Buy/Selling accounts illegal in EU, why?

Penguin

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whoops - just to carry on from above :) (or rather the previous page)

That would cause even more problems from people moaning/threatening legal action etc. etc. wouldn't it?
 

Phoebee-v-

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Evergrey said:
We just "rent" the charcters we are playing on the servers :eek:

Well if I understand what Requiel wrote then that is what we are doing. What stop Goa from let someone else rent the car?

Nm me I just bug of and stop asking stuiped questions. ;)
 

Revz

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What about the enforcement issues? There were many high profile accounts sold on Prydwen as the game lost its interest for various people (Niar springs to mind for example) but the new owners were able to play with and sell the accounts on multiple times with no trouble whatsoever. Currently I'm playing WoW with at least a dozen people who sold their DAoC accounts and can point out several who post on these forums with accounts they have bought in their signatures (hello UndyingAngel).

Do you have a standard punishment for people buying accounts? Is it enforced? If there is no punishment and it is not enforced then what is the point of that section of the EULA?
 

Tesla Monkor

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The point is very simple. If you screw up, get scammed, it's your own fault and GOA doesn't need to do anything. (Not saying they aren't going to help if they take pithy on you..).

That's the sole reason you have to click on OK when you login, agreeing that YOU are the one responsible for whatever shit happens, eventhough you don't own the account. :)
 

Oboy

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Revz said:
Do you have a standard punishment for people buying accounts? Is it enforced? If there is no punishment and it is not enforced then what is the point of that section of the EULA?

My guess is that around 15-20% of the active accounts has been traded/sold/given away at some time. If GOA should ban all this accounts they would loose lots of cash.
Only resson they ban is when a deal goes wrong and someone RN "a hack" or something.
 

Jupitus

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GReaper said:
GOA has never taken any action on a traded account, unless there has been any other problems (hacking, character deletion, etc.).

It may be against the EULA of DAoC Europe, but they've never enforced it.

Wrong. GOA have taken action in the past when ebayed accounts can be proven to have been sold.
 

Nerve

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Where's the love for your toon in here ? :twak:


Don't sell, your char has a certain reputation linked to it, are you really ok with it that some Ebay-boy screws up that reputation in a few minutes ?
 

Jupitus

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Revz said:
What about the enforcement issues? There were many high profile accounts sold on Prydwen as the game lost its interest for various people (Niar springs to mind for example) but the new owners were able to play with and sell the accounts on multiple times with no trouble whatsoever. Currently I'm playing WoW with at least a dozen people who sold their DAoC accounts and can point out several who post on these forums with accounts they have bought in their signatures (hello UndyingAngel).


Do you have a standard punishment for people buying accounts? Is it enforced? If there is no punishment and it is not enforced then what is the point of that section of the EULA?


*waves at Gideon*

The issue is one of proof. There is not a strong enough link between, for example, someone creating an FH id and then giving themselves a 'MyChar - Sold' siggy and that meaning that 'MyChar' has been sold. However, I would guess that if the GMs were to cross check against 'MyChar''s IP address, CC used for billing, labguage spoken in PMs etc they could probably build up a strong case for action. They don't always get this evidence, though.
 

Danya

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I noticed Blizzard have put a clause in their T&C which says:

"You may not exploit World of Warcraft for any commercial purpose or execute any kind of commercial transaction involving World of Warcraft, including, but not limited to, performing “power leveling” services to other users of World of Warcraft for “real” money."

Which basically outright bans "selling your time" or other phoney-baloney excuses people like to use. ;)
Is GOA likely to follow suit on this, or do they consider their T&C strong enough on this point already?
 

UndyingAngel

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Jupitus said:
*waves at Gideon*

The issue is one of proof. There is not a strong enough link between, for example, someone creating an FH id and then giving themselves a 'MyChar - Sold' siggy and that meaning that 'MyChar' has been sold. However, I would guess that if the GMs were to cross check against 'MyChar''s IP address, CC used for billing, labguage spoken in PMs etc they could probably build up a strong case for action. They don't always get this evidence, though.

