Massively

EVE Evolved: The RMT problem

Brendan Drain — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Culture, Economy, Game mechanics, MMO industry, EVE Evolved

Of all the problems that plague MMOs, RMT (real money trading) is perhaps the most disruptive to normal gameplay. By design, almost every MMO has some form of tradable currency that can be collected through normal gameplay. The time it takes to collect that currency has an inherent value, which varies from player to player as not every player values his free time at the same level. It's inevitable that cash-rich players who value their time highly will often want to shortcut normal gameplay by buying the currency directly for cash.

The negative impact of RMT and its associated problems is felt in every popular MMO, and EVE Online is no exception. The direct balance issues inherent in allowing players to buy ISK with cash are just the tip of a very unpleasant iceberg. Players who buy ISK from shady websites and services are the reason that the rest of us have to put up with spam-bots in popular chat channels, rampant account hacking, and macros taking up a disproportionately large cut of EVE's in-game resources and server load.

In this week's EVE Evolved, I look into the problems caused by RMT, why macro-farming operations have become so wide-spread, and what CCP has done to combat this growing problem.

Continue reading EVE Evolved: The RMT problem

EVE Evolved: The RMT problem originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 19 Dec 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Lost Pages of Taborea: Banhammer time

Jeremy Stratton — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Free-to-play, Runes of Magic, Lost Pages of Taborea

For a while now, Frogster has been fiddling with how a player can buy diamonds to later trade and sell in the auction house. Ever so slowly, they had to implement more and more restrictions because of credit fraud and gold sellers. Those restrictions came in the form of what you could no longer use to buy tradable diamonds, until there was almost no other way except to purchase game cards from select retailers. Now it seems the ongoing problem has come to a head with the announcement that Runes of Magic has temporarily turned off the trading of diamonds for gold completely.

While it certainly doesn't paint RoM in a good light and may look like it has marred their great track record, gold selling issues are nothing exclusive to the game. Bots and gold spam are something that many MMOs eventually deal with and it's a positive sign that the developers are working on it. Maybe they're taking a queue from Aion's RMT videos or maybe they had it planned for a long time, but RoM has recently gone after the player-side of the problem by laying down the banhammer.

Continue reading Lost Pages of Taborea: Banhammer time

Lost Pages of Taborea: Banhammer time originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

EVE Online devblog discusses account security

Brendan Drain — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Economy, MMO industry

Every MMO suffers the horrors of gold spammers and EVE Online is no different. The RMT (Real Money Trading) industry is massive and EVE's developers CCP have waged a constant war against it in recent years. The PLEX initiative gave players a way to safely buy ISK for cash while at the same time helping players who couldn't afford their subscriptions pay with ISK. The result was a dramatic hit to the RMT market, who had to drop their prices to compete with a legitimate service replacing their own.

As part of Operation Unholy Rage in August of last year, EVE GMs also banned over 6200 accounts belonging to farmers known to be supplying the RMT industry. The effect on the market was instant, with the population in farmed mission systems like Ingunn disappearing overnight. Almost immediately, the farmers reacted with a spate of account hackings to claw back some ISK.

Continue reading EVE Online devblog discusses account security

EVE Online devblog discusses account security originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

See an Aion GM in action blowing up spammers

William Dobson — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Aion, Humor

NCsoft has always been fairly vocal about about their assault on Aion's goldspammer and bot epidemic. They bolstered the game's spam filter a while ago and their Game Surveillance Unit reportedly banned over 27,000 botting accounts just last week. It's great to hear about these positive statistics, but if your game experience has been ruined in the past by some of these unsavory characters, you might be looking for something more visceral -- and thankfully, we've got that for you.

Enter Youtube user MidoriPeanut, who managed to catch an Aion GM in the throes of a banning spree and recorded it all for the rest of us to enjoy. The movie features the GM blowing up a number of goldspammer ad stores, all set to the dramatic Syringe by Emilie Autumn. Sure, this could all take place behind the scenes and the offenders would quietly disappear from the world, but isn't it a lot more fun seeing them cast off to hell by a cutesy animal? Get out the popcorn and head past the break to see the banishing in action.

Continue reading See an Aion GM in action blowing up spammers

See an Aion GM in action blowing up spammers originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 06 Dec 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

A look back at Aion's first month and impressions

Brooke Pilley — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Aion, Opinion, Massively Hands-on

43,829 minutes. That's roughly how long Aion's been out in the West. Depending on your tolerance for grinding, it may or may not have felt like that amount of time passed. There's no doubt it's been a busy month full of ups and downs, so we'd like to take an extensive look back at the last 30-days and give our impressions on the game.

Smooth criminal

Aion experienced one of the most technically smooth launches in MMO history, which was the result of hard work, innovative design, tough decision-making, and of course nearly a year between the Eastern and Western releases. Anti-cheat software, GameGuard, was stripped from the client in the 11th hour. This no doubt eliminated most of the open-beta issues that would have sent a lot of potential players packing shortly after release. Players just aren't as forgiving as they used to be.

Continue reading A look back at Aion's first month and impressions

A look back at Aion's first month and impressions originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Aion's spam filter is bigger, stronger, faster

Kyle Horner — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Aion, News items

Gold seller spam got you down; keeping you from purchasing Aion? Fret not, fair... uh, would be Aionites, because NCsoft is working towards fixing the solution through improvements and good will. We already know that essential 24/7 GM support is on its way, so the news that the recent 10.5.0.10 added an improved chat spam filter is delicious, vengeful frosting on our Crytek-powered cake.

By our observations, spam has been reduced to the occasional whisper or channel message from a character with an odd umlaut or whatnot in their name. Hopefully the update continues to hold water, and the gold sellers simply recede into the darkness from whence they came. Should the spammers ever return in force, we hope that NCsoft is ready to sweep an otherworldly banhammer of justice across their maw in a manner most pleasing to all of us in the community.

Aion's spam filter is bigger, stronger, faster originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

SOE hires crime fighting gnomes to fend off credit card worms

Brooke Pilley — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: EverQuest, EverQuest II, Pirates of the Burning Sea, PlanetSide, Interviews, The Agency, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard, Free Realms, Legends of Norrath, DC Universe Online

Online credit card fraud is big business and even MMORPGs aren't safe from it's far reach. We recently had a chance to sit down with Executive Director of Global Customer Service, Brad Wilcox, and discuss how SOE is dealing with gold selling and power-leveling services for their games. They are taking this war so seriously that they have put all transactional business under keen gnomish scrutiny.

Can you tell us how this fraud prevention task force came to be?

Brad Wilcox: Since the inception of EQ1, we always had components of a fraud prevention team. These were game masters and individuals tasked with looking at the game economy and making sure that people weren't exploiting. Since September 2007, we started to see a big increase in fraudulent activity in regards to stolen credit cards. That is when it was decided to put a few more resources specifically related to the fraud that was happening with accounts and subs being created with these stolen credit cards. That's when we formed what we call the NUGIT team, which stands for Norrathian Underground Gnome Investigation Team. As you can tell by the name, our employees enjoy having as much fun on the back end as we do on the front end of these games

Continue reading SOE hires crime fighting gnomes to fend off credit card worms

SOE hires crime fighting gnomes to fend off credit card worms originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Live Gamer interviewed about regulated RMT

James Egan — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 20:00:00 EST

Filed under: Economy, Interviews, MMO industry, Virtual worlds

We've mentioned a company called Live Gamer in the past here at Massively. Essentially, Live Gamer is attempting to legitimize real money trading (RMT) in virtual spaces, by partnering with game publishers to create a regulated secondary market for item sales and trades. The goal is to integrate RMT with MMOs and virtual worlds and usurp the myriad gold spammers and scammers currently plaguing most virtual spaces that feature economies.

