This might be an unpopular topic, but someone needs to bring it out in the open.
It's a fact that there are rather large places on this planet where, for example, average wage in manufacturing is about $3.50 hourly, and the minimum wage about $1.2/hour. And these places may have close to 1.5 billion people. And there's more than one such place, with total population many times that of US/Canada and the developed part of EU.
What this does to a game is, it creates a very high pressure on people from such regions to become gold farmers, power-levelers (of others, for money) or anything else of that sort. Why do some backbreaking work for a minimum wage when you can play a video game for the same wage? And maybe earn even more if you can get a rare item.
I do not really blame them. Most of those people are not guilty for the condition of their economy.
Nevertheless, we have a right to defend ourselves.
Given the population numbers, if the game company tries to solve it on a case-by-case basis, it will suck up all the available resources. It's simply not practical.
I'm well aware that doing something to an entire region, by IP, will have consequences for the real players as well as for such "players", but we don't have to ban them. Just make a server (or several, as needed by numbers of subscriptions) for that region and make it so they can only play there.
I'm also aware that determining the region based on IP is not a certain method. Still, it's the only method available (besides, maybe, determining it by payment method - if someone uses a credit card from that area) that can practically work on numbers involved. Investigating each case, when a thousand of them start doing it, is not practically possible.
I want to play a game without massive gold selling or powerleveling services.
Yes, even with these measures, someone from developed areas of the world, a poor student or someone, will still do it from time to time. But if we can remove 90% of gold farmers/PLers, the game will be a lot more pleasant place to live in.
From how this read to me, you want to basically exclude any region that has a low minimum wage because they are probably goldfarmers... Perhaps I missed the point, but you do know that "Separate but Equal" was overturned by Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 right?
There are plenty of other mechanisms to stop gold-farmers that don't require a region ban. There's no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Easier to IP ban the offenders who get /reported than to geographically segregate the entire gaming community with racial stereotyping. Not every Chinese player is a gold farmer. The reality is that very, very few are. Most Chinese players are the ones curbstomping you in DOTA2 or getting world firsts on raid bosses, they aren't gold farmers.
I've complained about this a ton in FPS games over the years, reminiscing about how much better it was when servers blocked high pings by default, but I don't really see a practical way to do it in an MMO. There are simply too many global guilds, and while I don't think its worthy of the controversy some would like to ascribe to it, it would cause more problems than it would solve.
Theres also the problem of VPNs which are incredibly cheap and allow circumvention of such restrictions.
I think a better solution is to impliment an in depth ingame reporting system. If 10 user's report you for gold selling your account gets suspended pending investigation. Setup the reporting tool to dump the last 10 minutes of chat into the report so it's easy to confirm. Design the system so that false reporting is punished. Automating a short suspension based on reports would take alot of the burden off of VR. Punsihing False reports would prevent troll reporting (along with requiring 10 reports).
Another way to discourage gold sellers would be to raise the subscription cost to something more reasonable with the times. (Personally I think 25$ is fair) By doing that the penalty for having your account banned becomes much more of a financial burden.
Azzudien said:This has to be on of the most bigoted threads I have read in ages and hopefully someone is wise enough to delete this thread.
RMTer's in games is a problem yes, blasting certain nationalities in a thread is a bigger problem by far.
Bigoted? Maybe. Not sure. I don't have anything against anyone as people or race. But gold farmers and powerlevel services are a problem.
And instant accusations and requests for the thread to be deleted enforce some sort of a politically-correct atmosphere of fear, where no one dares say anything that might offend someone, so in the end you look in the face of a big problem, yet no one speaks against it.
And the hard fact is, someone who works for $30 an hour will probably not spend his productive time farming ingame gold. Someone working for $1/hour will. You may not like the conclusion, but the facts remain.
Maybe I have just seen too many games where the game company completely ignores what's going on. Gold spammers spamming freely in public channels, and no one doing anything about it. So, the region-locked servers might be a heavy handed approach born out of frustration.
But something has to be done.
Baulkin said:I think a better solution is to impliment an in depth ingame reporting system. If 10 user's report you for gold selling your account gets suspended pending investigation. Setup the reporting tool to dump the last 10 minutes of chat into the report so it's easy to confirm.
