Guild Wars 2

So today I’m in LFG for Auric Basin and I see a listing that says “AB Multi-map/VIP 1g each”.

Is selling spots in a group allowed? I would think that accepting volunteered tips is fine, but to sell a spot in a group seems to be a way to make money in the game without playing the game.

Yes, its allowed. This was already addressed with selling dungeon paths, which is essentially selling a spot in a party for a final boss – the same thing.

I don’t remember the official response, but it was like “okay”.

Disclaimer: I don’t agree with it myself …

Selling spots in a dungeon where there’s a party of 5 people or even a raid of 10 people is one thing, but selling spots to be able to open chests in a map or maps that many other people besides the seller helped provide to the purchaser is another thing entirely.

I see the Multi-Map as a bit different than the Dungeon paths. For things like Dungeon Paths the party selling the slot has to actually do work — i.e., get to the boss and defeat it. For LFG Multi-Map, the “seller” has to do nothing — just organize the group, and then kick people they don’t think deserve to loot at the end of the event.

I think Anet should really implement a timer that you can’t loot from the same event, regardless of the map you’re in, more frequently than once every <x> minutes.

This sounds like abuse honestly, considering that they aren’t actually doing anything to help you finish the meta. I mean at that point they wouldn’t even have to do the meta to still be taking in a few dozen gold every 2 hours

Wow… That is scummy.

Oh well, move on, nothing’s going to be done about it so there’s no use worrying about it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Policy-on-the-LFG-Tool/4768699

Archranis.2375:

I would think that accepting volunteered tips is fine, but to sell a spot in a group seems to be a way to make money in the game without playing the game.

You can sell whatever you want as long as it’s all within the game.

And they aren’t requiring gold to join the group. They’re saying that it’s the lobby group and you can pay 1 g to become a VIP. Whatever that means.

I think the VIP reward is to wear a t-shirt that says “I paid for VIP and all I got was this lousy t-shirt”. I might be wrong though.

@OP, that sounds a bit like a scam.

Seera.5916:

And they aren’t requiring gold to join the group. They’re saying that it’s the lobby group and you can pay 1 g to become a VIP. Whatever that means.

Being a VIP in this sense means you don’t have to use the lobby when you change maps. If all the maps are finished, you can theoretically cycle through all the maps while standing at one chest before moving to the next. You repeat this at every chest, and you only have to traverse through the undercity once, saving you time to move on to other things or to run alts through. Like you said, it’s not a requirement of any squad that I’ve seen, just a voluntary buy-in to either maximize loot or expedite the process.

DoctorDing.5890:

I think the VIP reward is to wear a t-shirt that says “I paid for VIP and all I got was this lousy t-shirt”. I might be wrong though.

@OP, that sounds a bit like a scam.

it is a scam and its slowly killing ab multiloot. not that i care. but my guild is running them constantly for free

Oh look people overreacting to something they didn’t even bother to spend a few minutes investigating. Yes it’s legit, and no it’s not what you think it is so I’ll be nice enough to explain to you what they’re doing. But first let me explain how the typical multi-loot squad rules work.

First let me explain the lobby system. In a multi-loot squad, the first group will always be designated as the lobby. What’s a lobby you say? It’s where you will move your icon so that people don’t join the wrong map on accident while you move to another one. The rotation is basically this:
Group you are in -> Lobby -> switch to a different map by right clicking on someone in a group you haven’t looted -> move your icon to that group. Rinse and repeat.

In further detail, you join a multi-loot squad, then you move your icon down to the group number that has others with the color green, which means that you are on the same map. If the commander is running a fixed number per group strategy, then you’ll be asked to join a map that needs people to boost its chances of succeeding or with looking for a new map. Around the time the octo starts if a new map hasn’t shown up, you’ll usually be allowed to join the group your map is in if no new map was found or you haven’t moved to a different map already. Once the octo is dead on your respective map, you can begin looting. After you finish looting the grand chests in the map you were on, you move your icon again to group 1, which is the lobby, and then join another map instance of a map that is also done with octo and move your icon down to that group. You repeat this until 30 minute mark when the map kicks everyone out of the chest area and closes the doors. The number 1 reason people get kicked from a squad is because they did not move themselves to the lobby, and thus were disturbing the flow of people and caused someone to join the wrong map.

The reason the lobby system is used is very simple: it’s mainly to prevent people from joining a map different from what they intended and also to not lose maps. If everyone just moves map without caution, you might end up with people losing a map since all the people in that group joined other instances and it means less loot for everyone using the squad, which defeats the purpose.

