The elephant in the room: Chinese players

[Marathon 9]

Now before we get the token "I have a single Chinese friend, therefore the experiences of a majority of those who play with them means nothing" guy comes in here, let's get this out in the open.

 

As you know, with any game, Chinese (and to and extent Russian) players tend to be a bit on the jankier side of the spectrum, with Chinese gold farmers/bots/exploiters a some what common occurrence, not just on private servers, but retail games as well. While not limited to WoW, The latest issue, using Nostalrius begins as an example, highlights a rather glaring issue, what will be done to curb the inevitable problems that come with Chinese players? Right now, *Censored server network name* has started implementing VPN bans on VPNs primarily employed by the gold selling bots and farmers, and while it has curbed the problem, it hasn't FIXED it.

 

As I said in the opening post, I don't care about a single person's experience with one or two Chinese players, as the sample data size for poor interaction with Chinese players against a majority of every online game is larger than the sample size of an individual. Steps should be taken to curtail issues that were seen on Nostalrius such as and not limited to:

 

*Market manipulation that lead to the absurd price of black lotus do to farming bots camping the nodes

*D saur spawns camped and actually patrolled by a Chinese "mafia" that worked both factions to ensure they had control over the Dsaur leather.

 

===============================

 

1. Indeed, a part of the Chinese did "win-trading" for a fee (payment) in the following manner:

a. They used one level 60 player in the opposing faction of the premade that they were boosting for a fee.

b. This level 60, usually a tank and played by a Chinese employee of the Chinese company that did premade honor boosting for a fee, joined the world channel which he used in order to find 5-man-groups-in-formation that were looking for a tank to do 5 man dungeons (Strat, Scholo, DM, etc).

c. As soon as he joined a 5 man group he spammed the leader of the group to be made the new group leader so that he could invite a healer friend of his to complete the group.

d. The leader of the 5 man group passed him leadership whereupon the Chinese converted the group to a raid and invited to the new raid his accomplice who stood right in front of a BG NPC.

e. The accomplice, also played by a Chinese employee of the Chinese company that sold boosts, immediately pressed the "Join As a Group" button at the same time notifying (via SKYPE) the leader of the premade which had paid for a boost on the opposite faction to press the same "Join As A Group" button.

f. As soon as the Chinese tank player and the accomplice joined the BG, usually AB so they can boost 15 ppl, they disbanded the raid.

g. The premade which had paid the Chinese Company for a boost found themselves inside AB versus two players, the Chinese Tank and the Chinese accomplice.

The Chinese company that sold premade boosts on Nostalrius to EU and US premades is the same three-lettered Chinese company that sells gold and personal character levelling services on this server.

The use of a three letter brand as their company name is to allude to the Chinese Triads.
================================================== ==================================

2. "Smoker" mentioned Black Lotus.

Black Lotus as well as herbs and high-end pots (e.g. elixir of the mongoose) and flasks (e.g. flask of attack power) were the resources that were controlled by the Chinese Raid Guilds who used the gold earned by their controlling the market to sell gold to the three Chinese Gold-Selling companies that worked on Nostalrius who then resold it to US and EU players.

Chinese Raid Guilds also worked as mafia organizations in the sense that the Raid Leader or one such Designated Person by the Guild Master collected all gold looted from Molten Core, Zul'Gurub, Blackwing Lair and Onyxia's Lair bosses. This tallies to several hundred gold per week.

I am not sure how they managed to do that, i.e. how they managed to prevent other raid members from partaking a share of gold from each boss kill, but we know they did it because Chinese Raid Guild members who had been banned in Nostalrius for gold-trafficking confessed so in the BAN APPEALS SECTION so that they may be unbanned.

Expect the Chinese to control the market of herbs, Black Lotus, and Flasks/Pots and expect all the aforementioned items to catapult in price.

5 pieces of Mongoose Elixir cost 25+ gold on Nostalrius, a Black Lotus cost 80 gold, and a single Flask upwards of 100 gold.

High-end herbs cost (such as Plaguebloom et al) 5g gold apiece+.

Another resource that the Chinese Raid guilds controlled were the Devilsaur spawns in Un'Goro crater. Those were camped 24 hours a day 7 days a week no exceptions. They also controlled the market of Devilsaur armor completely (pre raid BIS for several classes).

