RMT - Real Money Trading.

Love it or hate it, it has arrived in the World of Warcraft, amidst shouts of horror, disgust, and joy.

What it means for you as a player (AKA a customer), is that you can purchase game-based amenities with real world dollars. Traditionally you purchased things in-game with in-game currency. If you wanted to trade some of your cold hard real world cash for in-game fun (aside from purchasing the game and paying a subscription), you would have to go do some shady business with a mysteriously falling-from-the-sky-dead-spelling-out-a-URL gold seller.

There are plenty of games out on the market that are technically F2P - meaning free to play. No cost for the game, no subscription fee. However, the game is massively improved upon by purchasing additions with real world money (think Evony... or don't. It makes me cringe - which is why I won't even link to it).

Where do you draw the line? When is a little RMT... too much RMT?

Everyone's talking about it... but I haven't. In fact, I've kept my mouth completely shut about it, because sometimes I'm simply not sure how I feel about it - other times I feel very strongly, but don't feel like getting flamed.

This is mainly due to the fact that I have a very solid rule about games and money. I pay for the game itself, and will not pay for anything else. I had to bend this rule for WoW, which is one of the main reasons I waited for years before I started playing it - that's how seriously I take my rule. I finally broke down and paid for the actual WoW game AND the subscription, and I figure that's enough. I draw the line at purchasing anything else, which is why I have never, and most likely will never, change servers. The only other exception I made to this rule was when I purchased a Lil' KT for my fiance for Christmas... and I debated over doing that for weeks. I decided that since I wanted to buy him something anyway, I would make the exception - the money was going to be spent regardless.

When it comes to F2P games, I absolutely do not purchase any extra amenities... it's against my rule. I am not, however, opposed to these F2P games charging for the real meat of the game. They put in the effort and time and money investing in their product, and therefore it makes sense they they find a source of compensation for that. I am, at heart, a capitalist. I take issue with Evony for other reasons I won't go into here, but I think most F2P games are great in principle, and have nothing against them.

So then, let's bring this back to WoW. There have always been ways to pay for in-game services, but they weren't necessarily sponsored or legal in Blizzard ToS terms. I know several people who sold characters via ebay, and the gold-sellers need no explanation. The only semi-sponsored in-game items you could "purchase" with real world money up until the pets were available via the Trading Card Game. It wasn't easy to get a mount TCG card though... and if you wanted one, you more than likely how to shell out quite a bit of money on ebay to buy one.


For as long as I can remember, you were permitted to change your character to another server, provided you pay a fee.

Later, a new service was added where you could change the name of you character, as well as the sex (for a fee).

Then you could change your faction (for a fee).

And then the whole world exploded, because Blizzard started selling very nice in game pets for 10 dollars each. To soften this blow, until the end of this past December, half of the money you paid for your Pandaren Monk pet would be donated to a worthy charity. Call me a cynic, but what a great PR move. I said screw that and donated 20 dollars directly to a charity myself. That having been said, my only real beef with this item was that it counted towards your plenty of pets achievement.

And now for the next tier... Bornakk has announced that Blizzard will hopefully soon be offering a new "premium-based service" that will allow people to access the Auction House via their mobile device... for a fee.

To be honest, I don't really know how I feel about this yet. I don't know what all Auction House abilities players will have via mobile device. I don't know yet what they will do to prevent scams and gold farmers from making great use of this. And I love my iPhone, and I don't know how much the app will cost. I also don't know what will be available for free (hurrah!!) and what will be "premium based" (boo) but if I had to hazard a guess, I would agree with Matticus' theories. So, will it be a one time charge? An additional cost to your subscription? Does it even matter?

I do know that Blizz has stated in the past that while they are breaching the realm of RMT, they have limitations - they want to implement RMT "in a way that won't disrupt the gameplay experience". They do not want a player who pays more money to gain advantage over one who pays the basic game+subsciption fee.

I've already stated that I'm a capitalist. I believe that RMT is hitting the gaming world by storm, and Blizzard wants to stay competitive by branching out into different money making approaches. I'm not necessarily opposed to this addition.

But I do have a question: Who decides what is the marker of the "gameplay experience"?

Is gameplay only competitive raiding?
Is gameplay all about making gold?
Is gameplay the pursuit of more achievements?
Is gameplay the pwning of opposite factions in PvP?
Is gameplay all about having your ideal RP toon?

Because paying to purchase pets affects achievements. Paying to switch servers affects competitive raiding. Paying to change name and sex affects RP. And paying for premium out of game AH service affects gold most of all, but every other facet of the game indirectly.

Blizzard built a rich alternate universe in which there is some aspect of the game that could entertain most everyone. I hate PvP, but I have nothing against those that enjoy it. I don't RP, but I don't make fun of those who choose to do so. Gevlon is the king of gold-making, and it is obviously something in which he finds pleasure and entertainment. It's not my thing, but it's also not my 15 bucks a month - if someone wants to sit around all day and take screenshots of me dancing naked with Power Infusion, who am I to tell them that it's dumb? It's not my money, it's theirs, and as long as it does not negatively affect the aspects of the game that I enjoy, I really don't care.

