Enforcing a Sell Cap in High End

Inde

Site Contributor

Join Date: Dec 2004

I would like to bring up a suggestion that has been proposed by one of our forum users and get feedback from all of you. We recently had a thread up that promoted users to go to an illegal site to acquire gold/ectos in order to be able to buy some of their rare high-end items. This is never acceptable. It it strictly against the EULA. The user has been banned.

This brought about a discussion on whether enforcing a sell cap would be useful and in the best interest of the users of this forum. For example, is 40,000e an amount that is completely unreasonable and the only way to acquire such is to turn to a gold selling site?

This is an option we are exploring right now so any ideas or feedback is welcome. If you feel we need or should have a cap, an amount that would be acceptable, etc.

Please feel free to discuss.

Eazy Duz It

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jun 2008

Kamadan District 1

No Negotiating With Terrorists [AK47]

R/

Just saying, theres already enough rules. Feel like they are just getting more and more ridiculous.

constructive criticism is good right?

Inde

Site Contributor

Join Date: Dec 2004

There are a lot of rules, we acknowledge this. They have been fine-tuned and developed over years and years though. It's all in an effort to make sure everyone is able to have enough front page time, so that sellers and buyers are on equal footing. It's never fair to have your thread bumped off the front page by someone who simply wouldn't take the time to read the rules.

As long as we can keep this thread on topic, I think this sell cap would only affect a very small # of posts. But could help better enforce the Guild Wars EULA and possible protect users.

Pleikki

Pleikki

WTB q8 15^50 Weapons!

Join Date: Nov 2006

???oo ???ugs ???lan [?????????]

I dont find Cap real needed. i really think that promoting the gold selling site is thing which probably will never happen again (atleast not in someones sell thread, ofc theres ad spam). i havent seen that happening before alteast. and i doubt it will in future..

and again in other hand theres so few ppl selling items of that value, so it wouldnt matter to most ppl.

Achrr The Archer

Achrr The Archer

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Nov 2005

Minnesota

[Bye]

Mo/

Like you said, there aren't that many trades that it would affect at all. I'm all for it.

Eazy Duz It

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jun 2008

Kamadan District 1

No Negotiating With Terrorists [AK47]

R/

I agree with Pleikki

Diao Xiao

Diao Xiao

Bots killed teh PvP Star

Join Date: Nov 2006

Ascalon id1

Mo/

I agree with both Pleikki and Eazy here. It doesn't happen very often that someone sells stuff with this value, so adding another rule is not really necessairy.

And if people really think the only way to get 40,000 ecto's is by buying them off a site, they just don't understand the game. Furthermore, most people that have these amounts, played GW since day 1. So..

Pleikki

Pleikki

WTB q8 15^50 Weapons!

Join Date: Nov 2006

???oo ???ugs ???lan [?????????]

Actually most ppl but not ALL who got that amounth got that from abusing armbrace dupers :P

Another Felldspar

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Sep 2006

Alchemy Incorporated

Mo/E

To me it should matter to every person who has posted up an "I got hacked" thread, or had a guildie or an ally that was hit by an RMT.

Seriously ask yourself how many average player's accounts would have to be hit to cover a 40,000 ecto order to an RMT and how far an RMT would be willing to go to satisfy an order of that size. $5,000 in real dollars would be a huge incentive to hack. How many ecto does the average player have sitting in storage? How many people would lose everything that they've accumulated?

On the other hand how many high-rollers even have those types of resources available? Could Malice or Stuey come up with 40,000 ecto from their own resources to make a legitimate trade? I don't know. But if they couldn't -- if any single player in the game would have to visit an RMT to complete that type of trade then the listings shouldn't be allowed.

I would go so far as to ask for a 5,000 ecto cap. I think there are select few players that could manage a legitimate 5,000 ecto trade and the ones that can are known by the people that would be offering the sale. At that point it doesn't have to be a public offering.

Think about what's at stake.

Jenn

Jenn

Resigned.

Join Date: Sep 2006

Strongly disagree with the idea of imposing a price cap.

Engage

Engage

Indeed

Join Date: Sep 2007

Some of the high-end minis are selling for ridiculous prices, and is the result of quite a few reasons: money being stupidly easy to get by anyone (XTH - thank God it's down for the time being), the exploits that happened over the years, gold-selling sites, etc. For all these reasons, the prices of not only minis continue to inflate and inflate, beyond reasonable levels.

