Here is Mark on the subject

"Mark Jacobs made a post in response to question of RMT;

Folks,

Gee, apparently there has been a miscommunication somewhere along the line, I don't hate the companies that trade in gold selling against the wishes of the developers. Nope, I really don't. I despise them, loathe them, detest them with every fiber of my being. WAR is coming and you can read that anyway you want to.

Back in my first MUD (Aradath in the mid 80s), if a player broke the rules I would occasionally hold a "trial" and then mete out punishment. Maybe we should do something like that for WAR, only no trial and lots of punishment. Mel Brooks had it right in History of the World Part I (" have no regard for the peasants? They are my people! I am their sovereign! I love them. Pull!" and the peasant going flying up into the air). Wouldn't that be a nice way to treat the sellers? Characters flying into the air and being shot it by players for gold. Turnabout is fair play and fun eh?

Mark "

Will they be thinking about this when it comes time to Issue free trials and such? Make a seperate zone and stuff for them and lvl caps and some trade ,chat restrictions?
 

If he's being literal, it sounds like he's going down the Star Wars Galaxies lane of making gold sellers kill on sight. It doesn't make much sense to me as they would still be able to spam tells, and the spammers probably aren't the characters with the gold so there's no point being able to loot them.

...and in worst case scenario it could turn into "pay me 10 dolla and you can kill me untill you have lotso gold".

On the other hand he could be figurative, meaning they'll do what everyone else is doing, which is trying to stop RMT by banning accounts left and right. And which is pretty useless as these guys are making more than enough money both through RMT and through credit card scams to buy new accounts. New accounts, which bring profit to the MMO owner btw *tinfoil hat moment*

The only way to beat RMT is to have a free item system like PlanetSide, where there is no ingame credits and everything you need can be aquired, but that wouldn't fit into any MMORPG I can think of off the top of my head.

Overall I'm not a market-whore, achievement chaser or item hog so I could care less for inflaction and RMT, but his colourful reply sparked enough interest to comment here :P

I'm sure he was speaking figuratively. He just wanted to stress how much gold sellers disgust him. One of the reasons I love Mark.

Despite all of this, i would say its nearly impossible to stop all gold selling, every other popular MMO has it and WAR will be no different wait a couple of weeks after release and you will be able to purchase currency from some RMT company. And the spamming will start as well, at the end of the day its OUR FAULT the players that buy the gold really, we make it so its actually profitable to just get a couple of accounts spam the hell out of it and get banned.

The only way to for these companies to make a loss while getting banned is if people dont buy currency but that wont happen.

didn't they hire an outside company (punkbuster) to deal with gold selling scumbags or is it just hackers and such?

Well with his distaste for RMT you better think twice before participating in RMT, that's for sure!  I'm sure they will be banning accounts left and right to preserve the integrity of WAR. 

Talk is cheap. No developer wants their economy screwed up and game flooded with farmers, yet they are evrywhere aren't they?

Dark Age of Camelot was a huge game for RMT.

Time will tell. But I doubt they will keep the game from this market.

If you have played the game, and you can tell me one reason why you would EVER need to buy gold in this game then I will call you a liar.

The only problem I can see is powerleveling but the game is more fun than any other MMO from the start to finish and missing out on that would just be stupid.

Originally posted by abyss610

didn't they hire an outside company (punkbuster) to deal with gold selling scumbags or is it just hackers and such?

Yes punkbuster will be in-game.

Originally posted by ProfRed

If you have played the game, and you can tell me one reason why you would EVER need to buy gold in this game then I will call you a liar.

The only problem I can see is powerleveling but the game is more fun than any other MMO from the start to finish and missing out on that would just be stupid.

No, you're not a fanboy,

But, is there gold in the game?  What do you do with it?  Obviously if you make everything 'bind on pickup', and only let the players buy things from vendors with their RVR points, then it would limit gold sellers.

The game companies really don't mind gold sellers. What they mind is the spammers.

Untill the lazy bastards that buy ingame currency or power leveling stop doing it there isnt much anyone can do about it. The only thing we can hope Mythic does well is keep the spamming/mail-spam ect to a minimum.

Its always going to be there, its always going to be anoying and expecting a Developer to be able to squash it 100% is retarted, it just wont happen.

Add in that any MMO worth a damn had an economy, most MMO's have some sort of leveling system ect there will always be the lazy bastards to pay for this stuff.

