Blizzard, Square/Enix Ban Yet More Farmers

Eurogamer has the news that both Blizzard and Square/Enix have banned another batch of players for farming. The number of accounts, and the amount of money removed from the economy, is astonishing. From the article: "According to the World of Warcraft website, some 30,000 accounts were banned last month - and, as a result, more than 30 million gold were removed from the economy across all realms ... Based on the results of this investigation, more than 250 [FFXI] accounts among those found to be involved in large-scale RMT operations have been terminated... Thanks to these measures, more than 250 billion gil has been removed from circulation."

Comments

World of Final Fantasy?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, since when did Blizzard and Square/Enix merge? (Also, isn't it "Square-Enix"?)

Anyway...

I have to love the subtle order of magnitude in accounts banned. WoW bans 30,000 accounts out of 6 million, or about 0.5% of total accounts. Assuming Square-Enix banned the same percentage, they have a total of 50,000 accounts.

Now, I know that Square-Enix's MMORPG isn't quite as popular as World of Warcarft, but I'm going to guess that's more of an indication that Blizzard is being more proactive in their banning of cheaters than Square-Enix is.

The damage has been done

[Necroman]

Both FFXI and WoW are doing a good job at cleaning up farmers accounts right now, but that only fixes part of the problem. These farmers have introduced a ton of new gold into the economies that isn't easily removed. FFXI raised the % of money the Auction House takes from items, so they are slowly removing money that way. While WoW has a small cover for AH purchaes, and you have to deal with repair costs as well.

There is no fast fix at this point, but closing accounts is a good start. I hope they keep up the good work, and hope even more to stop seeing ads to buy gold and gil.

Re:The damage has been done

[MBGMorden]

The "casual players" need to learn that they in no way NEED that much gold to play online. You want decent equipment? PLENTY of quests give pretty nice equipment as rewards. No purchase necessary. Even if you buy it a lot of stuff is available for pretty cheap (especially crafted items). There's no way you're gonna tell me that your equipment repair bills or your flight costs exceed what you make during a standard ammount of play time. The bottom line is that for anyone who wants to play casually with casual equipment, you simply don't need much gold. You might even get some really nice equipment off of a random drop every now and then.

The problem comes in when these casual players somehow think they need/deserve the top tier epic equipment. Yes this stuff costs a shitload of gold, because it's designed for people who put a shitload of time into the game. This stuff is really only required for the most challenging instances though (which are far beyond what a casual player would ever do).

I also find it very amusing how gold buyers are so quick to claim that people who don't buy gold don't have real lives. You are spending real money on make believe money (when you certainly don't need it to play and have fun), yet you have the audacity to insult the social habits of those who don't do this. Judge not lest ye be judged, ya friggin hypocrite.

Re:The damage has been done

[AuMatar]

Now on to reality. Want to actually compete in PvP? You need top tier items. A great player in greens and blues vs a good to decent player in MC BWL or better gear- the great player doesn't stand a chance.

Want to go do a raid (why you'd want to do this I don't know, but some people obviopusly like it)- if you don't have top level eq, you either won't be allowed on harder raids or you'll end up being a leech.

WoW is a gear based game. If you want to play, you need top end gear. End of story. If you have a life, that means buying it. THis is a flaw in the game, and the gold sellers help to mitigate it. I salute them for it, and Blizzard ought to be damn thankful they exist- they got an extra hundred or so off of me when I would have quit without them. And I'm far from the only one, I know another 2 dozen or so like me.

Re:The damage has been done

[AuMatar]

I like questing. I like PvP. I don't like grinding, and I don't like raiding (5-10 man intances are fun if not done ad nauseum, 40 men aren't. Ones that take 5 hours to complete aren't).

