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Do you ever feel that UO has turned into a virtual mafia state?

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Jirel of Joiry

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I do, but I'm one person and I've been told I'm too idealistic. The reason why I feel this way is that it seems the RMT brokers have UO in a choke hold. An example of this is the over inflated prices of items. For example the small soulforge that drops from Scalis. On a low population shard this item runs about 100m. This is unattainable for the casual player. So they are forced to go to RMT brokers.

Also I have noticed that certain players get away with things. A high percentage of those are RMT brokers. Well if nothing else I'd say art is imitating life. I mean in RL if you got enough money you can get away with anything, even murder. (Remember OJ?) Why should it be any different in UO, right?

I'm not gonna apologize for my views. If you don't agree that's okay. You are free to reply with your views.
 

Cirno

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I don't think you can blame the high prices of things on RMT brokers.
The reason the prices have increased is the increasing amount of gold within the game. This has nothing to do with people selling gold for real money, and more to do with people gathering gold from systems that just create it.
 

Jirel of Joiry

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I don't think you can blame the high prices of things on RMT brokers.
The reason the prices have increased is the increasing amount of gold within the game. This has nothing to do with people selling gold for real money, and more to do with people gathering gold from systems that just create it.
I feel like the UO gold surplus in game is the perverbial Chicken & the egg quandary. Which came first the gold surplus or duping of gold or people selling gold? More over did people dupe gold then sell or did people sell and then dupe to have more "product" to sell? It's a tangled web with no definative start or end, just twists, turns and many questions.
 

Dermott of LS

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RMT brokers only move existing money around in the game. Exploits such as duping and scripting have done all of the damage you see as well as the simple effects of a wide open faucet, a relatively tiny "sink", and plain old time.

Noone is "out to get you" (it's bad for business generally), RMT brokers are simply filling a natural niche in a free market economy. As long as people are willing to pay for gold or items, there will be people to sell them.
 

Dermott of LS

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Which came first the gold surplus or duping of gold or people selling gold?

Duping.

The first login "news" I ever saw on the old original patch screen in December 1997/January 1998 was in regards to the current dupe bug at that time and the people involved.

Duping was around LOOOOONG before RMT ever got started.
 

kelmo

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Jirel... settle down. Good thing I play Siege. None of that happens there. You can buy gold... but that is about it.

Siege. Where duping never happens. Except for Patty accidentally duping a herald...
 

wanderer1origin

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biggest one was turning bods in for ingots that was start of a long path of oops for uo

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Which came first the gold surplus or duping of gold or people selling gold?

Duping.

The first login "news" I ever saw on the old original patch screen in December 1997/January 1998 was in regards to the current dupe bug at that time and the people involved.

Duping was around LOOOOONG before RMT ever got started.
 

Dakkon Blackblade

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I still remember the first time I read about accounts being sold for money, I was reading a copy of Inquest a now defunct gaming magazine, and came across an article where some guy Dragon something or other sold his account on Great Lakes I think it was? for 1,200-1,500 dollars.

I cannot remember the exact figure as it has been years since I read the magazine but it was really awesome how IQ covered UO from the time it was in development to the first real money transactions coming into play.

Once people saw how lucrative it was, well it was a no brainer that people would swoop down on the chance to make a lot of money sitting on their asses playing video games all day.

From what I remember Marquee Dragoon said at this point it is so saturated that there is little profit to be made unless you already have an established customer base to draw from.

I imagine competing with the asian gold farmers, who by the way tend to farm across pretty much every MMO you can imagine, is quite difficult.
 
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RavenWinterHawk

Guest
I do, but I'm one person and I've been told I'm too idealistic. The reason why I feel this way is that it seems the RMT brokers have UO in a choke hold. An example of this is the over inflated prices of items. For example the small soulforge that drops from Scalis. On a low population shard this item runs about 100m. This is unattainable for the casual player. So they are forced to go to RMT brokers.

