My point is not to criticize intrepid studios if they are or not capable of managing their own games. The point of this discussion is to talk about how gaming industries can combating against hackers who take advantage of gaming companies' vulnerability for their own success or give them an advantage in a game they are playing. We all see how lots of big companies are getting hacked and gold sellers, bots, bugs and more kill the game.
In regards to that kind of hack, Intrepid are essentially relying on AWS, as they are hosting the servers.
If you want to talk about anything in regards to wider security than that - this forum is probably not the place.
There is a small point of clarification to be made to some of what you have said though. Contracts are somewhat solid legally - however, you can not sign away any rights expressly given to you by law. If you live in a jurisdiction where you are given the right to sue, no contract can remove that right from you (there are sometimes exceptions where this can be done, by adding in a form of conflict resolution that is better for the disadvantaged party in the agreement).
Yeah you can still sue, even when you give away your right to sue in a contract. But when you waive your right to sue, the grounds on which you can sue are heavily limited. Many of the more mundane reasons that you might sue for are blocked by you waiving your right to sue and will be dismissed by a judge immediately in most cases. You need an extra, extra good reason to sue for it to not be dismissed immediately.
An example would be, you signed a waiver not to sue, but a whistleblower from the company that you signed that contract with has come forward and said that the company included that waiver precisely because they KNEW that the ramifications of the contract would make people WANT to sue. The waiver not to sue wasn't meant to protect the company from being sued if things just happened to go wrong. The waiver was meant to protect them because they KNEW things we're going to go wrong. Or reasonably should have known.
Second, if you sign a waiver not to sue, and then you file a frivolous lawsuit, the chances that you get sanctioned by the court and have to pay the defendant's court costs are increased. If you don't have that extra, extra good reason, and then you sue anyway after agreeing not to, the judge is going to ask you if you have a habit of filing frivolous lawsuits. And then he's going to help you break that habit by sanctioning you. Given that the defendant asks for those sanctions, which they will.
All of this is moot if you have a good case. If you have a good case, you have a good case. It will go forward. The tldr is that a waiver not to sue makes it much harder to successfully sue a company, and increases the chances that the person suing gets fined if their case is frivolous. But you are right in that I can still walk my butt down to the courthouse and sue anyway, whether I have a good case or a bad case.
Imagine I have a second account. It isn't connected to my main account in terms of credit card, MAC address, IP address or anything else. If that second account purchases gold and then sends it to my main account, in order for a developer to do anything to that main account, they MUST do that same thing to any other account caught being sent gold that is known to be purchased.
Based on this, imagine getting that second account, buying some gold, and then sending it off to the officers of a rival guild - perhaps disguised as a purchase sent to the wrong player or some such, something most people would just quietly pocket in an MMO.
I see what you're saying here. But I disagree. I don't even think this case would make it to a courtroom, it'd be dismissed. Again, anything is possible in law. It could have happened before, it could happen in the future.
But just supposing it did make it to a courtroom, the game company is going to argue that their determination was that group of players A was indeed cheating and group of players B (officers of the rival guild) was not. And they'll provide evidence and reasoning of why they think that and remind the court that they have sole domain over that decision because it's their game, they're the only ones who can police their game. They'll further remind the court that according to the EULA, the player doesn't own the game, their account, or any virtual item in it, so no property was illegally taken from them, and also as stated in the EULA they can ban any account for any reason. These are the reasons this case won't get to a courtroom in the first place.
Unless the player can prove they're being unfairly targetted, and even then the company still has a case that they can ban for any reason. But the beginnings of a successful case start when the player says that this is happening to them because the game company doesn't like Russians, or people with brown skin. Or not even things like that, just unfair treatment. But now they have to prove it. They have to have the evidence that this is so. They could potentially force some actual evidence of it out of the company through discovery, if it exists.
If it can be proven, or if they at least have compelling evidence of it, great, game on. But you better have some evidence of it on your own. A judge is not going to let you probe a company's records and internal communications through discovery just because you "FEEL" like you're being targetted because of your skin color. A judge will give the benefit of the doubt to the company because he knows the company has no interest in screwing over it's own customer base, and has an inherent financial interest in NOT banning accounts for frivolous or illegal reasons in the first place. The company exists to make money, not lose potential money by banning people for no reason.
They have to have the evidence that this is so. They could potentially force some actual evidence of it out of the company through discovery, if it exists.
Having proof that you are being treated differently than others that have committed the exact same "offense" is enough proof to cover this.
That was the point of my comment about sending gold to rival guilds. If the developer does not know that you owned the account that sent players the money, and they picked you out of that bunch and just banned you, then you can turn around and say they are being prejudicial against you.
Now, if you sent yourself 100 gold and everyone else 2 gold, it would be fairly clear what is going on. However, if you sent yourself 100 gold and the leader of that rival guild 100 gold, it is less clear.
A judge will give the benefit of the doubt to the company
Having proof that you are being treated differently than others that have committed the exact same "offense" is enough proof to cover this.
If you can prove that, you have a case. The company will argue that banning cheaters, by it's nature and by the nature of the industry we are in, can be imprecise at times and it's reasonable to assume some mistakes get made. And then they're going to say, it's our game, we have a responsibility to police it, and it's in the EULA we can ban for any reason. The player did not own anything we took away, and the player acknowledged by signing the EULA that this could happen, that they could be banned for any reason. At that point it's just a judgement call by the judge. What side of the bed did he wake up on today. I know how most will decide. But judges are individuals, anything is possible.
A judge will give the benefit of the doubt to the company where it is due. If you have a compelling case, that benefit of the doubt goes away very quickly with a fair judge.
Once that proof is provided though (which can be done), they can argue all of those things all they like, but they still need to finish the day with treating you and the others that received gold in the same manner. All banned or none banned, which ever they prefer.
Chances are though, if you show the developer that you have that proof, they wouldn't be dumb enough to let it go to court, nor even mediation.
The point I am making here is - the harder a developers stance on banning people for any activity is, the more likely players are to use that stance as a weapon against other players.
I have seen multiple cases where players have targeted the accounts of rivals in MMOs, with the situation here being one such case.
Edit; I am curious, imagine being in the game for three years, being a respected member of the server, being high up in your guild, all the character progress that goes along with that - then one day you simply have someone purchase an expensive item from yo), and then find yourself banned for receiving purchased currency, how would you feel?
A hard stance on banning gold buyers puts the ability to cause that in the hands of every player.
Once that proof is provided though (which can be done), they can argue all of those things all they like, but they still need to finish the day with treating you and the others that received gold in the same manner. All banned or none banned, which ever they prefer.
According to the contract, they don't have to be equal with enforcement. Nowhere in the contract does it say they have to ban equally. They can ban for any reason. I'm just talking legally, not morally. On legal grounds, the player loses, even if morally right. But sometimes judges don't rule on legality, they rule on morality. Higher level judges will usually overturn those moral judgements on appeal though. The law has to be followed to the letter, or the law means nothing. You want the law to be moral though, everyone should, and if it's not, you start a movement and change it. Morality morphs and changes over time, it's not static, so the law sometimes has to play catch up.
But that's why this is an interesting subject, which I'm sure we're boring anyone else reading this. But it's interesting because one day this issue is going to come to a head. At some point something is going to be challenged in a way that could potentially force these EULAs to be written differently, that tilts some power back to the user. Or a landmark piece of legislation is going to be passed, a gamer's bill of rights of sorts.
This type of judicial precedent or legislation would go beyond just gaming companies, it has implications for users of all online, live service platforms. Social networks etc. We as the users have very little power. These companies can do virtually whatever they want to us within the bounds of the agreements that we sign. That problem is just going to grow as more and more people become more and more connected to and dependent on these types of platforms.
