Gold Farming Etc

[meddlingmage 3]

I know there has been quite an uproar lately about the "Chinese gold farmers" etc and people distaste for them. I was never a part of the original Nost so I'm not able to understand how much/if they flooded chat channels etc. My question is, was it really that much of a problem? Were you actually able to purchase gold from these individuals? How does that even work? I'm really hoping it isn't a major nuisance with the new server/re-launch. 

[Tholren 7]

I reckon it will still be a problem, since there will be no IP ban for them.

[meddlingmage 3]

I reckon it will still be a problem, since there will be no IP ban for them.

There is confirmation that there will be no IP ban you say? Why would that be...

[(TheReal) Krom 7]

The Farmers play just in the intention of trading gold currency into real cash.

 

It's prone to botting, and can lead to : Channel spam / bad first impression for newcomers (P2W) / market inflation / huge ban waves (buyers included) / ...

Dunno if it can also trigger copyright rules to a certain extent, as Private servers tend to stay 100% free, in order to avoid Blizzard attention.

[meddlingmage 3]

The Farmers play just in the intention of trading gold currency into real cash.

 

It's prone to botting, and can lead to : Channel spam / bad first impression for newcomers (P2W) / market inflation / huge ban waves (buyers included) / ...

Dunno if it can also trigger copyright rules to a certain extent, as Private servers tend to stay 100% free, in order to avoid Blizzard attention.

Well yeah I know what their intentions are, so why wouldn't there be IP bans if found guilty (if you know) also how would the server ban buyers/how would they even know? Wouldn't a deal be made third party obviously? How would it be trackable?

[Xykaru 1]

The admins monitor chat and large gold transactions. They can and will find gold buyers/selling and either permanently ban their IP or simply ban their accounts.

 

   If, say, logs show a player farming large amounts of gold non-stop and 'giving' that gold to other players, chances are they're farming and will be banned. Nobody would farm all day just to give gold away. There's a balance to be considered - if the player has accumulated 3000g but has only spent 50g of it on basic gear on the AH, and 'gave' all that gold away (in the sense of not receiving anything even remotely close to the gold value), chances are they are selling the gold. They'll cross reference IP's, check chat logs,  and make a decision on whether or not to ban that player and the 2 people he gave 1500g each to.

 

  I suppose they could give increments of the total gold sold per every couple days to stay under the radar, but even then, there's no logical reason for this aside from selling the gold, being ridiculously nice, or giving the gold to your main/alt (multiboxing isn't allowed unless one of the two characters [maximum 2] are in a main city at ALL times.) Not to mention that, as I said before, red flags pop up when a player is giving more than he is receiving.

[Undertanker 88]

He is a bit new. They can ban IPs, but a VPN can be used to get around that.

Do not buy gold, it can get you banned. How can they track? When they catch a seller/trader pull a log of their transaction history, run an SQL query to find all trades/mailing of x amount of gold or more, and will generate d a list of names of people that have associated with them. Run the same script to for they associated people and a few more times to get the people that buy gold with a throwaway account and trade it to there main account, trying to dodge the ban hammer.

Do not buy gold. Put the annoying spammers on ignore, and best stay out of world chat until server has its legs under them. You will easily find your early level 5 mans in the zone you are in first month. All the gold sellers and guild recruit messages, need to get a spam blocking add-on for them.

Edited December 7, 2016 by Undertanker

[(TheReal) Krom 7]

I don't know how they do it.

But from what I remember, they were able in Nostalrius to ban the sellers, ban the buyers and even remove the illegal gold wich was then acquired by normal means

(Evil Farmer BAN ==gold==> Avarious Buyers BAN ==gold traded, spent on AH or mailed ==> REMOVED).

 

But devs refused to tell how for obvious reasons.

Check ancients forums.

 

Also I remember a problem occured by rerollers in the early prohibition days, where the anti-cheat algorithm would automatically ban people sending or trading large money amount to alts ( = perceveid as complete strangers, so as suspicious).

Edited December 7, 2016 by (TheReal) Krom

[FeathersForever 2]

Surely if they removed gold spent on the AH that would be unfair - the person selling an item doesn't know where the gold comes from and hasn't done anything wrong? Or do they also return the item to the seller?

[Undertanker 88]

Surely if they removed gold spent on the AH that would be unfair - the person selling an item doesn't know where the gold comes from and hasn't done anything wrong? Or do they also return the item to the seller?

He is referring to putting up a copper ore for 2k ,gold and somebody buying it. Money laundering, but the AH takes a cut ofc.

[(TheReal) Krom 7]

I'm not quite sure about that, but discussion is rather pointless since rules may vary.

What is to be remembered is that Nostalrius devs had the power and did an amazing job on this, but it's still a lot of work that could be put elsewhere.

Edited December 7, 2016 by (TheReal) Krom

[Undertanker 88]

Some Chinese chick just walked in the office waiting room I am at, and looked right at me. They are on to us, not happy about telling you to not buy gold.

[(TheReal) Krom 7]

With a totally perfect anti-cheat system, China economy will collapse and lead the World into WW3. Elysium just care more about the big picture.

Another question ? 

[Tudi 0]

It's much easier to block the VPN this will fix 90% of the problem but if Elysium Staff wants to work longer for nothing so be it.

[Pottu 290]

It actually wouldn't because gold sellers operate globally. They are not limited to just one country or continent.

