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

vyndral13preub18_ESO

rfpalmerb16_ESO wrote: »

I believe that fear of the unknown is limiting rational discourse.

Ok I'll bite. Tell me, what is unknown in this mythical land of magical cash shops? Have we never seen cash shops before? There is really nothing left unknown about them. But there is plenty of reason to be afraid of them.

Honestly the longer this thread goes on the more I get the feeling that some are just upset they can't use the console controls to give themselves unlimited gold, and don't want to take the chance on getting banned for being a cheater.

Leesha

kasain wrote: »

Cash shop can work but not with su b s. Right now eso is a sub par game, not worthy of a 15 dollar a month price. Ffxiv 2m+ subs no in game shop. I dont know about wow and eq, but pretty sure they are 500k subs and no in game shop for real money.

Original EQ and EQ2 both have cash shops now for xp potions and other "convenience" items. WoW (8 million+ subs) has a mount,pet,transmog cash shop and at least one of those pets can be sold on the in game auction house for gold so essentially a way to turn $10 into as much gold as people will give you for it. Also in wow you can now buy a level 90 character for $50. That's pretty much pay to win no matter how you look at it.

BrassRazoo wrote: »

Pay to win is just an excuse used by people when they can't afford to use one or have their own motives for saying so, generally as they want the gold to go to them for the items that are sold in the shop.
You can always get what you want from the game without a cash shop, sometimes ONLY in game and NEVER in shop.
It is just another option that should be given to players.

Actually, it is not an excuse for people who can't afford to use the cash shops. It is an excuse for game companies to offer only the most attractive options for real money that are impossible or take forever to obtain within the game. Unless the items are purely cosmetic, they have no business being in a cash shop for a sub based game.

Wolfahm

MasterSpatula

Forget about the NGE, this is what ruined SWG for me--that stupid card game that gave you in-game perks that you got by buying lots of cards. Killed all interest in the game for me.

Would likely be the final nail in ESO's coffin for me, too.

rfpalmerb16_ESO

vyndral13preub18_ESO wrote: »

[
Ok I'll bite. Tell me, what is unknown in this mythical land of magical cash shops? Have we never seen cash shops before? There is really nothing left unknown about them. But there is plenty of reason to be afraid of them.

Honestly the longer this thread goes on the more I get the feeling that some are just upset they can't use the console controls to give themselves unlimited gold, and don't want to take the chance on getting banned for being a cheater.

Again I ask:
How is the game going to be impacted because Bobby just purchased 2,000,000 gold on is daddies credit card and used the money to max out his inventory, buy all the horses, purchase every motif and respec'd each of his alts. Then proceeded to get a vamp bite for each of his alts Game breaking? OMG now little Bobby is gunna WTFPWN in Cyrodill and the Vet content.

WAIT!!! Did he just walk buy with a custom mud-crab pet? OH NOs! We are doomed! Abandon Cyrodill all is lost!

This MMO is NOT like the other MMOs. Its economy is substantially different. Its game mechanics are substantially different. Damage and effectiveness is more based on what limited skills you use and how you use them -- not on having a "+1 sword of chopping things up into bitties". No matter how much gold you buy, you can't make your character substantially more effective.

BTW how is someone buying gold going to change the prices of the largest money sinks in the game: respecing, repairing and horses?

seanolan

How much for a +1 Sword of Chopping Things Up Into Bitties?

Orizuru

Maverick827 wrote: »

the.dzeneralb16_ESO wrote: »

Hell no. Essentially the argument is: I want to stop person A from selling gold for real money, by having person B selling gold for real money.

There are other ways to combat them, and they will be coming through eventually.

Actually no, the argument is: "Person A and Person B can sell gold for real money. Person A needs to infest the game with bots to do so while Person B does not. I'd rather have Person B selling gold than Person A because that means less or no bots."

How is competition from ZOS going to stop third party gold sellers? I see no logical conclusion that will result in third party gold sellers closing their business simply because there is a little competition. There are already multiple third party sellers competing with each other. One more player in the market isn't going to change anything. All it will do is force them to lower their price to stay competitive.

Even if ZOS turns it into a price war, the third party sellers won't stop. All this would do is hasten the impact gold selling has upon the game economy and cause inflation to be out of control.

Assuming RMT with third party gold sellers will stop simply because the game offers RMT for gold is rather naive if you ask me.

rfpalmerb16_ESO

Orizuru wrote: »

Maverick827 wrote: »

How is competition from ZOS going to stop third party gold sellers? I see no logical conclusion that will result in third party gold sellers closing their business simply because there is a little competition. There are already multiple third party sellers competing with each other. One more player in the market isn't going to change anything. All it will do is force them to lower their price to stay competitive.

Even if ZOS turns it into a price war, the third party sellers won't stop. All this would do is hasten the impact gold selling has upon the game economy and cause inflation to be out of control.