In the end, your asking on whether or not the market on Guru should mirror the market ingame. In my opinion, I would rather the person who goes to one of these sites go because of something they saw ingame, and thus leave Guru out of (not completely as that is an inevitability) the perpetuation of the idea.

Rushin Roulette

Rushin Roulette

Forge Runner

Join Date: Sep 2007

Right here

Ende

I think this idea looks good on paper, but it wont change a thing at all in practice, unless you can find a way to shut down every single gold seller. GWG is not a site run by Arenanet or NCSoft, so you have no way of controlling if and how players who bid here came to the X Thousands of Ectos. Some players (Such as the last Art contest or skill contest winners) got their riches through legal ways by selling the everlasting Henchman or Mini Mad-King Guards to other players for example.
They should be given the possibility of paying stupidly horrendous amounts for something just as useless in real life that they like more than their winnings.

Also, you might want to note that if you do implement a rule like this, people will still buy and sell gold. The sellers for items that exceed this rule will just move to a different site.

One final point Id like to note. Anet implemented the 100K per trade cap and players found a way around this through Ectos, Armbraces or rare minis. If you implement a trade cap at 40.000 Ectos for example, what is stopping players in trading Armbraces and who sets the cost of one Armbrace or one Island Guardian in terms of Ectos?

Adding a completely new sub-forum (Ventari's So High It Gives You Nosebleed Just Thinking About It End) wouldnt change anything either.


P. S. When do you get to ban yourself for 3 days for bumping your own topic within 24 Hours in the Ventaris Forums

P.P.S. to stop myself braking a rule myself... I bid 1 Gold on any Trademark or Copyright on the Trade cap and on the Sub-forum name "Ventari's So High It Gives You Nosebleed Just Thinking About It End"

kretencina

kretencina

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Sep 2008

Serbia

--- アoo アugs アlan --- [ァアァ]

W/

The sell cap would pull many things , high end section is pretty much for items with ingame value of 100k+, but what about items that are worth above the sell cap (lets say 5000e that Ayelet Feldspar suggested) like Zhed, Vizu and such miniatures? Their owners couldnt sell them here then, maybe on other sites but not here. So that sell cap would pretty much make those players look for another site to sell their items and that is not your goal , is it? Many players that have stacks of armbraces sitting in their bags at this point (few dupers probably did survive the Anet clean up) made it through DoA farming, that is not very hard anymore.....
About the 40,000e being an unreasonable offer, many players find that being offendive to them couse of the sheer amount of the offer, but still that is an offer same as any other offer (considering that the bidder does have that ammount of money)....
Well , lol, i guess this "fairy" tale wasnt needed so i agree with Pleikki, Eazy Duz It and Diao Xiao.... xD

Malice Black

Site Legend

Join Date: Oct 2005

Well as the only person who's posted with more then 40k ecto I have to laugh and disagree.

Buying large amounts of in-game gold would cost many thousands of real cash. Name me a person that stupid?

Edit - sticky for you

Stop The Storm

Stop The Storm

Keeping DoA Alive

Join Date: Jan 2007

England

Were In [DoA]

A/N

awful idea

its not hard to get a few thousand ectos, anyone with a decent business sense and eye for a bargain can powertrade easy

dont even know why you would want this stickied and discussed?

ill repeat, awful idea

*edit*

also, what would the cap be? 5000e? 10000e?

are you not going to allow the sales of any HIGH end minis on guru? or uber rare weapons?

Another Felldspar

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Sep 2006

Alchemy Incorporated

Mo/E

I seriously doubt that people who would buy 40,000 ecto from RMTs for the sake of pixelated wealth are people who would pay for it out of their own accounts.

@Stop The Storm I want it discussed because of late I've seen a spate of account thefts by RMTs. RMTs have always been a problem, but recently the sheer number of hacks has increased and I suspect that sales threads [like the one mentioned in the OP] are one of the root causes of that increase. When someone is offering the volume of ultra rares that were in that thread it is reasonable to believe that the sale itself is driving some portion of the hacks. The thread is gone now so I can't go back and add up the amount of ecto that were offered there. But I propose that at least some of the people who bid bought the resources from RMTs. They were even encouraged to do so by the OP.

Again I'm asking for the community at large to stop and consider how many player accounts -- random, average, player accounts -- would have to be hit to fuel an RMT's 40,000 ecto sale. What do you think? 500? 800? 1000? Is it worth it?

