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Idea to prevent the selling of in game money
Talinguard
Member UncommonPosts: 676
I had a thought, why don’t the devs simply create characters and offer to buy from anyone advertizing to sell money. Whoever shows up to exchange it, there accts are tracked and billed back the amount they sold the money for. Then the devs can turn around and destroy the money in question?
I’ve never bought money in game, so I admit I’m not sure how the exchange works but it would certainly make money farming much less lucrative. The game companies would simply charge the credit cards of the players in question (unless they are using another form of payment).
Just a thought…..
Presentation for new MMORPG economics concept http://www.slideshare.net/talin/mmo-economics-concept-v-10
Comments
Easier way is to make money no drop. Use money to pay for repair bills and items from vendors. But use a barter system to trade items instead. You could even configure an "Auction House" to be an advertisement for certain items wanted and items offered that way you can "purchase" something by offering the item wanted. It helps to build community as well since you then need to work with others to find the items you need and work out multiple person trades.
While it isn't as convienent as using cash it would sure kill the gold farming business. The reason it doesn't get done though is because companies like Blizzard don't want to stop it. They "get rid" of just enough accounts to keep their regular customers happy but they aren't going to massively ban farming accounts.
Come on who honestly believes that World of Warcraft (4 years after release) is still a top 10 selling game because new regular customers are coming into the game. What keeps them happilly selling copies are the gold farming companies. That is who is buying copies every month.
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
I dont think at all that companies would not get rid of it. They have no advantage from goldselling themselves. Quite on the contrary, because of the way goldsellers work, they suffer losses. For example, SOE recently reported they have to pay the banks MILLIONS PER MONTH thanks to goldsellers who work with illegal techniques.
The world has a whole is full of ignorant people and will always be so until you people wake up and realize whats going on. There are 3 main types of Companies for game development; Development based, Code based, Production Based. The problem is its all the dollar. I remember back when blizzard was one of the racist game developers....in a good way. I liked their sarcastic semi-adult humor and then.......They sold out! They don't love gold farmers....They need them. I played WoW beta and on. It was nice when for about 6 months there were active hacking gold farmers SOLOing DM in the mid 40's. Thanks to Bubba's Game Hack....The teleport feature was very accessible and they didn't care. Blizzard let them hack and whore out their game to build up their own economy...but why? Well many months later was the famous "10k hacker accounts" banned.....Funny thing is after that...they were still there farming away. Only to lead to the reason.....
And to the guy above me....Sony(SOE) is one of the biggest Production style companies throwing so many products poorly made, tested....I honestly hope they do lose money but unfortunatly the ONLY way it would cost SOE money is if hackers raped their bandwith causing their backbone prices to skyrocket.......If that didn't happen then they are full of it....I seroiusly doubt that many of the people working for SOE even are gamers...Entertainment wise you don't have tennis players playing football so keep the non gamers out of game programming and let them stick to apps.
Blizzard Sues Gold Farmers
The fight against gold farmers, and the in-game spam they send to advertise their wares, continues in World of Warcraft. Blizzard has announced that they are sueing the operators of Peons4hire, one of the more popular gold-selling organizations in the game. The latest patch for the game also included a number of countermeasures which have proven quite effective. They've added convenient ways to report spam, improved the ignore function, and put serious limitations on chat and mail access for trial accounts.
So they add chat spam protection.....Good thing all spam is now done on trial account for advertising and if you go to any major city you will see it.
Now they ended up dropping their suit cause Blizzard's Multi-Million dollar mega giant realized that the kids in the garage didn't justify their legal fees...Great way to be a little succubus of a buisness and try and sue people making a profit because instead of stopping them your trying to make a buck.
And you remember no one at blizzard cares about the game as a Development Company its simply a Production...A monthly paycheck....
Last side note....It is funny that the most offensive thing according to the blizzards TOS for a signal action is to insult someones sexuality. Make you wonder who took over their PR department after the buyout....well not really.
There is nothing that can be done to stop people with too much time and not enough money exchanging with people who have too much money and not enough time.
Easier way is to make money no drop. Use money to pay for repair bills and items from vendors. But use a barter system to trade items instead. You could even configure an "Auction House" to be an advertisement for certain items wanted and items offered that way you can "purchase" something by offering the item wanted. It helps to build community as well since you then need to work with others to find the items you need and work out multiple person trades.
While it isn't as convienent as using cash it would sure kill the gold farming business. The reason it doesn't get done though is because companies like Blizzard don't want to stop it. They "get rid" of just enough accounts to keep their regular customers happy but they aren't going to massively ban farming accounts.
Come on who honestly believes that World of Warcraft (4 years after release) is still a top 10 selling game because new regular customers are coming into the game. What keeps them happilly selling copies are the gold farming companies. That is who is buying copies every month.