At best, you would stop them from spamming ingame chat channels and email. They will simply advertise on web.
I just tried to google for "Rift gold". Immediately found a ton of lnks, advertising "1500K in Stock Rift Gold,100% Safe, 5Mins Delivery,7/24 Live Support". Do you really want that to happen in Pantheon? With immediate delivery and 7/24 support like they're f***ing Amazon?
Baulkin said:Another way to discourage gold sellers would be to raise the subscription cost to something more reasonable with the times. (Personally I think 25$ is fair) By doing that the penalty for having your account banned becomes much more of a financial burden.
Maybe, if the game also limits the amount of gold someone can hold on a character, based on character level, so for any serious amount you need level 50-60. And if the levels take a lot of time and effort. Then when you ban the SOB, it hurts.
X
Only one response suggests deleting the thread, so it isn't fear of speaking on a touchy subject. The problem is legitimate, but your proposed solution is absurd and based entirely on a geographic and racial stereotype.
A better reporting system, a chat system that allows you to control /tells and /whispers, etc...those are direct ways to deal with the offense as it occurs. Nobody is avoiding the discussion, they're just saying a regional IP ban/forced server assignment based on a very small minority of players who probably aren't even operating in that country is a pretty silly version of a solution.
In any case, I think that such measures should be used, that have effect against entire categories of players.
Limiting the amount of gold based on level (so that the sellers need high-level characters, so that it hurts when they're banned) is one such measure, and probably more sociopolitically acceptable.
Also, any free/test accounts should be extremely limited (not much gold, zone chat read-only, private tells only to people who initiate conversation, can't hold expensive items)
Doing it on a case-to-case basis sucks resources which can be better used to develop the game and help people with other kinds of issues.
I'm not a huge fan of locking the amount of gold you can hold per level. Part of that tho is that I tend to create a seperate toon used soley for buying / selling goods / playing banker. The hard fact of the matter is that you cannot stop the RMT from existing. You can prevent it being avertised from within the game, and punish those caught. There has to be a series consideration on how much of VR's time should be taken on "Enforcement". We have an awesome dev team but they are small. We should focus on Automated Solutions to prevent avertising ingame, a community based reporting tool, and make the game "undesireable" to people who wish to farm cash quickly. Below is what I would suggest.
1. Automated Solutions:
Server Side Spam Controls: Implement chat spam controls on the server side that detect and block mass whispers and open world channel spam. Accounts that requently attempt this activity should receive an automated "Trade ban" that prevents them from trading for 7 days with another player. Note this does not stop them from playing so accidently trade banning yourself for spam does not shut down the account.
Item Trade Lock: Dropped items above a certain quality can be "Trade Locked" for 7 days outside of the characters who were part of the group / raid that killed the mob. This prevents rapid turnover for item RMT farmers and lowers profit margins for them while not creating a great burdon for the winner of the item.
2. Community Enforcement:
Spam reporting: Implement a system where a user can report RMT trading / advertising in chat by either command or interface. The last few minutes of chat would automatically be entered into the server side file attached to the user account. Once the user account accumulates enough flags automated enforcement could begin.
1st Offense: 24 hr Account Suspension
2nd Offense: 7 day Account Suspension
3rd Offense: 30 day Suspension Pending Judgement on a Permenent IP ban.
False Reporting of offenses would carry similar penalties.
The Above system could also be used to report other EULA Violations.
3. Making the game "Undesirable" to gold farmers:
Difficult Leveling: Making leveling difficult means that when a gold farmer is eventually banned it takes a much greater time investment to get back to the point where they can farm efficently again.
Loot / Currency Tagging: Create a system where loot or even gold can be tracked back to the mob that dropped it and the person(s) who killed it. This would most likely be a fairly large database and would have to be purged frequently. The idea behind the system is so that if Farmer A: Plays his main and receives an awesome piece of loot he cannot hand it off to BOT A to then be sold and maintain anonymity. If VR targets an RMT Seller and decides they want to take action this allows them to track down the entire network the RMT seller is using and not just the sacrifical low level accounts.
Specialized Loot: Make a large portion of the "Best" items for various classes be class or race specific. This lowers the profitability of RMT items as they are niche instead of generally good for an entire archetype.
