Guild Wars 2

Well, what’ve you got?

Waitress: Well, there’s egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and troll; egg bacon and troll; egg bacon sausage and troll; troll bacon sausage and troll; troll egg troll troll bacon and troll; troll sausage troll troll bacon troll tomato and troll;

Vikings (starting to chant): Troll troll troll troll…

Waitress: …troll troll troll egg and troll; troll troll troll troll troll troll baked beans troll troll troll…

Vikings (singing): Troll! Lovely troll! Lovely troll!

Waitress: …or Lobster Thermidor au Crevette with a Mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and troll.

Wife: Have you got anything without troll?

Waitress: Well, there’s troll egg sausage and troll, that’s not got much troll in it.

Silver Chopper.4506:

Strifetoe.4502:

People who are having fun don’t have time to come on here and complain and those who do should goto suggestion forums and give them.

Playing the advocate here, what camp are you on then? Are you posting because you’re not having fun with the game?

j/k

I’m not … and that’s no more crass than the OP’s statement.

8 is good and its not higher because of the interaction with the crafting. Crafting is a 3 because every crafting tree can make everything so there is no market for anything you make on the trading post. There is no point for anyone not capped to even attempt to craft and sell anything, because all created items sell for less than the cost of the materials needed. (A goblin just died in Orgrimmer after hearing that and Chuck Norris cried on Mister T’s bling.)
This upside down joke of a Trading Post is a 1 due to the lack of crafting being worth doing. I am not concerned about what can be made at top end of a crafting tree because it will take an eternity to recoup the losses it takes to get there. Argue all you want but the NRCL guild knows I am right. Who is that – That is the unofficial guild moniker for the unofficial guild – Naked Ranger Conga Line. you know the ones who truck arounds getting all sorts of basic mats, demonstrating the most efficient way to make money on the TP and showing all the best areas in which to do it.
In summary: bad crafting tree = upside down Trading post = Mats generate more gold quicker than finished items = exp in farming mats is just as good with NO income loss as crafting tree leveling .

It’s a free market economy…… get over yourself. Buy it and flip it if its so underpriced … otherwise wait for it to go away. Whiney traders…

he worked for me as of yesterday …… I had reported the same issue prior to last patch

Just logged and check …he is functional now as well …. possibly specific server. mine is sorrows furnace

Vaerah.4907:

VendettaDFA.9368

The XP you speak of does not even BEGIN to compensate for the loss of operating funds from having no lower level sweetheart items to get a living from. Your final sentence is SOOOOOO elitist I want to vomit AND its completely misleading

Apparently it does. Markets don’t lie (traders do, but individually). Markets decided that your pointless zillionth widget is… well… pointless and valued it as such.

I am sorry to sound harsh but in real life I am a trader and to not be in the loser 95% you need to think different, sometimes even be an elitist bastage.
Thinking different is what made me quote you correctly despite the forum quote is broken. Because I thought different and dealt with it.

You too should start dealing with what is thrown at you, be it a buggy forum or an harsh market.

Deagon Droga.1637

I’ve crafted top teir exotic lvl 80 gear of both weapons and armor

.. and felt somehow entitled to a profit right?

Guess, I have a guild mate who has all the craft schools trained to 400 and even then he won’t craft what he knows everybody are going to craft.
It’s obvious you and everybody else expect to “ding” 400 and then start printing money, but exactly the very mental process that drove you to think that you would make money at skill 400 is exactly the same that drove everybody else to jump on the same lemmings bandwagon.

As my RL trading mentor teached to my team, “if you will think like everybody else, you’ll also perform like everybody else: that is you will lose”.

Think about Steve Jobs, or Zuckenberg: they did not think like everybody else and they won.
All the others who think on the same wave length are not appreciated exactly because they don’t shine, they don’t “bubble up” and they are doomed to spend their life doing mediocre and unimaginative jobs.

Deagon Droga.1637

EVE online had some similar issues back when that game was in it’s first few iterations, they ended up hiring a full time economist to sort it all out, and if there is one MMO I can point to for it’s stellar (no pun intended) economy, it’s EVE.

ANET also hired a full time economist, he even posts on this forum (unlike Dr. Ejyo in EvE).

GW2 economy cannot be “fixed” to be like EvE’s, in GW2 there’s no heavy destruction of items to grant a massive demand vs supply based economy.
That’s why they have to charge so much for trading fees, for teleports etc, GW2 economy is constantly in risk of mudflation due to the fact that goods don’t get destroyed as often as they should to insure a “truly perfect” economy.

