So now that we have the files, it's very very very very underwhelming. Sometimes it's multiple alts of the same account, or the same character but in two different guilds… Meanwhile I feel like If I took a stroll through Shol right now I could find just as many LKRRDKR named bozo's walking circles with the grace of an 8th grader at a dance looking for rocks to pick.
In reality, looks like a small fraction of the buyers and mostly just the obvious sellers. There is *no way* that dinky little list is what's funding their operations. I get that some businesses operate early in the red - but they've had multiple phases to get this up and running - clearly more than just that many players are buying.
What's worse is - the punishment is not nearly enough to stop it, if it only goes account deep. These buyers will spend less time getting power leveled and then RMTing again than it would take to get the gear they were probably buying with it. The bot farmers will just keep buying new accounts anyways so that part is futile. You'll eventually need to ban from multiple angles. The account, the IP, mac address if able. If you have access to the card they used (i somehow doubt this because of the way steam works) ban th at too. Make it so that if someone RMT's they know that intrepid plays for KEEPS.
And the reason it's so important that it's not just a setback, but makes an effort to be a permanent exile - is that the damage is permanent.
And those of you who are tempted, I want you to know exactly what you're doing to the game.
When you make whatever excuse you have(kids,work,ect) to buy gold, the reality is that you're making your time worth even LESS, along with everyone elses. If you could get on an get fair value for the trees you chopped - and buy crafted gear at a fair price - it wouldn't be that big of a problem.
The problem with bots/RMT is that they are simultaneously harming the economy at both ends.
Lets go through a little example.
lets say you gather ore, you go on a mining trip, fill your bags, break your pickaxe - and head back to town to list it.
Lets say you gather ~4 gold worth of 20 listings.
Lets say that Radiant weapon you want is going for ~40G
This means after 10 trips, you can buy the Radiant weapon.
Now lets look at the first half of the damage the bots are doing; Saturating.
Now there used to be a decent amount of people near your town doing the same gig as you - but everything sold, goods were liquid and you were making money.
Suddenly, there's SLKMRNN and his skynet goons out picking up rocks like Charley Sheen on a bender - 24 hours a day, while you sleep for 8hrs and work for 8 hrs. That's 3 times the amount of time to gather than you.
Suddenly, your wares haven't sold, and neither have your friends. And if something doesn't sell? you have to price it to start moving, because you're not making money if it's not moving, and you are running out of bank space. Meanwhile, undercutting is happening at 3x the rate, simply because johnny5 doesn't know any better and undercuts himself everytime he has a load to bring back.
1 week into botpocalypse your 4 gold worth of rocks are barely moving at 2 gold.
2 weeks in and you struggle to sell the same rocks for 1 gold.
Now that Radiant Weapon in theory if it were still 40g would mean it now takes you 40 trips instead of 10 trips. Notice I said in theory, because that's not all the bots are doing.
Bots are also running mules/crates/probably sport fishing(if they haven't they will)
What does this mean? Tons of raw gold just dumped into the economy. What does that do? Inflation - and while over supply of gathered goods is constantly racing to the bottom - everything else in the game is not. Suddenly - there's enough money in the economy to command much higher prices for things. Suddenly that 2g mount is now 4g. That amazing 40g radiant weapon is now 55 gold by week 1, and 70 gold by week 2.
So in the end, you feel like you have to buy gold, because instead of making 10 trips of mining rocks to buy the radiant weapon, 2 weeks in to bots flooding the server you're looking at 70 trips.
So the people who say they don't have time, are the REASON they don't have time. This is a good time to remind people;
You don't hate Politicans enough.
You don't hate Journalists enough.
You don't hate the Media enough.
You DEFINATELY don't hate RMTers enough.
Please, stop supporting this industry, and Steven, you know you need to make RMTers fear god himself, or it'll always ruin the economy for everyone. Might come down to requiring soul bound materials that you gather yourself to make gear mean anything other than a glorious credit card number. (as much as I hate the idea of soul bound anything, if we can't get this sorted out before launch it'll force your hand)
