Guild Wars 2

The problem with banning people based on IPs is that people from all over the world attend these events. They can’t see who is selling codes on Ebay. They don’t know someone bought a code or attended an event. What about people that were given the codes by friends and family as gifts? Should they be banned as well?

The fact people are selling the codes on Ebay for insane amounts of cash disgusts me, but I don’t think there’s much Anet can do about it besides stop distributing in-game items like this.

There isn’t anything Anet can do about it. The codes aren’t associated with a specific IP address so they can’t know who is supposed to input the codes from where.

I suppose they could send the codes to accounts instead of handing them out, but I don’t know how they did it.

Technically, they’re not selling an “in-game item”. What they are selling is “a string of code consisting of digits and numbers”, which coincidently when entered on an ArenaNet account will unlock a special Mr. Sparkles mini. LOOP HOLES!

ZudetGambeous.9573:

There isn’t anything Anet can do about it. The codes aren’t associated with a specific IP address so they can’t know who is supposed to input the codes from where.

I suppose they could send the codes to accounts instead of handing them out, but I don’t know how they did it.

Simple really, during an event the attendees have a sheet that they sign and put their account name down on it. Then after the event is over, the developers pass the list to their programmers and/or GM team to send out in-game mails with the item within it. As a few extra steps and a few more employees paid for the effort, it might not be financially reliable as just instead printing cards with codes on them.

hector.2891:

They can check or ask for ip sellers and buyers on internet selling pages and check if they associate with any gw2 account.

IP banning has been a failed concept since 2007ish. This is because dynamic IPs and IP spoofing. Both of these will mean that one banned IP could circulate back into a legit person’s account and get them banned. No company wants to risk such a thing. And yes, I’m aware that a NIC has a single-PC identification ID with it, but those can be swapped too so that the PC can once again be read as something different on a network, bypassing a ban.

Lol no. Like how would they find out the IP adress of someone buying / selling a code in ebay? Will they contract NSA to ILLEGALLY crack into ebay? And even then the paranoid buyer could be behind a proxy.
In any case, I would be very careful before buying anything like that. There is a good chance you are getting scammed.

Siphaed.9235:

hector.2891:

They can check or ask for ip sellers and buyers on internet selling pages and check if they associate with any gw2 account.

IP banning has been a failed concept since 2007ish. This is because dynamic IPs and IP spoofing. Both of these will mean that one banned IP could circulate back into a legit person’s account and get them banned. No company wants to risk such a thing. And yes, I’m aware that a NIC has a single-PC identification ID with it, but those can be swapped too so that the PC can once again be read as something different on a network, bypassing a ban.

You are correct! I.P Bans are non existent anymore, considering how easy it is to change your IP and the fact that it is possible for you to have the same IP as someone else who got banned by random chance.

In addition MAC adress bans do not work either, because they could replace the NIC or simply run a free mac spoof program which changes your MAC address with a click of a button.

The only thing you lose in a ban is characters.