I did deal with the buggy forum and with this as well – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Short-guide-to-generating-cash-flow

ANET owns everything to do with GW2 and has the LEGAL right to handle anything within this game however they wish…… that takes care of the off topic legality part of this thread.
Gold/gems ratio adjusting will benefit the goldseller as much as the player (they are using the same system to their advantage) and the TP will just ask for the same VALUE of adjusted gold for the items….. that takes care of the off topic gold value part of this thread.
That leaves the original core of this thread that I PERSONALLY began. Ban the gold buyers because you can’t ban a goldseller who never has to buy back into the game when they hack accounts of those who are foolish enough to either do business with them and expose their passwords OR can’t manage to make a secure enough password in the first place.

I AM OFFICIALLY DONE WITH MY THREAD

25 silver in a half hour in starting area … extrapolate that out …. happy hunting.

Paladine.6082:

@tolunart

You said:
“People keep saying things like this, it’s a huge leap to an uncertain conclusion based on absolutely no evidence.”

And then proceed to write 5 more paragraphs based on nothing but assumptions with no evidence to support them.

It is not known that “many scammers steal legitimate accounts” nor is it “logical to conclude they make use of stolen credit cards.”

You have no evidence to support either of these statements.

It may well be that -some- scammers have indeed used other people’s accounts and it also may well be that some scammers have used stolen credit card details but it may also be that there are some big companies out there that value customer trust and the law (in order to continue to be in business).

So next time you want to write an epic post don’t contradict yourself after the first 2 paragraphs. If you believe that what you wrote is true, provide evidence to support it (and no that doesn’t mean link me to wikipedia or what ANet say in their blog posts, it means link to real evidence such as court cases) and sit back and accept that even if some scammers do engage in such activities, it certainly isn’t all and probably isnt even a majority.

Oh and btw, the word “scammers” is purely subjective – they are not scamming anyone if they are providing a service that people want to use.

ANET owns EVERYTHING attached to this game. NOTHING legal that you keep trying to regurgitate as an armchair lawyer applies here.

1. Sell all your mats , vendor all unused gear drops that have nothing worth salvaging.

Reasoning – The TP was the only part of the game not beta-tested and it shows when basic mats are worth more than the items created and the EXP gained in securing mats exceeds the EXP from crafting. Your found gear will rarely if ever sell on the TP until you are selling level 80 gear and if you are ….why are you reading this ?

2. Work the areas with the better mobs to secure more mats. Where, you ask are the better areas. Thats easy – follow the naked ranger conga line. EVERYONE knows what I mean.

Until the system is re-vamped …. as they say “run whut ya brung”.

Ya know what …. I have decided the best course of action is to completely scrap the current gold based trading post in favor of a barter based post that will provide a secure area to negotiate trades. The extra things that ANET offers – upgrades , character slots etc… buy em with just actual money. Forget all this gold/gem ratio garbage and forget about how to deal with sellers/botters/buyers. Screw ’em! Drop the gold system entirely and put the social interaction of negotiating goods and services back into the MMO.

Alexander Dragonfang.1759:

Anyone has tought that 1 bot = $60, so the last 2.000 banned = $120.000.

Thats assuming they do not keygen accounts (and i dont think they do) then, what is leaving more profit to Anet, the gem store or goldsellers buying back account as the Anet team bans them.

They arent BUYING anything …… Hacked account’s are free.

@ Vaerah.4907

Chillmastor.9234:

I think all you guys missed the REAL problem of crafting.
IT GIVES XP!!

This is why it is not profitable.
In other MMOs you level your craft which takes time and money and as a reward you get a small profit.

This is impossible in GW2 because there is no reason NOT to take a crafting discipline.
It is just some easy XP.
I prefer the GW2 variant because this prevents that some people make unlimited money from their crafting discipline.

MY REPLY (thx forum for the malfunctioning quote system)

Ya there is an easy reason why ….. as it is now I can sell all my mats …NEVER craft a thing and just buy whatever I want for cheap as I gain more exp in the field than in crafting while anyone who crafts makes less exp and loses profitablility. Satisfied? In addition since the mats sell for more than the finished product….guess who benefits….. goldfarmers … tada !!!

