Should people who buy thousands of raw materials from bots for gold be punished.

roflcopter

LMAO at this poll.

Please fix the poll to be a little less bias. If you buy from RMT and it can be proven yes, they should get punished.

KerinKor

BenjaminKacher_ESO wrote: »

I've seen a lot of people selling literally thousands of Dreugh Wax and Elegant Lining that they got by purchasing mass amounts of raw materials from real money traders using bots. This feeds the RMT's gold which they then sell for real money. So the question is, should people that fund the RMT's and take advantage of their exploits/bots be punished?

As stated the statement cannot be answered meaningfully other than 'no' because there's no attempt by you to imply knowledge on the part of the buyer.

I am entirely supportive of the idea that gold buyers be banned, which is pretty easy (albeit a tad time-consuming) to prove 'on the balance of probabilities' (which is the test Civil legal cases have to reach in order to gain a 'win') but trading is far harder.

zaria

Calgrissom wrote: »

Some may be buying these from gold farmers but not everyone. I sell thousands of cloth/Ingots/leather a week and dozens of rank 10 Dropped armor sets. We have a group of 4 Hardcore players who farm these items together and I am our Salesman so to speak. I've been accused of being a bot farmer and buying from bot farmers etc.. Some people just come up with a better way to play the game and make money and people have a hard time grasping this as they didn't come up with It themselves. Yesterday alone I sold 4 Salvation sets 4 unassailable sets and almost 2k in refined material.

Now when I see someone pop up that they have 300 Tempered alloys for sale I do raise and eyebrow but some people are legit.

You would be pretty easy to differentiate from bots as you have a live in the game, you chat, does dungeons or pvp, if your 3 friends was only farming I would suspect an private bot network.
Player run bots is a problem in most MMO, in ESO they are overshadowed by the goldfarmers, players are also more afraid of loosing the account so they take great care to not beeing caught

Paks_ESO

Yes, they deserve to be banned like the RMT's and gold buyers.

As someone mentioned, if the player does this knowingly then ban them. If not, Zeni should still remove the items from the player's account if possible because the items came from exploiting the system. At the least, Zeni should make a policy known for dealing with this that takes into consideration how difficult the process is.

Bots are everywhere now. I can't move two feet in a zone without seeing one whiz by or running from resource to resource. And they are starting to use less obvious RMT names. I saw 3 last night in Glenumbra but you can still tell they were bots so I reported them. The problem comes when they start selling in chat you just cannot tell they are associated with RMT. Players don't give a damn as long as they get their mats but those of us who gather and craft get screwed. It sucks but the options for dealing with this are very limited.

Aslo, if you're not using FastReport to catch the names of these little *** and easily report them you should. It's a gift from the gods

http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info181-FastReport.html

RMT businesses don't give a damn about our games. They just want to make as much money as they can off MMOs then move on. In the meantime the MMO suffers irreparable harm leaving the players with ***.

Mix

Yes, they deserve to be suspended from the game for a period (lets say a month).

If they can prove it, and likely give a warning in advance to stop the activity. However, this is hard to prove and it would be best to stop the bots. Bots feed a gold selling player a tonne of raw jute, that player sells it to actual players who refine it and sell the upgrade materials. I would want to see it tracked at the bot->gold seller bridge; someone who is moving an incredible amount of raw materials should be able to be flagged for further investigation.

Kyosji

No, they get away with buying from bots/exploiters.

Paks_ESO wrote: »

As someone mentioned, if the player does this knowingly then ban them. If not, Zeni should still remove the items from the player's account if possible because the items came from exploiting the system. At the least, Zeni should make a policy known for dealing with this that takes into consideration how difficult the process is.

Yeah, no. You can't just take the materials back from the players. I know you added the 'if possible' but it never would be. If I created gear off of the materials I bought, then Zeni just goes and removes them, I'd have a fit, call my CC company for a counter credit, and never come back. I'm nearly 100 % positive that many others would as well. Even if I didn't use the materials, if Zeni takes it upon themselves to go into my inventory and remove the items I bought, unless they reimburse me my money + some for the inconvenience, I'd demand a full refund for the game and time, and I'd fight with my card company to get it. I don't have to worry about this, though, because it would be beyond stupid for the company to even consider going into legit players inventories and removing items just because they bought from a source that obtained their items in a less than honest way. They'd lose more money off the players rage quitting for being punished for something they weren't involved in then they would from RMT botters.

aipex8_ESO

No, they get away with buying from bots/exploiters.