The good thing for now though is that most gaming companies are fair, if not perfect. As far as I know at least. They actively do not want to ban you or anyone. They want your money. I'm sure there have been rogue customer service agents that aren't fair, GM's that play favorites because they know someone in X guild and hate someone in Y guild etc. You, as a company, obviously have to deal with and remedy those situations for, if nothing else, PR reasons.
This is from the UBISOFT EULA. "The EULA is effective from the earlier of the date You purchase, download or use the Product, until terminated according to its terms. You and UBISOFT (or its licensors) may terminate this EULA, at any time, for any reason."
By terminating the EULA, they terminate your access to the game or service. This is solid as a rock. It's very clear. It's not deceiving. The only way you are able to play the game in the first place is by agreeing to this. Most judges are going to take one look at this and dismiss any case you try to bring.
They can terminate your access because you said the sky is blue. You AGREED that they could do that to you. It's in the print, plain as day, no deception. If you don't agree with that morally (I don't exactly), then you shouldn't agree TO it. And you shouldn't play that game. But what choice do we have at this point, it's in virtually every EULA.
Where the rock begins to get not so solid is if the company is doing something illegal in their banning. Discriminating on race, religion, gender etc. Purposefully banning people so that they have to re buy the game, making the company more money, fraud essentially. Though this is generally moot, because it'd be a PR disaster that would likely lose the company money. Same with discriminating on race, gender etc, wow what a bonehead move that'd be.
Anyway, where I agree with you is that there are always untested legal theories that could work, at any time, on a given judge. But here's examples of what attorneys say when asked this question.
Most of those answers are basically just like yeah.....no. A couple of the answers actually do kinda show some support for what I think is your main position. That basically you could get a motivated attorney and raise some hell, and possibly get some kind of favorable outcome.
Edit; I am curious, imagine being in the game for three years, being a respected member of the server, being high up in your guild, all the character progress that goes along with that - then one day you simply have someone purchase an expensive item from yo), and then find yourself banned for receiving purchased currency, how would you feel?
I'd be upset, very upset. On the other hand, weird as it sounds, I'd be happy that there's anti cheating enforcement going on. I'd just be very upset that I was an innocent caught up in it as collateral damage.
The reason why I feel this way is because I think cheating has gotten to epidemic proportions. I think there's a growing portion of gamers, especially the younger generation, that feels like if you aint cheatin you aint even tryin. The FPS genre is a joke right now. There's a couple games that seem to be able to keep cheaters at bay, but it's largely a joke right now across the genre. And mmos have their own problems as well.
I'm ready for the crackdown. It should have never gotten to this point to NEED a crackdown. The problem with crackdowns is that innocents inevitably get caught up in it. But the ship must be righted or these games mean nothing anymore.
But anyway, I'd want an appeal process with the company where I can contest it. And I'd hope they have an open mind to at least the chance that they occasionally wrongfully ban someone. Because they most certainly do.
Not going to go into full detail because I just typed out a freakin giga book. But RMT in Ashes is going to be a big deal if left unchecked. It's not your grandmas RMT in WoW. Almost everything you do in Ashes can be measured by gold per hour. Mayorship can be bought by gold. Siege scrolls. Tens of thousands of people can be directly affected by people cheating RMT'ing for gold. Other things I'm sure too. On top of the open economy where everything can be bought for gold, which is direct player/character power.
If Intrepid isn't interested in dealing with bots and gold selling, maybe they should have made a cozy lil instanced dungeon crawler or something. Or a faction based pvp game where currency isn't king.
What the hell good is it for Ashes to have as one of its core principles NO P2W, when there's tons of P2W anyway? But an even worse version of it. The money paid to win doesn't even go to the company for further and faster development, it goes to sleazy fucks that don't give a shit about you, me, the game, fairness, ANYTHING, but themselves.
By terminating the EULA, they terminate your access to the game or service. This is solid as a rock. It's very clear. It's not deceiving. The only way you are able to play the game in the first place is by agreeing to this. Most judges are going to take one look at this and dismiss any case you try to bring.
For the most part, businesses that maintain a "right of refusal of service" have a legal obligation to enforce this equally. They are usually free to set the terms (not always), but once set, those terms need to be equally enforced.
The EULA establishes a developers right to refusal, but the actual law (all contracts are beholden to all applicable laws) demands equality. As such, there is no need for it to be in a contract - in the same way employment contracts dont repeat all employment law, despite still being beholden to said employment law.
Of the four examples you gave above, there of them were talking about bans for valid reasons, and the last one was talking about the person being an idiot (note to Vaknar; not calling anyone here an idiot) and not unsubscribing, then wanting to get the subscription fee back.
Of the three examples given for banned accounts, there is no reason at all to assume the developer hasnt been equal in their treatment of subscribers.
But RMT in Ashes is going to be a big deal if left unchecked. It's not your grandmas RMT in WoW. Almost everything you do in Ashes can be measured by gold per hour. Mayorship can be bought by gold. Siege scrolls. Tens of thousands of people can be directly affected by people cheating RMT'ing for gold.
Indeed.
It may seem as if I am, but I am kot actually advocating for Intrepid just giving up on dealing with RMT.
I am somewhat firm in my belief that going after gold sellers is going to be by far the best method of dealing with the issue.
With gold sellers, as long as Intrepid are thorough with investigations, they wont have that fallback of unequal enforcing of the ToS. Even more to the point, any avenue that such cpmpa is may have will be expensive. While players may be willing to spend money on getting an accou t back based on principle, a company is only ever going to weight up profit/loss calculations.
All Intrepid need to do to get gold sellers out of the game for good is make it so that it is not profitable to maintain a presence there. As with any company, if a given market isnt proving to be profitable, they will exit that market.
This wont completely rid the game of gold sellers, but it can get rid of the top 95%. There will still be some players that have a spare few hundred gold and decide to try and get $20 for it, but you wont have people buying 100k gold to purchase mayoralty of an economic node.
The best point about it, imo, is that it can be done with literally zero wrongful account bans. People selling gold are by necessity putting themselves out there, advertising their services. People buying gold are not doing this.
Then there is the fact that people selling gold are probably only in the game for that reason. Removing them from the game will have no disruption to the game other than in direct relation to gold buying. Players that buy gold though, they are your friends, your guildmates, your rivals. Banning them will have a negative impact on your game. If instead of banning them we can simply remove the opportunity for them to buy gold, that is a win for literally every valid player.
It also isnt putting a VERY potent weapon in players hands, which in a game like Ashes, hundreds of people will be willing to attempt to use, which is an obvious benefit.
Edit to add; to be clear, there absolutely are reasons where a developer can ban an account and the player has no recourse. In fact, this is true in the vast majority of cases. It just isnt true in all cases - and it is among these fringe cases where players can and will turn any hard stance by a developer in to a weapon.
For the most part, businesses that maintain a "right of refusal of service" have a legal obligation to enforce this equally. They are usually free to set the terms (not always), but once set, those terms need to be equally enforced.
The EULA establishes a developers right to refusal, but the actual law (all contracts are beholden to all applicable laws) demands equality. As such, there is no need for it to be in a contract - in the same way employment contracts dont repeat all employment law, despite still being beholden to said employment law.
The applicable law that you're referring to that supersedes contract law is federal and state anti discrimination laws. When you say that the right to refusal of service has to be enforced equally, that means equally across the protected classes. Race, sex, religion and all the others. Around 20 I think. Not related to what we're talking about specifically, but I also can't enter into a legal contract for someone to kill me, or one for child labor services. Illegal things.
There are no laws that I know of that force a private business to equally apply it's enforcement at all times, as in they refuse service to people who are not wearing a shirt, but one day they make an exception, so everyone ever (or within a statute of limitations) who got kicked out for not wearing a shirt can successfully sue them. (lol)
A restaurant can kick a customer out because they smell bad. Smelling bad is fairly subjective. What smells bad to one, may not smell all that bad to another. It spans a spectrum. There's different levels of smells bad. What meets the threshold? Well that depends on the manager on duty and their sense of smell that day. A woman's sense of smell is heightened during the latter half of her fertility cycle. You see where I'm going with this. It's unenforceable.
