Curse

savagehenry · Jul 16, 2007, 12:34 PM // 12:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Longasc

Yep. The price of GW gold has risen, too.
Are not the buyers the problem? More so than the bots?

Fact: There are more bots than ever, despite all attempts to stop them and the mentioned 300+ bans per day.

Fighting bots is a necessary thing, but it is also a fight that cannot be won. You also cannot stop people from buying GW gold. And as long as enough people buy ingame money with real cash, professional bot-farming won't die.

Indeed. Instead of banning 300 bots per day, ban 300 gold purchasers per day. When the demand goes away, the bots will as well.

bobrath · Jul 16, 2007, 01:55 PM // 13:55

Or... do the mafia style thing - follow the little peons around for long enough to find out who they hand their take off to. Then follow that money til you get to the top and do one massive "ban" on the entire organization.

Thunder79 · Jul 16, 2007, 02:19 PM // 14:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by savagehenry

Indeed. Instead of banning 300 bots per day, ban 300 gold purchasers per day. When the demand goes away, the bots will as well.

which one is easier to detect? Bots...you can detect bot like behavior pretty easily...with gold buyers all it is, is one person giving another person a large amount of in game money. You don't have any evidence other than the large sum that it was a gold for money transaction. How would they know it's not just two players transferring money...perhaps a person transferring money between accounts.

which one is impossible for Anet to prove without an outright confession? Gold Buyers.

How can they prove someone paid real money for their virtual money?
They can't...that cannot prove it unless they get someone saying they bought gold off ebay or from one of the major gold sellers. That's about the only way to prove someone bought gold...and without that proof...they can't ban. They don't control both sides of the transaction...so what would they do? Think about the problem a bit more and you'll realize that it's a lot more difficult to prove people are buying Gold than people are running bots. Follow them all you want...you still can't prove they paid money to that person for the in game gold....not without a confession.

They go with the obviously easy side of the equation...people generating the gold to sell.

From a business standpoint it's best to ban the botters and try to keep them in check...and leave the gold buyers alone. Botters will buy more accounts when banned...it's a business to them...and getting banned occasionally is a business expense. A player will probably move onto another game...which means the company loses business (while getting rid of a gold buyer is good for the game...it's not good for the company to lose that customer).

savagehenry · Jul 16, 2007, 02:39 PM // 14:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thunder79

which one is easier to detect? Bots...you can detect bot like behavior pretty easily...with gold buyers all it is, is one person giving another person a large amount of in game money. You don't have any evidence other than the large sum that it was a gold for money transaction. How would they know it's not just two players transferring money...perhaps a person transferring money between accounts.

which one is impossible for Anet to prove without an outright confession? Gold Buyers.

Detecting purchasers is more difficult than detecting bots. Not impossible, but more difficult (or labor intensive, anyway). How could it be done?

An anet representative buys some gold on the open market, and meets up with somebody in-game to take delivery. From that point forward, follow that gold seller and see who else they give large amounts of gold to. Those people (and the gold seller) are in violation of the TOS and can be safely banned. Does anet lose a customer? Yes. Is that customer's business worth keeping if it's driving all of the undesirable side effects of the real-money gold market (botting, account theft, etc)? I don't think so.

It's more labor-intensive than the mass-banning of bots, but more effective as well. Treat the cause, not the symptom.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thunder79

They go with the obviously easy side of the equation...people generating the gold to sell.

Like many things, the easiest solution isn't necessarily the most effective.

Thunder79 · Jul 16, 2007, 03:00 PM // 15:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by savagehenry

Detecting purchasers is more difficult than detecting bots. Not impossible, but more difficult (or labor intensive, anyway). How could it be done?

An anet representative buys some gold on the open market, and meets up with somebody in-game to take delivery. From that point forward, follow that gold seller and see who else they give large amounts of gold to. Those people (and the gold seller) are in violation of the TOS and can be safely banned. Does anet lose a customer? Yes. Is that customer's business worth keeping if it's driving all of the undesirable side effects of the real-money gold market (botting, account theft, etc)? I don't think so.

