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The end to farming threw the courts ?
*** finalElf, member of BD, wrote the following post to NCsoft regarding the farmer problem*****
My name is finalElf. I have been playing this game since closed beta, have been a clan leader since mid Chronicle 1, and I have a few things for you to hear.
I do not normally use this forum, preferring [censored], but it seems that perhaps the GMs actually read this, so I will post here.
I used to love this game. I played every day for 12-16 hours, as did all my friends. We were in Blue Dragons on Bartz. We played the game legitimately, going to Nurka each night to PVP (since there were no arenas), exploring the new areas, and wondering what it might be like to siege a castle.
But slowly things began getting perverted. People started comming to Nurka with Eminence bows back when an Eminence bow was more than even the highest level character on the server could afford (emergency).
It also became hard to hunt. Hundreds of people were showing up with rediculous names hunting for 24 hours a day. None spoke english, and they all de-leveled every night in town. It became hard to find good hunting spots, since all the best ones were taken by them.
We later learned that these were "farmers". People from 3rd world countries that played this game to make cash in real life. They sold adena to companies like IGE. This adena in turn was sold to players in Lineage 2 for (at the time) $85 Dollars per Million.
In your Terms Of Service you specifically stated that selling adena for real life money is illegal. Everyone on the server KNEW who the farmers were. It was blindingly clear who they were and what they were doing, but they continued to farm by the thousands.
Another kind of rediculous rule that was never enforced was the "No Account Sharing" rule. The character ggThnx was level 60 when the average level on the server was 35. He was at one point a full 10 levels above the next highest player. He was able to do this because he was account sharing with 3 people. Yet... again... this person was not banned - despite his high profile and the fact that he was online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
ggThnx was not the only one account sharing. CCTV5 was account sharing since open beta. After ggThnx quit CCTV5 soon became the highest level character on the server. So not only was he violating the "No selling adena" rule, he was violating the account sharing rule, as well as one I am about to mention.
"No Third Party Programs"...
Is this a joke? For as long as I can remember 9 man parties of farmers have been auto following each other around town and in the field. It is obviously not auto follow, because the movements are perfectly in tune with the person being followed. No person could possibly play like that. The healers all heal at EXACTLY the same % each and every time. The buffs all happen in EXACTLY 1200 seconds. The patterns are blindingly obvious... yet... again: the same farmers that were doing in a year ago are STILL HERE.
EVERY legitimate player on the server was becoming incredibly frustrated by this. The laws set down by NCsoft specifically prohibited the type of behavior going on EVERY DAY. And not just with a few players. THOUSANDS of farmers from Talking Island to Oren were botting, account sharing, and selling adena.
*********************************************************************************************************************
So after countless petitions and an ocean of emails with NCsoft still not taking care of the problem, the players of Bartz decided to do something about it. We formed up a clan called everRed that was specifically designed to take out the farmers, botters, and major eBayers. We got donations from players on the character finalChild, and used those donations to equip perma-red characters to take out the infestation.
To continue the donations coming we made videos of everything we did. Here is the latest of about 15 total videos we have made over the course of 1 year:
http://ervideo.eclipsealliance.net/eR_Judgement.zip
In the last year farmers began making FARMER CLANS!!!!!!! That is CLANS ENTIRELY COMPRISED OF ACCOUNT SHARING, BOTTING, ADENA SELLING CHARACTERS. If this was not a blatant insult to the EULA, I do not know what was. Modern examples of these now massive farmer alliances are STROLL and LoveLineage2.
Our fight became harder and harder. The farmers all use L2Walker (the botting program), so they can see where we are before we get there. And since they all account share and bot, they are all very high level.
So to combat this we tried using their own tools against them. We downloaded a tool they use called L2Walker and tried using it to heal us during PK runs. That way we could see the farmers with the same tools they used to see us.
1 WEEK after we used the program, the character that was using it, isLove, was banned.
AFTER 2 YEARS OF FARMERS ACCOUNT SHARING, USING L2WALKER, SELLING ADENA, AND VIOLATING EVERY TERM IN THE EULA, THE PEOPLE TRYING TO STOP THEM ARE THE ONES THAT GET BANNED. UNBELIEVABLE.
*********************************************************************************************************************
What are we to do now? All our hunting grounds are taken by people who are obviously cheating. People that have NO regard for the rules that YOU designed. The game has come to the point that people don't look at a high level character with good gear as being a "hardcore" player, they look at him as someone who probably eBayed a ton of gear and paid for power leveling services.