A manager on duty can be convinced by a customer that his shirt actually does meet the dress code (when it really doesn't), so the manager gets it wrong and lets the customer stay, but then 20 minutes later he gets it right kicking out a customer. But he got it wrong before. The kicked out guy now has a case....not really. These types of things are handled by the company disciplining the employee, sending them for more training, or firing them. Or doing nothing at all about it. They certainly don't generally want to enforce rules unequally, and they don't want to piss off potential customers or create bad PR for themselves. But there are reasons why it happens. Judgement calls. A random desire for leniency. Variation in how individual employee enforcement decisions are made compared to other employees. You try to get a unified, coherent policy implementation. It doesn't always work out that way though.
I've personally been kicked out of a country club and told to come back with a collared shirt because that's the dress code. (My younger years, give me a break.) Same country club, different time, I was told I was supposed to have one on but allowed to stay. I guess everyone who got kicked out for dress code can sue now. I can even sue lol. They weren't fair to my former self, or latter self. Can't remember which happened first.
One manager of a Target store is timid and very loose on enforcing the dress code or any code. The manager of another Target store takes no shit and enforces it to the letter. And every shade of grey in between. It's endless.
You can imagine a scenario where two guys without a shirt walk into a restaurant, manager says one has to go, the other can stay. The one that had to go may have some kind of case based on humiliation, public shaming etc. Something like that. Emotional harm and distress. Not even sure about that.
But I'm pretty sure there is some consideration that these rules can't be arbitrary or capricious. There are certain things that can get a business in trouble potentially. Someone walks in with a purple shirt and white shoes named Tom, and you say ohhh gee, we don't take people in purple shirts, white shoes and named Tom. That's kind of arbitrary and capricious. Would someone actually sue over it? No idea, most people will just say fuck you and never come back. I mean this shit just doesn't really happen in the first place. But you can ban someone from your restaurant strictly because you personally don't like them. That's all the reasoning you need legally.
And these places, the restaurant at least, maybe not the country club, are considered public places (private businesses, but public places). I can just walk in. An online video game, as far as my understanding, is not considered a public place. You have to be invited in. Once you sign a contract, you are officially invited in. Not before. But a private place is given even more leeway in how they enforce their rules. Especially if you signed a contract establishing that they have near absolute power.
I am somewhat firm in my belief that going after gold sellers is going to be by far the best method of dealing with the issue.
I just want the problem fixed. Not expecting perfection. But I want the best solutions to the problem. There's also an element of just...justice to this. People who cheat should be punished, banned really imo but whatever. That's just fairness 101.
Ya know, gold buying has become normalized. It's a form of cheating that you used to not really admit to, but now it's like whatever. So when I call them cheaters...are they cheaters on the same level of an aim botter, or a speed hacker? Not really. I know people who have bought gold, still friends with them. Think no less of them. I think nothing of it actually. In some games you pretty much have to buy gold to stay competitive. Because it's become normalized, so many people are doing it. It's time to un normalize it though.
I just want it fixed. Or at least heavily reduced by a dev who actually tries to fix it.
For the most part, businesses that maintain a "right of refusal of service" have a legal obligation to enforce this equally. They are usually free to set the terms (not always), but once set, those terms need to be equally enforced.
The EULA establishes a developers right to refusal, but the actual law (all contracts are beholden to all applicable laws) demands equality. As such, there is no need for it to be in a contract - in the same way employment contracts dont repeat all employment law, despite still being beholden to said employment law.
The applicable law that you're referring to that supersedes contract law is federal and state anti discrimination laws.
To be very clear, I am not talking about America specifically.
Where I am from, we don't have "protected classes". We just have anti-discrimination laws. You can't discriminate against people for the color of their eyes here, but you could if you wanted to in America (eye color is not a protected class). While one could argue that this makes no sense, it makes as much (or as little) sense as any of the protected classes that do exist.
Back to my point though, if you remember, of all the examples given above, the only one that is even close to what I have been saying is your example of two guys walking in to a restaurant without shirts. In the situation I am talking about, it is the exact same thing happening at the exact same time (give or take a few seconds).
If the developer knows about both, they have no actual means nor reason to only act against one.
However, if you go back even a step further back in what I am saying here, we can actually make this entire point essentially moot. What I am saying is that you can't really have a heavy hand against gold buyers because it gives players too much power. So;
Gold sellers on a server are a network, one or more accounts buying gold off players, one or more accounts storing gold, one or more accounts selling gold to players. As such, it is not at all unusual for gold to go across multiple accounts in the process of a transaction. Also, most of the accounts used to sell gold are considered disposable, they don't use them all that many times, and essentially bake the cost of those accounts in to sales.
So, here's what I do when someone like Dygz and a few others annoy me in game. I create a new account (no way to track credit card, IP or MAC addresses or anything else back to me). Then I buy a large amount of gold from the gold seller.
Once I receive it, I immediately send it to these people that have been annoying me. In most games, it is literally just sent by mail.
If I do this, and the developer looks in to it, to them, I am simply the last step in the gold sellers network, and Dygz and the others that have annoyed me appear as if they are the gold buyers.
I could even ensure that the developers are made aware of this "transaction" by accidently pasting the message that was supposed to go in to the mail in to general chat instead - which would go some way to explaining why some of them may not take the money.
In a game with a heavy hand against gold buyers, these players do not stand a chance to get their accounts back. To a developer, this is a black and white situation. They can appeal all they want, but the developer literally has all the proof they need.
So, here's what I do when someone like Dygz and a few others annoy me in game. I create a new account (no way to track credit card, IP or MAC addresses or anything else back to me). Then I buy a large amount of gold from the gold seller.
Once I receive it, I immediately send it to these people that have been annoying me. In most games, it is literally just sent by mail.
You and I have talked about this before, years ago now I think. By the way Dygz, get called annoying in a random thread you have nothing to do with. Get rekt kid lol. I do kind of miss the Nooani vs Dygz one liner zingers.
But we've talked about this before I think. My opinion is that this is an extremely edge case scenario. It wouldn't even register as a drop in the bucket of total gold buying situations. You don't stop enforcement because in rare cases you punish someone innocent. By that logic, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. We'd be defending our mud hut from someone else with sticks and rocks. We'd be in the stone age. I know your point is not to stop enforcement but that there's a better way to do it, and if that's true then great. I just want works best to solve the problem.
But the scenario is edge case by default. The amount of people who would actually go through doing this...I mean who has these statistics. It's not a lot. I know about the real life swattings. I know in New World people mass reported to get people banned before sieges. So it's not fantasy. But it's edge case.
The pool shrinks even further when you start talking about the amount of people who will actually block their IP, or MAC or whatever. Or any other steps they have to go through, creating a new account etc. Anything and everything. The more tedious or difficult something is the less people will do it.
But the biggest deterrent is the person doing it doesn't even know if it's going to work. They may end up just spending their own real life money to give this person they hate so much free gold. They don't know for sure it's going to work, that the person they're targetting is definitely going to get caught and banned. And they're having to invest real life money in this. 15 dollars for the new account (really wish there was a box cost, just make it count as 2 or 3 months of sub time), plus whatever amount of gold they buy for this.
How many people will do this? I don't know. Some small amount. What I do know is that it's going to be nothing compared to the relative tsunami of actual gold buyers.
So assuming Intrepid does go with an approach of punishing gold buyers, how shocking, punishing people who break TOS, wow what savage times we live in. Assuming they do though, then yeah the scenario you talked about is something that could happen.
So, if someone claims that as a defense, that they were framed, that's up to Intrepid to deal with on a case by case basis. How legit the person's story sounds, what does the paper trail evidence look like compared to other people that maybe claimed this, etc.
