Nordenwatch's Guide: Rags to Riches

[Alawen]

Wow! This sure was an entertaining shitstorm to read for the last hour or so. I think I can shed a little light on a few things.

First, let's talk about the difference between the law of the land and civil agreements. RMT is not illegal. If Nilbog, Rogean and associates knew Nord's real name, law enforcement would not help them try to prosecute him. They could try civil litigation, but I can't think of any great theory for them to pursue. It would just be a waste of time and money. You're breaking the rules of an elfsim, no more and no less. It doesn't need to be escalated into something it isn't.

The extreme use of hyperbole here really isn't helping anything. All these analogies about selling drugs to children and gambling away their college funds are just silly. The most rational explanations of what is wrong with this situation are Daldolma's application of the tragedy of the commons and Xasten talking about the disrespect of RMT. Even the analogies here break down and it's really best to talk about exactly what it is. Using metaphors doesn't add anything to the discussion.

As a long-term (and possibly still?) member of The A-Team, people are getting a really wrong idea of what happened in our guild. As you can tell, Loraen, who was our leader, was and is venomously anti-RMT. We had some very good players in A-Team. We had at least half a dozen members who could liquidate their gear for over a million plat, including me. To my knowledge, the only one who did is Nord. The rest of us still have a ton of gear sitting in mothballs, waiting for Velious or whatever.

We were, however, righteous farmers. Now did we monopolize popular spawns like jboots and Ragefire and so on? With the notable exception of the fungi camp, no, we did not. We looked for underutilized zones and spawns. We died like pigs trying to figure out how to solo and duo difficult camps. It was hard and it was fun and it was very profitable. In many cases, we brought items to the market that few people previously had access to. Hop on red for a while and you'll see that items that you're used to being common are not available unless you want to grossly overpay for them. Case in point: someone was trying to buy Donal's Gauntlets today for 15K. Good farmers provide a valuable service and help to develop the server economy.

Finally a few words about a few individuals. The attacks on Tecmos are unfounded. He plays well and he plays respectfully. Inventing details about his personal life just shows how weak the attacks on him are. Debate the arguments, not the man's character.

Nordenwatch played EQ hard, but he was very disciplined about his hours. I can't even tell you how many times he said, "I have to study this afternoon and tonight, see you guys tomororow." In game, he was extremely active in very complicated ways--he already explained his cycle of camping fungi and rogue epic pieces and looking in on the EC tunnel action at the same time. Imagine what he could have done if he were boxing. I should mention this: to the best of my knowledge, no one in A-Team was ever boxing. For all the stated and implied judgments of Nord's character, the man is a hard worker and his attention to detail is meticulous. Like it or not, he's going to do well in life.

Finally, I am very disappointed in Barking Turtle's posts in this thread. Something about this RMT discussion disrupted his usual humor and light-heartedness. I think that tone would have brought a lot to this discussion. He could have made fun of RMTers in general and Nordenwatch in specific in his usual style and been a lot more effective than this rabid dog bark approach.

Incidentally, I've been farming the entire time I was reading and responding to this thread.