*********************************************************************************************************************
So here is what we, the LEGITIMATE players of Lineage 2 in North America want. We want you to BAN every obvious farmer you see in TOI, DVC, Cruma, Giants Cave, Garden of Eva, Forgotten Temple, and EVERYWHERE else. Don't tell us you don't know who they are, because it is obvious. We can even give you EVERY FARMER ON THE SERVER'S NAME if you ask for it. We know who they are.
If you don't there are two things we intend to d
1. Stop making everRed videos. Alot of what keeps people playing is the inspiration our videos give them to play. Without those many people will lose interest.
2. Cancel all of our accounts (that's about $1000 per month in lost revenue right there.)
3. Post on all forums encouraging EVERY person to leave the game of Lineage II, and to play WOW or some other MMORPG.
4. Make videos of other games and post links on Lineage II forums everywhere, offering advice and step by step walkthroughs on how to sign up for these other games. And I GUARANTEE many will follow.
5. File a Class Action Lawsuit for preferential treatment of an ethnic group in your game as well as false advertising, breach of contract, and a few other obvious violations of your own policies. A legal team from Kiesel, Boucher & Larson, LLP, has already agreed that the case has merit. We will be asking for the full return of all monthly dues that we have been paying for the past two years, as well as damages if applicable.
http://www.kbla.com/
Please understand that after two years of grief and frustration, we consider these to be our only courses of action.
*******************************************************************************************************************
PLEASE take our advice. DO SOMETHING. We don't want to quit this game. We enjoy playing Lineage 2. We enjoy seiging castles. But we CANNOT continue to play this game as it is.
Sincerely,
The Legitimate Players of Lineage 2, North America
moderated, person information is not allowed...
*****AshNC of NCsoft replyied to the post as follows*****
AshNC
This thread is being locked as it has broken the following rules.
Conspiracy Thread
Doomsday Thread
Character Assassination Thread
I Demand Answers Thread
Legal Action Thread
As a general reminder to all our players, severe forum misconduct can lead to disciplinary action not only against your forum privileges, but against your game account as well.
- Ash
***** The post has now been removed from the NCsoft official forums, similarly, finalElf and all the people who replied to the post showing support for his comments have had thier Lineage 2 accounts banned permanently by NCsoft******
DISCUSS...
My name is finalElf. I have been playing this game since closed beta, have been a clan leader since mid Chronicle 1, and I have a few things for you to hear.
I do not normally use this forum, preferring [censored], but it seems that perhaps the GMs actually read this, so I will post here.
I used to love this game. I played every day for 12-16 hours, as did all my friends. We were in Blue Dragons on Bartz. We played the game legitimately, going to Nurka each night to PVP (since there were no arenas), exploring the new areas, and wondering what it might be like to siege a castle.
But slowly things began getting perverted. People started comming to Nurka with Eminence bows back when an Eminence bow was more than even the highest level character on the server could afford (emergency).
It also became hard to hunt. Hundreds of people were showing up with rediculous names hunting for 24 hours a day. None spoke english, and they all de-leveled every night in town. It became hard to find good hunting spots, since all the best ones were taken by them.
We later learned that these were "farmers". People from 3rd world countries that played this game to make cash in real life. They sold adena to companies like IGE. This adena in turn was sold to players in Lineage 2 for (at the time) $85 Dollars per Million.
In your Terms Of Service you specifically stated that selling adena for real life money is illegal. Everyone on the server KNEW who the farmers were. It was blindingly clear who they were and what they were doing, but they continued to farm by the thousands.
Another kind of rediculous rule that was never enforced was the "No Account Sharing" rule. The character ggThnx was level 60 when the average level on the server was 35. He was at one point a full 10 levels above the next highest player. He was able to do this because he was account sharing with 3 people. Yet... again... this person was not banned - despite his high profile and the fact that he was online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
ggThnx was not the only one account sharing. CCTV5 was account sharing since open beta. After ggThnx quit CCTV5 soon became the highest level character on the server. So not only was he violating the "No selling adena" rule, he was violating the account sharing rule, as well as one I am about to mention.
"No Third Party Programs"...
