(TL;DR at the bottom)
I'm sure it's been said, or thought about but it's been weighing on my mind recently. To those who know me personally, will tell you this sounds like a broken record but I want to talk about EVE online for a moment.
While their economy in game is completely player run and maintained, the game designers intervened in a big way that I really think BioWare could learn from. While you don't have to completely steal the page from the CCP playbook, it may be worth looking over their shoulder to take some notes:
To combat RMT's (real money traders i.e. dollars for credits, dollars for ISK) CCP initiated the Pilot Licence Extension, or PLEX. Basically what this did is two things: for one, they provided a safe and EULA-legal way to buy in game money with real life money, and the second thing that it accomplished is that it rewarded veteran players with lots of money and time in the game for their play time.
I believe that while unlocks, consumables and bind on equip items obtained from the Cartel Market are great ideas, Bioware could take it one step further. I love buying cool armor and weapons from the cartel market, I really do. But right now I really really REALLY want the Satele Shan armor but alas, I lack the millions of credits it requires for me to buy from the GTN. So how can I go about grinding the credits? Sure I can take the time, grind out the ops, get the money then Buy the chest piece; then go about it all over again to buy the boots. All the while I don't have the awesome looking gear I desperately want!
Now I'm sure that more armor will come in the future and I'll drool over that and forget all about the millions I spent on Shan's armor...but my point is this.
A PLEX like item in game would accomplish so much in my opinion. It perpetuates the economy in game, and in real life. Some might think that it means that players can play for free, but in reality it just means that someone else is paying for their sub.
Let's take two players for instance, player One, and player Two.
P1 pays for sub for July.
P2 pays for sub for July.
P1 is fairly new and does not have a lot of credits, but makes good money IRL.
P2 has been playing since beta and subs every month, but does not want to pay anymore money than that considering he has millions of credits on his account.
P1 subs for August, and buys a bunch of Cartel coins. Buys a "PLEX" which is a non-binding tradable item that adds 30 days of game time to your account. Puts it up on the GTN for say, 15 million credits. (just hypothetical)
P2 finds out he cannot sub for the month of August and only has a few days of game time left, but sees that someone put up a plex on the market and buys its.
Now P1 and P2 are both subbed for the month of august, even though P2 paid no amount of real life money BUT Bioware received the money that totals both of their subscriptions.
I remember using a RMT trader a long LONG time ago when I was young, but my lesson was fast learned what happens to people who violate the terms of the EULA. And more importantly, that who ever you buy the in game money from has probable obtained it in nefarious ways.
Like I said I'm sure this has been suggested before, either in the forums or in the company itself, I just believe it deserves a really good look considering the game is going to be taking off when the Expansion drops. Hell subs have probably doubled since E3 so I say now is the time!
TL;DR:
Put PLEX's in the game.
https://secure.eveonline.com/PLEX/howToUsePlex.aspx
