RMT has started - where’s the action?

RMT has already started in the alpha. There are a number of players on Vyra alone who are there to farm and sell gold, mostly by taking advantage of static gathering respawns. If you check the major RMT services from other games you’ll see Ashes listed there.

It’s insane to me that MMO communities are so fundamentally broken that we’re here already. Obviously it’s alpha so who cares, but at the same time it’d be nice to see Intrepid sit up and take immediate notice and be heavyhanded about this. Your game population will never be smaller, so it should hopefully be easy to track this down and ban for it. If you don’t establish a strict code of conduct early it’s just going to get worse and quickly.

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Volgaris

Noaani wrote: »

Veeshan wrote: »

worlds most expensive gold haha 1 gold = $3 lol

but back on topic if iwas the devs i would let it go for a little bit and just track the gold purchases and after a little bit ban hammer them all and posts names/guild associated with it as future deterrent.

Why?

Is there an issue with buying gold on a test server in order to facilitate testing something that requires gold?

Conspiracy theory warning:
But what if they made the testing environment so grind to "encourage" people to go to a gold buying site to test the game. And Ashes is selling the gold to generate some under the table cash for hookers and blow? ... maybe I should apply for a job there lol.

Volgaris

kerrai wrote: »

RMT has already started in the alpha. There are a number of players on Vyra alone who are there to farm and sell gold, mostly by taking advantage of static gathering respawns. If you check the major RMT services from other games you’ll see Ashes listed there.

It’s insane to me that MMO communities are so fundamentally broken that we’re here already. Obviously it’s alpha so who cares, but at the same time it’d be nice to see Intrepid sit up and take immediate notice and be heavyhanded about this. Your game population will never be smaller, so it should hopefully be easy to track this down and ban for it. If you don’t establish a strict code of conduct early it’s just going to get worse and quickly.

I first looked up the RMT late phase 1. I'm not surprised at all. It will never go away because as you said the the MMO communities are broken. There's big money in selling gold, it's a professional business. With the game being so competitive people will be getting every advantage they can, RMT is just a Pay to Win method. If it was a PvE game I think the game could still be successful with it if it was RMT as usual. But being a competivite PvP game most players will leave after they lose weeks worth of grinding to even just suspected RMT attackers. If I was a betting man I'd bet the RMT is going to win, but my crystal ball don't work, if it did I'd have won the lotto and started making my own dream mmo lol. So I hope RMT loses.

Pham

MatrimOG wrote: »

They're working on it. Banning RMTers is kind of irrelevant rn. And on top of that they can already start gathering a lot of info on these transactions.

I disagree and so does Steven. RMT is relevant during testing for the same reason that exploiting and breaking the economy during the alpha is (which Steven has already addressed) - because it invalidates the feedback and data they receive during the test which helps inform their design and balance decisions and even focus of work.

Noaani

Volgaris wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Veeshan wrote: »

worlds most expensive gold haha 1 gold = $3 lol

but back on topic if iwas the devs i would let it go for a little bit and just track the gold purchases and after a little bit ban hammer them all and posts names/guild associated with it as future deterrent.

Why?

Is there an issue with buying gold on a test server in order to facilitate testing something that requires gold?

Conspiracy theory warning:
But what if they made the testing environment so grind to "encourage" people to go to a gold buying site to test the game. And Ashes is selling the gold to generate some under the table cash for hookers and blow? ... maybe I should apply for a job there lol.

You think this doesn't happen in some live games?

It is more common for it to be individual employees than the company as a whole, but yeah, it happens more than you would want to think.

Noaani

Pham wrote: »

MatrimOG wrote: »

They're working on it. Banning RMTers is kind of irrelevant rn. And on top of that they can already start gathering a lot of info on these transactions.

I disagree and so does Steven. RMT is relevant during testing for the same reason that exploiting and breaking the economy during the alpha is (which Steven has already addressed) - because it invalidates the feedback and data they receive during the test which helps inform their design and balance decisions and even focus of work.

Steven is often incorrect - and this is just one more case where that is the case.

Saying that people cheating or exploiting in the game invalidates data is akin to saying Steven expects no cheats or exploits in the live game.

If Steven were either smart or experienced as opposed to just having money (that is the only thing he has going for him), then he would realize that the data available from cheating, exploiting and third party RMT is invaluable. If many people are expoititing to avoid the same aspects of the game, the problem isn't that the cheat or exploit exists, it is that this part of the game is shit and needs to be made better.

