New RMT Tactic?

[Max™]

Well, perhaps I should have said "New method to catch RMT's?"

Price histories were always telling things.

Now, you get things like This, This, and This.

Little circles of gear being swapped around, ah history cleared, new price set, and then they list the items.

Funnily, the actual sales are lower than what they're listing at apparently, because once they stop their trend with the price jacking, they aren't the next sales usually.

Hmmm, how would you phrase this for reporting it?

[Capo]

but they arent actually doing anything against the TOS ?

i know a lot of legit players who do this kind of thing as seen in this thread, the rmt just have the means to do it on a bigger scale than most people

[Max™]

Yeah, thats the problem, it's clear what they are, what they're doing, just wondering if this could be used as evidence to get an investigation on any other activities they might be doing.

[ringthree]

Yeah, thats the problem, it's clear what they are, what they're doing, just wondering if this could be used as evidence to get an investigation on any other activities they might be doing.

Even if you can't find what in the ToS they are violating, report them on POL because they are associated with RMT which is enough to get them banned.

[Venture]

The RMT thing is funny, in how SE chooses to combat it. Here you have FFXI, where SE tries to kill off every possible way of making lots of money, and it ends up not only depriving real players of money, but encourages RMT to work harder to produce the gil necessary to provide players who can't make enough gil in SE's restricted economy. It's hard as hell to be 'uber leet' in FFXI, which just drives the need for gil and rare drops even harder.

On the other side of the stick, you have Blizzard, who doesn't try to restrict player's income. Blizzard sanctions third-party programs like Gatherer, Auctioneer and Vendor Tooltips so you can pretty much do Rusty Cap 3.0 from level 1. Since it's easier to be 'uber leet' and get rare drops, RMT don't really have a niche to sell their money to, because everyone has it, or can get it easily. Crap gets Soulbound on pick-up, too, and can't be resold once picked up if it's good.

Just from playing both games at the same time, it really does seem like SE isn't doing themselves any favors in the battle against RMT by making 21-24 hour HNMs, and 10% rare drops. Harder and more tedious the game gets, the more RMT are going to find themselves a fertile breeding ground for their business. There's really no middle-ground here. Don't really see them able to eliminate RMT with a tight-assed economy. They could swing it the other way and run a uber-inflated, Rusty Cap economy, but they'd have to turn the tap up all the way so the players can have more money then the RMT do, which would kill FFXI as we know it.

Edit: I suppose I should add that Blizzard wouldn't have made their game like it was, if SE hadn't of come first. FFXI taught Blizzard what to do and not to do in their game. Whereas, hopefully, when SE's next MMO comes out, they learn from FFXI and WoW, and make a game that takes the strengths of previous games, and doesn't repeat the mistakes of previous incarnations. Kinda looking forward to the next SE MMO, because if they do hybrid what was good from FFXI, and fix or improve what was wrong with it, it should be one of the best MMOs of it's time.

[ringthree]

The RMT thing is funny, in how SE chooses to combat it. Here you have FFXI, where SE tries to kill off every possible way of making lots of money, and it ends up not only depriving real players of money, but encourages RMT to work harder to produce the gil necessary to provide players who can't make enough gil in SE's restricted economy. It's hard as hell to be 'uber leet' in FFXI, which just drives the need for gil and rare drops even harder.

On the other side of the stick, you have Blizzard, who doesn't try to restrict player's income. Blizzard sanctions third-party programs like Gatherer, Auctioneer and Vendor Tooltips so you can pretty much do Rusty Cap 3.0 from level 1. Since it's easier to be 'uber leet' and get rare drops, RMT don't really have a niche to sell their money to, because everyone has it, or can get it easily. Crap gets Soulbound on pick-up, too, and can't be resold once picked up if it's good.

Just from playing both games at the same time, it really does seem like SE isn't doing themselves any favors in the battle against RMT by making 21-24 hour HNMs, and 10% rare drops. Harder and more tedious the game gets, the more RMT are going to find themselves a fertile breeding ground for their business. There's really no middle-ground here. Don't really see them able to eliminate RMT with a tight-assed economy. They could swing it the other way and run a uber-inflated, Rusty Cap economy, but they'd have to turn the tap up all the way so the players can have more money then the RMT do, which would kill FFXI as we know it.

Edit: I suppose I should add that Blizzard wouldn't have made their game like it was, if SE hadn't of come first. FFXI taught Blizzard what to do and not to do in their game. Whereas, hopefully, when SE's next MMO comes out, they learn from FFXI and WoW, and make a game that takes the strengths of previous games, and doesn't repeat the mistakes of previous incarnations. Kinda looking forward to the next SE MMO, because if they do hybrid what was good from FFXI, and fix or improve what was wrong with it, it should be one of the best MMOs of it's time.

The only problem is that in WoW gold farming and buying is rampant and most players hate it. It's only game design that causes it to not have as much impact. A game that lets you bot the AH to make money has game-design issues too.

[Venture]

You only really hate and are affected by gold farming if you're poor in the first place. Which, being poor in WoW is difficult to do, considering having 1,000 gold by level 40 on your first character isn't that difficult. It's a different standard of players that set the viewpoint of gold farming in WoW. The majority of your WoWers aren't that smart in the first place. A FFXIer like myself can go over there and be Donald Trump, and see the goldfarming situation as laughable compared to how bad RMT have controlled FFXI.

