Guild Wars 2

I hope you have upped your detection methods. I’ve never been falsely hit with a RMT ban, but I know others have. I would suspect people to be really steamed to log on and find out the $200 gold there friend sent them was removed because it was flagged as a RMT.

All I can say is FINALLY. I am so sick of dealing with this ingame. Anet! THANK YOU!

just make sure you ban the right people, I for one have three accounts.
Just keep that in mind !!!

Also, you should’ve been doing this from the get go at launch !
you’re kind of to late.

why did it take years for you to start doing this??

From here on out? Do allowed the trade of the past?

Wait, I thought buying from RMT since launch has always been illegal? This is a new rule???

Anyway, is this specific to “Gold Sellers”, or can I still privately trade a guildy 500g in GW2 for 1000k in GW1?

I think it’s not that they weren’t banning players for it, but that they weren’t banning too harshly for it. Am I correct?

Guys be sure to convert gems to gold from now on!

I was thrown by this as well, but I’m guessing what it means is that gold buyers will now be treated as harshly as gold sellers have since beta. ANet have always taken a dim view of gold sellers, while tolerating gold buyers. After all, gold buyers probably could be persuaded to use the Black Lion Exchange. (I’m surprised that the gold purchased by gold buyers wasn’t previously removed.)

Apparently, the potential of converting them to customers is no longer worth the damage they do by paying gold sellers.

Kain Francois.4328:

Wait, I thought buying from RMT since launch has always been illegal? This is a new rule???

The rule is old. Previously, ANet concentrated attention on sellers. The announcement is that they are now cracking down on buyers.

Kain Francois.4328:

Wait, I thought buying from RMT since launch has always been illegal? This is a new rule???

Anyway, is this specific to “Gold Sellers”, or can I still privately trade a guildy 500g in GW2 for 1000k in GW1?

It’s always been illegal…
Just now they’re going to be actively, and more so than before, enforcing it.

Well they can’t really know what’s happening in other games, nor should they correlate the two…
So, so long as your friend has been on your friends list for, say, a month and one day he decides to give you 1000k (isn’t 500g the limit? and isn’t 1000k = 1 million …) out of the blue with some sort of thing writing in the mail … then it probably should be fine. Or maybe a friend has already been giving you sums of gold in the past, so him giving you another sum should be fine… Maybe keeping tabs on how many times you’ve partied with them, if you guys are guildies…

At least that’s my guess on how things like these are detected… 500g in mail from someone that’s not even on your friends list, and the note saying “thank you for the purchase”, or someone that just added you as a friend, sent you 500g… do seem a bit suspicious…

Chris Cleary.8017:

Hey all,

We have been fairly relaxed since launch on players purchasing wealth from “Real Money Traders”, but that stops now. We will be taking a very active stance against RMT buyers from here on out.

The purchasing of wealth from these “Real Money Traders” violates our Rules of Conduct. These traders are often a cause for fraud, hacking, and identity theft.

Repercussions from purchasing wealth can result in removal of wealth and continued purchasing could result in action against your account including temporary suspension or permanent ban from the game.

I’m confused here. You guys handle gold spammers swiftly, but why weren’t you guys handling RMT customers in the listed manner swiftly from the outset? What was the overall mindset behind the initial (and I know it’s a bad analogy but I can’t think of a better one), “slap on the wrist” approach?

DanteZero.9736:

…but why weren’t you guys handling RMT customers in the listed manner swiftly from the outset? What was the overall mindset behind the initial (and I know it’s a bad analogy but I can’t think of a better one), “slap on the wrist” approach?

• It’s a lot more expensive to track down customers; gold sellers are easier to find.
• Banning buyers is always trickier, because you have to worry about false positives, about having a reliable appeals process, and about treating everyone similarly.

It’s not so much about favoring “slap on the wrist” as it is about focusing limited resources where they are thought to do the most good.

There’s a similar mindset among formal law enforcement for all sorts of illegal activities: a lot of times, they go after drug buyers only to get leverage to go after dealers (I oversimplify, of course — the analogy doesn’t extend well.)

