Originally posted by BurntCabbage whats sad is that people have no idea how this will kill the game if they **ESO ** keep sitting on their hands and do nothing..can you picture the huge pvp zergs porting around with speed hacks and stealth hacks like they use while farming nodes? this game could be lost in a matter of weeks if they **so called chinese farmers** decided to do so...im sure everyones mother would unsubb and move to the next new mmorpg but i really hope it does not come to this...also i hate when ppl say "well i dont pvp soo... " this game is more based around the fact you lvl to get to pvp dominance and fight aginst other factions ..imo its build "like" daoc the pve is there but the game is more based on pvp its what they were /are working towards...will it work...prolly not the future does not look bright atm but its a great game too bad this is what mmo's have become now
What makes you think the "next new MMORPG" launch will be any different to this ?
Goldsellers overran the Neverwinter launch...
Goldsellers overran the FFXIV:ARR launch...
Goldsellers are overrunning the ESO launch...
Can't wait to see what happens at Wildstar's launch...
The same thing will take place at the launch of every single MMO. Only decisive action against the root of the problem will change this.
Remove the incentive to purchase gold by making it extremely risky for the buyer.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. Benjamin Franklin
Originally posted by Gorgothax Just do a regional IP block for China and parts of Asia for that matter and see how fast it gets stopped. More specifically China and maybe North Korea.
How difficult do you think it is to route your internet connection through a proxy?
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. Benjamin Franklin
Originally posted by Zarbyte The unfortunate truth is, it is nearly impossible to get rid of those people. There will always be gold sellers, so long as there are people willing to purchase it.
So going after the right people might be a good start.
I remember a time when we actually had GM's in game to come and make people poof. Now everything is automated and takes forever while complaints are sent though filters to determine actions and probably ban the wrong person.
we all see the problem, yet hardly anyone sees a solution...
and the real problem is not the goldsellers, they are a not the cause, but the a reaction from a few criminals that found a way to make money, because of players that cheet...
elliminate the cheeters and the goldsellers will stop their actions...
But then, how do you keep people from cheating?
Supply reacts to demand.
There is a demand for gold, gil, loopies, whatever in game currency in your game. Supply will move to fill the demand. A very simple relationship exists between the two.
Solution: Remove the demand for in came currency. Problem: To remove the demand you would need to remove all forms of trade.
Reality: If you hate the goldsellers, don't play a game at launch, (saving you also the heartache of a crappy launch). I just started playing FFXIV last week, I do hear from goldsellers, 1 ingame email a login. I can deal with that, RTclick -Blacklist.
The solution is simple, but it will cost a lot of money and man/women power. Get GM's to catch botters and gold sellers, then back track their IP's and block the IP. Gold sellers will have IP generators but in the long run and by being persistent you'll end up pin pointing their main IP. But since it costs way to much, just add a huge block list in game and a report button that doesn't even work (Which is true by the way on almost every MMO with the "report" feature. The button will just popup a message telling you that Mr/Mrs X has been reported but in fact nothing has been sent, it's just so you can feel better on thinking you did something good for the community.)
Also, we got EULA's with rules to follow and all, yet we got all these gold seller web sites at our disposal and some have been up and running since the early 2000's. Yet nobody seems to be doing anything to close them down? But I cannot sale my accounts or share my account with a friend?
When you look at the bigger picture, something doesn't add up properly.
I just really want to know.... wtf is an IP generator? lol! I mean.... a proxy might be what you're thinking... or perhaps they own a block of IP's.... but, as far as my networking knowledge that is used on the job daily goes, there's no magical IP generator, unless ESO is running IPV6 and they get a bunch of free blocks off Hurricane Electric or something, but then they might just be tunneling, so block the endpoint and call it a day... until they get a new proxy >.> Spoofing? Possible, but doubtful. Proxies, multiple accounts, and even some hacked accounts are their easiest tools and there's no way to get rid of them all.
The solution is simple, but it will cost a lot of money and man/women power. Get GM's to catch botters and gold sellers, then back track their IP's and block the IP. Gold sellers will have IP generators but in the long run and by being persistent you'll end up pin pointing their main IP. But since it costs way to much, just add a huge block list in game and a report button that doesn't even work (Which is true by the way on almost every MMO with the "report" feature. The button will just popup a message telling you that Mr/Mrs X has been reported but in fact nothing has been sent, it's just so you can feel better on thinking you did something good for the community.)