Implement Captcha AFK checks to combat Botting: Allow the community to self police botting by allowing them to use a command to check to see if someone is afk.
Example: I see 5 gnomes moving in sync and performing actions in sync. I believe the person is botting and using automation. I target the player and type a command. This command can only be queried on a character once every minute, and a person can only use the command once every 15 minutes. (To prevent spam). The targeted character who I believe is a "Bot" receives a low key captcha. If they pass it within 30 seconds nothing happens. If the fail it, they are disconnected and timed out for 30 minutes.
The above targets Automation instead of boxing and is a community solution not requiring extensive CSR staff by VR.
I honestly should create an entirely new thread on community enforcement ideas but this seemed like a thread already going.
-Baulkin
Baulkin said:I'm not a huge fan of locking the amount of gold you can hold per level. Part of that tho is that I tend to create a seperate toon used soley for buying / selling goods / playing banker. The hard fact of the matter is that you cannot stop the RMT from existing. You can prevent it being avertised from within the game, and punish those caught. There has to be a series consideration on how much of VR's time should be taken on "Enforcement". We have an awesome dev team but they are small. We should focus on Automated Solutions to prevent avertising ingame, a community based reporting tool, and make the game "undesireable" to people who wish to farm cash quickly. Below is what I would suggest.
1. Automated Solutions:
Server Side Spam Controls: Implement chat spam controls on the server side that detect and block mass whispers and open world channel spam. Accounts that requently attempt this activity should receive an automated "Trade ban" that prevents them from trading for 7 days with another player. Note this does not stop them from playing so accidently trade banning yourself for spam does not shut down the account.
Item Trade Lock: Dropped items above a certain quality can be "Trade Locked" for 7 days outside of the characters who were part of the group / raid that killed the mob. This prevents rapid turnover for item RMT farmers and lowers profit margins for them while not creating a great burdon for the winner of the item.
2. Community Enforcement:
Spam reporting: Implement a system where a user can report RMT trading / advertising in chat by either command or interface. The last few minutes of chat would automatically be entered into the server side file attached to the user account. Once the user account accumulates enough flags automated enforcement could begin.
1st Offense: 24 hr Account Suspension
2nd Offense: 7 day Account Suspension
3rd Offense: 30 day Suspension Pending Judgement on a Permenent IP ban.
False Reporting of offenses would carry similar penalties.
The Above system could also be used to report other EULA Violations.
3. Making the game "Undesirable" to gold farmers:
Difficult Leveling: Making leveling difficult means that when a gold farmer is eventually banned it takes a much greater time investment to get back to the point where they can farm efficently again.
Loot / Currency Tagging: Create a system where loot or even gold can be tracked back to the mob that dropped it and the person(s) who killed it. This would most likely be a fairly large database and would have to be purged frequently. The idea behind the system is so that if Farmer A: Plays his main and receives an awesome piece of loot he cannot hand it off to BOT A to then be sold and maintain anonymity. If VR targets an RMT Seller and decides they want to take action this allows them to track down the entire network the RMT seller is using and not just the sacrifical low level accounts.
Specialized Loot: Make a large portion of the "Best" items for various classes be class or race specific. This lowers the profitability of RMT items as they are niche instead of generally good for an entire archetype.
Implement Captcha AFK checks to combat Botting: Allow the community to self police botting by allowing them to use a command to check to see if someone is afk.
Example: I see 5 gnomes moving in sync and performing actions in sync. I believe the person is botting and using automation. I target the player and type a command. This command can only be queried on a character once every minute, and a person can only use the command once every 15 minutes. (To prevent spam). The targeted character who I believe is a "Bot" receives a low key captcha. If they pass it within 30 seconds nothing happens. If the fail it, they are disconnected and timed out for 30 minutes.
The above targets Automation instead of boxing and is a community solution not requiring extensive CSR staff by VR.
I honestly should create an entirely new thread on community enforcement ideas but this seemed like a thread already going.
-Baulkin
I suggested a similar player-run justice system (akin to Archage) in this thread on the first page, but no one cared for it. It takes out the need for slow customer support. We'll see if the idea (or a system like it) gets revisisted.