In any case, it almost doesn’t matter why they did whatever they did up until now. What matters is if they can do a good job of cutting off the supply and the demand for RMT; that should benefit us all.

Here’s what I think would be a good idea. Trick the gold sellers into “delivering” gold to one of ANet’s accounts.. so ANet could ban the gold seller’s suppliers

I’m assuming along with the exchange restriction they have established better means and tools to follow gold.

Kain Francois.4328:

Wait, I thought buying from RMT since launch has always been illegal? This is a new rule???

Anyway, is this specific to “Gold Sellers”, or can I still privately trade a guildy 500g in GW2 for 1000k in GW1?

That has never been ‘legal’, as far as I know.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Trading-GW1-gold-for-GW2-gold/first#post4239446

Good luck.

Always must wonder about those who ‘doth protest too much’.

Hmm, lets check that annoying RMT site we keep getting ads for. 1000g on sale for $120, down from $129. That $120 buys 9600 gems which is about 936g where $129 would be 10320 gems or about 1000g. Ignoring the new delivery problems, the big annoying RMT isn’t really offering much of a deal nowadays.

So why the frowns RMT users. ANet provides a similar safe service, with ease picking up your cash bought gold, while being only 6% less than the RMT with the possible shaddy gold supply. So …

And Hail to the King, Baby!

I don’t see why it would be too hard for them to enforce this fairly, and expect that they will. If you are just trading money between your accounts, or between you and a law abiding friend, that might send s red flag to them, but they should be able to clear it easily enough. The real test would be to follow the money, that if one account is sending gold to a ton of other accounts, they might want to see how that account makes his gold. If they find a definite hacked account or bot that they know is a RMT, then track down everyone he’s sent money to, and who they might have sent money to, and so on. If the large money transactions you receive can be tracked back to a known RMT, off with your head, simple as that.

Honestly, $10 per 100g directly from ANet sounds like a win to me. Not talking about buying gems and converting. I’m talking about ANet offering gold for $10 per 100g. So $100 per 1,000g, sounds like a fair trade.

simplesimon.2084:

I hope you have upped your detection methods. I’ve never been falsely hit with a RMT ban, but I know others have.

One thing I learned from WoW was that people who said they weren’t RMTing when they were banned… they were.

Chris Cleary.8017:

(please use Mobile Authenticator, PLEASE!).

I honestly wish two-step authentication was just an SMS text message sent to my phone. Yes, I’m lame and do not pay for a data plan on a phone, let alone have a phone that runs modern mobile apps.

So you basically don’t ban them because you know that they will spend their real money on your gems.

saw on a post somewhere (facebook group) that gold sellers are gonna buy stacks globs of ecto then mail it to the buyer instead of mailing the gold directly.. so, you might also want to look into malicious item movements. it’s also gonna bypass the gold transfer limit. so.. there’s that..

Chris Cleary.8017:

(please use Mobile Authenticator, PLEASE!).
.

Almost all other MMO’s have incentive for using authenticators as it can be somewhat of a bother in setting up. It would be great if you would offer something like free or reduced WP’s or Increase percentage to MF, Xp, or Karma. Wildstar offers XP boost if I remember correctly. Final fantasy has reduced home point costs for 2 points and one free home point. Im sure there’s other example as well.

Either way I will always use the authenticator. I put too much time into my account to risk a compromise but still just a thought that might get more people using them and less resources you have to spend in recovering accounts.

^ One could of course question if people really care so little about their accounts that they need to have an incentive to use the supplied protection.

good,

sellers of gold, sell gold beads maximum level 10, because it does not get that until you reach level 70-80 you can send more gold? maximum level 0-70 100 golds, and other cancer are also websites that sell weapons, armor and exclusive designs that what they do is upload them money and win real money, greetings.

sorry for English

As someone who has not been shy about voicing my annoyance at the new gold transfer limits, I’m a bit flabbergasted by this post. (They were not getting banned already!?)

This problem is like the drug problem. You have an illicit and very determined business community. You have a user community that while not nearly as malignant as the supply side, still foists their fair share of evils upon society in general and some individuals in specific.

Most of the public will continue to cheer you when you gun down the cartel members – myself included.