Also I have noticed that certain players get away with things. A high percentage of those are RMT brokers. Well if nothing else I'd say art is imitating life. I mean in RL if you got enough money you can get away with anything, even murder. (Remember OJ?) Why should it be any different in UO, right?

I'm not gonna apologize for my views. If you don't agree that's okay. You are free to reply with your views.
Dude... no one is forcing you. Forced... your kidding. Just because you cant easily get an item and because there are some many honest casual players...

You have to go to a cash guy to buy it.

Sound less like a mafia state and bunch of crack addicts. Its a game. Wait 1 year and everything becomes available for the casual player.

Oh wait you all WANT IT NOW. Crack or pixel crack. Its all the same.
 
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RavenWinterHawk

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I don't think you can blame the high prices of things on RMT brokers.
The reason the prices have increased is the increasing amount of gold within the game. This has nothing to do with people selling gold for real money, and more to do with people gathering gold from systems that just create it.
Thank You.
 

Dermott of LS

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It wasn't turning in BODs for ingots, it was resmelting them.

And Dakkon, you hit on why I don't RMT in UO... while I'll defend the legality of it (assuming that the seller has legitimately gained the goods being sold) all day long, the return on time invested is a fraction of a fraction of minimum wage and really NOT worth the effort.
 
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Woodsman

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I remember people paying cash for stuff in early 1998, so RMT has been around at least that long.
 

Jirel of Joiry

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Which came first the gold surplus or duping of gold or people selling gold?

Duping.

The first login "news" I ever saw on the old original patch screen in December 1997/January 1998 was in regards to the current dupe bug at that time and the people involved.

Duping was around LOOOOONG before RMT ever got started.
Ahhhh! Most illuminating Dermott. Thank you! I've only been around UO 9-10 years. It begs the question why has EA let this persist for so long. *Sigh* It seems with UO that answers to one question breeds more questions.
 

Dermott of LS

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Let what persist? Duping? That'd be assuming there's only been the one dupe bug. There have been several different dupe bugs over the course of UO's lifetime, and in every case it's only been a limited amount of gold or items that the devs are ever able to remove from offenders as the duped gold and goods are distributed into the UO community (see the Verite and Val hammers recently and some of the gold sellers).

Even if there are no active dupe bugs at the moment (and I really have NO idea if there are or not, nor would it be appropriate to discuss here), we still have the effects of past dupes "in play".
 

Jirel of Joiry

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I do, but I'm one person and I've been told I'm too idealistic. The reason why I feel this way is that it seems the RMT brokers have UO in a choke hold. An example of this is the over inflated prices of items. For example the small soulforge that drops from Scalis. On a low population shard this item runs about 100m. This is unattainable for the casual player. So they are forced to go to RMT brokers.

Also I have noticed that certain players get away with things. A high percentage of those are RMT brokers. Well if nothing else I'd say art is imitating life. I mean in RL if you got enough money you can get away with anything, even murder. (Remember OJ?) Why should it be any different in UO, right?

I'm not gonna apologize for my views. If you don't agree that's okay. You are free to reply with your views.
Dude... no one is forcing you. Forced... your kidding. Just because you cant easily get an item and because there are some many honest casual players...

You have to go to a cash guy to buy it.

Sound less like a mafia state and bunch of crack addicts. Its a game. Wait 1 year and everything becomes available for the casual player.

Oh wait you all WANT IT NOW. Crack or pixel crack. Its all the same.
No, no you misunderstood. I could careless I'll just keep doing whatever spawn/reknowned/Peerless to get the drop I want. I'm just befuddled at items selling for 100m gold when I can remember items selling for 1-10mil and while expensive they were attainable.

That added to the fact I see certain players getting away with certain behavior over and over again. I find that some of these players are invovled with RMT. It makes me raise an eyebrow. Dear if you have ever read your world history book you would know that corruption in all its forms have exsisted since the world was very young. I don't believe in that aspect mankind or the world has changed that much.
 

