Studying Gold Farmers

k9mouse · April 2014

As a fan based, we need to know how they think and work behind the closed doors to fight them. This is very interesting 40 minute video that gives inside look how Gold Farmers work and think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWvHcoqru7I

What do you think of the video and how true is it?

reggielee · April 2014

somebody beat him up ... please

KerinKor · April 2014

Most gamers wish those featured in that video a slow painful death .. the gold buyers though that sustain this 'market' love them, IMO they deserve even worse.

Tripp3r · April 2014

i don't know why... i just really want to punch him.

k9mouse · April 2014

True, we all agree that Gold Farmers are evil and such, but how we as players and fans can take this info and used for good of ESO?

KerinKor · April 2014

k9mouse wrote: »

True, we all agree that Gold Farmers are evil and such, but how we as players and fans can take this info and used for good of ESO?

I don't see what 'we' can do. It's human nature, that's what the whole RMT industry is built on, the motivation to buy gold in games like this (or in the Store in F2P games like LOTRO and Rift) is now common in gamers: the Generation Y attitude of I want it and I want it NOW!

Only the designers and implementers of games can (a) avoid creating game mechanics that mean large numbers (if not a majority) view a requirement as unachievable and (b) build-in anti-RMT mechanics.

(a) for example, gold sellers in this game will get custom from things like the huge price of an initial skill respec because many players won't have that amount of gold but feel they can't carry on playing with their current spec.

The game NEEDS playing through at least once before one can be sure what skills are useful and demanding a large chunk of gold for it will be viewed as 'unfair' by some and if there are enough of them then the gold sellers will be happy.

Sure, this could be viewed as pandering to the 'casuals' so don't do it and sit back and enjoy RMT.

(b) clearly this game is lacking even rudimentary anti-RMT tools. There is clearly not even a crude chat filter, the RMT spammers don't even need to use some of their most basic obfuscation techniques.

The fact tele-bots exist is purely down to the lack of server-side analysis of movement (not in real-time as that causes server lag that FFXIV V1 suffered, but it can be done on sampled data in the background. God knows what system design flaw allows the invisi-bots to exist, bots running below ground as in other games (FFXIV V2) is obviously down to poor or non-existent server-side position checking.

Also BUYER banning is a HUGE deterrent if done seriously, Turbine are the only MMO developer to my knowledge that took a firm stance and banned large numbers of gold buyers, eventually enough of those left got the message and out of fear of losing their accounts toned down if not eliminated their buying and RMT in LOTRO now barely registers: it may still exist but legit players aren't inconvenienced economically or playing so for most intents and purposes RMT doesn't exist for most players.

I could go on, but two decade's worth of RMT-infested MMOs seem to have taught ZOS nothing.

reggielee · April 2014

It is VERY interesting to hear of possible ban waves from dev side coinciding with having to meet quarterly expectations as the 'legit' rmt companies have to rebuy subs. I can see that happening for sure in the constant juggle from game companies to meet their financiers demands.

I think this guy is trying to start a new era of rmt, they pay for acct but sell their gold on the ingame marketplace. It is feasible and they would work like hell to keep competitors ie hackers and bots out of the game. think of it like Mafia protection services.

I also believe this guy has pissed off the asian mafia by making this move to edge them out. karma coming his way for sure

so what we can get from this interview is that the whole business is driven by other players cheating with little to no repercussion from the game devs once caught. It would be a simple thing for them to see who bought gold or was power leveled and ban the player, or strip levels and gold from the acct.

reggielee · April 2014

and here is another series on it from the chinese gold farmers themselves.

http://www.youtube.com/user/jingejinge

Paks_ESO · April 2014

The only thing we can do is

1) Stop freaking buying RMT services. But that's not going to happen so we move to
2) Report any gold seller spam/botting/purchasing we see. Don't just ignore it. Ignoring does nothing to help solve this problem. But reporting does nothing unless the devs do their part, so we move to
3) Devs HAVE to work hard to control gold seller spam and botting. CS has to ban spammers/exploiters/botters, and they also have to either ban buyers, suspend buyers(not just 3 day crap), and remove anything the player got from RMT like gold or levels. Part of devs and CS doing their job effectively depends on our reporting, so again don't just ignore unless you just don't care if things get fixed.

MMOs built around RMT models are fine. At least then you know what you're getting from the start. MMOs that are not, but become infested with RMT are annoying as hell and will start to bleed customers as a result. And I haven't seen one MMO release in the last 10 or so years that has not had an RMT problem from the start, and that is something I simply do not understand. You know RMT's coming, experience tells you it's coming, past examples show you HOW it's coming, but... it still happens. WTF?

Anyway, no new RMT ideas. Kill it like the bug infestation it is and send the cockroaches scurrying back into the dark where they belong. RMT is a billion dollar industry with a criminal element attached from credit card theft, account theft, and whatnot, when means they are making money off of developers and us. All devs get from it is a headache and more effort put into dealing with RMT problems. They aren't getting more money from new accounts because most RMT accounts are bought with stolen credit card numbers or some other form of stolen payment method. All we get from it is spam out the ass, bots, account theft, and other annoyances.

Just help the devs so they can help us.

zaria · April 2014

k9mouse wrote: »

True, we all agree that Gold Farmers are evil and such, but how we as players and fans can take this info and used for good of ESO?

