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[Alawen]

All of these comments continue to manifest hyperbole and moral outrage. Let's look at this mathematically.

P99 platinum seems to sell for somewhere between $2 and $3 per 1K. This might be slightly off; I could only find one advertised price easily, so if someone wants to argue that it's higher or lower than that I don't really have a response.

Now let's outfit a character with best in slot droppables. This is very class dependent and melee characters will generally cost much more than casters and epic multiquests are available for quite a few characters. I have in mind items like Kunark breastplate and legs, hierophant's cloak, cloak of flames, runed bolster belt, manastone, cobalt bracer, fungi. Depending on class, the bill is going to be in the neighborhood of 300K to 600K, and it's very easy to go much higher than that. If we use an average of $2.50 per 1K, we're talking about $750 to $1500. That does not include the cost of a character or having one powerleveled.

It wouldn't surprise me if this has happened in the history of the server, but does anyone actually think this is common? I don't think I've ever run into anyone like that. Furthermore, it's entirely possible for someone to farm that platinum on a caster and create a melee class which they are less than proficient with, so encountering such a character doesn't inherently reflect RMT.

I think the common scenario is much more like what I referenced earlier: some guy starts on the server by spending $50 or $100 to buy something like 20-50K platinum. This is certainly an advantage over rusty long sword, but it's not game-breaking. That'll buy some mid-range weapons and armor and a haste item or progress toward a full spell book.

The comparison to third party software is interesting. It's certainly an unequal advantage in the same way, but it doesn't significantly change actual game play, so that feeling of immersion is unchanged. I do not, however, expect that competence in game is strongly correlated with buying or not buying platinum. Plenty of people suck on their own and I've seen some really awful players get geared up by raid guilds because of class scarcity, persistence or luck.

I suspect that what's driving most of the indignation toward RMT is that people not as financially successful in life would like to have equal footing to compete for the top in this virtual environment. Unfortunately, I don't think life works that way. Money is, by definition, fungible. Rich kids get better equipment, more opportunities, private training, and countless other advantages in almost every activity except running, where naked Kenyans kick everyone's ass.

Personally, I think of this as playing with toys. If I'm into flying kites and Frank builds a really good kite and then sells it to Tim, I'm not going to get too upset that Tim's kite is better than mine. I could not give even half a shit if you have your epic and I don't.

Now sell me your hiero cloak.