Econ Fix: Why is it so hard to ban/stop the Credits Sellers?

[CLJolliff]

It seems to me that if the players have too much cash, wouldn't it be imperative to find a way to stamp out this seemingly obvious cheat method? I cannot for the life of me believe that whatever these players are doing isn't somehow screwing the system. Paying real money for in-game money is inherently stupid, and yet I know there are buyers, or there wouldn't be people on the fleet EVERY TIME I log in, selling Credits for cash. They would go away if nobody was buying, right?

Now, I assume (dangerous, I know) these sellers are selling Credits they have legally earned through stupid loopholes, or by selling ridiculously overvalued items on the GTN or whatever else, but still, letting them spread this in-game money around in this fashion has to be far worse than letting poor newbie gamers Quick Travel for free. Please explain this to me, devs. 

[Spikanor]

its not only swtor that has this problem all the MMORPG game's that are F2P have this problem.

and there is no golden solution to stop then for good so you have to deal with then and block then.

[CLJolliff]

I hope you mean the Devs blocking them. It shouldn't be our responsibility to block them. I'm not a game cop.

I personally don't care one iota what they do, because I'm not buying, and I generally switch to a chat without General to avoid the noise on the fleet anyways.

The only part of this that bothers me at all is that they (devs) are nickel and dime robbing the poorest players in the game to make up for their own inability to manage a problem. I've been playing for nine years, so personally I have enough credits from past gameplay to QT any time I want. It doesn't affect me at all, but any time I try to entice a new player, I feel obligated to bribe them with extra Credits myself, and it's ridiculous that I should feel that way because of game mismanagement.

[Addictress]

Seems like a scam. How do you know it isn't a really dumb phishing site with naughty ads?

[Spikanor]

11 hours ago, CLJolliff said:

I hope you mean the Devs blocking them. It shouldn't be our responsibility to block them. I'm not a game cop.

the devs cant do notting about it since this is general problem in any mmorpg game so there is no golden fix for it yet to stop then.

look on this thread then you see its a long time problem. https://forums.swtor.com/topic/732784-fleet-spam-outta-control/

and relex also since there not sending spam mails again thats most of the anoying things there have done in the past so be happy there are not doing it anymore.

 

Edited August 17, 2023 by Spikanor

[CLJolliff]

Sad, There's a commonly repeated sequence of words that they could trigger on in chat and just ban-hammer the offenders, if they really wanted to. They just don't care as much as they want to pretend they do, it seems. I want to be proven wrong, about that.
I still feel punishing new players by charging (and charging SO MUCH) for quick travel is not the right move. It should not cost 4K credits to travel from one part of a WORLD to another when it barely costs a quarter of that to travel from one rim of the GALAXY to the other.

[SteveTheCynic]

8 hours ago, CLJolliff said:

Sad, There's a commonly repeated sequence of words that they could trigger on in chat and just ban-hammer the offenders, if they really wanted to

And the offenders would just find a way around it, like changing W to \/\/ or M to /\/\ or M to |\/|, or a host of other things.

[ZUHFB]

I mean they did do something, the coruscant shadows aren't there anymore, just to name one example. But if they ban all the credit sellers now, half the nightmare raiding community would be banned - they can't just ban idk 10 to 5% of the playerbase, it would drop to double digitis!

God I hope they ban them.

Edited August 21, 2023 by ZUHFB

[DeannaVoyager]

5 hours ago, ZUHFB said:

I mean they did do something, the coruscant shadows aren't there anymore, just to name one example. But if they ban all the credit sellers now, half the nightmare raiding community would be banned - they can't just ban idk 10 to 5% of the playerbase, it would drop to double digitis!

God I hope they ban them.

The nightmare community is not that big, and most of it don't do sale runs & credit selling. They could ban them if they wanted to, and I would support it 100%.

[ZUHFB]

15 hours ago, DeannaVoyager said:

They could ban them if they wanted to

at this point its either ignorance or incompetence - or they profit themselves

there is people making new accounts, going 100% ops achievements and selling those, on stream

there is people selling high value accounts w literally the same name as ingame

there is people who I have written confessions of participating in RMT, not only that but I also mathematically proved (on the forums and in email) that they HAVE to RMT

When I was still playing I gave them what they needed, who is doing it, what they are doing, how it works and who profits, I gave them account names, I gave them websites, I gave them screenshots. Not only that but the devs already knew about the website because its the same one the wintrading service was on for which one guy got banned, presumably got a NDA after paying BW the money he made from it, or at least thats how the story goes.

Two more things to show how little thought actually goes into this stuff: An ingame screenshot is not proof of anything, it could be fake afterall - I mean they have chatlogs, but lets ignore that, would be too much work for them. There are accounts out there who got abandoned because they are EA banned but not BW banned making it impossible to buy sub (not that anybody would need a sub now) but since the game is on steam its possible to buy sub through steam and avoid that ban. I don't know how they don't think of these things in advance, its so painfully obvious.

Anyway, they aren't gonna do anything. Either because they profit or because they are ignorant. Could be either, in both cases my descision to unsub was absolutely right. How is anybody paying for a game in a state this sad not embarrassed.

Edited August 22, 2023 by ZUHFB

[Hrafnhildur]

There's a very simple solution to stop run sellers and gold sellers without damaging the "nightmare" community : 

since NiM DF/DP and other are old content, the rewards should be retired and offered for purchase in the Cartel Market : the dread master mask, the Brontes jetpack and so on. Furthermore, a player attempting to do a NiM operation should get the achievement only if he previously completed SM/HM ( each and every boss) and, while in the NiM operation, completes every stage too. 

yes, i know, many NiM players who gained their items fair and square will be enraged, but there's a precedent: initially, one could only get Shae Vizla as a reward for being a subscriber for a period of time. Now, everyone who completes a Galactic Season and gathers 5 tokens, including F2P, can get Shae Vizla. 

so, why not give everyone a chance to get the old NiM items? that would reduce the number of people who are willing to pay huge amounts of CC only to be carried. 

this shouldn't affect the "true" NiM players who learn and struggle and get their achievements in a honorable way. 

[ZUHFB]

7 hours ago, Hrafnhildur said:

since NiM DF/DP and other are old content, the rewards should be retired and offered for purchase in the Cartel Market : the dread master mask, the Brontes jetpack and so on.

outragous solution, and wrong too

Wings is why a lot a lot of people started raiding, this would cripple the already dead community even further and devalue any achievments / mounts obtained. Its also wrong because the Mask does neither drop in DF nor DP. If mask could drop on HM/SM a lot of people still wouldn't be able to straight up organize such a run. As a person who has organized countless hateful entity runs I can assure you that every step is a pain, killing dreadtooth, having enough PTs per run, having competent people having rep alts with masks having orbs (mainly a repside problem) and getting the lockout. Fair price for 1.4k CC if you ask me :Kappa:

Oh and selling an item that ISN'T in collections surely won't create any drama.... /s

if you want those items buy them from bioware by buying hypercrates and buy a run, or join the community, progress and be rewarded.