City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

get rid of these gold vendors!

Ad Astra

By Ad Astra,
Posted on: 2012-01-04 03:33 in Suggestions and Ideas

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Twigman View Post
IMHO ... CoH should embrace the sellers -to an extent-.
Gold sellers aren't businessmen, they are criminals. These sites don't do legitimate business, they should not be supported in any way. I'm not sure how they operate here, but in many games they don't even earn the stuff they sell, they mostly take it from stolen accounts and/or manipulating the economy on a large scale.

 

Posted

In the long run, I could care less. I'm just stating a concept idea that might make (area specific) local chat and some global chats less cluttered. But, if the idea isn't accepted, then lets drop it. But, We'll all have to live with it the way it is.

P.S, manipulating a market isn't illegal or unethical ... it's just annoying, to those that are manipulating the market in their own way. Also, to those that just want to buy what they need at a reasonable price.

After thought, how is the "haves"(those that know how to work the market) for personal use better than the "haves" for monetary value any different?

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Twigman View Post
P.S, manipulating a market isn't illegal or unethical ... it's just annoying, to those that are manipulating the market in their own way. Also, to those that just want to buy what they need at a reasonable price.
And when you're manipulating the economy with stolen money?

 

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Originally Posted by Hopeling View Post
And when you're manipulating the economy with stolen money?
You're assuming all companies steal money?

 

Posted

All companies? No, certainly not. All inf-selling sites, yes, as far as I've ever been aware.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hopeling View Post
All companies? No, certainly not. All inf-selling sites, yes, as far as I've ever been aware.
Maybe those that have had good luck don't say anything in fear of having their account deleted, where as a concept of a game account being deleted is minor compared to RL issues.

Allowing and having a forum for just this issue would reduce the theft outcomes and help the sites that do, JUST sell the "gold" and have no "side" business.

 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike View Post
Try getting jurisdiction over a Chinese gold seller.

Not
Going
To
Happen
Batman has no jurisdiction

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark_Respite View Post

Stop using their services.


(This is not meant to accuse the OP - this is a blanket statement.)


When the RMTers realize there is no money to be made here in COH, they will go elsewhere, because their ROI (Return on Investment) in COH will suck versus what they could be making elsewhere.
Good luck with that, RMTers are selling convience, and as long as people perceive it as an equitable trade with little to no consequence then they will engage in the activity.

Frankly this is all a vicious circle. People want loot and RMTers make it easy to get that loot. The easiest way to get rid of the gold farmers is to get rid of loot but without loot you have no players.


------->"Sic Semper Tyrannis"<-------

 

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Originally Posted by Dr_MechanoEU View Post

However, F2P people don't get access to that unless they buy it, hell they don't get access to the Auction House unless they pay for it.
Which, ironically, also means they have nothing to spend the influence on in the first place.

And they can only carry 25 million at a time. 50 million between both characters.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hopeling View Post
Gold sellers aren't businessmen, they are criminals. These sites don't do legitimate business, they should not be supported in any way. I'm not sure how they operate here, but in many games they don't even earn the stuff they sell, they mostly take it from stolen accounts and/or manipulating the economy on a large scale.
True.

They do have farmers, but a lot of what they sell is stripped off of accounts that paid them to PL their characters. Which are then used to spam other people until they get banned.

They also engage in the practice of selling the credit card numbers they get on the black market to Russian or East European criminals.

And as I previously mentioned, the vast majority of them are in China, which makes it impossible to prosecute them. Basically, once you've been dumb enough to let yourself become a victim, there is nothing anyone can do to help you.

Buying from RMTers is just stupid, but plenty of people do it anyway, which is why they're still here.

Hilarious how people will spend more buying influence than they would have spent unlocking the features they could use to earn it themselves. And then get their accounts banned when they get hijacked to spam people with.

The funniest part? When that happens they blame the GAME for it instead of their own stupidity.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

 

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Originally Posted by Phynixx View Post

Furthermore, what crime is being committed here?
See my post immediately above this one.

Selling credit card numbers on the black market is a crime. And why wouldn't they? They'll never be punished for it, and they don't make any guarantees to the people they sell the numbers to.

