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The answer to credit spammers: Warden program
Obraik
Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 7,261
Taken from the official forums:
We'd like to take this opportunity to thank you, our Star Wars Galaxies players, for your continued dedication to the game despite the unfortunate infiltration of credit spammers into our online world. We recognize that these individuals continue to negatively affect your in-game experience (and the in-game experiences of most other MMO's out there today). The credit spammer issue has been a growing concern for a while now, and we wanted to make sure you knew that your calls for action haven't fallen on deaf ears.
This is definitely not an easy problem to solve - which is why so many games continue to suffer from it. But, with the situation persisting in Star Wars Galaxies, we felt that we needed to start taking more -assertive action?so we began experimenting. Some of you may have noticed that when they can, our GM team goes into limited areas in-game and flags the credit spammer characters for PvP so that players can take out their aggressions on them. We saw how much you enjoyed this, and it convinced us that our next attempt to deal with situation needed to be another way we all could work together to combat the situation. We think that we've achieved that goal and would now like to introduce to you The Warden Program.
The Warden Program allows Galaxies players to apply to be voluntary in-game Wardens who have the ability to thwart the efforts of credit spammers and power levelers who are trying to sell their services. With the use of a simple command, a player in the program can target a spammer offering credits or power leveling services and squelch their ability to speak through all chat channels, spatial emotes, spatial chat bubbles and in-game mail for a period of 6 hours. Meanwhile, an automatic email will be sent to our Customer Support Team, who will follow up on each incident and take further action against the account of the spammer.
We will be putting this new program into play in approximately a week's time, but we're starting off slowly - with just a handful of pre-selected Wardens to test out the program. Then, once we're confident that the system is working effectively, we'll start adding players based on a desire to get involved and the application review and selection process. Our hope is to eventually have about twenty Wardens per server. We'd like to believe that this number of Wardens will be enough and that all of this will have a positive effect on the current spamming situation, but if doesn't, we're always open to trying new things.
So, if you want to join in the fight against credit and power leveling spammers, please feel free to apply. Keep in mind that you must be 18 years of age, have a game and message board account in good standing in order to be considered and you can't currently be a part of any other Star Wars Galaxies volunteer program.
We've compiled a FAQ below followed by instructions on how you can apply to become a Warden. Thanks again for your continued support and we hope you're interested in getting involved and giving those spammers the "silent" treatment!
DeadMeat
---------------------------
Warden Program FAQ
1. Who can participate in The Warden Program?
The Warden Program will start off slowly, with just a handful of Wardens per server to begin with. The initial Wardens will have been picked by Customer Support to help us test the system based on several criteria. Once we are ready to expand the program, anyone who is interested in battling the spammer situation and who meets the following requirements can apply:
-Must be 18 years of age
-Must have an active game account and message board account in good standing
-Must not currently be a part of any other Star Wars Galaxies volunteer program (The Senate, volunteer message board moderator, etc)
2. How are Wardens picked?
Once the program opens up, Wardens will be picked from those who apply based on player game history (marks against your account), server, time zone, play times, ability to follow directions and how the question supplied on the Warden application is answered.
3. How many Wardens are there on each server?
Initially, there will be a small number, but as soon as we feel comfortable with how the program is going, the ultimate goal is to have approximately 20 Wardens per server (from different time zones).
4. Is this a Guide Program?
No. It is completely unrelated.
5. What does the Warden ability allow me to do?
The Warden ability allows players to target a character in-game and execute a command that will silence (squelch) that player's chat, emote and in-game mailing abilities for a 6 hour time period. Executing the command will also send an automatic report to the GM’s who will review your action quickly, verify that the person you targeted was in fact a spammer, and then deal with the spammer account accordingly.
Please Note: You DO NOT need to send in a petition when you execute the Warden command.
6. As a Warden, what can I use my abilities on and what can I not use them on?
You may ONLY use your Warden abilities on characters that are spamming 1.) credits for sale or 2.) power-leveling for sale in exchange for real-world money.
You may NOT use your abilities in the following ways:
- On anyone NOT spamming credits/power leveling for sale in exchange for real-world money - especially not on friends as a joke. (We will be able to tell if you do this). This also includes NOT using the command on what you believe to be a Credit FARMER.