Off topic, hi Mouse

uberwilhelm · April 2014

Ugghh the interviewer is the worst. I can't even get past the first 2 minutes. As someone said already, the only way to combat them is to stop buying from them. Supply and demand, supply and demand.

Altheina · April 2014

uberwilhelm wrote: »

As someone said already, the only way to combat them is to stop buying from them. Supply and demand, supply and demand.

It's true, however, it can only apply in ideal situation. The real situation is that there will always be demand that help these gold farmers make money. It's really up to the game devs to provide heavy deterrence to these gold farmers.

My 0.02 cents

k9mouse · April 2014

silenthunter29 wrote: »

uberwilhelm wrote: »

As someone said already, the only way to combat them is to stop buying from them. Supply and demand, supply and demand.

It's true, however, it can only apply in ideal situation. The real situation is that there will always be demand that help these gold farmers make money. It's really up to the game devs to provide heavy deterrence to these gold farmers.

My 0.02 cents

Then question becomes how does ZOS do this "heavy deterrence" and still keep the ESO fun for the players? That is a tall order to fill.

Thete · April 2014

uberwilhelm wrote: »

As someone said already, the only way to combat them is to stop buying from them. Supply and demand, supply and demand.

That's the one thing that will never work; the demand is always there. The only way is to attack the supply or to make the product worth so little that the suppliers can't make profit. To do the first takes a lot of development, as some other MMOs have done, and never really stops the problem. The second involves going free to play. I personally prefer the first option, but those are the only two options.

People have been spouting the 'just stop buying it' mantra for years and it hasn't reduced the gaming population by a single gold farmer or seller.

reggielee · April 2014

I personally can not understand how ESO did not properly prepare for this onslaught, they have been made beetches by the gold spammers

Thunder · April 2014

One very surprising thing I learned about gold farmers is that just minutes into launch... the 5 day pre-launch... they were already spamming that they had tens of thousands in gold to sell.

$3 = 10k gold!! Sale and Fast!

I didn't even have a hundred gold and they've got 10k to sell? Yeah right.

It also surprised me that they would buy Imperial Edition 5 day early access accounts, and probably a lot of them because I imagine they got banned pretty quick.

What surprised me most of all was how it seemed like Bethesda was and is absolutely and completely unprepared to deal with gold spammers. It's like they didn't even consider the possibility. Gee... who could have seen that coming?

grizzbi · April 2014

I've played a lot of mmo but I feel like Iv'e never seen as many bots as in this one: in many places they are so many of them that there aren't enough available nodes for legit players anymore...

Sometimes I just sit and watch all those teleporting bots - dozen of diffferent ones - on a single node..I used to report them but then I received an answer like "too many tickets, see if your first ticket has been answered, then don't spam us"..It looks like they didn't even care about the botter names I gave ( a dozen, gathered in twenty minutes)..I've yet to receive a non-automatic answer. So it's as simple as that: I won't take over my play time to try to help such a company that don't even read my report.

Also seeing the same botter being able to continue for days...what a shame. If everybody can see them and report them, then why ZOS can't just have GM , invisible if necessary, with instant ban abitilities, banning dozen of them to help players NOW, before some real fix happen (soon(TM)). Just watch any node, get dozen of names in like ten minutes, ban them..It's not perfect but it's at least something.

I also hear that the issue is a big problem in dungeon...

I already play from Europe a different game from the US people ( bad ping, aggravated server delay consequencies..).

I can't wait to see how's pvp plagued with all those issues..

Now those forums are also a mess: all the languages together, no general discussion etc.. I suspect it's been made intentionaly so that new players can't see the actual state of the game.

I really appreciate the game but all those things just get on my nerves. Quickly.

We all know those things would happen. ZOS needs to get some first results very soon . And to communicate better. And let us have real forums, because we can see what you're doing here.

Sorry for the negative post but some people need to know..

Thete · April 2014

Thunder wrote: »

What surprised me most of all was how it seemed like Bethesda was and is absolutely and completely unprepared to deal with gold spammers. It's like they didn't even consider the possibility. Gee... who could have seen that coming?

They actually made a number of changes to make it more difficult, during the final few beta periods. They have to strike a balance between making it hard for people to farm gold but not stopping legitimate players collecting enough gold. How would you feel, for example, if you only got gold for completing quests, but vendors weren't interested in buying your crap?

Srugzal · April 2014

The big message I took away from this video starts around the 33:00 mark.

Don't use the same user name and password that you use for fan sites
Change your password once a month
Advocate for forced password expiration with ZOS

Another account hacking prevention strategy would be to require the secret question to change the password. Dare I suggest something like BattleNet, or another external authenticator?

Hacked accounts, according to the video, are the major source of in-game gold spam.

demendred · April 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ketOtwjAdO4

k9mouse · April 2014

@demendred

Thanks for the vid, it seems the real problem are the brokers. If ZOS can take out the brokers, their house of cards will fall. How will ZOS do that?

Nycto · April 2014

Makes me laugh... much like this guy I studied Chinese at university, except I'm now working for the Bank of China in London, and this guy is making a living from online games and slave labour. Makes me feel quite comfortable with my own decisions lol