Simple. Just delete the duped items and keep an eye on the questionable accounts for a while. Innocent people will keep playing those accounts while they bend over backwards to keep from getting caught-up in an expensive duping rip-off scam again. On the other hand, guilty people will probably close the compromised account(s) and find some way to set-up business and start it all over again. No matter the result though, you should continue to delete any duped items you find.
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Yes, I agree. The bending over backwards part is stretching it a bit, but yes, guilty ones will note that their account has been marked and compromised.
The crucial part is, this keeps those normal players from considering cheats.
Hardcore ones that are out to make a buck? Won't stop them from creating new accounts even if you ban their accounts immediately. With the dupes deleted though, damage will be contained.
Do you have any actual method for *knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt* this or that item is a dupe, or are you going on quantity alone to determine guilt?
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And you know this because...? Are you saying they have no way past quantity-in-possession to decide whether or not items are dupes?
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However, if there *is no* method for determining through the items' codings if they are real or duped, then banning for nothing more than the "sin" of possessing a large quantity of some item seems a very ill-conceived method of attacking the duping problem. Primarily because it's very possible for a player to purchase large quantities of even Val Hammers not realizing it's impossible to attain such BoD Rewards in any great number honestly.
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Everybody seem ready to believe that EA/Mythic has some method by which they can directly identify dupes( i.e. by duplicate IDs). I guess I am just too old and cynical to accept that inference without some less obtuse statement from them. If they have a reasonable method of identify dupes with DB searches, they should be running these daily, tagging the sources, and deleting the items off.
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Pardon me if if am wrong, but it appears that a big part of your concern is with OSI's inability to detect duped items, and instead are just doing a blanket ban by quantity alone, yes?
I know there's no real way to to allay your concerns or everyone elses'. So let's say I quote my professor again - forget what I said, items do not have a unique ID.
Let's say they go by quantity alone, this is what I observed:
1) There are people that still have their 250 mil, plus tons of runics
2) I myself have at least 30 aggy hammers from the Mysterios Traders, 30+ other low end hammers, another 30 over ASH, over a hundred blackrock, at least a container of dull colored minor Tokuno dyes, some money and busloads of soulstone fragment tokens from x-sharding among other things.
I know aggy hammers are not exactly val hammers, so maybe they don't count these. That leaves checks, yes? If they do it just based on quantity, 250 mil would have set off all sorts of alarms and get these people banned right?
We have at least 1 person that didn't get banned due to a large quantity of money.
Here comes the disclaimer: One sample doth not a case maketh.
Another flaw with what I said - these persons are lying, they don't really have 250 mil. Or maybe, they got banned and want to lull other people into complacency so that other people gets banned as well. Such is the wont of griefers, which are plenty abound. I might also be lying and trying to spread misinformation. Hell, I might also have suggested that I am lying to lull people into thinking I am not actually lying et infinitum. Even if am am not lying, I could be wrong.
Finally, maybe OSI have not reached these people yet, they'll be banned this weekend...
So instead, I will say this to everyone, don't trust everything you read. Question and think for yourself from both angles objectively. Analyze what makes sense and derive your own conclusions.
