Daliant admits to RMT, will GMs even ban someone who openly admits it?

[Barkingturtle]

Sorry Nilbog, I was rash there. It's just that I come to this thread this morning, hoping to see some measured, even responses to what appears to be this recent RMTT explosion, and on this thread Amelinda first calls us stupid and then you say it isn't any of our fucking business.

It comes off as defensive, but I realize its probably just exasperation. Be warned though: It's a really bad time to look defensive.

[Bones]

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

This level of RMT will shut this server down.

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[Daldolma]

That's fair, and I appreciate the response. You are missing my point as it relates to the sale of the Fungi Stick, though. We know -- or can prove with minimal effort -- that Richgirl is/was Plat Lord. We know that the forum account that just sold a Fungi Staff belongs to Richgirl. Therefore, even if the sale of the Fungi was legitimate, we know that it was carried out by a habitual RMT'er that should rightfully have any and every account banned. It doesn't seem reasonable to require new evidence of RMT to ban each and every one of his accounts. You know he sells platinum in massive quantities; you know he just brought in 800k (or handed away a pre-nerf Fungi Staff). That really should be enough. This isn't a court of law, and so I don't agree that incontrovertible evidence should be the evidentiary standard.

I believe you when you say that you want to eliminate RMT. I also believe you when you say it's not your #1 priority, and that you write queries to identify RMT'ers. But I think that's why you're missing the boat on the egregious RMT'ers. Queries aren't going to solve this problem. It's got to be a more personal approach. You know the RMT website. You know the major players. And you're smart enough to know when character liquidations sound suspect. Queries and coding might not tell you that Szeth/Cyrano are acting suspiciously. But any regular on the server can tell you what's up. Even if you aren't capable of identifying Plat Lord via IP or query, knocking 800k out of his coffers is going to seriously discourage his RMT activity. At a very conservative $1 per 1k rate, that's $800. RMT isn't profitable enough for people to sustain those kinds of losses. Make it even mildly difficult on him and he'll fold.

The type of rock solid evidence you're waiting on just isn't going to materialize in the vast majority of cases. The only people with screenshots, logs, and PayPal info are the parties involved in the deal. In the case of Szeth, he didn't mind providing the info because he's done here. With repeat RMT'ers, they're running a business -- they're not going to quit and hand over logs. And the buyers want to keep their plat, so they're not going to report it, either. You've got to have someone doing some relatively simple detective work if you really want to stem RMT. Keep an eye on the massive amounts of platinum being accumulated by quitting raiders. If it ends up in a bank on that account, fine. If it ends up getting transferred in bulk to different accounts and different IPs, ask some questions and ban people. It might not be 100% fool proof, but it's better than what we've got. In the grand scheme of things, a few false positives would be much better for the server's health than allowing millions of plat to be RMT'd on a monthly basis.

[Seaweedpimp]

Between my server second VP staff poofing (in january, Yes bug report is still there dating from late january, not a single response.)And all this RMT shit going on, I dont know what to do, should i quit? Should i go RMT my necro and get a few hundred bucks out of it?

Wondering why i ever donated a cent to this project.


boo hoo hoo


Personally donated well

[Seaweedpimp]

^ lol fucked that post all up.


anyways

[Diggles]

With all the account sharing that happens in this server I'm not entirely sure you could ever stop RMTing of characters. Where does the line cross between bought and lent characters?

[Amelinda]

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

Sorry Nilbog, I was rash there. It's just that I come to this thread this morning, hoping to see some measured, even responses to what appears to be this recent RMTT explosion, and on this thread Amelinda first calls us stupid and then you say it isn't any of our fucking business.

It comes off as defensive, but I realize its probably just exasperation. Be warned though: It's a really bad time to look defensive.

i didn't call YOU stupid. or even general population stupid. i called the people who were posting all the crap about us NOT bannign for RMT stupid.

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

That's fair, and I appreciate the response. You are missing my point as it relates to the sale of the Fungi Stick, though. We know -- or can prove with minimal effort -- that Richgirl is/was Plat Lord. We know that the forum account that just sold a Fungi Staff belongs to Richgirl. ...

and i've posted before that i've banned some of platlord's accounts and taken rmt'd plat out of the economy but noone remembers that.

if i were to post which characters i banned it would be like

Today i banned for rmt:
cindylouwho (level 1) 500k plat
cindybrady (level 1) 500k plat

is that terribly informative? no. but since people who RMT use throw away accounts then you aren't going to get what you want which is:

Today i banned Alarti for RMT. (Did not ban him for real. but this is what you guys want - you want to see the persons MAIN listed)

and as to why i don't sit and go through trade logs for this all day every day? Are you really going to sit there and ask me to dig through logs for 18 hours a day all day every day? I have two small children. I have taken a step back from the game for the past few months. My real life > EQ

at any rate i'm done commenting on this.

[bylbob]

I am not blaming you for choosing RL over EQ Amelinda, but in this case don't you think you should ask Rogean to find a new senior GM? or is it allready the case?

[Daldolma]

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

and i've posted before that i've banned some of platlord's accounts and taken rmt'd plat out of the economy but noone remembers that.

if i were to post which characters i banned it would be like

Today i banned for rmt:
cindylouwho (level 1) 500k plat
cindybrady (level 1) 500k plat

is that terribly informative? no. but since people who RMT use throw away accounts then you aren't going to get what you want which is:

I don't mean to be rude, but that just doesn't sound reasonably accurate. If you were to regularly hit Plat Lord accounts for 500k -- or anywhere near that -- there wouldn't be a Plat Lord anymore. He's not making enough profit to shell out $500 on banned accounts once a week. I doubt he's making enough to shell out $500 per month and still preserve a worthwhile profit. If you were getting to him with any kind of regularity, he wouldn't continue his enterprise. That being the case, the sale of arguably the most valuable item on the server should be setting off every alarm in the building. Instead, he was allowed to peddle it on P99's own forums. He's not even operating under the radar.

And it's not that people want names. It's that they see RMT. Every regular knows what happened to IB's guildbank. Every regular knows what's happening/happened with IB's former accounts/plat stock/items. We see a guy with a website running a business off RMT and selling the most expensive, easily traced item in the game on the p99 forums -- it's not hard to understand why people question the efforts to combat RMT.

I know that you're busy, and I know that it's frustrating to have every server flaw flung back in your face when you're expending great amounts of energy trying to improve the server. This is intended to be constructive in nature. You don't have to eliminate RMT -- you just have to make it more difficult. We know that you can't find every RMT transaction. That's not reasonable. But you can take steps to antagonize habitual RMT'ers enough that their RMT isn't profitable. And you can take steps to safeguard against massive RMT firesales by quitting end-game raiders. Those are the two types of RMT that people care about.

[Kevlar]

Who is to say plat lord isn't a developer? If you get enough monkeys hooked on a private server you could make enough to keep the lights on and then some. And you wouldn't have to camp a single thing. Just create it.

Not saying that goes on here. But if enough RMTs are going down with little enforcement it certainly can appear that way.