Serious thought...read and respond. EBAY

So I've been reading posts lately about the farming bots and such, and I've come to a simple conclusion. Although I have no concrete evidence for this, I have a feeling I'm right. Feel free to flame away if you want, this is a matter of opinion:

ANET says that selling or buying GuildWars goods on EBAY is against the End User Liscence Agreement. True, but that dosen't mean they have any authority over EBAY to stop the auctions.

I recently visited Ebay.com to check out how many items are being sold, and the numbers are outrageous. I typed in "Guild Wars" in the search button, and over 3,000 separate, yet identical auctions came up. The majority of which are selling 300k+ Guild Wars gold for 12.00us dollars and up.

Now here's where my question comes up...How do we know that ANET is controlling farming bots and selling the gold on EBAY themselves? This could easily be done, with no questions asked.

If you feel angry that I'm even questioning this, go on EBAY right now. There is around 5 auctions per person. That means that these people are selling around 1.5 million worth of gold for around 60 dollars? To make that much money, it would take at least a few days, even for the best money makers in the game. Even if it only took, say 10 hours, is that really worth 60 bucks? No, it's not.

I honestly think ANET or the game developers are in charge of these outrageous auctions. If you're on EBAY, click on the sellers previous auctions and you'll see how much gold they've actually aquired and sold. Some have well over 10million worth of guild wars gold sold and sent so far.

10 million. Are you serious? Thats 10 full storages, or 1 full storage and 90 full characters worth, or any combination of such.

Nobody can farm that much, in that little of time, and sell it for that cheap. I don't care how poor you are in real life, farming that much and selling for that cheap is definately not going to make you a living.

What I'm getting at is this:

1. Guild Wars has a 1 time fee. You pay for the game, and each update. No monthly fee. Awesome.

So that's somewhere around 50 million dollars this game has brought in, minus production and development and staff and misc. costs.

That's a ton of money. But why stop there? Why not make farming bots? Who knows the code better than the developers?

They might not even need bots. Who's to stop them from just manifesting the 300k-1000k worth of gold and selling it on ebay for an automatic 100% profit.

There's not nobody to stop them except themselves. They're making a killing off of this, and at the same time, destroying the game's economy. Sooner or later, guild wars is going to be flooded with the insane amounts of gold being farmed or "manifested" or however it's being aquired and then sold on EBAY.

I give the game about 4 months before the economy goes so out of wack that nobody except the EBAYers will be able to stand playing the game anymore.


(If you've read this far and you're so insanely upset at me, PM me, dont flood the forum flaming the thread and getting it closed. I want to hear people's actual opinions on this. Feel free to flame me if you feel I'm making outrageous claims, I'll respond politely back.)

Devs hold gold,sell it on ebay, more profit. As to A.net regulations on Ebay, we really can't know for sure.

So are you agreeing with me?

I agree with you in the sense that we'll never know for sure unless someone leaks it out that they're actually doing it.

I'll keep this short and simple, as I am a tad busy at the moment.

Several individuals. Several accounts for each individual. A bot on each account.

Speeds up the process drastically.

Your theory is not stupid by any means; you have simply overlooked some possibilities.

Nobody ever said it was for a living.

You make a good point. But still, thats 50 dollars per account, and equal amount of computers to run it on. Then thats hosting and posting an equal number of auctions and following through with each...Seriously, are people that dedicated?

Also, how long do you think it would take a FarmingBot to rack up 1000k in gold? Let's pretend it's a really good bot, that switches towns after every other run to avoid the anti-farm code. It's programmed to farm outside of each place and never dies, making around 2k per run. It takes 10 minutes per run.

Thats 1000k/2k per run. 500 runs at 10 minutes each. 5000 minutes/60 minutes in an hour. 83 hours approximately to make that money.

I still think its the Dev's unethically creating and selling the gold on EBAY.

1- It is possible to run multiple instances of the client on a single PC with some editing.