The only person that loses is the one who was dumb enough to give them the card number in the first place. Most of them will not accept PayPal because PayPal can track the transaction and block all future transactions to that account.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

 

Posted

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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect View Post
True.

They do have farmers, but a lot of what they sell is stripped off of accounts that paid them to PL their characters. Which are then used to spam other people until they get banned.

They also engage in the practice of selling the credit card numbers they get on the black market to Russian or East European criminals.

And as I previously mentioned, the vast majority of them are in China, which makes it impossible to prosecute them. Basically, once you've been dumb enough to let yourself become a victim, there is nothing anyone can do to help you.

Buying from RMTers is just stupid, but plenty of people do it anyway, which is why they're still here.

Hilarious how people will spend more buying influence than they would have spent unlocking the features they could use to earn it themselves. And then get their accounts banned when they get hijacked to spam people with.

The funniest part? When that happens they blame the GAME for it instead of their own stupidity.
Again, You only hear about the bad because the good expiriences won't be talked about for fear of being banned.

I still believe that if they change their stance from, "your account will be canceled if you're caught buying and selling" to "We know these sites exist and warn you never to use them. The people that have had good expiriences will be able to tell others.

P.S. There is no law, except what CoH/NCsoft has created, that makes buying/selling of "gold" illegal.

 

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Originally Posted by Twigman View Post
Again, You only hear about the bad because the good expiriences won't be talked about for fear of being banned.

I still believe that if they change their stance from, "your account will be canceled if you're caught buying and selling" to "We know these sites exist and warn you never to use them. The people that have had good expiriences will be able to tell others.

P.S. There is no law, except what CoH/NCsoft has created, that makes buying/selling of "gold" illegal.
International and Domestic copyright laws cover this, especially new ones that cover media in the digital age.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus

 

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Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn View Post
International and Domestic copyright laws cover this, especially new ones that cover media in the digital age.
Correct ... which are determined by the copywrite holders terms and agreements. If CoH/NCsoft decided (along with all other MMOs) that it was ok, it would no longer be illegal. Thus, allowing open communication of the good and bad sites. As it stands, people would only talk about bad expiriences.

You can't say something is bad if ONLY the bad information can be talked about.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Twigman View Post
Correct ... which are determined by the copywrite holders terms and agreements. If CoH/NCsoft decided (along with all other MMOs) that it was ok, it would no longer be illegal. Thus, allowing open communication of the good and bad sites. As it stands, people would only talk about bad expiriences.

You can't say something is bad if ONLY the bad information can be talked about.
Allowing goldsellers to be "okay" would ruin the in-game economy except for those people who used it. It would potentially flood the game with influence, allow the gold sellers to easily manipulate the market, and fill the game with spam.

Yeah, it's not just the credit card use that is bad here.

Also, if the game said that these services are legal, and only warns people that they might get ripped off, I'm sure that lawyers will find a way to say that NCSoft and Paragon Studios would be complicit in any lawsuits that would occur if someone's information got stolen. And since it's very tough to go after Chinese citizens with this kind of lawsuit, finding a U.S. or South Korean company complicit would make things a lot easier for lawyers and people who were too stupid to realize what they were doing was dumb.

However, if NCSoft and Paragon Studios says that these activities are explicitly forbidden in game, and takes steps to ban accounts that use them/that are gold sellers, they cannot be considered complicit in the activities.


So they're not going to change their stance for good reason.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn View Post
Allowing goldsellers to be "okay" would ruin the in-game economy except for those people who used it. It would potentially flood the game with influence, allow the gold sellers to easily manipulate the market, and fill the game with spam.

Yeah, it's not just the credit card use that is bad here.

Also, if the game said that these services are legal, and only warns people that they might get ripped off, I'm sure that lawyers will find a way to say that NCSoft and Paragon Studios would be complicit in any lawsuits that would occur if someone's information got stolen. And since it's very tough to go after Chinese citizens with this kind of lawsuit, finding a U.S. or South Korean company complicit would make things a lot easier for lawyers and people who were too stupid to realize what they were doing was dumb.

However, if NCSoft and Paragon Studios says that these activities are explicitly forbidden in game, and takes steps to ban accounts that use them/that are gold sellers, they cannot be considered complicit in the activities.