If you don't want to consider having a cap on a single item how about a cap on a thread? If there is a 40,000 ecto item up for sale it doesn't need to have 50 other 1,500 ecto items along with it. Think about what the thread is driving inside the game.

Edited by Illfated Fat: Please don't divulge names. I've removed the person's name.

ladymakato

ladymakato

blah, blah, blah...

Join Date: Jan 2006

Texas

Murchadh Clan [Clan]

R/

I disagree with having a cap.

Ss Executioner

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Jul 2006

England

The Percytown Pirates of Port Yargh [Prar]

W/Rt

As someone looking to make a fortune selling his tonic in the near future I disagree with this cap

Sir Cusfreak

Sir Cusfreak

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Nov 2007

In your backline

No Tags [NONE]

I'm all for it.

I agree that the highest-end trades do not need to be a public matter.

If you want to show off what you have (which is what most of those things being offered openly really is) do it another way.

'hidden reserve not met' = 'I would miss showing this off if I sold it'

not that I think a cap on this thread would stop much, if anything, but hell I'm all for ANY steps that even MIGHT stop the kind of BS we *ahem* ALL *ahem* saw in the "call me after you visit the RMT" thread.
I agree that this fuels the hacks, I'm glad to see the ban from here, and I think it should be perma-bannable ingame as well to come in a public forum and say something like that. Lucky for them, I dont run anything but my mouth. But I have an opinion I'm entitled to, and it is anyone who uses, trades with, or promotes RMT in any way is pure scum, glad to see them gone.

Long story kinda sorta less-long: YES I'd like to see the cap in place.

Tramp

Tramp

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Jan 2008

Mo/

cap should be 750e and not an ecto more...

But logistically, how would it work? Lets say Malice produces a screenshot of all his one of a kind rare items and puts a cap of 750e on each one. Then someone bids 751e. What happens? Does Malice get banned or the thread closed because someone else ignored the cap? Does the bidder get banned for bidding 1 ecto over the cap? What if Malice leaves the cap price off his uber rare items and leaves an open buyout, and someone bids 751e? Was it his fault he is so stinking rich or the fault of the person who bid 1 ecto over? I just do not see how you can stop people from bidding over any cap, 750e or 40,000e. If the poster does not list a buy out price then it is not his/her fault. Maybe just ban people who like to post and tell other people how rich they are if it goes above a certain level, like 40,000e or whatever? It all sounds good, but I am finding it hard to see how to enforce it equitably.

carnage-runner

carnage-runner

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Aug 2006

Canada, B.C. Vancouver. aka.. amazing.

[Sith]

W/Me

This seems a bit ridiculous. At this point in the game a rule like this would do nothing. People, including myself, post threads with ridiculous prices all the time. Telling them they can't do that is going to reduce your number of members. The highend mini traders wont be very happy that they can't use the site either.

With regards to the EULA rules.... If ANET catches them, then they catch them, if they don't they don't. It is not your job as a Guru mod to decide who has duped items, or who purchased items with RMT's. It is only your job to moderate your forums and keep RMT's off the page. If someone offers someone 50,000e, they can break that into armbraces easily, or other minis. It doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a RMT.

Capping the highend forums would be ok if you plan on opening a minipet trading thread as well. Otherwise, I see this as a futile effort at doing something that you are not required to do; moderating RMT's.

WhiteWasabi

WhiteWasabi

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Mar 2006

KAMADAN AD1

Zealots of Shiverpeak

E/

First, How many items are more than 40000e? I can only think of 1 item...Unded kanaxai. (unded panda might be there eventually). The only other item that would come close is a classic name gold trim guild like EviL or WM.

Second, I will say that I have NEVER bought ingame gold for real money. I spent many many (too many?) hours standing in kamadan buying and selling all kinds of items to get my wealth. And on top of everything about 8 months ago, (I was already very rich at the time) a friend quit the game and gave me a few very rare minis. My point is having 40ke+ is possible but very rare.

I have suspicions of other people who I think were dupers but I have NO PROOF so who am I to say "You have too much wealth, you must have duped or bought gold." I know of a person who was just given an unded mad king guard (not me). Well, that is already 10ke+ so 1/4 of the impossible 40ke that was mentioned. Again, having 40ke is possible just rare.

There are many times in the game when there were ways to make thousands of ectos quick (legally). You just had to be in the right place at the right time. For example, when EoTN first came out golden rin relics were 50k+ a piece. A full set of rin relics were more than an unded oni at the time. I remember turning an unded oni down in trade for a full set.

