.... Whether those rules are "arguable" or not is not the point here. If you don't like the rules...you are not obligated to play. ...
Thank you for saying everything I was thinking, and MUCH more eloquently.
What is wrong with you people?
Seriously?
FACT: GOLD FARMING EXISTS.
Can any of you deny it? barndorf? girlgeek? Ozmodan?
Now for all your WORDS do you have any solution on how to stop it? Did the OP ask us for solutions? If anyone had any that would WORK....don't you think the major companies would have tried them already? I don't see you offering any solutions either. So what is YOUR big solution?
Then you need to read back. You didn't see it because you were / are blinded by rage I think?
My solution (or part of my solution anyway) is NOT to ban their accounts - but rather to restrict them.
1/ Disable their player to player trades.
2/ Disable their chat - restrict it to Guild only chat.
That way, if they call their CC Company and say "I want a charge back - that evil MMO company has stopped me playing!"
The MMO Company can honestly say "No. We haven't. That account is still perfectly playable."
And for the gold farmer that is the worst thing that can happen - because they have done the 'work' but now cannot share the spoils.
They can still trade with NPCs - but the beauty of that is the MMO company can set up the NPCs to buy at fair (but low) prices and yet not sell back everything they buy (it becomes a sink).
Guild only chat allows the player to group and play (not much help for goldfarmers) but gold spam can be delt with by guild leaders (kicking the gold spammer).
The net result is the goldfarmers not only effectively 'lose' the account - but they still have to pay for it (assuming a valid card was used - which at least some of the time will be the case)
So, this all eats into their expenses and lowers their profits. And without profit - why bother?
The other great advantage of this is that if a company chooses to do a mass 'ban' (like NC soft did today) then any innocents caught are not inconvienced too much. They can still log in and play while customer service issues are delt with ( to fully reinstate their account )
.....
As for the rest of your rant...
Well, let's just say it's clear you have rage issues and other issues too deep for anyone here to help you with.
Well, this has certainly been an active discussion, and very little of what I could add has not already been addressed. So a few minor points: Re: chargebacks: they do happen. They are a huge problem (they make customer support even more of a cost than it already is) and yes, they should be handled better. And yes, CC providers have expressed displeasure with MMO companies over their relative frequency compared to other services. Re: just making an economy public: very few people would be OK with this, I suspect. There's some privacy implications there. It's also sort of a burning down the village to find the crook sort of solution... it may work but the collateral damage would be pretty painful. Re: RMT as a vice where the demand drives the suppy - this is a point I make frequently, and the demand must be addressed (whether through enforcement, or changing the design that drives that market) much like any other vice that is suppressed. And finally, as is probably obvious given my new job, I absolutely can't comment about anything specific re: NCsoft, Aion or any huge ban wave that may or may not have taken place this morning.
Why exactly would people have a problem with a public economy if they have nothing to hide? I know I wouldn't. Heck, I'll tell you what my Aion and Fallen Earth characters have RIGHT NOW.
I don't think many people would have a problem with that kind of system at all. What exactly are the "privacy concerns" being violated here? You agree to play the game, you agree to make your funds and fund-transfers public.
I know a LOT of people that would sign up for a system like this in a heartbeat - especially PvP players with nothing to hide, like myself. Anything I have on any of my characters you can rest assured I quested, looted, or crafted myself. If I want to help out a guild (or vice versa) - fine, make those transactions public too. I don't think anyone has ever complained that Guild XYZ gave member ZYX 500 gold or 50 crafting widgets or whatever. It's part of being in a guild and it doesn't violate the TOS as gold-buying offline does.
I see a public setting like that as a Utopian mmo, almost, in terms of economy. Maybe some game designer like NCSoft will get tired of the commonly used approaches to dealing with gold farmers and bots and they will try this someday.
I really don't know a single person who would stop playing, say, World of Warcraft if the economy were to go public tomorrow - except, perhaps, for the biggest offline buyers to begin with.
Well, this has certainly been an active discussion, and very little of what I could add has not already been addressed. So a few minor points: Re: chargebacks: they do happen. They are a huge problem (they make customer support even more of a cost than it already is) and yes, they should be handled better. And yes, CC providers have expressed displeasure with MMO companies over their relative frequency compared to other services. So don't do it! Find a better way. Isn't that your new job? Re: just making an economy public: very few people would be OK with this, I suspect. There's some privacy implications there. It's also sort of a burning down the village to find the crook sort of solution... it may work but the collateral damage would be pretty painful. What? you mean like banning 16,000 accounts? including (no doubt) players who had nothing to do with gold trading. Players who will no doubt tell their friends what a bunch of ***** NC Soft is. Some of whom were your friends and who are now your enemies? Ever heard of a 'hearts and minds' campaign? It works in reverse too. And some of the worst most vindictive enemies you can have are former friends. Re: RMT as a vice where the demand drives the suppy - this is a point I make frequently, and the demand must be addressed (whether through enforcement, or changing the design that drives that market) much like any other vice that is suppressed. A change in design I can agree on. And finally, as is probably obvious given my new job, I absolutely can't comment about anything specific re: NCsoft, Aion or any huge ban wave that may or may not have taken place this morning. http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/260315/page/1
By now, I wonder how many of those account holders have contacted their CC provider and asked for a chargeback?
Have the phones started ringing in accounts department yet?
How much money will this cost NC Soft?
Was it worth it? Are all the goldfarmers in Aion out of business?
Well, a google of "gold aion" says no.
I am disappointed that the best NC Soft can come up with is still more of the same (tried before and failed) 'banzor them!'.
I know, man. Just today the police picked up a murderer in my city. I think this is ridiculous, I mean, just because they apprehended a murderer doesn't mean people won't still murder people. There are still THOUSANDS of murders happening EVERY day - just google "recent murder cases in the US" to see what I mean! Guess the whole "lock up the criminal" thing isn't working very well for us, since we still have criminals.
Since arresting murderers and putting them in prison isn't getting to the ROOT cause of murder in this country, I say we stop arresting murderers and try to change the social system that CREATES murderers in the first place.
I'm so disappointed that the United States Government like so many other World Governments just locks up murderers and criminals and BANZORZ them to prison. How much does this cost the government or us as taxpayers?
Anyone except me see where this line of thought leads?
Sure, it's all very Utopian and "progressive" of you but in the meantime until we have this perfect economy and perfect system where nobody has an incentive to cheat, a lot of players - myself included - are quite happy with the recent bans and removal of bots in Aion. It's obvious to me because I logon now and I see that the game world is changing, and things are getting better.
Well, this has certainly been an active discussion, and very little of what I could add has not already been addressed. So a few minor points: Re: chargebacks: they do happen. They are a huge problem (they make customer support even more of a cost than it already is) and yes, they should be handled better. And yes, CC providers have expressed displeasure with MMO companies over their relative frequency compared to other services. So don't do it! Find a better way. Isn't that your new job? Re: just making an economy public: very few people would be OK with this, I suspect. There's some privacy implications there. It's also sort of a burning down the village to find the crook sort of solution... it may work but the collateral damage would be pretty painful. What? you mean like banning 16,000 accounts? including (no doubt) players who had nothing to do with gold trading. Players who will no doubt tell their friends what a bunch of ***** NC Soft is. Some of whom were your friends and who are now your enemies? Ever heard of a 'hearts and minds' campaign? It works in reverse too. And some of the worst most vindictive enemies you can have are former friends. Re: RMT as a vice where the demand drives the suppy - this is a point I make frequently, and the demand must be addressed (whether through enforcement, or changing the design that drives that market) much like any other vice that is suppressed. A change in design I can agree on. And finally, as is probably obvious given my new job, I absolutely can't comment about anything specific re: NCsoft, Aion or any huge ban wave that may or may not have taken place this morning. http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/260315/page/1
By now, I wonder how many of those account holders have contacted their CC provider and asked for a chargeback?
Have the phones started ringing in accounts department yet?
How much money will this cost NC Soft?
Was it worth it? Are all the goldfarmers in Aion out of business?
Well, a google of "gold aion" says no.
I am disappointed that the best NC Soft can come up with is still more of the same (tried before and failed) 'banzor them!'.