Jirel of Joiry

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Let what persist? Duping? That'd be assuming there's only been the one dupe bug. There have been several different dupe bugs over the course of UO's lifetime, and in every case it's only been a limited amount of gold or items that the devs are ever able to remove from offenders as the duped gold and goods are distributed into the UO community (see the Verite and Val hammers recently and some of the gold sellers).

Even if there are no active dupe bugs at the moment (and I really have NO idea if there are or not, nor would it be appropriate to discuss here), we still have the effects of past dupes "in play".
That's what I meant the effects of the past dupes and the fact that they don't seem be vigilant in really testing for such stuff before they release a pub/patch. Then when a bug is found it is my observation that they are slow to act in fix said bug.
 

Dermott of LS

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Things are worth what people will pay for them, and not every vendor will be priced at the current market values. I know of a certain house on LS in Luna that has item priced at up to 10x or MORE the price of the same item at the house(s) next to it. Of course I'm not sure how much this house has sold in the past few years, only that the bulletin board out front is rather amusing to read all of the flames the owner gets for the prices set.

Don't like the pricetag, then don't pay it.
 

Jirel of Joiry

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Things are worth what people will pay for them, and not every vendor will be priced at the current market values. I know of a certain house on LS in Luna that has item priced at up to 10x or MORE the price of the same item at the house(s) next to it. Of course I'm not sure how much this house has sold in the past few years, only that the bulletin board out front is rather amusing to read all of the flames the owner gets for the prices set.

Don't like the pricetag, then don't pay it.
Amen, brother! :D
 
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Woodsman

Guest
RMT brokers only move existing money around in the game. Exploits such as duping and scripting have done all of the damage you see as well as the simple effects of a wide open faucet, a relatively tiny "sink", and plain old time.
The gold that RMTers sell has to be generated somewhere, whether it's scripting/gold farming or both. If they weren't generating it, they wouldn't have it to sell, especially on every shard. It'd be one thing if they were legitimately playing UO and generating the gold in a legitimate manner, but even paying somebody in China and India to farm for gold or items is wrong in my book.

It's not as much of a problem these days, but before Tram and even not long after, the RMTers were a serious problem for legitimate players. Because houses were worth so much, many RMTers were selling houses for cash only. This meant that those houses were effectively removed from the game as far as players buying them for in-game gold, which drove the in-game costs of the remaining houses through the roof. Driving up the in-game costs of remaining housing also helped fuel gold-based RMTs, which further complicated things.

Those kinds of things harm UO a great deal, because it prevents players from competing with one another inside the game, and instead creates situations where you have players competing with other players' real-life bank accounts.

It also didn't help that duping helped and tempted the RMTers. Players had no idea if they were paying somebody who legitimately did what was necessary for the gold in-game or who were duping or engaging in other practices. When you have a lot of money involved, and EA turning a blind eye to RMTs, the temptation was too great.
Noone is "out to get you" (it's bad for business generally), RMT brokers are simply filling a natural niche in a free market economy. As long as people are willing to pay for gold or items, there will be people to sell them.
I agree with this, which is why I'd like to see RMTers and buyers banned. I've always been a fan of EVE Online and the way it's handled RMT - they'll ban the buyers in addition to the RMTers. That does tend to cut down on some of the RMT stuff. They are not always as fast on the bannings of players, RMTers, and scripting accounts as players would like, but they do ban for it.

There was a major RMT website for EVE that was hacked recently, and the information was passed along to some of the EVE news websites as well as EVE's developer, CCP. There are a lot of people sweating bullets over that one, as they might lose their accounts for buying gold and other items. The person who ran the RMT operation had no problem admitting to scripting.
 

Vlaude

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"virtual mafia state"

You took the words right out of my mouth ... erm, fingers!
 
C

ChReuter

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Wow, I don't remember a news release talking about who was guilty of duping... Although, I would not be shocked. I will agree though that duping came prior to the first real business minded gold sales.

I know during beta a member of RoF named Aquaman was banned for both stat/skill and gold exploits. I don't think it was exactly a dupe, but same effect pretty much. (Note: To those who played during beta and knew Aquaman, he wasn't banned for the "historic" murder he commited on his thief like most people believed. He in fact wasn't banned at all, only removed from UO till testing was finished and the game went gold, or so that's what he said.)

Not that any of this really matters, but nonetheless, gold creating exploits came a good bit before the first gold sales. (Which btw, a mill used to cost over 100usd. I'm now not a fan of real life sales, but at one point I was all for it (Honestly only when it was me making the profit) and around the time t2a was released we would get easily 100+usd for a mill.)
 
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Woodsman

Guest
I do, but I'm one person and I've been told I'm too idealistic. The reason why I feel this way is that it seems the RMT brokers have UO in a choke hold. An example of this is the over inflated prices of items. For example the small soulforge that drops from Scalis. On a low population shard this item runs about 100m. This is unattainable for the casual player. So they are forced to go to RMT brokers.
I would say that it's not as bad it used to be. I mentioned the example of houses being effectively taken out of the game and tied up for RMT, which hurt the housing supplies within the game. It's not a problem now, every shard has plenty of places to place, but it was a serious problem on many shards before the Tram land rush.

$0.25 or $0.50 per million gold also helps reduce the amount of RMTers. Of course, it doesn't matter too much since powerful computers are cheap and scripts are plentiful. Between my two computers, I could easily run 8 accounts at once, and could even split them up between 3 ISPs. I have a feeling that if they forced everybody to the EC, the scripters wouldn't be down for too long, they would just turn their efforts to the EC.

Ideally, I'd like to see a lot of stuff be account-bound on pickup. EA could also really drive the RMTers down and make some money in the process if they added a few more pixel crack-type items that the RMTers covet, that would be account-bound from the get go. Some have pointed to the Britannian ship on UO Game Codes as being one way of doing it in a round-about manner. It's a cheap way for normal players to get a lot of in-game gold without dealing with RMTers, and EA gets the money instead of RMTers.

One thing I do when I venture through Luna, I pick up all of the books/runes that mention RMT websites and trash them or re-mark them if they are runes.
 
C

ChReuter

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Jirel... settle down. Good thing I play Siege. None of that happens there. You can buy gold... but that is about it.

Siege. Where duping never happens. Except for Patty accidentally duping a herald...
Duping never happens on siege? I suppose that rather controversial incident involving a whole guild being banned is just my imagination! Maybe a certain someone who just had his videos hosted on stratics could confirm it's all in my head. :D

Then again, maybe we shouldn't ask him (I won't say his name), I seem to remember the major controversy being that his whole guild was banned (Those innocent and those not) except for him. Rather suspect eh?

Seriously though, I'm curious now. I am remembering this correctly right? I know there was that dupe on siege, I seem to remember we had a revert because of it, I just cannot recall all of the details. I'm fairly certain I have it close to correct, or at least what the grapevine said at that time
 

Dermott of LS

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The gold that RMTers sell has to be generated somewhere, whether it's scripting/gold farming or both. If they weren't generating it, they wouldn't have it to sell, especially on every shard. It'd be one thing if they were legitimately playing UO and generating the gold in a legitimate manner, but even paying somebody in China and India to farm for gold or items is wrong in my book.


You'll get no argument from me there, but as long as the gold or items ingame is obtained in a legal manner, what the person decides to do with said resource is up to them, not to me or anyone else except their potential buyer.

The problem is not RMT, but exploits used by many gold sellers.

Personally, I would rather see a marketplace run by the company running the game that is tied into everyone's account that allowed for both ingame and RMT activity... a neutral, yet moderated marketplace where if someone IS putting up an inordinate amount (and let's be honest, with IDOCs, this becomes more difficult generally) of items/resources for sale, a flag and be set for an internal investigation and action taken accordingly.