(my reply to you)
The XP you speak of does not even BEGIN to compensate for the loss of operating funds from having no lower level sweetheart items to get a living from. Your final sentence is SOOOOOO elitist I want to vomit AND its completely misleading. I will NOT spend a copper in crafting when my basic mats generate a living and build my cash up to easily afford everything you walked the extra mile to make. You try to spin it as the 1 percenters who craft the top recipes make the profit. Its actually you who are toiling for the 99% who have figured out the futility of crafting. Thanks for the baubles I can easily buy with all the low level garbage mats I sell.

but 42 is the meaning of life … so long and thanks for all the fish

Chillmastor.9234:

I think all you guys missed the REAL problem of crafting.
IT GIVES XP!!

This is why it is not profitable.
In other MMOs you level your craft which takes time and money and as a reward you get a small profit.

This is impossible in GW2 because there is no reason NOT to take a crafting discipline.
It is just some easy XP.
I prefer the GW2 variant because this prevents that some people make unlimited money from their crafting discipline.

Ya there is an easy reason why ….. as it is now I can sell all my mats …NEVER craft a thing and just buy whatever I want for cheap as I gain more exp in the field than in crafting while anyone who crafts makes less exp and loses profitablility. Satisfied? In addition since the mats sell for more than the finished product….guess who benefits….. goldfarmers … tada !!!

There is nothing wrong with how GW2 plays except your perception …. Take ALL the dynamic events from 1-80 and stick em on top of the 80 cap. You have more content than WoW ever thought about AND all the hearts, vistas, and POI’s still match up against WoW’s 1- cap gameplay. Face it —-- the only reason you whine about endgame is because 8 years of MMO’s have you brainwashed.

I just hit 11 and I am not going to waste the trait book I bought. Until this issue is fixed and the staff becomes as viable and logical as the other weapon sets, this character is deleted. This is now the ONLY profession I consider unplayable due to design and not to my lack of ability. I have a mesmer, engineer,necromancer,ranger and my lvl 62 warrior where every weapon in the skillset works just fine, at any level. I wont play a broken profession.

I understand that which is why even the damage I did request is the lowest of the 4 attunements, BUT the heal on the auto-attack should NOT be greater than the heal on the geyser which is heal only …no damage. 20 dmg plus 45 heal vs 53 heal is better…. 24 dmg plus 20 heal vs 53 heal is better 24 dmg and no heal vs 53 heal for geyser is proper but 16 dmg plus 55 heal in auto-attack vs 53 for 2 secs then a cooldown = stupidity if anyone expects me to use a staff on my elementalist. Guess what …. the scepter isn’t that screwed and neither is dagger. Its a pure miscalculation … a BUG.

@ Charming Rogue.8071 Regardless of trait point the ratios are screwed period. Kindly don’t patronize me. I have played since headstart and dabbled in all professions. This is the only issue i posted on concerning a skill on a weapon. I have a warrior and all skills regardless of level work just fine w/o trait enhancements. This is a bug report not your opportunity to make a know-it-all comment. Plus you completely missed the point … the DAMAGE is too low and the heal is higher than skill 3 …let that sink in first. I could care less about the heal part.

Currently using water attunement on a staff is not a good choice and here is the reason. I am ok with it being a healing attunement but when water blast (skill 1) deals 16 dmg and 55 heal while geyser (skill3) is a heal only that does 53 heal for only 2 seconds, to me that is an issue. The other attunements skill one deal fire-47, air-30, and earth-27 dmg. This is from the point of view of a level 10 …but the ratios are the point. the damage inflicted isn’t worth using on skill 1 and the healing of skill 3 is less than skill one as skill one can be auto fired. Both of those skills are rendered worthless
As someone who has always loved ice elementalists this is enough to get me to hang up my spellbook. If you want 16 dmg on water blast then dump the heal effect and give it a base chill (slow) or faster cast or increase the damage to a min of 24. I get my lunch handed to me against equal singles if I dont kite my robe off. Meanwhile back in the lava pit my fire attunement allows me to play much more naturally.
I have no issue with lack of a weap swap IF the attunements of the one weap I am using are viable.

I actually agree with both statements made by Hippocampus.8470 and lackofcheese.5617 in respect to how crafting currently works in relation to the TP. It’s the lack of the sweetheart item that holds finished item value down. Crafting alts have existed on that “other” MMO for years and been just fine. Thats because a basic item that all professions need is made by one craft. Yes …also making the sweetheart item profitable to lower level players will kickstart a true crafting community and a proper TP market that rewards even lower level crafter/sellers.

Attaching a player level to crafting the item could be helpful as even though you gain exp from crafting, its not as much as you gain from the rest of the game and takes an investment of either time or money for mats as well. In that case it is a benefit. You get more use out of your game as if you do choose to alt, you invest more time playing the game your way for your enjoyment. Also if only one crafting profession can make a “bag” for example, yet everyone can gather and sell the mats for it … the mats should always be in supply and by volume be cheaper than the finished product. I would like to see a point where a jute bag could sell for the price of the 2 times the material needed to make it.

Dude…. you are not getting it … it doesnt matter what the supply or the demand is. If any product ..ANY PRODUCT is currently worth 5 silver and suddenly 10 silver is now worth what 5 silver used to be ….then I as a seller of said product will expect 10 silver for my product because that is the true value of the product. Ever wonder why grandpa talked about 25 cent candy bars and you cant find one for under 89 cents??? Same product … inflated cost because you live in a world where your income is almost 4 times higher …and guess what… everything else went up too….. perceived value …plain and simple.

The economy, as I see it, has a major downfall. The basic mats cost more than the items you can make. Why??? Because,for example, all of the major armor based crafts – Leatherworking, Armorsmithing, Tailoring can all make their own version of a basic accessory. The backpack. Why spend the mats on making a bag …. no one will appreciate the effort and give you a profit for your time.

Everyone can insert a grubby ol’ sliver of a gemstone into their gear and suddenly gain stats. Why bother investing time crafting accessories when its that easy to use a found item. Again you will spend more in mats than you will get for the completed item.

Here is what I am getting at. Every crafting skill needs its own item of demand. Something that every player would appreciate having possession of in order to make their experience more fulfilling. It needs to happen early and often …. say at the first level up of a craft skill. For instance Leathercrafters and Tailors can both make basic 8 slot bags, but after the first skill up the leathercrafter can make a 12 slot and that is his limit. The tailor can make a 14 slot at his first skillup and at each additional skillup he goes to 18 … then 22 … then 30. No other craft skill can match him… so he has an item of demand.

You say but I can just switch crafts at will .A thought on that . After you lock in your 2 craft skills and level to the 2nd tier, you certainly can switch your craft skill ….. for 5 gold. Kind of a high price for switching? Darn right it is

There is no reason the basic mats should cost more in total than the product that results from the use of those mats. Fixing this by giving a “sweetheart item” to each craft skill at a reasonably low level will make crafting valid for more than just exp. That in turn will bump the TP economy in the right direction as well.

Astraea.6075:

Looking at the market data via http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/24350 it does seem like there was some rapid movement in large claw trading at that time, whether it was manipulation is harder to tell.

However, with a market the size of this one, it is hard to control the market for any length of time, and the linked page seems to indicate that prices and volumes for large claws are trending back to where they were before.

^ THIS …… A+ response People will attempt to “corner the market” and prices will spike. They will make their profit, move on and prices will stabilize.

@ Masaki Really??? Did any of my VERY short reply even come close to sounding like I didn’t know that bots were present in the TP??? There are actual non-bot players milling around in the TP doing exactly what I said.

I have 2 years of WoW experience and I know how the trading post game is played. I made a fortune off a Toon that NEVER left the AH. I bought mats low….. made bags and sold em for at least 2 times the value. REAL players are doing exactly what the poster asked about.

Mog.1589:

One way to help alleviate the issue is to increase the amount of gold you get from gems. Atm it is imo way to low. They should double it to about 100 gems = 1g. Gold sellers will probably still undercut this but it would help reduce buyers.

People that say this would hurt the market are WRONG. Currently the market is saturated with more product being sold and produced then available gold being produced.

Not to mention the fact it costs RL money to buy the gold which will deter a large portion of the market from buying the gold. However for the large portion that do spend real cash to get the gold it will help bolster the economy of the game because now those people will SPEND their gold on the market pumping more into it.

You may say this will cause inflation. I doubt it will tbh. As I have said there are more products being produced and listed then buyers spending. Just look at a how many goods sell for vendor or at a loss.

It wont hurt the market AND it wont help the market either. The perceived value of the items in the TP dictates the price and NOT THE RATIO OF GEMS TO GOLD. Go ahead give more gold for your gem exchange. The item you want will also cost more gold period….. NOT GONNA HELP.

Dark.6083:

Hang on, hang on, I have a question!

Somebody mentioned that it’s not illegal for the gold farmers, just against the TOS, and that due to anti-trust laws it would in fact be illegal to prosecute them.