I know, man. Just today the police picked up a murderer in my city. I think this is ridiculous, I mean, just because they apprehended a murderer doesn't mean people won't still murder people. There are still THOUSANDS of murders happening EVERY day - just google "recent murder cases in the US" to see what I mean! Guess the whole "lock up the criminal" thing isn't working very well for us, since we still have criminals.
Since arresting murderers and putting them in prison isn't getting to the ROOT cause of murder in this country, I say we stop arresting murderers and try to change the social system that CREATES murderers in the first place.
I'm so disappointed that the United States Government like so many other World Governments just locks up murderers and criminals and BANZORZ them to prison. How much does this cost the government or us as taxpayers?
Anyone except me see where this line of thought leads?
Sure, it's all very Utopian and "progressive" of you but in the meantime until we have this perfect economy and perfect system where nobody has an incentive to cheat, a lot of players - myself included - are quite happy with the recent bans and removal of bots in Aion. It's obvious to me because I logon now and I see that the game world is changing, and things are getting better.
Apparently, you and I are the only people that understand this.
You have to love the "why bother" attitude some people have. It's not working PERFECTLY....so let's not do it. Stupidity abounds.
Oh, and by the way, you'll likely now be told you have "issues," since you used an analogy about murder. (zomg)
There are more idiots on these forums than there are in any other community. It never ceases to amaze me the amount of self-righteous CRAP I have to read on here. And the egos....amazing. Some how some of these gamers think they can solve the problems of the "world" (the world of gaming) ...even though the PROFESSIONALS have been trying for years and years. But of course....some "genius" on these forums SURELY knows more than all of "those guys." /rolls eyes
YOU have some good ideas, by the way. Some of the other posters do as well. What I want to know....is how talking about it on the forums here is going to accomplish much of anything. You presented good ideas with a fair amount of humility. Have you posted ideas like this on the suggestion forums of the game or games you play? Perhaps you should.
I haven't suggested this on Aion or FE forums yet; that's a decent idea. I figured starting to talk about it here, on a site devoted to MMORPGs, on a thread started about this very issue, might be a good way to get some feedback from others about the idea.
I never will get the mentality that since we can't catch all wrongdoers, we shouldn't bother with enforcement at all. We have drug enforcement, and yet we still have plenty of crack heads. We have law enforcement of all types, and yet crime still abounds. We punish rape, murder, battery and assault, and a WIDE range of crimes that probably have their root causes in social ills, yes, but since we don't live in a perfect world we kind of have to do what we can to contain the damage caused by crime WHILE we work on making a better world for everyone.
I think the comparison applies equally to MMORPGs.
As for arrogant people thinking they have the answers to world problems, all I can say is - look into a job as a US politician instead of hanging around these forums all day. The gov't has some serious issues here right now and since ya'll have the answers, I wanted to let you know there is an election coming up. Start your nomination petitions now!
Well, I actually took your suggestion. Have the idea up on Fallen Earth's paid/red forum Suggestion area and on Aion's public suggestion forum. We'll see where it goes.
The problem I usually run into are people that can't wrap their brain around anything different, they basically fall into the "ban them all" camp and the "gold farming isn't an issue" camp - with very little ability to look beyond what is currently being done.
As one of my favorite authors says, when they give you lined paper, write sideways. (Think outside the box!)
... I am disappointed that the best NC Soft can come up with is still more of the same (tried before and failed) 'banzor them!'.
I know, man. Just today the police picked up a murderer in my city. I think this is ridiculous, I mean, just because they apprehended a murderer doesn't mean people won't still murder people. There are still THOUSANDS of murders happening EVERY day - just google "recent murder cases in the US" to see what I mean! Guess the whole "lock up the criminal" thing isn't working very well for us, since we still have criminals.
...
Apparently, you and I are the only people that understand this.
You have to love the "why bother" attitude some people have. It's not working PERFECTLY....so let's not do it. Stupidity abounds.
Oh, and by the way, you'll likely now be told you have "issues," since you used an analogy about murder. (zomg)
There are more idiots on these forums than there are in any other community. ...
You both know I am not suggesting "do nothing" (well maybe you don't since there seem to be comprehension issues here)
Justarius1 your murder analogy is flawed (if you don't see that then let me know because further discussion is pointless).
I will try to fit in with your thinking however:
Banning a gold farmer (the way NC Soft just did) is sort of equivalent to arresting a murderer, then releasing them on bail and giving them their gun back as they leave the remand centre...and maybe telling them where the witnesses can be found... and then wondering why they shoot someone else?
My suggestion, if you actually read it, is to try something different.
To try to fit in with your analogy (once again) it would be equivalent to setting higher bail and restricting movement for those out on bail.
But, lets forget dumb analogies:
Banning gold farmers is a tried (and failed) strategy.
There are MMOs out there that invested vast amounts of time and resources on this approach.
They failed.
In some cases they no longer have gold farmers in those games... because they have no players either.
As I say, the gold farmers left when their business was no longer profitable.
... As for arrogant people thinking they have the answers to world problems, all I can say is - look into a job as a US politician instead of hanging around these forums all day. ...
I must admit the above quote made me laugh.
Made by the same person who said this
"And if the information WAS made public and the community decided it was cheating and wrong (like most developers do now) - then making everything public would make the cheaters THAT much easier to identify and eliminate.
I still don't see how people don't get this no brainer. Make everything public. Problem solved..."
... As for arrogant people thinking they have the answers to world problems, all I can say is - look into a job as a US politician instead of hanging around these forums all day. ...
I must admit the above quote made me laugh.
Made by the same person who said this
"And if the information WAS made public and the community decided it was cheating and wrong (like most developers do now) - then making everything public would make the cheaters THAT much easier to identify and eliminate.
I still don't see how people don't get this no brainer. Make everything public. Problem solved..."
I believe that's called irony?
Oh, no. That's not solving a large world problem. That's solving a very small-scale MMO problem.
... I am disappointed that the best NC Soft can come up with is still more of the same (tried before and failed) 'banzor them!'.
I know, man. Just today the police picked up a murderer in my city. I think this is ridiculous, I mean, just because they apprehended a murderer doesn't mean people won't still murder people. There are still THOUSANDS of murders happening EVERY day - just google "recent murder cases in the US" to see what I mean! Guess the whole "lock up the criminal" thing isn't working very well for us, since we still have criminals.
...
Apparently, you and I are the only people that understand this.
You have to love the "why bother" attitude some people have. It's not working PERFECTLY....so let's not do it. Stupidity abounds.
Oh, and by the way, you'll likely now be told you have "issues," since you used an analogy about murder. (zomg)
There are more idiots on these forums than there are in any other community. ...
You both know I am not suggesting "do nothing" (well maybe you don't since there seem to be comprehension issues here)
Justarius1 your murder analogy is flawed (if you don't see that then let me know because further discussion is pointless).
I will try to fit in with your thinking however:
Banning a gold farmer (the way NC Soft just did) is sort of equivalent to arresting a murderer, then releasing them on bail and giving them their gun back as they leave the remand centre...and maybe telling them where the witnesses can be found... and then wondering why they shoot someone else?
My suggestion, if you actually read it, is to try something different.
To try to fit in with your analogy (once again) it would be equivalent to setting higher bail and restricting movement for those out on bail.
But, lets forget dumb analogies:
Banning gold farmers is a tried (and failed) strategy.
There are MMOs out there that invested vast amounts of time and resources on this approach.
They failed.
In some cases they no longer have gold farmers in those games... because they have no players either.
As I say, the gold farmers left when their business was no longer profitable.
Your suggestion seems to be to simply regulate the RMT, or somehow magically make it "not necessary" - if I didn't catch that right, enlighten me.
I'm not here to trade insults with you, I think I made my points quite clear. WoW bans gold farmers (there is a type of enforcement there) and they seem to be doing just fine, somehow. They manage to keep players and a TOS policy banning gold sales. So your whole logical line of thought that any game companies who ban gold farmers and buyers have no players left is... well, more flawed that I can get into here. I know a lot of people going back to Aion, for example, now that they have the perception that NCSoft has *done* something.
I notice that you didn't seem to attack my idea of a public economy at all, so I take it you support that?