I have no idea what it would cost to buy 40000 ectos but I strongly believe that nobody would actually spend $1000+ on this game for a few extra pixels (no offense Anet).

GunslingerV

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jun 2008

Chicago

Against the cap - first of all, as many have stated before, it's unlikely someone would pay real money for 40,000 ectos. Second, that kind of transaction would require 160 inventory/storage slots, and would be nightmarish (it's much more likely that the trade would involve another item of extremely high value plus lets say 10k ectos). Lastly, it is far more likely for someone with a few thousand ectos to have purchased them than for someone with 40k ectos to have purchased them.

Inde

Site Contributor

Join Date: Dec 2004

Just to reclarify, this is an open discussion. No decisions have been made at all and we are simply exploring options and seeing what feedback we can gather on if the community would like to see something like this.

Jensy

Jensy

Site Contributor

Join Date: Apr 2007

Phoenix, Arizona

Blinkie Ponie Armie [bpa]

N/Mo

Okay. Here's my thoughts.

1) Okay, say stuff is capped here. What about auctions? Who's going to have the time to moderate that?

2) While we like to think that people with enormous wealth are the ones getting hacked, it's generally been the shmos with not a lot except maybe a few sets of Obsidian. No, not always, but they're who we've heard from the most.

3) I kind of feel like this is an appeal to people who can't afford the items in question. Putting a cap in here won't lower the price of the item in-game. People will just go spam their butts off in Kamadan.

So uh. Yeah.

DonCorleoneCS

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Mar 2006

Connecticut

???oo ???ugs ???lan [?????????]

W/

Funny how this discussion thread becomes a boasting thread for Malice.

Anyway, I disagree with the idea of putting in a cap. Activity is drastically down from where it used to be on High End and the number of items being sold for incredible amounts of ecto are also going down. I really don't believe it will have any affect. Just something the mods need to keep an eye out for.

Jenn

Jenn

Resigned.

Join Date: Sep 2006

Guys, please address the topic at hand. This is about whether or not to have a sell-cap in High-End; it's not a discussion about the people who prompted the creation of this thread.

Keep comments about people to yourself.

carnage-runner

carnage-runner

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Aug 2006

Canada, B.C. Vancouver. aka.. amazing.

[Sith]

W/Me

Diao, simply enough they will ban those who break the rules. That's how it's always supposed to have been. I'm not gonna elaborate on that system as my feelings are known. Guys trading highend pets are gonna get what they want, a cap on this site isn't like a cap of ingame trading or anything.

1) Low-end sub 100K
2) Mid-end 100K-250e
3) High-end 250e+
4) Low-end mini
5) High-end mini

Maybe have a misc section. (Tomes, mods, dyes, collectable drops, consumables)

That's my opinion on the matter summed up. There are a lot of things worth a stack or more now... There are also a lot of things between 100k and 250e. And of course there are still plenty of things worth more than 250e.

Minis, there's a market for cheaper mini's (sub 100e) and there's a market for expensive minis (over 100e). Back to Tramps idea on money Cap's. Set an ecto cap of 5,000e or w/e and anything that reaches that needs to be verified in game by a moderator. No one likes fake posts. (That should go the same for those bidding... Shill bidding is disgusting)

Baretata

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Feb 2006

somewhere

A/Me

I'm all for having a sell cap. I personally am one of those filthy- rich players(since this thread's also become about bragging ) and still having a sell cap sounds pretty reasonable

LicensedLuny

Badly Influenced

Join Date: Dec 2005

Buying Humps! (No kidding! Check my buy thread)

Hello Kitty Krewe [HKK] Forever!-ish

I'm in the "against a cap" camp here, too.

Choosing an amount for the cap and then enforcing it would be complicated if not impossible.

"Too much money" is a subjective term, and the definition varies by person. There's nothing wrong with accumulating in-game wealth. There will always be people who are good at accumulating wealth in game. There will always be people who enjoy showing off their wealth. Unfortunately, there will also always be others who see them and are envious enough to try to cheat/hack/RMT to match them. A new rule on Ventari's won't stop that. I doubt there's really anything ANet can do to stop that either. It's a question of individual values.

If/when threads show up that directly promote breaking the EULA, we shut them down. I do not agree with making rules to limit legitimate trades simply because some poor, misguided soul might see it and find their greed overpowers their common sense.

