We literally get together every Tuesday to kill ten bosses, then fairly distribute all of their possessions. Then spend the rest of the week killing smaller bosses and doing the same.
the gamer uprising against the bosses was the largest and most comprehensive proletarian revolution in history, and led to almost totally-equal redistribution of loot among the peasantry
lol that's fuckin funny. the other thing too is the economy in most MMOs i've played and followed are all bunk in some or many types of ways. It's one of the simplest ways to see how utterly ridiculous the so called free market is. Even in MMOs, at a completely clean slate, it's possible for people, usually small groups to control massive, important parts of the economy/resources. Usually because they either had some insider knowledge, were able to put in more time than a usual player while having some knowledge or they exploit in some way. It's kinda too broad to elaborate further, but a consistent thing i've always seen in MMOs when I used to play them a bunch was how rewarded people were for cheating or otherwise abusing some mechanic to get their riches. And after that they were set, they could do anything they wanted legit or further their trade finding other shit to amass more wealth.
it’s possible for people, usually small groups to control massive, important parts of the economy/resources.
Reminds me of how a community—initially just one guy—in Team Fortress 2 price manipulated a major item in trading to something like 3000% of its original value over 10 years
He's since been banned from using any Steam trading functions for trading in items bought with credit card fraud (the same kind of item he inflated the price of lol)
it’s possible for people, usually small groups to control massive, important parts of the economy/resources.
I knew someone IRL who did this. He and a small group of people on the server controlled the entire pet market and agreed upon prices to sell things at. He then started selling all the gold he was making from this for IRL money for a while.
Yeah real money trading always seems like the natural progression from that stuff. I learned pretty early on with Diablo 2 that some people will also pay an exuberant amount for what they otherwise probably would never obtain normally. It's hard not expect buyers and sellers for that type of stuff in the world we live in, so it isn't surprising or anything. Pretty much every online economy game devolves into some absolute garbage. The exception really being if the devs step in with an actual fix. And even then, those could just be bandaids masking the underlying problem
I RMTed my first EVE account for rent money
If I lived somewhere with a weaker USD pair I would still be doing that instead of working.
MMO's are the Pinnacle of just-worldism and "basic economics" fetishism. Rather than recognize how the real world isn't like this, gamers instead believe that real life is what imitates the art they consume.
MMOs rely extremely heavily on a centralised government (the devs) mediating, balancing and carefully building systems that mitigate every possible ill that might arise among the playerbase.
The ones that do it very well tend to do well. The ones that do it very poorly tend to do very badly. Almost not wild west games successfully exist, even EVE isn't a true wild west it has many systems that allow players elements of safety and avoiding the worst stuff not to mention that the economy is largely propped up by active developer management of things that affect pricings.
I don't disagree at all actually, it's just that you can always count on gamers for a point like that to sail over their heads while they continue to make-believe that the free market will run itself.
yuuup. For all of the "Ayn Rand in spaaaace" jokes, the devs (relatively often) have to step in when the economy teeters.
Recent example: As a buff to cloud mining, made cloud materials needed to build supercapitals. Cloud mining is the most tedious and least rewarding activity in the game (even post buff), so the price of capitals naturally spiked.
With last week's patch, they admitted defeat and added the parts to new PvE content.
Really maeks u thonk.
Gas compression won't change much from talking to my alliance's logistics people.
It actually shuffles things around where compressed gas in now more isk/m3 than the finished parts, so now the problem will be moving the finished parts for anyone who doesn't have vertically integrated cap prod.
Alternate explanation:
500 kg of gas + 1000 kg of metal = 1500kg of polymers, buuut now you have to move 3x the volume to Jita where only 1/3 of that is the bottleneck material.
Cloud mining is the most tedious and least rewarding activity in the game (even post buff), so the price of capitals naturally spiked.
All value is the product of labour, if the labour is tedious and not many people do it then the value goes up a lot.
Couldn't have said it better myself. CHUDs see life like an RPG:
-
Races are not only real, but they're lucky enough to be born as the "OP" race, so they get authority over others Strong has authority over weak, that's just the natural order.
-
Healthcare? Unions? Please, git gud noob! Stop relying on high levels for phr33 st00f and just git gud!
-
"Yeah, I know that I'm using cheese mechanics. You clearly just hate the game if you want my cheese strategy to be nerfed! Why do you want to be overpowered so badly? Only I can be overpowered! you're the REAL cheese (and this makes me, the original cheese justified)"
-
I remember a thread on somethingawful way back when about how humans naturally gravitate towards capitalism even in games and the example they gave was Runescape lmao
But in games where you can fight the shopkeeper they're always one of the strongest and most satisfying things to kill.
In Oblivion the imperial guards were always ten levels stronger than you, which made it that much more satisfying to get one over on The Man.
False consciousness. You wouldn't believe how many weird looks I get when I point out that runescape is a communist economy.
It's literally a centrally planned economy where the workers own the means of production. But no, communism is when no money.
So you mean to tell me that the Holodomor wasn't caused by a comically large spoon, but by Ukraine banking all their DKP and waiting for better drops?
Back when E.V.E had all thr psychic weight there was a goon guild that egalitarin sharing of the means of production and they kicked ass all over the servers.
Was it FALGSC? Possibly, it was in space. The analogy breaks down, but seeing tbem flurish through copoeration planning and self directed activity is big communism good vibes
The Goon SFSR Model has since been adopted as standard among every (functional) alliance above a certain member threshold, after they decisively won their war against the 1337 Band of Brothers.
Also, EVE players are fucking insane and doxx over petty ass pixels.
Also, EVE players are fucking insane
I think this skews the math slightly. Sort of a selection bias problem.
Not a point against Communism so much as the composition of the MMO Proletariat. But it does speak to why this might not be the most accurate model for modern civilians.
Pretty much every major alliance worth a damn in EVE has copied that model from goons to great success. You get people dropping two-thirds of their entire liquid capital to buy a single ship to go blow up another alliance's station, even when they know they'll get blapped in about three seconds if they get picked as the focus fire target at any point during an hour-plus-long battle, because they'll get all the money back in a couple days at no cost to them other than their time and participation.
About half of my net worth in EVE is sitting in ships in my hangar that are prone to exploding with essentially no warning during a fleet battle, and the SRP (Ship Replacement Program) is the only reason I'm willing to spend all that money.
I moderate a Discord for gamers as part of my job, and for professional reasons, I constantly have to hold myself back from typing "BECAUSE CAPITALISM" when they piss and moan about the shitty state of their game.
MMOs claim capitalism and market economy, and also try to be “fair and balanced “. All characters have the same stats and could in theory beat each other in a fight.
Gatcha MMOs the the ones that are truest to capitalism as they really enforce the power of inherited wealth and luck provide.
Sure you may get lucky to get Hu Tao on a roll, and a 5 star spear.
But more likely you need to spend a lot of money to get the best party and gear. Hard work and making smart moves doesn’t matter when you can inherit resources (real money from outside the game)
Mihayo uses the gacha system to make the West more deeply aware of the pain of the capitalist system.
Liuwei is a member of CPC
