On the Subject of Gold Farming

[Goergyboy]

I got to agree with Lilleth on the laws part, and I hope SOE doesn't persue that further.

I honestly don't think setting a level cap to chat would help all too much. It may help some, but how long would it take them to reach level 5 or 10 when there could be 6 of them grouping up doing missions already just for the quick money. The only way this would really help if it was a high enough level that they would be forced to make a payment before they could cancel the transaction, lowering their general profit. With that, then the level cap to chat would be huge and alot of new players probably would leave or be lost since they can't get help.

Besides ignoring them and denying their services I am not sure what else the player base can do. We've already been reporting the players who do it, but that doesn't seem to be getting us anywhere fast.

[Brandysnap]

apparently these gold sellers/farmers delete the spamming character quickly enough so that theres no record left of the character.

in that case i propose.

- only 3 chars per account allowed to be created each 24hours.

- only 1 char can be deleted per day and only 24hours after initial creation of said char.

[Adeon_Hawk]

Originally Posted by perih Like Alchool Prohibition in the 1920´s and 30´s Gold Farming Prohibition is a no win job. The more ilegal it gets, the higher the prices. See what happens with drugs nowadays. The key element to combat these activities, imho, is to LEGALIZE and CONTROL. LEGALIZE AND CONTROL GOLD selling thru FLS. Wait!! But thats unfair! Players that cant afford it wont be able to evolve as well as richer players. Agreed!! So a little more inventive solution could arise. Let´s say: SOE and/or FLS would sell cheaper gold (to bankrupt the goldsellers) to be used ONLY in 1 or 2 specific server where the players that dont mind about that (neither about a ganked economy) would go play. The rest of the servers would be for players that dont like gold selling (same traditional measures would still be taken against gold selling in these servers). Making goldselling an unatractive business is the key to fighting against it and prohibition only makes it more profitable and atractive for the goldsellers. Prices go up and only the richer players are able to buy. Just like booze for the Mafia in the 1920´s.

The problem is that most players who buy gold do it because they want a leg up over players who don't buy gold. A server where everyone buys gold will not attract many players unless you manage to completely eliminate gold sellers on all other servers. Having some servers with legalized gold selling won't really eliminate it on the other servers no matter what price FLS sells it at since there will be plenty of players who would rather buy illegal gold on a server where most players aren't buying gold (and thus the economy is reasonable) than by it legally on a server where the economy is effectively based on real life money instead of in game money.

[Leonardo]

Originally Posted by Adeon_Hawk The problem is that most players who buy gold do it because they want a leg up over players who don't buy gold.

Has this really been your experience? Everybody I know who's engaged in RMT is an experienced player who just wants to bypass all the low-level boredom; and it's usually to create a companion to their first character (buffbot, healbot, et al).

(Not that I'm condoning RMT though, yeek! Re-reading that, it sure seemed that way.)

[Leonardo]

Originally Posted by Goergyboy I honestly don't think setting a level cap to chat would help all too much. It may help some, but how long would it take them to reach level 5 or 10 when there could be 6 of them grouping up doing missions already just for the quick money.

They don't work that way. Usually there's nobody sitting at the computer spamming us; it's just a bot (or several bots), and this game is too complex for a bot to rise past level 2. Meanwhile, the one earning the gold is a seemingly regular character, who maybe found an exploit, maybe not, but they're out there just playing the game.

[Detton27]

Concerning the idea to limit transfers of gold/items to ONLY your own character, and not to anyone else, except via auction house:

A way to get around the issue of not being able to transfer stuff to your friends, would be to open that up to people in your society.

That'd allow helping out friends, society mates, etc. and still maintain the same level of effectiveness against the gold sellers/spammers.

Just throwing an idea out *shrug* Who knows what FLS will decide to adopt. I do, however, hope they come up with some kind of solution soon.

[sethdonovan]

Originally Posted by Aether Pirates of the Burning Sea takes a strong stance against the practice of gold farming. In fact, we have already banned individuals who were spamming players with their gold farming services while in game. We are actively monitoring gold farming sites, and we will investigate all reports of alleged transactions, following up with the appropriate disciplinary actions, which could include confiscation of grey-market gold, and ultimately banning accounts that sell or buy this gold. If you are approached by someone seeking to sell you gold, you are asked to file a support ticket by typing /support in game, or by visiting our support site at http://support.flyinglab.com/. This is the best way to report this activity, and posts in the forums will be promptly moved to an administrative area. You are encouraged to share as much information as possible with Flying Lab staff, including the character’s name, the time of the incident and any links they may have shared with you during the solicitation. Attaching screenshots of the incident will also help our investigations a great deal. Best, Aether

I imagine I'm one of a million people who have said this but.

1. I hope you create a way to report people with a right click. Making us police this by the fillout out tickets taking screen shots etc, manually is not fun. Not fun stuff in games should be avoided at all costs. I get about 5 to 10 direct spams a day now, it is far worse than any other MMO to date.

2. I hope you truly ban the people who buy this gold too and not just the ones that sell. It's like phone soliticors preying upon elderly/etc, someone must be buying their BS if they continue to spam. Someone has to be feeding them else they wouldnt continue to harass the rest of us.

3. As an alternative to a better reporting sytem how bout a bout reward. First person to report the people actively undermining your game, gets a free ship of the line :P. I mean if someone reported a person trying to vandalize your servers you would reward them hopefully. This is no different.


I'm kidding here, but serously if we are going to police our own game then we need tools to do this with a click. If it is a pain to report people then it helps the gold farmers. And I know you dont want to help the gold farmers do you .

PS thanks for an otherwise pretty great game.

[Sabrel]

Originally Posted by Brandysnap apparently these gold sellers/farmers delete the spamming character quickly enough so that theres no record left of the character. in that case i propose. - only 3 chars per account allowed to be created each 24hours. - only 1 char can be deleted per day and only 24hours after initial creation of said char.

If that's true, it's the fault of poor logging on FLS' servers. The solution is to fix the logging, not implement arbitrary restrictions that could inconvenience legitimate gamers.

[garborg]

How many real account could you be losing?? Just IP Ban all of China!!

[Aedilis]

Well you could do a hybrid of what Pirates of the Caribbean Online does:

- All names are subject to approval. (This has a double effect of reducing name reports)
- Until your name is approved, you can only read nation/area/etc chat. You can receive whispers, but can only send tells/talk in a group setting.

Does it penalize legitmate people? I suppose. When I played on Pirates of the Caribbean Online, I had no problem with roaming around the ocean called 'Pirate Lvl 7' for a day until I could be approved.

When you can't create the jibberish names and unless your grouping with someone you can't talk until approved, I would bet that 99% of the gold spamming would stop. Would you as a gold farming company wait it out just to send 1 message and get insta reported?