Free Drops Plz?!?

A few days ago I visited the Pokemon trading forums on GameFaqs for the first time and found something I was not expecting: a bustling economy. I've always had a strained relationship with economies in massively multiplayer games; by the time I"m ready to start exploring such aspects they are already glutted with players who have seemingly infinite reserves of goods and capital and, as a newcomer, it is very hard to break in. Personally, when I know there are rare or more powerful items out there that other players possess in abundance, I begin to get envious and disgruntled by the fact that I cannot seem to obtain these items. This eventually turns into distaste for the game, which lingers until the next time I log in and am reminded once again of my comparative poverty, driving me off again. I’m able to get a fair amount of enjoyment out of the game up until that point, but once it becomes necessary for me to interact with the game economy the experience quickly ceases to be fun for me.

It happened to in Diablo 2, Kingdom of Loathing, and Magic (not a videogame, but the "spend more money to win more” philosophy seems applicable here), and I’m afraid the next victim of this trend may be Pokemon. I’ve always wondered: is it possible to have a balanced economy in a massively multi-player environment? How does one prevent hacking or players using multiple accounts to garner more than a fair share? How do regulations or a lack thereof influence player enjoyment?

So far, I’ve found that Urban Dead has my favorite form of massively multiplayer economy: none. Characters cannot trade items with each other, and even if they could, there are not any rare or super-powerful items that would cause a large of amount of jealousy. Any item in the game can be scavenged from the appropriate building, with malls being the ultimate in one-stop scavenging. I know that once I’m ready to get myself a shotgun, all I have to do is head towards the nearest mall and start looting, not spending hours seeking out the one item the shotgun trader wants. The creators kept things simple in this respect, and this design element has kept me focused on the adventure and role-playing aspects of the game, keeping me happily occupied with my character’s survival instead of his economic standing.

While the economy of Urban Dead works, in my opinion, I realize that it is an extreme way to control an economy. I’m certain there must be some happy balance between fun and business out there, perhaps one where rare items are limited and very specialized so as not to make them the end-all-be-all of the game. Of course, I could solve the problem for myself by just playing the game and not worrying about being the best and having the best items, but then that just wouldn’t be me. A gamer has to keep his self-esteem up somehow, you know?

Seriously though, anybody have any spare Pokemon? There are still a few out there I haven’t caught.