Its time to talk seriously about a Real-money store to combat bots

Swordguy

This idea has never been implemented very well in any mmo, except for specific items, like Eve Online allowing game-time to be sold in-game from one player to another, in exchange for in-game currency. This is probably the smartest implementation of selling currency to players for real world money that I have ever seen.

In the case of ESO, a player would be paying money to Zenimax for game-time, trading it for Gold ingame, and buying goods from other players. this puts gold sellers in a very tight spot, because they either have to farm gold itself, or craft items that they can sell to players, to acquire gold to sell to players, at a price that is lower than the going rate for Game-time equivalent. This puts Gold sellers and game-time buyers at odds with each other, and competing with one another to the detriment of the gold selling bot farmers.

Noobie

If they open up a buy gold with real money store, the bots will just undercut ZoS

Lodestar

rfpalmerb16_ESO wrote: »

And remember, this is not advocating going F2P -- that is a horrible idea.

No, you are advocating box, sub and cash fee. Even worse. Funcom tried at with TSW.

Xuxilbara

rfpalmerb16_ESO wrote: »

First, in my opinions you have to draw the line somewhere in a real-money store. Considering this game has crafting, selling items in a real-money store would ruin that aspect of the game. Perhaps even selling crafting agents is a bad idea. There is a fine line that needs to be tread and exactly where that lies is something that needs to be figured out. I don't have the answers, I just have the questions.

The big thing with purchased gold, in my experience, is that it is usually purchased for a specific purpose and just as quickly spent.

Ah, I see your point, and I agree that most seems to be for specific purposes.

Second, yes I employed a very USA-esq debate strategy of labeling anyone who disagrees with you as being something/someone bad or with an ulterior motive. Not very nice but, if US politics is any indication, effective. Still I would have to believe that someone who is not, at least, open to the suggestion of or have a discussion about a properly done and maintained real-money store is not being completely honest.

Please keep in mind that this often creates an air of hostility that might prevent open discussions from the very start.

I know it's quite idealistic, but I still think the best bet to keep goldsellers out, and prevent botting is to ban anyone who buys gold. Again, I know this is idealistic, and I don't think I'll ever see this.

But if I had to chose, I'd rather have a shop with reset-tokens, bag-tokens, etc, as p.hurst mentioned, than seeing ZOS selling gold.

RoCoL

I relished the idea of paying a sub and not having to deal with cash shop/offers/sales and the other b.s. that goes along with it.

Can ZoS bind gold ?

What if collectables were not collectable until you had spent a skill point in that particular crafting area?

Not sure how much this would help or hurt, but I am against bots and cash shops.

kewl

ZOS prices:

• In-game gold $20
• Some Crafting Items $15
• Motifs $15
• Player-pets $20
• Armor paints $5

Gold Farmer prices:

• In-game gold $15
• Some Crafting Items $10
• Motifs $10
• Player-pets $15
• Armor paints $3.50

nuff said.

rfpalmerb16_ESO

kewl wrote: »

ZOS prices:

• In-game gold $20
• Some Crafting Items $15
• Motifs $15
• Player-pets $20
• Armor paints $5

Gold Farmer prices:

• In-game gold $15
• Some Crafting Items $10
• Motifs $10
• Player-pets $15
• Armor paints $3.50

nuff said.

All that is required is to adjust prices on ZOS side as the market requires. ZOS holds all the cards and can set the prices to $0.50 (a crazy example, I know) if they so choose -- lets see a bot-farm compete with that? The gold/item sellers only have power over pricing if the game-developers give them that.

rfpalmerb16_ESO

RoCoL wrote: »

Can ZoS bind gold ?

Since it is a method of payment, no. They could , however, do the bit-coin thing and have money keep track of where it goes -- which is probably an interesting alternative way to find and fight gold/item sellers.

It would, I'm sure, require a complete rewrite to much of the game.

Maverick827

kasain wrote: »

If you pay a sub, and allow a store for real money. Then you agree to BOTS!

No. Developer-run stores combat bots.

Buying items in a shop is pretty much pay to win or enjoy.

No, cash shops do not automatically mean pay to win. Pay to enjoy isn't a thing.

Add that to a sub fee it is wrong.

Why?

Money shop would be 100k less subs.

Do you have proof for this unsubstantiated claim?

AreoHotah

NEVER. RMAH destroyed Diablo 3 and bots were still there...

rfpalmerb16_ESO

crai7er_boy_4lif3b16_ESO wrote: »

NEVER. RMAH destroyed Diablo 3 and bots were still there...

A RMAH (Real Money Auction House) and a Real Money Store (RMS) are VERY different things. A RMAH, you pay real money to players -- encourages botting and farming. A RMS you buy from the Game developer -- no incentive to bot or farm; you are, in fact, trying to undercut the commercial botters making it not financially viable for them to bot-farm.

NewBlacksmurf

No thanks, if they implement real money then I'm gone and it looks that ten of thousands will follow.

rfpalmerb16_ESO

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

No thanks, if they implement real money then I'm gone and it looks that ten of thousands will follow.

Why? What are you afraid of?

AreoHotah

rfpalmerb16_ESO wrote: »

crai7er_boy_4lif3b16_ESO wrote: »

NEVER. RMAH destroyed Diablo 3 and bots were still there...

A RMAH (Real Money Auction House) and a Real Money Store (RMS) are VERY different things. A RMAH, you pay real money to players -- encourages botting and farming. A RMS you buy from the Game developer -- no incentive to bot or farm; you are, in fact, trying to undercut the commercial botters making it not financially viable for them to bot-farm.

the boters will just sell it lower than the devs...

Pyatra

All F2P games that have the currency exchange for real money still have tons of bot/gold seller problems. This won't fix anything.

MaxBat

No. A really bad idea for reasons clearly stated above. We pay for the game (a lot of money), we pay a subscription, and now you're advocating us paying even more. Zenimax must love you and want to have your children.

What really piques my curiosity is how Zenimax apparently didn't have a clue this was going to happen in the design stage. I get that Zenimax is a "virgin" to the MMO world, but do some research before you make a game. Any MMO that has any kind of economy has gold sellers and bots.

At this point, we're now paying a subscription fee for something that doesn't work as designed. And I'm really getting tired of people telling me: "Stop complaining, they're working on it. They're doing the best they can ... by the way, don't forget to pay your subscription fee!!"

Meh. I'm really getting tired of paying for a broken product.

Maverick827

Pyatra wrote: »

All F2P games that have the currency exchange for real money still have tons of bot/gold seller problems. This won't fix anything.

I can't remember the last time I've seen botting to this degree, and I've played almost every major MMO since 2001.

PBpsy

No it's time we start laughing at that stupid idea.

reagen_lionel

Will not work. Did not work for Diablo 3 (which is why they reverted it) an its reason why that game was ruined.

It doesnt work for free to play games (which by their very nature does this very thing most of the time on thier own).

Bots plague those games regardless. This isnt a free to play game so this will just make the over all game worse over time.

Fleymark

Going to need a lot better argument than that to get me to +1 a cash store.

It never works, anyway, and just cheapens in-game accomplishment. No matter how limited it starts out, the revenue numbers always get to the suits so they always ramp it up. Ruins every game that has it.

And people still buy gold anyway.

MrDosu

Swordguy wrote: »

This idea has never been implemented very well in any mmo, except for specific items, like Eve Online allowing game-time to be sold in-game from one player to another, in exchange for in-game currency. This is probably the smartest implementation of selling currency to players for real world money that I have ever seen.

In the case of ESO, a player would be paying money to Zenimax for game-time, trading it for Gold ingame, and buying goods from other players. this puts gold sellers in a very tight spot, because they either have to farm gold itself, or craft items that they can sell to players, to acquire gold to sell to players, at a price that is lower than the going rate for Game-time equivalent. This puts Gold sellers and game-time buyers at odds with each other, and competing with one another to the detriment of the gold selling bot farmers.

Exactly this.

Few people realise how brilliant this system is because it does not allow RL money to increase the available resource pool at all. All gold and items within the game have still been farmed within the game. Nothing is injected by the developer. The amount of it is exactly the same with or without that system. Also the amount of real life cash is exactly the same (despite some "overcharge") as it is only the total amount of monthly subscription money.

All that is happening is that player A pays for player B's subscription fee and in exchange player B goes out farming for player A.

Win-Win.

Lox

vyndral13preub18_ESO wrote: »

Lox wrote: »

rfpalmerb16_ESO wrote: »

The Items I think ZOS could sell are:

• In-game gold
• Some Crafting Items
• Motifs
• Player-pets
• Armor paints
• But NEVER items like weapons, armor, rings etc.)

Why not weapons, armor, rings etc?

If you are making in-game gold available via real money purchase then you might aswell make everything available via that means or nothing but in-game gold.

If people can't but the actual weapon, armor or ring they will just buy the gold then buy it via ingame means ... there is no difference.

Because when you added this you would also add new vendors! And they would sell all the best stuff for a separate currency! One you got from running a dungeon 900 times. Or perhaps doing 2000 daily quest. That way people could buy equip with their gold, but not the best equip, so everything would be ok. See no problem! If we are lucky by the time the game turns 1 year old we can have 15 different currencies in the game. But we better get started!

So the ONLY way to get that gear is to grind the actual dungeons to death? Other games did that (LoTRO, SWTOR that I can think of off the top of my head). Grinds are bad enough at the best of time without players being limited to only 1 grind option.

ViciousMink

rfpalmerb16_ESO wrote: »

All that is required is to adjust prices on ZOS side as the market requires. ZOS holds all the cards and can set the prices to $0.50 (a crazy example, I know) if they so choose -- lets see a bot-farm compete with that? The gold/item sellers only have power over pricing if the game-developers give them that.

But what happens when they change prices? What do they say when someone purchased 1M gold for $20 one day, and the next day they say that $20 would net them 10M gold? I know the blithe answer is 'Suck it up, prices change' but then that just gives another aspect for goldscammers to play (anyone really want to play gold futures?)

Maverick827

They should not sell gold, just the gold sinks.

It won't eliminate the gold buyers (and subsequently the sellers), but it will put a big enough dent into them.

For those of you who claim to have bought every horse and every inventory on multiple characters, with a fully-expanded bank and full legendary gear, with 50k left over, playing only a few hours a day, I guess the rest of us just aren't as awesome as you are.

Some of us can't even afford a single respec anymore and have to maintain 3+ alts as extra bank spaces. Among this group of pretty much everyone are people who have money in real life and no fear of buying from gold selling services. They don't want to buy millions of gold to buy equipment: you'll never be able to get rid of those people. But most just want to be able to afford what are essentially taxes in this game. Taxes on dying. Taxes on miscliking, picking the wrong skill, or just wanting to try something new. Taxes on balances changes invalidating entire builds.

If you eliminate this bulk of gold buyers by bringing the gold sinks in this game in line with the gold sinks in most other games, then you'll bring the bots in line with most other games, which are for the most part not intrusive.

Lodestar

PBpsy wrote: »

No it's time we start laughing at that stupid idea.

Oh we are meant to start laughing NOW? Sorry, I jumped the gun and started too soon.

Leesha

The only real way to 100% combat gold seller bots is to make all currency and items account bound. This is not an acceptable solution but is more effective than adding RMT into a sub based game.

People get offended when you add in a cash shop on top of a sub fee. I don't mind a cash shop with stuff like mounts and pets but selling anything else is pay to win.

There are so many players using bots as well so the RMT idea would not stop them either. Some even do it to sell to gold farmers for a real profit.

rfpalmerb16_ESO

So, I guess the best 2 ideas we have are:

1. Emulate Eve's selling game time.
2. offer a RMT that sells tokens for things that consume a lot of money, like respecs and horses as well as selling little jewel items like pets.

Still, anything that dents a farmer's bottom line IMHO is good for the game.

Its a bit off-putting to find all the people who just say 'NO' rather than try to think of a way to actually do something that they would be OK with.

madfeldoreb17_ESO

rfpalmerb16_ESO wrote: »

I’ve said it once – and I’ll say it again. The only way to combat bots and gold sellers is for ZOS to open its own real-world money store. Not a store where subscribers can sell things for real money but a store where you can buy in-game gold and other non-game-balance items.

Now, some of you will say: “NO PAY TO WIN”

To this I respond: “There are people who already pay to win since they can afford to purchase over-priced items either from, or using gold purchased from gold/item sellers.”

Some of you would say: “It will ruin the Economy”
I say: “The Economy is already in ruins due to bots, and bots and aggregators selling items at absurd prices.”

Let’s not be children or unrealistic idealists. Bots exist in the game because:

• people want to use their real-world wealth (money) to enhance their gaming (entertainment) experience.
• People look for ways to bypass activities they consider unfun or non-productive.
• ZOS can not change that behaviour.

If a person is earning 100K a year and only gets a couple of hours a week to play you can bet they don’t want to have to waste that time doing, what they consider un-fun things.

So why should ZOS offer gold and items for sale? Well they can offer and adjust the price of items to manage the in-game economy. Money from in-game items purchased goes into the GAME and not into some bot-runner’s mom’s basement. How is that not a good thing? ZOS can offer secure transactions – so you don’t worry about your payment information being stolen. Now, everything that is sold in the store should be there and available to get freely by playing the game. Bots are ruining our gaming experience and the only way to combat them is to remove the financial incentive that drives them to farm gold and items. And the system works (to varying degrees depending on the way it is implemented and managed) -- otherwise F2P games would not exist.

The Items I think ZOS could sell are:

• In-game gold
• Some Crafting Items
• Motifs
• Player-pets
• Armor paints
• But NEVER items like weapons, armor, rings etc.)

I am not saying its not a risky proposition for ruining game mechanics but the benefits outweigh the costs -- considering the worst-case scenario is the direction the status quo is taking us.

So now we wait for the bot aggregators and hyper-collectors and elitist gamers to complain how bad this would be for the game – meaning themselves and not the other 99% of us who just want to enjoy a little entertainment. Also, for fun, lets watch the deluge of slipery-slope, red-herrings, ad hominem, divine fallacy, ad nauseam arguments.

In short, I'd rather people pay ZOS than some botter.

@rfpalmerb16_ESO

Hi, I will say few things and sorry if I quote all the things here and only comment on few.

I do not like your post because you used things like: "Let's not be children". Well, there you already made a kid of yourself - that is - in my opinion.
To really think that selling gold is even one of the options is silly - in my opinion and listen, I do not call you a kid or anything like that. You have an idea that ZOS should sell gold instead?
I have no words for you more because I don't call people by names. I think everyone can have an opinion and you had yours but using so many bad words towards others, too much for me:)
I put this short, I disagree with you.

Cheers...

PurpleFox

rfpalmerb16_ESO wrote: »

I’ve said it once – and I’ll say it again. The only way to combat bots and gold sellers is for ZOS to open its own real-world money store. Not a store where subscribers can sell things for real money but a store where you can buy in-game gold and other non-game-balance items.

Now, some of you will say: “NO PAY TO WIN”

To this I respond: “There are people who already pay to win since they can afford to purchase over-priced items either from, or using gold purchased from gold/item sellers.”

Some of you would say: “It will ruin the Economy”
I say: “The Economy is already in ruins due to bots, and bots and aggregators selling items at absurd prices.”

Let’s not be children or unrealistic idealists. Bots exist in the game because:

• people want to use their real-world wealth (money) to enhance their gaming (entertainment) experience.
• People look for ways to bypass activities they consider unfun or non-productive.
• ZOS can not change that behaviour.

If a person is earning 100K a year and only gets a couple of hours a week to play you can bet they don’t want to have to waste that time doing, what they consider un-fun things.

So why should ZOS offer gold and items for sale? Well they can offer and adjust the price of items to manage the in-game economy. Money from in-game items purchased goes into the GAME and not into some bot-runner’s mom’s basement. How is that not a good thing? ZOS can offer secure transactions – so you don’t worry about your payment information being stolen. Now, everything that is sold in the store should be there and available to get freely by playing the game. Bots are ruining our gaming experience and the only way to combat them is to remove the financial incentive that drives them to farm gold and items. And the system works (to varying degrees depending on the way it is implemented and managed) -- otherwise F2P games would not exist.

The Items I think ZOS could sell are:

• In-game gold
• Some Crafting Items
• Motifs
• Player-pets
• Armor paints
• But NEVER items like weapons, armor, rings etc.)

I am not saying its not a risky proposition for ruining game mechanics but the benefits outweigh the costs -- considering the worst-case scenario is the direction the status quo is taking us.

So now we wait for the bot aggregators and hyper-collectors and elitist gamers to complain how bad this would be for the game – meaning themselves and not the other 99% of us who just want to enjoy a little entertainment. Also, for fun, lets watch the deluge of slipery-slope, red-herrings, ad hominem, divine fallacy, ad nauseam arguments.

In short, I'd rather people pay ZOS than some botter.

One word...

No
Micro-transactions in games are the bane of my existence. Whoever originally came up with the idea deserves a good beating.

Orizuru

Inflation says no.

This is the lesson Blizzard learned in D3. An item that cost 10,000 gold rose to a cost of 10,000,000 gold overnight because of inflation caused by the injection of billions of gold purchased by players through RMT.

Sellers believed if a player was willing to spend weeks farming the 10k gold needed to buy the item, then they would have no problem spending $3-5 on their credit card to buy 10MM gold to get the same item. And they were 100% correct.