Also, we got EULA's with rules to follow and all, yet we got all these gold seller web sites at our disposal and some have been up and running since the early 2000's. Yet nobody seems to be doing anything to close them down? But I cannot sale my accounts or share my account with a friend?
When you look at the bigger picture, something doesn't add up properly.
I just really want to know.... wtf is an IP generator? lol! I mean.... a proxy might be what you're thinking... or perhaps they own a block of IP's.... but, as far as my networking knowledge that is used on the job daily goes, there's no magical IP generator, unless ESO is running IPV6 and they get a bunch of free blocks off Hurricane Electric or something, but then they might just be tunneling, so block the endpoint and call it a day... until they get a new proxy >.> Spoofing? Possible, but doubtful. Proxies, multiple accounts, and even some hacked accounts are their easiest tools and there's no way to get rid of them all.
I think he means "IP spoofing." Fortunately, it's trivial to detect, which is why people prefer to route through VPN(s) to obfuscate their IP instead. That's also an easy problem to detect, even if tracing their originating IP isn't.
Originally posted by Gorgothax Just do a regional IP block for China and parts of Asia for that matter and see how fast it gets stopped. More specifically China and maybe North Korea.
How difficult do you think it is to route your internet connection through a proxy?
I thought about my statement and what you are saying after the fact. I am tired and didn't even think about the whole proxy issue. They can easily find out who the parent companies of these sites and and provide a cease and desist letter to all of these companies in violation of the terms of service, but who knows if that would even work.
There is also the whole issue of gold sellers vs gold brokers. The people advertising are the brokers, they don't actively hold the gold, i.e. they are not farmers. Likewise, they don't actually sell any gold, they facilitate a service between a buyer (the player) and a seller (the gold farmer). The sellers are also the farmers where they have a series of accounts that "work the field" so to speak and a few accounts that are used as pooling accounts for when a transaction must take place. So the actual transaction takes place between a random account and the buyer while there are a legion of other accounts that perform the gold harvesting.
The brokers then receive a commission from setting that transaction up that has no in-game component so they don't actually sell anything in the game for real money. They earn money from facilitating contact between two individuals, or as is more often the case nowadays, a company and an individual.
The brokers who offer the gold broker service isn't the people who perform the actual gold farming, they are under another company. So this is a harder area to police that we would immediately think and the brokers are pretty savvy at this. They know they have a case (lawsuit) if a publisher denies service for something that is clearly not a violation of the accepted EULA.
They also make sure to make this as costly for the developer/publisher as possible to act against, putting the developer in the position of whether to spend funds on developing tools to handle the gold trade or spend funds on new game content. It's sort of an arms race that will only ever end if the publisher starts selling the same services at rates the farmers/brokers can't compete with. Which ofcourse isn't a desirable option either, because then people would have a shortcut and that diminishes revenue from continued subscriptions as gold procurement and high costs for items are tied in with the primary timesinks in most MMOs.
It's sort of an arms race that will only ever end if the publisher starts selling the same services at rates the farmers/brokers can't compete with. Which ofcourse isn't a desirable option either, because then people would have a shortcut and that diminishes revenue from continued subscriptions as gold procurement and high costs for items are tied in with the primary timesinks in most MMOs.
Thats what Blizzard tried with the RMAH in Diablo 3 which didnt work out very well because they got undercut all the time by sellers.
All people have to do is stop buying gold or the game must not allowed trading at all. No other way to stop the "arms race"
As long as people can play the game, you can write a bot to farm it.
Regional IP block on all Asian countries. Yes, ALL of them.
Block PROXY AND VPN access.
Yes, even US/EU based ones.
There. You stopped 90% of it.
and fuck the ones who use things like faster tunnel to get a lower ping.
but to tell you the truth, they simple can't block all proxy around, would be a lot cheaper to pay gms to stay in game and monitor the all chat and reports of spam then they block that much ips
You may not (a) distribute, publicly perform or display, sell, transmit, publish, edit, reproduce, sublicense, rent, lease, loan or otherwise transfer any Game, Software, and/or Content, including without limitation any access keys;
And yes the ToS is no law and I dont know of any trial but one might argue that the content wasnt yours to begin with. But you could counter that by just selling the time it took to farm the gold. But if they really want to hurt you, they just tell the IRS you didnt pay taxes on the income. Worked for Al Capone, might work for goldsellers
The suggestion to ip-ban, ban proxies, or ban vpns did not come from anyone with any actual knowledge of IT infrastructure. That would be infeasible and ineffective and would cause strife for an unpredictable amount of innocents.
