Petition for permanent IP ban punishment option

[skipdog]

Permanent IP bans are not a solution, period. Many have made the reasons quite clear in this thread.

I think people are REALLY overstating the RMT problem on the server. People who think prices are going up everywhere because of RMT are not thinking the situation all the way through.

Honestly, RMT has very little impact on the economy. RMT isn't why Fungis are now 85k.

I don't know what a good solution is for permanent bannings. I just don't think it is possible on an emulated server. At least on live servers you can require the person to pay for the game with each banning, but that never even stopped them.

I just don't think the technology exists to permanently stop a person from creating an account and logging onto the server. The best practice is to probably simply delevel/strip all associated toons on banned accounts, as well as all mule accounts associated with them. At least force them to level up new characters and rebuild their wealth from scratch again.

[SirAlvarex]

Originally Posted by skipdog [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Permanent IP bans are not a solution, period. Many have made the reasons quite clear in this thread.

I think people are REALLY overstating the RMT problem on the server. People who think prices are going up everywhere because of RMT are not thinking the situation all the way through.

Honestly, RMT has very little impact on the economy. RMT isn't why Fungis are now 85k.

I don't know what a good solution is for permanent bannings. I just don't think it is possible on an emulated server. At least on live servers you can require the person to pay for the game with each banning, but that never even stopped them.

I just don't think the technology exists to permanently stop a person from creating an account and logging onto the server. The best practice is to probably simply delevel/strip all associated toons on banned accounts, as well as all mule accounts associated with them. At least force them to level up new characters and rebuild their wealth from scratch again.

You make a good point. RMT isn't the reason stuff is more expensive (tons of "old" players that came back had tons of cash due to farming Seafurries when they would drop up to 5k an hour *while being uberly over camped*).

But RMT is the one thing that could shut the server down if Sony were to want to. Right now Sony's only weapon is burying the server owners in legal fees, as they aren't doing anything that is illegal. But if *someone* were to profit off the game via direct "pay for play" rewards, then that is more than enough leg to stand on to shut the server down.

And for what it's worth, Smed loves that this server exists. So I'd prefer it if some D-Bags didn't give him a reason to change his stance...

[Rhambuk]

Originally Posted by SirAlvarex [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

But RMT is the one thing that could shut the server down if Sony were to want to. Right now Sony's only weapon is burying the server owners in legal fees, as they aren't doing anything that is illegal. But if *someone* were to profit off the game via direct "pay for play" rewards, then that is more than enough leg to stand on to shut the server down.

And for what it's worth, Smed loves that this server exists. So I'd prefer it if some D-Bags didn't give him a reason to change his stance...

This is the real concern, the rmters dont care about the server obviously and as long as they can make money off of a free to play emu they wont stop. They don't understand or care that they are destroying a free to play game for about 1 thousand people, but who cares as long as they can make some easy cash...

[Lyra]

Originally Posted by skipdog [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I think people are REALLY overstating the RMT problem on the server.

I think a lot of buyers have convinced themselves buying plat doesn't hurt anything.

[skipdog]

Originally Posted by Lyra [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I think a lot of buyers have convinced themselves buying plat doesn't hurt anything.

Don't get me wrong, I TOTALLY agree with you.

I totally am down with enforcing the total deletion of anybody associated with any sort of RMTing in any way.

I never attempted to make any points about the drawbacks of RMT to the server.

The primary point I wanted to make, was that RMT has absolutely nothing to do with rising prices in p1999's economy, and many people were implying that.

[Lyra]

Originally Posted by skipdog [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

RMT has absolutely nothing to do with rising prices in p1999's economy, and many people were implying that.

I disagree.

New players wouldn't be able to buy the gear because they wouldn't have the plat, removing a large portion of the demand.

I'm playing this game....on this server... a lot.

[Loftus]

Originally Posted by skipdog [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The primary point I wanted to make, was that RMT has absolutely nothing to do with rising prices in p1999's economy, and many people were implying that.

To make a statement like this only shows how naive you are about the intricacies of any economy, including virtual ones like that on P1999. An imbalance, and it looks like a severe one at that, is introduced when you let real-world economy intrude on the P1999 economy. One can easily foresee the end state: a monopoly by those with enough spare real-world cash to buy all the virtual P1999 platinum. This would force a condition of "no RMT, no way to afford anything in the p1999 economy" - a trend we are starting to see.

If P1999 platinum had no real-world cash value, the motivation to farm platinum for the sole purpose of exchanging it for real-world cash would not exist. With this lack of motivation comes a lack of platinum-flooding.

There's alot of things people would do in a virtual world if the virtual success can be converted into real-world success that they would never otherwise consider.

[skipdog]

Originally Posted by Loftus [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

To make a statement like this only shows how naive you are about the intricacies of any economy, including virtual ones like that on P1999. An imbalance, and it looks like a severe one at that, is introduced when you let real-world economy intrude on the P1999 economy. One can easily foresee the end state: a monopoly by those with enough spare real-world cash to buy all the virtual P1999 platinum. This would force a condition of "no RMT, no way to afford anything in the p1999 economy" - a trend we are starting to see.

If P1999 platinum had no real-world cash value, the motivation to farm platinum for the sole purpose of exchanging it for real-world cash would not exist. With this lack of motivation comes a lack of platinum-flooding.

There's alot of things people would do in a virtual world if the virtual success can be converted into real-world success that they would never otherwise consider.

Listen, it sure CAN affect the economy like you are saying and it likely is in a small way, but people are greatly overstating it's effect. I have quite a lot of motivation for plat that has nothing to do with RMT and I think the number of people who farm plat for pure RMT purposes are way lower than you think and is maybe making up a very small percentage(5% or less is my best guess) of the plat/items being farmed. The monopoly situation you describe is simply not happening on a scale that makes a difference.

The real issue is a huge amount of 60s sitting at level cap in Kunark era for far too long with nothing to do but accumulate plat every hour they play. The price fluctuations are that, and honestly, it isn't that bad when YOUR items that you can farm sell for more. It's supply and demand and nobody has to buy a thing from Sonaa and Sonaa certainly isn't monopolizing the market.

I'll repeat this again: RMT is bad and we should be aggressively banning anyone who participates. Just trying to point out that some price increases are not due to RMT, it's due to the top-heavy server population.