC situations because that's not where our rules apply.
Correct. Bought for real money, sold for real money, no problem. That a voucher can occasionally be given for free doesn't change that. Actually, you have just picked a wrong item for your example. An example with, say, in-game diamonds, would be actually relevant and interesting. To have good rules - the best we can get. I invest my time here because I believe that it's important - I believe that sound and mature rules are a magnet for good members / players. I'd like, when people read the rules, that they can see black on white that EMC is really one of the best servers. Sound intentions and good rules prevent great deal of "theoretical" "what if" situations and room for abuse. Example: it is quite clear that no one will be banned for Real world money exchanging for real world items but still, I have strong opinion that this should not stay in the rules as it is now. I'm happy that we're at a point where we can address problems that are less than huge. I see two questions here and everyone can decide for himself how big they are: - attitude towards rule making, attitude toward rules generally and effects on the community. - effect of the concrete rules and their wording on the community, especially (potential) new members. I see valuable comments and progress in the postings above. My feeling is - we'll get there. (It might take some time.)
I've made all changes that we will be making with regards to this rule in order to clarify it only. The overall intent of the rule remains and we won't be changing that logic anytime soon.
Actually, at the moment not at all. Yes, and I'd add "within (RL) laws" as a frame for "anything" - without being hung up on the legality. And yes - that's the point - to attract more members, more good players and to make the community stronger. This is how to start a rule - describe the intention. The actual rule will (and shall) closely follow the intention: "Do not exploit the server (members, community, in-game economy) for real-life financial gain." See how it is easy to make a good rule when you follow a good intention? BTW, exactly my opinion. Let's see what else is there. Let's look at all of them. This is the way to make really good rules. A good intention that should have its place in the explanation of the rule(s). Excellent. (And exactly my opinion.) Keep the in-game economy separate from the RL economy. I suggest to put that into explanation of the rule(s). What are the other reasons / intentions?
There are two problems here. When is it exploiting and when fair use? If we take your previous example (the voucher) in play then the problems you mentioned earlier still remain. "I'm not exploiting another player, I'm helping them gain access to an item". Another thing I wonder about: how are the staff going to proof that there actually was any financial gain happening?
For clarity sake I'm keeping my posts separate. [Goal of all this] But doesn't that imply that there's also a problem with the current rules? How are you able to determine this? A clear sign of having a flaw in the rules is if they'd be contradicting themselves or if people broke the rules en-masse by accident or stuff like that. Quite frankly I'm not too certain that this is actually happening. So far most examples people gave when it came to "rule problems" (at least those I'm aware off) were all based on actual events. Having 20 rules while making it look as if you had 10 caused players to overlook some, that's not a theory but something I've seen happening quite a few times. And not just me; plenty of players were unaware that a certain rule existed, mostly because it was buried away. But so far most of your comments are purely theoretical, at least that's how I perceive them. Take the example above... Why not concentrate on problems which are actually occurring instead of those which may or may not come to take place?
I'm not listing out every intention alongside every rule because that's not going to help make thing clear, it's going to add an entire paragraph of rambling alongside the parts I actually want people to read (which is long enough at this time). I've clarified the sections that need clarifying, but that's all that's needed at this time.
While i am for clear rules, i do not believe expanding upon them for pages makes it easier to understand. I am not a lawyer, but I believe the constitution of the United States of America has been reworked so many times with amendments and new laws added to govern the people that it is now harder to do the right thing and easier to cheat. If EMC says no real money should change hands between players, then I understand it to mean.... No money changes hands between hands of the players. If I have a situation that falls across the lines of the rules I will talk to the staff. They seem to be pretty friendly and responsive. I would just like the rules to not get to crazy specific to the point that we need a rule for everything. Just do the right thing and it will all be good.
Oh, I just realised I have a service going where I create games for Windows and get paid rupees for them. (I didn't actually do any transactions, I just set it up but there didn't seem to be much interest, and I didn't bump it because I had better things to do with my time) I guess I should shut that down, too. It's just odd that staff has apparently never caught it.
Yes, this will need to be shut down. Staff don't read every thread that pops up and we rely on reports to catch the weird ones like this. In the future, if in doubt, please ask furst =)
