While being B2P and subscription based will help keep in-game spam to a minimum, you'll still have botting/gold sellers running around, but will advertise through other channels (e.g Google, Media Buys). The monetary incentive for reselling digital currency is typically very high and a few thousand dollar buy in per team is a minor business expense in the grand scheme. Ultimately, I do not want to see the devs take the same stance as other companies have in which the solution inhibits or affects the gameplay of the average player. Proactive GMs and a community with the ability to report players for abuse of the system (ala Runescape) would go a long way to mitigating any spam issues, while automation of detection on the backend can be used to help combat the actual botting process.
Rattenmann said:The reason this works in some games is simple: Devs don't care.
...
I COULD excuse this for very old games. Obviously a system like this is very easy and lightweight, but it has to be in place. Very old games may not have thought about that and now lack the money to add it to the game. Or the code base is a mess after xx expansions and noone is able to include a system like this anymore without breaking things. But modern games? Games in development right now? Every half experienced team should think about this and have zero issue implementing it.
I really don't think it's fair to say that devs don't care. I've not played an MMO in recent history where I did not receive at least some amount of gold seller spam. I'm not sure it's quite so easy to manage, as the games that I've played regularly do make effort to ban gold sellers, and if there was an easy fix to keep them from coming back, I am sure they would do it. I just don't think anyone has really come up with the solution yet. I hope Pantheon does, and that we don't have to deal with it here, but, in all likelihood, we will.
Rattenmann said:Don't forget: This may sound like a pure anti cheat system, but it is actually not. You can use it to monitor what the player base does. Where do they go, how long do they stay. Figuring out what they like, what they enjoy, what they avoid.. all to improve future content patches.
While I don't think they monitor players quite extensively as you propose, this sounds quite similar to what FFXIV has done with some past content updates, and unfortunately that data can be misleading in terms of what players like. A player might spend a long time to do something they don't particularly enjoy, and perhaps consider downright tedious, just to get a reward that they really like. There have been content updates in that game that have illicited groans from a large portion of the community for that reason. I'm not saying data like that can't be useful, but it is only one piece of the puzzle. Players should be asked what sort of content they like/don't like as well, and if there's a conflict between the two, then it should be worked out why that is.
I don't think MMO devs, or blizzard especially, "don't care" entirely. I think they care in direct proportion to how it effects them financially. Gliders and bots exist for years but suddenly because a problem when they cost them more money than they make them. So technically they care, but about money more than players.
Multiboxing is really the #1 killer for me... The multiboxers running around with a full group on follow ruins social and it creates a solo game. It didn't bother me back in the day when people ran another character on a 2nd machine but now days with all this multiboxing software it's gotten out of hand. It's just a different form of P2W IMO.
It would be cool for a dev to jump in here and talk about some of this security stuff. Can we not have constant client / server permission handshakes instead of the client informing the server what it should be doing? Can we not have a defined server ruleset and anything that falls outside the norm throw a red flag for investigation, be it coding error or end-user exploitation?
Also regarding encryption, CPU's for the last 7 or so years have had AES instructions embedded within them. Are we really going to run Pantheon with old Pentium 4's, and Athlon XP/64's? Encryption shouldn't be a noticable performance hit if it's used.
Maybe I'm crazy, but it would be nice to hear from a dev one way or another.
in an MMO like EQ EQ2 Pantheon. The client side executable is responsable pretty much for connecting you to the server. It doesnt host a copy of the game thats all stored server side. So making changes on your client would do nothing. You would need to make changes on the server side which is much more diffcult as well as easier to trace. Encrypting your packets from client to server will do nothing to prevent server side Database shaninagians. all you are doing is slowing down Perfermonce as it has to take that extra step to encrypt and decrypt the information. So that means your lag gets worse and when you are raiding you spike and you dont cast that heal your MT dies your raid wipes and everyone hates you for wiping the raid.
The reason this happens in games like GTA and older battlefields is those can be hsoted on private servers and allow interaction through the MOD system.
