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f13.net General Forums => Pirates of the Burning Sea => Topic started by: Hellinar on January 19, 2008, 01:34:27 PM



Title: PotBS suspend gold buyers
Post by: Hellinar on January 19, 2008, 01:34:27 PM
PotBS has banned their first batch of gold farmers. Nothing much novel in that. But they also suspended gold buyers, if only for 24hr.

http://www.burningsea.com/page/news/article&article_id=10559 (http://www.burningsea.com/page/news/article&article_id=10559)

As far as I know, this is the first game to go after buyers as well as sellers. Many people have been saying this would be the only thing that would make a real impact on gold selling. It will be interesting to see how it works out.


Title: Re: PotBS suspend gold buyers
Post by: IainC on January 19, 2008, 03:14:43 PM
As far as I know, this is the first game to go after buyers as well as sellers. Many people have been saying this would be the only thing that would make a real impact on gold selling. It will be interesting to see how it works out.
You'd be wrong there.


Title: Re: PotBS suspend gold buyers
Post by: Koyasha on January 19, 2008, 03:33:19 PM
They only suspended the buyers.  It might be enough, if they also take away all the gold they bought and any items they've bought with that gold (there's an implication on the page that they do/will/have) but exactly how you go about that is hard to say.  Especially when it comes down to items.  Do you assume they used the legit gold first, or the 'dirty' gold first?  If the second, do you take away any item that character purchased since buying the gold?  If the former, it means even more recordkeeping.  I suppose most likely they'll just take away the gold itself, and if the person has already spent most of it, I doubt they'll start selectively stripping items, simply due to the difficulty of figuring it all out.

It's a step in the right direction, but it really depends on what they do in addition to the 24 hour suspensions.  A 24 hour suspension alone is meaningless.  Stripping the gold has more effect and may be enough to reduce demand considerably.  Banning the buyers is the best solution, I'd say, almost guaranteed to kill demand entirely.


Title: Re: PotBS suspend gold buyers
Post by: Sparky on January 19, 2008, 03:35:21 PM
If you're caught buying isk in Eve they'll take the cash away even if it means putting you into negative figures.  Makes for entertaining threads when some poor sap comes to the forums crying "WTF is this shit my wallet says -1bn".  Doesn't sound terribly harsh until you realise with a negative wallet you can't do anything, even direct trades.  I guess you could timecard your way out of it and give CCP their cut but most probably quit at that point.

Nice to see PotBS taking a hard line though that definitely ups my interest somewhat.


Title: Re: PotBS suspend gold buyers
Post by: apocrypha on January 19, 2008, 04:34:27 PM
If you're caught buying isk in Eve they'll take the cash away even if it means putting you into negative figures.  Makes for entertaining threads when some poor sap comes to the forums crying "WTF is this shit my wallet says -1bn".  Doesn't sound terribly harsh until you realise with a negative wallet you can't do anything, even direct trades.  I guess you could timecard your way out of it and give CCP their cut but most probably quit at that point.

Nice to see PotBS taking a hard line though that definitely ups my interest somewhat.

While this is true it doesn't seem to be actually stopping isk-buying in EVE though. The isk-seller spam in major trade & mission hubs (Jita and Motsu for example) is at the same or worse level than it's ever been. The number of isk-farming multi-account presumed sweatshop operations is increasing if anything.

Of course one problem is that CCP have legitimised RMT in EVE by creating the GTC for isk trade system - a secure, in-game system for trading game time cards for in-game currency. While this doesn't introduce new isk into the game (just move it between players) it does, IMO, set the baseline rule that RMT is acceptable and thus the next logical step for a certain type of player who isn't anti-RMT is to try and find a cheaper source for their game currency... i.e. the isk farmers.


Title: Re: PotBS suspend gold buyers
Post by: ajax34i on January 21, 2008, 11:08:04 AM
Yeah, except ISK buying and ISK farming have existed since the beginning of the game, and this GTC mechanism has only been installed in the last year, recently.  So it doesn't legitimize EVE RMT, just eliminates some of the scam possibilities without doing anything to reduce RMT.  I guess is they try to reduce RMT by other means/policies/efforts.


Title: Re: PotBS suspend gold buyers
Post by: d4rkj3di on January 21, 2008, 01:43:10 PM
Both Turbine and CCP hammer the shit out of players who BUY in-game currency. CCP's method is more cruel though. They take away twice the amount you bought, leaving your character with a negative balance, and that means that you pretty much can't do a thing in the game. So rather than ban you outright, they make your experience so damn miserable that you end up quitting.


Title: Re: PotBS suspend gold buyers
Post by: UnSub on January 21, 2008, 06:15:58 PM
Both Turbine and CCP hammer the shit out of players who BUY in-game currency. CCP's method is more cruel though. They take away twice the amount you bought, leaving your character with a negative balance, and that means that you pretty much can't do a thing in the game. So rather than ban you outright, they make your experience so damn miserable that you end up quitting.

EVE: Where we make you pull the trigger yourself.

It suits EVE's reputation though.

I believe the only way to stop RMT spamming is to make it uneconomical for external RMT companies to operate. This means having an internal RMT set-up where the devs sell in-game currency directly to players at rates lower than the spammers can offer. Yes, it potentially could blow up an in-game economy if in-game prices aren't mostly fixed. Pick your poison.


Title: Re: PotBS suspend gold buyers
Post by: tazelbain on January 21, 2008, 11:02:10 PM
The problem with microtrans in EvE is that they aren't micro.  Break game cards into a thousand pieces put them in the in-game economy.


Title: Re: PotBS suspend gold buyers
Post by: Slayerik on January 22, 2008, 08:13:30 AM
Call me what you will but I'll say as someone that got popped buying 500 mil isk in Eve, them taking the 500 million away really hurts. Luckily my corp gave me enough isk to get me out of the hole. It hurts enough that I would never again buy ISK any other way besides a GTC...



Title: Re: PotBS suspend gold buyers
Post by: tkinnun0 on January 22, 2008, 09:42:16 AM
I don't get it. Why won't the illegitimate ISK farmers just use time cards? Is there a liquidity problem in selling time cards for cash if you're not CCP? And what's the difference in price between legitimate and not?


Title: Re: PotBS suspend gold buyers
Post by: squirrel on January 22, 2008, 10:08:03 AM
I don't get it. Why won't the illegitimate ISK farmers just use time cards? Is there a liquidity problem in selling time cards for cash if you're not CCP? And what's the difference in price between legitimate and not?

Think about it. Timecards ensure the value of the transaction ends in CCP's pockets. Sure farmers could trade ISK for cards, but then they have to find someone to buy those. That's a hassle, and who buys time cards? Some small % who don't use credit sure, but also a lot who want ISK. So it turns into a market nightmare logistically for the farmers. It's possible sure, but it's not easy and these companies want as little overhead as possible. You can't pay your chinese migrant workers in EvE timecards.


Title: Re: PotBS suspend gold buyers
Post by: Mrbloodworth on January 22, 2008, 10:25:29 AM
What game was that that doesn't ban people, but rather crucifies them (literally) in public spaces for a span of time... Name escapes me ATM.


Title: Re: PotBS suspend gold buyers
Post by: Ixxit on January 22, 2008, 11:34:50 AM
What game was that that doesn't ban people, but rather crucifies them (literally) in public spaces for a span of time... Name escapes me ATM.


I think it was Roma-Victor


Title: Re: PotBS suspend gold buyers
Post by: Koyasha on January 22, 2008, 01:12:19 PM
It rather surprises me that people continue to buy money if there is considerable chance of losing it.  Is it well known that the money gets taken away?  Is the chance of being caught high (or perceived to be high)?  If no, then I suppose people just think 'I won't get caught'.  If yes, then...that's interesting.  It makes me question whether outright banning would be as effective as I think it would be.  Still, 'lose your ill-gotten gains' is a far cry from 'lose your account and everything you've ever put into it', so I still think demand would drastically decrease if bans were the penalty.


Title: Re: PotBS suspend gold buyers
Post by: Slayerik on January 22, 2008, 01:31:28 PM
I personally didn't expect much of a risk. Whoops.


Title: Re: PotBS suspend gold buyers
Post by: Hellinar on January 22, 2008, 02:34:31 PM
It rather surprises me that people continue to buy money if there is considerable chance of losing it.  Is it well known that the money gets taken away?  Is the chance of being caught high (or perceived to be high)?  If no, then I suppose people just think 'I won't get caught'.  If yes, then...that's interesting.  It makes me question whether outright banning would be as effective as I think it would be.  Still, 'lose your ill-gotten gains' is a far cry from 'lose your account and everything you've ever put into it', so I still think demand would drastically decrease if bans were the penalty.
From what I have heard, increasing the certainty of detection is a much bigger deterrent to crime than increasing the punishment. I'd forgotten that EVE does punish buying. It does sound like their detection rate is too low to really bite.

FLS seemed to be putting quite a bit of effort into server monitoring. If they can create the impression that your chances of getting caught are high, they may succeed.


Title: Re: PotBS suspend gold buyers
Post by: Tmon on January 22, 2008, 02:40:32 PM
I imagine that setting up things so that the only way a Gold Seller can get the money to a client is via a face to face trade makes it much easier for FLS to find the transactions.


Title: Re: PotBS suspend gold buyers
Post by: Sir T on January 22, 2008, 02:49:00 PM
Eve has gone down the "publicly punish Celebs route" quite a bit, from what I have been told anyway...


Title: Re: PotBS suspend gold buyers
Post by: Mrbloodworth on January 23, 2008, 06:50:27 AM
What game was that that doesn't ban people, but rather crucifies them (literally) in public spaces for a span of time... Name escapes me ATM.


I think it was Roma-Victor

Need more of that, and add in some of the CCP "Take double back".


Title: Re: PotBS suspend gold buyers
Post by: LK on March 12, 2008, 01:46:30 AM
I'm glad the first thing I saw when logging in was four different trade spam from the same person about doubloon-buying in POTBS.

Geez, they work fast.