I've been accused of many things in my life, but reading comprehension issues aren't one of them. Several people on the threads I have started on the FE boards had some great feedback, positive and negative, about my idea. Your conclusion that MMO companies who ban gold farmers fail is simply false. Yes, they ban them - and yes, they come back. And sometimes when we release people from prison, they go back out and continue to commit crime.
And yet we keep doing it. Why? A detriment effect; people are frightened (mainly the gold BUYERS) of getting caught and they don't want their account banned, so they stop doing it. If you don't understand THIS, there's really no point in continuing the conversation. You seem to have a rather black and white view on things. You see a method as flawed, and damn the other professionals who disagree with you.
Apparently these game developers and designers must know nothing about running a game, since nearly every successful MMO I know of has it in the TOS that you aren't to engage in buying gold or items, etc., from offline sites. They don't WANT an RMT economy widget in their games - they WANT to charge a flat fee, period, and let the in-game economy exist from there. Without influence from the out-of-game economy. And if you can't see that, or the reasons for that, there is little point in continuing the discussion on that point.
That having been said, if you have ideas as to why my public economy idea wouldn't work - I'm all ears. I'm actually interested. Somebody brought up a valid point to me about it and it made me think even further down that pipeline.
. Many of the things you open this post with I have already addressed in this thread.
Your suggestion seems to be to simply regulate the RMT, or somehow magically make it "not necessary" - if I didn't catch that right, enlighten me. Covered in posts #35 and #128.
If you want to call it "RMT" then fine (there's a whole new threads worth of argument right there).
I call it making the environment so unprofitable (read hostile) for Gold farmers that they simply leave.
Using a whole game approach though - this is not a stand alone idea.
I'm not here to trade insults with you, I think I made my points quite clear. WoW bans gold farmers (there is a type of enforcement there) and they seem to be doing just fine, somehow. Maybe the fact that Blizzard has a vast amount of resources to throw at the problem?
And as for doing just fine?
Try Googling "WoW Gold" or doing a quick search on the WoW forums tells me they still have gold spammers in game. Lots of. They manage to keep players and a TOS policy banning gold sales. So your whole logical line of thought that any game companies who ban gold farmers and buyers have no players left is... well, more flawed that I can get into here. Again... ... "some" ... I know a lot of people going back to Aion, for example, now that they have the perception that NCSoft has *done* something. Fair point - how about we discuss this again in a month?
In fact - we may not even have to wait that long:
http://www.aionsource.com/forum/aion-discussion/91310-bot-ban-lie.html I notice that you didn't seem to attack my idea of a public economy at all, so I take it you support that? Covered in post #109 I've been accused of many things in my life, but reading comprehension issues aren't one of them. Several people on the threads I have started on the FE boards had some great feedback, positive and negative, about my idea. Your conclusion that MMO companies who ban gold farmers fail is simply false. Yes, they ban them - and yes, they come back. They ban them...they come back. What is your benchmark for success then? And sometimes when we release people from prison, they go back out and continue to commit crime. Stop with the bad prison analogies already. And yet we keep doing it. Why? A detriment effect; people are frightened (mainly the gold BUYERS) of getting caught and they don't want their account banned, so they stop doing it. If you don't understand THIS, there's really no point in continuing the conversation. Who are the gold BUYERS? Well, they would be your paying customers (the ones who apparently don't use stolen credit cards?). If they are buying gold... why?
Banning them robs you of a customer (he will move on to another game) - the gold farmer who gets banned will be back again until you have too few customers for him to service and make a profit. You seem to have a rather black and white view on things. You see a method as flawed, and damn the other professionals who disagree with you. You are hardly a 'professional'. The Author is the only professional in this thread and he disagreed with your idea too. Should I quote your reply? Apparently these game developers and designers must know nothing about running a game, since nearly every successful MMO I know of has it in the TOS that you aren't to engage in buying gold or items, etc., from offline sites. They don't WANT an RMT economy widget in their games - they WANT to charge a flat fee, period, and let the in-game economy exist from there. Without influence from the out-of-game economy. And if you can't see that, or the reasons for that, there is little point in continuing the discussion on that point. Ah yeah, the TOS. That will stop gold farming. Like I say - Google "WoW Gold". That having been said, if you have ideas as to why my public economy idea wouldn't work - I'm all ears. I'm actually interested. Somebody brought up a valid point to me about it and it made me think even further down that pipeline. Again - covered in post # 109.
I think you overestimate the gamers - also how well your idea would work depends heavily on game design.
There is also a high chance of false positives (like legitimate exchanges between friends and guildmates)
Then there is the issue of 'what difference does it make?'
For example - supposing I play Spellborn and we enact your idea there.
Any player that receives more than 10 gold by person to person trade turns bright blue.
Done.
I see a bright blue player - what do I do about it?
If it's the PvE server (and many areas of the PvP server) I can do nothing.
And in the PvP server - why would I take them on? They probably have better gear than me?
Don't let them into my guild?
My bet is that they form their own "Blue Moon" guild.
But you know what? Gold Sellers would just offer an extra service. If the limit was 10 gold per transaction they would just do multiple transactions of 9 gold. If it was 10 gold per day they would just do transactions over several days.
This is how money is laundered in real life too - so it's not even like they have to figure it out.
Still - I would be interested to see a trial. Social Engineering is interesting and can yield totally unexpected results.
{Post self edited so as not to start an insult war}
Well, your main point still seems to be that right now the banning "isn't working" because you can still buy gold in WoW and other games. I agree, but how much more widespread would the problem be if, say, Blizzard had no regulation, no banning? If it were simply against the ToS but it was never enforced?
I, for one, have a feeling the problem would be a lot worse. And you state that Blizzard has "vast resources" to throw at the problem; which means that for them, at least, they seem to have done what we in the states have done with drug use - forced it underground. Yes, there are still drugs. Yes, there are still drug users. However, if you get caught buying or selling, you may go to prison.
I won't debate the morality of the War on Drugs with you, my point is simply that if tomorrow the gov't came out and said, "OK, drugs are still illegal, but we're not going to punish drug use anymore."
Do you have any doubt in your mind that drug use wouldn't skyrocket? All those people who were afraid to experiment because they might get caught (read: banned) now can try it out! With no fear of punishment!
It's not a bad analogy; it's a perfect analogy. The point of banning players from a game isn't to stop gold farming entirely; it's to drive it underground and make it difficult to engage in. It's to put the threat out there that if you get caught; you might get banned.
Your last comment interested me most, however, since it was the only comment really directed at anything I said of substance...
The author of this article never personally spoke to me about that idea, so I'm not sure what you mean when you say that Jennings told me my idea wouldn't work - but that aside, your last comment about social engineering experiments... that's exactly what this would be. A social engineering experiment. And it's something that I think could be properly and intelligently implemented. I'd love to see it tried. That was my point. I don't think I'm giving players too much credit. I have a feeling that the 80% of people not buying gold or who have never bought gold would keep the other 20% in line.
Plus, let's say that transactions were public. People might wonder why you had 50 mails of 9 gold each from an account named 'isjkffh' - how this might work is thus:
Other players or your guild notice the illegal transactions. They ask you how you got the cash. If you have a reasonable reason for it, fine. In most cases though this might alert the community, sending out a red flag to get a GM to investigate.
GM investigates the account and finds it's from a bad credit card, etc. Gold is simply REMOVED from the player's account before a ban - let the player know hey, we found this out, this is our economy and per the TOS we're removing that gold you bought. 2nd offense, we may ban you.
The system would have to be very, very transparent for it to work. However, even some corporations are increasingly acting like this, with more transparency. I won't get into my "professional" credentials - they have nothing to do with MMOs, but they do have a lot to do with both economics and the psychology of economic-driven behaviors.
The "social engineering" experiment would only work with total transparency and little if no ways to "cheat the system" ...
... Re: just making an economy public: very few people would be OK with this, I suspect. There's some privacy implications there. It's also sort of a burning down the village to find the crook sort of solution... it may work but the collateral damage would be pretty painful. ...
I'm surprised no one really commented on my positive alignment to Buying Gold from Chinese Farmers.