On the other hand, if you have people cheating/exploiting to avoid a variety of different parts of the game, then things are looking much better. This scenario is what a developer should be aiming for.

kerrai

I disagree with anyone who doesn’t think they should be indiscriminately banning buyers and sellers aggressively.

Kekekekeo

RMT will always exist, it’s killed so many games I love. I hope to win this one, but I am jaded. Use whatever method is required, but I’m not hopeful. People’s willingness to spend money and people’s desperation to make money is too powerful.

Noaani

kerrai wrote: »

I disagree with anyone who doesn’t think they should be indiscriminately banning buyers and sellers aggressively.

This would be the best case scenario for gold sellers.

kerrai

Noaani wrote: »

kerrai wrote: »

I disagree with anyone who doesn’t think they should be indiscriminately banning buyers and sellers aggressively.

This would be the best case scenario for gold sellers.

I do not agree. The only way to get a game without or with low amounts of RMT is player fear. That drives down demand. I think you look at RMT buyers as a monolith of people with infinite money and infinite desire to relevel, but those people are the rare minority.

Volgaris

Noaani wrote: »

kerrai wrote: »

I disagree with anyone who doesn’t think they should be indiscriminately banning buyers and sellers aggressively.

This would be the best case scenario for gold sellers.

How so? I'd assume the effect of a hardline against RMT would discourage buyers and make sellers have to work a lot harder. Won't stop it, but would drive it underground.

Volgaris

Hypothetically, one way I would test a MMO's integrity is make a purchase from an RMT site and run a bot. I'd see what I could get away with before getting caught. I'd calculate the gains from the bots/RMTs vs actual play. This would tell you how much the botters and RMT buyers are ahead of you... Hypothetically of course. This difference in materials, money, drops, and exp will through the power balance way off, and for a competitive pvp this is game breaking. Any experienced mmorpg player knows this, and we've seen it kill games time and time again. On the surface it just appears Ashes is taking the same approach to it as all those dead mmos.

Noaani

kerrai wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

kerrai wrote: »

I disagree with anyone who doesn’t think they should be indiscriminately banning buyers and sellers aggressively.

This would be the best case scenario for gold sellers.

I do not agree. The only way to get a game without or with low amounts of RMT is player fear. That drives down demand. I think you look at RMT buyers as a monolith of people with infinite money and infinite desire to relevel, but those people are the rare minority.

Player "fear" doesn't prevent RMT.

All it does is make it so that *you* don't see it as much - it still happens.

Noaani

Volgaris wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

kerrai wrote: »

I disagree with anyone who doesn’t think they should be indiscriminately banning buyers and sellers aggressively.

This would be the best case scenario for gold sellers.

How so? I'd assume the effect of a hardline against RMT would discourage buyers and make sellers have to work a lot harder. Won't stop it, but would drive it underground.

If developers ban gold sellers as they are detected, that means gold sellers immediately know which behavior patterns the developers can identify, and associate with selling gold. If you have 6 accounts all doing things a slightly different way, and one account gets banned and the rest don't, you now have 5 methods to do what you are doing that you know are safe.

If developers then ban another account a little while later, you know they have updated their detection, but you already know what they are now looking for. With this scenario, gold sellers are able to stay one step ahead of the developers.

This agressive approach also means gold sellers are never going to risk losing their network - only ever the accounts thst are doing the selling.

This is why developers don't do this. Developers identify gold sellers, gold buyers, storage accounts, botters, those selling gold to gold sellers - all of it. Then they come up with ways to detect their behavior easier, then they ban them all at once.

This way, every 3 - 6 months the gold sellers lose basically all of their accounts, but have no actual idea what action was detected. This puts the gold sellers constantly at a disadvantage, they are on the back foot.

Volgaris

Noaani wrote: »

Volgaris wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

kerrai wrote: »

I disagree with anyone who doesn’t think they should be indiscriminately banning buyers and sellers aggressively.

This would be the best case scenario for gold sellers.

How so? I'd assume the effect of a hardline against RMT would discourage buyers and make sellers have to work a lot harder. Won't stop it, but would drive it underground.

If developers ban gold sellers as they are detected, that means gold sellers immediately know which behavior patterns the developers can identify, and associate with selling gold. If you have 6 accounts all doing things a slightly different way, and one account gets banned and the rest don't, you now have 5 methods to do what you are doing that you know are safe.