My firm belief. If the Devs are arctive and target any abuse within game and take appropriate action while at the same time alerting the community as to their actions. This all becomes a moot point. I believe in the VR team and believe them to genuinely care for their game and us. So I dont see them dropping the ball on security. The game is still a while off so im sure this is an issue they are addressing but probably not spending a ton of resources on currently.
Just my thoughts
Pyde Pyper
Vaildez said:Multiboxing is really the #1 killer for me... The multiboxers running around with a full group on follow ruins social and it creates a solo game. It didn't bother me back in the day when people ran another character on a 2nd machine but now days with all this multiboxing software it's gotten out of hand. It's just a different form of P2W IMO.
Personally, I'm a fan of multiboxing. I've always found it fun and challenging to run 2, 3, or even 4 characters at the same time using a program like AutoHotKey which would let me map a single keyboard to send key strokes to specific clients. The problem is when you start using third party utilities that completely automate a large portion of the experience, which in theory is damn near botting. At minimum I would like to be able to control two characters at a time, one which can run around and another that can sit and sell on the marketplace or crafting (part of the reason I don't partake in P99 any longer).
fixing gold spam on subscription based games isnt that hard.
1: Make it so only lvl 10 and above can talk in a global server wide chat. This stop trial account sform being used. EQ2 did this and gold spam in channels disappeared.
2: You can limit the amount of gold a lvl 1-9 can trade to others. This means you8 have to have apaid subscription to trade bought gold unless you sit there for 3 hours trading a few gold pieces at a time.
Endalmir said:Vaildez said:Multiboxing is really the #1 killer for me... The multiboxers running around with a full group on follow ruins social and it creates a solo game. It didn't bother me back in the day when people ran another character on a 2nd machine but now days with all this multiboxing software it's gotten out of hand. It's just a different form of P2W IMO.
Personally, I'm a fan of multiboxing. I've always found it fun and challenging to run 2, 3, or even 4 characters at the same time using a program like AutoHotKey which would let me map a single keyboard to send key strokes to specific clients. The problem is when you start using third party utilities that completely automate a large portion of the experience, which in theory is damn near botting. At minimum I would like to be able to control two characters at a time, one which can run around and another that can sit and sell on the marketplace or crafting (part of the reason I don't partake in P99 any longer).
To each his own... I understand how some may see it as a challenge but I see it as immersion breaking watching one character running around with 3-4 tailing them the entire time executing actions in unison. If challenging content can be completed by multiboxing it will just turn into another modern MMO where people don't group up as often and everyone playing has to multibox to compete. Most modern MMO players haven't experienced the classics where group and reptutation was absolutely necessary... If people aren't pushed into more of the classic experience they will fall back to their ant-social ways and not giving a crap about in game reputation.
Vade Posted:
Also regarding encryption, CPU's for the last 7 or so years have had AES instructions embedded within them. Are we really going to run Pantheon with old Pentium 4's, and Athlon XP/64's? Encryption shouldn't be a noticeable performance hit if it's used.
Actually you are correct on the server side. The average Logical core count on server is 8 to 16 per socket now. Large numbers on RAM and heavier bus speeds help. If they are setup for the load they suffer minimally on that side. However, the average home PC is not that robust. I have a Sky Lake build and it handles everything I throw at it but the majority of users are general or mid-range setups. CPU AES is there to help that but the level of data and load presented to the user is key. We test this every day at my organization. Encryption can cause a myriad of issues. There are a host of software suits that help with it load and deployment methods. It all comes down to your machine and what is presented to it.
This gets interesting with higher res throughput.
Great point!
Ox
Kalgore said:fixing gold spam on subscription based games isnt that hard.
1: Make it so only lvl 10 and above can talk in a global server wide chat. This stop trial account sform being used. EQ2 did this and gold spam in channels disappeared.
2: You can limit the amount of gold a lvl 1-9 can trade to others. This means you8 have to have apaid subscription to trade bought gold unless you sit there for 3 hours trading a few gold pieces at a time.