Your absolutely right- I bought gold to make WoW a game thats more appealing to me. I also remodeled my kitchen to make it more appealing to me- is that cheating? And yes, I should be able to play the parts of the game that I want and not play the parts of the game I don't- its a game. Why the fuck should I pay to do something I don't like? Hell, for that matter name any game where you like every aspect of it- I can't. I eventually quit WoW when Blizzard made it impossible to do the parts of the game I did like without doing the parts I don't (I wasn't about to spend 5 hours a week doing MC, which was what it took a good guild then. I like having weekends). SO did the rest of my guild, minus one or two players, so there went a few grand a year for Blizzard. But if there's enough parts of the game I do like, I'm going to go ahead and play it and use whatever means are possible to skip the not fun parts. SO long as doing the fun parts is worth the money, its all good. In this case it was- I spent a few hundred on gold, and enjoyed the game for a decent amount of time. It was a lot cheaper on a per time basis than many other hobbies.

Re:The damage has been done

[MBGMorden]

Now on to reality. Want to actually compete in PvP? You need top tier items. A great player in greens and blues vs a good to decent player in MC BWL or better gear- the great player doesn't stand a chance.
MC or BWL gear isn't bought. It's dropped. If you want to go get it, you do those runs, you don't buy the stuff. In the same light, if you want to do strictly PvP, there are rewards for doing PvP as well.

Want to go do a raid (why you'd want to do this I don't know, but some people obviopusly like it)- if you don't have top level eq, you either won't be allowed on harder raids or you'll end up being a leech.
If you enjoy raiding, then you will have done a lot of dungeons by the time you make it up there. Through the standard progressive sequence, if you raid the proper dugneons sequentially, you will get acceptable gear simply from drops or quests. There is simply no need to buy the stuff.

WoW is a gear based game. If you want to play, you need top end gear. End of story. If you have a life, that means buying it. THis is a flaw in the game, and the gold sellers help to mitigate it. I salute them for it, and Blizzard ought to be damn thankful they exist- they got an extra hundred or so off of me when I would have quit without them. And I'm far from the only one, I know another 2 dozen or so like me.
Gear certainly helps in certain areas, but you in no way need top end gear. I've been through high-level 5 man runs when every player has done fine, and afterwards seen players with all green gear (typical cheapo dropped or quested for stuff) that pulled their weight as much as anyone else. Top level gear simply is not required to enjoy the game. The best stuff isn't even buyable anyways, and even the decent BoE stuff needn't always be paid for (the 3 BoE portions of my Magister's set were all donated out of the guild bank, having dropped on guild runs previously with noone able to use them). The only flawed part of the equation is your perception of the situation. Continue with your superiority complex though. It's really amusing.

Re:The damage has been done

[XenoRyet]

Remodeling your kitchen is not outside of intended functionality for a kitchen-space, and also has no effect on anyone. Buying gold on WoW is very much outside intended functionality, and is detrimental to the community as a whole.

All I'm saying is that if you don't like the way WoW playes, cheating isn't the way to fix it. It's like filling the sandbox with dirt because you like making mud-forts more than sandcastles, it's really best for everyone involved if you just go play in the mud and leave the sandbox alone.

Helping the economy by removing illicit capital

[CSZeus]

It's interesting to note that removing that vast amount of gold will actually help the economy in WoW (I can't testify to FFXI as I don't play it). It's directly analagous to decreasing the money supply in an over-inflated capitalist market - with the added twist that the money being removed is the money that belongs to the percentage of the population that has a vast amount of wealth in excess of the average.
In short, prices drop, and the "poverty line" is lowered drastically.

Ebay economy is life or death for your game

[CrazyJim1]

If people aren't buying and selling items for real cash, then in reality people don't want or need the items in game. When people don't want or need items in your game, there's nothing they're playing for and your game will go bust soon. Its a trend I've watched over several MMORPGS. Players complain about people that farm for gold, but I don't see the big deal.

Posturing

[Reason58]

This is a publicity stunt. They took more than 30 million gold out of the economy from every server? I have news for you, there's right around 170 servers worldwide. That means around 175,000 gold per server. That is a incredibly miniscule part of each server's economy, that is it laughable. Also, within one week almost all of those banned accounts will be back and max level.

Re:Math tells all

[mmalove]

Interesting math, but I think you double counted the loss of gold.