If developers then ban another account a little while later, you know they have updated their detection, but you already know what they are now looking for. With this scenario, gold sellers are able to stay one step ahead of the developers.

This agressive approach also means gold sellers are never going to risk losing their network - only ever the accounts thst are doing the selling.

This is why developers don't do this. Developers identify gold sellers, gold buyers, storage accounts, botters, those selling gold to gold sellers - all of it. Then they come up with ways to detect their behavior easier, then they ban them all at once.

This way, every 3 - 6 months the gold sellers lose basically all of their accounts, but have no actual idea what action was detected. This puts the gold sellers constantly at a disadvantage, they are on the back foot.

Okay I see what you mean. Yes I do agree, but the problem is they can do a lot of damage in 3 to 6 months. IF those gains were made through botting. Most gold sells will come from gold generated by bots. With the game being so competitive it'll drive people to buy gold(or materials) more than a game like WoW. Those who don't will be at a massive disadvantage, and will either be forced to buy, or get their pp's stomp which will lead to the familiar death spiral we've seen time and time again. I think Ashes will reach that dead mark faster because it's competitive nature.

Noaani

Volgaris wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Volgaris wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

kerrai wrote: »

I disagree with anyone who doesn’t think they should be indiscriminately banning buyers and sellers aggressively.

This would be the best case scenario for gold sellers.

How so? I'd assume the effect of a hardline against RMT would discourage buyers and make sellers have to work a lot harder. Won't stop it, but would drive it underground.

If developers ban gold sellers as they are detected, that means gold sellers immediately know which behavior patterns the developers can identify, and associate with selling gold. If you have 6 accounts all doing things a slightly different way, and one account gets banned and the rest don't, you now have 5 methods to do what you are doing that you know are safe.

If developers then ban another account a little while later, you know they have updated their detection, but you already know what they are now looking for. With this scenario, gold sellers are able to stay one step ahead of the developers.

This agressive approach also means gold sellers are never going to risk losing their network - only ever the accounts thst are doing the selling.

This is why developers don't do this. Developers identify gold sellers, gold buyers, storage accounts, botters, those selling gold to gold sellers - all of it. Then they come up with ways to detect their behavior easier, then they ban them all at once.

This way, every 3 - 6 months the gold sellers lose basically all of their accounts, but have no actual idea what action was detected. This puts the gold sellers constantly at a disadvantage, they are on the back foot.

Okay I see what you mean. Yes I do agree, but the problem is they can do a lot of damage in 3 to 6 months.

Yeah, but they are going to be there regardless.

The only thing you gain by banning them as soon as you see them is a faster turnaround of new accounts that the gold sellers use. In return, you are losing the ability to really hurt their operation later on.

And most gold for sale does not come from botting, it comes from large guilds who sell gold to gold sellers, or from indovidual players that have found a unique exploit (I know two people that have purchased houses using gold generating exploits in different games). Bots make up a very small percentage of gold generation, and of gold going to gold sellers.

Ashes design will indeed drive more people to RMT than most other games, that is why it is in everyone's best interest right now that Intrepid use the current opportunity to learn as much as they can about gold sellers - which specifically requires them to not ban accounts until they have an idea of the larger picture (ie, don't ban the chat spam accounts until you know who is selling the gold, and don't ban the sellers until you know who the bank is, etc).

Volgaris

Noaani wrote: »

Volgaris wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Volgaris wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

kerrai wrote: »

I disagree with anyone who doesn’t think they should be indiscriminately banning buyers and sellers aggressively.

This would be the best case scenario for gold sellers.

How so? I'd assume the effect of a hardline against RMT would discourage buyers and make sellers have to work a lot harder. Won't stop it, but would drive it underground.

If developers ban gold sellers as they are detected, that means gold sellers immediately know which behavior patterns the developers can identify, and associate with selling gold. If you have 6 accounts all doing things a slightly different way, and one account gets banned and the rest don't, you now have 5 methods to do what you are doing that you know are safe.

If developers then ban another account a little while later, you know they have updated their detection, but you already know what they are now looking for. With this scenario, gold sellers are able to stay one step ahead of the developers.

This agressive approach also means gold sellers are never going to risk losing their network - only ever the accounts thst are doing the selling.