This was done in ArcheAge and still failed. Gold Spammers and trading still went on.
RMT can not be reasonably prevented. I think the most practical solution is along the lines of what SOE/DBG did with Kronos, which is basically legitimized RMT. A subscription fee, which Pantheon will have, also helps. Chat channel restrictions on the first 10 levels of the game helps. Trade limiting helps. Strong chat filters help.
You can't fix it 100% but you can get damn close.
The OP is right, and those things are my biggest fears.
But fear not, there are solutions to all those things. I could intorduce some simple game mechanics that would thwart most of that, but I think the biggest step the MMORPG industry can take towards hackers is a new Player's EULA..! One that give the Developers more control of closing accounts, or banning. Plus a stricter EULA could allow for a root kit, that simply won't allow Pantheon to boot, if you install hack programs.
A new EULA can make VRi rich on all the people paying $50 bucks for the game, and getting banned from it. After getting stung a few times, these gold farmers will simply move on to more profitable games.
Additionally, Pantheon will have GMs and Guides, there are too many oldguard here, to not want this level of premium gameplay and service. And with a player network of fair players, it won't be hard to spot and remove cancer from our society and police most of this away... but we all must sign the right EULA. That is the key.
I have always wondered if player shaming would be an effective way to reduce the impact of gold farming... SO - 1) Ban the sellers... but 2) On a monthly basis, put a link of players who have purchased gold on the login splash screen.
I'm mostly not serious about the idea - but I know that there are probably a LOT more people who buy gold than who would actively admit they buy gold. I can't imagine the thought process of "Man, if I buy gold - everyone will know!"
EQ had those, and its 15 years later, so point being? -Its in every game :( new gen games also have too many admin tool type Injectors these days.
@OP You sound like a minime or i am minime of you. We are both exactly in the same field and we both came from the same games and transpired the same directions.
I thouhgt hey did i post that?? lol
@GM program? i am all in favor of it, and support it. I also would love to help out as a reporter, but in no way would i want to be a GM or guide with admin tools to ruin my gaming. I have been an admin in my arma 3 server, ark, rust, etc.. and i am sick to death of it ruining my gaming. I like to play it normally and hardcore. If i die i die, i want no tools to jump me from one location to another.
No wonder why GM's and guides die off, even the devs get bored of it. I can see what they are going through. It really ruins you fun.
Hieromonk said:A new EULA can make VRi rich on all the people paying $50 bucks for the game, and getting banned from it. After getting stung a few times, these gold farmers will simply move on to more profitable games.
You may be underestimating the profit margins found in reselling virtual currencies. Spending tens of thousands of dollars on accounts and subscriptions is nothing but a line item at the end of the year. Many of these operations bring in multimillions USD from a single semi-popular game. I've lived in China on and off over the last decade and once I've seen a tiny outfit being run in the backroom of a China Mobile reseller shop in Guangdong province, in a room not much larger than a closet, it had two guys running what looked to be a few dozen WoW accounts across a half dozen monitors. This is a drop in the bucket to the larger operations running out there.
It sounds kind of cynical, but if Pantheon should ever reach a point where RMT companies feel it's worth "expanding their business" here, it would be because there's a vibrant/active enough community to make it worth their while. In a round-about way, that would be a good sign for how well Pantheon's doing... but with horrible consequences.
That said, while having an effective and adequately efficient enough gold-farmer/bot banning system in place is crucial, I would love to see MMO devs take a harder stance on the root of the problem - the people buying it. RMT companies remain in these games, and continue to buy new accounts because there's a demand. If there's no demand, they can't do business, and they go away.
In short: Track down the buyers, take the gold they bought out of their account, and give them temp bans the first time. After that, a permanent ban. No third chances.
RMT companies have the income to justify buying more and more keys as they get banned. An actual player? Not likely.