=======================

For those who played nost you know full well the extent of the problem got, and on *censored server network name* after coming up with a rather radical solution, the server was met with large down time and an attack on their server that lasted almost an entire week.

The issue itself needs to be addressed if we're to have a healthy environment and playerbase

[Redcap 6]

I already asked about the Chinese players. The response is here.

 

https://elysium-project.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=21499#entry233490

 

I wish the server staff the best of luck on this one. Some lessons have to be learned the hard way it seems, even when pervious servers served to shed light on what really happens when a project becomes successful.

 

[Queeky 58]

Greetings, Marathon!

 

Bellow is our Community Manager's take on the matter:

 

"We will not be blocking regions as we have a desire to expand our international community. That said, we will certainly be watching out for this sort of behavior and suspending accounts that do this as we discover them. You can assist us by submitting a ticket, where one of our Game Masters will investigate"

 

I have also removed your link, because it provides access to a separate server network (whose name I have censored, because advertising another private server, either in-game, or on the forums, is strictly prohibited). Please try not to attach such links (or names) to your posts in the future, otherwise your ability to create content will be restricted.

 

Sincerely, Queeky.

[Marathon 9]

Greetings, Marathon!

 

Bellow is our Community Manager's take on the matter:

 

"We will not be blocking regions as we have a desire to expand our international community. That said, we will certainly be watching out for this sort of behavior and suspending accounts that do this as we discover them. You can assist us by submitting a ticket, where one of our Game Masters will investigate"

 

I have also removed your link, because it provides access to a separate server network (whose name I have censored, because advertising another private server, either in-game, or on the forums, is strictly prohibited). Please try not to attach such links (or names) to your posts in the future, otherwise your ability to create content will be restricted.

 

Sincerely, Queeky.

It seems counter productive to the situation to remove a link to a cited source just because it's on another P server's forum, especially when it doesn't advertise the site as so much as point to the fact that the claims come from a actual 3rd party

Also simply "reporting" them barely worked for nost, but hey don't say the warning went out

[Unstop 88]

 

D saur spawns camped and actually patrolled by a Chinese "mafia" that worked both factions to ensure they had control over the Dsaur leather.

 

If a group of players control the spawn area of a mob then they are breaking no rules. They are in a open PVP area that other players can take over.

 

 

1. Indeed, a part of the Chinese did "win-trading" for a fee (payment) in the following manner:

 

If this becomes a problem then there are multiple things we could do to prevent it.

 

 

Market manipulation that lead to the absurd price of black lotus do to farming bots camping the nodes

 

We are not default mangos, black lotus does not spawn at the same area on an exact timer.

 

 

Nothing you have said has convinced me to ban an entire country. You have not even proven how it would only be them doing these things. I believe you are xenophobic. Racism does more harm than anything you have listed, should I ban the country you are from?

[That Druid 6]

I was there and in my opinion Black Lotus raised in price not because of "chinese mafia" but because of how overpopulated and unprepared the server was.

 

Initially BL cost was 10-15g per flower. Eventually, with the progression towards new recipes and difficult raid content more and more guilds started stacking BL in their banks to craft flasks for raids later, more and more players reached level cap. BL cost became 40-45g per flower. There was a relief when herbs were added on Alterac valley but it was not enough, 7k+ players had to be satisfied with standard spawn timers of BL. And I swear I havn't seen even a single "chinese" BL camper - trust me I've seen many campers. That's how it worked - you want some world pvp with 60s you go visit herb and ore nodes with hundreds of campers around.

 

D saur spawns camped and actually patrolled by a Chinese "mafia" that worked both factions to ensure they had control over the Dsaur leather.

I believe what he said was that there were two groups with communication on both sides and if for example Alliance chinese group loses Devilsaur tag to other Alliance players then Horde chinese group comes to kill other Alliance players and let Alliance chinese group to tag this Devilsaur.

 

Anyway, again, there was a great competition on both sides and just like BL was farmed only few players ahead of the leveling curve did know when to wait for a next Devilsaur.

