Sharing Characters, nah...
Sharing Characters, nah...
It's frowned when someone is sharing characters but can we sell them? eBay is asking for new ideas. I think auctioning characters will promote the MUD and also get me some money to buy a new computer. *bounces around*
It's amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world everday always just exactly fits in the newspaper.
-Jerry Seinfeld
-Jerry Seinfeld
and I do need some money for end of school trip 
first of all: i don't think character sharing should be allowed.
second: you cannot give your heroes to anyone else (read the hero rules, dangit!)
third: can't control if you sell your characters on ebay (wouldn't want to try at least), and i pity the fool who'd spend money on this. isn't it done for diablo characters and items already anyways?
however, i think there should be a rule that forbids character sharing alltogether, but i don't think that'll happen. do not share heroes!
second: you cannot give your heroes to anyone else (read the hero rules, dangit!)
third: can't control if you sell your characters on ebay (wouldn't want to try at least), and i pity the fool who'd spend money on this. isn't it done for diablo characters and items already anyways?
however, i think there should be a rule that forbids character sharing alltogether, but i don't think that'll happen. do not share heroes!
*Unicorn hoofprint sparkling from glittering faerie-dust*
I pity the person that will buy my characters but I will still say that "I love them" for giving me the money! 
I agree about sharing characters though, but it can't be just "said" something has to be done!
I agree about sharing characters though, but it can't be just "said" something has to be done!
It's amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world everday always just exactly fits in the newspaper.
-Jerry Seinfeld
-Jerry Seinfeld
EverQuest was the first big who-ha about selling characters. A friend of mine sold an account with a max level cleric with the best gear in the game for about $5k. That came out to be about 16 cents an hour...
I digress. Verant made selling against the EULA, and they do periodically check auction sites and ban accounts, but not nearly often enough to discourage it too much.
Anarchy Online, Dark Age of Camelott, and Ultima Online took the same stance, and were even less effective at it, since in those games there isn't a bias against "Ebays", and players don't shun a person that bought their character.
ShadowBane knew they couldn't do anything and took the "if you can make money off it, cool beans" approach, though I havn't seen a good market for anything yet; it had a really bad release.
Diablo 2 has a really funny economy in my mind. Drops are random, and thus a level 8 monster can (and does, I've seen this happen with my own eyes) drop a Stone of Jordan. Said Stone used to sell on Ebay for around $30, but I'm sure it's depreciated. Note, that's people spending money on a 1 in 10 million drop. When there are 1 million people constantly on, and mobs are uber plentiful, I really can't see anything being too rare.
The point I'm getting at is that people spend lots on money on the oddest things. Is there a market for a BR character? I'd think somewhere, but I don't know how much. Would it be worth spending your time to find a buyer? No promises. But, I am sure you could get your character sold.
That said, I'm curious as to our policy of marketing characters. I've never done it, nor really had the desire to, but the ripples of MMORPG economics on the real world is somewhat of a facination of mine.
I digress. Verant made selling against the EULA, and they do periodically check auction sites and ban accounts, but not nearly often enough to discourage it too much.
Anarchy Online, Dark Age of Camelott, and Ultima Online took the same stance, and were even less effective at it, since in those games there isn't a bias against "Ebays", and players don't shun a person that bought their character.
ShadowBane knew they couldn't do anything and took the "if you can make money off it, cool beans" approach, though I havn't seen a good market for anything yet; it had a really bad release.
Diablo 2 has a really funny economy in my mind. Drops are random, and thus a level 8 monster can (and does, I've seen this happen with my own eyes) drop a Stone of Jordan. Said Stone used to sell on Ebay for around $30, but I'm sure it's depreciated. Note, that's people spending money on a 1 in 10 million drop. When there are 1 million people constantly on, and mobs are uber plentiful, I really can't see anything being too rare.
The point I'm getting at is that people spend lots on money on the oddest things. Is there a market for a BR character? I'd think somewhere, but I don't know how much. Would it be worth spending your time to find a buyer? No promises. But, I am sure you could get your character sold.
