This is not to say that honest players can't afford the best, but being rich - whether by luck or smart trading or real-world credit cards - immediately puts you under suspicion as a buyer. Everyone's a liar and a buyer. Everyone's a suspect.
Would that we could solve this with a simple division of servers - "you buyers go over there, and those of us against the secondary market will stay here." But victory in an MMOG is not necessarily earning the best; rather, it's having the best. What happens at IGE.com stays at IGE.com - no one's going to know how you got that fancy new sword. Honest non-buyers have become as much of a myth as gamer girls used to be.
So, is it hopeless? Can Paek Jung Yuls still rise to leadership without the aid of Visa or Mastercard? This is not an impossible task, but something has to change. Ignoring the secondary market is not the solution, because it is not going away. Nor should we be forced to sacrifice complex economies or gameplay to negate the need for currency competition. Instead, we need to find ways to legitimately beat the secondary market, to use a game's systems, as intended, better than they can.
Developers should not simplify games to combat IGE and eBay, but instead find more complex systems that users can experiment with and discover new rewards. Developers need to be rewarding smart gameplay, be it hunting, farming or crafting.
Over the last two weeks, since the EverQuest Progression Servers opened, I have seen first-hand the effect that smart players can have on a complex economy. While the average smith lost money buying expensive ores from NPCs, the smart smith broke down rusty weapons and re-smelted their own materials. While the average trader insisted customers meet them at common locations, the smart one used shared bank slots to freight inventory back and forth.
Instead of removing flexible economies, why not add to them? Why not add more non-trade rewards, such as faction in EverQuest or prestige in City of Heroes? Currency and equipment is, in most games, easily transferred. Non-transferable character progression demands that players legitimately access gameplay and encourages further immersion into a gameworld.
Yet, all of these suggestions are improbable hopes based on an assumption that the community will take a step and fight back. Korean Lineage II players have no qualms about banding together and pushing farmers out of their territories, but the Western world has a problem with reproducing this accomplishment. We are unwilling to work together to uproot the sellers. And we are unwilling to stop buying.
In Lineage II, I'm not a guild leader; I'm a follower. I am guilty not of buying, but of accepting. I know that the majority of my clan buys adena, and I hate it, and that's a large part of why I haven't logged in for nearly a month.
I will never buy. I have no fear of making that statement, that promise to myself. My fear is that I will remain complacent and accepting of the current status and not make any efforts to fix the situation, before virtual worlds become a mirror of the real world, and the ability to shine regardless of finances, status or ethnicity is lost.
The greatest evil is the indifference of good people.
Laura Genender is a Staff Writer for MMORPG.com, and is also an Editor for Prima Strategy Guides.
