Concerned Citizens Brigade

Seeing as how they were able to detect my two mules and Fenix's account that had only duped a single red dye, it's probably fairly likely that the seed accounts used to dupe were banned. Now Anet's just investigating those accounts that traded heavily with those accounts and received large amounts of items.

Of course, that's just my impression.

They already reinstated us. It's not that surprising that they banned my accounts at least since I don't think Fenix told them which accounts I used . .. Once Gaile heard of our plight, I sent her my info and they brought the accounts back online within the hour.

I don't think anyone's calling for a 'torch and pitchfork' brigade with this. Just asking regular players to do what they probably would have done anyway - be wary of things, and pass information on to the proper authorities when you have reasonable grounds to believe something is amiss.

The thing is, this really isn't aimed at me, nor at probably 90% of the community - heck, if someone had offered me an Armbrace of Truth two days ago, I'd have had to go onto the Wiki to find out what on earth they were talking about!

No, the people who (I believe) Max is aiming his request for vigilance at are the upper echelon of traders - people who know the current value of things, who watch the trades carefully, who know the other power-players by name, and who will recognise a suspect trade when they see one. This isn't me, and chances are, it isn't you either.

I'm all for vigilance, and I'm all for protecting the game experience of honest players. But truthfully, this one falls on the dedicated traders to be a part of if it's to achieve anything.

Great I'll send u guys the names of a few players I hate and you can then proceed to online bully them, name call them, make snide remarks about there mothers and when that fails go to Anet with a slack story to get them banned.
"I heard from a player who was talking to a monkey about a horse, that <insert player name here> was scamming people.
The has been an official announcement of the CCB.
Security thru vigilance!"

Max, while I admire what you're trying to do, unfortunatly, you can't do all that much.


Yes, you can get a few people together to go and report a single digit number of names that you all know are involved and not banned, but what then? (As if these names have no tbeen reported 100 times over already.)

Are you and your "Soldiers" going to question every player in GW if they know anyone involved? Are you going to show them a warrent so you can search thier Storage Box? Are you going to waste all that time doing what Arenanet can do ten times better than you?

Arenanet is already equipped to hit everyone who was involved, and will get them all eventually. I'm sorry, but it seems you're going way too overboard on this. It's not like Arenanet isn't trying. Any names you will find will probably be reported 100 times over as I've said, and you can't do much to them yourself but whisper them with threatening comments.


You can't do much over an online game, buddy. The best you can do is report all you know, and play the game as normal, like Arenanet as instructed. No matter how you put it, what you're doing is indeed a witch hunt for all guilty parties, and I have a firm beleif that this will get near nothing done and end up rather badly.

I dare say if a 'slack story' could get someone banned, these boards would be nothing but an unending stream of 'I've been banned!' threads (rather than the 1 or 2 it usually is)....

There is no intention to personally harrass suspected dupers/receivers in any way. This is just about keeping vigilant and giving solid information to ANet regarding the problem at hand.

People really need to drop the whole, "OMFG going after people you dont like, going after people richer than you, harrassing people", crap.

Traders usually sit in towns. OMFG who would have thought that.

They watch the trading channels.

They can see when people are trying to offer insane amounts of ecto / armbrace for an item which is not worth that.

E.g.

1300 Ecto for a Mini Oni which like a week ago was selling at 300 Ecto and only recently spiked to 500 Ecto which many considered overpriced.

Now you could take a screenshot and report it to Anet.

They can decide whether or not to ban you.

Anet may be invesitgating the people being reported. They may not. Why take the risk. No harm will be done reporting people.

Another example of people who we would report are one of the people who obtained a mini pet for 80 million gold is still playing. If he obtained the 80 million gold legitimately (God knows how that is possible as he was a random) then Anet wont ban him.

All we are doing is reporting people. I never realised reporting people was a crime in Guild Wars. Better to report people now than later when they could have moved their wealth to other accounts etc.

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Edit: I truely doubt any quizing or crap like that is occuring.

Seeing as traders spend alot of time in the big trading towns they are able to observe what is being offered and what is wanted.

Stuff like, "WTB: Naga Mini 1000 Ectos PM" is highly suspicious and all it would take is a screenshot of the spam and a picture of the 1000 Ecto being offered then they can be reported.

It really is not shit like us wispering them demanding to know what they have been up to.

Kinda sad people try and do something good for the Guild Wars community and just get attacked.

As much as I love the idea of this, I'm gonna have to say it's just not going to work [well]. Those at Anet are much more capable of finding the dupers with logs than anyone else without said logs. I'd have to agree with Zinger (unfortunately) in that this just makes Anet look bad, acting as if they don't know what they're doing.

Now, I'm not saying don't report anyone. Please, if you see something suspicious, as always report away. I'm just saying there's no reason to be actively searching. Of course, unless someone at Anet comes forward and suggests it... *hint* *hint*

This is precisely what Max endeavors to achieve. You summed it up best, some of us in the high-end community are waiting on a few of these players to be banned. Those who are criticizing the very idea of this are understandably oblivious to the circumstances surrounding all of this simply because this spans a niche community in which this whole scandal originated from. I will reiterate that a number of people have reported these particular players and we are frustrated with the response. Lastly, I would like to assure that the players being targeted are far from innocent. Again, many of us have done our homework so to speak, thus this is a concerted effort to effectively ban these individuals. Remember, ANET doesn't employ GMs to monitor trades and for this reason, they have to get information directly from players within a certain community. I hope this clarifies the situation a bit.

Yup yup yup. Especially when there are trades by people we know who were involved in the duping.

"Lets HUNT THEM DOWN... HUNT THEM DOWN i say and BURN them at the stake... BURN i say BURN!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHA"

Suddenly the mob heard a voice from above (ie Anet)... "Why are you hurting other players? Only i have the true evidence (logs and records) that these ppl either commited a sin or not. Who are you to spy and catch other human players? how would you feel if you were on the receiving end?"

BOOM Anet sent down a bolt of lightning and struck the mob thus banning them instead forever and ever.

The END...

This story was brought to you by Bart! Hope you enjoyed it

Okay for people who don't quite get it. What Max is trying to do, is get people to spot out people that might be duping and report them to Anet..so Anet looks and sees if these guys are in the wrong or not. Anet just won't ban them without looking and it'll help Anet out even if they don't really need it.

I just don't know how that could of gone over the lot of your heads.

So what is the big difference now in having a supposed organized group (like those comparisons to the U.S. minute men watch the Mexican/U.S. border) vs. independent reporting? Yes you will be a little bit more efficient in what you do, but you will get the same results as you would if you worked independently.

I understand why you want to do this, but this will be just as bad as reporting bots. All you really doing is sticking up some type of fear tactic that will go nowhere. A-net is not going to listen to you more because your organized that is just a fact.

That is a really stupid idea, you know it's Anet's job to do this right? Your "Concerned Citizens Brigade" will only cause more commotion and unwanted help from Anet.

If you have concrete proof that a said individual was a perpetrator in the duping fiasco then by all means report them, but please don't start something retarded that will effect others and might resulted in even more innocents being banned.

Jesus, some of you take this game WAY too seriously... If this really affected you that much then I suggest some things: Go outside and breathe some fresh air it helps, take a break from OL and do some RL please, and stop taking this game as if it was your life and let the professionals handle serious problems, you will only cause more harm.


I'm sure Anet will do everything in their power to stabilize and fix this problem as soon as possible, after all this game is their responsibility.

Remember kids it's JUST a game!

it's not over anyone's heads.

there are a few on this very board that cannot stand the fact they are now bumped into a lower tax bracket in the Gw society. It is they who think by taking matters into their own hands, can fix this. That in and of itself is wrong.

sure they will peg a few who are still stupid enough to make godly-amount trades, but face it, LoL..you are no longer the richest...

-this thread looks like nothing but vanity. You aren't doing the community a favor, you are trying to do yourselves one.

No, this thread is to do a few things.

One thing is making it aware to others that there are still people out there who haven't gotten banned.

Another is to maybe find a person or two who has not reported to Anet yet, do to many reasons. One of those reasons being the fact that so many ppl claimed to buy 1 armbrance and then getting themselves banned. Or the people who claimed they had just reported someone, and now they are banned.

Fact is , I reported 4 people, many other people reported others as well, yet this shows evidence that we are not banned. That fact alone will bring others out, to report people, with less fear of getting banned.

At the same time, this is bringing a bit of the GW community together... I'm sorry you may not be directly affected by this thread, I'm sorry you feel left out and that u must comment.

But honestly if you have no good input, or nothing to add... plz don't add it here.

see thing is..you guys will complain and complain about armbraces and about there being 50,000 ectos on undeserving players accounts...we are helping, not 'going after the ones we don't like'
obviously we know the trading market more than you and are trying to do our part. if someone wanted to know who was hacking in RA we could call upon you.

so um...this CCB consists of a group of people...who are all "high end traders" who sit in major towns verifyng the price of stuff....whats that called again ah yes collusion.


now i know why "high end items" are "high end".

This is why GW so called economy FAILS.

(nothing against you guys. you only do what comes naturally...after all. who watches the watchmen.)

This is entirely a witch hunt and it has no place here.