I blame Zenimax for placing harsh gold sinks on integral utility features in 2014.

Thulsola wrote: »

Maverick827 wrote: »

I blame Zenimax for placing harsh gold sinks on integral utility features in 2014.

So... to paraphrase your answer: "I don't want to play the game the way it was designed, so I'm going to cheat."

Is English even close to your first language? That's not what he said, it's not even remotely implicit in what he said. You're casting blame solely on the buyers, he's amplifying your statement with an explanation as to why some people may be tempted to buy.

But you're both wrong if you let the bots/sellers off the hook.

Hiply wrote: »

Thulsola wrote: »

Maverick827 wrote: »

I blame Zenimax for placing harsh gold sinks on integral utility features in 2014.

So... to paraphrase your answer: "I don't want to play the game the way it was designed, so I'm going to cheat."

Is English even close to your first language? That's not what he said, it's not even remotely implicit in what he said. You're casting blame solely on the buyers, he's amplifying your statement with an explanation as to why some people may be tempted to buy.

But you're both wrong if you let the bots/sellers off the hook.

I'm not suggesting that they let bots/sellers off the hook. They should be banned quickly and efficiently.

But I don't see anyone talking about the people who are cheating by using gold seller services on the forum. Maybe I missed it. There must be a significant number of people out there buying from the bots/sellers to justify the number of bots in the game.

And FWIW, I actually fully understood the comment he made - but justifying cheating by blaming the game mechanics is a ridiculous argument, and that was exactly what he was doing - whether he cheats himself or not. If you don't like the game mechanics, find a different game.

Thulsola wrote: »

Hiply wrote: »

Thulsola wrote: »

Maverick827 wrote: »

I blame Zenimax for placing harsh gold sinks on integral utility features in 2014.

So... to paraphrase your answer: "I don't want to play the game the way it was designed, so I'm going to cheat."

Is English even close to your first language? That's not what he said, it's not even remotely implicit in what he said. You're casting blame solely on the buyers, he's amplifying your statement with an explanation as to why some people may be tempted to buy.

But you're both wrong if you let the bots/sellers off the hook.

I'm not suggesting that they let bots/sellers off the hook. They should be banned quickly and efficiently.

But I don't see anyone talking about the people who are cheating by using gold seller services on the forum. Maybe I missed it. There must be a significant number of people out there buying from the bots/sellers to justify the number of bots in the game.

And FWIW, I actually fully understood the comment he made - but justifying cheating by blaming the game mechanics is a ridiculous argument, and that was exactly what he was doing - whether he cheats himself or not. If you don't like the game mechanics, find a different game.

And I would agree...if he at all tried to justify gold buyers. Providing one of the reasons...the rationale...behind why some people might buy gold =/= justifying it. I may be able to provide insights into why someone might kill someone else, but that doesn't mean I'm justifying it.

Here, try this for an example:

"I think the reason he shot his wife was that he caught her in bed with someone else."

"Hey wait!! Why are you justifying him killing her?"

"Um, I didn't?"

Hiply wrote: »

And I would agree...if he at all tried to justify gold buyers. Providing one of the reasons...the rationale...behind why some people might buy gold =/= justifying it. I may be able to provide insights into why someone might kill someone else, but that doesn't mean I'm justifying it.

Here, try this for an example:

"I think the reason he shot his wife was that he caught her in bed with someone else."

"Hey wait!! Why are you justifying him killing her?"

"Um, I didn't?"

Okay. My comment was overly snarky given his response - I read it as a justification. I perhaps read too much into it. I apologize.

EDIT - Though re-reading the original comment, it was the "I blame Zenimax" part that made me think it was a justification. Blame implies that it is Zenimax's fault that people choose to cheat because of the way they design the game. To be more accurate to the situation here, your example should have read:

"I blame his wife for getting shot because she was in bed with another man..."

Anyway, I still see your point and my apology stands, but I'm not sure it is as clear cut as you indicated.

Hiply wrote: »

I'll wait for you to read my edit and see how you respond

How about the people selling gold for real cash go to court and be fined huge amounts of money for selling and diminishing a game that people spent years of hard work on?

Thulsola wrote: »

McDoogs wrote: »

Drug dealers wouldn't exist if there weren't addicts. Kill the addicts!

Addiction is an illness. Cheating is a choice. See the difference?

The first uses of the addictive substance IS a choice. You can choose to stop early on, instead of letting whatever it is get to the point of addiction.

No difference.

Also, who in their right mind buys gold from these sites? I really think the number of customers they have is being blown out of proportion.

I mean seriously, who's going to give up their account info or credit card info to a shady business that's suspected of hijacking game and bank accounts?

Thulsola wrote: »

JosephChip wrote: »

Wow op, you are a genius.
No but seriously, what's the point of your statement?

