When people buy gold with real money...

sparafucilsarwb17_ESO

I actually know a few people that buys ESO gold for money. These individuals don't think it's cheating and tries to justify with all kinds of excuses including that they pay a sub and that entitles them to buy gold.

Do you know anyone that does this? Did you report them? I have no love for cheaters.

AzraelKrieg

Report them.

Illurian

I mean it's against the TOS and totally reportable (not sure how you'd go around proving it though to be honest), but is it really cheating?

I've never done it myself (and don't understand why one would anyway) but I don't know if I'd consider that cheating. Gold doesn't really give you much of an advantage in terms of combat since you'd be limited to buying overland sets (most BiS gear is dropped or crafted) and... What exactly? Housing? Gold doesn't buy you skills.

Don't get me wrong, I'm totally against it as well, but I'm not sure it's really "cheating" in my opinion.

Feanor

I still don't know why you should do that. Gold isn't exactly hard to farm in this game.

craftycarper73

there just sad *** to put it bluntly

bebynnag

people are also spending the gold they bought to buy carries through trials/vma runs/empereor

what i dont get is

how is paying someone else to do the content for you fun or enjoyable?

Turelus

I know of people who have been involved in or are actively involved in various forms of RMT (not all within ESO) sadly.

For the most part if you know people who do it you should report them to ZOS so they can look into it. However I fully understand the conflict of interest when this is friends who do it, mostly I try to give those ones as much abuse and link as much evidence as to why it's a bad idea as possible.

Ignoring the issues and fair play it can effect within the game people need to understand that many gold sellers are also involved in crime. CCP Games did some great talks about this in their Fanfest security presentations, but I have also heard first hand of people who purchased gold in a game to have emails stating someone tried to access their account multiple times there after.

Gold sellers will hijack accounts they've sold to, they have some of your personal information now. They will use and abuse stolen credit cards and every other dirty trick.

RMT isn't good, don't do it.

IwakuraLain42

puffytheslayer wrote: »

people are also spending the gold they bought to buy carries through trials/vma runs/empereor

what i dont get is

how is paying someone else to do the content for you fun or enjoyable?

That's Capitalism (with an uppercase C) at work: the law of supply and demand. People are looking at skins, titles or dyes that they otherwise never will be able to get.

bebynnag

IwakuraLain42 wrote: »

puffytheslayer wrote: »

people are also spending the gold they bought to buy carries through trials/vma runs/empereor

what i dont get is

how is paying someone else to do the content for you fun or enjoyable?

That's Capitalism (with an uppercase C) at work: the law of supply and demand. People are looking at skins, titles or dyes that they otherwise never will be able to get.

what?

i asked how it was fun & enjoyable

you reply by calling it capitalism & then explaining that people with more money than skill want the shiney shineys.

SantieClaws

Report them.

Not only does this activity corrupt Tamriel itself but it contributes to significant corruption in the other realm.

Organisations linked to the selling of gold are generally involved in financial fraud, drugs and all manner of unsavoury crime activities. Do not pour fuel on those sorts of fires.

If you buy from them using a payment card you put your payment account at risk. I doubt also if any game account or other personal details you supply are secure either.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

Moltyr

I have mixed feelings about this. Making gold in this game is incredibly easy...for ME. But I'm not sure how new players feel. Pickpocketing has become a viable source of income...even for new players. I also think that there is no way to "prove" someone is buying gold with real money unless they told you themselves. Or unless ZOS had access to your bank/paypal account. Someone giving another player a large amount of gold in game out of the blue isn't exactly hard evidence either. I've given complete strangers upwards of 200k, and I've received larger amounts from people either for a previous trade, bet, help with buying something I couldn't afford, etc. If ZOS felt so strongly about people buying gold, they wouldn't really have so much in the crown store that doesn't actually exist selling for real money. It's the same thing, they just condone folks to put money in their pockets and not some gold farmer. I don't ever plan on buying gold, but if someone does I wouldn't really think less of them or report them. Though I would be jealous because I'm broke lol.

zaria

Illurian wrote: »

I mean it's against the TOS and totally reportable (not sure how you'd go around proving it though to be honest), but is it really cheating?

I've never done it myself (and don't understand why one would anyway) but I don't know if I'd consider that cheating. Gold doesn't really give you much of an advantage in terms of combat since you'd be limited to buying overland sets (most BiS gear is dropped or crafted) and... What exactly? Housing? Gold doesn't buy you skills.

Don't get me wrong, I'm totally against it as well, but I'm not sure it's really "cheating" in my opinion.

