If ANET wanna catch come cheaters, why don't they try this...

For example, Gold buyers...

ANET should set up a bogus website advertising to sell GW gold and when players buy it and once delivered, BANNED!

Or would this cause a nice law suit on behalf of ANET? If they can't do this then how would the GMs even catch gold buyers? Sometimes I wonder how some people have over 500k gold. I work hella hard and after a few upgrades, my gold is done!

That would be entrapment. and that means lawsuits galore! They have ways of catching gold sellers/buyers - not fool-proof, but they do bust a lot of 'em.

As for people having over 500k - it's not that hard to come up with that kind of cash. It's just a matter of knowing the market & making the most out of the drops you get. Get a perfect Silverwing recurve bow, sell it for 250 ectos. At 6K per ecto, that's 1,500K. At 8K per, you've just made 2,000k. I won't even go into how much old all of the players who've been playing since the beginning have made & spent on things like FoW armor, booze, sweets, party items, lockpicks, etc.

damn... that's a lot. That means I need to farm more. I'm not much of a farmer... It's too bad ANET has nerfed a lot of the good old spots and will probably do the same to the new spots too such as raptor farming..

If that is entrapment then how does all those shows on TV such as 'how to catch a predator", and some cops buying/selling weed/drugs get away? That is entrapment too isn't it?

Entrapment is when you specifically tempt someone into doing something illegal. Posing as someone else (like an undercover police officer) isn't entrapment -- note that there is a very specific point when the police are allowed to arrest someone for dealing drugs/being a predator. Policemen pretending to be minors on the internet can't say very much -- its the predator that has to be the one that starts talking about sexual stuff before they can take action. Likewise, when the police get a tip off that X person is a drug dealer, they aren't "trapping" them by pretending buy drugs and then arresting him or her. They're just pretending to be a "customer".

I don't really see how Anet would be able to catch platinum buyers/sellers... its not like they have time to monitor large money transfers. Anyway, the way Guild Wars is built (and like what Kook said) its already pretty easy to make money compared to other RPGs, there isn't really a business for it. GW isn't equipment driven -- the most expensive stuff is decorative, not functional. If I were a player, I'd honestly rather spend the time farming stuff Obsidian armor than paying 10-20 real life bucks for it... almost every PvE activity in GW is profitable.

There's a fine line between posing as a seller and actively trying to sell. If the defendent can establish a case that the seller lured them into doing something illegal that they normally wouldn't do, then there's a basis for an entrapment claim.

The website probably wouldn't meet the test of entrapment, as it's not "illegal" to buy in-game gold, just against the EULA. It would be pretty bad PR, though.

Yea thats what I was thinking about the entrapment thing, like setting up female cops as prostitutes to catch people who would have bought it.

think they should just do the 'buying' and then they could catch the sellers when the delivery happens....

They catch them by looking at logs when a trade goes one way with a huge sum of gold. Sometimes though, legit players get caught in the middle and sometimes never get their account back, which is ultra fail.

More than gold buying I wish they would address the bot issue in pvp >__>

Entrapment is when the state entices someone to do something illegal. It is a defense to criminal liability. There is no parallel concept barring a-net from enticing someone to do something in violating of the EULA, they banning them for it. Though one might argue that by offering RMT transactions to you, a-net waived the part of the EULA forbidding RMT transactions.

Great idea. I hate those come cheaters.

It would not be entrapment because the gold buyers are buying gold while fully aware that it is against the EULA if the site looks no different to the other hundreds of gold selling sites.

What would be easier though is if A-net leaked a rumor that they are running or monitoring several gold selling sites that they have established.

and in pve.

a large reason gold sellers prevail is because they can bot the ship out of this game with little risk and good payoff. there are also people with pretty much unlimited funds, i.e. just having an unded kanaxai, though i don't think they'd be the type to cash it all in.

to the OP, if you're still in the stage where you have to pay for your new skills, max armor etc, it will be a while yet before you start amassing gold.

also i never understood why they didn't use this aggressively. i can buy gold right now and have it in 24hrs. its all on google first page. the only thing i could consider is, that the gold sellers isolate each botting account. they never trade with their other accounts. so all they have to do is amass 100k+ on their $5 proph only account and sell it. if that account gets banned, so what, they made $50 from $5. they probably have bots to get them from pre searing to wherever they need in a few hours. but anet could trace some IPs and get an idea of who's who.

but really what they should've done is mitigate pve bot/lamer activity right from the start. bots succeed in repetitive, easily farmed areas. so either there should be pathetic/no rewards from some of these, some should be removed from the game, some should more aggressively temp banned (dishonorable status is nothing). let me list some for you

1. snowball dominance (repeatable! with amazing rewards, possibly the best consistent farm in the game)
2. raptors (hi right outside town)
3. farming aatxe in uw chamber (easy to do with spirit spammer)
4. zaishen elite (used to work amazing with heroes)
5. JQ/FA/AB afk
6. luxon afk
7. trolls (like raptors)
8. bergen hot springs
9. that halloween skeleton capture quest
10. polar bear quest
11. snowball/RA afk
12. repeatable factions quests
the list goes on.

these bots all exist and the programmers were so nice that most can be downloaded easily and freely.

i don't play WoW, but as far as i know, the only things worth a damn are high end items from raids. you can't bot raids.

/not signed
But aNet should implement a bot that surfs the sites of the gold-selling companies, purchase gold, then ban the accounts trading it. BAH!

If you set rules for everybody, then you have to live by them as well. You can not go around breaking your own rules and try to excuse that by saying it was for the greater good.

according to the eula which you agreed with, they can ban you just for existing, they dont even need a reason to do it...

That would be pointless:

Trader account does not hold much money and is mostly just someones hijacked account that is also being used for spam anyway.

Banning it would not solve anything, not when they already have money in pocket.

Banning buyers sound much more effective. Preferably with public humiliation in case of more "known" players.

Is gold selling even really an issue in guild wars? I played pretty consistently since June of '05 and never really noticed it. Gold/ectos are plenty easy to farm. And quite honestly if someone wants to actually go out and waste real $$ for a game that is in its final chapter they can be my guest.

Dunno just seems anything worth buying can be farmed, and the only thing a gold buyer is gonna do is exchange the money for ectos; then sit on it. Meh but then I've never seen the point to buying gold for any game.

Yh, it is. If U ever played the game other way than just h/h U shoulda notice that. It's a huge problem that causes griefing among players who don't buy gold for real money. It also has a strong influence on the inflation, provides a reason for gold selling companies to steal accounts, not to mention causing abuse of chinese kids for slave gold farming.

Just one good drop can land you this much.