Is this a joke? For as long as I can remember 9 man parties of farmers have been auto following each other around town and in the field. It is obviously not auto follow, because the movements are perfectly in tune with the person being followed. No person could possibly play like that. The healers all heal at EXACTLY the same % each and every time. The buffs all happen in EXACTLY 1200 seconds. The patterns are blindingly obvious... yet... again: the same farmers that were doing in a year ago are STILL HERE.
EVERY legitimate player on the server was becoming incredibly frustrated by this. The laws set down by NCsoft specifically prohibited the type of behavior going on EVERY DAY. And not just with a few players. THOUSANDS of farmers from Talking Island to Oren were botting, account sharing, and selling adena.
*********************************************************************************************************************
So after countless petitions and an ocean of emails with NCsoft still not taking care of the problem, the players of Bartz decided to do something about it. We formed up a clan called everRed that was specifically designed to take out the farmers, botters, and major eBayers. We got donations from players on the character finalChild, and used those donations to equip perma-red characters to take out the infestation.
To continue the donations coming we made videos of everything we did. Here is the latest of about 15 total videos we have made over the course of 1 year:
http://ervideo.eclipsealliance.net/eR_Judgement.zip
In the last year farmers began making FARMER CLANS!!!!!!! That is CLANS ENTIRELY COMPRISED OF ACCOUNT SHARING, BOTTING, ADENA SELLING CHARACTERS. If this was not a blatant insult to the EULA, I do not know what was. Modern examples of these now massive farmer alliances are STROLL and LoveLineage2.
Our fight became harder and harder. The farmers all use L2Walker (the botting program), so they can see where we are before we get there. And since they all account share and bot, they are all very high level.
So to combat this we tried using their own tools against them. We downloaded a tool they use called L2Walker and tried using it to heal us during PK runs. That way we could see the farmers with the same tools they used to see us.
1 WEEK after we used the program, the character that was using it, isLove, was banned.
AFTER 2 YEARS OF FARMERS ACCOUNT SHARING, USING L2WALKER, SELLING ADENA, AND VIOLATING EVERY TERM IN THE EULA, THE PEOPLE TRYING TO STOP THEM ARE THE ONES THAT GET BANNED. UNBELIEVABLE.
*********************************************************************************************************************
What are we to do now? All our hunting grounds are taken by people who are obviously cheating. People that have NO regard for the rules that YOU designed. The game has come to the point that people don't look at a high level character with good gear as being a "hardcore" player, they look at him as someone who probably eBayed a ton of gear and paid for power leveling services.
*********************************************************************************************************************
So here is what we, the LEGITIMATE players of Lineage 2 in North America want. We want you to BAN every obvious farmer you see in TOI, DVC, Cruma, Giants Cave, Garden of Eva, Forgotten Temple, and EVERYWHERE else. Don't tell us you don't know who they are, because it is obvious. We can even give you EVERY FARMER ON THE SERVER'S NAME if you ask for it. We know who they are.
If you don't there are two things we intend to d
1. Stop making everRed videos. Alot of what keeps people playing is the inspiration our videos give them to play. Without those many people will lose interest.
2. Cancel all of our accounts (that's about $1000 per month in lost revenue right there.)
3. Post on all forums encouraging EVERY person to leave the game of Lineage II, and to play WOW or some other MMORPG.
4. Make videos of other games and post links on Lineage II forums everywhere, offering advice and step by step walkthroughs on how to sign up for these other games. And I GUARANTEE many will follow.
5. File a Class Action Lawsuit for preferential treatment of an ethnic group in your game as well as false advertising, breach of contract, and a few other obvious violations of your own policies. A legal team from Kiesel, Boucher & Larson, LLP, has already agreed that the case has merit. We will be asking for the full return of all monthly dues that we have been paying for the past two years, as well as damages if applicable.
http://www.kbla.com/
Please understand that after two years of grief and frustration, we consider these to be our only courses of action.
*******************************************************************************************************************
PLEASE take our advice. DO SOMETHING. We don't want to quit this game. We enjoy playing Lineage 2. We enjoy seiging castles. But we CANNOT continue to play this game as it is.
Sincerely,
The Legitimate Players of Lineage 2, North America
moderated, person information is not allowed...
*****AshNC of NCsoft replyied to the post as follows*****
AshNC
This thread is being locked as it has broken the following rules.
Conspiracy Thread
Doomsday Thread
Character Assassination Thread
I Demand Answers Thread
Legal Action Thread
As a general reminder to all our players, severe forum misconduct can lead to disciplinary action not only against your forum privileges, but against your game account as well.