However… isn’t it illegal to profit off of somebody else’s IP?

Non-issue …. They dont have to prosecute anyone anymore than they have to allow anyone access to the server to play. ALL parts of GW2 remain the sole property of ANET to do whatever whenever however they choose. You purchased permission to have access to the server to play the data disc you purchase as long as you follow the rules ….THEIR rules. If they feel you arent following and permaban you … not a legal thing you can do. The TOS goes both ways.

Masaki.2153:

one word…..Bots

not really … quantity purchases can be made in one click …so simple even a caveman can do it.

Its called playing the market… its legal as far as I am concerned. I wont spend my day sitting in the TP but some will.

AGREED 100%. More often underwater than above. If you inflict damage , invulnerable should go away unless it is a mob skill, and not just that the shark decided to swim the other way for 5 seconds while you blow all your attacks and have to wait for CD because you at least were under the impression there was a fight going on.

I have only found that to occur if I lose my targeting ring. I dont think it’s a true bug. If I lose line of sight or only “look” in the mob direction to fire then I lose or never establish my auto-attack.

I have the same D/C issue. Dont know much more to put in the box other than “the crash occurs while porting” FYI I am on Vista w Nvidia card … but would figure the specs should show in the crash log.

It proves nothing except you wanting to deflect your responcibility for your security onto someone else. Strengthen your passwords. I have NEVER been hacked. I strengthened my password at ANET’s suggestion and I don’t go to sites that may end up hijacking my info. If you expect pity … forget it.

I have tried a multitude of ways to approach him. you cant get a talk option going even when he is highlighted. Possibly his placement is overlapping other decorations in the fort. He is level 5 NPC in Queensdale map area.

The title pretty much sums it up. In my experience it is the only cavern where I have encountered this problem. It was not like that at all on head start or release. I noticed it about 2 weeks later when taking a new character in. I actually thought my AV scanner had started, but it happened again today.

Mavajo.5796:

Chip H.3951:

Mavajo.5796:

Lol five pages of commentary, and the solution is so simple:

Change the Gem:Gold ratio to undercut the gold sellers..

And destroy the economy in the process? Brilliant. You didn’t think this one through, did you? Gold is already less than $0.70/gold from the gold sellers – less than two hours work at the average US salary will net you 50 gold, how long do you think you’d have to farm legitimately to make that same 50 gold in game?

Gold has to have a value in the game or you wind up with stupid levels of inflation where the only way to afford something on the TP is to buy gold from gold farmers or ANet, and then you just threw the game in the crapper as it becomes a game where you either become a full time farmer yourself or you pay to play. To see how well players like this sort of design go look the general feeling of D3 players on their forums.

If you undercut their current price, they’ll just go lower. It’s a race to the bottom that leaves the price to buy gold so low that you create the problem where everybody feels the amount of gold they get by playing the game is ridiculously low when they can just take the money they made taking bathroom breaks at work and buy more gold then they could farming for a week. So then you raise the drop rate of currency, which can remove the feeling you need to buy gold temporarily, but then all the TP prices rise and you’re right back racing against the gold sellers.

ArenaNet has to have a basement for the official cash price for gold or the player based economy will have no solid basis – the bots will have all the rare drops on the TP and the players will all have to buy botted gold to afford the rare drops because of the huge discrepancy between time to farm gold legitimately vs. the time required to earn enough to buy gold. They can’t win against the gold sellers in terms of undercutting them.

This is such a bogus argument. Completely and utterly bogus.

You guys act as if purchasing gold is a dead-end street. As if the purchasers become rich, and the rest become destitute and unable to afford anything. Patently and completely untrue and, once again, BOGUS. A great majority of the gold that is purchased will be pumped into the community economy — i.e., things purchased on the trading block. Even if you don’t purchase gold yourself, you’ll be able to stay afloat by selling things on the trading block. Indeed, those repair costs and waypoint fees won’t seem like such a big deal anymore.

Again, your argument is completely bogus.

If you undercut their current price, they’ll just go lower.

Again, not true. The gold sellers are going to hit diminishing returns very quickly. I imagine they’re being stretched pretty thin as it is.

sorry but its not wrong or bogus … if you want an example of the open economy you are looking for… go check Diablo3 ’s RMAH and AH. The prices there are outrageous and it is because Blizz chose the path you advocate…. its also why I dont even bother with that game.

