March 18 update - Real Money Trading Policy - Guild Wars Guru archive powered by Guild Wars Legacy

Tom Swift

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Aug 2007

19 Mar 2008 at 12:51 - 81

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

1. I'm very pleased with the new changes and I completely agree with the policies behind them.

2. Let me repeat #1. I'm very pleased with the new changes and I completely agree with the policies behind them.

3. I am a bit apprehensive that there will be too many false positives. Adequate care is not taken with account bans, and I certainly hope support is more careful with IP bans.

4.

First of all, as Fusa said, the clock may have already started ticking on that account's eventual ban. If it takes 48 hours for a-net to catch up to credit card fraud and ban the account, removing 24 hours of trade cuts the value of a new account in half, doubling the cost to the RMT company.

Second of all, guessing when accounts are going to be banned and need replaced is bound to be an imprecise science. Up till now, when an account got banned, they could buy a new one on the spot and be up and running again. Now they can't do that. If they buy too many accounts in anticipation of bans that don't come as soon as expected, they waste money on more accounts than they have farming employees and/or spammable districts for; and if they buy too few accounts because bans come sooner than expected, they end up with gold farming employees and/or a spammable districts without enough accounts to exploit them. Either way the RMT company's bottom line gets driven up.

lol - I though Gaile had assured us that most botters do not in fact buy accounts (when she was trying to convince us that ANet does not make money from them) - according to her they mostly use stolen accounts.

And if it is credit card fraud they aren't out any money either - that's why it is called "fraud."

In the mean time - what about:

The new player who finds a black dye in pre on his first day? (as happened to my son when he stared playing). Sure - it's just an "inconvenience" to wait to trade it but it makes the game less fun to have to do so.

The new players to whom I used give things like unnatural seeds or spider legs so they can get armor. Sure it just saves them a little time but it makes the game more fun for them and me - now I can't do that.

The new players (dozens of them) to whom I gave weapons that were too nice to merch but I didn't want to spend the time spamming to sell - most of these were first day players And I'm far from the only one (look under the "nicest people I met" thread" many of them remember a more experienced player giving them something which they kept for months because it reminded them how welcomed they felt).

I'm sorry but I'm not willing to be inconvenienced just to catch the botters - restricting play style to do so is just a stupid move and I suspect you are going to find all the "wow good job ANet" comments on this thread turn to major complaints in a very short time.

Angel Killuminati

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Apr 2007

UK

19 Mar 2008 at 12:59 - 82

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom Swift

The new players (dozens of them) to whom I gave weapons that were too nice to merch but I didn't want to spend the time spamming to sell - most of these were first day players And I'm far from the only one (look under the "nicest people I met" thread" many of them remember a more experienced player giving them something which they kept for months because it reminded them how welcomed they felt).

Unfortunately Tom, these steps need to be put in place because of the bots and gold sellers. If bots didn't exist in a perfect World, then Anet wouldn't have to do these kind of things. Yes it spoils new players experiences for 24 hours, but point the finger of blame at the bots, not Anet.

As somebody said earlier, Anet can never win with an entire World playing their game. Some will like it, some will slate them for it. You have two choices, accept that new players can't trade for 24 hours (remember that players usually only spend a few hours on the game per 24 hours any way - only the no lifers spend more on it) so the 24 hours will be over before you know it. Or don't have trading limits and get spammed by bots etc etc.

If bots weren't here, we wouldn't have to have lame changes to the Eula agreement, but because of idiots in the World, changes have to be put in place. I thought some of you would have realised now that the internet is a breeding ground for complete dickheads?! Countermeasures need to be added for these dickheads.

The Meth

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Jan 2007

R/

19 Mar 2008 at 13:47 - 83

Let me rundown how things are going probably going to work a week from now:

Botter gets banned (yay!)
Botter gets another account
Botter can't log in because ip is banned (yay again, right?)
Botter learns anet is banning by ip
Botter changes ip in 5 seconds
Botter goes on their merry way, just being forced to change their IP every time they are banned.

Later:
Real player connects to internet, by gets the same ip a botter used to use by pure chance. Real player cannot play.