The "what is the real problem?" scenario I always put forth is this:

Which of the two scenarios provided is worse:

1. Player A dupes millions of gold and gives it away at the bank

2. Player B sells millions of gold (obtained legally) to other players

In both cases, what happens ingame in the transfer of gold from one player to another is the EXACT SAME. The difference is how said gold is obtained. the RMT transaction is completely external to the game. Without prior knowledge, the only thing the game sees in the case of an RMT action is gold/items/resources being given from one player to another... the exact same thing it sees when someone gives a newbie free items/resources/gold.

The issue is NOT what two players agree as to a transaction, but how the player with the item/resources/gold obtained them in the first place and THAT is what should be focused on in terms of in-game policing.
 
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Sevin0oo0

Guest
heaven forbid someone actually build a toon and get their Own forge. If you can't afford to buy, go get one, nothing was stopping them, nothing's stopping anyone from doing the same, except laziness.
 
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UOKaiser

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No, no you misunderstood. I could careless I'll just keep doing whatever spawn/reknowned/Peerless to get the drop I want. I'm just befuddled at items selling for 100m gold when I can remember items selling for 1-10mil and while expensive they were attainable.

That added to the fact I see certain players getting away with certain behavior over and over again. I find that some of these players are invovled with RMT. It makes me raise an eyebrow. Dear if you have ever read your world history book you would know that corruption in all its forms have exsisted since the world was very young. I don't believe in that aspect mankind or the world has changed that much.
At least there are somethings still worth that much. Think of the problem if that same item is worth 1mil. Look how much gold you have now either in gold or in item value or house value or whatever. The price needs to reflect the amount of gold attainable. A player that has 5mil in the bank can go get them self a soulforge after hard work and then resell it to another for 100mil making that player 105mil this is a good thing. Now if that 5mil player did all the hard work and people are only willing to buy the item from him at 2mil like many doom artifacts and other items in the game that player will never be able to get enough to ever catch up to us that have billions of gold laying around.
 
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UOKaiser

Guest
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The gold that RMTers sell has to be generated somewhere, whether it's scripting/gold farming or both. If they weren't generating it, they wouldn't have it to sell, especially on every shard. It'd be one thing if they were legitimately playing UO and generating the gold in a legitimate manner, but even paying somebody in China and India to farm for gold or items is wrong in my book.


You'll get no argument from me there, but as long as the gold or items ingame is obtained in a legal manner, what the person decides to do with said resource is up to them, not to me or anyone else except their potential buyer.

The problem is not RMT, but exploits used by many gold sellers.

Personally, I would rather see a marketplace run by the company running the game that is tied into everyone's account that allowed for both ingame and RMT activity... a neutral, yet moderated marketplace where if someone IS putting up an inordinate amount (and let's be honest, with IDOCs, this becomes more difficult generally) of items/resources for sale, a flag and be set for an internal investigation and action taken accordingly.

The "what is the real problem?" scenario I always put forth is this:

Which of the two scenarios provided is worse:

1. Player A dupes millions of gold and gives it away at the bank

2. Player B sells millions of gold (obtained legally) to other players

In both cases, what happens ingame in the transfer of gold from one player to another is the EXACT SAME. The difference is how said gold is obtained. the RMT transaction is completely external to the game. Without prior knowledge, the only thing the game sees in the case of an RMT action is gold/items/resources being given from one player to another... the exact same thing it sees when someone gives a newbie free items/resources/gold.

The issue is NOT what two players agree as to a transaction, but how the player with the item/resources/gold obtained them in the first place and THAT is what should be focused on in terms of in-game policing.
Gold dupes don't come very often. I think there being maybe 2 in UO lifetime with gold dupes. Other dupes were just items that don't generate more gold into the economy. The main gold dupes were done by GM's in the earlie days "suspect dev" that intentionaly left a whole open so that GM pals can exploit it to generate gold and resell for real money. But that was a very very long time ago doubt they ever got caught. Made a pretty penny before they moved on. Though it permently change the income level in UO as so much was generated.