Originally posted by grimfall

Originally posted by ProfRed

If you have played the game, and you can tell me one reason why you would EVER need to buy gold in this game then I will call you a liar.

The only problem I can see is powerleveling but the game is more fun than any other MMO from the start to finish and missing out on that would just be stupid.

 

No, you're not a fanboy,

But, is there gold in the game?  What do you do with it?  Obviously if you make everything 'bind on pickup', and only let the players buy things from vendors with their RVR points, then it would limit gold sellers.

The game companies really don't mind gold sellers. What they mind is the spammers.

Game comanies mind the fact the gold sellers destroy the economy to the point where it becomes literally impossible for new players to join the game. However, it sounds like this won't be the case in WAR, as you can all the equipment you need simply by fighting.

Originally posted by rav3n2

Despite all of this, i would say its nearly impossible to stop all gold selling, every other popular MMO has it and WAR will be no different wait a couple of weeks after release and you will be able to purchase currency from some RMT company. And the spamming will start as well, at the end of the day its OUR FAULT the players that buy the gold really, we make it so its actually profitable to just get a couple of accounts spam the hell out of it and get banned.

The only way to for these companies to make a loss while getting banned is if people dont buy currency but that wont happen.

They are easy to spot and verify.. People just need to report them . It's easy ast 1, 2, 3 to ban accounts of gold sellers if they pursue them vigorously.

If hes not going to attack the gold BUYERS then he might as well stop wasting his time.

Mark designed a game with levels, where gear will make or break you.  He also included gold and item trading.

A virtual RMT / Powerleveling company paradise.

Originally posted by grimfall

Originally posted by ProfRed

If you have played the game, and you can tell me one reason why you would EVER need to buy gold in this game then I will call you a liar.

The only problem I can see is powerleveling but the game is more fun than any other MMO from the start to finish and missing out on that would just be stupid.

 

No, you're not a fanboy,

But, is there gold in the game?  What do you do with it?  Obviously if you make everything 'bind on pickup', and only let the players buy things from vendors with their RVR points, then it would limit gold sellers.

The game companies really don't mind gold sellers. What they mind is the spammers.

You are right I am not a fanboy.  My point is that if you have played the game you know that you earn enough gold to keep yourself up to date as you play with very little effort.  There is very little economy and reliance on bought items so there is very little need to ever buy gold.  There just won't be a market for it. 

Easy Fix..

Trial accounts cannot trade, send tells, or use open chat, nor may they use the mail system.

periodically, a dev will do an internet search for Warhammer Gold in google.  They will then buy gold via a prepaid debit card.  When the account with the gold gives them whatever.. they will refute the charges and ban the account.  As well as any account that that account has interacted with via trading (the computer must record gold trades by this account in sums of 1 over a period of time.) Anything over 15 trades in a week is flagged and watched.  This is strictly gold trades.

Originally posted by AranStormah

If he's being literal, it sounds like he's going down the Star Wars Galaxies lane of making gold sellers kill on sight. It doesn't make much sense to me as they would still be able to spam tells, and the spammers probably aren't the characters with the gold so there's no point being able to loot them.

...and in worst case scenario it could turn into "pay me 10 dolla and you can kill me untill you have lotso gold".

On the other hand he could be figurative, meaning they'll do what everyone else is doing, which is trying to stop RMT by banning accounts left and right. And which is pretty useless as these guys are making more than enough money both through RMT and through credit card scams to buy new accounts. New accounts, which bring profit to the MMO owner btw *tinfoil hat moment*

The only way to beat RMT is to have a free item system like PlanetSide, where there is no ingame credits and everything you need can be aquired, but that wouldn't fit into any MMORPG I can think of off the top of my head.

Overall I'm not a market-whore, achievement chaser or item hog so I could care less for inflaction and RMT, but his colourful reply sparked enough interest to comment here :P

yeah its pointless there will always be gold sellers because it sells. And what sells is sold. They only reason why the Devs hate them is because they create inflation in the game and they dont get a piece of the pie hehe.

1) Don't have the option of trial accounts.

2) Block messages from characters that aren't above level 10 or in their appropiate level zone. Guild chat and people who've added you to their buddy lists will be exempt from this.

3) Ban the accout of gold sellers at first offence.

4) Ban people who buy gold at first offence.

5) Use the soulbound system.

6) Make character development less dependant on gold and other farmable re-sellable ingame items.