There was only one comment, which went from "You're entitled to your opinion, that's fine." to a needless and lengthy yawn trying to poke holes in my logic, attacking self-created assumptions while ignoring the actual fact:
Arguably, gold farmers don't ruin a game that has already been running for a few years, as the economy is already ruined by the fact 90% of players have multiple max-level characters, and tier 1 gear sells for prices that no newbie could ever afford.
The fact remains... it's easier now-a-days to just grind to max level than to try to make enough money to buy your own tier's worth of gear or raw mats.
Most MMO's don't really have an economy to ruin. The "economy" consists of level 80's farming drops to sell at a level 80 price to other level 80's so they can twink their level 1-79's.
Gold Farming actually brings BALANCE to these long-lived games in the fact that for $6 a level 1-20 can compete with everyone else (who have been playing for years, owning multiple max-level characters in several powerful guilds) until they reach level 20, in which the price for gear/mats becomes so high that only 1% of players (rich people) can afford to buy gold to maintain a balance. In that end, it would be cheaper to buy a lvl 80 account off of ebay.
But when it's only $6 to have double the fun at low levels, it's a good thing for the newbies because it's fun.
I argued very intelligently that Gold Farmers do not ruin a game's economy, primarily because the economy is non-existent or sucks and secondly because a mass of other problems ruin the "economy" significantly more than Gold Farmers ever could.
It's like trying to pick on a specific small-time gang in a localized district and blaming them for ruining the entire Country. They neither have the power to ruin the entire country, nor are they a big reason for the "ruining". Blame the REAL problems, like lack of education, media violence, or whatever magical "experts" can come up with.
In MMO words... blame the level system (lvl 1 copper vs lvl 80 platinum), the fact there is infinite currency in the world, and the fact players are allowed to sell products at ridiculous prices because there are no NPC's to bring (ridiculously high/low) a cap to buy/sell prices.
Getting rid of Gold Farmers would do nothing to all but the oddest of MMO's.
Punishing players for trying to compete with other players who have been playing for YEARS is simply silly.
Fix the broken system before you ever try to fix the people who exploit it.
... Re: just making an economy public: very few people would be OK with this, I suspect. There's some privacy implications there. It's also sort of a burning down the village to find the crook sort of solution... it may work but the collateral damage would be pretty painful. ...
There you go.
LumTheMad = Jennings
Thanks. To answer that - I'd have to say that at first glance it might look like many people might not be up for such a thing. Certainly it would be better to go into a game working with such an economy in the first place as opposed to having it imposed upon you if you were used to something else.
Some marketing research would be done and the idea would have to be "sold" to the public as a positive thing. I think it's a radical idea and it hasn't been done. There may indeed be "collateral damage" to the economy if it was imposed and it changed an existing economy but - if the game world started this way, it would be a very interesting experiment.
I've never, ever seen transparency cause problems in my life; while I've seen the opposite (obfuscation of the facts and issues) cause a lot of problems.
I find "privacy implications" interesting in an online world. What privacy do we have? We're using another server, and all text we type could very easily be recorded, stored, etc. Records of every transaction we make could be easily made public. And who/what type of people would really care that much about privacy if they don't have anything to hide?
It's interesting to think about these things. I have a feeling something like this will be tried, someday.
The titel sums it up real well. I don't want money to have a say in my hobby. At least as little as possible. It is bad enough the gap between rich and poor widens in RL societies, it should stay out of MMORPGs, I say.
The thing is, that it is impossible to stop the farming inside currency-centric economies.
You have to remove the cause, not the effect, if you take away the economy's reliance upon currency and implement a trade for trade system, you can eventually reach a point where the gold farmers are really more like players than farmers.
Sure, they will have gear to sell for real worl money, but what can you do with that gear other than wear it if it's soulbound? I don't think it's a dirty profit and I don't think that people will be put out any if a system deliberately designed to not accomodate such a means of generating profit is ever implemented in an MMO.
I don't think I've seen any people trying to sell gold in Monster Hunter Frontier. Because it's an exchange based transaction style system.
Part of the problem is the companies are so reluctant to ban and then don't tell anyone anything specific.
I mean, it's really nice that Blizzard said they banned X accounts last week. What server? How many per server? How much gold was recovered? That's like saying "cops caught 100 criminals last week", doesn't tell you anything, doesn't make you feel better and doesn't help with crime.
This is probably why so many companies refuse to refund subscriptions paid. If they ban a spammer account, the spammer can't just get his money back by whining to Visa. Since it clearly states in the EULA or TOS that if you do this you get banned, and you clicked "I Agree", Visa legally wouldn't be obligated to refund your money. It's like if you buy a car that is sold "AS IS" and it breaks down a week later, try telling me the bank would just forgive your loan. Riiiiight.
Another problem is MMO's are international. The way the Chinese internet is set up there is a lot of proxy use so you usually can't ban by IP address. The farmers use that to their advantage to avoid detection.
You really need to clamp down hard on gold farmers or else they'll spread like a virus and then you have 10X the work to do to try and get rid of them. Ban the account once, if Joe Spammer makes another account and spams again, ban that credit card. Continue until the spammer has no more recourse and goes under.
Part of the problem is the companies are so reluctant to ban and then don't tell anyone anything specific. I mean, it's really nice that Blizzard said they banned X accounts last week. What server? How many per server? How much gold was recovered? That's like saying "cops caught 100 criminals last week", doesn't tell you anything, doesn't make you feel better and doesn't help with crime. This is probably why so many companies refuse to refund subscriptions paid. If they ban a spammer account, the spammer can't just get his money back by whining to Visa. Since it clearly states in the EULA or TOS that if you do this you get banned, and you clicked "I Agree", Visa legally wouldn't be obligated to refund your money. It's like if you buy a car that is sold "AS IS" and it breaks down a week later, try telling me the bank would just forgive your loan. Riiiiight. Another problem is MMO's are international. The way the Chinese internet is set up there is a lot of proxy use so you usually can't ban by IP address. The farmers use that to their advantage to avoid detection. You really need to clamp down hard on gold farmers or else they'll spread like a virus and then you have 10X the work to do to try and get rid of them. Ban the account once, if Joe Spammer makes another account and spams again, ban that credit card. Continue until the spammer has no more recourse and goes under.
If a company bans me after I payed $15 for a month of service, then I am legally obligated to get my money back because they're liars.
A EULA or TOS in no way states nor has any legal power to state that they can keep your money AND ban you.
It merely states that they CAN ban you. But if they do, they owe you because they broke THEIR agreement that is bound by money, not powerless "agreements" that have no real legal power.
Besides, any lawsuit that happens will immeditely result in a refund of money, because it's cheaper to spend $15 than it is for even one second of a lawyer, to see a judge, or even forward an email to someone that actually matters..
... If they ban a spammer account, the spammer can't just get his money back by whining to Visa. Since it clearly states in the EULA or TOS that if you do this you get banned, and you clicked "I Agree", Visa legally wouldn't be obligated to refund your money. ...
Totally wrong.
Visa do not care about ToS / EULA.
Do you seriously think Visa are going to employ several teams of lawyers (possibly in several countries) to check the EULA / ToS legality in both countries and check if the ban was valid?
No.
Besides the EULA / ToS is between the customer and merchant - nothing to do with the CC Association.
The CC Assoc has a contract with the merchant and another with the CC holder.
They will ask one question "Is the customer getting what they paid for?"
If the answer is "No." then it's "Give the money back.
If the MMO company then wants to take the Player to court (to recover costs of the backcharge) then that is up to them. Nothing to do with the CC Assoc.
Lets not forget, that ALOT of people woould not be playing MMO's if they cant buy "ingame currency". Therefor there is a NEED for gold farmers, they keep alot of people from quitting there MMO!!!
... If they ban a spammer account, the spammer can't just get his money back by whining to Visa. Since it clearly states in the EULA or TOS that if you do this you get banned, and you clicked "I Agree", Visa legally wouldn't be obligated to refund your money. ...
Totally wrong.
Visa do not care about ToS / EULA.
Do you seriously think Visa are going to employ several teams of lawyers (possibly in several countries) to check the EULA / ToS legality in both countries and check if the ban was valid?