The only solution is to have gm presence enough of the time, monitoring all zone chat and jumping around noob dungeons.. just often enough to make botting unprofitable since each ban shrinks their profits but potentially grows zos', it's a no-brainer.
I chose the Xfinity speed test because it does not reveal my ISP.
If ESO cant afford GM's in each zone / instance, I'm sure there are plenty that would volunteer to do the job in exchange for some fluff / title / Sub discount.
If ESO cant afford GM's in each zone / instance, I'm sure there are plenty that would volunteer to do the job in exchange for some fluff / title / Sub discount.
I think Id even do it for free!
In order for the botters to continue what they're doing, they have to shell out ~$30 for another account. a GM banning 1 bot an hour pays his own salary.
I chose the Xfinity speed test because it does not reveal my ISP.
Sheogorath comes to Tamriel and affixes a collar to everyone with an explosive crystal. This crystal will randomly ask you to answer a simple math question (what is 5 + 2 for example) randomly while adventuring (mages guild has managed to set up wards within cities/towns that nullify the collars while in those areas). If you do not answer this random question in the allotted time, your character will explode and Sheogorath will steal all the gold and items you have collected since you last visited a ward. You will also have to spend time in Oblivion completing a jailbreak quest. If you fail to escape Oblivion within the allotted amount of time ESO will run a script that will replace your OS with Windows 3.1 and make your keyboard strokes play various cat meows and fart sounds.
Or you know, 1 or 2 GMs in game at all times reading chat and randomly visiting known campsites could be effective as well...
There are 3 types of people in the world. 1.) Those who make things happen 2.) Those who watch things happen 3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
we all see the problem, yet hardly anyone sees a solution...
and the real problem is not the goldsellers, they are a not the cause, but the a reaction from a few criminals that found a way to make money, because of players that cheet...
elliminate the cheeters and the goldsellers will stop their actions...
But then, how do you keep people from cheating?
It is simple with goldsellers if no one buy from then the will stop at some point AoC have few of them the 1st few month but player base did not buy from "most of them" so it was not worth from them to keep on so the stop.
But if you report goldsellers to Zenimax the will be remove i have report a few and the have been remove beside goldsellers is only in area lvl 1 to 15 pass that i have not see any goldsellers spam channel.
Comments
The same thing will take place at the launch of every single MMO. Only decisive action against the root of the problem will change this.
Remove the incentive to purchase gold by making it extremely risky for the buyer.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
How difficult do you think it is to route your internet connection through a proxy?
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
So going after the right people might be a good start.
Supply reacts to demand.
There is a demand for gold, gil, loopies, whatever in game currency in your game. Supply will move to fill the demand. A very simple relationship exists between the two.
Solution: Remove the demand for in came currency. Problem: To remove the demand you would need to remove all forms of trade.
Reality: If you hate the goldsellers, don't play a game at launch, (saving you also the heartache of a crappy launch). I just started playing FFXIV last week, I do hear from goldsellers, 1 ingame email a login. I can deal with that, RTclick -Blacklist.
I just really want to know.... wtf is an IP generator? lol! I mean.... a proxy might be what you're thinking... or perhaps they own a block of IP's.... but, as far as my networking knowledge that is used on the job daily goes, there's no magical IP generator, unless ESO is running IPV6 and they get a bunch of free blocks off Hurricane Electric or something, but then they might just be tunneling, so block the endpoint and call it a day... until they get a new proxy >.> Spoofing? Possible, but doubtful. Proxies, multiple accounts, and even some hacked accounts are their easiest tools and there's no way to get rid of them all.
I think he means "IP spoofing." Fortunately, it's trivial to detect, which is why people prefer to route through VPN(s) to obfuscate their IP instead. That's also an easy problem to detect, even if tracing their originating IP isn't.
You make me like charity
I thought about my statement and what you are saying after the fact. I am tired and didn't even think about the whole proxy issue. They can easily find out who the parent companies of these sites and and provide a cease and desist letter to all of these companies in violation of the terms of service, but who knows if that would even work.
Regional IP block on all Asian countries. Yes, ALL of them.
Block PROXY AND VPN access.
Yes, even US/EU based ones.
There. You stopped 90% of it.
There is also the whole issue of gold sellers vs gold brokers. The people advertising are the brokers, they don't actively hold the gold, i.e. they are not farmers. Likewise, they don't actually sell any gold, they facilitate a service between a buyer (the player) and a seller (the gold farmer). The sellers are also the farmers where they have a series of accounts that "work the field" so to speak and a few accounts that are used as pooling accounts for when a transaction must take place. So the actual transaction takes place between a random account and the buyer while there are a legion of other accounts that perform the gold harvesting.