Therefore, when you say that on principle you want to implement paid services "in a way that won't disrupt the gameplay experience", then you are asking for trouble. Don't kid yourself. It all affects gameplay. When you suggest that it doesn't, it is an insult to the people who enjoy one aspect of gameplay over another.

But I have a bit more faith in Blizzard. I also know enough about their forum announcements to recognize how they usually prefer to tell us about something when it is already implemented - not long before hand. When they announce something like this, I interpret it as their desire to receive feedback on it before implementation. Like it or not, folks, AH access outside of the game is coming. The details, however... the nitty gritty... perhaps that is not completely determined yet. Perhaps they have yet to decide for sure what will be free, and what will be a "premium-based service".

I'm going to take the Coco-line here and say this much: Don't become a cynic. Whether or not forum trolls want to recognize it, Blizzard does listen to their customers. They do not always directly respond to each individual, but they are reading what the masses say. The proof lies in my Blizzard IP-traced hits from my post about why Oculus is a failure. They are listening, my friends. Business is business, but it is in the best interest of their product and their bottom line to listen to the players and find the optimal way to make money (i.e. retaining customers) which also requires a reasonable attempt to keep their players happy. It doesn't mean you're gonna get a pony - but it does mean that they want your feedback. The trick is to provide it in a constructive way.

Despite my reservations and my personal rules, I'm not sure how I feel about the RMT trend in WoW. I do want to hear your thoughts.

But I think Blizzard wants to hear them even more. Onward to ye forums! This doesn't mean I encourage you to go out and get nasty and banned from the forums - but tell Blizz what you think. Are you as excited as Matticus about this? Are you on the fence like me? Are you completely against it like many others most assuredly will be? Do you think it represents a slightly frightening trend? Tell Blizz, but do it in a constructive way - and then link your forum post in the comments!

ETA: The Green Armadillo has posted a very interesting... uhm... post... about the AH services on the horizon. I invite you all to go read it! He touches on many of the same things about which I've wondered here. Except, you know, less TLDRish.

You probably thought I was done in bashing Oculus. Oh how wrong you were. MWAHAHAHA. If you are not interested in psychology of gameplay, you may just want to skip this post, or at least just scroll on down to the very last section. You’ve been forewarned. Please don’t stop subscribing to Miss Medicina just because I find psychology of gameplay a worthy wall of text topic. This is what happens when instead of writing my thesis, I wax poetic on World of Warcraft.

In response to my own post yesterday, I can answer my title question quite easily. “Why Occulus is a Failure?” Because even some of us grammar Nazis just can’t spell it. Sigh. Thank you Shintar for pointing out my egregious error. Even Larisa gave me some light teasing, and informed us all who Occulus really is. If I had not misspelled Oculus in the title of the post itself, I would go back and correct my spelling, but now it’s out there, and everyone whose spelling I have criticized can redirect me to it.

Earlier I touched upon the problems with Oculus in regards to the Vehicle Mechanic. I stand by my hypothesis that this is one of the major issues influencing the overall failure of Oculus as an instance, but I wanted to post separately about something that was brought up in the comments that has also contributed to its failure.

Many people mentioned that their biggest struggle with this instance has nothing at all to do with learning the abilities of a new vehicle, and more related to flying. Oculus and Eye of Eternity phase 3 are both three dimensional fights. That is to say, they not only require you to properly move left, right, forward and back, but also up and down. For some of us this is a more serious problem than for others.

Traditionally our game fights are horizontal. Adding that extra vertical element can either be perceived as a welcome challenge that adds a lot to the fight for some, or a vertigo inspiring nightmare for others. I fall into the latter category. I won’t even talk about PvP fighting in Aion. Regardless, I don’t blame Blizzard. No, I blame my hippocampus.

The Hippocampus

First I will draw you a pretty picture that shows where your hippocampus is. By the way, I’m totally accepting commissions for my now famous MSPaint diagrams.

So what does your Hippocampus do? Well, to be honest, there is still some debate on this, but here’s what scientists currently think the Hippocampus does (simplistically of course). I originally wrote a lot more about the first two duties of the Hippocampus, but if you are interested in that, go to that wiki – I will try to cut this post down only to the relevant material.

· Helps you form new episodic memories.

· Another theory that is apparently not very popular currently is the inhibition function. The idea is that if you have hippocampal damage, you may seem more hyperactive, or have difficulty learning to inhibit your responses to things based on how you first learned to respond. You may seem a little… well, tweaky.

· The most relevant function of the Hippocampus to this post, however, is its role in spatial memory and navigation. This is related to the discovery of what is called “place cells” in the Hippocampus. These are spatial firing fields in the neurons in the Hippocampus, and they are triggered by recognizing your location, the direction you are faced, if you’ve been there before, where you suspect you are heading, etc etc etc.

The discovery of place cells led to the idea that the hippocampus might act as a cognitive map — a neural representation of the layout of the environment… Studies with animals have shown that an intact hippocampus is required for simple spatial memory tasks (for instance, finding the way back to a hidden goal)… the hippocampus plays a particularly important role in finding shortcuts and new routes between familiar places. Some people exhibit more skill at this sort of navigation than do others, and brain imaging shows that these individuals have more active hippocampi when navigating.

(Taken from the Wiki linked above)

Why am I bringing this potentially boring topic into a discussion about flying fantasy drakes? Because I suck at flying in a 3d environment, and I wanted to know why. I get disoriented. I don’t know what direction I’m facing, or where I’m heading. Even though I stated yesterday that the overwhelming problem with Vehicle Mechanic fights is learning the new abilities at the drop of a hat, that’s not actually the biggest issue for me and many others. Sure, I don’t particularly LIKE it, but that’s not enough to make me rudely drop group after landing in Oculus. However, my complete inability to navigate within a 3D environment is. And apparently I’m not the only one.

Do you find yourself getting lost in Oculus? Are you useless flying on your own near Malygos? In spite of all that, are you still pretty good at Flame Leviathon and jousting? If you do not have a problem with vehicle mounts on a flat surface, but struggle in a vertical one this may be your issue. If you have tried to PvP in Aion by flying around, and struggle with it, this may also be your issue. Hippocampal damage can have severe debilitating effects on your spatial navigation system. And it is not uncommon to have some minor degree of Hippocampal damage. It’s not just for people with Parkinson’s or Alzheimers Syndrome.

The Role of Depression in Hippocampal Damage

I’m going to throw some statistics at you, folks. Take them as you see fit – 326% of statistics are bogus, right?

· 15% of the population of most developed countries suffers severe depression.

· 30% of women are depressed. Men's figures were previously thought to be half that of women, but new estimates are higher.

· 80% of depressed people are not currently having any treatment.

· 80% of people who see physicians are depressed.

Basically, all that means is that a lot of people are depressed, a lot of people don’t take it very seriously, and I deliberately did not include the stats on suicide. It’s just too… well, depressing. I will save my soapbox rant about people misunderstanding exactly what depression is for another time, another place. That having been said, I know it’s a controversial topic here in the states, but please do not comment here to tell me all about how people are whiney, and depression is a silly pill-popping conundrum. Link me a peer-reviewed journal article on the topic and I will take you a lot more seriously.

And it probably comes as no surprise to you that a lot of depressed people play MMOs.

I can’t find the actual article Dr. Noshir Contractor wrote, or a copy of the presentation, but it was a pretty hot topic amongst MMO players for while. Here’s the skinny:

· 7,000 players of EverQuest II were surveyed.

· 21% of the players who didn’t play the game that often were depressed.

· 30% of the players who DID play the game often were depressed.

· "This could mean that highly active players get more depressed or that depressed people are more likely to be active role players," said the author of the study, Noshir Contractor, a professor of behavioral science.

One of the reasons Dr. Contractor won my respect is due to that very quote – showing a correlation between two things does not show causality. What that means in layman’s terms is that just because a bunch of depressed people play an MMO does not mean that the MMO makes them depressed. Maybe they play the MMO BECAUSE they are depressed.

Without reading the actual study, I cannot tell you how “playing the game often” was quantified, or how researchers determined who was depressed. I also can’t tell you if folks who play EQ2 are inherently different than those who play World of Warcraft. To someone who doesn’t play these games, we all may be the same. But to those of us who do, there could be vast differences. According to tables shown at mmodata.net, WoW has just over 11.5 million players. Aion is fairly new in North America, and has just south of 3 million players. EQII is listed as having around 200,000 players.

This leaves me wondering… if you surveyed Aion players (a game which is developed around a concept of three dimensional PvP via flying) and compared them to WoW players (which is not), would you see a lot fewer people sticking around to play in the Abyss in Aion if they are depressed? I know, I know, what a logical leap. But this is MY kind of theorycrafting, mmk?

Get to the Point, J-Bizzle

Alright, alright. TLDR like whoa, I know. I find this stuff fascinating. My point in this argument is actually very simple. A lot of people have a problem with Oculus and Eye of Eternity, not because they struggle to learn new vehicle mechanics, but because they struggle with the 3 dimensional, vertical aspect.

I am merely suggesting that since deficiencies in spatial navigation are often connected to problems in the Hippocampus, which is also linked to depression, and that since depression is allegedly more common amongst MMO players than the average population, maybe this isn’t really that big of a surprise. I’m not saying that if you suck at Oculus, you are Hippocampally challenged either. There is truth in the argument that a lot of people hate Oculus simply because they can’t zerg it, and therefore, in an attempt to maximize their badge-grinding time, drop out of it.

The hippocampus is often directly linked to depression.

The hippocampus is also linked to spatial memory and navigation.

Lots of depressed folks play MMOs.

So let’s just go out on a limb here, and say that IF 25% of WoW players suffer from some degree of depression, and IF depression does have a solid link to hippocampal damage, maybe, just maybe, 25% of players struggle with the Oculus because three-dimensional fights are particularly challenging for them.

The other 75% just hate those whelps in the first pull, yo.