Suzie Ford at WarCry recently interviewed Live Gamer Founder and President Andrew Schneider about how the company plans to change a $2 billion industry presently dominated by the black and grey market. The interview touches on the company's background, how the Live Gamer service works, and overall how they handle some of the polarizing issues of RMT in MMOs. Check out the full interview with Andrew Schneider over at WarCry for a brief overview of what Live Gamer is about.

Does the prospect of having a legitimate, regulated secondary market for avatars, virtual items, and currency in your MMOs seem like a step in the right direction?

Live Gamer interviewed about regulated RMT originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 20 Oct 2008 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Reporting gold spammers in WAR now easier than ever

James Egan — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Business models, Economy, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Warhammer Online, News items

The gold seller scourge has fallen upon Warhammer Online, as you've likely noticed. But Mythic Entertainment has taken some rather extreme measures to silence the incessant spamming. To help reach that goal, they're making it easier for players to report gold selling activity and harassment. In keeping with their zero-tolerance policy on gold spamming, Mythic states, "We are committed to making life as hard as we can for Gold Sellers in game and maximizing player enjoyment. To that end we have added a new tool to streamline the gold seller reporting process."

That tool is found within the Appeal Interface, as the stand-alone category "GOLD/PL SALES" -- and is not found within the Violation category (which is used for most other types of harassment) as you might expect. Submitting these appeals via the GOLD/PL SALES category is a straightforward matter, as shown below the cut:

Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out our Warhammer guides: Massively's Character Creation Guide and our WoW Player's Guide to Warhammer. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!

Continue reading Reporting gold spammers in WAR now easier than ever

Reporting gold spammers in WAR now easier than ever originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 05 Oct 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

The Daily Grind: Your biggest MMO pet peeves

Krystalle Voecks — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 08:05:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Forums, Opinion, The Daily Grind

A recent thread on the Ten Ton Hammer forums about "biggest WoW pet peeves" caught our eye the other day. After reading some of the responses there, we got to thinking about some of the things in general that annoy us in different MMOs. One of the truly universal ones was gold-spam. It seems no matter what format they have to take, up to and including piles of dead gnome bodies arranged to spell out their domain, they'll do everything they can to annoy us. (After all, 300 dead gnomes, while great as a Horde member, still cause lag.) Another thing we agreed on was "1337 5p33k" (or "elite speak" for those who speak actual English) which just makes us want to hang people's characters by the toes and use them as in-game pinatas.

While those are two that many of us agreed on, there were far and away many other things that really annoyed us in various games. How about you? Are there any things that really make your skin crawl? For that matter is it the people or the game that trips your pet peeve off? Did they design in a pet peeve on you? Or maybe your pet peeve is how your computer behaves when running certain MMOs?

The Daily Grind: Your biggest MMO pet peeves originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 16 Jan 2008 08:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Blizzard tells trial account users to shush

Chris Chester — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 15:29:00 EST

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Exploits, Game mechanics, Patches

Word has it that, in response to the widespread use and abuse of trial accounts on the part of gold spammers, character-leveling outfits, and RMT humbuggery in general, Blizzard has eliminated the ability for users on trial accounts to invite party members to groups, which joins their recent embargo on broadcast communication in World of Warcraft entirely.

One can't help but wonder if there was a better way to go about achieving this same end of curbing the spammers. Perhaps they could have implemented more thorough standards for authentication prior to being given a trial key, or maybe implemented some sort of referral program where an existing player could "vouch" for a trial user and give them the full benefits they enjoyed before this hotfix. Trial users are usually the most vulnerable and least knowledgeable subset of newbies, and to remove their ability to communicate with the world around them just seems a bit cruel to me.

We all know the spammers are going to find another way around it, after all. They're quite the creative lot.

[Via WarCry]

Blizzard tells trial account users to shush originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 17 Dec 2007 15:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments