Actually promoting botting?

[Deleted]

A)I like how you assume that the microtransaction store will be selling items of power when they already said they would not do that because they know the backlash from doing so, most the micro transaction things will be cosmetic skins, char slots, maybe color dyes, maybe a potion that increases your karma rate 10% for an hour, etc things that don't directly effect power. People don't take kindly to "buy to win" items.

B) Yes convenience is the exact model of the micro transition model they are setting up, "I want character slot 6, if I farm the gold for it to turn into gems to buy it will take about 3 months but wont cost a dime other then me doing what I would be doing anyways, or I can drop $5-10 and get it now and save the in game gold for other items like siege weapons in WvW... Can you pay $5-10 for a character slot that most micro transaction models would make you pay for? yes. Can you just play one of your characters for a while and eventually save up enough in game gold to get that character slot for free which most other microtransaction models don't let you do? yes, you don't have to spend a dime on that character slot if you don't want to.

C) Because of not being able to buy power and being able to choose what to drop money for now or gradually get over time by just playing it allows for a less offensive micro trans then many others. On top of not forcing people to spend $15-30 more for those 3 character slots to have one of each type it also helps out with in game gold inflation since it adds yet another gold sink for those who don't want to spend money.

All in all, there is no model that would eliminate botters, but this one looks like it would reduce botters since botters would have to undercut Anets price on Gems and gold which would be less then profitable since there is no zone you can go into to bot and 1 shot every mob for its skin, not to mention how good you would have to be to program a bot that uses the dodge mechanic properly and can get out of AoEs since it is not static combat that is easy to bot. Hacked/Phished/keylogged accounts will still be profitable to sell gold from, but botting not so much.

If it was that easy. But as I understood it from reading the blog it's all items except karma items that can be available for gold or gems in the ingame AH that shares items for both currencies. Feel free to show me what from the blog that says it should be otherwise because I must have missed something then.

[Cherrysoul]

Idd...I wonder how many people would have bought gold directly from blizzard if they'd have had the balls to implement the system.

I would of, (because i didn't have the time to 'farm' gold etc) i have always said they should sell gold on their blizz store.. but they didnt /won't so Bots/farmers etc run rife.

GW2 I'll be more than happy to throw cash at them because again i wont have time to 'farm' items either. I really don't see a problem given that anything in the store that can be purchased for real money can also be brought in game for gold etc.

[Squirrelbanes]

I would of, (because i didn't have the time to 'farm' gold etc) i have always said they should sell gold on their blizz store.. but they didnt /won't so Bots/farmers etc run rife.

GW2 I'll be more than happy to throw cash at them because again i wont have time to 'farm' items either. I really don't see a problem given that anything in the store that can be purchased for real money can also be brought in game for gold etc.

I was lucky during a while of wow...I was freelancing and working at home. I had ample time back then lol.
But with GW2....yh, I've got a lot more commitments now. I won't be able to play it as much as I wish I could...so I'd be open to buying some stuff.

I will definitely not just buy gems to get gold and then buy the items I want...but would buy things that will facilitate my getting those items through gameplay, because I still want to fully explore the world and experience all the gameplay.

An example would be that I bought the skill pack for GW1. That removed the grind of getting the skills. It basically made it so I can jump in and start doing some of the harder stuff in the game. Some people will say that's a really bad thing, and that I took a massive shortcut. It's completely true too.
But I simply didn't have the time to invest in getting those skills and slowly making the right builds to clear stuff. I would have loved to be able to do it...and if I started GW1 a year or so ago I would have done. Cest le vie.
But yh, my point is I would never just go out and buy gold that I would then use to purchase items. I would rather still get the items through playing the game. I just removed part of the grind.

I don't have a prob with that at all. People who have more time can do it there way. I, sadly, won't have that option.

[Repefe]

by buying the game we are already supporting them. most of us dont like to waste our HARD EARNED money!!!
if i ever decide to buy gems, which is unlikely, ill make sure to find the cheapest way to do it.

Are you saying that instead of buying the gems from ANET and supporting them you are going to buy them from gold sellers and support acc hacking and botting ? Not funny.

[Hockeyhacker]

If it was that easy. But as I understood it from reading the blog it's all items except karma items that can be available for gold or gems in the ingame AH that shares items for both currencies. Feel free to show me what from the blog that says it should be otherwise because I must have missed something then.

"We have a new player-driven market that allows players to trade gold for gems and gems for gold."...

yes that may mean that if you want character slot 6 for gold you may have to wait for someone to put gems in the AH, but comparing how many lazy people who don't want to farm gold there are gems in the AH should not be overly rare.

Now lets pretend a character slot costs $7 worth of gems. So player A wants gold to get something but doesn't want to spend time farming it, so player A buys $10 worth of gems and puts them in the AH for say 1,000 G per dollar, player B wants another character slot but doesn't want to drop cash on it, player B has stock piled gold that he doesn't need for anything, player B spends 7,000 gold on 7 of the $10 worth of gems and then purchases the character slot that would normally cost $7 worth of gems for 7,000 gold in the AH instead by buying $7 worth of gems.

So yes it isn't a direct turn in gold for character slot instead of $, but it is indirectly via buying someone elses gems with your gold in the AH because they want gold instead without farming... so wither you miss understood what I meant or just missed the "We have a new player-driven market that allows players to trade gold for gems and gems for gold." line in the blog post that is what I was referring to as far as not needing to spend $ to get stuff from the micro transaction store if another person spent money wanting gold which there will be since there is always a lazy community in MMOs who say want to cap out crafting without farming and thus will buy gems to sell for gold to buy mats to level crafting.

[Repefe]

Kind of reminds me discussion about legalizing Marijuana

[Kouki]

this will happen.
bots and hacking all over again :s

What in the hell makes you think anyone can sell the Gems for less then the guildwars site?
Say 1 gem is $1 Us, Then you would need to buy 1 and sell it for 99.c to beat the guildwars2 store, and now you lost a penny.

---------- Post added 2012-03-23 at 04:45 AM ----------

Will there be any incentives for accumulating large amounts of gold? I don't think gathering wealth will be nearly as important in GW2 as it is in many games.

Also, aren't gathering node locations randomized?

Not random but you loot it then its is gone to you till respawn, but i can still walk up and loot it too.
so no one can steal a node.

[Dillingr]

Bots are so much fun to kill though.

[Razeo]

Bots are so much fun to kill though.

Too bad you can't actually kill people in the PvE world of the game, and I doubt you'll see any in WvW.

[guser]

What in the hell makes you think anyone can sell the Gems for less then the guildwars site?
Say 1 gem is $1 Us, Then you would need to buy 1 and sell it for 99.c to beat the guildwars2 store, and now you lost a penny.

??

hack accounts, sell gems -> profit
bots farm gold 24/7, buy gems of auction house with gold (or just sell gold.. wtv is more profitable), sell cheaper -> profit

there you go

[zcks]

One thing you have to remember though,

The economy in GW2 is very dependent on supply & demand.


That being said it could be possible for a very smart individual or group of individuals to completely fuck up the economy if inflation gets out of hand.

For instance, gems & enchanting materials in WOW occasionally get to insanely high prices & have done so at various points throughout the games history, usually because of botting or other reasons.
I have known a few people on a few different servers who tend to keep a shitload of said materials in reserve so that when that type of thing happens they can completely tank the Gem or enchanting material economy while making a shit load of gold in the process.

If bots get to be to persistent in GW2 such individuals could easily do the same & screw over the cheaters by making them have to take that much longer to make much if any profit, thus increasing their chances of being caught.

[Deleted]

??

hack accounts, sell gems -> profit
bots farm gold 24/7, buy gems of auction house with gold (or just sell gold.. wtv is more profitable), sell cheaper -> profit

there you go

Well that's not Anet's fault that people don't know sh!t about PC security :/. I'm sure they will come up with some sort of authenticator. Also as I've said at the beginning of this topic, from technological standpoint I'm not afraid of bots that much.

Human gold farmers are an other story.

[nyc81991]

Yeah you can Bot in WoW for things aswell. That doesn't mean that it is a good idea, If you want to get banned then be my quest. I on the other hand will just play the game.

[Newbryn]

??

hack accounts, sell gems -> profit
bots farm gold 24/7, buy gems of auction house with gold (or just sell gold.. wtv is more profitable), sell cheaper -> profit

there you go

you do realize gems outside of the In-game store will only be bought for gold right, so a hacker won't make any cash profits from gems he got from someone else's account simply because Anet is the only one you're giving actual cash to everyone else its just useless in-game gold.

[guser]

you do realize gems outside of the In-game store will only be bought for gold right, so a hacker won't make any cash profits from gems he got from someone else's account simply because Anet is the only one you're giving actual cash to everyone else its just useless in-game gold.

you pay the hackers real money using your credit card/paypal whatever and they give you the gems from the hacked account......
just like how wow gold is bought. you pay, they email you the gold. $$ done €€

[Newbryn]

you pay the hackers real money using your credit card/paypal whatever and they give you the gems from the hacked account......
just like how wow gold is bought. you pay, they email you the gold. $$ done €€

That would be stupid though and anyone who is stupid enough to do that deserves to lose their account hacked or otherwise, so I don't see the problem one less idiot, I mean seriously think about it you could just spend your money in the shop instead. To add to that that's not really something that can be controlled anyway, and also some people wont mess with the cash shop so its also safe to say some hacked accounts will be gem free anyways.

[Cyclone Jack]

If it was that easy. But as I understood it from reading the blog it's all items except karma items that can be available for gold or gems in the ingame AH that shares items for both currencies. Feel free to show me what from the blog that says it should be otherwise because I must have missed something then.

All items that are tradable will be available on the AH to be bought with gold, including Gems. Only Gems can buy Cash Shop Items. Gems cannot buy any in-game items.

[zcks]

True.

At the end of the day however 2 things will keep bots from becoming as common as they are in WOW.

1: The way you achieve better gear is very different, & almost all gear with stat upgrades can only be obtained through actual participation in a dungeon or event. Excluding some crappy random drops & player created gear of course.

2: GW2 will require allot more in the way of thought where fighting mobs are concerned, this is because of the need to actively avoid damage via dodging.


Not saying these 2 are impossible for bots to do but the vast majority of bot programs I have seen or heard of cannot do them which should reduce the number of people botting by a good deal & make it easier for Arena.net to weed them out.


As for people buying gold, gems etc from farmers. That is likely to continue to happen as long as those bastards can make a profit off of it. I really wish they would stop, but because of the fact their based in backwards assed countries that won't let European or American countries take legal action against them they likely never will.
(which frankly makes me wish said game companies would just nuke the farmers/hackers computer networks with viruses whenever they catch them. It's not like they could successfully sue them for fighting fire with fire anyway)

[Lolsteak]

In WoW botters actually pay a lot of money to blizzard so there is incentive to not ban them while in GW2 the botters dont contribute anything so its easier to just ban them.

Actually that's wrong, the botters would first have to either buy an account or illegally obtain an account, by buying accounts Anet get money and banning them would cause them to buy more accounts, more money for Anet.

On the otherhand if most accounts end up being illegally obtained, it could just push them to obtain more.

[Deleted]

Just a note, if anything this will deter players and companies from botting mainly because of the following;

Why do people buy gold from botters?
Mainly because they have no other choice. They dont want to farm AT ALL.

So, in GW2 if this happens, what will the player do? Buy gems from the shop and get gold that way. The botters are going to find it very hard to compete with the GW2 store and not get caught. So therefore if most of the players who feel like that only buy from the GW2 store, there will be very few botters(due to them being unable to compete).

How do i feel about the fact people can buy gold directly? I say go for it, BUT only if the top weapons were like the ones in GW1 (i.e. top level weapons all can have the same stats, just cosmetically will look different) OR if you can only obtain the best weapons by playing(i.e you cannot sell the very best weapons) << this will discourage botting also(as you cant sell the best weapons).