This is why developers don't do this. Developers identify gold sellers, gold buyers, storage accounts, botters, those selling gold to gold sellers - all of it. Then they come up with ways to detect their behavior easier, then they ban them all at once.

This way, every 3 - 6 months the gold sellers lose basically all of their accounts, but have no actual idea what action was detected. This puts the gold sellers constantly at a disadvantage, they are on the back foot.

Okay I see what you mean. Yes I do agree, but the problem is they can do a lot of damage in 3 to 6 months.

Yeah, but they are going to be there regardless.

The only thing you gain by banning them as soon as you see them is a faster turnaround of new accounts that the gold sellers use. In return, you are losing the ability to really hurt their operation later on.

And most gold for sale does not come from botting, it comes from large guilds who sell gold to gold sellers, or from indovidual players that have found a unique exploit (I know two people that have purchased houses using gold generating exploits in different games). Bots make up a very small percentage of gold generation, and of gold going to gold sellers.

Ashes design will indeed drive more people to RMT than most other games, that is why it is in everyone's best interest right now that Intrepid use the current opportunity to learn as much as they can about gold sellers - which specifically requires them to not ban accounts until they have an idea of the larger picture (ie, don't ban the chat spam accounts until you know who is selling the gold, and don't ban the sellers until you know who the bank is, etc).

I can agree with most of that. Mostly, that now is the right time to gather as much info as they can. There are plenty of videos out there of WoW gold farms, and they use bots to generate the gold. It's fairly easy to do and ban waves only happen every 3 to 9 months. Plenty of time to see a nice ROI. It's a lot easier to match a bug in the code to fix the gold exploit (once they know of it) but a lot harder to prevent botters. I don't know which is worse, I just assume the bots. I personally find them worse because it's so easy to do and actually make real money from it. Also see bots in a game really kills the vibe in the game. If botting is viable in Ashes I won't play it. If it was PvE I'd still play, but I'm not going to compete in a bot race to compete in pvp that'd be too much like actual work.

Noaani

Volgaris wrote: »

It's a lot easier to match a bug in the code to fix the gold exploit (once they know of it) but a lot harder to prevent botters.

No, bots are easy to prevent. Their behavior is able to be detected fairly easily, as it is incredibly predictable.

The reason WoW specifically has a lot of bots is because that games player base has proven to its developers time and time again that when it comes down to it, they don't care. There are virtually no people canceling WoW subscriptions due to bots, and there are no jumps in subscriptions after ban waves.

Thus, Blizzard has rightly worked out that banning bots means they are spending their money on an activity with the sole output of reducing their own income. They see it is an actual loss. This didn't used to be the case, but it is now.

This is why I have always said (you could probably bring up a dozen or so posts of mine where I say this) the most powerful tool players have to prevent bots in a game is the cancel subscription button (along with giving the reason). If no one uses it, developers have no incentive to ban subscription paying accounts.

However, even in WoW, botters make up a fraction of the gold that third party RMT websites sell. It is a higher fraction than in most other games, but you need to take jn to account that it isn't those websites running the bots, it is still other players who then sell that gold to the gold selling websites.

Another thing to keep in mind that so many people fail to realize, those websites (at least the 4 largest companies behind them) are not Chinese. 2 of the biggest are American, one is Brazilian and one is European. They don't run the gold farming sweatshops that people think - they buy gold from others (whom may or may not be running gold generating sweatshops) and sell it.

If you are banning the bots, that does nothing to the gold sellers.

Volgaris

@Noaani If RMT shops are selling gold, but they get their gold from bots then wouldn't banning bots increase the price of gold? That's just basic supply and demand. Shrink the supply with rapid banning. I'm not saying day 1 or 2, but like week 2 to 4. You'll prevent a lot of damage getting it squashed quick. The sites are market places, you post your goods for sell, someone pays for it, you transfer it to them. Just an Amazon for game currency.

Unless you're an undercover plant, I don't think either of us really know which is generating more gold, bugs, bots, legit players selling to RMT market places.

Even though detecting bot behavior is easy if they don't ban for a while the ROI is already made. It'll just happen again, again, again. Business as usage and the same death as the rest of the games.

But yep, if players keep paying even if bots are in then why would they ban them? Vote with your feet and your wallet.

Noaani

Volgaris wrote: »

@Noaani If RMT shops are selling gold, but they get their gold from bots then wouldn't banning bots increase the price of gold?