Changing your ip address is really that easy. Google search it, you will see 5 seconds is an overstatement.

I completely agree with with the restriction on trading for the new accounts. THAT is an example of a good change that WILL hurt botters, but WILL NOT hurt real players.

I have a problem with banning IP's, this change will mildly disrupt botters for a short time, but has the potential to completely cut off a real player from the game. After the first few weeks, all botters will be doing is running a 2-line batch file before they log in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Inde

For the large gold sites that persistently and constantly change IP's we have to implement other measures such as email bans. So while there are certainly a lot of variables I find that it only slows them down

Let's say you own a store, which is at risk of being robbed by a local gang. The gang members all wear blue. Does that mean that not allowing anyone wearing blue into your store will keep you safe? No, any gang member who wants to get in will just wear different clothes. Meanwhile you turn away numerous customers who don't know about your no-blue policy. The gang is mildly inconvenienced, while an unlucky customer will get punished.

bel unbreakable

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Jun 2006

scotland

shadow hunters of light

W/Mo

19 Mar 2008 at 13:55 - 84

most of the stuff in the game is cheap there is really no need to buy gold at all

fusa

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Mar 2007

19 Mar 2008 at 15:17 - 85

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ctb

I can't believe there are still ISPs that don't match up MAC addresses o_0

On my connection, if I change my modem's MAC address, I can't get on the network until I call the ISP because they lock the connection down by valid MACs.

I don't know where you are, but I'm aware of no U.S. laws to this effect.

It's not the modem's mac address you need to change, its the router's or computer's mac adress. Both of which are very easy to change. The router can be changed in the configuration page, computer by changing hardware, and probably other methods. Although if you're on a router you need to change the router's mac address, not computer. You're right that if the modem's mac address isn't recognized it won't allow the connection.

VOTD

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Dec 2006

19 Mar 2008 at 15:43 - 86

what are they going to do, ban account or just ban ip. and for how long

Ctb

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Apr 2006

W/

19 Mar 2008 at 16:38 - 87

Quote:

It's not the modem's mac address you need to change, its the router's or computer's mac adress.

This doesn't make any sense.... if your ISP is MAC filtering, it doesn't matter how it sees the MAC, if the MAC changes, you're blocked out of the network. Whether the MAC being presented to the ISP upon connection is cloned or simply the static address of the cable modem, if you're ISP is filtering it, and it doesn't recognize it, you're never going to even get past layer 2 communication to GET an IP.

If your ISP not MAC filtering, yes, you can change the MAC of the ethernet device being monitored all you like to constantly get renewals. However, I would point out that part of the motivation behind pulling a router or NIC MAC rather than the modem MAC was always that you could effectively restrict less technical people to a single machine network, so if you have cloning going on, you're probably being filtered.

Chthon

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: Apr 2007

19 Mar 2008 at 16:43 - 88

Quote:

Originally Posted by lorazcyk

You're missing the point, gold sellers don't really *buy* their own accounts, they hack, keylog, etc etc. It doesn't cost them what it cost you and me to buy the game.

I find it very hard to believe they can keep enough accounts running through theft alone. No doubt they steal accounts whenever they can, but surely they must be buying a majority of the accounts they use for farming purposes. (The spam accounts were, until recently, trial accounts.)

Quote:

Hello?! A bot is not a human, it's a computer program.

Doesn't matter.

For farming: If you use human farmers (which some RMT companies do), then you need one account per employee or you're losing money. If you use bots, you need account per PC at your facility or you're losing money. The principle is the same. (Even if you're running multiple instances of GW on each PC, you need one account per ability-to-run-an-instance-of-GW or you're losing money.)

For spamming: If there's populated districts that don't have a spambot in them, right now, you're losing money. You need one account per populated district.