Assuming RMT with third party gold sellers will stop simply because the game offers RMT for gold is rather naive if you ask me.

With a base cost of $15/month you will hit a point where bot owners will start loosing money -- at that point they will usually quit because they are in it for the money. i.e. Bot-farmer A has 10 accounts costing him $150/month. Since ZOS has started selling gold, he can only make $100/month selling the gold and items that his bot-farm can farm in a month. Question: does the bot farmer keep loosing $50/month because he likes to farm or does he quit and move to a more profitable game?

Arsenic_Touch

You think the mass botters lose money over subscription costs? haha. They use stolen credit cards, their operating costs are minimal compared to their incomes.

nerevarine1138

Arsenic_Touch wrote: »

You think the mass botters lose money over subscription costs? haha. They use stolen credit cards, their operating costs are minimal compared to their incomes.

I'm always amazed that people haven't learned this after 10+ years of gold-sellers in MMOs.

frwinters_ESO

Just no. the bots are hacking big time and that probably has to do with the open code and API that was released. No bot should be flying through the air, thats a hack and a leak in the code that apparently is harder to fix then anyone here would understand.

A money cash store will not combat botters period.

Arsenic_Touch

frwinters_ESO wrote: »

Just no. the bots are hacking big time and that probably has to do with the open code and API that was released. No bot should be flying through the air, thats a hack and a leak in the code that apparently is harder to fix then anyone here would understand.

A money cash store will not combat botters period.

The bots have nothing to do with the API, I wish people would stop spreading that misinformation. There is too much data client side that can be altered which is responsible for a lot of the "exploits" has nothing to do with a leak in the code. They didn't actually hack anything, just altered some data.

Kryptorchid

I have a very novel idea -- why not let us "combat" bots, literally? Open world PvP would easily solve the bot issue.

Ralph_Damiani

There are better options to fight botters.
- Don't make your economy gold based. Turn some of the gold sinks into time-sinks. Greatly decrease vendor prices for generic armor, goods and repairs.
- Give inventory slots and bank slots based on player level.
- Reduce cost to respec to 1/3 of the current value.
- Use different currencies between factions.
- Make materials bound to account.
- Create a quick way to report bots (right click report-bot, report gold seller as a mail button).
- Improve the client's security checks.
- Improve account creation security checks.
- Create a volunteer program and train players to combat bots. There are actually players taking their time to make the bots lives harder. Support and encourage them.
- Remove gold reward from quests. Reward players for fidelity and character longevity instead of gold hoarding.
- Make blue drops from delves bound to account.
- Encourage bartering instead of medium exchange.

Will the economy suffer? Yes. But the economy and the rest of the game are already plagued by more serious issues.

sevcik.miroslaveb17_ESO

Cash shop for gold sounds good. I would support it. I need gold only for my bags and bank upgrades. If people buy gold from ZOS instead of gold sellers I would be more than happy. And people will. Why to risk ban for buying gold from some riddiculous gold seller rather than from ZOS?

It won't ruin the economy. It won't ruin anything.

nerevarine1138

sevcik.miroslaveb17_ESO wrote: »

Cash shoo for gold sounds good. I woukd support it. I need gold only for my bags and bank upgrades. If people buy gold from ZOS instead of gold sellers I would be more than happy. And people will. Why to risk ban for buying gold from some riddiculous gold seller rather than from ZOS?

It won't ruin the economy. It won't ruin anything.

Except the game. It will ruin that.

Real-money stores simply reward rich, lazy players who don't want to bother putting in the time to actually play the game. And then the rest of us suffer because we have to deal with them not knowing how to play the game in our groups.

kitsinni

Gold would become completely worthless because they would almost have to give it away to compete with the prices that stolen accounts and rooms full of Chinese sweatshop gold farmers could sell it for. There is almost no cost to the gold spammers. They steal the accounts, they pay basically nothing to the people farming it.

sevcik.miroslaveb17_ESO

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

sevcik.miroslaveb17_ESO wrote: »

Cash shoo for gold sounds good. I woukd support it. I need gold only for my bags and bank upgrades. If people buy gold from ZOS instead of gold sellers I would be more than happy. And people will. Why to risk ban for buying gold from some riddiculous gold seller rather than from ZOS?

It won't ruin the economy. It won't ruin anything.

Except the game. It will ruin that.

Real-money stores simply reward rich, lazy players who don't want to bother putting in the time to actually play the game. And then the rest of us suffer because we have to deal with them not knowing how to play the game in our groups.

Seriously, I have the money to buy gold, but there just is no reason to do so. (for me). I would pay for feature that would allow me change the level of my character as I please. I am not causal player with 5-6 hours a day to play. Gold selling spam and gold mining bots are pissing me to haven. So if players really desire to put extra money to buy gold let them do so. I understand that it may impact trades a little, but since there are no player shops I am doing NO TRADES AT ALL.

