Moving closer to the end of the year, we take a look at the economy and RMT aspects of the upcoming game, Hellgate: London.
Hellgate: London, an action role playing game gets released on October, 31. Flagship Studios's Director of Technology, Tyler Thompson did an
interview with
ShackNews in July talking a lot about RMT, gold
farming and item trading.
When asked about currency trading, he gave a positive comment, "It's definitely a sign of a healthy economy in a game, when items have value, and
currency has value. That's a good thing. If people are actually putting value on those things because they're putting value on their time, that
means people are really enjoying and playing the game."
He further elaborated
his perspective on the subject,
"I'm hoping for a healthy, happy economy, where gold and money has value, items have value, and people will exchange money for the time it takes to
find it."
It sounded very encouraging as long as gold farming and other activities did not cause annoyance to other players. Of course, Flagship would keep an
eye on things and take counter measures if the problem got out of hand, "If [item sales] look like a problem, we have measures we can take. We can
mark a bunch of items no-trade. We can come up with more money trades for players. We can change how much gold you find at high levels."
The issue has already been topic of a heated discussion in
the
Hellgate Guru forum. One of the members voiced the concern, "I'm not concerned about gold selling. I'm worried about item selling. Unlike wow,
items will not bind in hgl. It allows farmers to grind the hell out of the game and sell the possibly best items on their sites, making a big
buck.".
Will Hellgate London Palladium have any value? Given Diablo's history, the existence of an actual RMT market would be a massive improvement in terms
of a working game economy. It's doubtful if Flagship will stick to this position if the game turns out to be a success while player complaints start
to rise.
