• Hail Guest!
    We're looking for Community Content Contribuitors to Stratics. If you would like to write articles, fan fiction, do guild or shard event recaps, it's simple. Find out how in this thread: Community Contributions
  • Greetings Guest, Having Login Issues? Check this thread!
  • Hail Guest!,
    Please take a moment to read this post reminding you all of the importance of Account Security.
  • Hail Guest!
    Please read the new announcement concerning the upcoming addition to Stratics. You can find the announcement Here!

In game RMT

cazador

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I think it would be nice to have an in game real money transfer system. 25/75 25% to UO 75% to player. Broker verification through Mythic? Seem possible? Maybe I'd like to buy 10k relic frags for $...it seems win win. What are the downfalls? I've only seen a few games use that.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Captn Norrington

Stratics Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
Shroud of the Avatar did exactly that for about three months. Then they cancelled it because they said it was causing a whole bunch of issues and was draining developer time, was more trouble than it was worth etc.

They charged 10% to oversee player to player real cash sales.
 

Merus

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Why not just add a way to transfer ingame store credits on the trade menu?

Platinum:
Gold:
Store:
 

cazador

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Why not just add a way to transfer ingame store credits on the trade menu?

Platinum:
Gold:
Store:
Yea so I could actually set say a piece of armor to 175m or say 500 store credits. Maybe mythic does a buy back for store tokens. Every 3=1 I don't know how something like that would even legally work. Do taxes need to be paid etc etc. so maybe just better to add a way to spend the store gold in game on items. So if say Player A doesn't trust buying gold from a player he can just buy from UO to spend. Seems kind of win win that way. Then the player who sold it gets the tokens in his/her balance. Seems like a lot of work for a team that gave us dinosaurs tho


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Tina Small

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I think it would be nice to have an in game real money transfer system. 25/75 25% to UO 75% to player. Broker verification through Mythic? Seem possible? Maybe I'd like to buy 10k relic frags for $...it seems win win. What are the downfalls? I've only seen a few games use that.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Something like you suggest could create tax consequences for players and EA/Broadsword, as well as impose financial reporting and backup tax withholding obligations for EA/Broadsword.

http://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1088&context=sjsumstjournal
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-14-21.pdf
 

Tina Small

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend

Kylie Kinslayer

Stratics Legend
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Awards
1
Something like you suggest could create tax consequences for players and EA/Broadsword, as well as impose financial reporting and backup tax withholding obligations for EA/Broadsword.

http://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1088&context=sjsumstjournal
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-14-21.pdf
Yepp.. all kinds of paperwork, headaches and hassles.

best to leave it in the dark alleyways.. I mean do you really want rmt folks to begin adding embedded taxation etc into virtual stuff? Heck, ya sell something for $100 ya gotta add in the tax rate etc or you are going backwards ;)
 

Merlin

The Enchanter
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
UNLEASHED
Campaign Patron
No, just no.

The recent banking revamp has gone relatively well. Let's not jumble it up with having real-money balances in-game.
 

Merus

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
No, just no.

The recent banking revamp has gone relatively well. Let's not jumble it up with having real-money balances in-game.
We already have "real-money balances" in game. At prestent they are master account bound.

I don't believe there are any tax implications so long as you can't convert the ingame store money back into real cash, which I would not advocate. EA will have recognized all the revenue from sales of sovereigns already, being able to transfer sovereigns between players ingame should be no different than gold or items bought with sovereigns.
 

Merlin

The Enchanter
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
UNLEASHED
Campaign Patron
We already have "real-money balances" in game. At prestent they are master account bound.