No.
Besides the EULA / ToS is between the customer and merchant - nothing to do with the CC Association.
The CC Assoc has a contract with the merchant and another with the CC holder.
They will ask one question "Is the customer getting what they paid for?"
If the answer is "No." then it's "Give the money back.
If the MMO company then wants to take the Player to court (to recover costs of the backcharge) then that is up to them. Nothing to do with the CC Assoc.
Actually, it's Totally Correct.
Mythic Entertainment, well before they got bought out by EA, went to court over the legality of their TOS/EULA and how enforceable it is. Mythic won the suit as the other party settled out of court. Now, if they felt they had a legal leg to stand on they wouldn't of caved in to Mythic's suit. So the TOS is legally enforceable. This isn't just for MMO's either, many software companies have electronic contracts that you "sign" by clicking "I Agree" to before installation.
A TOS is basically a contract, you agreed to the contract therefore both you and the company have to abide by the terms of the contract. This is why sometimes after patches, the TOS pops up again and you have to click "I Agree". Something changed so the company has to make you aware of it and give you the option to opt out. However, subscription fees are non-refundable as always and are clearly stated that they are so. Basically, you bought the time and it's spent.
Visa would care about a TOS/EULA to the point that when you dispute a charge, they do an investigation. They will contact the company that charged you and inquire about the validity of the charge. Since you basically "signed" a contract with the company agreeing that fees are non-refundable and if you violate policy you could lose the account, Visa wouldn't be under obligation to refund you anything. Think of it this way, you bought a car marked AS IS and then it breaks down a week later, the bank isn't going to forgive your loan just because you can't use the car anymore.
Actually, it's Totally Correct. Mythic Entertainment, well before they got bought out by EA, went to court over the legality of their TOS/EULA and how enforceable it is. Mythic - not a CC Association. Mythic won the suit as the other party settled out of court. A settlement is not the same as a win in terms of legal precedent. Now, if they felt they had a legal leg to stand on they wouldn't of caved in to Mythic's suit. Rubbish. Depends on a lot of things. Court cases are time consuming and costly. Sometimes that is enough to make people settle. So the TOS is legally enforceable. Where and what parts? It's not like the TOS is 100% binding over 100% of the world. This isn't just for MMO's either, many software companies have electronic contracts that you "sign" by clicking "I Agree" to before installation. Yeah. In some countries clicking [I Agree] has been found not to be binding in some cases. A TOS is basically a contract, you agreed to the contract Did you? Before you parted with your money? Do you know what the term 'ticket case' is? therefore both you and the company have to abide by the terms of the contract. This is why sometimes after patches, the TOS pops up again and you have to click "I Agree". Something changed so the company has to make you aware of it and give you the option to opt out. However, subscription fees are non-refundable as always and are clearly stated that they are so. Basically, you bought the time and it's spent. Doesn't sound like much of an option then? In some countries this isn't legal. Visa would care about a TOS/EULA to the point that when you dispute a charge, they do an investigation. They investigate based on their contract with the merchant and their contract with the card holder.
Any deals the Merchant and Card Holder do between themselves are nothing to do with the CC Association.
Or are you saying that if the merchant and I do a deal that says I don't have to pay my CC bill for 90 days and there will be no interest that Visa / Mastercard etc will agree to that? No. Because that is rubbish. They will contact the company that charged you and inquire about the validity of the charge. Yes. They ask if the customer is getting what they paid for. Since you basically "signed" a contract with the company agreeing that fees are non-refundable and if you violate policy you could lose the account, Visa wouldn't be under obligation to refund you anything. No. I will say this again. You get a refund on the CC bill (backcharge). Then if the MMO company wants to pursue you in court (or courts) then that is up to them. It is nothing to do with Visa. Think about it - what if the customer spent 6 months in court and proved they were due a backcharge? Meanwhile Visa had been charging overdue fees and interest on the bill. Where would that leave Visa? Think of it this way, you bought a car marked AS IS and then it breaks down a week later, the bank isn't going to forgive your loan just because you can't use the car anymore. Ah...the good old inappropriate analogy.
Think of it this way... you buy a car and a week later the dealer shows up at your house and takes it back.
They take it back because they sold you a family car and they found out you took the car to a car boot sale and sold old cloths...
Actually, it's Totally Correct. Mythic Entertainment, well before they got bought out by EA, went to court over the legality of their TOS/EULA and how enforceable it is. Mythic - not a CC Association. Mythic won the suit as the other party settled out of court. A settlement is not the same as a win in terms of legal precedent. Now, if they felt they had a legal leg to stand on they wouldn't of caved in to Mythic's suit. Rubbish. Depends on a lot of things. Court cases are time consuming and costly. Sometimes that is enough to make people settle. So the TOS is legally enforceable. Where and what parts? It's not like the TOS is 100% binding over 100% of the world. This isn't just for MMO's either, many software companies have electronic contracts that you "sign" by clicking "I Agree" to before installation. Yeah. In some countries clicking [I Agree] has been found not to be binding in some cases. A TOS is basically a contract, you agreed to the contract Did you? Before you parted with your money? Do you know what the term 'ticket case' is? therefore both you and the company have to abide by the terms of the contract. This is why sometimes after patches, the TOS pops up again and you have to click "I Agree". Something changed so the company has to make you aware of it and give you the option to opt out. However, subscription fees are non-refundable as always and are clearly stated that they are so. Basically, you bought the time and it's spent. Doesn't sound like much of an option then? In some countries this isn't legal. Visa would care about a TOS/EULA to the point that when you dispute a charge, they do an investigation. They investigate based on their contract with the merchant and their contract with the card holder.
Any deals the Merchant and Card Holder do between themselves are nothing to do with the CC Association.
Or are you saying that if the merchant and I do a deal that says I don't have to pay my CC bill for 90 days and there will be no interest that Visa / Mastercard etc will agree to that? No. Because that is rubbish. They will contact the company that charged you and inquire about the validity of the charge. Yes. They ask if the customer is getting what they paid for. Since you basically "signed" a contract with the company agreeing that fees are non-refundable and if you violate policy you could lose the account, Visa wouldn't be under obligation to refund you anything. No. I will say this again. You get a refund on the CC bill (backcharge). Then if the MMO company wants to pursue you in court (or courts) then that is up to them. It is nothing to do with Visa. Think about it - what if the customer spent 6 months in court and proved they were due a backcharge? Meanwhile Visa had been charging overdue fees and interest on the bill. Where would that leave Visa? Think of it this way, you bought a car marked AS IS and then it breaks down a week later, the bank isn't going to forgive your loan just because you can't use the car anymore. Ah...the good old inappropriate analogy.
Think of it this way... you buy a car and a week later the dealer shows up at your house and takes it back.
They take it back because they sold you a family car and they found out you took the car to a car boot sale and sold old cloths...
Where is your dumb analogy now then?
Actually, after talking to a few people from old guilds that actually tried to get refunds from Mythic, WoW/Blizzard, and Sony/EQ... they had VERY different experiences.
All three were gamers in America.
2 of the 3 used Visa and they were NOT refunded; their CC company said that they had broken their contract with the merchant. They were given the choice to sue the CC company and/or the merchant if they didn't like it. (Good luck!)
1 was refunded, no questions asked.
I have a feeling that the major thing that mattered in the question of American consumers, at least, was what your credit rating and how good of a customer were you? If you have a $10,000 credit limit and are never late, your CC company is going to try and treat you a little better. If you have a secured $500 credit card, good luck on that customer support...
Again, anecdotal evidence at best but I thought it was interesting.
Comments
Thank you for saying everything I was thinking, and MUCH more eloquently.
What is wrong with you people?
Seriously?
FACT: GOLD FARMING EXISTS.
Can any of you deny it? barndorf? girlgeek? Ozmodan?
Now for all your WORDS do you have any solution on how to stop it? Did the OP ask us for solutions? If anyone had any that would WORK....don't you think the major companies would have tried them already? I don't see you offering any solutions either. So what is YOUR big solution?
Then you need to read back. You didn't see it because you were / are blinded by rage I think?
My solution (or part of my solution anyway) is NOT to ban their accounts - but rather to restrict them.