Just a few things to note. You don't have to lock the amount of gold per level, only the amount of gold on non-subscriber free trial account.
Also, the suggested punishments above are way too lenient. I'd say 30 days first offense, permabanned second. End of story.
@Baulkin's 3rd point is also the most important. In a game that takes considerable time (and cooperative effort) to progress, losing your account is a massive setback. Steep punishments, slow progression and a database sleuth or two tracking down the source of items and the buyers could really discourage that sort of behavior.
For perspective, its important to realize that our desire to not offend anyone often leaves us either paralized or chosing a solution that is inadequate, overly complicated, or costs an insane amount of resources. Or, in the worst case inadequate, complicated AND costly. This observation clearly applies to this topic, but I cant help but notice this trend in society as a whole. We'd rather scuttle the ship we're standing on and claim to be politically correct on than risk offending someone to save the whole. Even when explained plainly as I have done here, there are still people that claim this is the right path: "That birthmark on your arm is shaped like pineapple, and I'm offended by that." To which the other replies, "So sorry! I'll have my arm amputated right away!"
When looking for a solution all angles should be considered, including those not viewed through the lense of political correctness.
Dullahan said:Just a few things to note. You don't have to lock the amount of gold per level, only the amount of gold on non-subscriber free trial account.
Also, the suggested punishments above are way too lenient. I'd say 30 days first offense, permabanned second. End of story.
@Baulkin's 3rd point is also the most important. In a game that takes considerable time (and cooperative effort) to progress, losing your account is a massive setback. Steep punishments, slow progression and a database sleuth or two tracking down the source of items and the buyers could really discourage that sort of behavior.
I would take this right to the point. If you break the rules you lose the account and everything that goes with it.
Dekaden said:For perspective, its important to realize that our desire to not offend anyone often leaves us either paralized or chosing a solution that is inadequate, overly complicated, or costs an insane amount of resources. Or, in the worst case inadequate, complicated AND costly. This observation clearly applies to this topic, but I cant help but notice this trend in society as a whole. We'd rather scuttle the ship we're standing on and claim to be politically correct on than risk offending someone to save the whole. Even when explained plainly as I have done here, there are still people that claim this is the right path: "That birthmark on your arm is shaped like pineapple, and I'm offended by that." To which the other replies, "So sorry! I'll have my arm amputated right away!"
When looking for a solution all angles should be considered, including those not viewed through the lense of political correctness.
I would agree here and I'm definitely not offended by the OP. The OP mearly posted facts. His solution while harsh would prevent a lot of the issues that we see with that type of behavior. However it would also stop a lot of long distant friends from playing with each other. I'm not sure the pros out weigh the cons in this particular case. I personally don't see anything wrong with discussing all possible solutions to a problem before picking the one that makes the most sense.
Having to purchase the game for $40.00 first in order to get the 30 day free trial would help as well.
The rest I /agree Baulkin and I would go with Dullahan's point on 1 warning.
As far as political correctness goes, it's the same as paralysis by analysis or staring at the elephant in the room. People are failing to act, speak their minds, and make decisions due to fear of reprecussions, and, tough conversations such as these need to take place prior to the issues starting, because gold farmers are pretty much like the Zombie Apocalpyse once they've infected the game.
Baulkin said:Implement Captcha AFK checks to combat Botting: Allow the community to self police botting by allowing them to use a command to check to see if someone is afk.
Example: I see 5 gnomes moving in sync and performing actions in sync. I believe the person is botting and using automation. I target the player and type a command. This command can only be queried on a character once every minute, and a person can only use the command once every 15 minutes. (To prevent spam). The targeted character who I believe is a "Bot" receives a low key captcha. If they pass it within 30 seconds nothing happens. If the fail it, they are disconnected and timed out for 30 minutes.
Dear god no. I've been on a game that had a captcha automatically come up every 30 minutes, player initated or not. It was the most annoying system I have ever had to deal with in an MMORPG and completely breaks immersion. It's like saying, "Oh, you come across a blue and pink spotted flower, and as you stoop to pick it up....Please input the code for the next twenty words....". Not only that, but if you get a team of people together, you could spam someone with these captcha requests.