Number 1, you always. ALWAYS. always always always confiscate the gold. No matter what. These companies that catch someone buying gold and then don't even confiscate it, I just can't imagine being that profoundly dumb. Even if you don't intend to ban, CONFISCATE THE GOLD. wtf
If Intrepid is unsure if the player is telling the truth, but wants to give him the benefit of the doubt, that's their choice. You warn the player to stop doing things, accepting random money from random burner accounts because it's making him show up in tracking as a gold buyer. And hopefully he learns his lesson. There's only so many times you can claim, oh gee I got framed O M geeeee, I can't believe it. About once in my book, if even that in some cases.
So whether he's telling the truth or not, the gold is confiscated, the majority of the damage to the game is contained. In the event he's telling the truth, he's rightfully spared from perma ban, good. In the event that he's not telling the truth, he escapes the ban, but he paid RL money for gold that was confiscated and knows his runway for cheating is much smaller going forward. Because he's on a list now.
I say all of this. I'm not like 100% opposed to your idea of going after the sellers primarily (only?). I mean if that plan worked, there'd be hardly any buyers to ban anyway. Problem solved, mostly. I just don't think it will work. But I'm no expert, could be wrong. Intrepid knows best with the tools they're intending to use. And then there's the justice angle, if someone is caught buying gold, they're breaking TOS, breaking the rules, cheating, like hello they should be punished. Heavily.
It is rare in relation to the total number of gold buyers, for sure - but it isn't an edge case.
The pool shrinks even further when you start talking about the amount of people who will actually block their IP, or MAC or whatever. Or any other steps they have to go through, creating a new account etc. Anything and everything. The more tedious or difficult something is the less people will do it.
I mean, most people have access to a second computer in a different location - be it a friend or relative.
Creating an account for a live game is also not hard - by design. The only real barrier to someone that has decided to take this action is a credit card not associated with them (though, that friend or relative from above may be willing to assist).
So assuming Intrepid does go with an approach of punishing gold buyers, how shocking, punishing people who break TOS, wow what savage times we live in. Assuming they do though, then yeah the scenario you talked about is something that could happen.
It isn't something that could happen, it is something that will happen.
In a game like Ashes, it will happen dozens or even hundreds of times. Every game in which developers take a hard stance on anything has seen players abuse that stance to get others banned.
I mean, there was a popular mantra in one guild in Archeage that basically amounted to "why fight them in game when we can beat them out of the game?".
If this is how Intrepid plan to go about dealing with gold sellers (notice we always state that gold sellers are the issue, yet we are talking here about punishing gold buyers for some reason), then every player in the game will soon come to understand that the standing of their account is able to be compromised by any other player.
So, if someone claims that as a defense, that they were framed, that's up to Intrepid to deal with on a case by case basis. How legit the person's story sounds, what does the paper trail evidence look like compared to other people that maybe claimed this, etc.
All this is saying is that for some people, you may need to do this twice.
Number 1, you always. ALWAYS. always always always confiscate the gold. No matter what. These companies that catch someone buying gold and then don't even confiscate it, I just can't imagine being that profoundly dumb. Even if you don't intend to ban, CONFISCATE THE GOLD. wtf
If someone buys gold, and then within minutes uses it to purchase an item on the games market, do you still go after that gold, or do you go after that item?
If, in this situation you go after the gold still, it is fairly easy to see how that can be abused (regardless of whether you go after the item). On the other hand, if in this situation you go after the item and leave the gold, this opens up other avenues for abuse.
Point is, any stance Intrepid take on this matter that results in players being banned will be abused by players to get other players banned.
You're trolling me. We've officially arrived at that inevitable point lol. Intrepid's going to do what they're going to do, your issue if you have one is with them.
These are the quotes from the wiki.
"The direction that I'm taking Intrepid as a company in is that a significant portion of the revenue created by the game goes into not only creating additional content and updates for the game but also goes into I think caretaking, as I like to call it; and that caretaking is multiple things: It's having active and present GM's on servers."
"There will be a standard escalation system, where different actions are taken based on the seriousness of each infraction. Actions could range anywhere from being stripped (of the illegitimate items or currency) to being banned for a period of time, or being permanently banned."[28]
"Following a standard approach to an escalation system where certain infractions are immediate and automatic bans and some infractions provide a path forward where action is taken that might ban the account or strip the account or provide some chat bans or the ability to play over a week or so... If you buy gold and depending on the the seriousness of the infraction you could go anywhere from being stripped and to being banned for a period of time to being permanently banned."[28] – Steven Sharif
"Botters, cheaters, gold sellers, and RMTers, will face harsh penalties from the GM and community teams."[27][29]
None of this really means too much, just words. We have to see if it works to solve the problem. But I will not be getting my wish of an instant perma ban policy, except in some cases. You will not be getting your wish of only or mostly punishment for gold sellers, and little to none for buyers.
They will be stripping accounts of items and currency when need be. And I'm sure they can figure out how to do that without causing additional problems.
This problem overall is one that needs to be taken seriously. There are so many systems in the game that can be circumvented if players have easy access to buying gold. And by so many systems, I mean almost all systems. It would essentially make the game a joke. All of these core principles, no p2w!, risk vs reward systems - a joke. Oh no I got killed while corrupted, lost a piece of a gear (the primary deterrent), swipe credit card, oh look, new piece of gear. All the time that people spend worrying about the most ridiculous bullshit of how people are going to circumvent the corruption system, I haven't seen this one mentioned once. Maybe I missed it.
Nah, just pointing out that there is no answer to the question of how to deal with gold buyers and sellers. Not from a developers perspective.
They can (and will) state that they will be tough on all this kind of activity - this statement in itself is a deterrent.
It's once you get in to the "how" they go about this that things get really hard to answer.
I am all for Intrepid doing what they can in this regard, just not in a way that gives players the weapons I've been talking about, as imo that will be more damaging to the game.
Nah, just pointing out that there is no answer to the question of how to deal with gold buyers and sellers. Not from a developers perspective.
They can (and will) state that they will be tough on all this kind of activity - this statement in itself is a deterrent.
It's once you get in to the "how" they go about this that things get really hard to answer.
I am all for Intrepid doing what they can in this regard, just not in a way that gives players the weapons I've been talking about, as imo that will be more damaging to the game.
Nah, just pointing out that there is no answer to the question of how to deal with gold buyers and sellers. Not from a developers perspective.
They can (and will) state that they will be tough on all this kind of activity - this statement in itself is a deterrent.
It's once you get in to the "how" they go about this that things get really hard to answer.
I am all for Intrepid doing what they can in this regard, just not in a way that gives players the weapons I've been talking about, as imo that will be more damaging to the game.
Nah, just pointing out that there is no answer to the question of how to deal with gold buyers and sellers. Not from a developers perspective.
They can (and will) state that they will be tough on all this kind of activity - this statement in itself is a deterrent.
It's once you get in to the "how" they go about this that things get really hard to answer.
I am all for Intrepid doing what they can in this regard, just not in a way that gives players the weapons I've been talking about, as imo that will be more damaging to the game.
yes, they can.
How many MMOs have you played in your lifetime? I brought up these issues because. All these things I used to do. You can say all your opinions, but you don't know what we do things.
@Noaani "Edit; I am curious, imagine being in the game for three years, being a respected member of the server, being high up in your guild, all the character progress that goes along with that - then one day you simply have someone purchase an expensive item from yo), and then find yourself banned for receiving purchased currency, how would you feel?"
- So, for many years I was actually terrified of this - not to be banned because of expensive trading (cause the devs would have both the chat log and the trade log to support your case and if the item is indeed expensive then the entire scenario seems unlikely) - but I have been terrified of being banned for trading gold with my fiance. We throw gold back and forth (sometimes in pretty decent amounts) in all games we play. And I had one set of friends that told me they were banned specifically for doing just that (trading gold to his wife)....