- To threaten or intimidate others - example: "I'm a Warden. You better do whatever I say or I'll freeze your ability to communicate."
- To silence valid in-game auctions. Be careful about this!
- To silence guild recruitment efforts of other players.
- On a member of the GM staff. (We already thought of this and your Jedi mind tricks won't work on us - but ours will work on you!)
It is absolutely essential that you NOT use your Warden abilities to silence people spamming racial slurs or displaying vulgar chat behavior of any sort. We encourage all players who witness these types of behavior at anytime to submit a petition regarding it. To do so, go to support.station.sony.com/petition and then click on the In-Game Support tab.
7. Why can't I use Warden abilities on a Credit FARMERS?
The command should not be used on what you believe to be a Credit Farmer because you do not have the ability to check account information in order to tell whether the account you are targeting is a genuine account or not. People you suspect are Credit FARMING with the intent to sell their credits for real money, should be petitioned in the normal manner by going to support.station.sony.com/petition and then clicking on the In-Game Support tab.
8. Are the actions of Wardens monitored?
Yes. Every use of the Warden command is logged and reviewed regularly by Customer Support.
9. What happens if I abuse the Warden ability?
Upon investigation, if you are determined to have purposely used the Warden command on anyone other than a credit or power-leveling spammer, you will be dismissed as a Warden and further action may be taken against you - up to and possibly including termination of your game account.
10. What happens if I make an honest mistake with the Warden command?
We recognize that this can happen. As a first defense against it, we have built in the ability to reverse the Warden command after you have used it on someone. This does not mean, however, that you can go around silencing and unsilencing others for fun. Customer Support will investigate every use of the Warden command and will easily be able to determine if this is occurring and whether or not it was an honest mistake. If it was intentional and you were just messing around, you run a high risk of losing your Warden status and having additional action taken against you.
11. Do I have any other responsibilities as a Warden?
Other than actually committing to use the ability, the targeting and squelching of credit/power leveling spammers for real world money is your only task - aside from being a regular player and enjoying the game, of course!
12. How much time in-game do I need to spend acting as a Warden?
That is up to you. While we will never make demands on you to act as a Warden for a certain amount of hours each week, or set a quota for the number of spammers you need to squelch, we do want to make sure that if picked as a Warden, you are spending some time acting as one.
With the amount of people who will want to participate, the only way to keep things fair is to check Warden accounts to make sure they are being utilized to some extent in order to help the community. If we see no action on a Warden account, we reserve the right to take your Warden status away and give it to someone who has been waiting for the chance to become a Warden.
13. If I'm picked as a Warden how long can I stay one?
If you are picked as a Warden, you can remain one as long as you like -- as long as you continue to execute the Warden ability and don't abuse your powers.
14. Who do I contact if I need to quit being a Warden?
If you need to step down from being a Warden for any reason, or you know that you will be away and not able to act as a Warden for an extended amount of time (and don't want us to tag you for inactivity), please contact us at galacticdefenders@soe.sony.com. Please be responsible about this so that others have the opportunity to become a Warden. In cases where you will be away for extended amounts of time, we may appoint an 'interim' Warden until your return.
15. Can I tell others that I'm a Warden?
Sure you can...but we'd like to stress that you shouldn't flaunt it or use it as a way to intimidate or threaten others (as mentioned before). If we get reports that you are doing this, action will be taken against you by our Customer Support Team.
16. Will players be able to recognize me as a Warden in-game?
Nope. Other Wardens will be able to recognize you as one and the GM staff will, but that's all.
17. What do I get for being a Warden?
You get the incredible satisfaction of knowing that you're making the SWG game world a better place by helping rid it of annoying spammers!
18. Can I ban accounts as a Warden?
Nope - that is not a power you have. Customer Support will be responsible for banning any account that warrants such action.
19. How do I apply to become a Warden?
You will need to send an email with some information included in order to be considered. Please see below!
20. How will I know if I get picked to be a Warden?
You will receive an in-game email from galacticdefenders@soe.sony.com welcoming you and giving you some detailed information including how to use your Warden abilities.
How To Apply:
Hint: It is important for potential Warden candidates to demonstrate that they can follow directions to a "T"..
Please compose an email to galacticdefenders@soe.sony.com
Make sure that "Warden Application" appears in the subject heading.