I think Blizzard's real motive here however, is clear.

30k accounts x 30 dollars per CD key (I thought it was more, but I'll use your numbers) = 900,000 dollars increased revenue in Blizzard's pocket. Not to mention any additional time purchased on said accounts that was taken (IE, if they were paid 6 months in advance, that's up to 80 additional dollars per account). Why do they make extra money on this? Because the farmers will be back. As long as there is a demand, and the design of nearly any MMO creates the demand, certainly WOW does.

Now think about it - if you could do something that would provide a great PR booster, and make nearly a million dollars doing it, why not?

Re:RMT?

[space_biker]

Wikipedia has more info on Farming (gaming):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmer_(gaming)

Re:That explains all those unguilded rogues!

[Opportunist]

Problem is, if they removed the time sinks, people would realize that there's nothing left to do and they just might quit.

Time sinks are here, and they're here to stay.

Re:Farming shows a much bigger problem

[greymond]

I couldn't agree more. After several years of playing MMO's from EQ, to FFXI and now about to quit WoW, I find that each complained about farmers. But the reason why farmers existed was because the choice for players was:

A) Spend a combination of 40 hours playing a game killing creatures to buy a sword so you can continue following the game's story line, quests, and continue playing with others
B) Pay some dude $20 and buy the sword so you can continue following the game's story line, quests, and continue playing with others.

I think the worst example of poor game design was FFXI. In it you had crafting skills which required pieces from all over the world. You could literally spend an entire weekend aquiring the materials and spend 2 hours watching the materials critically fail and now you are out the items you spent 40 hours worth of WORK in addition to into and haven't gained much progression for your character. MMO's are all about playing with other people and advancing, yet developers purposefully create time boring sinks which cause people to rely on farmers in order to get back to the fun parts of the game.

In my opinion if an MMO came out that modeled Diablo or FF in the sense that would allow soloability (the option of playing with others is better than having to play with others - see WoW's user base) as well as by the time you reached max level you're character could easily afford anything he wanted or needed without having to "farm" you'd have a solid game and one that could potential be the end all be all of MMO's.

But unfortunately no one wants to make one. All the companies hire designers who enjoy forcing people to play variable classes in certain ways, farm for greater amounts of time than playing with others, and insist on making MMO's more tedious and annoying. Why? Because the longer it takes you to achieve your goals, the longer you have to pay them a monthly fee.

Re:Subsidizing farmers is for national defense

[fishybell]

Feeding the hungry and starving of the world was never about having enough food, it has always been, and always will be, getting the food to the right people. I'd like to see one person in America that is starving not due to their own pride or their parents pride, but due to lack of food at the soup kitchen. Homeless people in this country rarely die of hunger but rather of exposure to the elements, violence, drugs, and disease. In America there is more than enough food. Other countries are an entirely different problem. Some have problems with getting the food to the people due to lack of security for food distributors (Somalia, Haiti, Iraq, et al), and others lack the logistics to find and feed all the hungry (India, China, many African countries) due to the size and ruralness of poorer areas, and others still have the same problem as the United States.

If the United States were to decide to grow enough food for all the hungry in the entire world (and we could for at least staple foods, we've got plenty of empty farms due to subsidies, etc), then all of the food (not far) beyond what we already distribute would rot in a warehouse waiting to dispursed. It's a sad state of affairs yes, and it's unfortunate that fixing the problems isn't a higher priority for the government or the people, but that's just the way it is.

Also, it takes more than just water and sunshine to make a plant, and with every bit of produce sold off a little bit more of the needed nutrients go with it. By not growing food on a plot of land every year it allows the soil to be revitalized every few years, allowing more food to be grown in the long term.

Re:Subsidizing farmers is for national defense

[pilkul]

Er, you need to do a bit of reading on this. Production-tied farm subsidies are incredibly harmful, more so than regular subsidies. When the market is inundated with food that's free or below the cost of production, it makes everyone not getting subsidies -- such as African farmers -- go out of business.