Curse

Snow Bunny · Mar 02, 2008, 01:28 AM // 01:28

Except that you allow the gold sellers to remain, especially the ones spamming RA/Balth Temple because that allows you to pinpoint who they sell to, right?

Terra Xin · Mar 02, 2008, 01:37 AM // 01:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by hurdlebeast

I dunno if anyone brought this up, but:

What about the taxes involved in RMT? I mean if i sit on my comp all day, farm with a few other people, and sell those things over the game for cash (not through an online site or anything, just straight up P2P) isn't that considered a source of income?

Just a thought...

yes. It depends on how the IRD or others tackle it. If you're a legal company then you 'must' pay tax. I haven't been to any of the goldseller's websites, but they should have an 'about' page or just look up whois to see who registered the web space.

Fril Estelin · Mar 02, 2008, 08:28 AM // 08:28

Hi everyone,

I've been trying to keep up with this thread, but the answers are a bit too rich and diversified. Thanks for every1's participation!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Biostem

One last suggestion I would like to make would be to remove the restriction on the report function that the person you're reporting has to be in the same district as you. There have been times where I've been looking for a team in a major town, and started to receive a flood of whispers for gold selling sites, but couldn't report a single one because they were in different districts...

It's been done 2 days ago:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10261433
* Fixed a bug with the /report function to give an error message when attempting to report a character that is no longer in the district.

Thanks to Gaile for Mike's article, it shows how right Anet was from day one (it's funny to read the PvM acronym which is no more used). It's brilliant if a wiki page is dedicated to the topic, as I feel that updated information would greatly help. Just for everyone to read it, here's Mike take on RMT 3 years ago (the sentence that I highlighted is actually very similar to the recent message that Blizzard sent, see the OP):

Quote:

The third issue, which is quickly becoming the biggest threat to the game’s economy, is companies that farm gold and items professionally and sell them for real-life cash. These companies hire large teams of people, often working in sweatshop-like conditions for very little pay, to play Guild Wars for many hours a day in order to rake in gold and items. The workers aren’t bots but they farm gold in similar ways, using very specific character builds to kill very specific monsters, running the same path and killing the same monsters hundreds of times each day, doing whatever exact sequence of actions their employer has determined is currently the most effective way to earn a lot of gold per hour. They then turn over what they’ve farmed to their employer, who sells the gold and items to other players for cash.

It creates a vicious cycle. If a player buys 1000 platinum pieces for real-life cash, and then uses that in-game wealth to make high bids for items in order to acquire all the rare items he wants, then in doing so he drives up the price of items in the game, causing other players to feel that they too need to buy gold in order to keep up.

Selling in-game items for cash is clearly against the terms of service, and engaging in any farming or storage activity that assists other people in selling in-game items for cash is also against the terms of service. If you're farming gold or items for someone who sells them for cash, you need to stop now. We are currently gathering data, and when we take action it will be to close entire networks of accounts at once: those used for farming, those used for storage, and those used for distribution. Buying in-game items for cash is also against the terms of service, so for those of you engaging in this practice, please understand that you're not only hurting the game in a way that makes it less fun for you and everyone else, but also risking getting your account permanently banned.

Of course, the number of players who engage in any of these activities -- farming exploits, using bots, selling or buying in-game items for cash –- is very small relative to the total player base. At ArenaNet we play the game just like you do, so we know that for most of you, gold is a precious commodity that you work hard to attain. In fact, our statistics show that 50% of all active accounts have fewer than 10 platinum pieces, and 75% of all active accounts have fewer than 20 platinum pieces. So when we make small tweaks here and there to keep the economy under control, please understand that we’re not trying to make the game harder for the average player. We work hard to understand how normal players play and how extreme players play, and then find just the minimal changes necessary to keep the economy healthy and fair.

Just in case, I'd like to mention again that the OP was about MMO companies joining forces against RMT companies. Don't you think that it'd be a natural thing to do, even if some companies consider legalising RMT in their games (but it then becomes their own business and it's no longer the kind of RMT we're talking about here)?

enter_the_zone · Mar 02, 2008, 08:44 AM // 08:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snow Bunny

All that credit card wars do is give an advantage to bored older players and adolescents with mum and dad shelling out notes to make their kid happy.

It automatically puts those with less disposable income at a disadvantage, which is a terrible idea to implement.

Except that the system that many of us are discussing gives you no effective advantage over anyone since it only consists of customized weapons and armor (all non-salvageable) which already exist in the game. How does that affect anyone else's game? Especially if, say, elite armor costs £30 in the store? Not many people would pay that. We've even proposed a dual server-farm system where chars who have items from the RTM can't traverse to the non-RTM servers (though just making their RTM items unequippable on the non-RTM servers would do, as well)

Currently, the game is biased to those who have a lot of free time to farm, so how does making things available in the store change anything except that. They can still get that stuff that way, I know I would.

Remember, these are vanity items, nothing more. There is no "advantage" in having them, which is why I, and many others, don't bother.

Sings : "That's what greens are for"

Stockholm · Mar 02, 2008, 02:50 PM // 14:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Terra Xin

yes. It depends on how the IRD or others tackle it. If you're a legal company then you 'must' pay tax. I haven't been to any of the goldseller's websites, but they should have an 'about' page or just look up whois to see who registered the web space.

All they have to do is have the web page based in a TAX Free Country, and a bank account in same country. (Switzerland, Luxembourg, Cayman Islands etc.etc)

Fril Estelin · Mar 04, 2008, 06:19 PM // 18:19

Is the micropayment option, that is heralded by many as the future of MMOs, one way of putting RMT under the control of the MMO company?

And if so, will there be an economic war on the price of virtual currency (between the MMO company and the parasitic RMT companies)?

And one last attempt and I won't ask again: shall the MMO companies join forces against the RMT companies?

X Ice Man X · Mar 04, 2008, 06:26 PM // 18:26

No they shouldn't because all it will result in doing is pushing up their costs, which will then be changed into charging us (more) money and will punish the real people playing the games more than any gold selling company

Cacheelma · Mar 04, 2008, 06:32 PM // 18:32

See my comment regarding games with micro-payment above.

enter_the_zone · Mar 04, 2008, 06:37 PM // 18:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

Is the micropayment option, that is heralded by many as the future of MMOs, one way of putting RMT under the control of the MMO company?

And if so, will there be an economic war on the price of virtual currency (between the MMO company and the parasitic RMT companies)?

And one last attempt and I won't ask again: shall the MMO companies join forces against the RMT companies?

I find it difficult to believe they could join forces effectively against RMT companies without massive expenses.

As an example of what happens when big companies in a specific arena try to work together, look at the HD-DVD /BluRay saga. Both of those products were spawned out of a IEEE committee trying to define a single standard for next gen DVD.