The point is that a RMT company is always going to be less profitable when they can't harmonize their supply of accounts with their supply of other resources (employees, PCs, populated districts to spam, etc). A-net has forced them into a situation where they will always have too many or too few accounts for their needs, and that's going to put a dent in their bottom line. Alone, it's probably not a fatal blow, be we can hope that, in combination with other initiatives, it makes the RMT business too unprofitable to continue.

fusa

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Mar 2007

19 Mar 2008 at 16:53 - 89

Quote:

This doesn't make any sense.... if your ISP is MAC filtering, it doesn't matter how it sees the MAC, if the MAC changes, you're blocked out of the network. Whether the MAC being presented to the ISP upon connection is cloned or simply the static address of the cable modem, if you're ISP is filtering it, and it doesn't recognize it, you're never going to even get past layer 2 communication to GET an IP.

If your ISP not MAC filtering, yes, you can change the MAC of the ethernet device being monitored all you like to constantly get renewals. However, I would point out that part of the motivation behind pulling a router or NIC MAC rather than the modem MAC was always that you could effectively restrict less technical people to a single machine network, so if you have cloning going on, you're probably being filtered.

There's a difference between a cable modem and a router. A router will share a network connection with other computers. A cable modem connects to the isp. Changing mac address of cable modem will just likely diable your connection. Changing the mac address of the router will make the isp think that a different computer is connected to the isp, and assign a new ip to that connection. A router does not need to clone the modem's mac address or a computers mac address, it can use its own mac address or be assigned one. As long as the mac address is valid the connection will succeeed. If no router is present, some nic's allow you to assign a mac address, or hardware can be added or removed to the computer, or programs such as smac can be used to spoof a different mac address. Whichever meathod you use a different mac address connected to the cable modem will make the isp think that the computer connected is different and assign a new address. If you dont believe this try it, and stop trying to explain something you don't know anythign about.

Fril Estelin

So Serious...

Join Date: Jan 2007

London

Nerfs Are [WHAK]

E/

19 Mar 2008 at 17:02 - 90

Quote:

Originally Posted by Inde

I can only speak of my experience with banning IP's here on Guru but it does have a measure of effect. If banning the user name doesn't work we change to banning IP's, but always first verifying that it's not connected to another forum users' account. I wonder if ArenaNet will be doing the same perhaps? It's fairly easy for us though to see if the attached IP happens to also belong to a legitimate user based on their posts. Or if it's a university or library IP for instance. For the large gold sites that persistently and constantly change IP's we have to implement other measures such as email bans. So while there are certainly a lot of variables I find that it only slows them down, makes the registration and posting process harder instead of stopping them. Maybe that will be enough though here.

Don't forget the proxy detection and banning (much more important when you have to manage hundreds and thousands of accounts on the RMT side). It's going to take some time to rollout, we can imagine that RMT companies will buy ranges of IP addresses and collude with ISPs to find new schemes (providing a reward for them of course). The point, as mentioned by a few people here, is to put them out of business by making the cost of running a successful RMT in GW higher than the benefit.

Email ban would be useless, as the cost of creating an email account is nill, zero. IP remains the best option, as MAC is mostly useless due to the low usage by ISPs (more and more, but I guess that in Asia it's still very open).

I liked a lot the mention in the last bullet point of Anet's statement of the gold buyers, though they're a bit gentle on them (Anet avoids a moral stance here, they're customers ready to pay for Anet products), and also the funny mention of reclaiming the RMT expenses via their credit card companies (will never happen

).

My fear is that RMT companies may become more aggressive on the security side of things, trying to steal accounts rather than buy them. There are still accounts with weak passwords (and I read somewhere that there was no brute-force attack detection on the server side, I hope this was wrong). I'm feeling that there may be more "3rd party programs" coming for the naive players and hope no one will fall prey of these sharks.

Spread the word: RMT companies should not survive, you should not buy virtual gold for real money and secure your computer and your accounts. Sorry for repeating it, but SOE article on EQ II is really nice on security advices (that is unfortunately no longer online, but here is a glimpse:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/171064 ).

Inde

Site Contributor

Join Date: Dec 2004

19 Mar 2008 at 17:50 - 91

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Meth

Let's say you own a store, which is at risk of being robbed by a local gang. The gang members all wear blue. Does that mean that not allowing anyone wearing blue into your store will keep you safe? No, any gang member who wants to get in will just wear different clothes. Meanwhile you turn away numerous customers who don't know about your no-blue policy. The gang is mildly inconvenienced, while an unlucky customer will get punished.