In the body of the email, list the following information:
1. Your real name
2. Age
3. Station account name
4. Server (pick just one please)
5. Character name on that server (the one that you want to have Warden status applied to – you may only have Warden status on ONE character)
6. Time zone you're in
7. Times and days you regularly play within your time zone.
8. Answer this question: Are you currently a part of any other Star Wars Galaxies volunteer program? (Yes/No)
Please answer the following question using between 200-300 words:
Why Do You Think You Would Make A Good Warden?
Thanks for applying! You will be notified if you are picked as a Warden or notified if you?re put on the back-up list.
Makes sense to me. An automated solution will work, but there's no way to make it perfect without limiting legit players plus as history shows us, anything automated can usually be worked around. I've already signed up for Chilastra 
Comments
VERY good idea... Hope more pick up on it
___________________________________________________
Anatomy of a Fanboi
This is you.
What a novel idea of outsourcing!
Outsource elements of customer service to the customers themselves and for no wage or compensation.
And that is why...
Conservatives' pessimism is conducive to their happiness in three ways. First, they are rarely surprised -- they are right more often than not about the course of events. Second, when they are wrong they are happy to be so. Third, because pessimistic conservatives put not their faith in princes -- government -- they accept that happiness is a function of fending for oneself. They believe that happiness is an activity -- it is inseparable from the pursuit of happiness.
Because promoting player involvement in a game is such a bad thing
People like to be involved in the game to help it out - that's why we have the Senate, volunteer forum mods (SWGmod0x) and now the Wardens. People also enjoy doing evil things to credit spammers 
Which is why it's volunteer - those that don't "like doing something they should be payed for" never have to worry about doing it.
Last night a few of us spotted something strange on some of the credit scammers, their text showed but all we could read was stuff like WERTEWREDSDA#!@$##$!@!##%^&&$##@#!@#@!$%%&RERSDSDRJERJREWRJ it still showed but was fun to see, allot of use really lolled about it, even tho it still remained spam, i'm sure the scammers wouldn't apriciatte that
Interesting concept there. If you get it Obraik, best of luck to you.
"If we don't attack them, they will attack us first. So we'd better retaliate before they have a chance to strike"
I think this is a cool plan!
This man has a point.
The problem has been, all along, that SOE is not willing to spend any of their money to solve problems in their game.
Having enough active GMs to deal with these issues in a timely manner cuts into Smed's hookers and booze budget.
And we can't have that.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
This man has a point.
The problem has been, all along, that SOE is not willing to spend any of their money to solve problems in their game.
Having enough active GMs to deal with these issues in a timely manner cuts into Smed's hookers and booze budget.
And we can't have that.
Mmmmmmm.....hookers and beer.........uuugughhguuughhhhhhh.
"Suddenly, thousands of Trekies whose heads are full of facts of things like the stardate when the Cardassians farted on Deep Space nine are irrlelevant." - hardcoremoviecritic
I think that it's something of an admission of desperation on the part of SOE that they're going to give select players these sorts of powers, which could very easily be misused. Aside from the using volunteers for police work aspect of it, instead of hrring more GMs/CSRs, it's a fairly bold step on SOE's part to consider granting these sorts of powers to players.
I think it will work, too, until some Warden takes a bold step outside the lines and SOE is faced with that particular problem. Granting broad powers to employees is much less risky because well employees have a solid reason not to abuse those powers. It's their job. Players, on the other hand, might get frisky, even with the rules and screening done on them to avoid that.
I do know that the credit sellers and powerleveling operations will not like this at all. But screw them.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
Yes, there is the risk that someone will abuse it...which is why if you read the OP you'd see that it's monitored by a GM. Worse comes to worse, it just means people can't talk for 6 hours.
Because promoting player involvement in a game is such a bad thing
People like to be involved in the game to help it out - that's why we have the Senate, volunteer forum mods (SWGmod0x) and now the Wardens. People also enjoy doing evil things to credit spammers 
Which is why it's volunteer - those that don't "like doing something they should be payed for" never have to worry about doing it.
