apart from offering beefed up chars on eBay what strikes me the most is that people offer virtual money for sale (e.g. 500Mio AnarchyOnline-credits fpr 500$). I don't quite get it. After all cheating spoils the fun of the game and who would want to buy anti-fun??

That's not how it work in MMORPG. When you spend more time in a virtualworld than you spend in the realworld, you will want to convert your money, just as you would convert your American money if you moved to another country.

[ 10-01-2003, 06:01 AM: Message edited by: Luvian ]

But I need my real money to pay real life dues like rent or power bill which I don't necessarily need to do in RPGs. Being homeless may be a valid role-playing choice and it may also be a valid choice IRL but is not compatible with having a PC.
It's a game and I can't quite see how virtual money will enhance your gaming experience and why people would want to spend real money on that which could buy them some real-life enhancing equipment (e.g. lots of delivered pizzas while playing Anarchy Online)

That's because you are not an hardcore MMORPG player, and you don't need to use up all your money.

For 20$ US you could get an ammount of ingame money it would take you months to get. Not a bad deal. You can trade for that ubber item you always wanted to have but couldn't afford, and you'll have enough money to buy components for months to come.

MMORPG are not like single player game. You need to pay your virtual appartment's rent, you need to repair your items and buy healing items for your hunts, you need to constantly buy better items as you raise in level... Without ingame resources, you can't have fun. It's also not fun to be poor ingame, as you can't do anything. No ingame money? You lose your house, so you can't store your items. Your weapons and armor will break for lack of repair, and you will die all the time beause you can't afford healing stuff and spell components.

It's a virtual economy. Most people don't consider it as a game.

Just as it's cool to have the newest car in real life, it's cool to have the new ubber armor ingame. If you want to be the talk of your virtual community, you have to be rich.

Can I sue my credit card companies and other services for time spent waiting on the phone? What about 30min. waits to deal w/ tech support? Do I bill them at my billable hour rate of $150+ or do I bill at what I get paid per hour (and do I base it on a 40 hr week)??

Huh... what? http://www.ironworksforum.com/ubb/no...ons/icon23.gif