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First let me say, I don't support the economic systems in place and have gone so far as to create a presentation outlining the current state of the MMORPG economy as a whole, poking holes in it.
Read it here: www.slideshare.net/talin/defining-the-current-state-of-the-mmog-economy/
However, the barter system is not the answer either, instead of getting into detail, I suggest reading this article en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_coincidence_of_wants.
Barter systems are to cumbersome, most people will simply leave and look for new systems in other games.
Developers need to re-address the problem of money. It is supposed to be a medium of exchange, unit of account and a store of value. While it meets the criteria of a medium of exchange and unit of account, it is a poor storer of value. This is because the amount of new money introduced into the games economy is determined by the number of players and their desire to earn money (as all new money comes from NPC's). These are the "faucets" that add money to the system. Developers create systems to remove money. All money paid to non players are systems to remove money. These are called "Drains" (sorry, you probably know this already, but just for those who don't).
As players bring more and more wealth into the system relative to the number of active players causes inflation. This affects the average and casual player because they cannot keep up as the money earned from NPC's is fixed. The only solution I know of that developers have created to solve inflation is to introduce new content and more powerful items. This makes many current items obsolete and players simply go back to playing the game (instead of each other). This really proves that it's the items that have value, not the currency used t buy them.
There are a few solutions; developers need to control the supply of money, not the removal. Right now developers are creating systems that work o the "back side". They need to work on the "front side". The goal should be to keep the amount of money in a specific relation to the number of active players.
Money within the system needs to be a medium of exchange and should tradable as a commodity in its own right giving money intrinsic value in game. There would have to be a lot more than a simple one sentence explanation and all of this is of course is all very vague as the full explanation is very, very long
Presentation for new MMORPG economics concept http://www.slideshare.net/talin/mmo-economics-concept-v-10
I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say here but if you're talking about Blizzard vs. Peons4hire/In Game Dollar, it was settled resulting in a permanent injunction effectively barring Peons4Hire and In Game Dollar from doing business in World of Warcraft.
Here's a link to the injunction:
virtuallyblind.com/files/Peons_Injunction.pdf
Seems like they didn't drop the lawsuit afterall.
Wow people hate gold farming that much that they're willing to cripple the game?
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
Crippling trade in a game is not the solution.. it ruins the game to a point that people don;t want to play it. I think that if skills in games were set up where there is no need for gold selling that would be a better solution. Make it so in game money is easy to make and the things that cost alot cannot be used at lower levels so it would be pointless to buy it. If the game provides you with an easy way to make game money along the normal progression of the game there would be no need for gold sellers. So that in the game by the time you get to the levels to need and be able to use expensive stuff that you would have accumulated more than enough gold for it. Gold selling is about supply and demand, if there is no demand for it , it would be a waste of their time to try and sell it. Make the fun part of the game the gameplay and not about collecting a bunch of junk.
The problem with a strictly barter system is that items flow from the top of the pyramid down and advanced characters who are trading the highest quality items only need other highest quality items and fewer and fewer of them. The barter system doesn't allow non raiding characters the ability to trade for raid drops for instance, because they have nothing to offer advanced characters besides coin. As long as every item has a level/skill user limit to prevent twinking, you should be able to trade for it.
Runesacpe has designed a new system which has pretty much shut down gold sellers. Their new system only allows trades to function if both parties are offering item and or coin of similar value, there is no gifting allowed and trade between the same characters are limited to once every fifteen minutes.
Why not just make every player have a salary. Make it so they get a commission based on the quests they do, and not have any money drop off of mobs. Then, monthly GM's make players pay taxes off of the money they have earned. This would include money from their jobs and money given to them. It would be a flat tax rate of 25%. At the beginning of the game the tax collectors would be wearing normal clothes, but as the game progresses they'll be wearing nicer clothes, have thorough-bred horses, gilded chariots, armed guards, huge mansions, and still bitch about how they are poor just like everyone else.
They should sell it themselves, under several different company names, underselling everyone .
Ban anyone who buys.
End of story.
Could always go medieval and cut the fingers off of anyone who buys gold and gets caught. One finger for each time. You know they would stop pretty quickly.
How about we convince the goverments to increase wages so people can actualy make a decent living doing a real job.
Don't confuse a players ability, with a class being Over Powered.
-T
I was always a fan of a object that you can buy at the main cities/areas where spammers occur. This item can be dropped at the feet of any automated spammer and it effectivly silences anything in a small radius. A normal player ould just move out of the zone, the BOT (who has noone at the controls would not)... No Shouts, no tells, no mail, no speach.