Now, what exactly are these commanders selling when they say VIP spot? Well, it’s definitely not a spot to use the multi-loot, only an idiot would try and sell that kind of thing because they could just join a free one and only a bigger idiot would pay for a spot like that. Usually multiple multi-loots get formed after all.

What they are selling is a spot in a separate locked group that isn’t representative of a map, in which case they are NOT REQUIRED to use the lobby system. They can stay in their locked group and change map instances as they want, without disturbing the others in the squad who didn’t pay. This allows them some extra time since they don’t have to bother with moving their icons and can min/max their looting and it’s not like 1g is much to someone who multi-loots a lot. The commander and the people in the vip group will still be helping in a map, last thing they want is for a map to fail because that means less loot. They also only give a limited amount of spots in this vip group because if you end up in a situation where everyone in the squad pay, then who is going to form the map groups and keep a healthy amount of people moving around and keeping maps alive?

Please do a bit of research before you jump to conclusions next time.

Yes you can sell spots.

People used to charge others for Portals to vistas and JP, same goes for selling dungeon paths.

People sell wins in PvP, people also sell PvP potions to guilds and what not and PvP guilds buy shovels off PvE players… The world goes on.

sephiroth.4217:

Yes you can sell spots.

People used to charge others for Portals to vistas and JP, same goes for selling dungeon paths.

People sell wins in PvP, people also sell PvP potions to guilds and what not and PvP guilds buy shovels off PvE players… The world goes on.

difference is to sell a dungeon or jp or pvp potions you need to actually go get them. to organize a ab you sit still and watch lfg do the work for you. and when its over? youve still done nothing. dont fall for these lazy people. find a free normal one and do it.

Its allowed, but frowned upon. I don’t see why anyone would pay for this service, though. Multiloot squads are already in abundance for free.

sophiewhite.3149:

sephiroth.4217:

Yes you can sell spots.

People used to charge others for Portals to vistas and JP, same goes for selling dungeon paths.

People sell wins in PvP, people also sell PvP potions to guilds and what not and PvP guilds buy shovels off PvE players… The world goes on.

difference is to sell a dungeon or jp or pvp potions you need to actually go get them. to organize a ab you sit still and watch lfg do the work for you. and when its over? youve still done nothing. dont fall for these lazy people. find a free normal one and do it.

I don’t see any difference to be honest, just for your example, the player doesn’t have the PIPS to sell either but yet people sell wins in PvP. People offer hundreds of gold for a whole division from what I’ve seen in map chat.

sephiroth.4217:

sophiewhite.3149:

sephiroth.4217:

Yes you can sell spots.

People used to charge others for Portals to vistas and JP, same goes for selling dungeon paths.

People sell wins in PvP, people also sell PvP potions to guilds and what not and PvP guilds buy shovels off PvE players… The world goes on.

difference is to sell a dungeon or jp or pvp potions you need to actually go get them. to organize a ab you sit still and watch lfg do the work for you. and when its over? youve still done nothing. dont fall for these lazy people. find a free normal one and do it.

I don’t see any difference to be honest, just for your example, the player doesn’t have the PIPS to sell either but yet people sell wins in PvP. People offer hundreds of gold for a whole division from what I’ve seen in map chat.

they actually have to play to win games for people. where as a commander just sits and practically afk’s and kicks people who dont pay.

sophiewhite.3149:

sephiroth.4217:

sophiewhite.3149:

sephiroth.4217:

Yes you can sell spots.

People used to charge others for Portals to vistas and JP, same goes for selling dungeon paths.

People sell wins in PvP, people also sell PvP potions to guilds and what not and PvP guilds buy shovels off PvE players… The world goes on.

difference is to sell a dungeon or jp or pvp potions you need to actually go get them. to organize a ab you sit still and watch lfg do the work for you. and when its over? youve still done nothing. dont fall for these lazy people. find a free normal one and do it.

I don’t see any difference to be honest, just for your example, the player doesn’t have the PIPS to sell either but yet people sell wins in PvP. People offer hundreds of gold for a whole division from what I’ve seen in map chat.

they actually have to play to win games for people. where as a commander just sits and practically afk’s and kicks people who dont pay.

In this instance players are not kicked if they don’t pay.

Paid spot is best spot!

They’d have to hire a full team to monitor these posts if such behavior wasn’t allowed. So yeah, it is totally legal; people can charge for party spots as long as no harmful language is used and the person offering isn’t against the other stablished rules.

I think more accurately, people can TRY to charge for spots. If you’re quick enough, you could probably transfer to the map long before they actually realize you haven’t paid and once you’re there, being kicked from the group is of no consequence.

This game really went to hell huh, i guess mmo’s just cater to the scummy customer base these days lol

Dante.1508:

This game really went to hell huh, i guess mmo’s just cater to the scummy customer base these days lol

This is not evidence of anything that ANet has done, so it’s not about MMOs catering to anyone, scummy or otherwise.

This is about people who are charging for what they believe is a valuable service, one that costs them time and effort. There are good arguments about whether it’s really all that valuable and about whether it costs much time or effort. But it’s no different than people insisting on payment for porting to hard-to-reach locations or people volunteering to tip folks.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Dante.1508:

This game really went to hell huh, i guess mmo’s just cater to the scummy customer base these days lol

This is not evidence of anything that ANet has done, so it’s not about MMOs catering to anyone, scummy or otherwise.

This is about people who are charging for what they believe is a valuable service, one that costs them time and effort. There are good arguments about whether it’s really all that valuable and about whether it costs much time or effort. But it’s no different than people insisting on payment for porting to hard-to-reach locations or people volunteering to tip folks.

what effort does this cost them?

sophiewhite.3149:

what effort does this cost them?

Commanders of mm’s have to ensure that they don’t lose maps, and that players are in the right maps/using the lobby correctly. Good ones also monitor the meta in process to ensure success in as many maps as possible. If you don’t like or disapprove of multi-map squads in general, it’s obviously not something you care about. However, it is nonetheless time-consuming for the commander and worth it to the participants of the squad.

But, again, you’re not necessarily paying them for their effort. You’re paying a premium for efficiency.

sophiewhite.3149:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Dante.1508:

This game really went to hell huh, i guess mmo’s just cater to the scummy customer base these days lol

This is not evidence of anything that ANet has done, so it’s not about MMOs catering to anyone, scummy or otherwise.

This is about people who are charging for what they believe is a valuable service, one that costs them time and effort. There are good arguments about whether it’s really all that valuable and about whether it costs much time or effort. But it’s no different than people insisting on payment for porting to hard-to-reach locations or people volunteering to tip folks.

what effort does this cost them?

Setting up and managing all the squads to ensure that everyone wanting to are able to get into all the instances.

Personally, I wouldn’t charge for this; I think it’s the sort of responsibility you assume when putting up your commander tag. Further, I wouldn’t pay for it, since I can obtain the service from those who don’t demand a payment. I think just the effort of asking and trying to collect makes it a headache.

All the same, some people think the service is worth paying for and some people are willing to organize to tap that willingness-to-pay. I see no reason why it matters to me or why ANet needs to concern themselves with it.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

sophiewhite.3149:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Dante.1508:

This game really went to hell huh, i guess mmo’s just cater to the scummy customer base these days lol

This is not evidence of anything that ANet has done, so it’s not about MMOs catering to anyone, scummy or otherwise.

This is about people who are charging for what they believe is a valuable service, one that costs them time and effort. There are good arguments about whether it’s really all that valuable and about whether it costs much time or effort. But it’s no different than people insisting on payment for porting to hard-to-reach locations or people volunteering to tip folks.

what effort does this cost them?

Setting up and managing all the squads to ensure that everyone wanting to are able to get into all the instances.

Personally, I wouldn’t charge for this; I think it’s the sort of responsibility you assume when putting up your commander tag. Further, I wouldn’t pay for it, since I can obtain the service from those who don’t demand a payment. I think just the effort of asking and trying to collect makes it a headache.

All the same, some people think the service is worth paying for and some people are willing to organize to tap that willingness-to-pay. I see no reason why it matters to me or why ANet needs to concern themselves with it.

Actually, from what others in this thread have said you pay to NOT have to swap squads around as you hop maps. You give gold to the commander so that they know how many in the MM squad are swapping maps at their own whim and not under their command. So that they can help keep better control.

Dante.1508:

This game really went to hell huh, i guess mmo’s just cater to the scummy customer base these days lol

You can say this about anything. If there’s a handful of bad buys that take advantage in your town, then your town has a scummy population. If there’s a handful of bad guys in your school, then the school went to hell.

In reality, when you get a million people in one place, some of them will be scummy. There have been people charging for things for a long time now. Back in Guild Wars 1, there were people who charged you to ferry you to an outpost that costs them nothing. It’s human nature.

But it’s entertaining to see how people will take a single post on a forum because they don’t like the game and try to make it a case for the entire game is going to hell.

I wonder why so many posts that mentioned groups not doing this that you can join were ignored to come to certain conclusions.