Okay let';s address these both quiickly -
1)
RMT always hurts the game...proven time and time again unless its done and controlled by the game. If it didnt it wouldnt be illegal. Personally I dont care if the powers to be dont care.
Is UO in a great state? Im not sure of that Im glad you think so and I hope you are right, but i have played multiple shards and never seen so many empty of players. With the exception of atlantic I can pretty much pick anyplace to drop a house and have no problem finding a spot.
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This actually was proven to be wrong - RMT from the secondary market was not a driver for subscriber loss, and infact was shown to smooth the curve of subscriber length in games with established secondary markets. Google something along the lines of "RMT industry in video games" + ".edu" , but it could be outdated I assume, I think it was in relation to WoW and lineage 2, which were both large subscriber games at the time of writing.
That's not to say RMT is perfect - the guy spamming gen chat is clearly negatively effecting peoples play time, and funny that the only sites that sell codes are dealing with credit card fraud obtained codes, but that's another post I'm sure Frodo knows ALL about because after all, he's posted 10,000 times on statics, he clearly is the go to source for relevant information.
Further more, you're a new player, like you stated, you're just getting back bro! Well clearly not all shards are slammed like Atlantic, and there are 5 or so landmasses to lay your e-home now, so you will find houses. But you'll find fairly active pvp, and relatively active guilds on all shards.
2) Onto my favorite forum dweller.
Look man, I'm happy you're trying to split hairs here, clearly I meant the "in-game store" (ie. the only store that has new in-game items made and added to it by broadsword continually). Clearly right? I figured that wouldn't need further explanation.
" I hired a company to clean my parking lot so that gives them total control of my company, what an idiot. Maybe one day you will get something right, I seriously doubt it, but maybe." - Until we see something from Broadsword on their actual financial agreement with EA, I would not foresee maintenance of the game carrying over into continually putting more money into EA's pocket, unless they're getting a cut. This would be an entirely different situation than your cleaning company example, in absolutely every way, but I appreciate your attempt at making an analogy. Maybe in your next 10,000 posts you'll get that right. Keep posting, and keep up the good fight little guy! Someday you'll make a difference, in the meantime, get back to cleaning my parking lot?