I don't believe there are any tax implications so long as you can't convert the ingame store money back into real cash, which I would not advocate. EA will have recognized all the revenue from sales of sovereigns already, being able to transfer sovereigns between players ingame should be no different than gold or items bought with sovereigns.
I see no reasonable need for sovereigns to be transferrable.
 

cazador

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I see no reasonable need for sovereigns to be transferrable.
The thought was that it would add a new dimension to buying and selling. More incentive for people to buy the sovereigns. I didn't think that trading in for real money would work. I was just asking what downfalls it would have if implemented. Taxes alone made me say nope..but I was curious.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Merlin

The Enchanter
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
UNLEASHED
Campaign Patron
The thought was that it would add a new dimension to buying and selling. More incentive for people to buy the sovereigns. I didn't think that trading in for real money would work. I was just asking what downfalls it would have if implemented. Taxes alone made me say nope..but I was curious.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
That's my concern as well. As an accountant who works on hedge funds and private equity groups, I've seen how vicious the IRS and/or SEC can be. No reason to give regulators any reason to see a red flag and consider looking into things. Receiving questions about how transactions between players from within game may be causing taxable events and what is being done to track them is exactly the type of thing that would send this fragile game to the bricks for good.
 

Pawain

I Hate Skilling
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Diablo 3 had a real money auction house for a while.

Thousands more players and it was popular. But they closed it. If Blizzard wont do it I doubt EA would.
 

cazador

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
That's my concern as well. As an accountant who works on hedge funds and private equity groups, I've seen how vicious the IRS and/or SEC can be. No reason to give regulators any reason to see a red flag and consider looking into things. Receiving questions about how transactions between players from within game may be causing taxable events and what is being done to track them is exactly the type of thing that would send this fragile game to the bricks for good.
Well what the In game store brought code in for I think is the ability to show sovereigns on an account. I wonder how hard it would be for me to say purchase items from a player with them. Now I don't think it's smart to be able to convert that to real life $ however it make everything Attainable in game without ever spending your own money. And they can start adding game items for real money that people would normally complain about because it's "game breaking" not being Attainable without real money arguments out of the equation.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

CovenantX

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Well what the In game store brought code in for I think is the ability to show sovereigns on an account. I wonder how hard it would be for me to say purchase items from a player with them. Now I don't think it's smart to be able to convert that to real life $ however it make everything Attainable in game without ever spending your own money. And they can start adding game items for real money that people would normally complain about because it's "game breaking" not being Attainable without real money arguments out of the equation.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
That's what I was expecting when the "In-game store" was in concept..... it's not too late, but that also lead me to believe it was possible UO was heading to a F2P model (it' not too late for that either...), I do not want F2P to happen.

However, it is necessary to have a gold-sink that actually works, spending in-game currency for certain things you'd otherwise need to spell real currency to obtain could work. more so on items with limited uses, thus there continues to be a demand to buy multiples, eventually leading to the gold increasing in real currency value.

Although something like that isn't going to work if there are any methods of duping that still exist.
 

Smoot

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
if UO was a "real" game, yes this would make more money for broadsword, probably at least triple than all of the subs combined.

unfortunately uo doesnt have the resources for the preliminary investmentment in this, before they would start seeing returns. histocially, EA has favored cash in hand rather than slight risk for huge reward. which is pretty much why UO has been left in the dark ages.

yes, there have been huge opportunities for UO that other games have. store items, novelty items, RMT services combined with a free to play format. but i sincerely doubt we see any investment by EA in the longevity of UO, not even the cost of what stratics sold for.

its really a shame, but to be expected given the track record.
 

Smoot

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
That's what I was expecting when the "In-game store" was in concept..... it's not too late, but that also lead me to believe it was possible UO was heading to a F2P model (it' not too late for that either...), I do not want F2P to happen.
UO is going ftp. it was announced back in september on facebook. endless trial account, you still have to pay the sub if you want a house.
 

CovenantX

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
UO is going ftp. it was announced back in september. endless trial account, you still have to pay the sub if you want a house.
Yea, I know, I just wasn't sure if they had a change of plans since then.... it'll be good for a while at least. (hopefully)
 

Captn Norrington

Stratics Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
UO is going ftp. it was announced back in september on facebook. endless trial account, you still have to pay the sub if you want a house.
Do you have proof of this? link, screenshot, anything?

I just scoured the official UO Facebook page and can't find what you are talking about.
 

Nexus

Site Support
Administrator
Moderator
Professional
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Something like you suggest could create tax consequences for players and EA/Broadsword, as well as impose financial reporting and backup tax withholding obligations for EA/Broadsword.

http://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1088&context=sjsumstjournal
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-14-21.pdf
It would also cause a slew of legal ramifications as well... once they condone RMT in game, you've now a vest stake. Right now all those pixels are EA's property, you're paying for the privilege of accessing and playing with them. Allow you to treat them as a commodity where it can have fiscal ramifications on you outside the game, endorsed and condoned by EA then they take on a large amount of risk and liability if something happens.
 

Merus

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
It would also cause a slew of legal ramifications as well... once they condone RMT in game, you've now a vest stake. Right now all those pixels are EA's property, you're paying for the privilege of accessing and playing with them. Allow you to treat them as a commodity where it can have fiscal ramifications on you outside the game, endorsed and condoned by EA then they take on a large amount of risk and liability if something happens.
Please explain how letting players transfer sovs (that are already ingame) between each other create any "fiscal ramifications" or additional "risk and liability if something happens"?
 

cazador

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
It was in one of those talk to the devs videos. It was one of the very professional looking ones, shouldn't be too hard to find. Unfortunately I'm far too lazy to find it. She did in fact say she was open to FTP but wouldn't do it unless it was carefully thought out and done right..so I assume we will log in one day it'll be on Test and live a week later


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

CovenantX

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
It was in one of those talk to the devs videos. It was one of the very professional looking ones, shouldn't be too hard to find. Unfortunately I'm far too lazy to find it. She did in fact say she was open to FTP but wouldn't do it unless it was carefully thought out and done right..so I assume we will log in one day it'll be on Test and live a week later


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
man I had a very hard time reading that without loling.
 

Dot_Warner

Grand Inquisitor
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
I can't decide if its hilarious or sad that they'd announce such a thing on a podcast but not bother to mention it to the players via the website, newsletter, or the M&Gs. The players just get a vague "There's a big announcement coming in December!!!!!" which just causes most of us to roll our eyes and shrug. This should have been hyped for the last four months to generate excitement. Marketing opportunity averted! Whew!

I also find it highly dubious that there is a new NPE lurking in the shadows. Something like that should be in testing for months, to make sure its actually worthy and not the 5 minute long steaming pile tacked into the EC. I wonder if they're going to utilize any of the areas from previous expansion NPEs (which still exist!) to save time/augment what's already available. On second thought, no, I know Mesanna still thinks Ocllo has some history in Trammel....
 

Lord Frodo

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
What is a NPE
What is the meaning of NPE?
A non-practicing entity (NPE) is someone who holds a patent for a product or process but has no intentions of developing it. A patent is a government-issued license that gives an inventor exclusive rights to the manufacture, use or sale of his invention for a specified time period. An NPE does none of those things
We have one of these in UO..
 

Captn Norrington

Stratics Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
What is a NPE
What is the meaning of NPE?
A non-practicing entity (NPE) is someone who holds a patent for a product or process but has no intentions of developing it. A patent is a government-issued license that gives an inventor exclusive rights to the manufacture, use or sale of his invention for a specified time period. An NPE does none of those things
We have one of these in UO..
NPE = New Player Experience.

Tutorials and getting them interested in the game basically.
 

Smoot

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
OK, thanks for the link. How did you find this?
the molds page is just one of about 20 or so random pages "followed" on my facebook site. kinda nerdy stuff overall once in a while have a really funny or interesting one.
 

Smoot

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
ill admit tho i do randomly search for UO stuff sometimes. weird searches. youd be surprised how much UO is still talked about. Ultima Online is pretty active on reddit too i check there alot.
 

Tina Small

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I can't decide if its hilarious or sad that they'd announce such a thing on a podcast but not bother to mention it to the players via the website, newsletter, or the M&Gs. The players just get a vague "There's a big announcement coming in December!!!!!" which just causes most of us to roll our eyes and shrug. This should have been hyped for the last four months to generate excitement. Marketing opportunity averted! Whew!