It's more labor-intensive than the mass-banning of bots, but more effective as well. Treat the cause, not the symptom.

Like many things, the easiest solution isn't necessarily the most effective.

guilt by association? That's how you prove someone paid outside cash for in game gold? That's not proof at all.

Why is it not proof? How can you prove that the person broke the TOS...all you can prove is that they got a large amount of gold from a known gold seller.

Here's a hypothetical situation about how a legitimate player can be banned going with that system.

Player A generates a large amount of money...let's say 1000k. He puts up an auction for half of it on Ebay. He then decides to help out a guild mate or someone he became friends with (Player B) by giving them some money to get a few sets of armor for several characters...say 300k (yeah generous...but who says it doesn't happen). Anet buys up the 500k off of ebay then follows the gold seller and witnesses him giving 300k to his friend...they can't prove that the person paid money for it...but under your system his account would be banned due to guilt by association. Should Player A be banned? absolutely...Gold Seller...easy to prove. Should Player B be banned? No...they simply got a gift from a friend.

Guilt by asscociation...which is what your system is...is a slippery slope...do you seriously want them to go down that path?

should gold buyers and sellers be banned? yes....but personally I want Anet to have proper proof that someone is buying and selling gold before taking out the ban stick. Otherwise we'll see more "My account got banned for no reason" posts on the boards. I don't want to be one of those people who gets accused of something I didn't do just because Anet didn't have the proof to back it up and hit the ban button a bit too readily.

TheRaven · Jul 16, 2007, 03:04 PM // 15:04

I agree that something needs to be done to educate the gold buyers. I truly think that most of the gold buyers don't realize that it's against the rules and could get them banned. Yes, I know it's clearly stated in the EULA, but honestly, how many of you actually read that thing. You click "i agree" and start playing that really cool awesome game you just installed 2 minutes ago and can't wait to see.

This weekend I was on TS chatting with some guys in my guild when a little kid in the guild (about 11-12 years old, I'd guess) joined us and started whining non-stop about how little gold he had. He said he had only 14g in storage and really wanted a key. He begged and whined for 2 hours that he didn't know how to earn money ingame.

We tried to help him, short of giving him handouts. He had made it to Thunderhead Keep (thru runs) and really did not know how to play the game at all. He went from begging for 500g for a key to begging for 10k for lockpicks when someone in our group got a nice Sephis Axe drop.

He let up when he saw a goldbot advertising 100k for $8 in a town. He immediately jumped on the deal. Ooooh, only $8. Wow!!! Cool!! I get $10 in allowance each week, I can get 100k EACH WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'M RICH!!!!!!!!!

We set him straight on that idea right quick, but I think he still went ahead and bought. He said since we weren't giving him handouts the goldseller was the only way to earn cash.

This is your typical goldseller customer. Kids that don't know any better, or players that just plain stink at the game and figure the only way to earn cash is to buy it. After all, they reason that everyone else does it.

I think a nice big announcement on the login screen stating that buying ingame gold for real cash is against TOS and will get you banned would go a long ways towards helping the problem.

Thunder79 · Jul 16, 2007, 03:35 PM // 15:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheRaven

I think a nice big announcement on the login screen stating that buying ingame gold for real cash is against TOS and will get you banned would go a long ways towards helping the problem.

I think that would help...no doubt with the increase of people complaining that they can't make money with loot scaling....there was probably an increase in people buying gold. I would bet the people most likely not to realize that buying gold is against the TOS are teenagers...and they have the most disposable income assuming they have a part time job and their parents pay their bills. So they have the extra cash to do stuff like buy gold..

lucifer_uk · Jul 16, 2007, 03:44 PM // 15:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Longasc

Fighting bots is a necessary thing, but it is also a fight that cannot be won. You also cannot stop people from buying GW gold. And as long as enough people buy ingame money with real cash, professional bot-farming won't die.