And the point of your statement was, to what, insult me for posting the obvious?

I don't think it is out of line to point to the giant elephant in the middle of the room every now and again, even if it is obvious. People are cheating at the game and damaging the enjoyment of the game for others. Bots are a symptom of that cheating.

In most cases, treating the disease is more effective than treating the symptoms. I think ZOS should be focusing their anti-cheating efforts on the human players who are cheating using these services. Yes, they should blow up bots and ban their accounts. But they are simply going to create a new one and do it again as long as the end-cheater is still there, willing to pay real world money to cheat at a video game.

I await your next insult response with bated breath.

Then you are just another player who do not understand how hard it is to actually do this kind of stuff.

Do you think bots and gold sellers have been on MMOs for years now , just because every single company is too dumb to understand such simple principle?

It is not easy to prove or to put blame on people and you cant just ban people left and right without being sure , it is that simple.

Zen made this mistake once already , which resulted in tons of backlash of those who did nothing wrong and go hit for sending gold to friends or msgs to guild mates.

Blame the coder for

-not securing against memory editing
-making same mistakes as any game before (lagdupes, harvest nodes, out of position bugs etc.)
-not implementing auto checks on repetitive behavior
and so on

To deal with bots/gold sellers, they need to hit them from both sides and not just one. On one side, hit their cost of doing business by aggressively banning their accounts. This forces them to buy new ones and increases their costs. On the other side, hit the buyers. Ban buyer accounts with extreme prejudice. But you have to do more than just ban buyers. You have to show their progress to existing players. If you keep the banning of buyers on the down low, then players who haven't bought before might start doing so thinking it's safe. Make the banning of buyers a public display. Make it well known how many are being banned and how often. Don't reveal your methods, just the results.

The next step is with game design. This will take some thought and clever programming but all you want to do is make it take longer for them to reach their goals. Remember that time is money and these people who sell gold got their hands in multiple games. They'll shift their resources based on the which game is making them the most money.

Example:

Let's say that a gold selling group is involved with two games (ESO and some other game). In both games they sell gold (both games use "gold" as currency) for $20/50K. Now let's say it takes them 1 hour to get 50K gold in the other game and 2 hours to get 50K gold in ESO. For the other game they are making $20/hour but for ESO they are only making $10/hour. Then clearly they are going to focus more of their attention to that other game.

The solution here is not so clear cut though. You do something as simple as make it take twice as long to gather from a node and you not only make it twice as long to get but you reduce the supply which will increase its value. These two effects could cancel each other out. You want to increase the time it takes without increasing the value. Now if you can increase the time and decrease the value, that would be even better. Two things come to mind for this.

1. Just as the chests have the lock picking mini game, a cleverly designed mini game for gathering nodes would not only increase the time it takes to gather from a node but it could force a human element. Meaning a simple bot program won't be good enough.

2. Do away with guild stores and bring in auction/trading houses. This will open up competition. This will result in a more efficient economy that will be more beneficial to the social well being of the player base. This will, at the very least, ensure that the value of gatherables doesn't increase. It should bring the value down. The current system keeps prices higher than they should be.


PS. Unless you are born addicted (mothers doing drugs while pregnant), then doing drugs is a choice. Since you have to do the drug to get addicted to it, addiction is a choice.

Thulsola wrote: »

Just saying - gold seller bots wouldn't exist if people didn't buy from them.

I blame both - just ban'em both and be done with it.

Nox_Aeterna wrote: »

Then you are just another player who do not understand how hard it is to actually do this kind of stuff.

Do you think bots and gold sellers have been on MMOs for years now , just because every single company is too dumb to understand such simple principle?

It is not easy to prove or to put blame on people and you cant just ban people left and right without being sure , it is that simple.

Zen made this mistake once already , which resulted in tons of backlash of those who did nothing wrong and go hit for sending gold to friends or msgs to guild mates.

I don't think I implied it is easy to treat the disease - and I agree, Zen made a mistake by trying to treat it with a simple quick fix. Based on many comments made in many threads, it does seem that Zen was over relying on the good nature of its gaming community instead of putting proper controls in place.

But after they close the obvious exploit holes, and they decide to put the effort into putting controls in place, I would rather them focus on trying to deal with the core problem of cheating than the symptoms. I would like to see a control process focused on tracking the transactions from the gold farmers to the gold sellers - a sting style process.

Maybe you are right, and that would simply be to hard and process intensive to be worth the effort. But if Account X that is known to be a gold seller sends money to Account Y, who then sends money to Account Z, then chances are Account Z is a cheater. Surely it would be possible to write an algorithm that could sort through the massive amount of data they have and spit out possible end cheaters once a bot has been identified?

Make almost everything bound to player, then people would play for them selves and bots would cease.