So they're not going to change their stance for good reason.
I really don't see the Market changing all that much, The people who are going to use it if it's legal are the same people that use it now. If you or any other player "plays" the market, You all contribute to the market problem, as do I, choosing to not do anything but buy from the market.

Like with any company, if they put an extensive warning in terms and agreements to not use these sites and set up a forum for players that state the same warning, and that players can talk about "gold" trader expiriences, then I bet issues with bad expiriences would diminish. We might even hear about US based "gold" traders.

Ebay and Craig's list use warning on how to avoid getting scammed. Yet, people get scammed there and no one can sue them. Why should CoH be able to be sued for services they can't control.

Besides, any judge would see that, it's been going on before the change of agreement, and scamming thier own customers would be contradictory to CoH intention to keep a player base. CoH/NCsoft couldn't be sued for this.

 

Posted

when I see a gold farming add I usually directly reply with the explenation that any use of their services is an illegal move and can result in receving a permanent ban! Plus an explenation on how to put the man on ignore.

And I will do that everytime I see it... on the same channel he does it.

Mighty annoying for him I gather. Can we all do that?

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Posted

Oh ... idea. Make it so: when a player is marked as a spammer, only they can see their chat for a week. That would be a fabulous waist of time for the "gold" traders and a good lesson for those players that "bumb" and spam. That would be GREAT

Thanks Liz for the inspiration to annoy them.

 

Posted

I personally have witnessed a friends account taken over.

One day I was chatting with a in game aquaintence when they suddenly logged out. I assumed an emergency or a DC. We had been at the talos tram so I walked over to WW to do some browsing.

A few minutes later I saw them log back in. With in another minute I was hit by a gold spam and thought thats odd that global handle looks awefully familiar. Sure enough it was my friends global.

I saw them standing by the tram and walked up to say high and whats up.

They immediatly logged out. A bit later I got an email from an unknown account, saying it was my friend on a new alt account they just made after mysteriously losing access to thier own.

I told them what I had seen and we both filed reports. However they never got back control of thier account, and soon after left the game.

Eventually they admitted to me they had purchased influence from a gold seller site and thier norton anti virus took weeks to wipe out all the trojans and keyloggers it imbedded in thier system.

Personally I just dont see the need. even a brand new player once they learn the ropes can earn enough to decently IO out and in time even buy the purples they may crave to feel equal to the old timers.

Although I have seen some MMO experiment with legal trading. It usually hasnt shown much success at garnering support. Vanguard specifically comes to mind.

Just remember kids true heroes dont buy thier way to the top. Batman might have billions but that isnt what made him mighty.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Demetrios Vasilikos View Post
I personally have witnessed a friends account taken over.

One day I was chatting with a in game aquaintence when they suddenly logged out. I assumed an emergency or a DC. We had been at the talos tram so I walked over to WW to do some browsing.

A few minutes later I saw them log back in. With in another minute I was hit by a gold spam and thought thats odd that global handle looks awefully familiar. Sure enough it was my friends global.

I saw them standing by the tram and walked up to say high and whats up.

They immediatly logged out. A bit later I got an email from an unknown account, saying it was my friend on a new alt account they just made after mysteriously losing access to thier own.

I told them what I had seen and we both filed reports. However they never got back control of thier account, and soon after left the game.

Eventually they admitted to me they had purchased influence from a gold seller site and thier norton anti virus took weeks to wipe out all the trojans and keyloggers it imbedded in thier system.

Personally I just dont see the need. even a brand new player once they learn the ropes can earn enough to decently IO out and in time even buy the purples they may crave to feel equal to the old timers.

Although I have seen some MMO experiment with legal trading. It usually hasnt shown much success at garnering support. Vanguard specifically comes to mind.

Just remember kids true heroes dont buy thier way to the top. Batman might have billions but that isnt what made him mighty.
I do feel for your friend. I would hate for my account to be taken over, then deleted. However. if the policey was all AD spammers are moved to an AD chat and game setting ... he would've only had to petition to CoH to put him back in normal game, and change his password.

As far as the sites that would steal identities and have spyware and the like, The forums would cover the safe sites to use.

Another proventative measure CoH could take is: Like FaceBook, They could set up a location tracker that (if) your account logs in from another location other than your state/province it locks the account till you log into NCsoft and either tell them you're there or change your password.