I also find it highly dubious that there is a new NPE lurking in the shadows. Something like that should be in testing for months, to make sure its actually worthy and not the 5 minute long steaming pile tacked into the EC. I wonder if they're going to utilize any of the areas from previous expansion NPEs (which still exist!) to save time/augment what's already available. On second thought, no, I know Mesanna still thinks Ocllo has some history in Trammel....
Smoot's post yesterday about a Facebook post made me curious too and I ended up finding the same podcast shortly before he posted the link. I found it because I got to thinking about what Mesanna might have been involved with around September and wondering if she might have shared upcoming plans for UO with the LLTS guild (aka The Syndicate) at their annual conference (Syndcon). So I searched on the terms "Syndcon" and "Bonnie Armstrong" and that was how I found a link to the same podcast Smoot mentioned. (The Syndicate - Articles and http://www.llts.org/Articles/Articles/163_podcast.php )
 

cazador

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
She's also said it on a video. Cause I remember posting about the FTP base. It pretty much died out at that point though.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

cazador

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Ok so after deliberating a bit. Adding store tokens in game would be bad. Because once the economy became flooded with them. The gold seller sites would be able to sell them for cheaper.even though they wouldn't spawn in game, farming resources for example wouldn't be time consuming and would drop demand. So even though say 1 token converts to say .50¢ real time. They could get away and do it for say .40¢ through afk farming. Bad idea..


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Merus

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Ok so after deliberating a bit. Adding store tokens in game would be bad. Because once the economy became flooded with them. The gold seller sites would be able to sell them for cheaper.even though they wouldn't spawn in game, farming resources for example wouldn't be time consuming and would drop demand. So even though say 1 token converts to say .50¢ real time. They could get away and do it for say .40¢ through afk farming. Bad idea..


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Just stick with the sovereigns. ALL sovereigns originate with Origin for real $, so even IF there is a resell market, Origin still got their money first. No way Origin loses money if 3rd party sites resell something at a lower price than it was bought from origin for.
 

cazador

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Just stick with the sovereigns. ALL sovereigns originate with Origin for real $, so even IF there is a resell market, Origin still got their money first. No way Origin loses money if 3rd party sites resell something at a lower price than it was bought from origin for.
Well they will if say I am looking to buy them and can get them cheaper from a 3rd party. It's not inflating the economy persay, but once there's a ton in the system now it's just shuffling around rather than increasing profit. I was just trying to spit ball ways to increase cash flow to maybe get better server or more Devs. Something to get the game fixed. It would be an ideal intro system but after 3 years or so there would be no need for the origin site. Unless of course they added better items to the store to gobble up sovereigns out of the economy.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Merlin

The Enchanter
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
UNLEASHED
Campaign Patron
unlimited trial account basically. if you want a house or vet rewards youll still have to sub.

Sept 1rst
MOLDS episode 2 | Facebook

29:40
68-Stab Goes The Ferrit
Interesting links, thank you for sharing.

Regarding the 'unlimited trial account' they say "with restrictions". Tough to call it 'unlimited' or imply they are going F2P until we find out more about what the restrictions are.

Please explain how letting players transfer sovs (that are already ingame) between each other create any "fiscal ramifications" or additional "risk and liability if something happens"?
I still haven't seen a reasonable explanation for why Sovereigns should be transferable.
 

Merus

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Well they will if say I am looking to buy them and can get them cheaper from a 3rd party. It's not inflating the economy persay, but once there's a ton in the system now it's just shuffling around rather than increasing profit. I was just trying to spit ball ways to increase cash flow to maybe get better server or more Devs. Something to get the game fixed. It would be an ideal intro system but after 3 years or so there would be no need for the origin site. Unless of course they added better items to the store to gobble up sovereigns out of the economy.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
It doesn't/wouldn't matter how many times a sovereign changes hands in game or what it was traded for, Origin got its money. Whether they get it all now or later doesn't really matter, they got paid. So long as the only way to create a sovereign is to buy one with real money on the origin store, it shouldn't make any difference how players trade them ingame after the fact.

