So I’ve had gold sellers contact me via personal mail ( the average way of doing it), and by map chatting. But I came across a new one today. Whispering. I know a lot of Gold sellers are possibly hacked accounts. But please be wary of them.
Each and every Gold seller that I come across has been reported via the in game system and thankfully it’s not as bad as it once was, they seem to have calmed down from what it was after it went f2p. Any one else notice this new little trick or it may not be that new just something that hasn’t happened until today.
To be strong as the roots and bold as the earth,
Free as the wind and subtle as the rain upon my leaves.
How much spam you see and in which mode depends partly on your preferred game mode, the time you logon, and what’s going on with the game:
PvP lobby seems to get more whispers, presumably because they get more buyers.
PvE seems to get more map chat, since that reaches a wider net.
Sellers wait for more people to logon, so they’ll burst their spam generation when the game is on sale and after major updates.
tl;dr as long as there are buyers, gold sellers will continue to advertise.
If you can figure out how to prevent that cause/effect, then I strongly recommend starting a business and selling your service (after getting appropriate protection for your intellectual property) — every MMO company will pay dearly for such help.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
I saw a rise in the first few days of gold sellers much more than usual instead of the one or two there where three or four a day popping up. Again this is Just after it launched f2p, so it was a Event of some scale ( more profit for the gold sellers since new players may not really know the T’s & C’s of Anet or any MMO).
To be strong as the roots and bold as the earth,
Free as the wind and subtle as the rain upon my leaves.
I saw a rise in the first few days of gold sellers much more than usual instead of the one or two there where three or four a day popping up. Again this is Just after it launched f2p, so it was a Event of some scale ( more profit for the gold sellers since new players may not really know the T’s & C’s of Anet or any MMO).
It surprises me but a lot of people really do not know much about gold sellers.
I saw a topic not long ago on another game’s forum where someone was genuinely offended that the developers were “punishing hard working or skilled players for wanting to share their profits”. Even after it was explained they couldn’t seem to grasp the idea that they hadn’t earned the gold honestly and weren’t just trying to help other players by selling it.
Possibly more worryingly I’ve also seen people who seem to think if they have a website and paypal or other familiar ways to pay it must be legitimate.
Danielle Aurorel, Dear Dragon We Got Your Cookies [Nom], Desolation (EU).
Whenever I see a Gold Seller in map chat, right after I block and report, I follow up in map chat with:
“Remember kids: If you’re dumb enough to go to that website, you deserve to have your account hacked.”
Map chat is filled with agreements after that.
Asura characters: Zerina | Myndee | Rissa | Jaxxi | Feyyt | Bekka | Sixx | Akee | Tylee | Nuumy
| Claara
Your skin will wrinkle and your youth will fade, but your soul is endless.
So I’ve had gold sellers contact me via personal mail ( the average way of doing it), and by map chatting. But I came across a new one today. Whispering. I know a lot of Gold sellers are possibly hacked accounts. But please be wary of them.
Each and every Gold seller that I come across has been reported via the in game system and thankfully it’s not as bad as it once was, they seem to have calmed down from what it was after it went f2p. Any one else notice this new little trick or it may not be that new just something that hasn’t happened until today.
I don’t see why the gold seller don’t just stop with the spam. I mean we already have an in house gold seller. Not certain if this is actually against ANETS policy but you only need to buy gems and convert them into gold. It very expensive considering but its the only legal (err Illegal?) way to do it?
I don’t see why the gold seller don’t just stop with the spam. I mean we already have an in house gold seller. Not certain if this is actually against ANETS policy but you only need to buy gems and convert them into gold. It very expensive considering but its the only legal (err Illegal?) way to do it?
Because people buy gold from them. As long as people continue to do so they will continue the spam. From what I have seen Anet has been working to remove the gold people buy from gold sellers and hopefully that teaches the buyers a lesson. Unfortunately they can’t catch everyone.
There are many irritating things in this game, and the 1 goldseller msg per week ranks quite low on the list of problems. Pro tip: there is a block button.
You know everyone says that I’d like to see the proof of this.
Gold sellers hurt the games by several ways. They hack player accounts to get gold to sell to other players. They steal accounts from people who were foolish enough to give them log in information and strip the accounts. They install key loggers on people’s computers who buy from them and steal financial information from them. They also steal accounts by using bank and credit card fraud to buy accounts then reverse the charges to get money back. This reversal of charges costs the company both in the lost sales but also in the fines from their financial insurance providers for having charges reversed. They also bot to get both gold and mats which causes gold inflation and weakens the prices of the mats you want to sell.
With gem to gold selling, the players are trading between themselves. No hacked accounts. No gold inflation and no credit card or bank fraud.
Gotcha so we can get caught from buying without but its okay to buy within the game. Makes sense to me.
It’s ok to buy gems from Anet and then convert them in-game to gold, which uses gold others players put into the system in order to buy gems. It’s not ok to buy from a third party seller that may or may not have stolen the account they’re posting from.
