Great Article about the chinese gold farming epidemic

Banetek

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10165824

( I even got it from NPR for the sensitive to facts crowd )

Apparently if you cheat and buy gold you could be supporting slave labor in the form of making people in prison farm gold in a virtual setting. This issue has been a constant battle but as long as American and European Gamers continue to cheat and buy online gold, there will always be a job for the Chinese gold farmer. Lastly, there to this day has not been a method to either STOP gold farmers or DISCOURAGE them enough to give up and seek real professions.







"Too lazy didn't click"
stop being lazy.

"Too Lazy Didn't Read"
reread the first response if you're not too lazy.

Turelus

This is nothing new really. The RMT industry is as scummy as they come, including hacking previous customers accounts, using your credit card information to buy accounts for their RMT etc.

The developers of EVE Online (CCP Games) use to have an hour long presentation about account security and game security at their fanfest, it was one of the most enjoyable and enlightening talks there. They're on YouTube if you ever feel like watching.

Jurand80

if you buy nyke adidas apple samsung you are supporting slave labor.
http://slaveryfootprint.org i scored 54. you?

just remembered: if you buy a rose ineurope then there's a big chance that it came from africa where it cost 4cents. slavery all around you.

Magic_Longsword

What constitutes a "real profession" to you then? Seems to me gaming is virtual factory job for them, what with spending 12 hours at one spot, doing the same routine motions.

Banetek

I sometimes wonder if game devs and the people they work for don't have some secret contract or kick back by being laced on farmers.

One thing I can offer advice wise to catch botters and Chinese gold farmers is , ( mostly botters )


EXPLORE!!! Go look for obscure locations of mobs. I found 4 botters, all turning on a dime, all so closely bunched that I was ( with a great deal of effort ) able to use the auto report feature to nab 4 of them.


Seems this problem is heavy in MMO F2P games, like eso. Sadly going F2P means they are sacrificing their subs to have to deal with this crap, inflation, flooding the market with gold and materials thus driving prices down by a player base who farms them but never uses them...

Illurian

Banetek wrote: »

Seems this problem is heavy in MMO F2P games, like eso. Sadly going F2P means they are sacrificing their subs to have to deal with this crap, inflation, flooding the market with gold and materials thus driving prices down by a player base who farms them but never uses them...

What are you talking about? ESO is still B2P.

runagate

Turelus wrote: »

This is nothing new really. The RMT industry is as scummy as they come, including hacking previous customers accounts, using your credit card information to buy accounts for their RMT etc.

The developers of EVE Online (CCP Games) use to have an hour long presentation about account security and game security at their fanfest, it was one of the most enjoyable and enlightening talks there. They're on YouTube if you ever feel like watching.

Actually, I was completely shocked that 20% of gamers polled admitted to buying gold. Not least because less than 10% of people who post here seemingly know how to type things into Google, and thus I don't know how they know they can even buy gold.

Turelus

Banetek wrote: »

I sometimes wonder if game devs and the people they work for don't have some secret contract or kick back by being laced on farmers.

One thing I can offer advice wise to catch botters and Chinese gold farmers is , ( mostly botters )


EXPLORE!!! Go look for obscure locations of mobs. I found 4 botters, all turning on a dime, all so closely bunched that I was ( with a great deal of effort ) able to use the auto report feature to nab 4 of them.


Seems this problem is heavy in MMO F2P games, like eso. Sadly going F2P means they are sacrificing their subs to have to deal with this crap, inflation, flooding the market with gold and materials thus driving prices down by a player base who farms them but never uses them...

Generally most MMO companies hate botting and RMT, however keeping up with it is a full time job for a team of people.

Ignoring the economic issues they cause within the game there is all the issues they cause with account security and credit card theft.

Of the MMO games I have played you can tell the difference between the big corporate entities (like ZOS) and the smaller companies when it comes to battling this. The big MMO games generally outsource all their support/GM staff whilst the smaller ones keep it in house having much more control and direct impact on the issue.

I could be entirely wrong on this but ZOS still hasn't posted to tell me I am so I will continue my cynical world view of MMO companies.

zaria

runagate wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

This is nothing new really. The RMT industry is as scummy as they come, including hacking previous customers accounts, using your credit card information to buy accounts for their RMT etc.

The developers of EVE Online (CCP Games) use to have an hour long presentation about account security and game security at their fanfest, it was one of the most enjoyable and enlightening talks there. They're on YouTube if you ever feel like watching.

Actually, I was completely shocked that 20% of gamers polled admitted to buying gold. Not least because less than 10% of people who post here seemingly know how to type things into Google, and thus I don't know how they know they can even buy gold.

I has gotten adds for buying ESO gold in news papers after googling ESO related stuff
Not sure how serious they are as they offered power leveling to veteran levels

SolidusPrime

I'm surprised that people actually buy that stuff. Seems about as shady as you can get.

Don't most of them want your account information or something like that too?

DRXHarbinger

People still buy it on XB atm. £5 for 100k. To me that's way too low. I can earn £5 quicker than I can 100k. Surely these farmers are plus subs though? If you botted all night your inventory will fill and it'll do nothing.

But lol at buying in game gold. I'm guessing people are buying it to pay for maw clears. Simple solution...put some skins in crown store twice a year. But cool unique ones. It'll divert thr attention away from these desirables.

nine9six

They're buying it to keep up with the over-price Nirnroot market.

rotaugen454

20% of gamers are willing to risk money buying game gold from a shady company that would hack their credit accounts if given a chance? Laziness meets stupidity...