However, I've started to doubt this story as the years've gone by. It doesnt make sense that a MMORPG would discourage you to help your allies with ingame means; a MMO should want communities to help each other and veterans to help new players.... Randomly banning people for trading (ESPECIALLY for regular ware to gold trading) seems like a really good way to lose the community's trust and thus killing your own game....
Idk, considering that devs have logs of everything ingame, it feels like accidental bans should be VERY rare and easy to correct. But I mean, perhaps I am just cynical.
I am all for Intrepid doing what they can in this regard, just not in a way that gives players the weapons I've been talking about, as imo that will be more damaging to the game.
I get what you're saying. But the implication of it is that Intrepid can't take any action against gold buyers. Because as soon as they start doing that, the weapon is available for players to use against others.
That is what I take away from what you're saying. Because some very small amount of players will weaponize it against some other very small amount of players, no enforcement can be done against gold buyers.
Is this any and every gold buyer? Or just the ones that claim being framed as their defense? Can they just claim that defense infinitely? Like we're supposed to believe that they honestly think they're the luckiest man in the world? Random burner accounts just keep on giving them gold? And it just never strikes them that someone is trying to frame them? Even though Intrepid already warned them that they're probably being framed and to stop taking money from random burner accounts?
I mean it's ridiculous on it's face that you have to stop enforcement against gold buyers because of this issue. Am I missing something in what you say? Because that's what it seems like you're saying to me.
@Noaani "Edit; I am curious, imagine being in the game for three years, being a respected member of the server, being high up in your guild, all the character progress that goes along with that - then one day you simply have someone purchase an expensive item from yo), and then find yourself banned for receiving purchased currency, how would you feel?"
- So, for many years I was actually terrified of this - not to be banned because of expensive trading (cause the devs would have both the chat log and the trade log to support your case and if the item is indeed expensive then the entire scenario seems unlikely) - but I have been terrified of being banned for trading gold with my fiance. We throw gold back and forth (sometimes in pretty decent amounts) in all games we play. And I had one set of friends that told me they were banned specifically for doing just that (trading gold to his wife)....
However, I've started to doubt this story as the years've gone by. It doesnt make sense that a MMORPG would discourage you to help your allies with ingame means; a MMO should want communities to help each other and veterans to help new players.... Randomly banning people for trading (ESPECIALLY for regular ware to gold trading) seems like a really good way to lose the community's trust and thus killing your own game....
Idk, considering that devs have logs of everything ingame, it feels like accidental bans should be VERY rare and easy to correct. But I mean, perhaps I am just cynical.
Without knowing any of the specifics of this, but just pulling from my own experience, what you have here is an MMO developer that isn't overly active in looking for gold buyers/sellers, and a friend that probably had an account banned for some random reason and told their friends it was for trading gold to his wife.
What I am saying is that any notion of a firm stance is bad, unless it is against gold sellers.
That last part is key.
All active efforts should be spent on finding gold sellers, as that is both easier (they are actively advertising) and significantly more productive (a game may have tens of thousands of gold buyers, but there are only three or four gold sellers).
Sure, punish gold buys that you happen to see, but remember that you can only guarantee someone is a gold buyer if they are being given gold from someone oyu know is a gold seller - meaning you had to have already hunted out the gold sellers.
Nah, just pointing out that there is no answer to the question of how to deal with gold buyers and sellers. Not from a developers perspective.
They can (and will) state that they will be tough on all this kind of activity - this statement in itself is a deterrent.
It's once you get in to the "how" they go about this that things get really hard to answer.
I am all for Intrepid doing what they can in this regard, just not in a way that gives players the weapons I've been talking about, as imo that will be more damaging to the game.
yes, they can.
How many MMOs have you played in your lifetime? I brought up these issues because. All these things I used to do. You can say all your opinions, but you don't know what we do things.
Comments
I don't agree with you on that.
Yeah you can still sue, even when you give away your right to sue in a contract. But when you waive your right to sue, the grounds on which you can sue are heavily limited. Many of the more mundane reasons that you might sue for are blocked by you waiving your right to sue and will be dismissed by a judge immediately in most cases. You need an extra, extra good reason to sue for it to not be dismissed immediately.
An example would be, you signed a waiver not to sue, but a whistleblower from the company that you signed that contract with has come forward and said that the company included that waiver precisely because they KNEW that the ramifications of the contract would make people WANT to sue. The waiver not to sue wasn't meant to protect the company from being sued if things just happened to go wrong. The waiver was meant to protect them because they KNEW things we're going to go wrong. Or reasonably should have known.
Second, if you sign a waiver not to sue, and then you file a frivolous lawsuit, the chances that you get sanctioned by the court and have to pay the defendant's court costs are increased. If you don't have that extra, extra good reason, and then you sue anyway after agreeing not to, the judge is going to ask you if you have a habit of filing frivolous lawsuits. And then he's going to help you break that habit by sanctioning you. Given that the defendant asks for those sanctions, which they will.
All of this is moot if you have a good case. If you have a good case, you have a good case. It will go forward. The tldr is that a waiver not to sue makes it much harder to successfully sue a company, and increases the chances that the person suing gets fined if their case is frivolous. But you are right in that I can still walk my butt down to the courthouse and sue anyway, whether I have a good case or a bad case.
I see what you're saying here. But I disagree. I don't even think this case would make it to a courtroom, it'd be dismissed. Again, anything is possible in law. It could have happened before, it could happen in the future.
But just supposing it did make it to a courtroom, the game company is going to argue that their determination was that group of players A was indeed cheating and group of players B (officers of the rival guild) was not. And they'll provide evidence and reasoning of why they think that and remind the court that they have sole domain over that decision because it's their game, they're the only ones who can police their game. They'll further remind the court that according to the EULA, the player doesn't own the game, their account, or any virtual item in it, so no property was illegally taken from them, and also as stated in the EULA they can ban any account for any reason. These are the reasons this case won't get to a courtroom in the first place.
Unless the player can prove they're being unfairly targetted, and even then the company still has a case that they can ban for any reason. But the beginnings of a successful case start when the player says that this is happening to them because the game company doesn't like Russians, or people with brown skin. Or not even things like that, just unfair treatment. But now they have to prove it. They have to have the evidence that this is so. They could potentially force some actual evidence of it out of the company through discovery, if it exists.
If it can be proven, or if they at least have compelling evidence of it, great, game on. But you better have some evidence of it on your own. A judge is not going to let you probe a company's records and internal communications through discovery just because you "FEEL" like you're being targetted because of your skin color. A judge will give the benefit of the doubt to the company because he knows the company has no interest in screwing over it's own customer base, and has an inherent financial interest in NOT banning accounts for frivolous or illegal reasons in the first place. The company exists to make money, not lose potential money by banning people for no reason.
That was the point of my comment about sending gold to rival guilds. If the developer does not know that you owned the account that sent players the money, and they picked you out of that bunch and just banned you, then you can turn around and say they are being prejudicial against you.
Now, if you sent yourself 100 gold and everyone else 2 gold, it would be fairly clear what is going on. However, if you sent yourself 100 gold and the leader of that rival guild 100 gold, it is less clear.
Literally only in America.
I didn't say that. I think you're replying to Asgorath, not sure though.
If you can prove that, you have a case. The company will argue that banning cheaters, by it's nature and by the nature of the industry we are in, can be imprecise at times and it's reasonable to assume some mistakes get made. And then they're going to say, it's our game, we have a responsibility to police it, and it's in the EULA we can ban for any reason. The player did not own anything we took away, and the player acknowledged by signing the EULA that this could happen, that they could be banned for any reason. At that point it's just a judgement call by the judge. What side of the bed did he wake up on today. I know how most will decide. But judges are individuals, anything is possible.
