In-game Currency Sellers

[Aoshi1]

Originally Posted by DemonXaphan

I like way EvE Online punishes the people who buy from RMT companys. First offense you get a warning and the amount deducted twice from your account, senond time you get banned. LOL...like to see people get out of that kind of negative account.

Demon beat me to it, but Eve has got a choke-hold on he situation. Not to say that gold-selling is stopped there, but they went leaps and bounds over the other games in their attempts to curb it.

[Rizzmoe]

If I would be a developer, I would try to solve such a problem the other way: Not banning the accounts of goldsellers and bots, I would try to change the system in a way, that there isn't only gold needed, but also progress and time!

---> You want to buy a new handsome weapon? You just need to pay 5.000g and a dragonscale (not tradeable, bound to the charackter/account) of the dragon you had slayen in the last raid! This secures that gold by itself is useless. Just a not finished thought....

[orgun]

Cynthe and swordy post where very ture and in my eyes ffxi has done so much to stop the gold farmers

things i think would help

you know trail account 1 cant use mail at all and cant trade other players

2 i ryed TR the other week only for a month and damn you had to block the
spamers every hour stop letting people made silly names sdfshsd and apkawledww as its just silly a simple system to state that name has no point or watever

or 3 put all tril people on a test server so they can not interact with the Full players

4. very ture Gold selling is big now theres money to be made so some one will always be farming it and selling it at the end of the day as was said in swordy and C's post its the buyers that keep this going who can say they dont know a gold buyer if no one was buyering no one would be selling

But as 1 and 2 that would stop them makeing trail account and useing them to spame and trade gold as in ffxi it hurt gold farmers when they get baned as it takes a good few months to get back to 75 well that's just my views

Sorry for gramma and spelling eating and typeing at same time

[Ozu]

Originally Posted by Malagen

One thing I hope that NCSoft can KILL is the in-game currency sellers that almost all MMOs have a problem with. Because most of the times they screw the economy of the game up. I'm talking banning IPs and banning accounts. I don't want to see Aion get screwed up by that crap.

If I'm paying 10 or more dollars a month for Aion I would not want to see BS in-game currency seller spam while I am trying to enjoy a game as beautiful as Aion.

Just my 2 cents on that.

one thing kinda rude. but dream on just like most of us.
you can't stop them if there is a market. and it is just hard to find buyers, sellers and farmers. and even harder to punish them

[IceTea]

I think bots have not a good chance to grind in good areas becouse u get the best items and money in the abyss and there u can be killed so bots suck then. And in the normal lands. NCSoft said after a while u grind some mobs then spawn stronger mobs and not the weak one thats the next prob for the bots.

[lilbro5015]

I think the idea Everquest 2 uses would be smart...they have a "spam tells" system where if something seems like spam, they block it alerts you and gives you the option to open it or not, just incase it isn't spam. This idea ruins RMT from polluting our games with tells or private messages..and it doesn't put you in a bad mood.

[Aseenus]

its an mmo its gonna happen no matter wat, its just keeping it to a minimal that counts

[Rizzmoe]

Originally Posted by Aseenus

its an mmo its gonna happen no matter wat, its just keeping it to a minimal that counts

Or you can make it unattractiv to sell gold!

Unattractiv to buy gold? ---> Less goldbyers ---> Less Spammers and less sellers!

The major problem aren't the goldsellers, it's the players who buy gold! An MMO is like a desert: If it rains, the flowers (goldsellers) spread out!

The same here for materials, honor, items, pancakes, ....

[lyankyj]

WAR bans gold sellers "like crazy"

Here's an example Aion should follow!

I like his attitude.

[Pezhead]

If Aion can make examples of known gold farmers early on, it may discourage or stunt the further growth of said group. So If after 6 months of Aion's release, 100 accounts are banned, how many people do you think are gonna gold farm? And yes, I agree, it is the people who BUY the gold are the ones who encourage it. Any users known to have purchased gold should be banned as well.

An incentive might be a reporting system where a player who reports a gold seller or buyer gets a small amount of money. It would have to be small enough not to warrant creating 50 accounts just to get thm banned and get money out of it, but big enough to create a desireable incentive.

[Zanion]

Originally Posted by lyankyj

WAR bans gold sellers "like crazy"

Here's an example Aion should follow!