These days gold is not generated through script/goldfarming " both are different gold farming is legitamite way of playing the game the reason to hunt a monster over and over again. Still RMT have no time for that and it's the least efficient way to get gold in game for regular player and RMT. Its just transfered from one hand to another. There is a interesting circle that benefits everyone.
 
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Woodsman

Guest
The problem is not RMT, but exploits used by many gold sellers.
Easy real-life money means that people will be actively looking to exploit UO, and any other MMO for that matter. Remove every gold seller and all of their gold from the game, make it clear that anybody who pays an RMTer will get banned, and while there would still be exploiting going on, it would be drastically reduced once the real-life financial incentive was removed.

It won't be zero - even though EVE Online bans both buyers and sellers, it is still a problem. I've reported my fair share of scripters over the years, and the recent RMT database hack proved that it's alive and well and worth hundreds of thousands of dollars just for one operation. The person who ran the site that was hacked even admitted outright to scripting/botting.

EVE Online kind of combats RMT by allowing players to buy game-time codes for real-life currency and sell them within the game for in-game currency. It actually allows quite a few players to "play for free", but it offers anybody a chance to bypass the RMTers and stay within the TOS, and somebody is still paying for the game time, so CCP is still getting paid money for every person playing. That could never happen in UO because of the amount of gold available.

However, if somebody told me they needed some gold and were willing to pay cash, I would tell them to buy a Britannian Ship from UO Game Codes and then sell it in-game for 40-50 million or so. If they are going to give their money to somebody, I'd rather it be EA than a gold seller. They can't be 100% sure that the gold they receive wasn't from scripting/exploiting obviously, but better the cash goes to EA than a gold seller.
 

Dermott of LS

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But that's the point, it's not the RMT itself that's the issue, but the exploits involved, the crooked dev/GMs, whomever.
 

Viquire

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Markee Dragon posted a pretty good video with a RMT seller and the consequences of so many games going FTP but selling content in house and what it is doing to the brokers of games that follow the business model.

Maybe later, if I remember, I'll dig the link up and post it in here.

If I had bought say a big ship for a hefty sum and found out later it was available for much less money from the company, or if I was a broker and I bought a ton of them and found out I would have to eat a lot of overhead cost, either way, I think I would be discouraged.
 

Dermott of LS

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The other side of that Viq is one of the current methods gold sellers use in some cases:

Buy the "shop item" which sells ingame for more gold than said item would cost in gold using the current exchange rates from ingame currency to real currency, sell item on vendor/AH, then sell the gold for a profit, lather, rinse, repeat.

If I remember correctly, that is one method being used with Xfer tokens here (although there is also the fraudulent tokens issue which is a whole other issue which refers back to my earlier statements).
 

Viquire

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*nods*

Nobody said they were stupid. I just said it would be discouraging.

This has been going on with game time codes for a loooooooooong time.
 
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UOKaiser

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But that's the point, it's not the RMT itself that's the issue, but the exploits involved, the crooked dev/GMs, whomever.
Yea initialy. They are gone though. They are gone though they made there profit ages ago when gold actually was worth like 10 dollars per mil. Gold these days in UO is worthless to generate. Those who stay behind RMT sales are just breakfast money for them really I make more in 2 days of work than they make a week. Though they don't need to do much. Im glad for there services. Without there services I would actually have to pay cash for my accounts or cash for those cash only items instead of gold. Ea still gets the money one way or the other. So no loss to them in anyway. I just get to keep more cash for my rent and my gold can be put to use so i can play the game I've being raised in.
 

Dermott of LS

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And in that manner, I have no problem with RMT brokers:

1. They're paying for the Game Time codes/Xfer tokens (assuming no fraud of course)
2. The gold is obtained through legal ingame methods (and usually at a faster pace than normal since vendor sales of popular items will ALWAYS outpace what you could make using other ingame systems)
3. All parties involved end up with their desired goods in a free and equitable trade: The person looking for a gametime code gets their code, the gold buyer gets their gold and the RMT broker gets their cash profit, EA gets their profit on the code sale.