I do understand that there will be people, and good people at that performing such jobs. But it is a job and there should be a compensation to it. SOE and LAE are corporations. Conducting volunteering work for commercial entities has some, snags to it; depending on the state corporate laws (but I guess there is some legal way around it).Now by compensation, there are a number of ways, for example as was done for EQ with Guides. Put in so many hours as a Guide and not be charged for one account for the month. Why not the same for SWG?
But I guess I answered that, because there will be people willing to do the work for no compensation.
Again, this is an excellent way to reduce the overhead and improve the bottom-line.
And that is why...
Conservatives' pessimism is conducive to their happiness in three ways. First, they are rarely surprised -- they are right more often than not about the course of events. Second, when they are wrong they are happy to be so. Third, because pessimistic conservatives put not their faith in princes -- government -- they accept that happiness is a function of fending for oneself. They believe that happiness is an activity -- it is inseparable from the pursuit of happiness.
I don't see it as a job, players have been asking how they can help to get rid of spammers and SOE delivered.
There are checks in place to avoid abuse so that's not going to be a problem.
All in all, I think it will be fun for players to have an active role in getting the situation taken care of, why cast it in a bad light?
Because promoting player involvement in a game is such a bad thing
People like to be involved in the game to help it out - that's why we have the Senate, volunteer forum mods (SWGmod0x) and now the Wardens. People also enjoy doing evil things to credit spammers 
Which is why it's volunteer - those that don't "like doing something they should be payed for" never have to worry about doing it.
I do understand that there will be people, and good people at that performing such jobs. But it is a job and there should be a compensation to it. SOE and LAE are corporations. Conducting volunteering work for commercial entities has some, snags to it; depending on the state corporate laws (but I guess there is some legal way around it).Now by compensation, there are a number of ways, for example as was done for EQ with Guides. Put in so many hours as a Guide and not be charged for one account for the month. Why not the same for SWG?
But I guess I answered that, because there will be people willing to do the work for no compensation.
Again, this is an excellent way to reduce the overhead and improve the bottom-line.
Well compensation for Volunteer's got UO into some legal things back in the day...
From 1998 till 2001 Ultima Online had 3 Volunteer staff's. The first (and what I was part of) was the Counselors, our job (and a thankless one at that) was dealing with Player Questions, or testing the waters if you will to see if a Game Master had to be called in. Like I said it was thankless in my mind, some of the questions could be really easy "Where did the Ore that I just used on a Forge go?" to insulting "omg u sux BRING BACK PRE-TRAMMEL" to really stupid "how do I put something into my bank box?" It was also fun to deal with Grief Players and Player Killers who you knew they where hacking and the like and having their friends tell you they didn't do anything wrong, and if their friend gets banned "we'll sue!" Counselors where also known as "Blue Robes" as we got a blue 'hooded' robe, that about half the time we'd here "can i have ur robe?"
Then we had the Seer's, now the job of the Seer's was to work with the Role Players and craft Role Played Events, do little one shot quests, or bigger quests to last a few weeks. Now the Seer's showed up in two ways, on their 'Seer Player' who wore a Green Hooded Robe (that they also heard half the time "omg can i have ur robe?") Or on a Role Played toon, the RP'ed Toon at first had items that where named rather then the plan old "Chainmail Shirt" and on that toon the Seer was in game the whole time. Later on EA gave us Purple Names... The other Volunteer staff I really forget who they where... Still the program got shut down in 2001 due to a few lovely little things....
The first big thing was when the Counselor program first got started EA gave them (I joined up in 2000 so before my time) the Counselor account for free. And at times would give them a free month, not all the time was my understanding. Anyhow EA stopped doing this and a few Counselors claimed that they should be getting free accounts for their work. So they ended up taking EA to Court over it.
Another was well a rumor running around, but when UO first got started there was a Game Master who was doing things that got him fired. Namely he was taking his GM Powers and putting up houses, making items, and one rumor was he befriended one of the known hacker/griefer/player killer guilds and gave them free run on the server, or that he was bribed into helping them out. Well the story broke on an old site called Lum the Mad, about how he was doing all of this, and selling all that stuff on Ebay. The rumor was a few of the Counselors where helping him out.