A judge will give the benefit of the doubt to the company where it is due. If you have a compelling case, that benefit of the doubt goes away very quickly with a fair judge.
Once that proof is provided though (which can be done), they can argue all of those things all they like, but they still need to finish the day with treating you and the others that received gold in the same manner. All banned or none banned, which ever they prefer.
Chances are though, if you show the developer that you have that proof, they wouldn't be dumb enough to let it go to court, nor even mediation.
The point I am making here is - the harder a developers stance on banning people for any activity is, the more likely players are to use that stance as a weapon against other players.
I have seen multiple cases where players have targeted the accounts of rivals in MMOs, with the situation here being one such case.
Edit; I am curious, imagine being in the game for three years, being a respected member of the server, being high up in your guild, all the character progress that goes along with that - then one day you simply have someone purchase an expensive item from yo), and then find yourself banned for receiving purchased currency, how would you feel?
A hard stance on banning gold buyers puts the ability to cause that in the hands of every player.
According to the contract, they don't have to be equal with enforcement. Nowhere in the contract does it say they have to ban equally. They can ban for any reason. I'm just talking legally, not morally. On legal grounds, the player loses, even if morally right. But sometimes judges don't rule on legality, they rule on morality. Higher level judges will usually overturn those moral judgements on appeal though. The law has to be followed to the letter, or the law means nothing. You want the law to be moral though, everyone should, and if it's not, you start a movement and change it. Morality morphs and changes over time, it's not static, so the law sometimes has to play catch up.
But that's why this is an interesting subject, which I'm sure we're boring anyone else reading this. But it's interesting because one day this issue is going to come to a head. At some point something is going to be challenged in a way that could potentially force these EULAs to be written differently, that tilts some power back to the user. Or a landmark piece of legislation is going to be passed, a gamer's bill of rights of sorts.
This type of judicial precedent or legislation would go beyond just gaming companies, it has implications for users of all online, live service platforms. Social networks etc. We as the users have very little power. These companies can do virtually whatever they want to us within the bounds of the agreements that we sign. That problem is just going to grow as more and more people become more and more connected to and dependent on these types of platforms.
The good thing for now though is that most gaming companies are fair, if not perfect. As far as I know at least. They actively do not want to ban you or anyone. They want your money. I'm sure there have been rogue customer service agents that aren't fair, GM's that play favorites because they know someone in X guild and hate someone in Y guild etc. You, as a company, obviously have to deal with and remedy those situations for, if nothing else, PR reasons.
This is from the UBISOFT EULA. "The EULA is effective from the earlier of the date You purchase, download or use the Product, until terminated according to its terms. You and UBISOFT (or its licensors) may terminate this EULA, at any time, for any reason."
By terminating the EULA, they terminate your access to the game or service. This is solid as a rock. It's very clear. It's not deceiving. The only way you are able to play the game in the first place is by agreeing to this. Most judges are going to take one look at this and dismiss any case you try to bring.
They can terminate your access because you said the sky is blue. You AGREED that they could do that to you. It's in the print, plain as day, no deception. If you don't agree with that morally (I don't exactly), then you shouldn't agree TO it. And you shouldn't play that game. But what choice do we have at this point, it's in virtually every EULA.
Where the rock begins to get not so solid is if the company is doing something illegal in their banning. Discriminating on race, religion, gender etc. Purposefully banning people so that they have to re buy the game, making the company more money, fraud essentially. Though this is generally moot, because it'd be a PR disaster that would likely lose the company money. Same with discriminating on race, gender etc, wow what a bonehead move that'd be.
Anyway, where I agree with you is that there are always untested legal theories that could work, at any time, on a given judge. But here's examples of what attorneys say when asked this question.
https://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/banned-from-an-online-mmo-game-paid-hundreds-of-do-1782593.html
https://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/can-i-sue-a-game-company-for-wrongfully-banning-me-1186663.html
https://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/how-can-i-sue-a-gaming-company-for-wrongfully-bann-3422294.html
https://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/if-they-do-banned-my-account-can-i-sue-them--2453976.html
Most of those answers are basically just like yeah.....no. A couple of the answers actually do kinda show some support for what I think is your main position. That basically you could get a motivated attorney and raise some hell, and possibly get some kind of favorable outcome.
holy fk this got long
I'd be upset, very upset. On the other hand, weird as it sounds, I'd be happy that there's anti cheating enforcement going on. I'd just be very upset that I was an innocent caught up in it as collateral damage.
The reason why I feel this way is because I think cheating has gotten to epidemic proportions. I think there's a growing portion of gamers, especially the younger generation, that feels like if you aint cheatin you aint even tryin. The FPS genre is a joke right now. There's a couple games that seem to be able to keep cheaters at bay, but it's largely a joke right now across the genre. And mmos have their own problems as well.
I'm ready for the crackdown. It should have never gotten to this point to NEED a crackdown. The problem with crackdowns is that innocents inevitably get caught up in it. But the ship must be righted or these games mean nothing anymore.
But anyway, I'd want an appeal process with the company where I can contest it. And I'd hope they have an open mind to at least the chance that they occasionally wrongfully ban someone. Because they most certainly do.
Not going to go into full detail because I just typed out a freakin giga book. But RMT in Ashes is going to be a big deal if left unchecked. It's not your grandmas RMT in WoW. Almost everything you do in Ashes can be measured by gold per hour. Mayorship can be bought by gold. Siege scrolls. Tens of thousands of people can be directly affected by people cheating RMT'ing for gold. Other things I'm sure too. On top of the open economy where everything can be bought for gold, which is direct player/character power.
If Intrepid isn't interested in dealing with bots and gold selling, maybe they should have made a cozy lil instanced dungeon crawler or something. Or a faction based pvp game where currency isn't king.
What the hell good is it for Ashes to have as one of its core principles NO P2W, when there's tons of P2W anyway? But an even worse version of it. The money paid to win doesn't even go to the company for further and faster development, it goes to sleazy fucks that don't give a shit about you, me, the game, fairness, ANYTHING, but themselves.
For the most part, businesses that maintain a "right of refusal of service" have a legal obligation to enforce this equally. They are usually free to set the terms (not always), but once set, those terms need to be equally enforced.
The EULA establishes a developers right to refusal, but the actual law (all contracts are beholden to all applicable laws) demands equality. As such, there is no need for it to be in a contract - in the same way employment contracts dont repeat all employment law, despite still being beholden to said employment law.
Of the four examples you gave above, there of them were talking about bans for valid reasons, and the last one was talking about the person being an idiot (note to Vaknar; not calling anyone here an idiot) and not unsubscribing, then wanting to get the subscription fee back.
Of the three examples given for banned accounts, there is no reason at all to assume the developer hasnt been equal in their treatment of subscribers.
Indeed.
It may seem as if I am, but I am kot actually advocating for Intrepid just giving up on dealing with RMT.
I am somewhat firm in my belief that going after gold sellers is going to be by far the best method of dealing with the issue.
With gold sellers, as long as Intrepid are thorough with investigations, they wont have that fallback of unequal enforcing of the ToS. Even more to the point, any avenue that such cpmpa is may have will be expensive. While players may be willing to spend money on getting an accou t back based on principle, a company is only ever going to weight up profit/loss calculations.
All Intrepid need to do to get gold sellers out of the game for good is make it so that it is not profitable to maintain a presence there. As with any company, if a given market isnt proving to be profitable, they will exit that market.
This wont completely rid the game of gold sellers, but it can get rid of the top 95%. There will still be some players that have a spare few hundred gold and decide to try and get $20 for it, but you wont have people buying 100k gold to purchase mayoralty of an economic node.
The best point about it, imo, is that it can be done with literally zero wrongful account bans. People selling gold are by necessity putting themselves out there, advertising their services. People buying gold are not doing this.