The brokers then receive a commission from setting that transaction up that has no in-game component so they don't actually sell anything in the game for real money. They earn money from facilitating contact between two individuals, or as is more often the case nowadays, a company and an individual.
The brokers who offer the gold broker service isn't the people who perform the actual gold farming, they are under another company. So this is a harder area to police that we would immediately think and the brokers are pretty savvy at this. They know they have a case (lawsuit) if a publisher denies service for something that is clearly not a violation of the accepted EULA.
They also make sure to make this as costly for the developer/publisher as possible to act against, putting the developer in the position of whether to spend funds on developing tools to handle the gold trade or spend funds on new game content. It's sort of an arms race that will only ever end if the publisher starts selling the same services at rates the farmers/brokers can't compete with. Which ofcourse isn't a desirable option either, because then people would have a shortcut and that diminishes revenue from continued subscriptions as gold procurement and high costs for items are tied in with the primary timesinks in most MMOs.
Find out who runs the gold selling sites and kill them...
...with kindness.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Thats what Blizzard tried with the RMAH in Diablo 3 which didnt work out very well because they got undercut all the time by sellers.
All people have to do is stop buying gold or the game must not allowed trading at all. No other way to stop the "arms race"
As long as people can play the game, you can write a bot to farm it.
and fuck the ones who use things like faster tunnel to get a lower ping.
but to tell you the truth, they simple can't block all proxy around, would be a lot cheaper to pay gms to stay in game and monitor the all chat and reports of spam then they block that much ips
Depends on what you understand as "hacking".
If your really think of hacking their server to modify or copy stuff then the CFAA would fit.
If you think of real bots, those that can read where NPCs are and so on, those are illegal. Precedent:
"the district court held that RAM copying constituted "copying" under 17 U.S.C. § 106"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDY_Industries,_LLC_v._Blizzard_Entertainment,_Inc.
If you think of "hacking" as gold sellers then
You may not (a) distribute, publicly perform or display, sell, transmit, publish, edit, reproduce, sublicense, rent, lease, loan or otherwise transfer any Game, Software, and/or Content, including without limitation any access keys;
http://www.zenimax.com/legal_terms
And yes the ToS is no law and I dont know of any trial but one might argue that the content wasnt yours to begin with. But you could counter that by just selling the time it took to farm the gold. But if they really want to hurt you, they just tell the IRS you didnt pay taxes on the income. Worked for Al Capone, might work for goldsellers
The only solution is to have gm presence enough of the time, monitoring all zone chat and jumping around noob dungeons.. just often enough to make botting unprofitable since each ban shrinks their profits but potentially grows zos', it's a no-brainer.
I chose the Xfinity speed test because it does not reveal my ISP.
If ESO cant afford GM's in each zone / instance, I'm sure there are plenty that would volunteer to do the job in exchange for some fluff / title / Sub discount.
I think Id even do it for free!
In order for the botters to continue what they're doing, they have to shell out ~$30 for another account. a GM banning 1 bot an hour pays his own salary.
I chose the Xfinity speed test because it does not reveal my ISP.
New Content update and Story Line:
Sheogorath comes to Tamriel and affixes a collar to everyone with an explosive crystal. This crystal will randomly ask you to answer a simple math question (what is 5 + 2 for example) randomly while adventuring (mages guild has managed to set up wards within cities/towns that nullify the collars while in those areas). If you do not answer this random question in the allotted time, your character will explode and Sheogorath will steal all the gold and items you have collected since you last visited a ward. You will also have to spend time in Oblivion completing a jailbreak quest. If you fail to escape Oblivion within the allotted amount of time ESO will run a script that will replace your OS with Windows 3.1 and make your keyboard strokes play various cat meows and fart sounds.
Or you know, 1 or 2 GMs in game at all times reading chat and randomly visiting known campsites could be effective as well...
There are 3 types of people in the world.
1.) Those who make things happen
2.) Those who watch things happen
3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
It is simple with goldsellers if no one buy from then the will stop at some point AoC have few of them the 1st few month but player base did not buy from "most of them" so it was not worth from them to keep on so the stop.
But if you report goldsellers to Zenimax the will be remove i have report a few and the have been remove beside goldsellers is only in area lvl 1 to 15 pass that i have not see any goldsellers spam channel.