Bottom line – this isn’t the solution to the gold-seller and buyers problem and this gem discussion is so far off topic that, as the OP, I am requesting that you start your own thread on gem to gold ratio if you wish to continue it. Thank you for your understanding.

ironzerg.3196:

A lot of armchair economists here…I’m no different, but…

I would be extremely interested to see what would happen if Anet opened up the gems:gold to the free market, allowing players to buy and sell gems directly. Let the market decide what the exchange rate is between gold and gems, not some ambigious algorithm.

They can then focus their efforts on killing bots, stopping account hacks and other illegal means of producing gold, while allowing players to legitimately trade gold. The other enourmous benefit to this is the system for gold stays relatively closed. The only gold that gets traded is gold that was created in game (through ideally legitimate means). That should remove any negative effects on the ecomony (IE bread selling for 1,000 gold) since the supply of in-game gold will still be limited to what players can produce. With the current system, gold is literally produced from thin air as people trade gems for gold.

Well…. here is my armchair economists view of that …. If gems are open to a free market price… the gold-sellers buy up all the gems they can …thus inflating the value of the gems and making an illegal profit off both ends.

Vakirauta.6397:

Does everyone think these bots are just some asian guys? Come on.. If ANet was banning these accounts, how could they afford to get another account? And do this over and over again..

Theres something serious going on..

Where do you think the hacked accounts go? They don’t have to afford what they didn’t pay for in the first place.

Mavajo.5796:

Lol five pages of commentary, and the solution is so simple:

Change the Gem:Gold ratio to undercut the gold sellers.

It’d also help if using waypoints and repairing your armor wasn’t so punitive.

Not the solution at all ….. its an economic spiral. If you change the Gem:Gold ratio the cost of all products will increase to the perceived established value. If ANET gave double the gold for gems as they do now, then what costs 4g now will cost 8g.

In addition, without quoting your other post, ANET has a cost of operation or overhead. The gold-sellers do not, as they merely hack accounts. ANET is not capable, nor would I expect them to resort to undercutting gold-sellers.

Smigl.6178:

if you cant fight them, join them. simple as that.

Well then if thats how you feel … hopefully you wont bother posting about DR or the anti-farming codes as you have in the past. Your current complaints, from your other threads, are a direct result of this issue.
I am amazed at how many players can be oblivious to the reasons behind the majority of issues they are unhappy with in this game. DR, chat suppression, anti-farming code,bots, server lag, disabled loot,account hacks, inflated TP prices AND deflated prices in the TP are all casualties from the activities of gold-sellers. They dont play by the terms of agreement and never will. The buyers on the other hand risk losing their account and that is where the true leverage is.

@ sir twist
If implemented correctly, and I believe ANET can, your transactions would never be flagged or tagged because they should only be flagging,tagging identified and verified illegal gold-sellers to find the illegal gold buyers.

I wonder about that sometimes as well. I will also point out that the thought that if you are standing in the back all you are doing is tossing out buffs and heals doesn’t apply to a game where 7 of the 8 professions are quite effective at range. I think that if AOE heals carried a double-edged sword effect of damaging enemies within radius it could have the ability to give drops and exp to those who enjoy support as well as be a deterrent to some of the zerg mentality. I would think if it were a choosable skill in the trait tree at a reduction in healing % in exchange for damage to foes, it could open up some build options nicely. A guardian might even be able to make up for his almost non-existant range abilities.

Nyaochan.1756:

How do you propose they keep tabs on who’s buying gold, considering the actual transactions are done outside the game, where they have no say? Unless the person that sold to you, or a friend you are stupid enough to tell is a fib and rats you out, no one’s ever going to know about it to report it.

It’s all good and well to say “Hey, guys, stop buying gold, you’re contributing to the problem.”, but let’s not kid ourselves…do you think they care? Nothing you can do about other people’s personal choices, even if they aren’t the brightest.

Regardless of the real money transaction … the gold transfer will occur within the game. If you had checked throught the thread you would have seen the logic on this point. Once a gold-sellers is reported and verified, his transaction trail can be investigated and both ends of those transactions can be dealt with accordingly.

wmtyrance.3571:

What i don’t hear is one of the reasons people buy gold. That is the greed of the player base when they post items on the TP at over 300%. This is what happened in wow. So you guys can sound self righteous all you want, when prices for items start reaching insane price’s people will turn to gold sellers just to be able to play the game. No one ever mentions the greed from players trying to make money trading on the TP. But they are always talking about banning gold buyers. When the greed of players goes up, if arenanet wants to stop the gold buying then they will have to give more gold for gems.