Then there is the fact that people selling gold are probably only in the game for that reason. Removing them from the game will have no disruption to the game other than in direct relation to gold buying. Players that buy gold though, they are your friends, your guildmates, your rivals. Banning them will have a negative impact on your game. If instead of banning them we can simply remove the opportunity for them to buy gold, that is a win for literally every valid player.
It also isnt putting a VERY potent weapon in players hands, which in a game like Ashes, hundreds of people will be willing to attempt to use, which is an obvious benefit.
Edit to add; to be clear, there absolutely are reasons where a developer can ban an account and the player has no recourse. In fact, this is true in the vast majority of cases. It just isnt true in all cases - and it is among these fringe cases where players can and will turn any hard stance by a developer in to a weapon.
The applicable law that you're referring to that supersedes contract law is federal and state anti discrimination laws. When you say that the right to refusal of service has to be enforced equally, that means equally across the protected classes. Race, sex, religion and all the others. Around 20 I think. Not related to what we're talking about specifically, but I also can't enter into a legal contract for someone to kill me, or one for child labor services. Illegal things.
There are no laws that I know of that force a private business to equally apply it's enforcement at all times, as in they refuse service to people who are not wearing a shirt, but one day they make an exception, so everyone ever (or within a statute of limitations) who got kicked out for not wearing a shirt can successfully sue them. (lol)
A restaurant can kick a customer out because they smell bad. Smelling bad is fairly subjective. What smells bad to one, may not smell all that bad to another. It spans a spectrum. There's different levels of smells bad. What meets the threshold? Well that depends on the manager on duty and their sense of smell that day. A woman's sense of smell is heightened during the latter half of her fertility cycle. You see where I'm going with this. It's unenforceable.
A manager on duty can be convinced by a customer that his shirt actually does meet the dress code (when it really doesn't), so the manager gets it wrong and lets the customer stay, but then 20 minutes later he gets it right kicking out a customer. But he got it wrong before. The kicked out guy now has a case....not really. These types of things are handled by the company disciplining the employee, sending them for more training, or firing them. Or doing nothing at all about it. They certainly don't generally want to enforce rules unequally, and they don't want to piss off potential customers or create bad PR for themselves. But there are reasons why it happens. Judgement calls. A random desire for leniency. Variation in how individual employee enforcement decisions are made compared to other employees. You try to get a unified, coherent policy implementation. It doesn't always work out that way though.
I've personally been kicked out of a country club and told to come back with a collared shirt because that's the dress code. (My younger years, give me a break.) Same country club, different time, I was told I was supposed to have one on but allowed to stay. I guess everyone who got kicked out for dress code can sue now. I can even sue lol. They weren't fair to my former self, or latter self. Can't remember which happened first.
One manager of a Target store is timid and very loose on enforcing the dress code or any code. The manager of another Target store takes no shit and enforces it to the letter. And every shade of grey in between. It's endless.
You can imagine a scenario where two guys without a shirt walk into a restaurant, manager says one has to go, the other can stay. The one that had to go may have some kind of case based on humiliation, public shaming etc. Something like that. Emotional harm and distress. Not even sure about that.
But I'm pretty sure there is some consideration that these rules can't be arbitrary or capricious. There are certain things that can get a business in trouble potentially. Someone walks in with a purple shirt and white shoes named Tom, and you say ohhh gee, we don't take people in purple shirts, white shoes and named Tom. That's kind of arbitrary and capricious. Would someone actually sue over it? No idea, most people will just say fuck you and never come back. I mean this shit just doesn't really happen in the first place. But you can ban someone from your restaurant strictly because you personally don't like them. That's all the reasoning you need legally.
And these places, the restaurant at least, maybe not the country club, are considered public places (private businesses, but public places). I can just walk in. An online video game, as far as my understanding, is not considered a public place. You have to be invited in. Once you sign a contract, you are officially invited in. Not before. But a private place is given even more leeway in how they enforce their rules. Especially if you signed a contract establishing that they have near absolute power.
I just want the problem fixed. Not expecting perfection. But I want the best solutions to the problem. There's also an element of just...justice to this. People who cheat should be punished, banned really imo but whatever. That's just fairness 101.
Ya know, gold buying has become normalized. It's a form of cheating that you used to not really admit to, but now it's like whatever. So when I call them cheaters...are they cheaters on the same level of an aim botter, or a speed hacker? Not really. I know people who have bought gold, still friends with them. Think no less of them. I think nothing of it actually. In some games you pretty much have to buy gold to stay competitive. Because it's become normalized, so many people are doing it. It's time to un normalize it though.
I just want it fixed. Or at least heavily reduced by a dev who actually tries to fix it.
Where I am from, we don't have "protected classes". We just have anti-discrimination laws. You can't discriminate against people for the color of their eyes here, but you could if you wanted to in America (eye color is not a protected class). While one could argue that this makes no sense, it makes as much (or as little) sense as any of the protected classes that do exist.
Back to my point though, if you remember, of all the examples given above, the only one that is even close to what I have been saying is your example of two guys walking in to a restaurant without shirts. In the situation I am talking about, it is the exact same thing happening at the exact same time (give or take a few seconds).
If the developer knows about both, they have no actual means nor reason to only act against one.
However, if you go back even a step further back in what I am saying here, we can actually make this entire point essentially moot. What I am saying is that you can't really have a heavy hand against gold buyers because it gives players too much power. So;
Gold sellers on a server are a network, one or more accounts buying gold off players, one or more accounts storing gold, one or more accounts selling gold to players. As such, it is not at all unusual for gold to go across multiple accounts in the process of a transaction. Also, most of the accounts used to sell gold are considered disposable, they don't use them all that many times, and essentially bake the cost of those accounts in to sales.
So, here's what I do when someone like Dygz and a few others annoy me in game. I create a new account (no way to track credit card, IP or MAC addresses or anything else back to me). Then I buy a large amount of gold from the gold seller.
Once I receive it, I immediately send it to these people that have been annoying me. In most games, it is literally just sent by mail.
If I do this, and the developer looks in to it, to them, I am simply the last step in the gold sellers network, and Dygz and the others that have annoyed me appear as if they are the gold buyers.
I could even ensure that the developers are made aware of this "transaction" by accidently pasting the message that was supposed to go in to the mail in to general chat instead - which would go some way to explaining why some of them may not take the money.
In a game with a heavy hand against gold buyers, these players do not stand a chance to get their accounts back. To a developer, this is a black and white situation. They can appeal all they want, but the developer literally has all the proof they need.
Yeah if we're from different countries then we're probably talking about this from different perspectives.
Yeah and they probably wouldn't. We've been debating what is mostly a non issue in the first place lol.
You and I have talked about this before, years ago now I think. By the way Dygz, get called annoying in a random thread you have nothing to do with. Get rekt kid lol. I do kind of miss the Nooani vs Dygz one liner zingers.
But we've talked about this before I think. My opinion is that this is an extremely edge case scenario. It wouldn't even register as a drop in the bucket of total gold buying situations. You don't stop enforcement because in rare cases you punish someone innocent. By that logic, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. We'd be defending our mud hut from someone else with sticks and rocks. We'd be in the stone age. I know your point is not to stop enforcement but that there's a better way to do it, and if that's true then great. I just want works best to solve the problem.
But the scenario is edge case by default. The amount of people who would actually go through doing this...I mean who has these statistics. It's not a lot. I know about the real life swattings. I know in New World people mass reported to get people banned before sieges. So it's not fantasy. But it's edge case.
The pool shrinks even further when you start talking about the amount of people who will actually block their IP, or MAC or whatever. Or any other steps they have to go through, creating a new account etc. Anything and everything. The more tedious or difficult something is the less people will do it.