You know everyone says that I’d like to see the proof of this.
You’d like to see proof of what? Gold selling companies aren’t going to admit up front that they stripmine people’s accounts. The impact on the economy is easy enough to see, on various occasions when a gaming company has implemented new anti-theft and/or anti-botting and/or mass bans of stolen accounts, suspensions of those who bought illicit gold. And the positive impact of people buying gems from ANet with RL cash can be seen in NCSOFT’s annual reports.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
If people are hacking accounts wouldn’t you think this is more of a security concern for the company? If the economy was balanced then sure keeping it in house makes perfect sense. But when new people joining the game needs to buy gems to turn to gold to remain competitive or get that look they want the only real way to do it is buy the gems or prepare for years of farming. It would just seem to me that Gold Sellers are really saying that if the system was balanced people wouldn’t need the services to begin with. We need to look at why people are using Gold Sellers to begin with not what it does after.
All MMOs have gold sellers and we already know why people use gold sellers in all the MMOs out there. They’re impatient. They want their gold NOW and they’re willing to pay for it. You can’t stop that. You can’t change human nature. All you can do is offer a way for people to get gold that doesn’t hurt the economy, the players or the company.
Gold selling companies will always be criminal companies because they need lots of gold, fast. Faster than they can farm gold since each purchase can be hundreds or thousands of gold. That means they need to hack or steal accounts to get all that gold or have large numbers of bots.
If you want proof, just peruse the Account Support sub-forum 3 or 4 years back. You will find a plethora of ‘hacked’ accounts that were stripped.
Or, the check for the many threads on Gold-selling over the previous 4 years.
Or, read the Security articles in the Knowledge Base that address RMTs.
Absolutely nothing to do with the present in-game economy, or that new players want shinies, and are not willing to work for them. I’m sure they would not enjoy being painted with such a broad brush.
If people are hacking accounts wouldn’t you think this is more of a security concern for the company? If the economy was balanced then sure keeping it in house makes perfect sense. But when new people joining the game needs to buy gems to turn to gold to remain competitive or get that look they want the only real way to do it is buy the gems or prepare for years of farming. It would just seem to me that Gold Sellers are really saying that if the system was balanced people wouldn’t need the services to begin with. We need to look at why people are using Gold Sellers to begin with not what it does after.
but the question you raised hasn’t anything to do with anets security policy or the balance of the economy. you asked for proof, they gave you proof. Now youre just deflecting the issue.
If people are hacking accounts wouldn’t you think this is more of a security concern for the company?
Yes, it is. That’s why ANet doesn’t let you to use a password that’s been posted on hacking sites and why they offer a reward to people for using two-factor authentication.
But when new people joining the game needs to buy gems to turn to gold to remain competitive or get that look they want the only real way to do it is buy the gems or prepare for years of farming.
No one “needs” to buy gems to turn to gold. Everything can be earned just by playing and there are a variety of ways to outfit your character(s) while you are relatively poor.
We need to look at why people are using Gold Sellers to begin with not what it does after.
Game companies do, which is one of the reason why ANet setup the gold:gem exchange in the first place, since it does provide a mechanism for people who have extra money to invest in the game in a way that makes up for their lack of time.
But that’s not the issue you raised in the original post.
The short story remains:
As long as some people are too impatient to earn stuff on their own, gold sellers will exist.
As long as there are gold buyers, sellers will use any means available to them (including cheating and stealing) to be able to offer gold to those buyers.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
Gold sellers will always be present even if people are able to buy gold directly from ArenaNet. As their prices are far lower than direct sales through gems.
All you can do is to block them, report them and move on.
The association between gold selling sites and hacked accounts ins’t always wrong but it happens far less often than people seem to believe. It is like saying “if you download some bot you will get hacked”. I have played some games where half of the population would have gotten hacked if that was the case. It simply depends on which sites you are using.
The majority of their gold comes from gold bots or farmers. They even buy gold from “normal” players trying to make a quick buck.
There wouldn’t be a market if they had to ‘hack’ someone to gain gold. Who would be so silly as to hurt their own steady customers just to have them never return.
Gold sellers will always be present even if people are able to buy gold directly from ArenaNet. As their prices are far lower than direct sales through gems.
Also, I do not understand the disadvantageous gem2gold/gold2gem ratio. Why is this not 1:1?
Gold sellers will always be present even if people are able to buy gold directly from ArenaNet. As their prices are far lower than direct sales through gems.
Also, I do not understand the disadvantageous gem2gold/gold2gem ratio. Why is this not 1:1?
Two reasons:
Like all transactions on the TP, Evon removes 15% of the coin involved (in both directions). This reduces the amount of gold in the economy, which reduces pressure on prices to rise.
To prevent people from “flipping” gems (i.e. buying at the low point during the week and reselling for a profit at the peak). This makes it very unattractive to convert gold to gems as a hedge against inflation.
(I’m sure there are other reasons, but those two, in my opinion, are sufficient to justify the discrepancy.)
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
