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Selling Avatars

Arm

Arm

Dominant
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Dec 30, 2019
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Calypso
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Starfleet Command
Improvement suggestion for MA: It seems that the real items part of the auctions can be used to allow players sell their avatars.

What do you think?

It gives rise to other interesting questions and also opportunities ...

An open market will be better in the long run ...
 
imagine losing your toon as well if u got hacked... left at character creation... not sure its a good idea plus once i transfer my conscience into my avatar that becomes a type of slavery or prostitution! lol
 
No.

The Real Items tab of the AH was introduced when MA came out with the 1st issue of the Entropian Magazine, where you bought a digital representation of the Magazine and they mailed you a physical copy.
Only 1 issue came out this way and was never used again. MA should remove this tab.
 
Geo said:
No.

The Real Items tab of the AH was introduced when MA came out with the 1st issue of the Entropian Magazine, where you bought a digital representation of the Magazine and they mailed you a physical copy.
Only 1 issue came out this way and was never used again. MA should remove this tab.
Click to expand...

Issue #2 is coming Soon (tm)
 
Geo said:
No.

The Real Items tab of the AH was introduced when MA came out with the 1st issue of the Entropian Magazine, where you bought a digital representation of the Magazine and they mailed you a physical copy.
Only 1 issue came out this way and was never used again. MA should remove this tab.
Click to expand...

Why should it be removed when it can be so useful?
It can be a bridge between real and virtual worlds and a place to trade avatars.
 
A) The game is already far enough into the realm of pay-to-win without making it easier for stooges to buy ready-to-play avatars.
B) Although the RL identities of the original owners are hidden, you still build up in-game trust through your avatar.
C) In order to buy an avatar from auction, you’d already have to have one. Kind of breaks the multiple avatar rule.
D) If you sell your avatar on auction, the PEDs go onto your avatar. Makes it hard to withdraw them if you no longer have the avatar.
E) People gripe about sweat gatherers. What’s it going to be like when we have hundreds of avatar-farming bots?

...but, hell yeah, sounds like a great idea.
 
Last edited:
with ESI MU so insane it would be easier to just buy an avatar - its been done before and supposedly some top players are second (third? own multiple top avatars?) owners of their avatars. I believe this was proven in the past.

Find someone trying to sell all skills and contact them. they get out of the game with some $ for their toon and you save the stupid cost of ESI and save on the chip in/out loss of skill point.

just remember its your risk if you get robbed. MA will not help you.

The real question is why would anyone want to buy a toon that has like 300K skills just to lose more $ quicker. You also bypass all the fun of losing $ from noob to mid level - i mean seriously you really want to miss out on al that fun lol.
 
Rumsponge said:
A) The game is already far enough into the realm of pay-to-win without making it easier for stooges to buy ready-to-play avatars.
B) Although the RL identities of the original owners are hidden, you still build up in-game trust through your avatar.
C) In order to buy an avatar from auction, you’d already have to have one. Kind of breaks the multiple avatar rule.
D) If you sell your avatar on auction, the PEDs go onto your avatar. Makes it hard to withdraw them if you no longer have the avatar.
E) People gripe about sweat gatherers. What’s it going to be like when we have hundreds of avatar-farming bots?

...but, hell yeah, sounds like a great idea.
Click to expand...

B) you can sell the fame if you are famous in game (friends should be notified of sale automatically)
C and D) It can give you choice of avatar and transfer peds, and the person who wants to sell should introduce bank account to receive amount, or a new avatar for the transfer if allowed (one active avatar rule, capped number of changes)
...
 
Geo said:
No.

The Real Items tab of the AH was introduced when MA came out with the 1st issue of the Entropian Magazine, where you bought a digital representation of the Magazine and they mailed you a physical copy.
Only 1 issue came out this way and was never used again. MA should remove this tab.
Click to expand...
They had a token for an Alienware computer and RL sunglasses as I remember. Agreed. If they totally forgot about the RL items then wtf is in there for. On the other hand maybe MA just needs some electroshock therapy and SSRI pills combo to help them remember what it was like to give players such fun and memorable items. It's like they get drunk on friday and forgot all what happened last week... every week.

Optimator said:
*sings* A-V-A... T-A-R... I am my ava-tar.

Sorry, couldn't help it.
Click to expand...
I'm the D.E.
I'm the D.E.V.
 
Arm said:
Improvement suggestion for MA: It seems that the real items part of the auctions can be used to allow players sell their avatars.

What do you think?

It gives rise to other interesting questions and also opportunities ...

An open market will be better in the long run ...
Click to expand...

Aside from parting out your avatar like its currently setup (selling skills, equip, etc) I think the only way they could make this work is to have some mechanic outside of the game for avatar sales. The "real" tab in the auction was for real items like the Entropia and I thought at one time they also had tokens for video cards when they were promoting the ads function but that is beside the point.

There will need to be a mechanic in place that if you decide to sell your avatar it locks it in game until sold, time runs out, or owner stops the sale. I could see it being part of the webshop in some way and have a list of skills, items, deeds, etc associated with that avatar. Some of the logistics would be account creation and personal data, so once the avatar is sold all items, skills, deeds, etc are transferred to the new owner but the personal information is swapped into a default avatar because you would want to be able to withdraw your PEDs or use them in some other manner in game. Also I would think you would need to have some type of time lock on PED withdraw from the default avatar and item/skill lock on the bought avatar to prevent unethical behavior.

I think the reason we have not seen something like this in EU is the cost of developing such a mechanic is a risk for something that might not be utilized often. Your really looking at a big chunk of people probably wanting to sell and not many wanting to buy. Plus MA definitely makes more money and has more control having people piecemeal their avatars when they want to sell out. I think they don't want to devote resources to keep track of avatar transfers and monitor it for scams because you know someone will figure out a way to game the system in some way. If they did implement such a thing it would be expensive to list and they will get their pound of flesh once it is sold as well just like the auction to some extent.

I don't know how so many high profile avatars switched hands over the years and if it was somehow facilitated by MA at one time but I know quite a few who are somewhat active today but not controlled by the same owner that created them. There is a lot of risk in the "grey market" so to speak and I've seen people get bilked out of thousands of dollars in another game that frowns on item sales but turns a blind eye to the "grey market" because they know its going to happen.
 
No one could afford what I would need to get to recoup the years of loss to the ped card.
 
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