BenjaminKacher_ESO wrote: »

aipex8_ESO wrote: »

You are making a huge assumption about where these materials came from, and I don't buy it. I went to one of those gold seller sites (don't worry, on my tablet, not on the PC I play on) purely out of curiosity. 1 Dreugh Wax sells for $5! You really think someone would spend $5000 dollars on Dreugh Wax to resell for in-game gold? That makes no sense!

The people that have 1000 Dreugh Wax most likely got that by exploiting the bank dup bug, but that's a whole other issue.

@aipex8_ESO‌ They're buying the raw materials in game for gold (thus supplying the RMT's with gold) and refining them for these mats. They're not paying real money for the mats.

No, I'm pretty sure RMTraders don't bother selling stuff to players for gold in-game. They are selling Dreugh Wax, etc. online for RM. They farm, farm, farm, refine, vendor the refined mats, sell the gold and tanins for RM. It would be very inefficient for them to stand around in-game selling stuff for in-game gold. That's not how it works.

Plus, do you realize how many stacks of raw mats you'd have to buy to get 1000 Dreugh Wax? The math doesn't work out!

Let's say you have a 1/100 chance of getting a yellow tannin from refining 10 raw mats (that's probably generous as I don't think I've ever seen a yellow from refining blacksmithing or clothing mats). I can vendor a stack of refined for 400G, so the RMT would have to sell the stack for more than that, so lets say 500G. You're going to average about 5000G per Dreugh Wax, only to turn around and sell it for less than that? And you would need 5 million gold to get 1000 Dreugh Wax! Don't think so.

The guy with 1000 Dreugh Wax exploited the bank dupe bug. It has nothing to do with RMT. RMT wants in on selling Dreugh Wax as well... but for RM!

KiwiKutKu

No, they get away with buying from bots/exploiters.

Only if it is clear the person is knowledgeable that they are buying items from bots/exploiters.

I cannot imagine how many people buy items from bots/exploiters without knowing it.

So for now my vote is no they should not be punished, unless there is a system to identify those doing it regularly with the same bot/exploiter.

BenjaminKacher_ESO

Yes, they deserve to be banned like the RMT's and gold buyers.

aipex8_ESO wrote: »

BenjaminKacher_ESO wrote: »

aipex8_ESO wrote: »

You are making a huge assumption about where these materials came from, and I don't buy it. I went to one of those gold seller sites (don't worry, on my tablet, not on the PC I play on) purely out of curiosity. 1 Dreugh Wax sells for $5! You really think someone would spend $5000 dollars on Dreugh Wax to resell for in-game gold? That makes no sense!

The people that have 1000 Dreugh Wax most likely got that by exploiting the bank dup bug, but that's a whole other issue.

@aipex8_ESO‌ They're buying the raw materials in game for gold (thus supplying the RMT's with gold) and refining them for these mats. They're not paying real money for the mats.

No, I'm pretty sure RMTraders don't bother selling stuff to players for gold in-game. They are selling Dreugh Wax, etc. online for RM. They farm, farm, farm, refine, vendor the refined mats, sell the gold and tanins for RM. It would be very inefficient for them to stand around in-game selling stuff for in-game gold. That's not how it works.

...

Since they nurfed the vendor rate for raw jute I've seen more people that use bots selling the raw jute to players instead of vending it like they were before to build up their gold to RMT. If you have a free hour go to the lv.5-10 (First) area bank and look for people selling mass amounts of raw jute, ask how much they have (it may take them a while to throw it into google translate and figure out what you're saying), then wait for the next wave of bots to run into the bank and ask them again.

BenjaminKacher_ESO

Yes, they deserve to be banned like the RMT's and gold buyers.

KiwiKutKu wrote: »

Only if it is clear the person is knowledgeable that they are buying items from bots/exploiters.

I cannot imagine how many people buy items from bots/exploiters without knowing it.

So for now my vote is no they should not be punished, unless there is a system to identify those doing it regularly with the same bot/exploiter.