But the biggest deterrent is the person doing it doesn't even know if it's going to work. They may end up just spending their own real life money to give this person they hate so much free gold. They don't know for sure it's going to work, that the person they're targetting is definitely going to get caught and banned. And they're having to invest real life money in this. 15 dollars for the new account (really wish there was a box cost, just make it count as 2 or 3 months of sub time), plus whatever amount of gold they buy for this.
How many people will do this? I don't know. Some small amount. What I do know is that it's going to be nothing compared to the relative tsunami of actual gold buyers.
So assuming Intrepid does go with an approach of punishing gold buyers, how shocking, punishing people who break TOS, wow what savage times we live in. Assuming they do though, then yeah the scenario you talked about is something that could happen.
So, if someone claims that as a defense, that they were framed, that's up to Intrepid to deal with on a case by case basis. How legit the person's story sounds, what does the paper trail evidence look like compared to other people that maybe claimed this, etc.
Number 1, you always. ALWAYS. always always always confiscate the gold. No matter what. These companies that catch someone buying gold and then don't even confiscate it, I just can't imagine being that profoundly dumb. Even if you don't intend to ban, CONFISCATE THE GOLD. wtf
If Intrepid is unsure if the player is telling the truth, but wants to give him the benefit of the doubt, that's their choice. You warn the player to stop doing things, accepting random money from random burner accounts because it's making him show up in tracking as a gold buyer. And hopefully he learns his lesson. There's only so many times you can claim, oh gee I got framed O M geeeee, I can't believe it. About once in my book, if even that in some cases.
So whether he's telling the truth or not, the gold is confiscated, the majority of the damage to the game is contained. In the event he's telling the truth, he's rightfully spared from perma ban, good. In the event that he's not telling the truth, he escapes the ban, but he paid RL money for gold that was confiscated and knows his runway for cheating is much smaller going forward. Because he's on a list now.
I say all of this. I'm not like 100% opposed to your idea of going after the sellers primarily (only?). I mean if that plan worked, there'd be hardly any buyers to ban anyway. Problem solved, mostly. I just don't think it will work. But I'm no expert, could be wrong. Intrepid knows best with the tools they're intending to use. And then there's the justice angle, if someone is caught buying gold, they're breaking TOS, breaking the rules, cheating, like hello they should be punished. Heavily.
Creating an account for a live game is also not hard - by design. The only real barrier to someone that has decided to take this action is a credit card not associated with them (though, that friend or relative from above may be willing to assist). It isn't something that could happen, it is something that will happen.
In a game like Ashes, it will happen dozens or even hundreds of times. Every game in which developers take a hard stance on anything has seen players abuse that stance to get others banned.
I mean, there was a popular mantra in one guild in Archeage that basically amounted to "why fight them in game when we can beat them out of the game?".
If this is how Intrepid plan to go about dealing with gold sellers (notice we always state that gold sellers are the issue, yet we are talking here about punishing gold buyers for some reason), then every player in the game will soon come to understand that the standing of their account is able to be compromised by any other player. All this is saying is that for some people, you may need to do this twice. If someone buys gold, and then within minutes uses it to purchase an item on the games market, do you still go after that gold, or do you go after that item?
If, in this situation you go after the gold still, it is fairly easy to see how that can be abused (regardless of whether you go after the item). On the other hand, if in this situation you go after the item and leave the gold, this opens up other avenues for abuse.
Point is, any stance Intrepid take on this matter that results in players being banned will be abused by players to get other players banned.
These are the quotes from the wiki.
"The direction that I'm taking Intrepid as a company in is that a significant portion of the revenue created by the game goes into not only creating additional content and updates for the game but also goes into I think caretaking, as I like to call it; and that caretaking is multiple things: It's having active and present GM's on servers."
"There will be a standard escalation system, where different actions are taken based on the seriousness of each infraction. Actions could range anywhere from being stripped (of the illegitimate items or currency) to being banned for a period of time, or being permanently banned."[28]
"Following a standard approach to an escalation system where certain infractions are immediate and automatic bans and some infractions provide a path forward where action is taken that might ban the account or strip the account or provide some chat bans or the ability to play over a week or so... If you buy gold and depending on the the seriousness of the infraction you could go anywhere from being stripped and to being banned for a period of time to being permanently banned."[28] – Steven Sharif
"Botters, cheaters, gold sellers, and RMTers, will face harsh penalties from the GM and community teams."[27][29]
None of this really means too much, just words. We have to see if it works to solve the problem. But I will not be getting my wish of an instant perma ban policy, except in some cases. You will not be getting your wish of only or mostly punishment for gold sellers, and little to none for buyers.
They will be stripping accounts of items and currency when need be. And I'm sure they can figure out how to do that without causing additional problems.
This problem overall is one that needs to be taken seriously. There are so many systems in the game that can be circumvented if players have easy access to buying gold. And by so many systems, I mean almost all systems. It would essentially make the game a joke. All of these core principles, no p2w!, risk vs reward systems - a joke. Oh no I got killed while corrupted, lost a piece of a gear (the primary deterrent), swipe credit card, oh look, new piece of gear. All the time that people spend worrying about the most ridiculous bullshit of how people are going to circumvent the corruption system, I haven't seen this one mentioned once. Maybe I missed it.
They can (and will) state that they will be tough on all this kind of activity - this statement in itself is a deterrent.
It's once you get in to the "how" they go about this that things get really hard to answer.
I am all for Intrepid doing what they can in this regard, just not in a way that gives players the weapons I've been talking about, as imo that will be more damaging to the game.
yes, they can.
Why are you asking yourself a question?
- So, for many years I was actually terrified of this - not to be banned because of expensive trading (cause the devs would have both the chat log and the trade log to support your case and if the item is indeed expensive then the entire scenario seems unlikely) - but I have been terrified of being banned for trading gold with my fiance. We throw gold back and forth (sometimes in pretty decent amounts) in all games we play. And I had one set of friends that told me they were banned specifically for doing just that (trading gold to his wife)....
However, I've started to doubt this story as the years've gone by. It doesnt make sense that a MMORPG would discourage you to help your allies with ingame means; a MMO should want communities to help each other and veterans to help new players.... Randomly banning people for trading (ESPECIALLY for regular ware to gold trading) seems like a really good way to lose the community's trust and thus killing your own game....
Idk, considering that devs have logs of everything ingame, it feels like accidental bans should be VERY rare and easy to correct. But I mean, perhaps I am just cynical.
I get what you're saying. But the implication of it is that Intrepid can't take any action against gold buyers. Because as soon as they start doing that, the weapon is available for players to use against others.
That is what I take away from what you're saying. Because some very small amount of players will weaponize it against some other very small amount of players, no enforcement can be done against gold buyers.
Is this any and every gold buyer? Or just the ones that claim being framed as their defense? Can they just claim that defense infinitely? Like we're supposed to believe that they honestly think they're the luckiest man in the world? Random burner accounts just keep on giving them gold? And it just never strikes them that someone is trying to frame them? Even though Intrepid already warned them that they're probably being framed and to stop taking money from random burner accounts?
I mean it's ridiculous on it's face that you have to stop enforcement against gold buyers because of this issue. Am I missing something in what you say? Because that's what it seems like you're saying to me.
Without knowing any of the specifics of this, but just pulling from my own experience, what you have here is an MMO developer that isn't overly active in looking for gold buyers/sellers, and a friend that probably had an account banned for some random reason and told their friends it was for trading gold to his wife.
Potentially.
What I am saying is that any notion of a firm stance is bad, unless it is against gold sellers.
That last part is key.
All active efforts should be spent on finding gold sellers, as that is both easier (they are actively advertising) and significantly more productive (a game may have tens of thousands of gold buyers, but there are only three or four gold sellers).
Sure, punish gold buys that you happen to see, but remember that you can only guarantee someone is a gold buyer if they are being given gold from someone oyu know is a gold seller - meaning you had to have already hunted out the gold sellers.
i'm asking a question not myself