1/ Disable their player to player trades.
2/ Disable their chat - restrict it to Guild only chat.
That way, if they call their CC Company and say "I want a charge back - that evil MMO company has stopped me playing!"
The MMO Company can honestly say "No. We haven't. That account is still perfectly playable."
And for the gold farmer that is the worst thing that can happen - because they have done the 'work' but now cannot share the spoils.
They can still trade with NPCs - but the beauty of that is the MMO company can set up the NPCs to buy at fair (but low) prices and yet not sell back everything they buy (it becomes a sink).
Guild only chat allows the player to group and play (not much help for goldfarmers) but gold spam can be delt with by guild leaders (kicking the gold spammer).
The net result is the goldfarmers not only effectively 'lose' the account - but they still have to pay for it (assuming a valid card was used - which at least some of the time will be the case)
So, this all eats into their expenses and lowers their profits. And without profit - why bother?
The other great advantage of this is that if a company chooses to do a mass 'ban' (like NC soft did today) then any innocents caught are not inconvienced too much. They can still log in and play while customer service issues are delt with ( to fully reinstate their account )
.....As for the rest of your rant...
Well, let's just say it's clear you have rage issues and other issues too deep for anyone here to help you with.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
Why exactly would people have a problem with a public economy if they have nothing to hide? I know I wouldn't. Heck, I'll tell you what my Aion and Fallen Earth characters have RIGHT NOW.
I don't think many people would have a problem with that kind of system at all. What exactly are the "privacy concerns" being violated here? You agree to play the game, you agree to make your funds and fund-transfers public.
I know a LOT of people that would sign up for a system like this in a heartbeat - especially PvP players with nothing to hide, like myself. Anything I have on any of my characters you can rest assured I quested, looted, or crafted myself. If I want to help out a guild (or vice versa) - fine, make those transactions public too. I don't think anyone has ever complained that Guild XYZ gave member ZYX 500 gold or 50 crafting widgets or whatever. It's part of being in a guild and it doesn't violate the TOS as gold-buying offline does.
I see a public setting like that as a Utopian mmo, almost, in terms of economy. Maybe some game designer like NCSoft will get tired of the commonly used approaches to dealing with gold farmers and bots and they will try this someday.
I really don't know a single person who would stop playing, say, World of Warcraft if the economy were to go public tomorrow - except, perhaps, for the biggest offline buyers to begin with.
Which is kind of the point - we WANT them to go.
By now, I wonder how many of those account holders have contacted their CC provider and asked for a chargeback?
Have the phones started ringing in accounts department yet?
How much money will this cost NC Soft?
Was it worth it? Are all the goldfarmers in Aion out of business?
Well, a google of "gold aion" says no.
I am disappointed that the best NC Soft can come up with is still more of the same (tried before and failed) 'banzor them!'.
I know, man. Just today the police picked up a murderer in my city. I think this is ridiculous, I mean, just because they apprehended a murderer doesn't mean people won't still murder people. There are still THOUSANDS of murders happening EVERY day - just google "recent murder cases in the US" to see what I mean! Guess the whole "lock up the criminal" thing isn't working very well for us, since we still have criminals.
Since arresting murderers and putting them in prison isn't getting to the ROOT cause of murder in this country, I say we stop arresting murderers and try to change the social system that CREATES murderers in the first place.
I'm so disappointed that the United States Government like so many other World Governments just locks up murderers and criminals and BANZORZ them to prison. How much does this cost the government or us as taxpayers?
Anyone except me see where this line of thought leads?
Sure, it's all very Utopian and "progressive" of you but in the meantime until we have this perfect economy and perfect system where nobody has an incentive to cheat, a lot of players - myself included - are quite happy with the recent bans and removal of bots in Aion. It's obvious to me because I logon now and I see that the game world is changing, and things are getting better.
By now, I wonder how many of those account holders have contacted their CC provider and asked for a chargeback?
Have the phones started ringing in accounts department yet?
How much money will this cost NC Soft?
Was it worth it? Are all the goldfarmers in Aion out of business?
Well, a google of "gold aion" says no.
I am disappointed that the best NC Soft can come up with is still more of the same (tried before and failed) 'banzor them!'.
I know, man. Just today the police picked up a murderer in my city. I think this is ridiculous, I mean, just because they apprehended a murderer doesn't mean people won't still murder people. There are still THOUSANDS of murders happening EVERY day - just google "recent murder cases in the US" to see what I mean! Guess the whole "lock up the criminal" thing isn't working very well for us, since we still have criminals.
Since arresting murderers and putting them in prison isn't getting to the ROOT cause of murder in this country, I say we stop arresting murderers and try to change the social system that CREATES murderers in the first place.
I'm so disappointed that the United States Government like so many other World Governments just locks up murderers and criminals and BANZORZ them to prison. How much does this cost the government or us as taxpayers?
Anyone except me see where this line of thought leads?
Sure, it's all very Utopian and "progressive" of you but in the meantime until we have this perfect economy and perfect system where nobody has an incentive to cheat, a lot of players - myself included - are quite happy with the recent bans and removal of bots in Aion. It's obvious to me because I logon now and I see that the game world is changing, and things are getting better.
Apparently, you and I are the only people that understand this.
You have to love the "why bother" attitude some people have. It's not working PERFECTLY....so let's not do it. Stupidity abounds.
Oh, and by the way, you'll likely now be told you have "issues," since you used an analogy about murder. (zomg)
There are more idiots on these forums than there are in any other community. It never ceases to amaze me the amount of self-righteous CRAP I have to read on here. And the egos....amazing. Some how some of these gamers think they can solve the problems of the "world" (the world of gaming) ...even though the PROFESSIONALS have been trying for years and years. But of course....some "genius" on these forums SURELY knows more than all of "those guys." /rolls eyes
YOU have some good ideas, by the way. Some of the other posters do as well. What I want to know....is how talking about it on the forums here is going to accomplish much of anything. You presented good ideas with a fair amount of humility. Have you posted ideas like this on the suggestion forums of the game or games you play? Perhaps you should.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
Thanks. I appreciate the feedback.
I haven't suggested this on Aion or FE forums yet; that's a decent idea. I figured starting to talk about it here, on a site devoted to MMORPGs, on a thread started about this very issue, might be a good way to get some feedback from others about the idea.
I never will get the mentality that since we can't catch all wrongdoers, we shouldn't bother with enforcement at all. We have drug enforcement, and yet we still have plenty of crack heads. We have law enforcement of all types, and yet crime still abounds. We punish rape, murder, battery and assault, and a WIDE range of crimes that probably have their root causes in social ills, yes, but since we don't live in a perfect world we kind of have to do what we can to contain the damage caused by crime WHILE we work on making a better world for everyone.
I think the comparison applies equally to MMORPGs.
As for arrogant people thinking they have the answers to world problems, all I can say is - look into a job as a US politician instead of hanging around these forums all day. The gov't has some serious issues here right now and since ya'll have the answers, I wanted to let you know there is an election coming up. Start your nomination petitions now!
Well, I actually took your suggestion. Have the idea up on Fallen Earth's paid/red forum Suggestion area and on Aion's public suggestion forum. We'll see where it goes.
The problem I usually run into are people that can't wrap their brain around anything different, they basically fall into the "ban them all" camp and the "gold farming isn't an issue" camp - with very little ability to look beyond what is currently being done.
As one of my favorite authors says, when they give you lined paper, write sideways.
(Think outside the box!)
I know, man. Just today the police picked up a murderer in my city. I think this is ridiculous, I mean, just because they apprehended a murderer doesn't mean people won't still murder people. There are still THOUSANDS of murders happening EVERY day - just google "recent murder cases in the US" to see what I mean! Guess the whole "lock up the criminal" thing isn't working very well for us, since we still have criminals.
...Apparently, you and I are the only people that understand this.
You have to love the "why bother" attitude some people have. It's not working PERFECTLY....so let's not do it. Stupidity abounds.
Oh, and by the way, you'll likely now be told you have "issues," since you used an analogy about murder. (zomg)
There are more idiots on these forums than there are in any other community. ...