See, this isn't what I said.

As I have said several times in this thread, and dozens of times on these forums, gold sellers get their gold by purchasing it from other players.

Some of those players may be running bots, but that makes up a VERY small percentage. The vast majority of it (90%+ by my estimate) is not from this.

Botting really isn't that efficient as a means of generating gold. It is more effective as a means of leveling things that can be leveled in such a mundane manner, or farming materials that are likewise mundane to farm.

There is also a small amount of gold generated by people that have found some sort of exploit, but again, this is small in comparison to people that are just playing the game and selling the gold they have but don't need.

Banning every single bot that exists in the world will have no impact on gold sellers. Nerfing gold generation from regular play will, but it will also piss off the bulk of the playerbase that can't generate as much gold as they want.

Unless you're an undercover plant, I don't think either of us really know which is generating more gold, bugs, bots, legit players selling to RMT market places.

My understanding of gold selling as an industry is based on the same basic notion as my understanding of the MMORPG development industry - I got to know people directly involved and talked to them about it. Many people are quite happy to talk about what they do if you show a genuine interest.

The people that own three of the four main gold selling companies (I have had no contact to the company in Brazil) in the world are, by all accounts, quite proud of the companies they have built up, and the stable jobs they provide their employees. Some people may think of them as scum, but they don't see it that way. They see their role as being one that keeps the games in question more popular - as many of both their suppliers and their clients are only playing the game due to the service they provide (and in truth, they may be correct - they may be keeping more people in games than are leaving due to gold sellers, but this is not a question anyone can accurately answer).

I for one know many people that only remained in games due to the secondary income they were making selling gold. I know a few people that were just breaking 4 figures a month (US$) with regular gameplay, and I know people that found exploits that allowed them to outright buy a house with cash. I also know people that were too busy in their life to keep up with their friends, and so purchased what they needed in order to keep playing the game - which kept the entire friend group in the game.

The notion that there aren't *some* positive aspects to third party RMT in games is inaccurate, which is why a number of games are a lot less aggressive against it. I'm not intending on sharing my opinion on how good or bad it is, as that doesn't do anything for the discussion - I am simply pointing out that there are *some* positive aspects, as I am more about fact than opinion in discussions like this.

In regards to the RoI on a bot account, in many games the RoI is actually a negative if you factor everything in. By the time you purchase the game, purchase a few months subscription, set up spoofed MAC and IP addresses, set up your actual botting software to run the spot you want to bot and then launder the gold generated, it usually ends up being less profitable than just playing the game.

This is likely not going to be the case in Ashes - as the entry point to the game will be cheaper. If Intrepid do run the standard bot sweep of 3 - 4 months then it will be probable that you could have a positive RoI on a bot account - unless they take another approach.

Azherae

Volgaris wrote: »

@Noaani If RMT shops are selling gold, but they get their gold from bots then wouldn't banning bots increase the price of gold? That's just basic supply and demand. Shrink the supply with rapid banning. I'm not saying day 1 or 2, but like week 2 to 4. You'll prevent a lot of damage getting it squashed quick. The sites are market places, you post your goods for sell, someone pays for it, you transfer it to them. Just an Amazon for game currency.

Unless you're an undercover plant, I don't think either of us really know which is generating more gold, bugs, bots, legit players selling to RMT market places.

Even though detecting bot behavior is easy if they don't ban for a while the ROI is already made. It'll just happen again, again, again. Business as usage and the same death as the rest of the games.

But yep, if players keep paying even if bots are in then why would they ban them? Vote with your feet and your wallet.

Note that RMT isn't about buying 'Gold', most of the time, it's about buying 'time'.

Gold is just the representation of that time.

So the answer for those companies in the past (idk if it changed) was not to change the price of the gold, but to change the amount you got for the price. (The bots that advertise in chat don't focus on this, for the same reason Nigerian Princes don't seem to be able to handle their finances).

So since the supply (of time spent which people are then willing to sell to other people) often doesn't change when you ban sources because you deflated the economy (which is a good thing, and I'm not arguing against bans at all) hasn't actually changed relative to the power of the purchased gold, it doesn't have a strong effect.

EDIT: To add, Ashes right now is actually full of 'holes' where RMT can happen without any gold being involved, and the perpetrators would have to be banned based on ... honestly I don't even know what, at this point.

Paying for 'friends' is baked into the game.

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