Needed to be a stipulation like with how Guild Wars 2 does it... if you don't have a paid version of the game you shouldn't be able to whisper or use zone chat. You should need to buy the base game or the current latest expansion if you acquired the game for free in order to use those functions.
It seems to be increasing these last days. Sad is, if it keeps going, that's because it's lucrative. Otherwise, they would stop. It means that a big enough amount of players use their site unfortunately.
Edited for a side note: I'm in game right now and they're spamming in Auridon chat.
PrimeSeptim wrote: »The only way to combat gold sellers effectively is to ban the buyers.
Otherwise the sellers just buy a new account.
ZOS probably have the ability to check chat logs between the gold seller and other players. I'm not sure if being curious is enough for a ban but perhaps by monitoring the player afterwards, upon seeing a large sum of gold being added to their inventory, a case could be made. A lot of work though I guess. Maybe having some gamemasters would help.
SeaGtGruff wrote: »PrimeSeptim wrote: »The only way to combat gold sellers effectively is to ban the buyers.
Otherwise the sellers just buy a new account.
ZOS probably have the ability to check chat logs between the gold seller and other players. I'm not sure if being curious is enough for a ban but perhaps by monitoring the player afterwards, upon seeing a large sum of gold being added to their inventory, a case could be made. A lot of work though I guess. Maybe having some gamemasters would help.
The gold sellers aren't selling gold in chat; they're advertising websites where players can go buy gold and crowns outside of the game using (I assume) their credit cards. And I'm sure their credit card information is 100% safe and secure during the transaction and afterwards. [/sarcasm]
Presumably the buyers receive their purchased gold via in-game mail, and I've seen at least one ESO streamer who said they'd got an auto-ban for sending large amounts of gold to viewers who'd won in-stream giveaways, so ZOS must have systems in place for detecting suspicious amounts of gold being mailed and auto-banning the suspected gold sellers. The streamer who said she'd been auto-banned said she had to file a ticket with Support so her situation could be reviewed, after which she was able to get her account back. But actual gold sellers probably just create new accounts rather than filing tickets to get their old accounts unbanned-- and if they do file tickets, a review of their accounts would presumably show that they are indeed gold sellers rather than legitimate players.