This way, the population can police the problem as well
Torrential
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
I think you missed something. If money is easy to get, then the supply will be high, thus the value of each unit will fall in proportion to the amount of money introduced into the system relitive to the number of players.
Simply making an item useless to a lower level player won't solve the problem either. I have no use for a scanning electron microscope, but would buy if the price was low enough knowing I could resell it for more than I paid.
There will always be a demand for items and as long as you can purchase items with the games medium of exchange (your using the example of gold) there will always be a demand for it.
Game is about game play? isn’t the very nature of a game to "win". Since the definition of winning isn't clearly defined in an MMO, wealth is often used as a standard, or "yardstick", of accomplishment.
Money is not the problem folks, simply the fact that it doesn’t scale well over time in the faucet-and-drain style economy.
Presentation for new MMORPG economics concept http://www.slideshare.net/talin/mmo-economics-concept-v-10
The problem with an object like that is that people would abuse it. They would be increasingly annoying and be misused to annoy people instead of for their purpose. Making people have to move from the space they are in all the time would be really annoying if it was happening anywhere they moved. In the hands of punk kids they would be following people around setting them off everywhere all the time. Would be a bit ridiculous.
I don;t think pixel gold is the measure of "winning" I think it is being able to kill anyone and everything in the game.. but that is just me I don;t have much use for pixel junk.
Runesacpe has designed a new system which has pretty much shut down gold sellers. Their new system only allows trades to function if both parties are offering item and or coin of similar value, there is no gifting allowed and trade between the same characters are limited to once every fifteen minutes.
Runescape has to impose huge artificial restrictions that make a game more difficult because they couldn't come up with a more create solution to money farming.
Presentation for new MMORPG economics concept http://www.slideshare.net/talin/mmo-economics-concept-v-10
How about we convince the goverments to increase wages so people can actualy make a decent living doing a real job.
Ok I am going to be kind on this remark, because I do believe you don’t know any better.
Government takes money (taxes), then gives the money to programs, Basically legalized theft.
Companies on the other hand, make a product/service then charge for it. All taxes that are brought onto the company are passed down the consumer (you). So when the government says HEY, LETS RAISED MINIMUM WAGE! That extra money the company now has to pay out for increased wages. Goes straight to the product/service that they are selling.
That is basic lesson #1.
Leeson #2
The blow back is that the lower class of people who were making $5.00 dollars an hour go to $7.00 now. But the people who were making $15.00 didn’t get the same raise are now screwed because the products that were at X amount are going to be higher, because of the increase in the wages.
So in laymen’s terms, your screwing all the hard working people, and giving the screw-up’s benefits for being a screw-up. And if you work for minimum wage now, you’re either in school or a loser. And in any case shouldn’t be playing a computer game and should be in school or getting a trade to make more money.
Sorry , I am from a generation that believes in making his or her own way, WITHOUT the government.
Runescapes new system ruined the game and is a prime example of how limiting trade does not work against gold sellers. The gold sellers are now loggin on to peoples accounts and getting them the money. Gold selling is very much alive on that game still, though the demand for it isn't near as there simply because the games popularity fell when they killed it with the terrible updates.
If this comment is in reply to me, I didn't mean to imply that gold was the standard of accomplishment, I think I said wealth. Wealth would include a characters possessions, housing, mount's even to some extent their abilities.
Can I assume your more interesting the the social aspect?
Presentation for new MMORPG economics concept http://www.slideshare.net/talin/mmo-economics-concept-v-10
Runescape's attempt to control gold farming and Real world trading certainily brought down the quality of the game even more so now due to restricting PvP to a lack luster mini game which is hardly comparable to what it was. Helping other players by lending items or money made numerous players quit as well because of such awful updates on trade restrictions.
I certainly think their attempts to stop RWT hurt the game far to much and should not be used in any other mmo.
Playing: Diablo 2, Medievia, SWG EMU
In between: Eq Mac
Retired: Guild Wars (2x), EQ, DAoC, PSO, Tibia, Runescape, WoW, SWG, Maple Story
Waiting: WaR (hesitant), New Star Wars MMO
Actually if you consider killing everyone I don;t know ( and maybe a few i do know) as a social aspect then yes. Anyhow I could care less about pixel junk what is important to me in a game is good pvp, pk, battles. winner takes all loser loses all battles just to add more risk to it. High risk to me is better than low risk. but my preferences are not what this was about anyhow. If the game itself made buying gold a useless thing to do then there would be no demand for it.
How do you know that they aren't already doing this or at least something similar to this. Blizzard routinely bans several thousand accounts, I'm sure many of those are accounts that were used for the sale of gold. How do they find out about these accounts? They could simply respond to some of these gold sellers with a small purchase and then put the account on the "to be banned list".