Sovereigns will get consumed over time, so more will always need to be bought.
 

Merus

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
I still haven't seen a reasonable explanation for why Sovereigns should be transferable.
Right now the only way to convert real cash into gold is to buy it on the black market or purchase items from the ingame store and then try to sell them for gold. Making sovereigns transferable cuts out the middle man in either of those scenarios with absolutely no risk to Origin/EA/Broadsword (provided its coded correctly, but we already have a digital account transfer system for gold). Trading sovereigns shouldn't be any different from trading items or gold... once they are in game they are just another digital currency.
 

AtlanticRealtor

ICQ 647752375
Stratics Veteran
I see no reasonable need for sovereigns to be transferrable.


This would be nice for sure!!
Will give you a perfect example, recently we got the 500 credit per active "Email". I dont want to buy a secret chest with 500 credit, since i have multiple accounts on multiple emails, I could end up buying few Transfers Tokens instead.
I think is perfect safe to transfer credits between accounts, like using the ingame trade window, I dont see anything going wrong with that!!
 

Smoot

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Interesting links, thank you for sharing.

Regarding the 'unlimited trial account' they say "with restrictions". Tough to call it 'unlimited' or imply they are going F2P until we find out more about what the restrictions are.
right, from what they said it sounds like just the same restrictions as trial accounts have now, or at least the major ones like housing. but this would now just be a "normal" account. not a subbed account. but its not worth guessing until it goes live.

free to play goes without saying tho. an account that you can play forever, no matter how many restrictions, is the definition of free to play games.
 

Smoot

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I see no reasonable need for sovereigns to be transferrable.


This would be nice for sure!!
Will give you a perfect example, recently we got the 500 credit per active "Email". I dont want to buy a secret chest with 500 credit, since i have multiple accounts on multiple emails, I could end up buying few Transfers Tokens instead.
I think is perfect safe to transfer credits between accounts, like using the ingame trade window, I dont see anything going wrong with that!!
yes, that would be good for you but bad for broadsword. for broadsword, its better if alot of people have those sovereigns but dont use them, rather than transferring them to players who would have otherwise bought more sovereigns.

or in your specific example, dont spend the 500s, or spend them all on secret chests. and then if you want the transfer token, buy MORE sovereigns for that.
 

Smoot

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
when it comes down to it, and to get back on topic, a huge reason RMT exists behind the scenes in osi UO is specifically because of the sub fees. many players just want to keep there accounts open. providing an easy gold source for the more prevalent third party sites. leading to more gold being more easily available, which contributes to in-game inflation.

I cant see UO ever fully embracing RMT, such as in other games, most notable one "Entropia" that actually encourages and is based around rmt sales of virtual items / properties by design. i think this game still holds the record for largest virtual property sale ever, planet Calypso, for $6million.

what i can see being realistic is a system similar to world of warcraft, that now allows players to buy game time tokens from blizzard, and then sell them on the auctionhouse (for an amount partially fixed by blizzard). this allows players to basically "buy gold" from other players in exchange for gametime.

I can see broadsword doing something like this. a very basic system that would solve both ends of a problem, some players need for gold, and other players need for gametime.
 

Merus

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
yes, that would be good for you but bad for broadsword. for broadsword, its better if alot of people have those sovereigns but dont use them, rather than transferring them to players who would have otherwise bought more sovereigns.

or in your specific example, dont spend the 500s, or spend them all on secret chests. and then if you want the transfer token, buy MORE sovereigns for that.
You have it backwards... how many MORE sovereigns would get bought if you could use them outside of just the origin store items.
 

Merus

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
You could fairly easily update the bank system to have 3 currencies instead of 2. You could also update vendors to hold sovereigns and give players the ability to set each vendor with a conversion rate. Then anything on a player vendor could be bought with sovereigns if the seller enables the conversion rate.... you could even give vendors the ability to sell a certain stock of gold if the conversion was enabled.
 
Top