On the other subject, the AH bot, Auctioneer, isn't necessarily sanctioned by Blizzard, but they're not doing anything about it, either. Everyone does it, so instead of a handful of people having a distinct advantage, everyone shares the same advantage, so it neutralizes it's effect on giving a few people more money then others who don't use it. Goldfarmers use it, too, but so do we, so it's not like: "ZOMG, RMT are cheating!" Everyone cheats. Fair playing field. If you're not using add-ons, mods, and Thottbot/WoWhead to improve your performance, you're behind the times.

[fantasticdan]

The only problem is that in WoW gold farming and buying is rampant and most players hate it. It's only game design that causes it to not have as much impact. A game that lets you bot the AH to make money has game-design issues too.

People bot(ed?) the auction house in FFXI too. IIRC there were programs that would just keep making low bids on things to try to buy them under average selling price, or at just absurdly low prices, which is pretty much the same thing. The only differences are, blizzard doesn't ban people using 3rd party addons, and it's a lot easier to get that kind of program running in the wow auction house due to the fact that the prices are visible to players(and bots.)

[Khamsin]

If you look at it another way, this could be interpreted as a form of money laundering, too. Maybe if they buy/sell the overpriced gear with a character that's not connected to any of the RMT farmers or traders, the gil will be safe from bans.

[Tej]

RMT have been doing this for several months on Alexander, but they all of a sudden stopped on August 27th after the update. I have no idea what happened, but the 30+ names have not done a single transaction since then. I first assumed their AH bots were broke, but now after this long, i think they got banned :D

[Max™]

Well, placed a GM call just to have it in the record. (asked him about Adaman Hauberk and BG too, he said he'd check it out, and blurple ah well.)

He saw it, said he would definitely have reported it had he noticed it himself, but since it isn't anything he has jurisdiction over, that the STF is all I can do.

Sent a report to the STF, hoping for the best.

[Norellicus]

You only really hate and are affected by gold farming if you're poor in the first place. Which, being poor in WoW is difficult to do, considering having 1,000 gold by level 40 on your first character isn't that difficult. It's a different standard of players that set the viewpoint of gold farming in WoW. The majority of your WoWers aren't that smart in the first place. A FFXIer like myself can go over there and be Donald Trump, and see the goldfarming situation as laughable compared to how bad RMT have controlled FFXI.

On the other subject, the AH bot, Auctioneer, isn't necessarily sanctioned by Blizzard, but they're not doing anything about it, either. Everyone does it, so instead of a handful of people having a distinct advantage, everyone shares the same advantage, so it neutralizes it's effect on giving a few people more money then others who don't use it. Goldfarmers use it, too, but so do we, so it's not like: "ZOMG, RMT are cheating!" Everyone cheats. Fair playing field. If you're not using add-ons, mods, and Thottbot/WoWhead to improve your performance, you're behind the times.

Auctioneer isn't a bot, it's a data miner, much like FFXIAH. You still have to watch the analyzed information to make effective decisions on buying/selling. I agree with your overall point though, it's definitely harder to notice the presence of RMT in WoW when compared to FFXI.

[ringthree]

You only really hate and are affected by gold farming if you're poor in the first place. Which, being poor in WoW is difficult to do, considering having 1,000 gold by level 40 on your first character isn't that difficult. It's a different standard of players that set the viewpoint of gold farming in WoW. The majority of your WoWers aren't that smart in the first place. A FFXIer like myself can go over there and be Donald Trump, and see the goldfarming situation as laughable compared to how bad RMT have controlled FFXI.

On the other subject, the AH bot, Auctioneer, isn't necessarily sanctioned by Blizzard, but they're not doing anything about it, either. Everyone does it, so instead of a handful of people having a distinct advantage, everyone shares the same advantage, so it neutralizes it's effect on giving a few people more money then others who don't use it. Goldfarmers use it, too, but so do we, so it's not like: "ZOMG, RMT are cheating!" Everyone cheats. Fair playing field. If you're not using add-ons, mods, and Thottbot/WoWhead to improve your performance, you're behind the times.

My point was that both games have the same problem, it just manifests itself different because of game design.

[Tej]

RMT have been doing this for several months on Alexander, but they all of a sudden stopped on August 27th after the update. I have no idea what happened, but the 30+ names have not done a single transaction since then. I first assumed their AH bots were broke, but now after this long, i think they got banned :D

Not even close, I can tell you exactly where they went.

Where might that be?

[Goddess]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corner_the_market

The collapse of Barings Bank, then the oldest merchant bank in the UK, was largely due to Nick Leeson's illegal attempt to prop up the Nikkei Index, building up a huge long position. Another recent example was that of Yasuo Hamanaka, who in 1996 attempted to corner the copper market, resulting in a loss of 1.8 billion dollars for the Sumitomo Corporation and an eight year prison sentence for Hamanaka.

wut?

[Spekkio]

oh, on a slightly related note, i found a pack of CGF tucked into a niche that the goblin bounty hunters don't patroll in valkurm. far west end of whitebone sands, there's a pocket between the trees and the rock wall that they don't investigate and about 3 cgf were holed up in there fishing shall shells. GM call resulted in nothing more than a form letter response of "wut?" decrying the lack of information (despite providing as much as possible in the short area provided for a GM call.) rather than pushing mobs down a beach and screwing up XP camps ineffectively, wouldn't just sending an invisible GM down the beach be more effective? it's not hard to tell who's the CGF there... SE's curing the illness by killing the patient, stagnating the economy and more in an attempt to save it.