Malice Black

Site Legend

Join Date: Oct 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by carnage-runner View Post
Diao, simply enough they will ban those who break the rules. That's how it's always supposed to have been. I'm not gonna elaborate on that system as my feelings are known. Guys trading highend pets are gonna get what they want, a cap on this site isn't like a cap of ingame trading or anything.

1) Low-end sub 100K
2) Mid-end 100K-250e
3) High-end 250e+
4) Low-end mini
5) High-end mini

Maybe have a misc section. (Tomes, mods, dyes, collectable drops, consumables)

That's my opinion on the matter summed up. There are a lot of things worth a stack or more now... There are also a lot of things between 100k and 250e. And of course there are still plenty of things worth more than 250e.

Minis, there's a market for cheaper mini's (sub 100e) and there's a market for expensive minis (over 100e). Back to Tramps idea on money Cap's. Set an ecto cap of 5,000e or w/e and anything that reaches that needs to be verified in game by a moderator. No one likes fake posts. (That should go the same for those bidding... Shill bidding is disgusting) Too much work. The sections we have keep us busy enough.

I'm not wasting my in-game time verifying items. Period.

Tramp

Tramp

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Jan 2008

Mo/

Quote:
Originally Posted by carnage-runner View Post
Set an ecto cap of 5,000e or w/e and anything that reaches that needs to be verified in game by a moderator. No one likes fake posts. (That should go the same for those bidding... Shill bidding is disgusting)
Now this is the only workable and is truly a good idea. Any one item being sold worth more than 5000e, and any thread with items totalling more than 10,000e must be verified, and when people bid it is verified too. It would slow down the sales process, but after 3 years (this week got my present!) I know that real sellers and real buyers do not mind a longer trading process just as long as it is legit. Scammers and fakers are the ones who want quick trades. It would stop the fakers, and end the shill bidding. (Although I must admit I do not see as much shill bidding as in the past).

There could be a sticky list of verification mods that buyers and sellers could pm in game to show and get verified. I cant tell you the number of times I have asked sellers on here to show items, and buyers too when I saw interesting offers of items I would have liked to have owned, only to find out "on a friends account" or "too busy to show" or "would take me too long to find it". Mmmmhmmmm...right....

Quote:
Originally Posted by Malice Black View Post
Too much work. The sections we have keep us busy enough.

I'm not wasting my in-game time verifying items. Period. Well, maybe Inde could start up a whole new group of "verification mods" that may more may not include existing mods depending on if they want more duties or not. But if you want to bid on or sell something expensive, then everyone, gets verified, even busy people like yourself.

Inde

Site Contributor

Join Date: Dec 2004

We've had problem offering in game verification and mediation before. It was years ago, but players started creating in game names similar to that of moderators. Such as User Name but instead they would do User' Name and the like. So we abruptly stopped all in game mediation and services to combat this.

tonini

tonini

Forge Runner

Join Date: Jun 2007

Retired from guildwars for good:D

[]

R/

sell cap isnt too bad of an idea but i fail to realize the impact that a 40ke minipet brings to guru
normal people will not log on to a site spending $1000s on ectos (im sure the temptation is there but the cash isnt :P so there dream of owning that super highend item through cheatin will go up in smoke)
implementing a rule that states a bid must be made in gw currency would imo better suit this problem
I realize for those few people they will just go to the gold site and buy straight from them which is above anyone's power but knowing that guru in no way had a hand to play...well except for temptation

Soo actually removing the temptation for those few people i guess would be worth it if gold sellers don't make a profit

frostkisses

frostkisses

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Aug 2007

Wisconsin

Cerberus Guardians of the [GATE]

E/

I think a cap would be a horrible idea. There are few things that yield more than 1000e in auction. 1000e is a days worth of powertrading. I dont underestimate the human population.. I really dont. I know there are people that will buy that amount, but most wont. I know RMT's are getting out of control but thats anets issue. They need to update their security(which wont happen since they have their hands in several other piles of crap). Way too easy for someone who has enough knowledge to hack an account in game to make multiple accounts on here, or even hack accounts here, and continue on like nothin ever happened. These people have made a BUSINESS out of stealing accounts. It's not going away. And it shouldnt be a burden put in place here for moderators. And really how hard is it for an auction to go to the limit..then pm the people still really interested to take it back to the game after its GWG exposure. It's a white knight attempt, but will just fall short.