However, while criminalizing the demand side is emotionally satisfying, it can lead to overcrowded prisons (and account ban ticket lines) and a lot of otherwise decent people experiencing extreme consequences.

What is needed is some intervention. Some help for the people stuck in this pattern. Fortunately, most of the RMT customers are probably not dealing with a chemical addiction, just, as you said, a habit or pattern of relying on something.

People are always going to move gold around. Since you’ve already imposed a cap, I think you should impose another layer – a mini TOS reminder on transfers over a certain amount – for both the sender and receiver.

“You’re sending or receiving a large amount of gold. Please remember that exchanging gold for real currency is a violation of the TOS and can lead to permanent account closure”

[] I acknowledge the TOS and certify that I did not pay real money for this gold.
[] Help! I’m willing to testify against my gold seller in exchange for a limited immunity arrangement – please don’t ban me!

Why are you sending or receiving this gold?

[] I’m transferring gold between two accounts that I own.
[] I’m lending gold to a friend
[] Some other reason that is legit
[] A different legit reason I can’t think of
[] Other: _________________

That’s a hassle, but it’s not as much of a hassle as the current limit and you’re also forcing people to acknowledge the rules with every transfer. It helps take away the “uh… that was bad? then why did you let me do it 25 times?” excuse. It’s a paper trail and it makes people commit to a story – true or otherwise – with every transaction (over a certain amount).

You can also use that mini TOS screen to include a pitch to help people buy gems and tell them they can convert gems to gold: Hey kids, instead of buying smack, let’s take our granola and go hiking so we can get a natural high!

Do this.

I second the above suggestion to add a questionnaire into the money transfer.
Would give you some good data mining as well as put people off illegal money transfers.

The “gold buyers aren’t bad people” analogy doesn’t work for me. Let them play by the same rules as the rest of us, don’t make excuses for them. They KNOW they are buying botted or stolen gold / gear. Ban them the same as gold sellers.

present needlessly elaborate scheme (with ridiculous notion that buying gold in a video game can be somehow compared to drug trade)
demand developer to “do this”

hilarity ensues

You want gold, either earn it or sell gems. That’s all there is to it. It’s a game, why would it rustle your jimmies is beyond me.

Given that the first response to these issues will simply be to remove the gold purchased, and if they keep buying it, only then do they get temp banned (seems they will have to try very hard to get a permanent ban) I would say this is a good change.

If they really didn’t remove the gold before, then all I can say is that it is about time that they do so!

Chaba.5410:

Chris Cleary.8017:

(please use Mobile Authenticator, PLEASE!).

I honestly wish two-step authentication was just an SMS text message sent to my phone. Yes, I’m lame and do not pay for a data plan on a phone, let alone have a phone that runs modern mobile apps.

If you don’t have a smartphone, you can always use a desktop app which supports googleauth (the system GW2 uses). There’s really no excuse.

applecup.3047:

Chaba.5410:

Chris Cleary.8017:

(please use Mobile Authenticator, PLEASE!).

I honestly wish two-step authentication was just an SMS text message sent to my phone. Yes, I’m lame and do not pay for a data plan on a phone, let alone have a phone that runs modern mobile apps.

If you don’t have a smartphone, you can always use a desktop app which supports googleauth (the system GW2 uses). There’s really no excuse.

Or use the email authenticator which works equally well.

it´t to late Anet.
The account of my stepson was taken by a hacker…..he sold everything and did nothing….
He got his Account back but without his gold, materials and …..and and….
All you could say: we sorry abut it but we can´t do anything….we cant even restore the account:@
He doesn´t playing any of your game since than…..

an yes, he had authenticator…..so that isn´t secure….

Since nobody is saying this, I am just going to say it:

Chris Cleary, thank you for motivating the RMT policy and its implications. It took probably a lot of thought to have this kind of elaborate explanation without jeopardizing the security team effort.

I personally like the new policy changes and can’t wait to them in force, because I feel other players who got away with buying gold have an competitive advantage over the normal player. This will be less likely to happen when the policy changes are into force. So again thanks!