For housing you have the crown store.
Not sure how the goldsellers $/ gold rate is compared to the crown store for expensive houses who is the main thing you can buy for both,

OC_Justice

Illurian wrote: »

I mean it's against the TOS and totally reportable (not sure how you'd go around proving it though to be honest), but is it really cheating?

I've never done it myself (and don't understand why one would anyway) but I don't know if I'd consider that cheating. Gold doesn't really give you much of an advantage in terms of combat since you'd be limited to buying overland sets (most BiS gear is dropped or crafted) and... What exactly? Housing? Gold doesn't buy you skills.

Don't get me wrong, I'm totally against it as well, but I'm not sure it's really "cheating" in my opinion.

It is cheating, plain and simple.

Can I offer the banker in Monopoly some real cash for that fake money to get enough money to buy all the properties and control the board.

It allows them to buy crafting writs, legendary items or upgrade items. Nirncrux can be bought, no need to farm it like most of us do. Farm overground?, just go buy it at auction house with purchased gold.
Purchased gold would allow you to buy the infamous Skyreach runs for leveling.

Demycilian

I guess a game can never be so casual and simplistic that there is not someone prepared to cash out money to questionable elements in return for ingame currency.

Insandros

i say..... Hang them and give me their gold

Turelus

Moltyr wrote: »

I also think that there is no way to "prove" someone is buying gold with real money unless they told you themselves.

This is an issue but it can also be caught regardless, as it does actively happen in ESO and other MMO games.

Moltyr wrote: »

If ZOS felt so strongly about people buying gold, they wouldn't really have so much in the crown store that doesn't actually exist selling for real money. It's the same thing, they just condone folks to put money in their pockets and not some gold farmer.

That's a flawed argument. The items ZOS are selling don't undermined the games competitive side or economy and ZOS aren't abusing those sales to do unlawful things like others are.

I've linked these a bunch of times before but they really are amazing to watch if you're interested in game security, RMT or the like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UG13u9KKtzE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vd-CpnjvAM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CZR9w3ftjY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBD7CL9oQqE

AhPook_Is_Here

While both buying and selling gold is against the EULA, selling gold is a bigger problem than buying gold as it allows an arbitrage play to convert gold into crowns at a discount to the value of crowns to gold. You should discourage anyone you know from selling gold as it takes money directly out of ZoS' pockets.

Minyassa

Ugh. Those people are the ones that encourage bots by supporting that stuff. They are awful people, report them.

Turelus

Minyassa wrote: »

Ugh. Those people are the ones that encourage bots by supporting that stuff. They are awful people, report them.

They're probably also the same ones who complain about all the bots and how ZOS does nothing.

Bouldercleave

Why the hell are they buying gold in THIS game? Gold is easy to come by and there is almost nothing to spend it on.

The best gear is BoP, you can craft your own pots and food/drink, and the good mounts and costumes are in the Crown Store.

If you buy gold in ESO you may be the dumbest person on the planet.

Serjustin19

This may or may not pertain to Gold sellers (it does kinda mention it) But very interesting read.


Hacker Reflects On 20 Years Of Exploiting MMO Security

http://kotaku.com/hacker-reflects-on-20-years-of-exploiting-mmo-security-1797377262


Also in another link, inside link above

Reminder Gold Farmers Are People Too

http://kotaku.com/reminder-gold-farmers-are-people-too-1507602367

FakeFox

I couldn't care less, Gold is somewhat worthless, especially for character strength.

mb10

Im sure the prices paid for crowns in game are more of a crime than this anyway

SanTii.92

Burn them all.

TheShadowScout

sparafucilsarwb17_ESO wrote: »

When people buy gold with real money...

...I always think they are really, really putting the "oop" in stoopid. And mess up games for everyone else, because if they didn't do that kinda crap, we wouldn't have gold farmers vex us with their botting and other annoyances...

Makes me wish those people would get fined instead of gerring temp bans for their misdeeds. In crowns. Accounbt locked until they pay a fine in crowns, since those need be bought with real money, and if their actions cost them real money, they become less profitable.

Thrymbauld

I agree that it's cheating, bad, etc....

But I can also understand some basic draw. I knew a guy that bought gold in a different game. We where a successful raiding guild, and that took a ton of playtime to do. It was also extremely draining on in game resources, so gold would regularly get pretty tight. He bought it so that he could do the raiding without the farm grind to pay for it. In his words: "For an hours wages I never have to F*****g smack rocks again". When he put it that way, it was hard to disagree with the logic.

I can understand someone that would prefer to engage in combat WITH a nice legendary weapon rather than wander around the overland smacking resource nodes. I could see particularly impatient folks paying a couple bucks to do it.

