I've been observing CoT's development from it's early start till 11/08/2014. And I wish to say, these guy's rock!
Now. I know that the developers got a good grip on things. But. I believe it never hurts to honestly investigate alternatives that in the right hands might end up better and at a reduced cost to get CoT up and running.
I recently stumbled upon an established, universe game, sandbox, real money environment. Now I'm not promoting this game, I'm simply putting it out there, to review and possibly harvest ideas from, etc. (In fact, I'm waiting in the CoT game lobby for the intended release of beta in 2015.) And I'm not stating that this is a universe is great game or whatever; but it seems to have potential for someone that knows what they are doing and to tweek it in such a way that it might be that diamond in the rough?
This universe game is called:
Entropia Universe
wiki Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropia_Universe
Entropia Universe official site: http://www.entropiauniverse.com/
Youtube links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmkJzTy8apo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG6uN6sa_z8
Just thought I would throw this out.
Great job thus far.
Keep up the great work, everyone.
The End.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
While the idea is... interesting, it also would detract a LOT from the game that is intended. Putting real money at stake will likely lead to all sorts of community destructive behaviors that I really don't want to see in CoT.
EvE online had a real economy that was not redeemable for cash(PLEX is special case that doesn't really apply in this sense), and while it creates a very interesting community, it's also among the most ruthless and fragmented.
I'd say that any sort of real money trading among players should be disallowed. It will happen in some amount, like anywhere, but I don't think that's the sort of community we want to cultivate.
Sic Semper Tyrannis