The downward spiral you open up is that people,being greedy just as you postulate, will not allow more gold for gems to work. They will simply make the items they sell in TP cost more gold to buy. Its simple economics. If 100 gems worth 40 gold by todays approximate standard were suddenly worth 80 gold. Then a rare item worth 20 gold on the TP today would rapidly be sold at no less than 40 gold tomorrow. It simply will not work.

vox.5019:

Well it’s good to see actual discussion on this issue going on. Honestly though I don’t think buyers are the cause at all. That’s like saying junkies are the cause for the drug trade.

The solution is exactly the same as how the United States puts enemies in a choke hold. Freeze their assets, and then enact embargos. In other words, take all of their money and prevent them from getting more.

Identify their bank and trade accounts and eliminate them in a ban wave. This is where the ban wave tactic is most effective as it completely depletes their stocks leaving them with nothing to sell. There is no defense. It’s pure loss. Do it often enough and they simply can’t recuperate. No company could come back from having their stores burned to the ground every 2 weeks.

Then it all comes down to how they generate assets, the source of it all as it were, the bots and farmers. Ban waves are not effective at all here. The period between waves just allows them to generate enough gold to turn a profit regardless of the loss of accounts. They must be prevented from farming anything by immediate and persistent banning before any assets can be generated.

This is how you defeat the RMT industry, it’s what they fear MMOs doing. It’s not rocket science or some fancy new untested strategy. The basics of starving the enemy of their resources are as old as human history. The only real question is, do you want to destroy them as if they’re your and your player’s enemies, or are you just trying to manage them as a business looks to manage their sources of revenue.

I do understand where you are coming from but viewed from another angle I will ask you this. If there was no desire for drugs would there be a drug trade. Speculation of course but one difference in the parallel is the lack of a third party in that scenario.

When it comes to banning gold buyers at no time do I advocate not banning the sellers, and if there was an effective way to do that … freezing assets, embargos etc… I would agree with you. However the gold sellers are not bound by those rules that some countries may be bound byand they don’t operate that way. They hack accounts … and use bots and the resources stolen from those hacked accounts to remain in business. When banned they just do it again. There is no deterrent unlike misbehavior in the real world.

Therefore in order to move toward eliminating the illegal supply problem you have to remove their incentive. That would be the gold buyer willing to do business with them because he as yet has no incentive not to. It would be nice if honesty and fair play was enough but for some it is not.

To me the reason DR, chat suppression, disabled loot messages and other things that inhibit the way the game should be played and enjoyed by all is due just as much if not more to the existance of a set of players willing to ignore the terms of agreement and buy from gold-sellers.This only perpetuates the current chat spam and botting issues that fill these forums. My question back to you …… if a player is buying from goldsellers and knowingly contributing to all the previously described issues, is he truly someone you want to allow in the game?

Paladine.6082:

GranoblasticMan.2514:

Paladine.6082:

What I find particularly interesting from a legal standpoint is the state of play with regards to anti-trust. From a legal perspective it is more likely that ANet/Blizzard et al are in breach of anti-trust laws by banning gold sellers than the gold sellers are in breach of any laws. I suspect it is only a matter of time before a group of these gold selling companies band together their resources and file a lawsuit against one of the big MMO companies on anti-trust grounds.

And speaking as someone who knows the FTC and the EU Commission very well indeed, I suspect that any such challenge would stand a very good chance of succeeding.

Realistically? No. I’m not sure about ANet, but Blizzard can definitely afford legal immunity the best lawyers.

Besides, the boilerplate EULA for practically every online game is that the publisher/developer reserves the right to terminate your account for any reason*. While I’ve heard it gets trickier in the EU, at least here in the US, that’s good enough for just about any judge.

* And I see no problem with that. Do we really need a substantial burden of proof for banning bots?

You are making the mistake that many make in that you are assuming a EULA stands up in law and it doesn’t always. Blizzard lost 1 case and have settled numerous others and that is just for banned accounts.

When you start to look at it from anti-trust perspective it gets even more interesting as I posted above.

No company by law has the right to prevent other entities from doing business by abusing their market position (or give themselves an unfair market advantage). The fact that ANet sell gems for real world currency and allow players to convert those gems into gold is a direct real to virtual exchange – they profit from this, it is a legal business. By banning other entities that try to do the same, they are giving themselves an unfair market advantage and preventing other companies from doing business – it is the very definition of anti-trust.

As I said I have worked directly with the FTC and EU Commission and know them very well – I also know one of the lawyers who worked on the Microsoft vs DoJ anti-trust case so I will have a chat with him about this, I am sure he will find it interesting.

I am just interested as someone who works in law and plays this game and as I said, I think it is only a matter of time before the gold buying companies pool their resources and file suit.

Personally I dont see that happening , because just as easily as record companies banded together and shut down site after site of illegal music downloading, the gaming companies could pool their respective resources and pressure ISP’s into shutting down gold selling sites. Whose money is more valuable to the ISP , the legal game makers or the illegal gold sellers

Paladine.6082:

Mojo.2691:

Anguloke.2706:

Cod Eye.1632:

Remove the ability to trade in-game currency via mail, most of the problem solved.

There was no in game mail in GW1, but selling was rampant in that game also. How do you think they distributed the gold then? All they had to do is send them a message to meet in a zone and trade manual. You don’t stop a thing by doing that.

If I’m not mistaken you can’t trade manually in game.

It is still of my opinion that gold should just not be traded. Either that or a 5 gold gift limit on everyone each month. It’s cool that we can give each other gold but what’s the point? If someone needs gear or items, just buy it and send it to them.

I think given the choice to either trade gold or stop gold spammers, I’d pick the latter.

New accounts are already limited as to how much gold they can email. Blocking the transfer of gold is not an option – many people play with their friends/spouses/partners and want to be able to send gold without being forced to be in a guild. The “Your message has been stopped due to excessive messaging” or whatever the hell it is message is already very annoying. I was trying to email a bunch of stuff to my fiancée last night and it took over 30 minutes – don’t punish legitimate players for the actions of bots/gold sellers (which is what every solution ANet have put into place so far -has- done).

ANet need to

a: make their own conversion rate more competitive
b: increase loot in dungeons and off high level mobs (seriously have you seen the crap that falls from champions, veterans, dungeons?)
c: remove DR it only punishes legitimate players.

Also I do wish everyone would stop using the word “Illegal” as someone who works in law I find it incredibly annoying. Buying gold is not illegal, selling gold is not illegal, breaching the ToS is not illegal. At worst all of the above are breach of contract but not even breach of tort since the maximum penalty is banning of account (and even that is dangerous from ANet’s perspective and is challengeable in court for any Pay to Play game (ask Blizzard who lost a similar case)).

You might not like Gold Sellers/Buyers (I am not particularly fond of them myself) but please do stop accusing them of criminal activity (which is what illegal means – breach of civil tort is unlawful – buying/selling gold is neither).

The terms of agreement ARE a binding document that is to be agreed to before you may play the game. Any conduct including selling or buying gold through third party sites are in violation of your contractual agreement. How is violating a contract not illegal? If your statement was true no one who downloaded songs without paying for them should have been prosecuted. The bottom line – ANET ultimately controls ALL content of this game and at their discretion may retract any or all permissions to an account in violation of the terms of agreement. I am reasonably sure the legal department of ANET has a lot of experience with these contracts.

@ounkeo.9138
Your lengthy reply carries nothing informationally good enough to sway anyone elses opinion concerning banning gold buyers. Banning gold sellers has enough of a history of failed attempts to understand that banning sellers wont work. Banning gold buyers has not been pursued enough to generate a history of success or failure and myself and many others, as you can see, are more than ready to give it a shot.

If you got banned from other games that is those games problems in policing themselves. I also notice the examples you give are all for selling and NOT buying gold. Your logic has a fatal flaw. The examples you give only prove that people can be mistakenly banned for selling gold.

So by that extension it wont matter if ANET bans buyers and sellers because mistakes can be made according to you … .but you are relying on ANET reacting on word of mouth instead of checking things out first. I disagree with that line of thought. I am willing to believe ANET is capable of being deliberate in verification before handing out a decision. There are avenues of appeal for mistakes just as a majority of games have. It doesn’t change this line of thought that it is time to ban gold buyers.

I personally dont care for dueling , but I would be in favor of a system that provides an arena setting that players can go to thru a gate and then be allowed to challenge and accept duels to their hearts content. Make it that way so other players don’t have to deal with challenges out in the regular game world and then sure, go for it.

Im for this as well. Allow players to talk to an NPC to get in queue and then just let the game form parties and place them in the dungeon. With no trinity this should be quite fast.