First off, well there is no first off... I have no idea what you are talking about and this analogy relates nothing to what I said. We implement email bans in a large variety of ways. And Fril, last sentence applies to you as well. I'm not sure how exactly you think we do email bans... but there's a number of ways and options we can do these. You might be surprised how many use an email address from the gold selling site. This is also just 1 method we use. We use a variety of different bans and ways to control the gold spam and ad spam on these boards.

I'm sure Anet is in the same position we are, they know that IP bans are not the answer-all. But if it can slow them down or give them a higher cost as Fril pointed out, then there's a possible benefit and reduction in their numbers.

Lem

Academy Page

Join Date: Oct 2006

Earth

Zealots Of Shiverpeak

E/

19 Mar 2008 at 17:59 - 92

The whole situation is a bit like the "war" on drugs. So longer as there is a buyer out there, someone will find a way to sell to them, regardless of what measures you put in place to catch/stop them.

I agree the new measures put in place will help slow down the rate of propagation the only way to eliminate it entirely is to close the servers, and that is obviously not a sensibly solution.

Fril Estelin

So Serious...

Join Date: Jan 2007

London

Nerfs Are [WHAK]

E/

19 Mar 2008 at 18:02 - 93

Quote:

Originally Posted by Inde

I'm sure Anet is in the same position we are, they know that IP bans are not the answer-all. But if it can slow them down then there's a benefit.

If by email ban you mean banning email addresses based on some filters, it doesn't help one bit (see gmail and hotmail). But I guess that for the safety of everyone, we should stop discussing this (no, it's not "security by obscurity", it's simply to avoid creating script kiddies). I believe Anet is already using an armada of methods to ban botters, at the packet and programs level. IP is just like a big hammer on the head of RMT companies, it won't kill them for sure but may be push them to the point where they say "we're not making enough profit in GW, let's reallocate our resources to MMO X instead".

As I mentioned in a different thread, the MMO companies should unite against RMT companies, because they won't be able to sustain the pressure individually (in my previous example, if MMO X closes due to the RMT companies moving away from GW, they'll have to find new preys and possibly come back to GW in much nastier ways).

Lem

Academy Page

Join Date: Oct 2006

Earth

Zealots Of Shiverpeak

E/

19 Mar 2008 at 18:05 - 94

Ultimately they will never leave entirely, because they will just push the price up so they are making a profit, however it is possible to drastically reduce the effect of bot farmed gold on the economy.

MithranArkanere

Underworld Spelunker

Join Date: Nov 2006

wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigo

Heraldos de la Llama Oscura [HLO]

E/

19 Mar 2008 at 18:43 - 95

I can only say one thing:

At last.

Oh... those where one or two things...? I think that... hm... two words but one thing. Yeah.

c0c0c0

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Nov 2005

GREY

R/Mo

19 Mar 2008 at 18:54 - 96

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Meth

Changing your ip address is really that easy. Google search it, you will see 5 seconds is an overstatement.

Heh? Changing your local IP address is easy. Changing your external address? Not so easy. Either you have purchased a block of static IP addresses (expensive) from your ISP that you have to keep switching, or you have a dynamic address provided by the ISP that is changes at their convenience (not yours).

Nothing is made impossible. Just more expensive (time or money).

N1ghtstalker

Forge Runner

Join Date: Dec 2007

E/

19 Mar 2008 at 18:59 - 97

very good idea
by blocking the IP's instead of the account itself they'll be able to disable more sellers at once

Ctb

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Apr 2006

W/

19 Mar 2008 at 19:12 - 98

Quote:

...stop trying to explain something you don't know anythign about.

Quote:

...stop trying to explain something you don't know anythign about.

Mm hmm.

I'm not going to argue with you about this anymore. If you change the MAC you had to register whether through cloning or hardware replacement, and your ISP filters by known MACs, you're not going to get a new IP, you're going to get locked out of your connection until you re-register the new router, NIC, whatever the hell you initially used when you set up the connection in the first place. That's why, on those ISPs that lock things down by MAC, when you change out a router you have to clone the address of the old router on the new one.