[Xykaru 1]

It actually wouldn't because gold sellers operate globally. They are not limited to just one country or continent.

I agree that banning VPN's all together would probably help. There's no reason for people to play with an altered IP anyways. Not sure how you'd go about banning Hotspot Shield etc though. Even then, I'm sure there would be workarounds to fool the system.

 

The best way to stop gold farmers is to camp them. As far as DM goes, paying attention to gold behaviors of people constantly farming it might help. I.e. if they make tons of gold, but give away more than they receive.

 

   It just sucks that so much effort is needed to get rid of these people that could otherwise be used to make the server better etc.

[Athena 3]

I agree that banning VPN's all together would probably help.

 

For that you would have to ban every single IP address as everyone can host a VPN.

[Demonthese 0]

It actually wouldn't be hard to set up a SQL query to flag certain players whom take certain actions.

1. Large gold transfers regularly.

2. Playing extremely long hours since gold farming accounts are often shared.

3.large amount of time spent in common farming areas.

Just having a query with this criteria would most likely highlight a vast majority of gold farmers.

[Drain 19]

Banning IP addresses doesn't accomplish anything. They will just switch to another one. All you can do is wack every account involved in the trading, and remove the gold from wherever it ended up. They can see the farmers because they don't do anything but farm and mail gold off everyday. It'll trade hands a few times then end up on many different players in the end (buyers). Banning the sellers doesn't accomplish much either. They'll just level up new accounts and continue right on doing it.

 

Banning the buyers is most important. This is the revenue for the sellers. With no buyers, sellers would not have any reason to farm it in the first place, nor spam city chat to sell it. The buyers are the entire reason you have sellers, and if they aren't hit too, then sellers will never go away. As long as gold is selling, they'll keep trucking on, bans or not. They do not care about disposable scrub geared 60s being banned. But when a real buyer is banned, he's probably not going to shop anymore, because he just lost his account, which he actually cares about, on top of all the gold, which he paid for.

 

The gold selling stores will not refund your lost money when your gold and/or account is removed either. They tell you buying gold is "safe" and it's "insured"; neither is true. While most buyers simply aren't caught, neither of those things are true for the players who are caught, and lose everything. You then see then on the forums making up stories to try and get the accounts back. I can't tell you how many times I've seen siblings blamed for hacking/trading/boxing.

[meddlingmage 3]

It actually wouldn't be hard to set up a SQL query to flag certain players whom take certain actions.

1. Large gold transfers regularly.

2. Playing extremely long hours since gold farming accounts are often shared.

3.large amount of time spent in common farming areas.

Just having a query with this criteria would most likely highlight a vast majority of gold farmers.

I agree but... everyone is making it sound so easy yet from posts I read on here and various other sites the player base is pissed because it was such an issue last time. As in if its so easy why is it always such a problem? While I get your query idea its also super generic and would even then cost a lot of man hours to find out who is really a farmer. I mean what are they basing it off of? A better place to start would be looking in global chat and see who spams, look into that account and if the findings are there perma-ban. But even then, these clowns work 12hrs a day times however many employees and will just make a new char. I'm sure they are very smart (transferring gold to an unknown mule every 100 gold or whatever so that if they DO get banned they only lose <100g etc). I mean there is no solution but it seems like its going to be quite the nuisance. 

Edited December 7, 2016 by meddlingmage

[Kazuma 11]

Nostalrius had a very strict automated scanner for abnormal transactions. Occasional false positives ended up player appealing their ban.

 

You didnt hear much from the asian population since all their text messages were empty and official channels such as trade and world were moderated well.

Edited December 7, 2016 by Kazuma

[meddlingmage 3]

Nostalrius had a very strict automated scanner for abnormal transactions. Occasional false positives ended up player appealing their ban.

 

You didnt hear much from the asian population since all their text messages were empty and official channels such as trade and world were moderated well.

What exactly was the very strict automated scanner? Even so I've seen plenty of complaints about the gold farmers in Nost...?

[Demonthese 0]

I agree but... everyone is making it sound so easy yet from posts I read on here and various other sites the player base is pissed because it was such an issue last time. As in if its so easy why is it always such a problem? While I get your query idea its also super generic and would even then cost a lot of man hours to find out who is really a farmer. I mean what are they basing it off of? A better place to start would be looking in global chat and see who spams, look into that account and if the findings are there perma-ban. But even then, these clowns work 12hrs a day times however many employees and will just make a new char. I'm sure they are very smart (transferring gold to an unknown mule every 100 gold or whatever so that if they DO get banned they only lose <100g etc). I mean there is no solution but it seems like its going to be quite the nuisance.

That's the issue is that all the spammers are throw away characters. So banning them, even IP banning them means nothing. The only way to stop them would be to get the characters they make the money on. A SQL query would be able to do that but it should by no means be the only way. And yes you are correct that ot will take man hours to go over the results of the query.

[Tudi 0]

For that you would have to ban every single IP address as everyone can host a VPN.

well Kronos did ban VPN and Crestfall want to do the same thing so is not that hard is just Elysium for some reason dont want that and yes on Kronos after they ban VPN was free of gold seller at least most of them.

[Kazuma 11]

If you ban VPN you are virtually excluding a whole part of the population as in communist china they need to use a vpn in order to play.