You both know I am not suggesting "do nothing" (well maybe you don't since there seem to be comprehension issues here)
Justarius1 your murder analogy is flawed (if you don't see that then let me know because further discussion is pointless).
I will try to fit in with your thinking however:
Banning a gold farmer (the way NC Soft just did) is sort of equivalent to arresting a murderer, then releasing them on bail and giving them their gun back as they leave the remand centre...and maybe telling them where the witnesses can be found... and then wondering why they shoot someone else?
My suggestion, if you actually read it, is to try something different.
To try to fit in with your analogy (once again) it would be equivalent to setting higher bail and restricting movement for those out on bail.
But, lets forget dumb analogies:
Banning gold farmers is a tried (and failed) strategy.
There are MMOs out there that invested vast amounts of time and resources on this approach.
They failed.
In some cases they no longer have gold farmers in those games... because they have no players either.
As I say, the gold farmers left when their business was no longer profitable.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
I must admit the above quote made me laugh.
Made by the same person who said this
"And if the information WAS made public and the community decided it was cheating and wrong (like most developers do now) - then making everything public would make the cheaters THAT much easier to identify and eliminate.
I still don't see how people don't get this no brainer. Make everything public. Problem solved..."
I believe that's called irony?
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
I must admit the above quote made me laugh.
Made by the same person who said this
"And if the information WAS made public and the community decided it was cheating and wrong (like most developers do now) - then making everything public would make the cheaters THAT much easier to identify and eliminate.
I still don't see how people don't get this no brainer. Make everything public. Problem solved..."
I believe that's called irony?
Oh, no. That's not solving a large world problem. That's solving a very small-scale MMO problem.
I know, man. Just today the police picked up a murderer in my city. I think this is ridiculous, I mean, just because they apprehended a murderer doesn't mean people won't still murder people. There are still THOUSANDS of murders happening EVERY day - just google "recent murder cases in the US" to see what I mean! Guess the whole "lock up the criminal" thing isn't working very well for us, since we still have criminals.
...Apparently, you and I are the only people that understand this.
You have to love the "why bother" attitude some people have. It's not working PERFECTLY....so let's not do it. Stupidity abounds.
Oh, and by the way, you'll likely now be told you have "issues," since you used an analogy about murder. (zomg)
There are more idiots on these forums than there are in any other community. ...
You both know I am not suggesting "do nothing" (well maybe you don't since there seem to be comprehension issues here)
Justarius1 your murder analogy is flawed (if you don't see that then let me know because further discussion is pointless).
I will try to fit in with your thinking however:
Banning a gold farmer (the way NC Soft just did) is sort of equivalent to arresting a murderer, then releasing them on bail and giving them their gun back as they leave the remand centre...and maybe telling them where the witnesses can be found... and then wondering why they shoot someone else?
My suggestion, if you actually read it, is to try something different.
To try to fit in with your analogy (once again) it would be equivalent to setting higher bail and restricting movement for those out on bail.
But, lets forget dumb analogies:
Banning gold farmers is a tried (and failed) strategy.
There are MMOs out there that invested vast amounts of time and resources on this approach.
They failed.
In some cases they no longer have gold farmers in those games... because they have no players either.
As I say, the gold farmers left when their business was no longer profitable.
Your suggestion seems to be to simply regulate the RMT, or somehow magically make it "not necessary" - if I didn't catch that right, enlighten me.
I'm not here to trade insults with you, I think I made my points quite clear. WoW bans gold farmers (there is a type of enforcement there) and they seem to be doing just fine, somehow. They manage to keep players and a TOS policy banning gold sales. So your whole logical line of thought that any game companies who ban gold farmers and buyers have no players left is... well, more flawed that I can get into here. I know a lot of people going back to Aion, for example, now that they have the perception that NCSoft has *done* something.
I notice that you didn't seem to attack my idea of a public economy at all, so I take it you support that?
I've been accused of many things in my life, but reading comprehension issues aren't one of them. Several people on the threads I have started on the FE boards had some great feedback, positive and negative, about my idea. Your conclusion that MMO companies who ban gold farmers fail is simply false. Yes, they ban them - and yes, they come back. And sometimes when we release people from prison, they go back out and continue to commit crime.
And yet we keep doing it. Why? A detriment effect; people are frightened (mainly the gold BUYERS) of getting caught and they don't want their account banned, so they stop doing it. If you don't understand THIS, there's really no point in continuing the conversation. You seem to have a rather black and white view on things. You see a method as flawed, and damn the other professionals who disagree with you.
Apparently these game developers and designers must know nothing about running a game, since nearly every successful MMO I know of has it in the TOS that you aren't to engage in buying gold or items, etc., from offline sites. They don't WANT an RMT economy widget in their games - they WANT to charge a flat fee, period, and let the in-game economy exist from there. Without influence from the out-of-game economy. And if you can't see that, or the reasons for that, there is little point in continuing the discussion on that point.
That having been said, if you have ideas as to why my public economy idea wouldn't work - I'm all ears. I'm actually interested. Somebody brought up a valid point to me about it and it made me think even further down that pipeline.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
Well, your main point still seems to be that right now the banning "isn't working" because you can still buy gold in WoW and other games. I agree, but how much more widespread would the problem be if, say, Blizzard had no regulation, no banning? If it were simply against the ToS but it was never enforced?
I, for one, have a feeling the problem would be a lot worse. And you state that Blizzard has "vast resources" to throw at the problem; which means that for them, at least, they seem to have done what we in the states have done with drug use - forced it underground. Yes, there are still drugs. Yes, there are still drug users. However, if you get caught buying or selling, you may go to prison.
I won't debate the morality of the War on Drugs with you, my point is simply that if tomorrow the gov't came out and said, "OK, drugs are still illegal, but we're not going to punish drug use anymore."
Do you have any doubt in your mind that drug use wouldn't skyrocket? All those people who were afraid to experiment because they might get caught (read: banned) now can try it out! With no fear of punishment!
It's not a bad analogy; it's a perfect analogy. The point of banning players from a game isn't to stop gold farming entirely; it's to drive it underground and make it difficult to engage in. It's to put the threat out there that if you get caught; you might get banned.
Your last comment interested me most, however, since it was the only comment really directed at anything I said of substance...
The author of this article never personally spoke to me about that idea, so I'm not sure what you mean when you say that Jennings told me my idea wouldn't work - but that aside, your last comment about social engineering experiments... that's exactly what this would be. A social engineering experiment. And it's something that I think could be properly and intelligently implemented. I'd love to see it tried. That was my point. I don't think I'm giving players too much credit. I have a feeling that the 80% of people not buying gold or who have never bought gold would keep the other 20% in line.
Plus, let's say that transactions were public. People might wonder why you had 50 mails of 9 gold each from an account named 'isjkffh' - how this might work is thus:
Other players or your guild notice the illegal transactions. They ask you how you got the cash. If you have a reasonable reason for it, fine. In most cases though this might alert the community, sending out a red flag to get a GM to investigate.
GM investigates the account and finds it's from a bad credit card, etc. Gold is simply REMOVED from the player's account before a ban - let the player know hey, we found this out, this is our economy and per the TOS we're removing that gold you bought. 2nd offense, we may ban you.
The system would have to be very, very transparent for it to work. However, even some corporations are increasingly acting like this, with more transparency. I won't get into my "professional" credentials - they have nothing to do with MMOs, but they do have a lot to do with both economics and the psychology of economic-driven behaviors.
The "social engineering" experiment would only work with total transparency and little if no ways to "cheat the system" ...
There you go.
LumTheMad = Jennings
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
I'm surprised no one really commented on my positive alignment to Buying Gold from Chinese Farmers.
There was only one comment, which went from "You're entitled to your opinion, that's fine." to a needless and lengthy yawn trying to poke holes in my logic, attacking self-created assumptions while ignoring the actual fact:
Arguably, gold farmers don't ruin a game that has already been running for a few years, as the economy is already ruined by the fact 90% of players have multiple max-level characters, and tier 1 gear sells for prices that no newbie could ever afford.
The fact remains... it's easier now-a-days to just grind to max level than to try to make enough money to buy your own tier's worth of gear or raw mats.