Well account security falls into users duty in the end.
(As far i know changing guild wars 2 password means including CD-key)
This is why usage of separate unique passwords is vital & keeping all sensitive data off-line.
Loosing an email often means loosing everything if personal security on core level is poor NOTHING will keep you safe, simply a reminder that anet has said very often for years.

Chaba.5410:

Chris Cleary.8017:

(please use Mobile Authenticator, PLEASE!).

I honestly wish two-step authentication was just an SMS text message sent to my phone. Yes, I’m lame and do not pay for a data plan on a phone, let alone have a phone that runs modern mobile apps.

Ditto!!!!! NO data plan.

Wiz.1543:

Since nobody is saying this, I am just going to say it:

Chris Cleary, thank you for motivating the RMT policy and its implications. It took probably a lot of thought to have this kind of elaborate explanation without jeopardizing the security team effort.

I personally like the new policy changes and can’t wait to them in force, because I feel other players who got away with buying gold have an competitive advantage over the normal player. This will be less likely to happen when the policy changes are into force. So again thanks!

One thing, I wouldn’t use the the buy gold competitive edge argument. Many but lots of gold legally from the TP with real money (gems) and gold to gem exchange.

Carighan.6758:

simplesimon.2084:

I hope you have upped your detection methods. I’ve never been falsely hit with a RMT ban, but I know others have.

One thing I learned from WoW was that people who said they weren’t RMTing when they were banned… they were.

It’s definitely possible. Server community heads have gotten banned for supposed RMT while raising gold for transfers.

Blude.6812:

One thing, I wouldn’t use the the buy gold competitive edge argument. Many but lots of gold legally from the TP with real money (gems) and gold to gem exchange.

I don’t think you really understand what a competitive advantage is.

Gold sellers tend to be cheaper then buying gold trough gems the legit way. So you get more gold per dollar/euro/ruble spent.

Edit a 2014 graph of black market exchange rates and official ones:
https://www.gw2tp.com/blackmarket This is my favorite TP site.

Chris Cleary.8017:

There are some very valid comments here, and addressing concerns with facts may be the best way to do this. We always try to be the most open and honest with our community, so here it goes.

<snip>

You didn’t say anything about false positives.

ANet has killed accounts over false positives. I know, because it happened to my eldest daughter. Sure, ANet undid their action on her account, but it was, if nothing else, excessively annoying to be accused and banned completely falsely.

I commonly send my wife’s account hundreds of gold, which I either earn or buy with gems. Are those transactions going to be flagged by historically inaccurate algorithms?

I’d be more comfortable with direct, honest answers to those concerns.

Dreamslayer.7659:

~snip~

“You’re sending or receiving a large amount of gold. Please remember that exchanging gold for real currency is a violation of the TOS and can lead to permanent account closure”

[] I acknowledge the TOS and certify that I did not pay real money for this gold.
[] Help! I’m willing to testify against my gold seller in exchange for a limited immunity arrangement – please don’t ban me!

Why are you sending or receiving this gold?

[] I’m transferring gold between two accounts that I own.
[] I’m lending gold to a friend
[] Some other reason that is legit
[] A different legit reason I can’t think of
[] Other: _________________

This is a good idea. Eliminates plausible deniability issues, gives players a way to undo their bad decision and help fix the problem at the same time, and allows people to provide reasons for legitimate transfers (giving support a place to look, hopefully avoiding any false positives.)

I think some people probably take the risks with buying from goldsellers because
1.) as previously stated, there’s not been rigorous enforcement going on because its not top priority to go after buyers and
2.) the exchange rate from gems to gold isn’t worthwhile in their eyes. They’d rather take the (perceivable) small risk of buying gold from goldsellers (my friend did it and he didn’t get banned stories are always flying around. Another excuse I hear many times is ‘well man I would prefer to buy through anet but the price is just too high for what you get’)

I think it would be great if the conversion rate was also altered to encourage people even more to stay away from RMT. Punishment is effective, but also incentivising people to do the right thing can make your goal even more achievable.

Sytherek.7689:

Chris Cleary.8017:

There are some very valid comments here, and addressing concerns with facts may be the best way to do this. We always try to be the most open and honest with our community, so here it goes.