2- Guild Wars accounts don't necessarily cost 50 dollars. You can easily buy one in exchange for other types of in-game currency from popular games such as Maple Story or Neopets. I do not condone or reccomend this in any way, but it happens quite often.

3- This one is pure speculation, but it may be posible to create a program that automates the auction creation process with a little bit of time and thought. And even if this is not possible, what is a few moments and spare change spent on each auction if you are making $60 on it? Not a very tough price to pay.

I've been known to make as much as 10k a run, legit farming. Each of those runs takes about an hour or two, depending on where I am farming. I am not saying I always make 10k... Just completed one of my runs and came out with only 600g and a few runes that I am now in the process of selling (along with the obvious materials). It varies. My point, however, is that it is in fact possible to make a large sum with one run. Because of the many variables involved, attempting to calculate it as you have can not really be considered accurate.

You have made a few good points, and you are doing well in supporting your theory. My advice to you would be to research it further, maybe dig up some facts to back it up. Otherwise you'll be met with quite a bit of hard critisism and possibly some flaming. I've bookmarked this thread, as I feel it could turn into quite the interesting conversation.

Your numbers of $60 for ten hours would be $6 an hour (with no income taxes taken out), better than many kids get working for McDonalds and such. Instead of flipping burgers and dealing with the public, a kid could sit at home and play his favorite game for a living. That's just assuming an American or similar economy.

if i wanted to make money, and i had access to the games internal workings....i would type out a number, like 1,000,000 and boom it would be there. it they can change an item in someone elses inventory, how hard would it be to add one to their own? no need for that farm bot crap too. and besides, if this is making money for the company as you sem to be stating, this is good. it is easier for them to maintain their servers. kinda like a slightly unethical monthly fee. but i am NOT saying a-net does this. im just going off of the OP's post

What is $60 U.S. after converted to whatever Chinese currency is?

You don't need to buy anything from anyone throughout the whole game. Even materials arent hard to gather yourself.

I don't see anybody involved with the game doing something as unscrupulous as this, at least not to the knowledge of anyone else inside the company. They certainly don't need bots, as they can just pop money into any account they want, but I guess it could be a "cover". Anything can happen, I guess.

Interesting thought, but your occasional baseless accusation only harms your credibility.

About 500 yuan

Too bad Ebay wouldn't shut down those kinds of auctions.

I really don't think that Anet sells GW gold on Ebay.

60 USD = 482.820 CNY

True, there is no way to prove that they are not doing this, in fact you cannot prove any negative.

Do I believe this is happening? No, because I have faith in Anet and don't belive they would put in all the time on development, just to farm.

But, let me just check - you're suggesting that the devs are selling gold on ebay which you say they are doing so cheaply as to not make a living, to supplement the 50 million dollars that the game has brought in.

Plus you say

So what you're saying here is that the devs are making profit by selling gold, in such a way that they will kill the game they are using to make profit. That doesn't make sense to me, espcially with the profits that I'm sure will be coming soon, with the release of Factions.

Finally, may I ask you a question, with no disrespect to you. Can you prove that it is not you that is farming and selling gold, and that you are posting here to divert suspision away from yourself.

i will be polite and give you a partial counter arguement here.

what is here goes for GW as well and Lineage is put out by the same publisher as GW BTW

also you are basing living on the US budget while the actual worker bots are in penneys per hour living conditions so here is a taste.

read it and see if you think Anet is really selling ebay gold. they live in the US and wouldnt work for the chump change compared to their US salaries

Droknars international district (when no favor) stand by the portal and you will see millions of monks, and I mean millions zone the same for ToA when we have favor, set by the statue of grenth and watch the millions of monks zone. Are they all farm bots? Probably.

I make about 70k a day myself. (but it really depends on how much ectos are going for) I try to set a goal of farming 10 ectos every day and then of course theres the possibillity of a good rare at the merchanted money that comes out of it. @70k a day, in a weeks worth of farming I have about 400k in storage. And its such hard earned money. It sickens me to think that people just start up a program, leave to go do whatever, come back and have a mil setting in storage. I see these people all the time setting in a trade city spamming "WTB PERFECT CHAOS AXES - FELLBLADES, CRYSTALINES, ETERNAL SHEILDS REQ.8" with their fow armor.... yet if you ask them they say they have never farmed before ever. Not fair at all.

Sure Anet doesnt have the authority to stop the marketing of farming bots and gw currency on any internet site but they do have the authority to make their game full proof against farm bots. Instead of banning little kids for flipping out in some chilidish fight they should focus their attention to the people abusing the crap out of what they worked so hard to create.

The worst part of all this money pouring in off ebay is that its makes everyone elses cash worth less, prices just go up until it becomes a joke and everyone is either on ebay or not playing the game, lot of people that have worked hard to get this perfecr gear will end up with nothing but a punch in the face from anet.

I was referring to the new players joining the game. They'll go to post searing and see hundreds of farm bots spamming meaningless trade requests for what to them are rediculous prices.

Exactly.

The game will end in 4 months - ROFLMAO Hate to bring this up, but the selling of gold and items on not only E-Bay, but other websites, has been going on since the game started.

Not only that, since GW isn't a "true" RPG game, individual player wealth doesn't have that great of an effect on the overall game. So, whether or not players buy gold or get it in-game, it really doesn't have that much impact on other players. After all, once a character has an inventory full of perfect weapons and armor, plus has completed all the missions, what good is gold anyway?

As for the claim that there's millions of farming bots (LOL), I defy anyone to actually be able to tell the difference between a legimate monk leaving a portal vs.a farming bot. Remember, there are thousands upon thousands of people who have played GW to death and have little to do but solo farm. So just seeing a steady stream of monks (or any other profession) leaving a portal doesn't mean there is an inordinate amount of bot farming going on.

ANET doesn't need to farm, they can maniuplate the game's database to create any amount of gold they want as easily as typing a few numbers. Do they sell gold for cash? Highly unlikely. Why bother selling gold on E-Bay when they could just as easily do it through the game website? They could easily undercut anyone else's prices and be totally legimate at the same time!

I would suggest you get back on your medication.

The auctions are place-holders. They do not have that much money in stock.

These auctions are just free advertising place-holders for IGE.

Several articles were already written on how the whole process works. And think of it this way. 3000 x $12 (or whatever the numbers were) = $36000. A business spends more on pencils every month.

As for making profit from selling in-game items, yes, that exists. There are individuals that became millionaires doing that. It's a very nice idea.

BTW, there many results for other games as well:
10203 items found for World of warcraft
335 items found for Dark age of camelot
1116 items found for Everquest
1206 items found for Eve online
1816 items found for Lineage 2

Before

Protective Spirit
For 5...19 seconds, target ally cannot lose more than 10% max Health due to damage from a single attack or Spell.

If arenanet nerf this way...

Protective Spirit For 5...19 seconds, target ally cannot lose more than 10% max Health 50...20 points due to damage from a single attack or Spell.

Stop farmer machines, and speel still working...

I think Anet does that thing where they go around asking people questions to see if they are bots or not. A few times I was in LA selling stuff and someone whispered me asking to go questing. I was trying to sell stuff so I said no and the person each time said, "ok, enjoy the game." o_O Maybe they were just really nice people that wanted to quest or they were Anet looking for botters.

I guess I would not know but good point

LOL. Crazy conspiracy theorist. Why in the world would A.net do that? If it WAS true, the bad publicity once this sort of thing comes to the public's attention would kill the company. Plus, they could get into legal trouble, since it would technically be fraud to misrepresent who you are when you are selling an item on e-bay.

The amount of money ANet would gain by doing this is too small to be worth the risk. Why would a large corporation place themselves at such risk for such small profits. Without any real evidence all you have is a theory.

The reason their are multiple auctions is because of buy outs. Every single gold auction has a buy out price.

Besides you can make a few 100k in about 3-4 hours not really trying. If I make 100k+ per hour (yes it is still possible people) I can make a little over minimum wage in US currency. Now think of someone in a country that usually makes 0.50-$1 per hour. That $6 per hour looks really nice.

Take your hourly pay and multiply it by 6. Would you do a job that paid you that much while you are playing your fav game?

dont forget to factor in overhead costs like electricity, internet, the costs of the game accounts, food/water, etc, and it trickles down to the sweatshop worker with very little left.

Think about it. Why sell gold on Ebay instead of the website?

1. They dont want anyone else selling gold, they make it against the EULA to sell stuff via Ebay. This gives them a monopoly.

2. If they sold on their site, they'd be constituting that it's ok to sell your stuff online. This would make everyone sell crap as soon as they got it, just like the game "Diablo 2: LOD". That game is worthless now.

That's how this game is going to end up.

Well seeing as how much flaming is going on, even though I said if you want to flame me, PM me instead of doing it on this, I expect the thread will be closed shortly.

I guess it's useless for me to come on this forum hoping for an actual dignified discussion about something. I'll let you kids yell at eachother some more.

Every MMO game where time needs to be invested in order to gain items, read all games, has it's currency being sold on EBay/other sites...this includes D&DOnlie, FF11, EQ...the companies cannot stop this unless EBay/othersite does somthing on their end which they will not as it makes them money. I highly doubt GW will go under because of this...D2 went under because of hacks, plain and simple, and thankfully so far A.net has been able to keep those sorts of things out for the most part. As for botting it exists, but your not gonna just find it on the net...and yea it's making people money. How do I know? There are people smart enough to write the code, if you don't believe it can be done well enough to appear human do a search on google. So add it the chance to make money and the ability to write the software and common sense says that at least some botting exists.

Well seeing as the majority of gold delivery players are chinese/Korean (Just hang around ascalon international for a bit) Then they must be mass producing that gold by the millions, most likely in a from of work similar to sweat shops methinks..

I would never buy gold from ebay, all it does is line the pockets of fat business men in china who have probably never even heard of GW.

Anet is totally against ebay, probably u didn't chek a thread i posted a few days ago but anet gives permanent bans even for 'indirect ebaying' aka farming for an ebayer. i personally asked about 2 banned account of my friend and Anet clearly stated it was closed for some form of ebaying involvment. so it's clear that ebaying is not some conspiracy made by the devs.

as for bots, i don't doubt their existence but the vast majority of items come from real ppl who farm, many of them being chinese. it's really sad coz these ppl manually farm these items for many hours and they never actually enjoy the game. it's like a job to them that they do for a living. if u think it's easy and lame what they do, it means u never actually talked to one of those farmers. it's not fun at all and it's sad that some ppl have to farm virtual things to make a living. there was also an article about these 'gaming swet shops' but i don't have the link anymore.

i would buy items from ebay if it were from an independant farmer. i think that all the hours put into the game deserve to get paid. but most stuff on ebay is not from independant ppl and it's just the 'store owner' that makes most of the proffit while the actual farmer gets paid very little.

My main problem with this theory would be the fact that this sort of thing has happened to every online game with gold or property since the inception of eBay. So either every game developer has been in on this cash cow, making money through auctions they say are against the EULA, since the start, or these well documented cases of overseas gaming sweatshops are to blame. Shadowy conspiracy involving many vs. greed and corruption. I know what gets my vote.
Occam's razor ftw

You make a thread blatantly calling the developers of the game the forum you're in is about "unethical gold salesmen", and you don't expect to get flames? Naivete at its finest. Or maybe just optimism.

In any case, what does it matter whether there is any such "ebay gold conspiracy" or not? I'm not at all sure at how it directly affects you, or really anyone else--and don't give me that line about how it "devalues" gold. Prices on nearly everything are lower than they've ever been.

Why do you care? Does it bother you? Does it make you lose sleep at night that Arenanet could potentially be selling gold?

How do you live your life being so paranoid?

Agreed with Manic Smile.

Thing is, its up to them if it can be sold or not. Now, there are MMO's out there who do sell their gold. They sell it cheaply. So cheaply that it would be pointless for anyone to waste time farming and try to compete with them in the prices. Plus of course they have infinate amounts because they can just create it as and when it's needed. Whereas others need to go out, get the lucky drops, get the perfect route going etc. There would be no reason for a game not to state in the EULA that selling of the stuff on Ebay is wrong, because technically its selling their intellectual property, and then the same developers selling it for money on their website. Because, as I just stated, it is THEIR intellectual property to sell.

If it was only something that happens in Anet games, maybe. But no, its in Lineage (Ncsoft, NOT anet, so if anyone was doing it in GW, NCSoft would be more likely), UO, EQ2... and you'll find that in pretty much every mmo it's against the EULA.

Not to mention that the devs themselves have constantly been stressing throughout development and release that weapons, armour and gold are not important. Now, if you wanted to make a bit of cash on the side, don't you think you'd drop a few hints into interviews trying to convince people they need to be rich, rather than convincing people gold is worthless? Or rather than attempting to fix the economy (e.g. when they introduced dye traders) they would allow it to get out of hand so everyone needed more and more money?

for some strange reason they are not using this monopoly you claim they have.

rather odd to have a monopoly and not make a penny on it by not using it is it not?

You may be right, but something I'm wondering;

Go to Augory, Int 1, you see all these automated bots, ArenaNet don't NEED to farm or make bots for there own game, I'm 99.9% sure they can modify there own game, insert a random sum of money and bam, they have it on them, no bots needed or automaters.

But you still see them in Augory Rock, Int 1.

I agree, you do have some good strong points on it but I'm 99.9% sure again they can put the money in they want whenever they want.

I would not think that Anet does this.
Think about it if they actually sold gold and items on ebay then they would have to think about the consequences if someone finds out.
And lets face it nothing stays a secret in this day and age.

Even if Anet would do it I do not think that Ncsoft would approve. Its a huge company and that would ruind its reputation and blah blah blah.....

People are still stupid enough to think that items and armor make a difference in this game. If you're PvP, you already have the best that you need. If you're PvE, you don't need the best to succeed quite well. There's nothing that you need that you can't get easily with minimal work. People get this through their heads, the gold market goes away, all is well.

Education FTW!

I find it funny how quick people are to beleive in corperations. The same beings that gave you Enron and Worldcom, and Livedoor for our japanese friends. If there is one thing that being an American has taught me it is that deciet is inherent to everyone. The only thing less trustworthy than a corperation is a person. I think the OPs post presents a workable theory of a possible 'conspiracy', not saying its true, not saying it isn't.

I do think that arena net profits from the ebay trade indirectly even if not directly. Because as has been discussed gold farmers and ebay make the prices for everything go up ala inflation. This inflationary pressure makes everyone need more money in order to get items. So that means it takes people more time to buy the things that they want, which means that they will either play the game longer themselves or pay someone else to play the game longer for them. which makes for more people playing, more accounts

Personally I haven't ever bought anything on ebay and only very seldom do I ever buy anything from a player and the biggest rarity of all is me selling something, so I am a player who has been playing for a while but still has regular drok's armore and just cassually quests for the enjoyment of the game, honestly I rarely ever even notice if someone else has a cool bow or hat, so it doesn't affect me much.

Dwarven Ale.

But to answer your question on a more serious note...to your typical selfish, self absorbed gold farmer, no good at all. But to someone like me that enjoys helping guild members and friends, extra gold can go a long way in helping them, such as finding a decent sword/shield setup for a newer player. This isn't saying I'm all for newer players having everything handed to them, but I get a lot of joy out of helping others progress in the game. My point is that people should look beyond just themselves.