I like his attitude.

i agree with you on that but...i don't know to what extent it really works

Buy gold in warhammer online - Google Search

Google: Buy+gold+in+warhammer+online

[Tiyaira]

A lot of good points were raised in this thread. I still hold the position that game companies do not do enough to stop this, though it appears EVE Online and Warhammer are on the right track.

I think that there are too many accounts and characters involved for human GMs to properly address it (in a timely manner) so I favour an automated system. Everything has a pattern to it and the way RMTs work are no exception. Their actions, the buyers, sellers, farmers, distributors, even warehousers, can all be detected. The money trail can be followed. All they have to do is write the algorithm, carefully of course, and punish the players - EVE style or outright ban on every account involved.

[Cronk]

I think it is quite difficult to stop all that currency-selling. The easiest way would be making trade between players impossible, but I'm quite sure nobody wants that .
So what to do? You can ban Accounts - Yes. You can use undercover-buyers to find more accounts - Yes. But I think it will never be possible to ban all gold-sellers. But I agree to you if you say WAR and EVE are on the way to achieving a bit more comfort for players that do not want to buy gold.

[Shoee]

Originally Posted by Swordy

Something interest you all, you all talked about chinese gold farmer, and yes they do exist, they have a website setup internationally for them to work out exchange rate between different game, they are more then just farmer now, its a international co operation.

They setup key logger program on website to cache your login password, they put virus in torrent we download, they then use your account spam the game, they setup big guild in game to explain they big storing in game gold.

How does gold and item flow in our real world?

personal or workgroup of professional player (we call them that in china, they are generally people who doesn't like proper job or school they make a living on farming game) normally just sell to a international buyer group (which mostly run by chinese grown up in western country who have advantage in language)

Between those buying group company they distrubute item and gold among them offcourse there is a database setup sort of like Wall Street stock exchange, different game gold have they own value and it changes daily.

Then theses player who buy gold off them, heres suprise bit, if you buy from CompanyA website the gold or item is actually runned by another company who stores the gold and item sort of like a warehouse, they don't work in the frontline they dont want they account to be caught and exposed, instead they pay commission for others to sell on they behalf.

(Heres a solution you wouldn't want, NCsoft only have 1 plan charges us $200US for account say for 1 years, this way each account they get banned they lose $200 this way lose > profit they wont be in business, otherwise there will always be seller/buyer)

Although we all hope our game can be cleaned and Dev can actually stop things from happening, but reality is nothing like it.

Microsoft invested billion to keep they software un crackable, look what happened, Sony have invest billion to keep modding of they playstation, look what happened.

Man created protection, Man created the work around it.

My point here is do not relay on the Dev to stop everything, toward the above organisation they are powerless. International cops cannot stop drug flow into the street, same cases here.

If player wants a cleaner enviroment a player should start by asking them self, "why are we buying it in the first place" I doubt I will see that day, theres a large percentage of player who play the game by spending more money then other, simply because they can afford it.

If you really enjoy the game then play it at your own way, yes you will be affected by the gold seller inflating market, that is the way of life, call it a quit if you cant live with it.

I know youre tellin teh truth and all.. but i really hope you wouldnt say out the ethnicity of the gold sellers, cause being chinese i feel kinda offended since not all gold sellers are from china or chinese =/

Originally Posted by Malagen

One thing I hope that NCSoft can KILL is the in-game currency sellers that almost all MMOs have a problem with. Because most of the times they screw the economy of the game up. I'm talking banning IPs and banning accounts. I don't want to see Aion get screwed up by that crap.

If I'm paying 10 or more dollars a month for Aion I would not want to see BS in-game currency seller spam while I am trying to enjoy a game as beautiful as Aion.

Just my 2 cents on that.

But i agree with you =( it annoyed me when i played rohan. Worst thing is their in assassin mode so i cant even mute em from my own chat. So my chat got owned. But i beleive IP ban isnt taht good... it effects more than one person ususally =/

Originally Posted by Cynthe

>< Gaming companies try to fight it out by adding one click spam buttons and such. It's also the player's responsibility to report them

I agree. It would be great to have a one button reporting system for spam or other such things. Often, there is this extended process having to do with taking screen shots, the time, the date, the character name....yada yada and then submitting. But with a button, one can just deliver it straight to the company for perusal and then let them decide how to handle it