<snip>

You didn’t say anything about false positives.

ANet has killed accounts over false positives. I know, because it happened to my eldest daughter. Sure, ANet undid their action on her account, but it was, if nothing else, excessively annoying to be accused and banned completely falsely.

I commonly send my wife’s account hundreds of gold, which I either earn or buy with gems. Are those transactions going to be flagged by historically inaccurate algorithms?

I’d be more comfortable with direct, honest answers to those concerns.

There is no system in the world that completely avoids false positives. (Turns out to be a mathematical certainty.) Drug tests, polygraphs, chemical assays, and RMT tests — they all result in some amount of false positives. There’s a balance among time/effort, number of false positives, # of false negatives, ease of use, and implementation difficulty. ANet, like any other service provider, has to weight the pros/cons of each element of their system and for a business, that’s always going to mean erring on the side of catching as many as possible, while suffering a few falsely accused.

So all that’s left for them is making the inconvenience to those accused as small and short-lasting as possible.

I feel bad that your family was affected, but I’m not sure what else ANet could do to avoid it, outside of letting RMTs/botters/etc run rampant.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Sytherek.7689:

Chris Cleary.8017:

There are some very valid comments here, and addressing concerns with facts may be the best way to do this. We always try to be the most open and honest with our community, so here it goes.

<snip>

You didn’t say anything about false positives.

ANet has killed accounts over false positives. I know, because it happened to my eldest daughter. Sure, ANet undid their action on her account, but it was, if nothing else, excessively annoying to be accused and banned completely falsely.

I commonly send my wife’s account hundreds of gold, which I either earn or buy with gems. Are those transactions going to be flagged by historically inaccurate algorithms?

I’d be more comfortable with direct, honest answers to those concerns.

There is no system in the world that completely avoids false positives. (Turns out to be a mathematical certainty.) Drug tests, polygraphs, chemical assays, and RMT tests — they all result in some amount of false positives. There’s a balance among time/effort, number of false positives, # of false negatives, ease of use, and implementation difficulty. ANet, like any other service provider, has to weight the pros/cons of each element of their system and for a business, that’s always going to mean erring on the side of catching as many as possible, while suffering a few falsely accused.

So all that’s left for them is making the inconvenience to those accused as small and short-lasting as possible.

I feel bad that your family was affected, but I’m not sure what else ANet could do to avoid it, outside of letting RMTs/botters/etc run rampant.

Balance. Tricky, but a worthy goal. ANet can control RMT without resorting to baseless “accidental” banning of players.

In the United States, we have this thing called “due process”. It’s not perfect, but it’s a heck of a lot better than ANet’s autocratic rule. Now, I’m well aware that a game isn’t bound by any external national rights, and I can live with that, and even support ANet’s attitude on subjects like free speech.

I don’t support traumatizing little girl fans with false accusations. It’s bad for business, and that should concern ANet.

The daughter is now in her mid-twenties and an educated, successful pro artist. Her experience with ANet may be water under the bridge, but neither of us want to see a little girl get banned over over-zealous enforcement of rules about fake money. Gold buyers have zero affect on my enjoyment of the game; banning my daughter falsely did.

My attitude is less about past wrongs and more about preventing them in the future.

Whilst browsing LFG for a Silverwastes run, I saw someone offering to trade gold for Steam items (Those that could likely be sold for real money)

I reported this LFG for both Gold Selling and LFG abuse.

Just remember – People will find other ways to “sell” gold that many other users may consider innocent.

General Health.9678:

I second the above suggestion to add a questionnaire into the money transfer.
Would give you some good data mining as well as put people off illegal money transfers.

The “gold buyers aren’t bad people” analogy doesn’t work for me. Let them play by the same rules as the rest of us, don’t make excuses for them. They KNOW they are buying botted or stolen gold / gear. Ban them the same as gold sellers.

Buying gold from RMT sites because you get a bit more gold for your dollar is the same rational as trading outside of the TP to avoid the taxes and fees. The notion that ANet is screwing the player over from their rightful gold so they try to work around the systems in place that prevent scamming.