 

Later, whith 13-15k people online, things became even worse. People started whining about lag and lack of resources, they started looking for the guilty. At this point I witnessed the birth of the hatred towards chinese population even though they were way below the curve compared to other players. But it was the server, that was unprepared and couldn't handle such a big population. I was a member of one of the most demanding top pve guilds and I really felt that situation on server. You tell me "chinese mafia" but I believe that we were that mafia, mostly english speaking community. I disagree with all op assumptions.

 

And yes, you can't ban a whole country judging by a single representative.

[TheFishyOne 9]

It is a widely known that the overwhelming majority of players who are paid real life money to farm gold on any given server in any given MMO are based in China. This is a fact, and accusing people of "racism" for voicing a legitimate concern does not help anyone, nor does it change reality.

 

That said, I recall when Lineage II did what the OP is suggesting, and it DID stop the RMT and goldspam...for about a week. It was only effective for even that long, because that was how long it took the Chinese Farmers to adjust their network infrastructures to include proxies based in the U.S. Fact is, Chinese Farming IS a problem, regardless of whether or not it is politically correct to point it out, but blanket banning China is not the solution, as it is too easy for spammers and farmers to circumvent.

 

The most effective long-run strategy, imo, is to aggressively target their customers. This should even be done at the expense of targetting the farmers themselves (use them to lead you to as many of their customers as you can), as black market goods and services can never be stamped out if the profit margins are too good, and global RMT brings in multiple billions of dollars accross the globe, every year. If, however, you create an environment where purchasing these services is accurately, immediately, and severely punished, the playerbase as a whole will come to associate purchasing these goods and services with an extraordinary risk of losing their raid geared 60s and having to start over from scratch. When that happens, their sales will dry up, their profits will plummet, and they will move on to a more lucrative server. Criminal businessmen are just like legitimate businessmen in that regard, they will follow wherever the money leads them, be that toward or away from something.

 

There may be more effective solutions than the one I suggested, but crying "xenophobe" and "racist" at people trying to cast a spotlight on a real and destructive problem is not a part of them. Identifying a problem is always the first step toward eliminating it, while denying that a problem exists is often all that is required for it to spiral out of control.

[killerduki 54]

Blizzard prevented Gold Sellers by targeting and Ban people who buy Gold.

 

Just a Tip

 

P.S I love Chinese Community , there are good people that try to play and work with us "Englishmans".

Back in "N" i had plenty help from Chinese particularly and i had many friends from there either.

 

Good way to prevent Chinese Gold Sellers (Even "N" admitted they are majority) is to recruit Chinese Staff that will take Action discovering them.

 

They have unique way and Chinese Staff knows all their Tricks.

 

Cheers by Killerduki <3

[Marathon 9]

Blizzard prevented Gold Sellers by targeting and Ban people who buy Gold.

 

Just a Tip

 

P.S I love Chinese Community , there are good people that try to play and work with us "Englishmans".

Back in "N" i had plenty help from Chinese particularly and i had many friends from there either.

 

Good way to prevent Chinese Gold Sellers (Even "N" admitted they are majority) is to recruit Chinese Staff that will take Action discovering them.

 

They have unique way and Chinese Staff knows all their Tricks.

 

Cheers by Killerduki <3

Because it worked so well, Blizzard only managed to ban people who bought gold in large quantities, same thing happened on nostalrius begins, you could easily slip by their "detection" by not buying gold in large amounts

buddy of mine managed to buy without getting banned on nost

2K gold

3 60s

an alt leveled to 40

the trick is to A) not log onto the account you want leveled and 2) don't be an idiot about buying things in large quantities

 

It is a widely known that the overwhelming majority of players who are paid real life money to farm gold on any given server in any given MMO are based in China. This is a fact, and accusing people of "racism" for voicing a legitimate concern does not help anyone, nor does it change reality.

 

That said, I recall when Lineage II did what the OP is suggesting, and it DID stop the RMT and goldspam...for about a week. It was only effective for even that long, because that was how long it took the Chinese Farmers to adjust their network infrastructures to include proxies based in the U.S. Fact is, Chinese Farming IS a problem, regardless of whether or not it is politically correct to point it out, but blanket banning China is not the solution, as it is too easy for spammers and farmers to circumvent.

