In Case You Live in a Hole...SOEbay

I wasn't going to comment on this, really, honest. I find it so mind numbingly obvious a decision that SOE would decide to get in on the auction action that their stock holders should probably have formed a lynch mob years ago. Can I get a DUH.

In the rare case that you are reading this and have no idea wtf I'm talking about, I give you the pundits of the mmogsphere:

Greg gets it as usual.

Two downside risks. The first is that you'll annoy some customers--lots of people hate "eBayers," because they view purchasing stuff as cheating.

I spent a looong time in a high end service industry and we used to have a saying. "The customer is rarely right, but its generally a good idea to let them think they are."

The second is the risk that the game becomes dominated by pharmers

In my mind this, as Greg points out, is an excellent reason to SOEbay in the first place. More data points on who's doing what. Still I'll never understand companies that ban you for their poor game design. If the game let's you stand in one place all day and get rewarded with uberloot then you've got a design problem not a problem player. (Disclosure: Camping sucks too...)

Broken Toys, news as usual.

It seems that those of us who object to in-game commodification for the sake of the game’s integrity are losing the argument. Hopefully the folks who win the argument (whomever they may be) will be able to use 'game' and 'integrity' in the same sentence without visibly snickering.

I do not see that changing who brokers these game transactions affects in any way the integrity of the play space. Holy crap, not a single snicker. I actually get what is being said, I just generally snicker at high brow digerati who throw poo at the man in one hand and while using the other to toss same at customers paying for digital bits (not referring to BT by any means there).

Gamasutra gives the straight facts.

As for the logistics of Station Exchange, when a player decides to auction the use of an item or character, that item is removed from the game world and is moved to a secure Station Exchange server. Once an auction is complete, the item or character will be placed in their account. Only some specific EverQuest II servers will be Exchange enabled, and subscribers will be able to choose whether to play on them or not.

Ahh straight news without commentary. Bliss...oh wait...
Sarcastic web varmit admits that the oft overlooked escrow is at the heart of the matter. See Smedley discussing 40% of EQ CS tickets revolve around fraud.
Dude, can you imagine how crappy it must be to listen to every dill hole complain to a CS in EQ. Kill me first please. Shall we rant on how many of the support issues in MMOGs are created by the very systems designed to deal with them or instead should we harp on the numbnuts who think that creating a barely enforcable rule is an acceptable band aid for poorly designed or executed features. Pass on both.

Terra Nova all ova.

If eBaying isn't a problem, why sell objects at all? Why not just give them away to anyone who wants them? If it's so great that people can just hang out with their guildies, why not let them do so without charging them $600 for their equipment? Why not just let them equip with whatever they want? It's probably easier to implement than a full-blown trading system. I'll tell you why not: it's because it SPOILS THE GAME. - Richard Bartle

Standing on the shoulders of giants makes it real easy for us these days. I have the deepest respect for guys like RB who paved the way with MUDs and when we add all that text stuff to games like Aces High we end up with cool games like we have today but sometimes I think the pundits have been out of the game too long. Hello! If 2 swords drop per day, my buying mine from you is no different than you giving yours to me, and it does not change in any way the number of swordws in the game. Teddy Castro goes on with the counter point to much better effect:

against this imagined future of no closed worlds, i am holding out hope for a future with *some* closed worlds. not *all* closed worlds, just *some*. i think having the major design houses come to grips with the incentives that lead to membrane-punching is quite possibly a good step. and it cannot hurt anything, because SOE games are completely ebayed now as it is.

As always Terra Nova gets a bit of a scoop and is well worth the read. Kinda...

Julian: Ebaying is no more or less a threat to the magic of the game than people talking about Britney's baby on guild chat is

If someone talks about Britney's baby, there are no tangible effects on their character in the game. If they buy a +5 sword of hitbebabyonemoretime then there is.

*snicker*