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China To Gilsellers: Go Directly To Jail

B

Banhammer

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In addition to its ongoing crackdown on Internet porn, the Chinese government has declared that virtual currency cannot be traded for real goods or services.

Virtual currency, as defined by Chinese authorities, includes "prepaid cards of cyber-games," according to a joint release issued by China's Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Commerce on Friday.

"The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services," the Ministries said.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/ebusiness/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=218101859

Well, this is going to make things rather interesting.

(The official announcement from the Chinese government is over here, apparently.)
 

Trish

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I can only hope it changes things for the better. Man, it's getting bad, at least on my server. And I can't remember the last time they did a mass banning of the cheaters =\
 

Diomedes Artega

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http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/ebusiness/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=218101859

Well, this is going to make things rather interesting.

(The official announcement from the Chinese government is over here, apparently.)
I don't see things improving. It is up to the corporations producing the games to stop money selling tactics. Frankly, from all the games I have played online, Final Fantasy is vastly hurt by it's auction house system.

Farmers can "set" the price on items and really it is all the same. The player base complains but does NOTHING.

In Lineage II, people complain about all the same things. The funny thing is though, is the players have the ability to do something and DON'T. I personally have a red murderer character and kill automated characters when I see them.

Lastly, the game has a feature for reporting people. The GM will then queue the person to see if they are AFK or not. If AFK and they are moving automatically, then...goodbye. They get booted from the game.

Expecting the Chinese though to do something about anonymous gil sellers is ridiculous.

In conclusion, not allowing names like sf98werdsfjk would be a good start.
 
J

jamison

Guest
you have something against my character sf98werdsfjk?

Honestly though, the problem is that there are combinations of letters that don't make sense in one culture that do in others. Lafawndhu may be fine in one place and be gibberish in another, this is not just an english speaking game.

However, I think the start is getting this into the lawbooks. This will allow game producers a way of defending their intellectual property and help players as well. Before this, the only real action a game could take was to ban the account and when they did, they had to ban hundreds and even thousands of accounts!

This really shows some dedication to the players, these accounts all equal money that the company is making. After all, someone has to pay the membership fee if the account is open (some games prevent trade, mail, etc without a paid account) and if nothing else, they have to keep buying games for the free month.

The game makers give up that in favor of the players. Now, the game makers can ban the offender and give all of the information to the authorities who can take action.

So honestly, anything is good! And hopefully this is just a start!!
 

Diomedes Artega

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you have something against my character sf98werdsfjk?

Honestly though, the problem is that there are combinations of letters that don't make sense in one culture that do in others. Lafawndhu may be fine in one place and be gibberish in another, this is not just an english speaking game.

However, I think the start is getting this into the lawbooks. This will allow game producers a way of defending their intellectual property and help players as well. Before this, the only real action a game could take was to ban the account and when they did, they had to ban hundreds and even thousands of accounts!

This really shows some dedication to the players, these accounts all equal money that the company is making. After all, someone has to pay the membership fee if the account is open (some games prevent trade, mail, etc without a paid account) and if nothing else, they have to keep buying games for the free month.

The game makers give up that in favor of the players. Now, the game makers can ban the offender and give all of the information to the authorities who can take action.

So honestly, anything is good! And hopefully this is just a start!!
Yes I have something against your character named sf98werdsfjk. haha...I'm kidding. In all seriousness, I agree with you that having the constituents of law jurisdiction would help in easing some of those issues that we all know about (which of course I won't discuss here).
 
B

Banhammer

Guest
It turns out that this actually doesn't apply to gilfarming, I'm sad to say.

Basically, there was one particular ingame currency that was being used a lot to pay for real-world goods, and now it's illegal there to use ingame currencies for anything other than ingame items. Gilfarming is a bit different, and thus not explicitly banned.
 

Diomedes Artega

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It turns out that this actually doesn't apply to gilfarming, I'm sad to say.

Basically, there was one particular ingame currency that was being used a lot to pay for real-world goods, and now it's illegal there to use ingame currencies for anything other than ingame items. Gilfarming is a bit different, and thus not explicitly banned.
That's why it won't stop. I posted a separate thread about this...can't recall where, but it is ostensibly up to the game developer to police it's own techniques for certain activities.

In Lineage II for example, adena farming goes on as well (L2's currency). There are however, in game systems for stopping illegal activity but...people don't use them. That is their own faults.

I frankly have found the tools to be quite effective. You take accountability of asking the person if they are there. If no reply within a reasonable amount of time and they are still moving, then you can page on the person. The GM then deals with the person.

Or in that game you can take your own action and just kill the person.
 

Diomedes Artega

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Truly, the greatest fault FFXI has is the inability to use PvP as a solution to gilfarmers. :D
hehe...yes, I definitely agree. Could just have your main logged by a spot and then work your other character and once you see a gilfarmer...kaPOW! lol...
THAT, would be a lot of fun. Just rampage them to death.
 
K

kouper

Guest
hehe...yes, I definitely agree. Could just have your main logged by a spot and then work your other character and once you see a gilfarmer...kaPOW! lol...
THAT, would be a lot of fun. Just rampage them to death.
even without being able to kill em in other games there are some fun alternatives... Since many gilfarmers are botted and run set paths, in wow we used to taunt/pull whatever mob a bot was fighting away and either towards elite/hard packs, or towards a cliff, since the bot would try and continue running... It'd run off the cliff. :) good times.
 

Diomedes Artega

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even without being able to kill em in other games there are some fun alternatives... Since many gilfarmers are botted and run set paths, in wow we used to taunt/pull whatever mob a bot was fighting away and either towards elite/hard packs, or towards a cliff, since the bot would try and continue running... It'd run off the cliff. :) good times.
Yeah, unfortunately in FFXI one isn't able to do that...to my knowledge. I would love to be able to do that though to them. Personally, I still like being able to ranged attack them from afar.

Now that would be fun...just sidewinder and then send a slugshot down right after that! :thumbsup:

note: You used to be able to MPK gilfarmers with mobs...but they changed the coding a few years back so that you couldn't do that any more. That was fun as well.
 
J

jamison

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Well... it is a step in the right direction... Hopefully they'll be treated as the criminals I feel they are. The only way to beat them honestly is for S*E to start selling gil themselves, then there would be nothing for the gilsellers to do.
 

Diomedes Artega

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Well... it is a step in the right direction... Hopefully they'll be treated as the criminals I feel they are. The only way to beat them honestly is for S*E to start selling gil themselves, then there would be nothing for the gilsellers to do.
I appreciate your viewpoint, but I cannot say I agree with it. What would stop the gilfarmers for selling the currency at rock bottom prices? Hard for a company to compete with that in my personal opinion. These people have it down to a science.
 
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