The ONLY argument at that point is on the philosophical level on whether or not the gold buyer did themselves a disservice by buying the gold instead of earning it.
 
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Woodsman

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But that's the point, it's not the RMT itself that's the issue, but the exploits involved, the crooked dev/GMs, whomever.
I don't think you can separate the two. If the gold sellers had to generate every single gp through legitimate gameplay, there would be a lot less gold floating around. When you introduce financial gain for very little work, there are plenty of people who are going to exploit anything they can to get that real-life money. Whether it's some script, a bug, or using some third-world company, they are going to use whatever works.

When EA deleted 15 trillion in gold, it knocked quite a few gold sellers out of the game temporarily, but only temporarily. Many were back up and running under different names/websites and offering ungodly amounts of gold across all of the major shards.

I would really like to say more on the matter, but it would violate the TOS here. I would just say that you can go out and find out for yourself the ways in which many gold sellers are generating the gold they are selling, and it's not being done legitimately.
 
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UOKaiser

Guest
I don't think you can separate the two. If the gold sellers had to generate every single gp through legitimate gameplay, there would be a lot less gold floating around. When you introduce financial gain for very little work, there are plenty of people who are going to exploit anything they can to get that real-life money. Whether it's some script, a bug, or using some third-world company, they are going to use whatever works.

When EA deleted 15 trillion in gold, it knocked quite a few gold sellers out of the game temporarily, but only temporarily. Many were back up and running under different names/websites and offering ungodly amounts of gold across all of the major shards.

I would really like to say more on the matter, but it would violate the TOS here. I would just say that you can go out and find out for yourself the ways in which many gold sellers are generating the gold they are selling, and it's not being done legitimately.
Definetely not from gold scriptiing or gold duping. I know the many ways how they generate mass gold legitamately though. Not sure what other non legitamately way you might be thinking of.
 
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UOKaiser

Guest
siege has a great economy :thumbup:
Siege is one of the best way gold sellers can sell there gold. They sell less of it for higher price to compare with the inflation of the production economy. I can trade my gold for siege gold or my siege gold to production gold equivelent. Both economies are the same it's just 2 different economies like USA and China just like forex trading.
 

Aran

Always Present
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I love selling in-game stuff for real money. Play video game AND profit? How can you say no to that?
 
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Woodsman

Guest
Definetely not from gold scriptiing or gold duping. I know the many ways how they generate mass gold legitamately though. Not sure what other non legitamately way you might be thinking of.
Back when the gaming media cared a lot more about UO, there were some pretty good articles exposing how these people do this stuff for UO, WoW, etc. Those methods still exist - it's not like macroing through UO Assist or the EC, it's a whole different level, made even easier by cheaper and more powerful computers. They don't even have to dupe and risk their accounts.

You said that you make more in two days than they make in a week. I wouldn't think of it in those terms, because you put in a real week's work. They are setting up some scripts, launching them, and then going off and doing something else. They probably work a fraction of the time that you do, and even if they make less money, it appeals to some people. Plus, once these people get into this stuff and get into easy money, even if it's not as much as you or I make during a real work week, they don't stop with just one MMO. They have the hardware, and it will quickly pay for itself with various MMOs.
 

PASmountaindew

Babbling Loonie
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I do, but I'm one person and I've been told I'm too idealistic. The reason why I feel this way is that it seems the RMT brokers have UO in a choke hold. An example of this is the over inflated prices of items. For example the small soulforge that drops from Scalis. On a low population shard this item runs about 100m. This is unattainable for the casual player. So they are forced to go to RMT brokers.

Also I have noticed that certain players get away with things. A high percentage of those are RMT brokers. Well if nothing else I'd say art is imitating life. I mean in RL if you got enough money you can get away with anything, even murder. (Remember OJ?) Why should it be any different in UO, right?