 

The most effective long-run strategy, imo, is to aggressively target their customers. This should even be done at the expense of targetting the farmers themselves (use them to lead you to as many of their customers as you can), as black market goods and services can never be stamped out if the profit margins are too good, and global RMT brings in multiple billions of dollars accross the globe, every year. If, however, you create an environment where purchasing these services is accurately, immediately, and severely punished, the playerbase as a whole will come to associate purchasing these goods and services with an extraordinary risk of losing their raid geared 60s and having to start over from scratch. When that happens, their sales will dry up, their profits will plummet, and they will move on to a more lucrative server. Criminal businessmen are just like legitimate businessmen in that regard, they will follow wherever the money leads them, be that toward or away from something.

 

There may be more effective solutions than the one I suggested, but crying "xenophobe" and "racist" at people trying to cast a spotlight on a real and destructive problem is not a part of them. Identifying a problem is always the first step toward eliminating it, while denying that a problem exists is often all that is required for it to spiral out of control.

Again the problem is their "customers" can easily get a refund or enact a chargeback even if the transactions are through paypal.

Thank you though for being one of the few people who understands the problem and doesn't jump headlong into screaming "YER A RAYSISS!"

[TheFishyOne 9]

True, but how would a chargeback impede the server staff's ability to track and ban players once the gold is received?

This DOES raise a point about those who purchase 60s or powerleving, however. Would hostname or MAC address bans for repeat offenders be an option?

[killerduki 54]

Because it worked so well, Blizzard only managed to ban people who bought gold in large quantities, same thing happened on nostalrius begins, you could easily slip by their "detection" by not buying gold in large amounts

buddy of mine managed to buy without getting banned on nost

2K gold

3 60s

an alt leveled to 40

the trick is to A) not log onto the account you want leveled and 2) don't be an idiot about buying things in large quantities

 

 

 

Still this has nothing with "Specific Chinese", it is overall World Wide including "Non Chinese".

Over 7 Years been playing in EU Blizzard and there was still Massive Gold Sellers and Bots and Farmers , none of them was Asian or Chinese.

 

-N- Did something that Blizzard Could not , They had "Gold" transfer and Mail tracking if there was high amount of Gold compare to existent Level Transfer or Sent over 1 Month.

 

They Banned many "Bots/Buyers/Sellers" Accounts and removed

https://forum.nostalrius.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=39952

http://forum.nostalrius.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=38394

 

Buying gold is considered a permanent ban, no exceptions. By buying gold you directly finance the people who will do anything they can to hurt the server experience of others in the name of personal profit.

 

 

P.S you could cheat the System buying "Small Amount" , but in -N- had "Monthly transfer monitor", so you could eat the same Ban after 9 Months doing it.

 

Kind Regards.

Edited August 22, 2016 by killerduki

[Marathon 9]

True, but how would a chargeback impede the server staff's ability to track and ban players once the gold is received?

This DOES raise a point about those who purchase 60s or powerleving, however. Would hostname or MAC address bans for repeat offenders be an option?

how does buying gold help the devs?

 

the problem isn't the sale, but the amount traded, gold sellers could make a mint and fly under the radar by trading in small amounts over multiple accounts

Now to address Duki's post, Nostalrius  claimed a lot of things, that is the same server that "fixed" things because a handful of people cried about it

Ex. DMN trib farming by hunters, AV backdoor

[TheFishyOne 9]

Not sure why you asked that question, as I never implied it somehow could.

As for small amounts over multiple accounts, I imagine you could write a script to monitor the subnets of accounts that mail gold and flag ones for GM review that send a certain number of gold laden letters to the same account, if the sending accounts are part of the same subnet. As for person-to-person trades, deny trading priviledges to all accounts with a toon under level 5.

Not perfect, but it will increase the RMTer's cost of doing business, which is the most effective way to fight them.

[Ancientlord 2]

The problem are not Chinese players, but NA. As evident by world chat.

Edited August 24, 2016 by Ancientlord

[Xudojnik 904]

What if this topic was created by goldseller to remove competition?

[ZC209 0]

The problem are not Chinese players, but NA. As evident by world chat.

N/A is dead during their prime time  this server is like 95% EU.