The other rumor had to do with AOL, at the time AOL and EA had hooked up and EA had their games network on AOL. Now for those of you that never got to try the old EA.Com games, you missed out. EA had a great poker setup, even better then some of the Poker sites around now. EA offered some fun games on it, and there was a Volunteer program on there. Along with AOL having one as well, anyhow something happen and AOL was being taken to Court over it. Add in the fact that the Dotcom boom had died out and EA was losing a ton of money. Still forgetting all the rumors and the like this is what happen... We got fired...
One day out of the blue we got called into IRC if we where home at the time. We where told that EA was trashing the programs and that our Seer or Counselor Accounts where blocked. It's kinda sad as us Counselors did help out, by taking care of most of the questions about the game it gave the GM's more time to go after Players that where hacking or griefing. The Seer's had it even worse as one of the UO Dev's had come up with a Quest idea known as 'Scenarios' that the Seer staff was going to be helping with, namely to keep it from being a fully NPC system... I should note that much like Trammel and later on the CU and NGE on SWG, the UO.Com forums where in full riot mode as well. The sad thing was some of the Pk's and Grief Players used us getting fired as ammo for their whole "bring back pre-trammel or classic servers!" The other sad thing was we had some great Players who where upset that got banned from both the forums and game over all of this.
To this day I believe EA fired all of us due to Volunteers being greedy. Volunteering means that your helping out and not looking for anything in return. However some felt that they should be rewarded for what they where doing, and I believe that's what killed a nice program.
So no there should be no compensation for the Warden program, and SOE should come out and remind Players that it is a 'Volunteer' program, not one where they will be given uber loot and the like.
I think its a good thing since SOE will not put the resources on this. The real issue here is that this is an "invasion". In the long run if the players "take care of business" they should get free subscriptions. But what next- private tells to all players online just like in WoW or Vanguard? The real solution is starting here in SWG- a player based system that controls the problem since SOE can't which is an illusion to the gold farmers reading our thread, They will find a way around it.
They send a tell- they get reported- hidfe and seek. Gold farmers should go back to the ebay and internet use only. Stop spamming games.
So again, why not offer something similar to the Guide Program for SWG?
And that is why...
Conservatives' pessimism is conducive to their happiness in three ways. First, they are rarely surprised -- they are right more often than not about the course of events. Second, when they are wrong they are happy to be so. Third, because pessimistic conservatives put not their faith in princes -- government -- they accept that happiness is a function of fending for oneself. They believe that happiness is an activity -- it is inseparable from the pursuit of happiness.
that's pretty sweet, i know there are always people who wanna help out the game they love to play. I don't see anything wrong with a volunteer deal its up to the individual if they wanna get paid for something or not, if they do they simply won't apply for this, nobody is forcing anyone to do it...doesn't EVE online do the volunteer thing also?
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
- Lewis Thomas
one part made me LOL.
GM's will watch the wardens actions quickly
what a joke, they take hours if not days to respond to a ticket but they suddenly would respond quickly to that... lol
Acutally, unless it's a weekend, it's rather unusual to have to wait more then 2 hours for an answer to a ticket. If you happen to be stuck, they're usually there to help you 5 mins after placing the ticket.
Kudos to you guys that keep trying to turn SWG around.
Unfortunately for me, this little "player police" feature is not enough to make me resub my 4 year old account that expired last month.
This and other obvious issues that arise all seem to keep on the same logic of a dog chasing it's tail. SOE hasn't learned yet to fix a problem it is best to start at the source. Whats the biggest source for credit farmers in SWG? It's those ancient little mission terminals that everyone seemed to have forgotten about. The lackluster "go to point Y, kill X amount of Z (see worrts,alkharan bandits,kreetles etc.) Those things still payout credits. Change that, becuase that is where the bulk of credit farming currency comes into SWG. Have them reward XP only, and good amounts of it.
Theres enough alterior methods to earn credits in SWG without using those terminals, and noone but credit farmers use them to gian credits. Most players can easily earn quanitified amounts of credits from the stroy quests and selling loot items. I seriously doubt that the farmers are going to use a full group of bots on the legacy quests to sell credits earned.
This goes back to the baseclubbing issues, and every other issue SOE has attempted to resolve. They don't fix the direct issue with a surgical tool. They fix it with a hammer and a blindfolded guy swinging it.