I'm not gonna apologize for my views. If you don't agree that's okay. You are free to reply with your views.
*puts on my tin foil hat and looks around my copper wire enclosed cage*

So when will EA introduce the black helicopters?
 

MalagAste

Belaern d'Zhaunil
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
I have a one tile soulforge and I didn't pay anyone anything for it.

I earned it killing scalis... was the most awesome thing.... I was so happy.

So you don't NEED to buy anything... However if you play "casually" as in you don't have 40 or 50 hours a week to farm gold in game to buy things or whatever I see nothing wrong with getting gold from someone who does have the time to get that for you if that's what you want to do with your hard earned pay.


However I do see a problem with duping and paying poor Chinese sweatshop kids or whatever to play and farm gold ... that's just wrong in my opinion... scripting I have a problem with too. What's the point of playing a game if you aren't actually playing it?

Part of the problem though is many folk see selling things as a job .... and when it becomes that it's no longer a game and then you get folk screaming and moaning about someone got something worth X amount of dollars and they didn't...

And then then it encourages crap like hacking.... for making profit... Which hurts everyone.
 

HD2300

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
If you had made your argument using powerscrolls, I'd agree.

This is one of the reason why EA UO is tanking. There should be a PvE server.

Anyway 1/3rd of the board here are RMTers/scriptors, the other 1/3rd are EMs paid by EA, so we are basically stuck with the status quo.
 

AtlanticVlad

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Jirel... settle down. Good thing I play Siege. None of that happens there. You can buy gold... but that is about it.

Siege. Where duping never happens. Except for Patty accidentally duping a herald...
Win for Siege again lol Damn we got so many wins over there lol Poor Production Shard folks having do deal with all the BS...
 
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Woodsman

Guest
It was a rhetorical question, but ok, I'll play along. What casual player has a Brit ship that didn't buy it with $ anyways? Then again, doesn't that defeat the purpose of this thread, ie., using cash to buy stuff.
Didn't realize it was rhetorical, and I actually misread a post, the small soulforge is not bugged and can be placed on a Britannian ship like the regular small forge or the elven forge. I thought it was the add-on that was bugged, but it was something else.

As for what casual player has a Brit ship, how about a casual player with $13 in their pocket? Pricing it at $13 makes me want to spend the money on a Brit ship and I have no justification for such a ship.
 

Ahuaeyjnkxs

stranger diamond
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I can say no to that and did.

Back in 1999 I was worth net 9000$ USD minimum (3 accounts, tons of server birth rares on atlantic)... way to start a life at 14 wouldn't you think ?

oh and a head worth 26 millions ?

I let it all decay, and watched over it while it did.

See you guys are missing the point of the OP I think, a virtual mafia state the issue is not the mafia, its their ability to corrupt, the govt, in this case...

EA :gun:

You see since a GM got caught in UO for selling for 100k USD, EA moved in with a "tighter" terms of service agreement which effectively protected gold dupers "privacy" and purposefully trashed my whole anti-hack anti-dupe program I had created out of reverse engeneering the old UOE (and a dash of napster).

Dosen't take a genius to see the guardian is in control... all the rest is a non issue... :sad4:
 

Raptor85

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Jirel... settle down. Good thing I play Siege. None of that happens there. You can buy gold... but that is about it.

Siege. Where duping never happens. Except for Patty accidentally duping a herald...
There's another reason, when you die you can lose things due to lack of insurance, this means there's none of the making 1 super suit with each piece pof'd to 255 and never needing armor again, armor, weapons, artys, etc are in CONSTANT flow on the shard. If they want to fix other shards but keep insurance still they'd need to do something a bit more drastic, like lower the max durability of everything currently carried by 50% each time you die. (or lower like 10/20%) This would make a better gold flow to the crafters through pof sales are replacements for imbued parts. Cuz lets face it, dying on the prodo shards means nothing, 10k gold in insurance? big whoop....I haven't played on prodo since ML launch and dropped most of my gold with my house, and I could still pay for over 2000 deaths with the little left in my bank on a single character.
 
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