- Ash
***** The post has now been removed from the NCsoft official forums, similarly, finalElf and all the people who replied to the post showing support for his comments have had thier Lineage 2 accounts banned permanently by NCsoft******
DISCUSS...
Comments
Ncsoft is trying to do something about it. Atleast HGMSPAM is. Well, I support this, but I hope I do not get banned lol. Okay, now send a HUGE list of all the people who should get banned to a gm(ask the gm you want to talk to hgmspam right now or something), give all botters and adena farmers. Also, everyone should do this for ALL servers not just Bartz because I do not play on Bartz and a lot of others do not either.
You have AMAZING videos. Where to find them again?
~Greatness~
Currently Playing:
Nothing
Aye there was always something wrong, almost like the farmers and NC were in cahoots. I remember those days, when getting ONE empty room to yourself in SoDA was a miracle. Only a few farmers would be nice to us, and they openly admitted to farming and selling adena, right there in the chat logs. Yet they never got banned...
Its really a shame, L2 is a great game and had huge potential, but your post is the exact reason why I (and so many others) left.
Ash is a jerk and always will be.
Hindemith is crawling with scum.
NC soft makes the same money off a farmer as they do a legitimate player.
Discourage the farmers and you are losing a large chunk of income.
I hate games that IGE is selling in game material for. I wish on of the games would file suit against ige.
IGE even advertises on THIS SITE and many many other sites.
The idea of most MMORPG's is to emulate real life in a fantasy way.
When some one gets adena or gold from some where out side the universe of the game, in exchange for something outside the universe of the game, its like money from thin air. Fair game play is something I treasure, I enjoy being better then some one else because I played better.
It is to bad that we are losing people like the guy who wrote that letter. He obviously cares about the game and the community. If Half the people playing now a days were like him, this game would probably be the best ever made. Like with most MMO's, the community makes it or breaks it. Unfortunatly, NCSoft is still a company, and yes, they are still making money off of anyone playing, even if they are botters. It doesn't make it right, but it does make it a lot harder for the legitimate players to file formal complaints. I dont ever expect anything to change on the managment side. It is going to fall on us to that the responsibility of dealing with this problem. Ive only been playing for 3 weeks and im already chasing after bots with one of my friends.
Keep up the good fight guys.
-Sean
wait till you accidently go red on one, then two or three more appear seemingly from just around the corner.
Part of the farmer botting scheme seems to be targeting players who will fight with them.
Dont worry. Been there, done that ;-)
If you get them down to a certain percentage they chase you (The melee ones anyways). Just get them away from the others or do your research as to which bots are being run by the same person/company.
Most of the time Botters hate other Botters as much as we do.
-Sean
BTW - Great discussion on the boards at the official L2 website. Be carful what you post though, as to that letter which was listed here seems to be a hot subject with the GM's.
I tried to tell everyone that L2 is bad for you in other posts till they fix the problems, but noone will listen.
Good write up and to all the other L2 Fans that didnt liste...I TOLD YOU SO!
I dont play *ANY* games from NCsoft anyway so my money is safe!
Nobody is perfect...My name is Nobody
~Greatness~
Currently Playing:
Nothing
[quote]Originally posted by Deadangel
[b]Ash is a jerk and always will be.
Hindemith is crawling with scum.
NC soft makes the same money off a farmer as they do a legitimate player.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
Dont be fooled its obvious that Farmers pay the Gms or NCSOFT for farming right now im farming in
Orc world on Bartz server and there are like 35 farmers running around with the best Ng gear an all using a D grade blunt OMGGGGGGGGGGG and they are all boting this is the worst ive ever seen it
NCSOFT even lets them port to the Hot spots on lvl 1 -20 u just port to the spot where varnish spoils fast near Dark elven village and where Grizzlies spoil animal skins and bone at the same time at orc island i know because ive been killing alottttt of bots its like a regualr thing when i wanna get a boost in my farming for my B gear
its like they run script i dont know how script works with portal ladies but it does they just port and i kill them again and again i didnt report them because ive been boting =X but thats not the point i only bot sometimes for materials and because i reroled 2 times and as u know this game take a longgg time to get rich and stuf
but chiniese farmers seems like are being allowd to farm by NC soft Both wow and eq2 banned mass cheaters i mean lin2 dosent realy ban farmers i always see the same ones for a longggggg time its crazy
I have really been itching lately to return to L2 simply because even though it was very hard to advance, I loved every aspect of the game, from the look of the Mobs, the overall highly stylized design of each race. The game had great atmosphere and it was the first game in ages that gave me a level of escapism that I have been looking for.
Can the player community do anything about this? Form Bot hunting parties? anything at all?
Current Games:
The bots also have more then one character, so if you happen to bother on while the owner is at one of his computers, soon enough a really high level, B grade wearing chump will gank you really quick.
Then there is the fact that a farmer/botter will get naked and fight a town guard to lower their current levels.
[b][i]WHICH MEANS KILLING THEM HELPS THEM! THEY WANT TO LOSE EXP SO POPPING ONE JUST MAKES HIM RUN BACK TO HIS SPOT WITH LESS EXP SAVING HIM THE TROUBLE OF KILLING HIMSELF LATER![/b][/i]
I won't deny the game had potential enzyme, but for various reasons, the game will stay as is.
Which in turn means a lot of bots/farmers for IGE and personal EBAYers.
Constantly being attacked and killed anywhere and every where by some Dagger or Mage that has gotten bored with leveling and decided to go pking.
One thing they could do is lower the over all PvP ability of Daggers and Mages while Naked...
I can't tell you how many times a guy with a dagger and nothing on pked me so fast I couldn't even think to heal myself. Great thing is even with a weak weapon most Daggers are doing around 400/500 or more damage with their specials and can spam them one right after another so fast you wouldn't be able to do anything.
I was really leaning towards giving L2 an actual shot, at least the free month but after reading this all those thoughts and feelings went away.
It's a same that the state of the game is like this.
i got a plainswalker to level 55(no small achievement), and then when i realized that the farmers botters and such were becominga huge problem for the lower players the first thing i did was make a perma red char to clense Elven fortress(major noob ground inhabited by farmers at teh time) and then i couldnt afford him, then i got fed up.
So when i got fed up i got really really pissed one night and took my level 57 plainswalker, adn went on a massive botter/farmer killing spree at ef. and ever since the char deleveled so many time i cant count, lost all money and equipment.
so i quit the game and went to WoW.
i know what ur feeling, i feel the only way they could be stopped is highly illegal adn would involve a "special" skill set.
if u think u know what i mean you know the solution isnt in game, but unfortunately i cant get involved in that sort of thing cus my dad would lose all his high end microsoft and solomon liscenses.
98% of the teenage population does or has tried smoking pot. If you''re one of the 2% who hasn''t, copy & paste this in your signature.
Sadly this has gone to trial already. IGE won. Their defence was based on 2 things 1)They do not handle the transactions, they are just a middleman between you, and the farmer; (You pay them, they pay a 3rd party, and the 3rd party does the transaction) and that since the companys intellectial propertys are still on the server, they have done nothing wrong.
Hopefully their will be another case that will have a differnce verdicts, but it still would not help much. I just don't see China, Romainia, Russia, or countless other countries where farming is a good job, helping us shut down virtial farming rings.
Actually I didn't think this had anything to do with IGE but more with NCSoft not holding up their own end of their own agreement while standing buy allowing others to violate it, giving unfair advantages to certain groups from certain countries, while ruining the experience of those that follow the rules and are paying customers. I don't think it's the selling of money, etc but that NCSoft allows it when they can actually stop it.
Kinda like you obey the law, someone breaks it and in clear view of a copy that knows the law yet that person doesn't get arrested. Meanwhile the person that tries to stop that person from breaking the law cause the cop won't do anything is arrested and punished instead for doing nothing but the right thing and upholding the law. So the person that got in trouble sues the copy and the state. At least that's how I think this situation is similar.
I was lucky enough to stumble across a dvd edition of the game, on sale for 15 bucks, I installed and re-opened my acct. I was lucky enough to meet a clan recruiter, so he helped me level to about 9, I am currently up to level 15.
I have been to soda and where the bots usually are there are none, after running around and checking some other areas, I haven't seen any. It looks like it has changed alittle, once I start getting to higher level areas, I think the problem might become apparent again.
For now though, I am very happy to be back. I am not going to let the farmers/botters ruin my time.
Current Games:
~Greatness~
Currently Playing:
Nothing
What servers are you on. If I do give it a shot, server might be a factor.
I am currently on the Lionna server, having a blast again.
I'm going to enjoy myself period, I am not going to let the bots/farmers get in my way.
Current Games:
~Greatness~
Currently Playing:
Nothing