Most MMO's don't really have an economy to ruin. The "economy" consists of level 80's farming drops to sell at a level 80 price to other level 80's so they can twink their level 1-79's.
Gold Farming actually brings BALANCE to these long-lived games in the fact that for $6 a level 1-20 can compete with everyone else (who have been playing for years, owning multiple max-level characters in several powerful guilds) until they reach level 20, in which the price for gear/mats becomes so high that only 1% of players (rich people) can afford to buy gold to maintain a balance. In that end, it would be cheaper to buy a lvl 80 account off of ebay.
But when it's only $6 to have double the fun at low levels, it's a good thing for the newbies because it's fun.
I argued very intelligently that Gold Farmers do not ruin a game's economy, primarily because the economy is non-existent or sucks and secondly because a mass of other problems ruin the "economy" significantly more than Gold Farmers ever could.
It's like trying to pick on a specific small-time gang in a localized district and blaming them for ruining the entire Country. They neither have the power to ruin the entire country, nor are they a big reason for the "ruining". Blame the REAL problems, like lack of education, media violence, or whatever magical "experts" can come up with.
In MMO words... blame the level system (lvl 1 copper vs lvl 80 platinum), the fact there is infinite currency in the world, and the fact players are allowed to sell products at ridiculous prices because there are no NPC's to bring (ridiculously high/low) a cap to buy/sell prices.
Getting rid of Gold Farmers would do nothing to all but the oddest of MMO's.
Punishing players for trying to compete with other players who have been playing for YEARS is simply silly.
Fix the broken system before you ever try to fix the people who exploit it.
There you go.
LumTheMad = Jennings
Thanks. To answer that - I'd have to say that at first glance it might look like many people might not be up for such a thing. Certainly it would be better to go into a game working with such an economy in the first place as opposed to having it imposed upon you if you were used to something else.
Some marketing research would be done and the idea would have to be "sold" to the public as a positive thing. I think it's a radical idea and it hasn't been done. There may indeed be "collateral damage" to the economy if it was imposed and it changed an existing economy but - if the game world started this way, it would be a very interesting experiment.
I've never, ever seen transparency cause problems in my life; while I've seen the opposite (obfuscation of the facts and issues) cause a lot of problems.
I find "privacy implications" interesting in an online world. What privacy do we have? We're using another server, and all text we type could very easily be recorded, stored, etc. Records of every transaction we make could be easily made public. And who/what type of people would really care that much about privacy if they don't have anything to hide?
It's interesting to think about these things. I have a feeling something like this will be tried, someday.
The titel sums it up real well. I don't want money to have a say in my hobby. At least as little as possible. It is bad enough the gap between rich and poor widens in RL societies, it should stay out of MMORPGs, I say.
The thing is, that it is impossible to stop the farming inside currency-centric economies.
You have to remove the cause, not the effect, if you take away the economy's reliance upon currency and implement a trade for trade system, you can eventually reach a point where the gold farmers are really more like players than farmers.
Sure, they will have gear to sell for real worl money, but what can you do with that gear other than wear it if it's soulbound? I don't think it's a dirty profit and I don't think that people will be put out any if a system deliberately designed to not accomodate such a means of generating profit is ever implemented in an MMO.
I don't think I've seen any people trying to sell gold in Monster Hunter Frontier. Because it's an exchange based transaction style system.
Part of the problem is the companies are so reluctant to ban and then don't tell anyone anything specific.
I mean, it's really nice that Blizzard said they banned X accounts last week. What server? How many per server? How much gold was recovered? That's like saying "cops caught 100 criminals last week", doesn't tell you anything, doesn't make you feel better and doesn't help with crime.
This is probably why so many companies refuse to refund subscriptions paid. If they ban a spammer account, the spammer can't just get his money back by whining to Visa. Since it clearly states in the EULA or TOS that if you do this you get banned, and you clicked "I Agree", Visa legally wouldn't be obligated to refund your money. It's like if you buy a car that is sold "AS IS" and it breaks down a week later, try telling me the bank would just forgive your loan. Riiiiight.
Another problem is MMO's are international. The way the Chinese internet is set up there is a lot of proxy use so you usually can't ban by IP address. The farmers use that to their advantage to avoid detection.
You really need to clamp down hard on gold farmers or else they'll spread like a virus and then you have 10X the work to do to try and get rid of them. Ban the account once, if Joe Spammer makes another account and spams again, ban that credit card. Continue until the spammer has no more recourse and goes under.
If a company bans me after I payed $15 for a month of service, then I am legally obligated to get my money back because they're liars.
A EULA or TOS in no way states nor has any legal power to state that they can keep your money AND ban you.
It merely states that they CAN ban you. But if they do, they owe you because they broke THEIR agreement that is bound by money, not powerless "agreements" that have no real legal power.
Besides, any lawsuit that happens will immeditely result in a refund of money, because it's cheaper to spend $15 than it is for even one second of a lawyer, to see a judge, or even forward an email to someone that actually matters..
Totally wrong.
Visa do not care about ToS / EULA.
Do you seriously think Visa are going to employ several teams of lawyers (possibly in several countries) to check the EULA / ToS legality in both countries and check if the ban was valid?
No.
Besides the EULA / ToS is between the customer and merchant - nothing to do with the CC Association.
The CC Assoc has a contract with the merchant and another with the CC holder.
They will ask one question "Is the customer getting what they paid for?"
If the answer is "No." then it's "Give the money back.
If the MMO company then wants to take the Player to court (to recover costs of the backcharge) then that is up to them. Nothing to do with the CC Assoc.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
Lets not forget, that ALOT of people woould not be playing MMO's if they cant buy "ingame currency". Therefor there is a NEED for gold farmers, they keep alot of people from quitting there MMO!!!
Totally wrong.
Visa do not care about ToS / EULA.
Do you seriously think Visa are going to employ several teams of lawyers (possibly in several countries) to check the EULA / ToS legality in both countries and check if the ban was valid?
No.
Besides the EULA / ToS is between the customer and merchant - nothing to do with the CC Association.
The CC Assoc has a contract with the merchant and another with the CC holder.
They will ask one question "Is the customer getting what they paid for?"
If the answer is "No." then it's "Give the money back.
If the MMO company then wants to take the Player to court (to recover costs of the backcharge) then that is up to them. Nothing to do with the CC Assoc.
Actually, it's Totally Correct.
Mythic Entertainment, well before they got bought out by EA, went to court over the legality of their TOS/EULA and how enforceable it is. Mythic won the suit as the other party settled out of court. Now, if they felt they had a legal leg to stand on they wouldn't of caved in to Mythic's suit. So the TOS is legally enforceable. This isn't just for MMO's either, many software companies have electronic contracts that you "sign" by clicking "I Agree" to before installation.
A TOS is basically a contract, you agreed to the contract therefore both you and the company have to abide by the terms of the contract. This is why sometimes after patches, the TOS pops up again and you have to click "I Agree". Something changed so the company has to make you aware of it and give you the option to opt out. However, subscription fees are non-refundable as always and are clearly stated that they are so. Basically, you bought the time and it's spent.
Visa would care about a TOS/EULA to the point that when you dispute a charge, they do an investigation. They will contact the company that charged you and inquire about the validity of the charge. Since you basically "signed" a contract with the company agreeing that fees are non-refundable and if you violate policy you could lose the account, Visa wouldn't be under obligation to refund you anything. Think of it this way, you bought a car marked AS IS and then it breaks down a week later, the bank isn't going to forgive your loan just because you can't use the car anymore.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
Actually, after talking to a few people from old guilds that actually tried to get refunds from Mythic, WoW/Blizzard, and Sony/EQ... they had VERY different experiences.
All three were gamers in America.
2 of the 3 used Visa and they were NOT refunded; their CC company said that they had broken their contract with the merchant. They were given the choice to sue the CC company and/or the merchant if they didn't like it. (Good luck!)
1 was refunded, no questions asked.
I have a feeling that the major thing that mattered in the question of American consumers, at least, was what your credit rating and how good of a customer were you? If you have a $10,000 credit limit and are never late, your CC company is going to try and treat you a little better. If you have a secured $500 credit card, good luck on that customer support...
Again, anecdotal evidence at best but I thought it was interesting.