The conversation is over. The fact that you are unaware that the way your ISP handles MACs is not universal doesn't mean I "don't know anythign (sic)" about the subject.

Also, I had to register my MODEM'S MAC address, not my router's, because my ISP doesn't care if I use a home network.

fusa

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Mar 2007

19 Mar 2008 at 21:11 - 99

Quote:

Mm hmm.

I'm not going to argue with you about this anymore. If you change the MAC you had to register whether through cloning or hardware replacement, and your ISP filters by known MACs, you're not going to get a new IP, you're going to get locked out of your connection until you re-register the new router, NIC, whatever the hell you initially used when you set up the connection in the first place. That's why, on those ISPs that lock things down by MAC, when you change out a router you have to clone the address of the old router on the new one.

The conversation is over. The fact that you are unaware that the way your ISP handles MACs is not universal doesn't mean I "don't know anythign (sic)" about the subject.

Also, I had to register my MODEM'S MAC address, not my router's, because my ISP doesn't care if I use a home network.

Registering your modem's mac address just allows you to connect. Many ISP's assign IP's by the mac address connecting to the network. That mac address either comes from the computer that is connected directly to the modem or the router. Both of these can be changed easily, and when done the isp assigns a new ip since it thinks a new computer has connected to the isp. ISP's only filter by known mac's of the modems that were registered to connect to the isp. They don't filter mac's of computers or routers. You still have absoluetly no idea of how this works or anything you're talking about.

The Fox

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Apr 2005

19 Mar 2008 at 21:16 - 100

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stockholm

The Bot's finaly made the BIG MISTAKE

They stepped in to the the Dev's "favorit child" territory and they decided to act.
Don't mess with the PvP area or you get the nerfbat around your ears.

lol... PVP, the sacred grail; highly coveted and guarded by the twin nerf bats of fire and brimstone!

fusa

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Mar 2007

19 Mar 2008 at 21:37 - 101

Here's a little better explanation of what I'm talking about. I know someone who did this using Comcast, I've done it with Road Runner and a couple of other smaller ISP's. Its very simple and takes less than a minute to complete.

http://jimwarholic.com/2007/05/forci...ip-address.php

The Fox

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Apr 2005

19 Mar 2008 at 21:44 - 102

However it's avoidable!

FOR THE PEOPLE WITH BRIANS!!! (economics below)

Any simple economics classes will teach one that prices will increase as the quantity decreases for a desired good or service. In this way the update, will positively affect the situation in Guild Wars for the player base.

HOWEVER, I doubt Anet considered that as botters decrease, the economy will experience an increase in demand for gold and if this increase large enough, it could cause prices to rise to a point where even more botter sellers to enter the game than before the update. This would be due to a potential increase in demand for gold as inflation decreases.

Decreasing inflation will cause a percentage of average players, who were content not buying gold, to start buying gold, as their wealth decreases, due to increasing prices. IF this percentage of people creates a BIG ENOUGH increase in demand, it could overshadow the decrease in supply; caused by the bans. This would mean the update was a failure.

NOW THE SOLUTION
Ban as many botters as possible BUT ALSO increase the drop rate (somehow) to compensate for the decrease in inflation as these botters are banned. Possible suggestions have already been listed on the forum like removing loot scaling, bringing back consistant chests ect.

The great part is that since you control the drop rate, you can make this increase directly proportional to the decrease in inflation and thereby make everyone happy WITHOUT making anyone mad. Everyone gets better drops, and established "wealthy" players still retain the same value in their toys.

Moral of the Story: Make stuff drop more often and you can prevent this shift in demand, while also controlling the supply of botted gold. If you don't, then your efforts to ban botters will be crippled by your own success.

P.S. - As listed earlier in this post somewhere, you could also leave the botters alone and just increase the supply of gold. This would naturally decrease the need for botters as less people demanded their service. However, I'd prefer to squish the botters, than have money falling from the sky.

Fril Estelin

So Serious...