That said, I'm curious as to our policy of marketing characters. I've never done it, nor really had the desire to, but the ripples of MMORPG economics on the real world is somewhat of a facination of mine.
--Lairian
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first of all, as far as i'm concearned, kiri not liking it is a good enough reason for me to stay away from the whole idea.
as a more academic discussion, there's only one real problem i see with selling a character: no acclimatization period. we all know what the learning curve is like. you start out, you wander around a bit, you find a few groups, level some, you get better at it, find a few really good groups, slow down a whole bunch, hero, take a while getting used to everything, start levelling again, die on a few avatar mobs you weren't expecting, level again, avatar, spend somewhere between hours and months and never getting your avatar eq, then remort and start all over again. now, if anybody comes into that cycle part way through, they would be missing out on some very valuable experience and knowledge. if someone were to, say. have a level 30 druid and arrange to buy someone elses level 30 druid who had enhanced more, there wouldn't be any real loss, but i don't think that's often the type of situation someone would want to buy a character in. it's more likely they're unable to get a character to a certain level, and think that if they were only that level, everything else would be easy. truth is, it's the experience leading up to making that level that makes things LOOK easy. people ask me all the time (seriously, the rest of you guys have no idea, it's ALL the time) how i got so many hp, how i got so good, etc.....the real answer? I'VE DONE IT WITH 5 DIFFERENT CHARACTERS! if you do anything 5 different times, not even counting the extra remorting because i didn't like limbs or because i got new eq i wanted demonized, you're just bound to get better at it. all told, i've avatared atleast 20 times, probably closer to 30. the same situation holds true for selling characters. if anyone thinks that buying a good character will make you good at playing BR, trust me, you're flat out wrong. if you want to be good at this game, and have a good character, do it the oldfashioned way. don't be an elf, because talking from personal experience, it makes you lazy and you have a tendancy to explore less. group lots. identify everything. don't fight in the same area for more than a level in a row, explore instead. read help files, even when you think you already know everything in them. read help pointless, if you didn't know about that one, there's probably something useful you don't know in there somewhere too.
ok, well, sorry this turned into a bit of a rant. i guess that's what happens at 5am when you can't get to sleep *shrug*
as a more academic discussion, there's only one real problem i see with selling a character: no acclimatization period. we all know what the learning curve is like. you start out, you wander around a bit, you find a few groups, level some, you get better at it, find a few really good groups, slow down a whole bunch, hero, take a while getting used to everything, start levelling again, die on a few avatar mobs you weren't expecting, level again, avatar, spend somewhere between hours and months and never getting your avatar eq, then remort and start all over again. now, if anybody comes into that cycle part way through, they would be missing out on some very valuable experience and knowledge. if someone were to, say. have a level 30 druid and arrange to buy someone elses level 30 druid who had enhanced more, there wouldn't be any real loss, but i don't think that's often the type of situation someone would want to buy a character in. it's more likely they're unable to get a character to a certain level, and think that if they were only that level, everything else would be easy. truth is, it's the experience leading up to making that level that makes things LOOK easy. people ask me all the time (seriously, the rest of you guys have no idea, it's ALL the time) how i got so many hp, how i got so good, etc.....the real answer? I'VE DONE IT WITH 5 DIFFERENT CHARACTERS! if you do anything 5 different times, not even counting the extra remorting because i didn't like limbs or because i got new eq i wanted demonized, you're just bound to get better at it. all told, i've avatared atleast 20 times, probably closer to 30. the same situation holds true for selling characters. if anyone thinks that buying a good character will make you good at playing BR, trust me, you're flat out wrong. if you want to be good at this game, and have a good character, do it the oldfashioned way. don't be an elf, because talking from personal experience, it makes you lazy and you have a tendancy to explore less. group lots. identify everything. don't fight in the same area for more than a level in a row, explore instead. read help files, even when you think you already know everything in them. read help pointless, if you didn't know about that one, there's probably something useful you don't know in there somewhere too.
ok, well, sorry this turned into a bit of a rant. i guess that's what happens at 5am when you can't get to sleep *shrug*
"Freedom of speech" is not the same thing as "Freedom from consequences".