I know someone personally who has purchased gold before (when it was cheap) and I don't think any worse of him.

Unless someone can correct me as far as I know ANET make a profit from the account purchases each time they ban a bot and the seller has to buy a new account?

So banning hundreds of these bots daily is in the interests of ANET to keep the game balanced and they still make a profit on all the accounts banned.

savagehenry · Jul 16, 2007, 03:44 PM // 15:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thunder79

guilt by association? That's how you prove someone paid outside cash for in game gold? That's not proof at all.

Why is it not proof? How can you prove that the person broke the TOS...all you can prove is that they got a large amount of gold from a known gold seller.

Here's a hypothetical situation about how a legitimate player can be banned going with that system.

Player A generates a large amount of money...let's say 1000k. He puts up an auction for half of it on Ebay. He then decides to help out a guild mate or someone he became friends with (Player B) by giving them some money to get a few sets of armor for several characters...say 300k (yeah generous...but who says it doesn't happen). Anet buys up the 500k off of ebay then follows the gold seller and witnesses him giving 300k to his friend...they can't prove that the person paid money for it...but under your system his account would be banned due to guilt by association. Should Player A be banned? absolutely...Gold Seller...easy to prove. Should Player B be banned? No...they simply got a gift from a friend.

There are probably other indicators to look for, but without being (or observing) a gold seller I don't know what they are. Anyway, I doubt that most gold sellers are in guilds and actively play (other than collecting cash from bots and distributing it to other players).

Besides, there's already a mechanism in place for people who feel they've been falsely banned. This shows two things: the current system of bot-banning Whack-a-mole also suffers from false positives, and a 'permanent' ban isn't necessarily permanent if you've been falsely banned.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thunder79

Guilt by asscociation...which is what your system is...is a slippery slope...do you seriously want them to go down that path?

If they're going to hand out bans (some of which are false-positives), I'd rather they be punishing buyers (whose demand creates the problem) than bots (which are very easy to identify, but which doesn't actually address the problem).

Without access to anet's end of the game, I don't know exactly what other signs differentiate a gold buyer from somebody who merely benefits from another's generosity, but I suspect that they exist. Hell, some buyers probably immediately go onto guild chat and say something like 'I JUST BOUGHT GOLD LOL!'.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thunder79

should gold buyers and sellers be banned? yes....but personally I want Anet to have proper proof that someone is buying and selling gold before taking out the ban stick. Otherwise we'll see more "My account got banned for no reason" posts on the boards. I don't want to be one of those people who gets accused of something I didn't do just because Anet didn't have the proof to back it up and hit the ban button a bit too readily.

I guess it depends on what your definition of 'proper proof' is. Since anet doesn't (and shouldn't) have access to people's credit card records, etc, proving that they paid cash to a gold seller at the same time they received a lot of gold in-game is impossible, but I believe that there are signs to look for that would flag a transaction for closer examination. That, combined with a mechanism by which wrongfully banned people can get their banned lifted, is what I'd like to see.

Hoyt · Jul 16, 2007, 03:48 PM // 15:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aphraelyn

ANet should re-enable bodyblocking in towns...QQ

Probably won't happen but if it did...would be pretty interesting with what you could do to screw up bots, huh?

I had the same thought when I saw the deluge.
*evil laugh*
What fun could be had!

Thunder79 · Jul 16, 2007, 03:51 PM // 15:51

yeah if they had a better system to get your account unbanned when falsely accused then I probably wouldn't mind a guilt by association system...because it would be an inconvenience but at least there's a known way to get your account back. Right now we have no idea if there is truly any hope of getting your account back once you've been falsely accused of something.

lucifer_uk · Jul 16, 2007, 04:02 PM // 16:02

Personally when it comes to people's accounts I think we should be running a innocent until proven guilty system.

Its easy to prove botting and the ban guilty accounts in question.