Baseclubbing...this was pointed out and brought up a very long time ago in 06' when the GCW system first appeared. WHat did they do? Nothing, they didn't even acknowledge the issue as communities tore themselves apart over whether this was cheating or not. SOE could have even helped by simply acknowledging the act as cheating and that woould have stopped some of it. They could have made bases reward points for defending them during thier vuln cycles, and make them "no trade" and made them much more staggered in being rewarded (instead of two types at LT, the rest at the next rank).
It's the constant re-occurence of how they acknowledge and deal with these issues that has caused me to fall from the fanboi wagon. There is a pattern and track record there, and "they keep trying" no longer satisfies me to hear.
Coming up on 2 years now with nothing new ingame to do. All that has been added in and tagged as "new content" is just the rehash of old systems ripped out by the NGE. The PBS, the GCW,Beast Mastery and the up and coming "Village". Its all old stuff, and while it may be exciting for the new players...for me its not anything that great to write home about. It wasnt even THAT good the first time it was around.
No new expansions or any new substantial content, nothing added to space at all in YEARS, GCW shuffled to the backburner yet again, no new 3rd faction (like promised at launch in 03 ), no new jedi frs system etc. Even the good ideas put forth by players in the rehashed "senate" are quickly shot down by the 3rd gen spokesman "greypawn, who hasnt even played the game for more than a month) with no recourse as to why or how.
Sorry for the rant, Good luck to you players out there that keep trying. July 03 till now, I think I am done for good and time to put this one to bed.
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I'd have to wonder how the people at SOE feel about this - I mean the people who are paid to do these kinds of things.
I've always believed that giving players the tools to control some aspects of creating content was a good idea, but I never thought about the other side of it. First it was finding abandoned structures and now tagging credit spammers. How much more will the players take on as content before someone at SOE loses their job? I know if it were me I'd be concerned with others doing my job for free.
I highly doubt the CSR's are going to be envious of people dealing with muting Credit Spammers. Especially since they get to do the more interesting part of actually banning the account
I highly doubt the CSR's are going to be envious of people dealing with muting Credit Spammers. Especially since they get to do the more interesting part of actually banning the account
I never said envious, I said concerned. It seems to be a new outlook at SOE, let's get our paying subscribers to do it rather then our paid employees. Now don't get me wrong. It's actually kinda of brillant if you can find people to do this for you but if it was my job at SOE to do this I would be concerned about my future there. Will this be the last of the "downloading" of work onto the playerbase? Personally I doubt it.
I highly doubt the CSR's are going to be envious of people dealing with muting Credit Spammers. Especially since they get to do the more interesting part of actually banning the account
Well, I consider a CSR's main job to be supporting players with their issues, such as items being lost, getting stuck, griefing, etc. These are all things they've been doing for years now. It's only in the last few months that they've been having to deal with credit spammers so it's only recently been added on to their job descriptions. Now that muting the spammers has been passed onto trusted players, they can fall back to helping people enjoy all aspects of the game as their main role like they used to. I don't think these other roles can be easily passed onto players so I don't think they have too much to worry aboutI never said envious, I said concerned. It seems to be a new outlook at SOE, let's get our paying subscribers to do it rather then our paid employees. Now don't get me wrong. It's actually kinda of brillant if you can find people to do this for you but if it was my job at SOE to do this I would be concerned about my future there. Will this be the last of the "downloading" of work onto the playerbase? Personally I doubt it.
I highly doubt the CSR's are going to be envious of people dealing with muting Credit Spammers. Especially since they get to do the more interesting part of actually banning the account
Well, I consider a CSR's main job to be supporting players with their issues, such as items being lost, getting stuck, griefing, etc. These are all things they've been doing for years now. It's only in the last few months that they've been having to deal with credit spammers so it's only recently been added on to their job descriptions. Now that muting the spammers has been passed onto trusted players, they can fall back to helping people enjoy all aspects of the game as their main role like they used to. I don't think these other roles can be easily passed onto players so I don't think they have too much to worry aboutI never said envious, I said concerned. It seems to be a new outlook at SOE, let's get our paying subscribers to do it rather then our paid employees. Now don't get me wrong. It's actually kinda of brillant if you can find people to do this for you but if it was my job at SOE to do this I would be concerned about my future there. Will this be the last of the "downloading" of work onto the playerbase? Personally I doubt it.
Or they could hire more staff to adjust to the changes in the industry.