- I can assure you, that if steps 1-6 were taken then gold selling really wouldn't be an issue.

or how about:

1. Make gold non-transferable

The only way to get rid of gold farmers in an MMO is to either have the currency be worthless (CoX pre-Issue 9 invention system) or allow for no player trading (Won't ever happen, removes a huge chunk of why people play MMOs). As long as both of these exist in an MMO, there will be a profit made from the selling of in game currency and gold farmers will be in said game because you know the players won't ever stop buying it. That is the true cause of the recent outburst of gold spamming. When I was playing EQ from 1999 to 2001, gold spam didn't exist. It was very rare as well when I was playing DAoC for a few years. The best we can hope for is a minimization of the annoyance factor.

They could limit the amount of gold given from drops and make quests give a decent amount of gold when you do them as reward.. This would stop "farming" but wouldn't hamper the amount of money one could earn. The real good ones could be public quests and non repeatables... Make it more profitable to actually have to quest than to sit in an area and kill and kill and kill for gold...

Personally, I think it'd be beautiful irony if all the gold that a caught farmer was redistributed among all characters.  Sure this would net people probably only a few coins each, but the message would be clear.

Originally posted by Vyeth

This would stop "farming" but wouldn't hamper the amount of money one could earn. The real good ones could be public quests and non repeatables... Make it more profitable to actually have to quest than to sit in an area and kill and kill and kill for gold...

Thought about that. Would the gold farmers risk being banned if they "camp" the public quests?  Would you report a bunch of characters named "NWQsddasd" that keep the PQ area nude as a baby's butt by clearing the area relentlessly? They would sell the item drops in auction ( if they are not bound on pickup).

I think they would go the crafting route. Because that is a money sink. That is where you may need cash. I am not sure how the skills / tactics scale in costs as you reach 40. Also the cost of Respecialization..

Originally posted by fansede

Originally posted by Vyeth

This would stop "farming" but wouldn't hamper the amount of money one could earn. The real good ones could be public quests and non repeatables... Make it more profitable to actually have to quest than to sit in an area and kill and kill and kill for gold...

 

Thought about that. Would the gold farmers risk being banned if they "camp" the public quests?  Would you report a bunch of characters named "NWQsddasd" that keep the PQ area nude as a baby's butt by clearing the area relentlessly? They would sell the item drops in auction ( if they are not bound on pickup).

I think they would go the crafting route. Because that is a money sink. That is where you may need cash. I am not sure how the skills / tactics scale in costs as you reach 40. Also the cost of Respecialization..

And since public quests usually have very tough bosses and reset timers, trying to "farm" them would be quite the task if there are level caps on zones, it would really take an army of gold farmers to repeatedly take down a public quest boss and all of its minions in each phase..  The timer would make this process very very sloow and force these farmers to compete with other legit players who undoubtedly would still get a great share and some loot in most cases.. I'd say do this (lower mob gold drop rates and increase quest rewards) and stand back and taunt gold sellers to sell some gold..  and while they are farming, Tom over here is enjoying his double cash stash from doing the quests all over the map.

I dont remember seeing a bank in this game, correct me if im wrong, so there must not be much of a reason to worry about having millions of coins on your character?

Some people say WAR gameplay is less reliant on ingame currency compared to other games.
 

But what about mounts? A big investment and reason to save or grind gold in most mmo's. In one of the vids I saw, I heard a number of 35ish gold being mentioned, if I recall correctly. Wouldn't that be an opportunity for goldsellers either?

Personally I think it's an outright shame that developers are being forced to make their gameplay less reliant on ingame currency and economy because of goldsellers. I have to admit that I really enjoyed 'amassing wealth' in the mmo's I played so far and being able to buy that mount as soon as it is available and have some gold to burn for a few fancy BoE's as well. Being a smart trader or knowing where and how to get the most profit, even if that means hours of grinding, really appeals to me. I know, it's sick :P (But maybe the most important reason why I would never, ever even consider buying gold; I want to earn it MYSELF dammit, it's a FUN part of the game to me!).

That is why it saddens me that dev's would consider limiting good BoE gear or other improvements which are available to those who worked and thought hard to earn the required amount of gold and thus limiting one of the (many) fun aspects of a good MMO.

MMO's are all about freedom. This also means freedom to earn gold on the way you please and on a rate only limited by your own commitment , commercial deviousness and the healthiness of the game's economy. I sincerely hope WAR will have a substantial number of meta targets to meet with my future characters bankroll and that they will just fight gold selling and buying without limiting the fun for honest players.

p.s. First post! I've been leeching for far too long on these boards ;-)