As someone said before... There is no way to prove conclusively that someone purchased gold.

assassin_of_ni · Jul 16, 2007, 04:09 PM // 16:09

just a suggestion though it may never work it could still be a great idea.

why not employ a few people in the GW community with the ol' ban hammer and allow them to take a whack at a few of these botters? of course give them some form of moderation so they cant just go in and rage ban an entire guild cause they hold HoH too long or something. im fairly certain a large chunk of people in the forums would do it and more than likely for free (i sure as hell would). it would easilly double, triple, or increase the ban power of these bots exponentially (depending how many "support" people are "popping their heads in" and banning "300 bots a day") but again it shall probably never happen =(

Molock · Jul 16, 2007, 04:16 PM // 16:16

There are a lot of MMO's that simply tag a whole bunch of people.. then after a month they issue a massive ban. Some games have reached 30 000 accounts banned. That is something bot users can't ignore...

Anyway, the problem is bothering me more now because the bots are in the American districts instead of only being in the international district.

lucifer_uk · Jul 16, 2007, 04:16 PM // 16:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by assassin_of_ni

just a suggestion though it may never work it could still be a great idea.

why not employ a few people in the GW community with the ol' ban hammer and allow them to take a whack at a few of these botters? of course give them some form of moderation so they cant just go in and rage ban an entire guild cause they hold HoH too long or something. im fairly certain a large chunk of people in the forums would do it and more than likely for free (i sure as hell would). it would easilly double, triple, or increase the ban power of these bots exponentially (depending how many "support" people are "popping their heads in" and banning "300 bots a day") but again it shall probably never happen =(

The only people trust worthy enough to be given those powers are getting paid for their trust worthiness.

In short. Its never gonna happen.

fgarvin · Jul 16, 2007, 05:27 PM // 17:27

[sarcasm]With the infinite amount of time we all know ANet has[/sarcasm], they can set up a sting by creating a mock web-page, selling gold, and then ban anyone who buys some. (returning the money, of course)

That would be awesome.

assassin_of_ni · Jul 16, 2007, 05:50 PM // 17:50

the only other "real" solution to the bots would probably require lots and lots of work from the dev team and whoever works with a-net in their programming. and even more so im not even sure if its possible to be done or whether or not it is being done im not a programmer and wont assume to know the first thing about it =P

of course i mean some form of 3rd party detection system. now correct me if im wrong but i think there is some form of a 3rd party program detection system since using 3rd party programs is against the eula im sure theyde have some sorta way to back this up (if not it'd be like kidnapping someone with a candy bar). but what im suggesting would hafta be an improved 3rd party detection system that reports or even temp bans any accounts or IP addresses using one that directly effects GW in terms of macro's or other things of that nature. and something that was suggested earlier was making instance areas signs unclickable.....readable on scroll over sure but not able to be selected and auto targeted. im sure that wont hurt the player base nearly as much as loot scaling and trying to cut bots off by the testicles that way =P

bobrath · Jul 16, 2007, 05:57 PM // 17:57

From memory with some of the various FPS I've competed in, the problem for 3rd party detection software is that it becomes an ongoing arms race between the two sides with the majority of players left screaming in the middle. If you want to play, you have to be running the latest "good side" software. Sure the streaming content of GW might go a long way to removing the hassle of always upgrading to be right... but then you have to realize that any developer/designer/support time spent on this 3rd party detection software comes at the expense of bug fixing, game development, and all the other Good stuff.

TheRaven · Jul 16, 2007, 07:23 PM // 19:23

We all know about "account marks". It should be a simple task for A-Net to flag an account that makes a one-sided trade of 100k. (Trade 100k to a player for nothing in return). Once that account makes X number of these trades, it goes onto a report that an Anet employee reviews for possible ban.

Who knows? Perhaps they already have such a report.

Diddy bow · Jul 16, 2007, 08:15 PM // 20:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheRaven

I think a nice big announcement on the login screen stating that buying ingame gold for real cash is against TOS and will get you banned would go a long ways towards helping the problem.

exactly look how effective it was when the chat channel rules were changed.