Join Date: Jan 2007

London

Nerfs Are [WHAK]

E/

19 Mar 2008 at 22:07 - 103

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Fox

FOR THE PEOPLE WITH BRIANS!!! (economics below)

Are you sure about your reasoning, given that RMT are only funded by a small minority of gold buyers (from what I've read so far on RMT)? Increasing money income for most people won't satisfy these ex-gold-buyers, will it?

(on the other hand, you're bringing an interesting point: what will happen to the gold-buyers? maybe they'll simply quit GW ...)

The Fox

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Apr 2005

19 Mar 2008 at 22:16 - 104

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

Are you sure about your reasoning, given that RMT are only funded by a small minority of gold buyers (from what I've read so far on RMT)? Increasing money income for most people won't satisfy these ex-gold-buyers, will it?

(on the other hand, you're bringing an interesting point: what will happen to the gold-buyers? maybe they'll simply quit GW ...)

Yes, I'm sure. Don't forget to consider that your "small minority of gold buyers", could grow to be significantly larger. Seeing more botters after this update is only a possible situation and it is entirely dependant on the elasticity of the demand and supply curves for gold buyers & sellers.

I'm not saying we'll see more botters. I'm just saying that it's theoretically possible, if they don't also control demand by offsetting the upcoming decrease in inflation as less gold is "created" in the Guild Wars economy.

Fril Estelin

So Serious...

Join Date: Jan 2007

London

Nerfs Are [WHAK]

E/

19 Mar 2008 at 22:29 - 105

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Fox

Yes, I'm sure. Don't forget to consider that your "small minority of gold buyers", could grow to be significantly larger.

How so? The vast majority of GW players want it to stay a no-monthly-fee game, how could there be more who want to buy this sort of additional fee? I mean, what would be the reason, in particular given the type of anti-RMT message that Anet is sending (like the rest of the MMO industry)?

Quote:

I'm just saying that it's theoretically possible, if they don't also control demand by offsetting the upcoming decrease in inflation as less gold is "created" in the Guild Wars economy.

As I said above, isn't a more realistic alternative that the old gold-buyers will quit and the rest of the GW crown will just go ahead without demanding more RMT?

The Fox

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Apr 2005

19 Mar 2008 at 22:37 - 106

Yes your probably right. It's more "realistic" that there will be a bigger decrease in supply than increase in demand, which will cause the overall quantity of RMT to go down.

However, this decrease in RMT will not be AS significant than it could have been, IF they don't also increase the drop rate to prevent the demand from increasing.

Lem

Academy Page

Join Date: Oct 2006

Earth

Zealots Of Shiverpeak

E/

19 Mar 2008 at 23:24 - 107

However with less gold in the game the overall value of gold would increase, so whilst your items might be worth less actual gold, that gold would be worth more.

Chthon

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: Apr 2007

20 Mar 2008 at 00:36 - 108

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

IP is just like a big hammer on the head of RMT companies, it won't kill them for sure but may be push them to the point where they say "we're not making enough profit in GW, let's reallocate our resources to MMO X instead".

As I mentioned in a different thread, the MMO companies should unite against RMT companies...

Thanks to your post, it just occurred to me that the MMO companies may be consciously choosing not to team up. Presume for a moment that a-net truly believes they can keep the RMT companies out of GW reasonably well through their own efforts. And, if they do so, they can drive more RMT companies to switch to ruining WoW instead. The worse of a RMT problem WoW has, the more of their customers switch to GW. It would seem a-net has an incentive not to team with Blizzard on stamping out RMT altogether... presuming they have confidence in their ability to stop RMT better than Bliz can.

Fril Estelin

So Serious...

Join Date: Jan 2007

London

Nerfs Are [WHAK]

E/

20 Mar 2008 at 00:49 - 109

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Thanks to your post, it just occurred to me that the MMO companies may be consciously choosing not to team up. Presume for a moment that a-net truly believes they can keep the RMT companies out of GW reasonably well through their own efforts. And, if they do so, they can drive more RMT companies to switch to ruining WoW instead. The worse of a RMT problem WoW has, the more of their customers switch to GW. It would seem a-net has an incentive not to team with Blizzard on stamping out RMT altogether... presuming they have confidence in their ability to stop RMT better than Bliz can.

That would be a very, very, very, very (ok enough now) bad reasoning on their part. This is exactly how the security threat on the computer got out of hand and hackers became professionals tied to mafia and other corrupted organisations (to those who don't know, this is a reality as of today). With this huge change, the security HAD to unite, and they did to a certain extent (which is also why the problem hasn't been eradicated, people still make money out of this).

If Blizzard or SOE's user accounts are hacked, it's very probable they'll get on GW accounts too, via obvious links (players on the 2 games). And if RMT companies can be as big as to really bother Blizzard or SOE, they can crush to pieces Anet (even though they have great programmers and a wonderful software architecture).

Hopefully, the gaming industry being much much much (stop it!) bigger than the security industry (and even the movie industry!), they'll make sure that something is done. And if we can accelerate this, we'll all have a much better gameplay experience. (but as for security, people don't act, they react and wait that their own personal gameplay is directly affected) My main concern is not technical or even economical, but legal, as there are ramifications to the problem that are not clear yet.

Technically it's not difficult to erase RMT, just too costly to have fancy statistical analyses and support for unbanning wrongly banned non-RMT farmers (well, there are some basic social engineering that RMT companies could play, but this would not be very rentable for them if NCSoft staff and procedures are stringent). Let's hope that it's built in in GW2 and that we can finish our game of GW1 until then

.

The Fox

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Apr 2005

20 Mar 2008 at 01:04 - 110

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lem

However with less gold in the game the overall value of gold would increase, so whilst your items might be worth less actual gold, that gold would be worth more.

True, but the people must likely to buy gold are the guys without it, who need the money to buy skills or who want new armor and haven't already been rich enough to buy it before. Therefore, this group is more prevalent to my hypothesis and would probably still prevent the update from having as much of an affect as it could, unless they increase the drop rate to compensate.

lol Don't condem me for trying guys...

It's a good arguement and one that would be good for the gaming community!

NeHoMaR

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Feb 2006

20 Mar 2008 at 03:10 - 111

For ArenaNet staff; Important thing about banning IPs:

Most of people use dynamic IP, that means people use the same IP for some hours, sometimes weeks, then ISP change it to other. So, you cannot ban IPs for a long period of time, or you possibly will be denying access to a legit player if ISP assign that IP to him (if he live in the same area of the gold seller live/work)

EDIT: Oh! I forgot something about open proxies: Sometimes, the "open" proxies are not intentionally open to the public to use it, lot of times are virus in normal personal computers silently opening ports for use as proxy, so again, this could be denying access to a real player (with no antivirus ^_^)

ArenaNet should already know this, anyway this could be useful for forum visitors.

Mr Emu

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Apr 2006

W/A

20 Mar 2008 at 03:39 - 112

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Fox

However it's avoidable!

FOR THE PEOPLE WITH BRIANS!!! (economics below)

Any simple economics classes will teach one that prices will increase as the quantity decreases for a desired good or service. In this way the update, will positively affect the situation in Guild Wars for the player base.

HOWEVER, I doubt Anet considered that as botters decrease, the economy will experience an increase in demand for gold and if this increase large enough, it could cause prices to rise to a point where even more botter sellers to enter the game than before the update. This would be due to a potential increase in demand for gold as inflation decreases.

Decreasing inflation will cause a percentage of average players, who were content not buying gold, to start buying gold, as their wealth decreases, due to increasing prices. IF this percentage of people creates a BIG ENOUGH increase in demand, it could overshadow the decrease in supply; caused by the bans. This would mean the update was a failure.

NOW THE SOLUTION
Ban as many botters as possible BUT ALSO increase the drop rate (somehow) to compensate for the decrease in inflation as these botters are banned. Possible suggestions have already been listed on the forum like removing loot scaling, bringing back consistant chests ect.

The great part is that since you control the drop rate, you can make this increase directly proportional to the decrease in inflation and thereby make everyone happy WITHOUT making anyone mad. Everyone gets better drops, and established "wealthy" players still retain the same value in their toys.

Moral of the Story: Make stuff drop more often and you can prevent this shift in demand, while also controlling the supply of botted gold. If you don't, then your efforts to ban botters will be crippled by your own success.

P.S. - As listed earlier in this post somewhere, you could also leave the botters alone and just increase the supply of gold. This would naturally decrease the need for botters as less people demanded their service. However, I'd prefer to squish the botters, than have money falling from the sky.

I'm afraid I don't have a Brian, I only know one

enemyunknown

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Apr 2007

Shadow Hunters Of Light SHOL

W/Mo

20 Mar 2008 at 19:00 - 113

We are adding the ability to block certain IP addresses from the game. In the coming days and weeks, we will be using this capability to block addresses of RMT companies that heavily abuse the game.

One happy camper here, Gold-sellers finally being sorted out;
A word to all the complainers, yes the IP blocking is going to cause problems in the short term, but unless YOU can make a better solution, quit the whinging.

Keep up the great work ANET.

Master Reamer

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Mar 2008

21 Mar 2008 at 01:44 - 114

OK so I have been unable to access GW since about the 18th I get a Code 005 error when it tries to connect to RA (where all my character were last) I take it after looking for a solution that probably the ISP I use (Bigpond in Australia) has got me blocked because of IP address issues?

Any help appreciated

Trub

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Mar 2006

Sitting in the guildhall, watching the wallows frolic.

Trinity of the ascended [SMS]+[Koss]+[TAM]=[ToA]

21 Mar 2008 at 01:51 - 115

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr Emu

I'm afraid I don't have a Brian, I only know one

Brian's are rare breeds yanno.
If your having IP issues..(router configs..ect) send in a support ticket to ANet, they aren't mind readers.....sorry.

cthulhu reborn

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jan 2007

the Netherlands

W/Mo

21 Mar 2008 at 16:45 - 116

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr Emu

I'm afraid I don't have a Brian, I only know one

Indeed, I always have to smile when someone claiming intelligence doesn't seem to be able to spell a keyword ,such as brain in this case, correctly

Amusement aside, I do feel this is a great and important update. There has been a lot of criticism on the lack of intervention in these matters and they have done things about it and this, I feel, is a good step indeed.

Every systems has good and bad things with it and I am sure that Anet are taking that into account.

I do think some of the commentaries here about technical matters regarding IP blocking and such are interesting if not useful. Though I would think and hope that Anet has people working for them that understand such things and have taken that into account as well.

All in all I think it's great that they take time and put effort into this game even with GW2 lurking around the corner. I would say that is applaudable and will certainly help them to make GW2 a game with a good start as well.

Although I have not always agreed with some of the in-game changes before I do believe this is a good thing. Just something about going through a lot of trouble to get FoW armour or tormented weapons or whatever, only to find out it's not special anymore cause a bunch of people just paid some real cash and got it without any effort.

Hash Mama

Academy Page

Join Date: Aug 2005

Saint Aggro

W/

21 Mar 2008 at 18:31 - 117

Quote:

Originally Posted by kai_razorwind

Wow...way to go Arenanet! The game is *JUST* out for 3 years, and you're already taking measures against something that has been happening since june 2005! Hats off to ya! And maybe while you're at it, why not try to address the real problem, which is that your friggin drop rates suck? Why the heck do you think that people buy ingame gold? *HINT* you've got a "casual" game that rewards heavy farmers.
Thank god you're game developers and not running a country.

Best comment i have ever seen on this forums....but look at politicians, they act the same way/so sad.

DarkKnight

Academy Page

Join Date: Mar 2008

The Seven Deadly

W/E

22 Mar 2008 at 21:59 - 118

If bots disappear there will be less farming overall leading to a natural increase in drops. Weather this will be significant enough to notice a difference remains to be seen however.

The Fox

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Apr 2005

24 Mar 2008 at 01:03 - 119

Should I spend all day proof reading for key stroke errors, when I could be doing something else?

:P That doesn't make my post any less relevant.

Zahr Dalsk

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: Aug 2007

Canada

24 Mar 2008 at 01:13 - 120

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Fox

Should I spend all day proof reading for key stroke errors, when I could be doing something else?

:P That doesn't make my post any less relevant.

You could take 15 seconds to spot any obvious errors...