I have all crafts over my character's level so I have no problems with gear nor with gold.

As the feature I stated. I like questing in ESO and truly prevents me to reach level cap, therefore I am forbidden by gake mechanics to enjoy PvP at it's full potential.

I don't mind leveling in PvE content, but PvP has to be competitive... Not that you get wrecked in 2 seconds by vet 12. I would spend even 100euro if they give this feature.

rfpalmerb16_ESO

kitsinni wrote: »

Gold would become completely worthless because they would almost have to give it away to compete with the prices that stolen accounts and rooms full of Chinese sweatshop gold farmers could sell it for. There is almost no cost to the gold spammers. They steal the accounts, they pay basically nothing to the people farming it.

Which is why, earlier I backed away from saying that maybe we should sell gold -- there were several people who made convincing arguments. Rather, use a real money store to sell tokens, bound to accounts, that lets people buy things like respec's horses, inventory space and bank space. In the RMS, sell things like pets, tokens for siege equipment or tokens that can be used to upgrade keeps. Just give people who are caught in a money pinch an option to get out of it rather than buy crap from a farmer. If someone needs a legendary crafting material, why not sell them a bound one at a RMS?

Bot-farmers are min-maxers and if the game they are currently farming in gives them a minimum return, they will move to somewhere else to maximize their revenue. Granted I know we WONT get rid of 100% of the bots -- even 80% would be a win.

darthbelanb14_ESO

Cryptic's solution was fairly successful in combating bots. In fact, in Star Trek Online, I got my first gold seller mail last week since the game went F2P. You can actually get Zen without paying a dime, by farming Dilitium. Same in Neverwinter with Astral Diamonds, and Champions with Questionite. This is done through a player exchange ingame. Players with Zen trade players with Dilitium, and vice versa.

All Zenimax would have to do is offer an ingame way to earn the "Store" currency, as well as being able to buy it outright.

TheWired

Hmm, I tried to twists things in many ways, but I have to admit that the op is not completely wrong. The way things work in ESO already makes buying a bit pointless. It's not like you can make your equipment +20 and one shot everyone in this game; once you've got legendary stuff, all your bag upgrades and motifs, then all you can pretty much do is just PvP and farm AP points. The only other use for gold is skills reset really and stacking on mats for future upgrades.

That being said, I am against a legit cash shop that involves changing game mechanics or giving people an advantage over others who do it the hard way. It doesn't matter what you do, the bots will still be there and sell gold cheaper than the cash shop. I know the world isn't fair, and the e-world isn't fair...

Other than this, you have to take another variable into account. People bought the copy of the game, and are paying a subscription fee every month to have (or expect to have) a bug free, lag free, bot free gaming experience (perfect world, eh?). In my opinion, there are much better ways to fix the problem.

Seriously, with all the revenue a AAA title like TESO must make, you can't tell me that they can't afford to hire 2 people taking shifts just to ban people using bot programs and exploiting the game.

It is NOT tricky to find a bot or some flying character and it is NOT tricky to ban them. Game developers have a large array of tools working with the game that can help them check absolutely everything you do, including account names, timestamps, logs of any kinds (inventory, items, chat, drops...), etc. I'm not saying that it's possible to get rid of all bots and exploits, but with GMs in game banning everyday nonstop, the effects should immediately visible.

Contrary to popular belief, all farmers aren't from China and bot programs aren't all made by Chinese people. Some cheaters are obvious, others aren't.
Not all botters steal credit cards to buy their accounts. "companies" who own a website and sell gold on Ebay usually buy their own accounts and are able to survive any loss related to bans because of the insane amount of money they are making.

If the developers REALLY cared, the only non-absurd solution would be to hire people full time to ban bots. I mean, really, what is 30k dollars a year for each megaserver when you make so much more? Any other solution has drawbacks: legit cash shops, bound items, ip bans, country bans, you name it. Someone somewhere gets it in the a**.

Botting must clearly be beneficial to the global revenue of any MMO, as bans lead to more account purchase and more money. Ban too many people and they won't buy or sell gold no more. Now, why would you do that?

Don't look for a compromise... otherwise why are you paying for a AAA title?


In addition to all that, here's an idea:
Zenimax hires full time GMs. (costs them money)
Zenimax adds a cosmetic-only shop: including costumes, visual effects for all your weapons (glows, etc), visual FX changes for your skills (doesn't necessarily have a negative effect on skill morphs and I'm sure a LOT of people would spend money there, getting a return for the money spent on GMs).

Even though it is not a mmorpg, "Path of Exile" did this and I found it to be an extremely good feature and excellent idea from the devs, as it supports their game without giving anyone any advantage.