And devs can track this stuff. If you've seen the yearly census type things many will do, where they break down everything in the game into charts and graphs... you see it. I know in FFXIV, they actually track how many times people have said "Yoshida!" (apparently an in-joke). They can track transactions. They can track what characters are out there constantly, farming gold, who it's being transferred to as a "distributor", and what players it's being then delivered to.
They absolutely can do this.
Temp/Perm Banning players, and being unforgiving about it (their house, their rules), I think will go a great distance further in curbing the problem. As with anything, you deal with the cause, not the symptom. Player demand is the cause. RMT/Botters are the symptom. And when players inevitably try to appeal by saying "I have no choice but to buy gold because the devs make it too slow to get things done, so I'm forced to buy gold", just tell them to shove a sock in it, take some personal responsibility, and stop with the disingenuous victim nonsense. Not liking the pace of a game is not an excuse to ignore its rules - again, their house, their rules.
In the meantime, there are ways to curb or almost entirely squelch the spam and such. I don't know how they do it, but in the many months I've played both GW2 and ESO, I've seen maybe one gold spam in either of them. So can it be done? Yes, apparently, it can... and without going overboard on restricting legit players.
Meanwhile, in FFXIV, I have to use a 3rd party filter to stop them from spamming my chat box. I hate having to resort to 3rd party apps, but SE's not doing anything to combat it, beyond token bannings every so often to calm the frustrated masses for a little while. When I can see the same level 1 character with a jumbled mess of a non-name, standing in the same populated spot, right out in the open, for all to see, jumping up and down every 20 seconds, and spamming the local chat for days in a row, even after being reported, don't tell me you "take RMT seriously and are doing everything you can to combat it", because you're lying, straight up. That's the situation, on every server, in every city, in FFXIV, and it annoys the hell out of me.
As far as players botting, again, I hope VR takes a hard stance against this, and is equally strict in terms of temp and then perm bans.
Don't go soft on it. Don't use kid gloves. The guilty will complain and run to game forums claiming they were unfairly banned "for doing nothing wrong", while being very evasive when asked to provide more details of what they were actually accused of. The legit players will know better.
Many people in other MMOs have seen my perspective as being "too harsh" and "unfair"; some get extremely defensive aboutit. All I can ever think when I see that is "I wonder how much of their progress is bought, botted, or both?".
If I come across as bitter, well.. I am lol. I cannot stand RMT and Botters, or anything in that same ballpark (hacking, exploiting, etc).
On the point of the Kronos thing,.. i actually like that idea.
Loved it in Eve and love it in every game that now starts offering it. There are plenty of rich players that can spend more money / month and plenty that can't. If person x is paying my sub for some Gold? Why not. Yes it is RMT, but without and third party. It is not differend then when my mom paid my sub 17 years ago. I did the dishes, she paid my sub.
Nowadays i can farm some Gold and someone else pays my sub. The economy does not change at all. If i spend that Gold, or he spends the gold... it is exactly the same amount of gold.
Usually the Publsiher wins as well, since those Kronos like things are 25% more expsneive then a normal sub as well. So everyone wins but the grey market.
Raidan said: Except Kronos can hurt the game once someone buys 20 kronos to trade for raid level items while being level 1. It's still a form of pay to win.
Absolutely, I really hope we do not see a similar system as PLEX in game. Played Eve on and off since 2004, and the PLEX system really changed the dynamics of the market and the top corps dropped serious money to stay competitive (great for the devs, not so much for the players IMO).
On the flip side, what keeps the owners/creators of the game on the high moral ground?
Kind of like the difference between an amateur and a professional. The professional does it for money, the amateur does it for love - hence the two sided meaning behind the joke "all parents are amateurs" not only referencing the inexperience, but also the love.
When a corporate MMO owner started paying for top raid guild leaders accomodation at conventions because of the money said guilds were making on RMT, some would not call that corruption but rather good business sense; who knew the money that could be made in a secondary market in MMO's?.
Or even MMO's that have not yet been created.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
*edited*