The catch to what I said in my OP is massive quantities. If you buy literally 1,000+ raw jute from someone and aren't the tiniest bit suspicious of it something is wrong with you. I don't care about the people that buy a stack off a bot to level their crafting, I'm looking for punishment for the ones that repeatedly buy inventories full of raw jute (or other mats) from one person.

Tavore1138

I have probably grabbed around 10k ore nodes since early access... in all of that plus a level 3 hireling I have probably done maybe 50 gold mats... with wood which my main does not use maybe 20... if someone is freely offering stacks of 100 or more for sale without a very good reason for having them I would be tempted to boot them.

BenjaminKacher_ESO

Yes, they deserve to be banned like the RMT's and gold buyers.

@SuraklinPrime Don't forget to vote

SuperScrubby

No, they get away with buying from bots/exploiters.

Any game has issues like this. In every game you strive to get ahead of everyone else in terms of gear, money, status, whatever it may be.

People will buy from bots if they offer the best prices or the quantity they want. I don't see the economy in shambles because of bots selling cheap mats, I see it in shambles due to being able to play this game with items you get questing or from drops.

At VR2 I hoard my money for the incredible gear degradation that I suffer from or just swap the gear I have for some other white piece.

Obviously this depends on your class and build, but I've used some pretty bad gear and seen that it makes little difference for me.

Like other people have said, where do you draw the line. If all it takes is for someone to change their name from "jkdlfsajklfasdlk" to "steve martin" then that literally does nothing.

The real issue would obviously be to ban the bots rather than punish the person.

I find it similar to real life. If someone is selling something cheap on craigslist and the quality is fine you're going to buy it. Sure you might be suspect where they got the item from if they're in a seedy neighborhood. But, more than likely you'll walk away with your new widget you bought for cheap and be happy. You'll also more than likely have a fleeting thought of where they got it from but it will be exactly that. Fleeting.

By punishing someone who purchases from bots or someone in some random ass country it basically takes focus away from the main issue at hand, which is a bot infestation.

Just as a note, I do not buy from bots and don't craft or buy from guild stores so there's no possible way for me to have bought from them. Unless the mount vendor was a bot....

BenjaminKacher_ESO

Yes, they deserve to be banned like the RMT's and gold buyers.

SuperScrubby wrote: »

I find it similar to real life. If someone is selling something cheap on craigslist and the quality is fine you're going to buy it. Sure you might be suspect where they got the item from if they're in a seedy neighborhood. But, more than likely you'll walk away with your new widget you bought for cheap and be happy. You'll also more than likely have a fleeting thought of where they got it from but it will be exactly that. Fleeting.

When a pawn shop buys stolen merchandise the pawn shop is responsible for the loss (they lose the merchandise and the money they paid for it). Thanks for supporting my vote.

PVT_Parts

No, they get away with buying from bots/exploiters.

BenjaminKacher_ESO wrote: »

I've seen a lot of people selling literally thousands of Dreugh Wax and Elegant Lining that they got by purchasing mass amounts of raw materials from real money traders using bots. This feeds the RMT's gold which they then sell for real money. So the question is, should people that fund the RMT's and take advantage of their exploits/bots be punished?

WTF is this crap. You are basically saying "Ban people for buying stuff in game." No one knows where the crap comes from that you buy. Some people merchant on a large scale and have thousands of something because that's all they do. Maybe they have many people under them that they pay for raw mats and then refine them to get the rare tempers. I did that for a while till I made 100k. It was easy to buy calcinium ore for 2250g a stack and refine it to get enough rare tempers to sell for 5-10k. So basically each purchase makes it so you can buy more and more and more. If you do that a few days and have enough people willing to farm raw mats for you, you can get thousands.

What you are asking for this poll is to not allow people to buy in large amounts because that stuff COULD have been gotten from bots? This is literally the worst idea I have seen on the forums, and I've seen and posted a lot of bad ideas. Bet you were one of those people that said "Let's ban real players who like to kill public dungeon bosses because they are clearly bots and shouldn't be there." Really though...no.

Arsvita

WilliamTee wrote: »

WilliamTee wrote: »

With a poll like that you should run referendums on the behalf of a-country-that-shall-not-be-named.

hint: it rhymes with

Ok... perhaps I was asking a lot for a forum of MMO players to recognise an R&B artist...

Or be aware of recent international/political events. -.-

Sorry, but don't know him as I do not listen to that type of music, just not my thing.
Maybe I just played games longer than Peewee wish he were has been around.
I do not care about nor pay attention to the propaganda the mass media likes to push.

I am also much more informed about what is going on around me than most people. I understand that this is actually a time consuming event to stay truly informed, the hype is easy and effortless, but knowledge is a benefit.

As has been stated by people here, and in other threads, what's to keep you from buying from a gold seller in a guild store? There are other large mmo's guilds that are strictly farming for gold to sell to the companies. We may, and could appear to, have them right here and now in our threads and forums by the responses.

Stopping them is a slippery slope, needing to be precise and accurate, in response to banning the gold buyers, sellers, and dread bots.

It would be great if we could get rid of the majority of the problems, and ZOS says to be patient, even knowing we will never get rid of them altogether.

In the Age of Information ... Ignorance is a Choice.
I do not wish to know the pictured person. Even if he may be a tiny cog in the larger wheel he is of no concern.

jircris11

i saw if you CAN prove that they have used a RMT system then by all means ban their asses. Though the problem is...one never knows if they bought them from gold sellers or if they just have a friend who hordes mats like i do.

EQBallzz

Yes, they deserve to be banned like the RMT's and gold buyers.

Not sure about mats..that is tricky but anyone trading large amounts of gold with a known spammer/botter should be banned. Not sure what that threshold should be but there should be a swift and harsh crack down on people dealing with these vermin when the logs show suspicious activity and trading a large amount of gold with these people is plenty suspicious enough for action IMO.

SuperScrubby

No, they get away with buying from bots/exploiters.

BenjaminKacher_ESO wrote: »

When a pawn shop buys stolen merchandise the pawn shop is responsible for the loss (they lose the merchandise and the money they paid for it). Thanks for supporting my vote.

That's slightly different since they operate under a business license. If someone on craigslist or some other form of unlicensed sales sells something they don't typically get the hammer dropped down on them. At least not from what I've seen but I'm sure there's some caveat to it. But regardless to punish someone for purchasing goods from someone else even if it turns out the seller duped them or farmed them as a bot is dumb. By banning the bot you cut off all the sales that come about from said bot. So to me the effort is better spent somewhere else.

PVT_Parts

No, they get away with buying from bots/exploiters.

I believe that is a picture of Kayne West, so maybe you are talking about Spain or Ukraine. Guess that means you are talking about Ukraine because Spain hasn't had any global news in centuries.

Mablung

No, they get away with buying from bots/exploiters.

This poll really makes no sense and the choices sound as if the buyers are guilty regardless. The OP leaves a lot up to assumption or just wants to lead you into supporting their view which is incorrect.

If you are meaning people who go to RMT sites and purchase items there then there should be a penalty of sorts for those who do this; in the future. You cannot punish anyone but the botters currently for the state of the game/economy.

If you mean the average joe who buys in game from a 'suspected' RMT salesperson then absolutely not. Average joe probably farmed his ass off for the gold for that very purpose. Knowing it was their only option since it is impossible to farm your own resources in pre vet tier.

To reiterate,no one should be punished for anything until the botting issue it brought under control.

babylon

Don't be silly, this is ESO - we need to find a way to punish everyone BUT the goldsellers and exploiters.

Mablung

No, they get away with buying from bots/exploiters.

EQBallzz wrote: »

Not sure about mats..that is tricky but anyone trading large amounts of gold with a known spammer/botter should be banned. Not sure what that threshold should be but there should be a swift and harsh crack down on people dealing with these vermin when the logs show suspicious activity and trading a large amount of gold with these people is plenty suspicious enough for action IMO.

Same slippery slope as with mats. Define large transaction of gold? Nowhere in the TOS does it state that any amount of gold transfer is illegal. Who is to say that player A did not sell Player B that worm for 500,000 gold? Absurd sure, but illegal or against the rules, no.

I am not defending the botters or RMT sites but without a decisive response to the current botting problem then you can hold no one in game at fault and that means anyone who feels that they need to buy gold/resources from these sites because that is where they are being forced to go.

Yes the botting problem is that bad.

ciannait

sevcik.miroslaveb17_ESO wrote: »

Purchases from gold sellers are very easy to discover imho. Since other games have databases where you could see your level, kills, gear etc... I am certain that devs must know exactly who has how many items. You could most likely filter stuff like show me those with the highest number of this material or gold.

Or to list those with highest trades with players (in case seller is having small number of materials on ton of accounts.

Really I do believe that to combat them is very easy. You could find suspect easily, then you can track their activity. Review activity and ban them based on proof.

If that were true, the dupe bug wouldn't have been an issue as the items would have a unique ID.

cliveklgb14_ESO

No, they get away with buying from bots/exploiters.

You have to prove intent. Which would be impossible. There is likely at least one RMT in a large number of the player created trade guilds. How people have inadvertently bought from them then?

Just ban the sellers, and at least punish the buyers, scaling punishment from suspension to banning.

BenjaminKacher_ESO

Yes, they deserve to be banned like the RMT's and gold buyers.

OBSERVATION: Most of the people making posts are against punishment, but they are the minority (25%) in the poll.

As for "proof" for their intent, if you read through the EULA we all signed they don't need "proof" to do anything. They could shut down the servers for good tomorrow or ban all the current users with absolutely no legal repercussions. So they really don't need "proof".

As a side note that they need to know that it's a bot they're buying from, I'm glad our US legal system works like that. If you don't know your buying thousands of dollars in stolen goods your free to buy them right? Absolutely no repercussions because your ignorant right?

cliveklgb14_ESO

No, they get away with buying from bots/exploiters.

BenjaminKacher_ESO wrote: »

As for "proof" for their intent, if you read through the EULA we all signed they don't need "proof" to do anything. They could shut down the servers for good tomorrow or ban all the current users with absolutely no legal repercussions. So they really don't need "proof".

?

Could and will are two very different things.

We CAN land a man on the moon. Will we tomorrow? No.

And most games including this one have general guidelines they follow when meting out punishment.

Kyosji

No, they get away with buying from bots/exploiters.

BenjaminKacher_ESO wrote: »

OBSERVATION: Most of the people making posts are against punishment, but they are the minority (25%) in the poll.

As for "proof" for their intent, if you read through the EULA we all signed they don't need "proof" to do anything. They could shut down the servers for good tomorrow or ban all the current users with absolutely no legal repercussions. So they really don't need "proof".

As a side note that they need to know that it's a bot they're buying from, I'm glad our US legal system works like that. If you don't know your buying thousands of dollars in stolen goods your free to buy them right? Absolutely no repercussions because your ignorant right?

Your statement is silly. The EULA doesn't protect the company from everything. If they decide to one day turn their entire ESO game into some other game entirely, or ban everyone without some acceptable reasoning, their are legal obligations to refund in some extent. Star Wars Galaxies comes to mind where they had to refund everyone the cost of the last expansion plus game time. Some countries even have laws that supersede the EULA game companies put out.

Also, with your example down there, if you bought 10 wax or 100 raw materials from some random player or the guild store, and it happens to have been obtained through botting or duping and you get permanently banned, you're going to accept that with a smile? You don't know you're buying thousands of gold worth of illegally obtained goods that the bot turns around to sell for real money, but that doesn't matter, right? See where your logic is screwed up there?

steveb16_ESO46

EQBallzz wrote: »

Not sure about mats..that is tricky but anyone trading large amounts of gold with a known spammer/botter should be banned.

Oh great. Another 'magic' solution.

One: Define 'spamming'.
Two Define 'Known'

People 'spam' things all the time. doesn't make them anything but players.

And as for 'known' bots. Known by whom? Known by whom, how?

Zenimax! Wave a magic wand and make things right why doncha?

steveb16_ESO46

BenjaminKacher_ESO wrote: »

As for "proof" for their intent, if you read through the EULA we all signed they don't need "proof" to do anything. They could shut down the servers for good tomorrow or ban all the current users with absolutely no legal repercussions. So they really don't need "proof".

OBSERVATION 1: They need customers

OBSERVATION 2: ESO is not the only MMO in existence.