On MMO currency trade:
“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. As far as the actual economics of it, and whether it changes the game or not, I’m not too concerned about it. Because we have instance play, you’re not gonna be running into gold farmers that are going to be stealing all your stuff or taking all your kills. It won’t be a physical annoyance to all of those players.
“I know plenty of guys who like to go online and buy those cool items and make the guys stronger and go out and play. You know, that’s fun for them, they have fun with that, and that’s cool. We can’t directly put monetary value on the things within our economy. And so, we don’t directly participate in it.”
On designing games around gold farming:
“I don’t know what we could do to stop the gold farmers. You’re not gonna see the gold farmer come by and steal your kill. It won’t be an annoyance. It’ll be a invisible, existing thing that’s only gonna be obvious to you if you actually go participate in it.
“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. Yeah, they’ll probably cause some inflation. I don’t know if it’ll be out of control or a problem, but they usually cause some inflation. But it’s also–this is like Diablo was. Diablo’s got gold farming going on. You kind of have your guy, and you go out, and you do your thing, and you participate to a limited degree in the economy. It’s kind of up to you. I never felt like I had to go buy stuff or go buy Stones of Jordan or barter or something. It never was a part of the plan.
“I don’t think the average user is going to feel the impact of it. The main way of finding and getting items in the game is not buying it through somebody else or buying it online. You will find the cool stuff out there fighting. The loot comes in at enough of a pace that you don’t have a sinking need that, ‘I need to find another way to get good stuff.’ Which is what I have the feeling a lot of times in a lot of online games where, ‘I know I’m just getting the crap. I know I’m not getting the things I need to play.’”
On item restrictions:
“We have some items that are no-trade. We don’t do that much. We initially made that technology explicitly for quests, because you don’t want to trade your quest items. We have in some cases made other items no-trade, but we don’t swing that around very often. I’d be surprised if there are more than five or six items today that are marked as no-trade. You know, we’ll see. 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. It’s only a problem if players perceive it as a problem, and are running into it in a way that affects their gameplay. If it affects the economy in a natural way, that’s not the end of the world. At least that’s my opinion.”
以下中文由www.item4u.com 网的LEE翻译，特此感谢
旗舰工作室（Flagship Studios），简称FFS，是由原暴雪几位高管离职后独立创建的游戏公司，该公司主要成员有David Brevik、Max Schaefer、Erich Schaefer、Bill Roper和Kenneth Williams，与他们一起创建公司的还包括David Glenn、Peter Hu、Philip Shenk和Tyler Thompson，其中Tyler Thompson，Peter Hu二人为该公司技术总监。
不久前，Tyler Thompson就即将发布的《暗黑之门：伦敦》接受了媒体专访，专访中，Tyler Thompson谈了他对于关现金交易或金币交易一些见解：
关于金币交易
装备具有价值，金币具有价值，这是网络游戏经济健康的标志，是好事情。因为时间是有价的，所以玩家可以在玩游戏的过程中赋予游戏装备和金币一定的价值，也证明了他们是真真正正地在享受着游戏。至于所产生的实际的经济问题是否改变了游戏的本质，我倒是不太在意。因为我们有副本化的游戏方式，你不必担心金农对你产生影响。所有有此顾虑的玩家都不必担心这将会带来实质性的烦恼。
许多玩家都会在线上购买很Cool的装备来武装自己，使自己变得更加强大，以至无人能敌。对他们来说，这是非常有趣，非常Cool的事情。由于各种原因，我们不能像玩家那样可以直接赋予这些装备一定的货币价值，所以，我们是不会直接参与到现金交易中的。
关于游戏设计
我不知道我们要做些什么才能彻底防止打金行为。在我们最新的设计中，你应该不会看到他们从你身边经过，抢走你的怪，给你带来麻烦，对于你来说，他们是隐形的，不存在的，除非你亲自参与他们的行动。
我内心非常希望大家有一个健康的开心的经济生活环境，在这样的虚拟环境里，金币是有价的，装备也是有价的，玩家可以用金钱来购买获取金币和装备所需要花费的时间。是的，这么做的结果有可能会导致通货膨胀。我不知道是否会失去控制或者仅仅是小问题，不过，通胀还是会有一些的。就像Diablo一样，你既可以做自己的喜欢的事情，也可以参与打金，所有的一切完全由自己决定。像我，我从来不逼着自己去买什么道具啊，乔丹之石啊，或者和别人交换东西啊。所有的事情从来都不是事先就计划好的，顺其自然吧。
我不认为普通的玩家会因此受到冲击。获得游戏装备的主要方式并不是与别人交换或者线上购买。在战斗的过程中，你也可以获得很Cool的装备。我们会保证装备具有一定的再生频率，你不必因此而情绪低落。在许多网络游戏中我都会有这种感觉，“我必须寻求别的方法获得好装备”， “我太霉了，我知道我不会得到我需要的东西，我再也不能游戏下去了。”
关于装备限制
有些装备是不能用来交易的，但不多。我们最初把这项技术应用于任务装备上，是基于玩家不想出售自己辛辛苦苦做任务得来的装备这一情况。在某些情况下，某些装备中，我们会这么做，但不会经常如此。举个例子来说，比如今天如果我发现了超过5、6的装备不能用来交换，我就会感到很奇怪。你知道，我们做事情是讲道理的。一旦装备销售成了问题，我们也有解决的办法。我们既可以让一系列装备不能交易，也可以在玩家群体中创造更多的现金交易机会，我们还可以改变高级别角色获得金币的数量。只有涉及到玩家的根本利益的问题，我们才把它当作问题来看待。如果一切只是顺其自然，那就没什么大不了，更不是什么世界的末日。至少，我是这么认为。