I have a couple non-level 50 characters here and frankly, if I could drop twenty bucks to bring them up to Champion levels I'd do it. It's not that I don't want to play the game, it's that I DO want to play the game. I don't want to do the obligatory tap dance before the game even starts. There are almost seven hundred levels AFTER hitting the one that lets you equip your bank full of gear, for cripes sake. Make no mistake, if this was a P2win product in the crown store it'd be a hot seller, despite the damage it'd do to the game in general.

That doesn't make it ok, not in the slightest. It IS against the rules and it IS an advantage that is not sanctioned. I'm just saying that so long as mindlessly undesirable time grinds exist in games like this, gold sellers will always have a market.

Vanzen

Imagine people 30 years + with a time consuming job but with plenty of cash wanting the best gear (gold), potion, poisons, etc, you name it, who want to be competitive in pvp and have absolutely not the slightest intention to spend the little free time they have, doing insanely boring stuff like farming or earning creds ...

Got it ?

Believe me, ZOS dont mind and will do nothing to prevent gold selling. The only thing they regret is the outrage that would happen if they sold it themselves, wich will sure happen in all Morpg in time to come as the gaming population will grow older and will demand it or stop playing.

Plain and simple.

Sad ?

Maybe but thats an other story ...

thamightyboro

The key is getting monetisation of the game right.

Is it cheaper to buy gold from a 3rd party than get it indirectly from zos, in eso case it isis because you cant really change your crowns to gold.

I spent over a decade working in the mmo industry and on every title I worked we managed to make it so that gold sellers couldnt profit by offering players the ability to convert the virtual currency into in game currency either through a direct means or indirectly through sales of store items.

The last mmo I worked on prior to calling it a day was swtor. In swtor we had cartel crates, the items from these crates could bebe sold on the auction house and we actively monitored the coin return players where getting per dollar of spend. That enabled us to keep the return from buying direct higher than what would be profitsble for gold farmers.

Bouldercleave

Vanzen wrote: »

Imagine people 30 years + with a time consuming job but with plenty of cash wanting the best gear (gold), potion, poisons, etc, you name it, who want to be competitive in pvp and have absolutely not the slightest intention to spend the little free time they have, doing insanely boring stuff like farming or earning creds ...

Got it ?

Believe me, ZOS dont mind and will do nothing to prevent gold selling. The only thing they regret is the outrage that would happen if they sold it themselves, wich will sure happen in all Morpg in time to come as the gaming population will grow older and will demand it or stop playing.

Plain and simple.

Sad ?

Maybe but thats an other story ...

You hit my demographic perfectly except for one thing. Most of us Geezers that are 30+ with time consuming jobs ( I'm 48 and have a 65+hour a week job) really don't care about being that competitive in PvP and usually have more fun running Guilds, acquiring gear and completing quests. With the limited play time, people like me will never be really that competitive - it simply requires too much TIME, and you can't buy that.

I'm sure that there are some that would buy gold, but I don't think that the 30+ crowd is the main buyer of ill gotten gold.

Danikat

Buying gold may not technically be cheating but 99% of the time the people selling it have obtained it by cheating. Or botting, or out-right, real-world theft.

It's not unheard of for them to require their customers game account details (or simply require registration to a site and count on idiots using the same email and password) and then if they don't become repeat customers or stop buying often they use those details to steal the account, transfer any gold and valuable items to one of their own accounts and use it for botting until it gets shut down.

And that's one of the least crazy ways they go about it. At the other extreme you've got criminal gangs smuggling people across country borders then forcing them to "pay it back" by working as literal slaves locked in buildings farming gold so they can sell it. And then using that money to buy drugs and weapons to smuggle to make even more money.

Or they steal your credit card details, contact details, whole identity etc. and make money selling that.

Seriously, if you're imagining that you're buying gold from your typical ESO player, maybe a trade guild leader who has mastered earning gold in-game and just wants to help out his fellow players (and hey, why shouldn't he get a little something in return for that?) you need to re-think.

If you're lucky you're buying from someone like Steve Bannon (I'm not even kidding, the guy genuinely was involved in gold selling). If you're unlucky it's the actual mafia.

altemriel

sparafucilsarwb17_ESO wrote: »

I actually know a few people that buys ESO gold for money. These individuals don't think it's cheating and tries to justify with all kinds of excuses including that they pay a sub and that entitles them to buy gold.

Do you know anyone that does this? Did you report them? I have no love for cheaters.

report them!!


lol, but how lame must those people be ?