So many ways to prevent ALL the ending results of this event and some of them CoH could have helped if they just recognize the trade business and don't delete accounts for use of "services"

 

Posted

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Originally Posted by Twigman View Post
Again, You only hear about the bad because the good expiriences won't be talked about for fear of being banned.
I would bet a week's pay that the "good experiences" you refer to are simply cases where the company hasn't sold that credit card number YET.

It's just common sense to wait before you start screwing with someone's credit card. If they used it to purchase in-game items from you, chances are they've used it on other online purchases. If you wait 6 months or a year before you sell the number, they will be much less able to pinpoint who ripped them off, because they will have used that card dozens of times since then.

NCSoft allowing RMT sellers to do business in their games is essentially telling their customers "We don't care if you get ripped off and thrown into a mountain of debt you can't do anything about"

Not the best business policy.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Twigman View Post

Another proventative measure CoH could take is: Like FaceBook, They could set up a location tracker that (if) your account logs in from another location other than your state/province it locks the account till you log into NCsoft and either tell them you're there or change your password.
What is this? I was on Facebook using a nearly public access (Hotel WiFi) in another state just yesterday. I have never heard of this happening there.

I have heard of something similar to this happening in another MMO with a humongous playerbase that was trying to get their players to switch to an authenitcator, but never on FB.

And I guess one response to most of the "fixes" I see here in this thread would be "SCR applies". We don't know if adding all these fancy-schmancy routines to block some the RMTers would or would not break stuff for legitimate players.

The fix that would allow someone to sell NCSoft's intellectual property is just daft. It doesn't match my (admittedly limited) understanding of how defending one's intellectual property rights works under US laws. I would like to see the legal resoning supported by reference to common law, case law and regulation that supports that position (but then, I have a legal education, and I'm crazy that way.)

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Posted

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Originally Posted by Twigman View Post
Another proventative measure CoH could take is: Like FaceBook, They could set up a location tracker that (if) your account logs in from another location other than your state/province it locks the account till you log into NCsoft and either tell them you're there or change your password.
Shenanigans.

I've logged in to Facebook from various states without a problem.

I've not seen Facebook use any location tracking system that locks me out of my account.

Shenanigans.

If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.

Black Pebble is my new hero.

 

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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect View Post
I would bet a week's pay that the "good experiences" you refer to are simply cases where the company hasn't sold that credit card number YET.

It's just common sense to wait before you start screwing with someone's credit card. If they used it to purchase in-game items from you, chances are they've used it on other online purchases. If you wait 6 months or a year before you sell the number, they will be much less able to pinpoint who ripped them off, because they will have used that card dozens of times since then.

NCSoft allowing RMT sellers to do business in their games is essentially telling their customers "We don't care if you get ripped off and thrown into a mountain of debt you can't do anything about"

Not the best business policy.
Again ... assumptions. Besides, I wouldn't recommend using a CC for ANY online purchase, Paypal is prefered.

The same "I don't care if you're scammed" applies to ALL online buying/selling. Ebay, Craigs list, etc.

Both arguments don't hold water.

 

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Originally Posted by Texas Justice View Post
Shenanigans.

I've logged in to Facebook from various states without a problem.

I've not seen Facebook use any location tracking system that locks me out of my account.

Shenanigans.
You're a funny guy ... I like you.

Weird, it did it to me when I visited FL on vacation last year.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Twigman View Post
Again ... assumptions. Besides, I wouldn't recommend using a CC for ANY online purchase, Paypal is prefered.

The same "I don't care if you're scammed" applies to ALL online buying/selling. Ebay, Craigs list, etc.

Both arguments don't hold water.
I bet you that if Ebay and Craiglist were made aware of scammers on their sites, despite them warning people about scammers in general, that if they didn't do anything to stop those people, they would be held liable.

That is why EBay and Craiglist both ban accounts that they know to be scamming people or doing things that are against the TOS. Similarly, CoH could get in trouble if they did not do anything to prevent known criminal activity in their game. And that is what this is, whatever you choose to call it.

Goldfarmers break the law by selling someone else's intellectual property without their permission. That is illegal, and if they were doing it from anywhere but China, they'd be prosecuted. But China chooses not to follow international law in these matters.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus