Buying and Selling "Runs"

[plushiesoda.8150]

Deleted in protest of anet leaving support ticket #7495730 without answer since October 10th 2019. It's sad how if this were a money-related issue you'd have answered within a couple of hours. At this point I'm not even mad, but disappointed by the mediocrity displayed by your community managers.

[Blue.1207]

The fact that run selling regarding RMT isnt an instant PERMABAN is disgusting. PvP titles and rewards were already made meaningless when it was made public that wintrading wasn't disallowed to a bannable/title strippable degree by anet. Now this? PvE titles are now meaningless.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> > @"Dzjudz.9142" said:

> > Maybe you're not aware, but this is not a change in any policy.

 

> @"KIRPAT.2194" said:

> And my stance on that subject is, "This is wrong!"

That's unfortunate, since it's been the company's policy for over 10 years.

 

 

> @"KIRPAT.2194" said:

> What Anet just did was, "We don't care, officially."

Maybe you're not aware, but this is not a change any the official policy. It's just a restatement of their official position.

 

[Haleydawn.3764]

> @"Blue.1207" said:

> The fact that run selling regarding RMT isnt an instant PERMABAN is disgusting. PvP titles and rewards were already made meaningless when it was made public that wintrading wasn't disallowed to a bannable/title strippable degree by anet. Now this? PvE titles are now meaningless.

 

Weren’t all accounts involved in a not so recent fiasco of buying MT wins banned from taking part in Leagues and MT permanently? Can’t remember if rewards were stripped though. This was an account-sharing thing though.

As far as I’m aware, win trading is actionable, yet buying a raid or fractal “win” is not. Seems hypocritical imo, but I’m not making the rules here.

 

I guess punishments vary and depends on the reward you’re buying. /shrug.

[Amerikajinn.4635]

> @"Haleydawn.3764" said:

> > @"Blue.1207" said:

> > The fact that run selling regarding RMT isnt an instant PERMABAN is disgusting. PvP titles and rewards were already made meaningless when it was made public that wintrading wasn't disallowed to a bannable/title strippable degree by anet. Now this? PvE titles are now meaningless.

>

> Weren’t all accounts involved in a not so recent fiasco of buying MT wins banned from taking part in Leagues and MT permanently? Can’t remember if rewards were stripped though. This was an account-sharing thing though.

> As far as I’m aware, win trading is actionable, yet buying a raid or fractal “win” is not. Seems hypocritical imo, but I’m not making the rules here.

>

> I guess punishments vary and depends on the reward you’re buying. /shrug.

 

That is no where near a valid comparison. Buying wins in what is effectively a competition is not comparable to buying a spot in a raiding party; but if one were to use that logic then everyone that has ever portal'd a jump puzzle should also be banned for making it "meaningless". If that's how you're going to view it then I guess it is just as well you're not the one making the rules.

[Hawken.7932]

> @"KIRPAT.2194" said:

>

> And my stance on that subject is, "This is wrong!"

> What Anet just did was, "We don't care, officially."

 

I guess more likely they get a lot of tickets from people getting scammed by sellers or they anticipate having to take action against people involved in fraud, so they’re giving everyone fair warning. Again.

[Haleydawn.3764]

> @"Amerikajinn.4635" said:

> That is no where near a valid comparison. Buying wins in what is effectively a competition is not comparable to buying a spot in a raiding party.

 

You buy the rewards, the means to get them is just different. It just so happens that PvP is based on wins, the only difference is those affect other players. You pay for rewards that otherwise you probably wouldn’t earn regardless.

 

>but if one were to use that logic then everyone that has ever portal'd a jump puzzle should also be banned for making it "meaningless".

 

A huge difference between helping players, and players giving ‘tips’ without prompt optionally, to putting a price on raid kills/PvP wins. I’ve never seen a set price for portals, nor have I ever felt the need or pressure to tip for one either (though it’s me helping guildies with my own Mesmer)

 

 

 

Though I’m sure we can all agree what we consider ok and what isn’t, these sellers obviously think what they do is ok. Anet has clarified selling is ok, but not supported. As it’s always been. Sell at your own risk, always expect RMT funds to be removed. Always. If you can’t guarantee the gold you’re receiving is from legitimate sourcing (by playing or buying gems), then you shouldn’t be surprised if gold is removed because a player bought cheap gold from 3rd parties, and used it to buy overpriced kills for rewards.

 

 

This problem wouldn’t exist if players actually liked helping players, and wasn’t too picky for KP or training people, instead of taking advantage of the fact they can link LI or CE.

 

[ChillAxE.5107]

> @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> If we investigate a transfer and establish that funds originated from fraud or RMT, we will take action against all parties involved. That action, depending on the situation, could include removal of funds, account suspension, and/or account termination.

By this logic alone, one can be labeled guilty by someone just sending you gold or items. Sure you can argue "don't accept the mail, send it back" but then again, what would the steps be if it happened during a Secret Toymaker for example or when you give a friendly portal or some advice and the player sends you 1 gold as a tip? Can I get a strike against my account for accepting a gift mail in all cases and why is this considered a good action to take? Rather you should go after the ones doing the transfer and don't ruin the day of innocent people who got affected. If the RMT purchase made an impact on the economy due to someone using it to buy a run, send a gift or buy something from the trading post, etc. then you should instead focus more efforts in hindering the buyers of RMT, rather than go after any and all affected.

One more question: how big of a gold impact does a trade/transfer have to be in order to be considered material enough to get taken action against? Would a 1 gold transfer from potential RMT trade also implicate the person who received the gold? Does it have to be 10 gold, 50 gold, 100 gold? This is important, since the restriction of sending more than a few mails at a time will already dissuade many people from using RMT goods via small amounts at a time.

 

[Bloodstealer.5978]

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > > @"Dzjudz.9142" said:

> > > Maybe you're not aware, but this is not a change in any policy.

>

> > @"KIRPAT.2194" said:

> > And my stance on that subject is, "This is wrong!"

> That's unfortunate, since it's been the company's policy for over 10 years.

>

>

> > @"KIRPAT.2194" said:

> > What Anet just did was, "We don't care, officially."

> Maybe you're not aware, but this is not a change any the official policy. It's just a restatement of their official position.

>

 

Where did Kirpat.2194 state it was a change in policy, all I saw was an opinion on ANET making this official statement or restatement.

It might be something they have officially not cared about for 10 years or more.

I officially disliked it in GW1, doesn't make it any more officially great for GW2

 

At best it reeks of double standards and worst, like Kirpat said.. shows that they simply do not care.

[HyperLooser.2698]

this is what all META leads to in mmorpgs these days. All that control of endgame, those who don't become robotic META slaves, have to pay all they have to run endgame content. And all devs just feed it further, cuz money is everything. Oh well, good thing GW2 still has lots stuff to do, which meta mindset can't destroy yet.

[Faaris.8013]

@"Wanze.8410" What about other services? I send gold to people who organize HP runs, I payed a lot to someone who brought a group up to the end of the Chalice of Tears JP within 7 minutes. In general, I don't think that's a bad thing. The difference to raid sellers is mostly that these people don't set prices. They usually just ask for a donation, if at all, and you decide what the service is worth for you. It's again, a people thing. Players who organize things in open world are a different kind than raiders. Even between fractal players and raiders is a difference. You rarely see people selling fractals, but what you see sometimes is people carrying newbies. More than once I have seen players putting up an LFG at Tier 1 to invite newbies to a T4 fractal they do with 3 or 4 people, just to give loot to the low Tier players. I often do Nightmare at T1 and invite all classes and newbies because I remember how difficult it was for me to level fractals when I started. All these players just do it to help and for fun.

 

And then there are raiders. I have never heard of a static group that does all wings weekly inviting someone random because one of their members couldn't join. They are absolutely able to do a raid with 9 people or less, just like you can do T4 fractals with 3 people. While the fractal players are often willing to carry and help out, raiders sell the spot. You can change the system, but not the people.

[Jason.5983]

> @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

 

> - Second, after digging into the origins of the funds involved in large transfers, we learned that almost all of them were directly involved in some form of Fraud and/or RMT. Obviously, Fraud is disallowed, and Real Money Trading (RMT) is absolutely against the rules.

>

 

Except if we buy it directly from you...right?

 

I think my issue more goes to why people would be spending so much real money, to obtain gold in a game, to pay for a run.

Seems like the issue is that gold is not easily obtained?

 

Aka, arbitrary values of items and rewards are too disproportionate. I feel this mostly occurred from the nerf in Dungeon liquid rewards.

 

 

--- What your research really uncovers, is that it is only people who can afford to pay real money for gold in the game, who deem it worthy to pay such a high price for these runs.

 

PPS.. the nature of it is fairly obvious. If they are paying so much for a raid run, they want the best price they can get. The Black market naturally offers cut-throat prices. There is nothing you can do about that, aside from address the attainability of gold and the disproportionate values of items in the game, thereby dissauding high risk-reward through what I would discern is the reverse psychology effect. Instead of most things being on a pedestal, they would be attainable in game, in a reasonable amount of time.

[Faaris.8013]

@"Jason.5983" This has nothing to do with how hard or easy it is to get gold in this game. If it was twice as easy, prices would just double. It's incredibly easy to get gold in this game in my opinion.

[Malediktus.9250]

> @"Solvar.7953" said:

> > @"Malediktus.9250" said:

> > I am not a "run" seller, but I think it is outrageous that you can get punished for accepting gold or items that a 3rd party bought and paid you with (as long as you accepted it in good faith and there was no clear evidience of it being RMT stuff)

>

> Try that in real life. Buy stolen property with no idea it was stolen - if later discovered it was stolen, it will be returned to the proper owner and you will not be compensated. Likewise, if you sold something and the person paid with a check that you thought was legitimate (but really forged/stolen), you are likely out of that money. So the ArenaNet policy is matching what does happen in the real world.

> The risk here increases with the price. If a run is being sold for 5g, likelihood of that gold being illegal gotten is low (since it isn't much), and even if it is, you are not out much if it is taken away. However, if the charge is 100 gold, both of those change.

> I suspect some of this policy is that gold farmers/fraudsters are moving money around on the basis 'it was a paid raid run'. So now 100 gold (or more) of improperly gained gold becomes legitimate gold in the system, so Anet had to do something about it.

>

Since Anet has infinite access to all the data, it is not the fault of the run sellers if they get RMT gold/items. They could easily feed an AI with all the data they accumulate and block the gold before it reaches another player. Something that obviously is not possible in real life since you can move money without authorities keeping track of it, but even then I think the real life authorities are wrong to take away money you received as a payment for your work just because it was from shady sources.

[sebstn.8962]

> @"mercury ranique.2170" said:

> Thanks for the heads up. Some part I am missing is about the grieving involved in getting to a point to sell a run. There are reports of people in party being kicked shortly before the end , just to see the run being sold on the LFG. What is the stance on this? I would perosnally say that if a partymember was kicked it would become unethical to sell the run.

 

You cant kick anyone out of a raid if your group is infight, theres is no option for that to do so.

[Jason.5983]

> @"Faaris.8013" said:

> @"Jason.5983" This has nothing to do with how hard or easy it is to get gold in this game. If it was twice as easy, prices would just double. It's incredibly easy to get gold in this game in my opinion.

 

IF anything were to double as a result of a change in the attainability of gold (or twice as easy), it would be the amount of gold received through RWT or gem-gold conversions, since the value of gold (RWT-values the most easily highlighted/perceived) would be reduced as a result. However, someone could easily assume that would result in Arenanet losing money equal to the reduction in the value of gold relative to gem sales and prices, though it is not the case; one basic reason being, if one gets more for their money, consumer interest is higher, ergo more sales.

 

I more inferred that the gold attainable in a certain time limit is not realistic when contrasted to the price of the majority of items (raid runs included for purposes of this thread). Why would anyone be surprised that RWT'ing occurs when the player realises they likely won't play long enough over many more years to farm the gold through the game (through various methods), in order to buy the vast amount of things any player would end up wanting. We can exclude raid selling for money here, since it's somewhat blatant that Arenanet would not agree with the prices being paid, let alone the source of gold.

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"Yasi.9065" said:

> Id really love to have a sub-category for selling/buying/advertising in raid lfg. Not only as a normal player, but also for my guild advertisements. Maybe Anet could change the sadly underused "looking for group" part of the raid lfg into an "other" sub-category?

As it's clear from their announcement, while they don't consider raid selling to be actionable offense, it's not something they want to support in any way. Thus i doubt they'd be willing to do a tab for those purposes. It would constitute a tacit approval, after all.

 

> @"Dzjudz.9142" said:

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" :

>

> > If the buy accepts a super high price, be prepared to end up with nothing.

>

> What is a super high price? For example, on NA the raid sell prices are much higher than on EU. Also, on EU at least, there is lots of competition, so the market kind of corrects itself. If there weren't buyers for prices, the prices would go down. Don't tell me every single buyer of the dozens of buyers every day are using RMT to obtain their funds.

Apparently, by Anet statistics, enough of them do that it may get dangerous for the sellers.

 

> @"Gaarik.6804" said:

> Thus the solution : make raids harder so that it ll be impossible to sell.

If you do that, a huge majority of current raiders won't be able to do them as well, and you will be left only with several top tier groups in the raid community.

I'm sure it will do wonders on the longevity of the content.

 

> @"Swagger.1459" said:

> Perhaps Anet could use some of that $87,000,000 earned from last year to do the right thing through difficulty setting. It would certainly disincentiving buying and selling content, and start incentivising more players to get involved with end game content.

You really, really don't want to see that. A run that can't be lowmanned by _any_ group is a run that is impossible to do by a huge majority of raiders. That would drop the potential customer base for that content miles below sustainability level. And if you just make the fights more difficult without going that far, all you accomplish will be higher raid sell prices.

 

[Swagger.1459]

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > @"Yasi.9065" said:

> > Id really love to have a sub-category for selling/buying/advertising in raid lfg. Not only as a normal player, but also for my guild advertisements. Maybe Anet could change the sadly underused "looking for group" part of the raid lfg into an "other" sub-category?

> As it's clear from their announcement, while they don't consider raid selling to be actionable offense, it's not something they want to support in any way. Thus i doubt they'd be willing to do a tab for those purposes. It would constitute a tacit approval, after all.

>

> > @"Dzjudz.9142" said:

> > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" :

> >

> > > If the buy accepts a super high price, be prepared to end up with nothing.

> >

> > What is a super high price? For example, on NA the raid sell prices are much higher than on EU. Also, on EU at least, there is lots of competition, so the market kind of corrects itself. If there weren't buyers for prices, the prices would go down. Don't tell me every single buyer of the dozens of buyers every day are using RMT to obtain their funds.

> Apparently, by Anet statistics, enough of them do that it may get dangerous for the sellers.

>

> > @"Gaarik.6804" said:

> > Thus the solution : make raids harder so that it ll be impossible to sell.

> If you do that, a huge majority of current raiders won't be able to do them as well, and you will be left only with several top tier groups in the raid community.

> I'm sure it will do wonders on the longevity of the content.

>

> > @"Swagger.1459" said:

> > Perhaps Anet could use some of that $87,000,000 earned from last year to do the right thing through difficulty setting. It would certainly disincentiving buying and selling content, and start incentivising more players to get involved with end game content.

> You really, really don't want to see that. A run that can't be lowmanned by _any_ group is a run that is impossible to do by a huge majority of raiders. That would drop the potential customer base for that content miles below sustainability level. And if you just make the fights more difficult without going that far, all you accomplish will be higher raid sell prices.

>

 

What are you talking about?

 

Difficulty settings = group leader sets various levers for the group and then players play it.

 

There are zero negative repercussions for having difficulty setting, that other games have used for their content. Everybody does their own thing and plays the content how they want, and more players participate as a result... This would also cut out a bunch of selling/buying and rmt crap (that the devs need to waste time and resources finding).

 

[Jason.5983]

> @"Swagger.1459" said:

> There are zero negative repercussions for having difficulty setting, that other games have used for their content. Everybody does their own thing and plays the content how they want, and more players participate as a result... This would also cut out a bunch of selling/buying and rmt crap (that the devs need to waste time and resources finding).

>

 

It would not stop buying/selling of raids. Though it does open up the content to more participants, which I think is a good idea. Either that, or make Raid chests daily, with magnetite shards potentially still capped per week.

[Nick Lentz.6982]

> @"Oglaf.1074" said:

> Please update the LFG function to allow us who do not care for this practice at all to be able to filter LFG entires containing certain keywords (such as "Sell") out.

 

Yeah, we are going to need this if you plan to stand by this. I'm sick of seeing five sellers to one actual run.

[Zaklex.6308]

> @"Oglaf.1074" said:

> > @"DirtyDan.4759" said:

> > > @"Oglaf.1074" said:

> > > Please update the LFG function to allow us who do not care for this practice at all to be able to filter LFG entires containing certain keywords (such as "Sell") out.

> >

> > Why? If the filter will go live people will stop selling and start s3lling or $€lling.

>

> No they won't.

>

> They want to sell their services, not annoy people.

 

Except that's exactly what happened in GW1 when they tried filtering out words, people just changed the spelling...so it ended up being a waste of time.

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"Swagger.1459" said:

> What are you talking about?

>

> Difficulty settings = group leader sets various levers for the group and then players play it.

>

> There are zero negative repercussions for having difficulty setting, that other games have used for their content. Everybody does their own thing and plays the content how they want, and more players participate as a result... This would also cut out a bunch of selling/buying and rmt crap (that the devs need to waste time and resources finding).

>

Ah, that kind of difficulty settings. Yes, it would probably be a good idea, as it would open the doors to raids for more people. No, it would do nothing about raid selling, unless you were to offer everything raid buyers really pay for (which is not just playing the content, but rather rewards, titles and achievements) available also in lower difficulty modes.

 

[Swagger.1459]

> @"Jason.5983" said:

> > @"Swagger.1459" said:

> > There are zero negative repercussions for having difficulty setting, that other games have used for their content. Everybody does their own thing and plays the content how they want, and more players participate as a result... This would also cut out a bunch of selling/buying and rmt crap (that the devs need to waste time and resources finding).

> >

>

> It would not stop buying/selling of raids. Though it does open up the content to more participants, which I think is a good idea. Either that, or make Raid chests daily, with magnetite shards potentially still capped per week.

 

Correct. I had said “cut out a bunch”, didn’t assume it would be stopped.

 

I don’t have any problem with buying and selling raids, I take issue with rmt junk and the lack of difficulty settings. Anet has alienated portions of their playerbase, and loses some credit for not wanting to be inclusive, while continuing to greenlight buy and selling content.

 

[Ashen.2907]

> @"Zaklex.6308" said:

> > @"Oglaf.1074" said:

> > > @"DirtyDan.4759" said:

> > > > @"Oglaf.1074" said:

> > > > Please update the LFG function to allow us who do not care for this practice at all to be able to filter LFG entires containing certain keywords (such as "Sell") out.

> > >

> > > Why? If the filter will go live people will stop selling and start s3lling or $€lling.

> >

> > No they won't.

> >

> > They want to sell their services, not annoy people.

>

> Except that's exactly what happened in GW1 when they tried filtering out words, people just changed the spelling...so it ended up being a waste of time.

 

Different situation.

 

The filters in gw1 prevented anyone from seeing the post which meant that even interested customers could not see the advert. The alternate spellings were "necessary" for the seller and the interested buyer to find eachother.

 

Allowing those not interested in buying to filter out adverts, just for themselves, would not impact the ability of a seller to reach an interested buyer.

[Torolan.5816]

> @"Blue.1207" said:

> The fact that run selling regarding RMT isnt an instant PERMABAN is disgusting. PvP titles and rewards were already made meaningless when it was made public that wintrading wasn't disallowed to a bannable/title strippable degree by anet. Now this? PvE titles are now meaningless.

 

A PvE title was already as worthless as a PvP title when the first groups had the first raids on farm status and this whole mess began. It is indeed not fresh news, this is pretty old news with an official stamp on it.