Edit: Not only this, but bots can get around captcha.
Silvanoshi said:Baulkin said:I'm not a huge fan of locking the amount of gold you can hold per level. Part of that tho is that I tend to create a seperate toon used soley for buying / selling goods / playing banker. The hard fact of the matter is that you cannot stop the RMT from existing. You can prevent it being avertised from within the game, and punish those caught. There has to be a series consideration on how much of VR's time should be taken on "Enforcement". We have an awesome dev team but they are small. We should focus on Automated Solutions to prevent avertising ingame, a community based reporting tool, and make the game "undesireable" to people who wish to farm cash quickly. Below is what I would suggest.
1. Automated Solutions:
Server Side Spam Controls: Implement chat spam controls on the server side that detect and block mass whispers and open world channel spam. Accounts that requently attempt this activity should receive an automated "Trade ban" that prevents them from trading for 7 days with another player. Note this does not stop them from playing so accidently trade banning yourself for spam does not shut down the account.
Item Trade Lock: Dropped items above a certain quality can be "Trade Locked" for 7 days outside of the characters who were part of the group / raid that killed the mob. This prevents rapid turnover for item RMT farmers and lowers profit margins for them while not creating a great burdon for the winner of the item.
2. Community Enforcement:
Spam reporting: Implement a system where a user can report RMT trading / advertising in chat by either command or interface. The last few minutes of chat would automatically be entered into the server side file attached to the user account. Once the user account accumulates enough flags automated enforcement could begin.
1st Offense: 24 hr Account Suspension
2nd Offense: 7 day Account Suspension
3rd Offense: 30 day Suspension Pending Judgement on a Permenent IP ban.
False Reporting of offenses would carry similar penalties.
The Above system could also be used to report other EULA Violations.
3. Making the game "Undesirable" to gold farmers:
Difficult Leveling: Making leveling difficult means that when a gold farmer is eventually banned it takes a much greater time investment to get back to the point where they can farm efficently again.
Loot / Currency Tagging: Create a system where loot or even gold can be tracked back to the mob that dropped it and the person(s) who killed it. This would most likely be a fairly large database and would have to be purged frequently. The idea behind the system is so that if Farmer A: Plays his main and receives an awesome piece of loot he cannot hand it off to BOT A to then be sold and maintain anonymity. If VR targets an RMT Seller and decides they want to take action this allows them to track down the entire network the RMT seller is using and not just the sacrifical low level accounts.
Specialized Loot: Make a large portion of the "Best" items for various classes be class or race specific. This lowers the profitability of RMT items as they are niche instead of generally good for an entire archetype.
Implement Captcha AFK checks to combat Botting: Allow the community to self police botting by allowing them to use a command to check to see if someone is afk.
Example: I see 5 gnomes moving in sync and performing actions in sync. I believe the person is botting and using automation. I target the player and type a command. This command can only be queried on a character once every minute, and a person can only use the command once every 15 minutes. (To prevent spam). The targeted character who I believe is a "Bot" receives a low key captcha. If they pass it within 30 seconds nothing happens. If the fail it, they are disconnected and timed out for 30 minutes.
The above targets Automation instead of boxing and is a community solution not requiring extensive CSR staff by VR.
I honestly should create an entirely new thread on community enforcement ideas but this seemed like a thread already going.
-Baulkin
I suggested a similar player-run justice system (akin to Archage) in this thread on the first page, but no one cared for it. It takes out the need for slow customer support. We'll see if the idea (or a system like it) gets revisisted.
I really didn't like that system, Silvanoshi. How would you prevent to have a jury full of trolls harming said system? Also, players tend to react too emotional even for imaginary violations. I so strongly reject a player run system that I can't find words strong enough against it.
There IS a very simple and very efficient solution to not have gold farmers in the world. Don't buy gold. Yes, I mean you, you and you (I am not adressing you, Silvanoshi, just the random audience). When there is no market, then there are no sellers. General suspicion goes in both ways, of course.
Edit: I am also very much for punishing not only the seller, but the buyer also. The buyer probably clings more to his account and character than the gold seller. If it's too easy for gold sellers to open a new account with Pantheon, the buyer will think twice (thrice) too risk his or her account.