EDIT: So this response from ags support may not be in effect anymore as many people who were caught RMTing were perm banned on their first offense! As always don’t RMT
Hello everyone, I just wanted to share an email response from amazon support regarding the punishment for buying gold. This was originally posted on reddit but taken down so I thought I would repost it here.
I personally feel as if this is by no means a good deterrent to RMT. Why is RMT stated to be against the rules and in the same category as cheating and botting yet the punishment is a 24 hour suspension IF caught and given several more chances to commit the offense again prior to permanent action being taken? Do these suspended accounts get to keep the gold they purchased and proceed to keep buying more after the suspension until caught again? The gold/crystal exchange rates are already insane and gold inflation is undisputable at this point.
The game is currently infested with gold farming bots and I believe such lax punishments for RMT are not helping the situation. I believe stricter punishment should be enforced on third party gold buyers as well as sellers. What do you all think? Would love to hear an AGS reps perspective on this and why they think these actions are suitable for the RMT issue currently plaguing the game.
I would take those people claiming they were banned innocently with a grain of salt. Peeking around on the botters forums they are telling their users to post on the forums that they were sent things in the mail by “Random people” in an effort to get unbanned when in reality these people were involved in buying gold from gold botters
Ah yes, of course, all those innocent people who “totally didn’t cheat, totally didn’t ever use chat ever, totally never traded anything, etc”. Is this your first time to game forums? Every person who gets banned, even if for a good reason, will come to the forums to tell everyone how pure and innocent they are.
People who get banned for abusive language and/or toxicity are the best. They always start with super polite, nice comments, then go back to swearing and spewing insults as soon as somebody questions them.
I agree, for offensives that are severe like RMT they should have harsher punishments. Make 1st offense longer put it at 7 days, if they do it again - second infraction permaban IMO.
The gold farming botts or any botts that truly are botts should be permabanned period as well IMO.
As this is/will affect the Marketplace, gold/crystal exchange ext negatively as you mentioned.
I agree with longer punishment for the first infraction but I would like to add that I believe if the gold has been proven to have been purchased RMT from a 3rd party or botter that gold should in fact be removed from the game as well prior to their suspension being lifted.
Notice it said caught or reported so if you are reported then the punishement goes into effect. They have to start somewhere and this is better than nothing.
An AGS rep already confirmed on the forums that even if you are reported 1000 times by various players, you will face 0 punishment unless PROVEN to have partaken in illegal activity. You can mass report any player but no suspension will take place until a review has occurred and they were proven to have done something.
I agree as well. And after thinking some more on it, they could just reset that toon to LVL 10 starting zone with nothing but what you first start out as a fresh character.
Hold the phone. You’re telling me that if I were to hypothetically go to a gold selling site and spent 50 dollarydoos. Not only would I receive the gold, but at absolute worst-case scenario all I would get is a 24 hr ban? Or I could spend 20 bucks in the shop for 2200 Royal Crystals (with current exchange rates that comes to about 7.5k gold or 1k Blue Crystalss). Hmm, going rate right now in area chat is 1k per dollar. Now these cats know how run a market. AGS on the otherhand…
Hence why these lax punishments make no sense!!! Buying gold from the 3rd party botted gold resellers is way cheaper than buying directly in game which hurts both legit f2p players who rely on making gold ingame at a far slower rate to exchange for blue crystals and p2w whales who buy currency to exchange from Amazon directly. It promotes botting as there is 0 startup cost for botters and anything they make is a profit no matter how cheap they sell it for and no matter how much gold inflation they cause in the game. If amazons stance is well “it’s sort of not okay to buy gold but even if you do it and get caught I’ll just give you a slap on the wrist the first few times” who wouldn’t take advantage of the cheaper gold?
Very true. And truth be told this happens a lot in bigger games but more-so in the shadows under a “Fight-Club” like rule set. Which is even crazier since in the bots in those major titles turn less profit than they can make in LA.
This is such a dumb take and encourages people to make two large purchases from 3rd party gold vendors since there’s no risk of a ban for the first 2. What a joke.
You heard it here folks… buy your gold up to twice, enjoy a short vacation then come back to the game with 0 risk of perma ban… 3rd time might be risky but still low risk. Better advertising for the gold sellers than any of the spam bots could ever do.
I would not expect these exact guidelines to stay in place – we are working on honing ban tools, and as processes improve over time it is likely that punishments will, too.
