As posted on the Everquest II and Vanguard official forums, Warcry’s Razorwire, and even the Wall Street Journal (and pretty much everywhere else under the sun), the RMT company LiveGamer has penned a deal with several MMO publishers to start legitimate RMT transactions within their games.

NEW YORK CITY, DECEMBER 17, 2007 – Live Gamer Inc™ (www.livegamer.com) today announced its introduction as the premier provider of a publisher-supported, secure platform for real money trading of virtual property. Live Gamer is partnering with top massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) publishers and virtual world operators worldwide, including Funcom GMBH, Sony Online Entertainment, 10TACLE STUDIOS, Acclaim, GoPets LTD, and Ping0 Interactive Limited. The company was founded by industry veterans and backed with $24 million in venture funding from Charles River Ventures, Kodiak Venture Partners, and Pequot Ventures.

-LiveGamer press release

Live Gamer has the support of publishers by promising to prevent the sale of goods by gold farmers, who are widely disliked because they tend to hoard game wealth without socializing with legitimate players. Live Gamers says players who sell goods through its marketplace will keep 90% of proceeds, with the remainder split between Live Gamer and the publisher. Sony, which allows the sale of virtual goods for its Everquest II game, said there is a need for an independently operated marketplace for virtual goods.

-Nick Wingfield, Wall Street Journal

The only real question most gamers will want to know is whether or not this will affect current games such as Everquest II, or if it’s set up for future games only.

Over at the Ancient Gaming Noob, Willhelm raises the question of whether or not level caps should be increased for the next Everquest II expansion.  Needless to say, I approach the subject from a notably different perspective.

I think that, by and large, new expansions for games which base progression largely upon “levels” should have consistent, regular level increases.  Especially now that the expansion cycle has been pushed out to a year, any expansion that does not release with level increases automatically means a minimum of 2 years between new level caps.  Even for relatively casual serious players like myself, that’s a long time to go without seeing additional character progression.

…and in games like Everquest II, most character progression paths are certainly tied to levels.

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