I dont think this is the case, I openly admited I brought my pally on ebay on forum, ingame, on /br /as etc.. in many descussions.. I think as long as you dont cuase any probelms for GOA they wont do much about it.. also they would be looseing a lot of money.. with the amount of ppl that are Ebay these days.. oh.. well.. I quit now anyway.. the only ppl that had a probelm with it ingame where.. oo.. about 1/2 of TLW but they where mostly wankers anyway.. still some nice ppl in the guild :p
 

Revz

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Jupitus said:
However, I would guess that if the GMs were to cross check against 'MyChar''s IP address, CC used for billing, labguage spoken in PMs etc they could probably build up a strong case for action. They don't always get this evidence, though.

I'm sure the evidence is there if they went looking for it. I remember several times that the link to the Ebay auction of a high profile account was posted on these very forums (or the BW ones). When Delket sold his account (for example) there was only one person on the entire server who had both dragon heads in their house and that very fact was mentioned in the auction! The same for when Niar / Rambo got sold - there were no other infiltrators on the server of such high realm rank.

It can't take much for the suspicions to be raised and then followed up by a quick scan through chat logs (often people gloat about buying accounts in PMs to their friends), IP addresses for the various connections, credit card details, passwords and more. I would have thought that cracking down on such high profile abuses of their EULA would have been more cost effective than going after any of the smaller guys because it would send a much more powerful message.

Edit: See above post for proof! Any comments by the GMs?
 

Revz

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Sadly it seems I cared about the integrity of the game more than the people running it :( In the early days being called an "ebayer" was a pretty big insult. But then again peoples reputations mattered and the community was quite tight. By the time I left it was just a mess of ebayed accounts and shitty egos.

I also think it had a lot to do with the fact that most guilds were desperate for members and would gladly overlook a bought account if it got them a level 50 member. If you call them on it they get all defensive. On the other hand we kicked you out for buying/selling as soon as we found out because we had a bit of moral backbone.
 

Danya

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UndyingAngel said:
nice to see the TWL wanker him self about :p
Bitter much?
You lied to get in and got kicked for it. Your own fault.
 

Outlander

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well I dont care what you say all my chars are belong to meeeeee! :m00:
 

Xeanor

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Basically, a sold account changes nothing about the profit GOA/Mythic make, it might only give it a slight boost (someone who quits the game won't pay subs, someone who buys the account will) which is why selling accounts isn't a negative threat to the game in any way, provided that it's not being done a lot.

As you can see people in DAOC seem to have a free market for selling accounts, and there's still just little amounts of accounts being sold because of the low interest in them and the value of in-game characters and most items isn't that much.

However, games like Lineage2 have extremely rare and high value items, money is the pure key in the game there, the one with the most money has the best weapon and will win the most in PvP, which is why there's an enormous interest in both money farming, selling and buying. In L2, the developers don't seem to care much about it.

And that's why Blizzard DO have a strict policy about it, in WoW cash isn't -THE- thing, but it's a significant part of the gameplay and the balance between "how important cash is" and "how useless cash is" is pretty much perfect right now in WoW (in my opinion) and Blizzard want to keep it that way as far as I can tell. Of course the average gold/person in WoW will just increase over time, but it raises extremely slow because of the auction house fee (if someone bids 200g for your item you only receive 180g or something) and the mounts that are bought for every char. (Which is actually an extremely clever system, the more money that's farmed, the higher the prices will become for items. But the higher the prices get, the higher the amount of gold the auction house takes.)

But anyway, whether the company takes actions against the selling/trading of accounts/gold totally depends on 1. How much they care and 2. The impact it has on the game.
 

Jobil

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Oboy said:
nope, u cant as GOA has decided it should be so, but the only resson for it seems to be saving GM´s time with deals/trades gone wrong (and u still have to deal with this as ppl ignore the coc and still sell and when it goes wrong they blame it on a hacker)

imo this isnt a valid resson and anyone putting lots of time and money in the game atleast want the subs cost back when they quit.
perhabs you should reread Reqs posts, just for good measure and indepth understanding.
 

UndyingAngel

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Danya said:
Bitter much?
You lied to get in and got kicked for it. Your own fault.

lol ? I never lied I got in with my cleric.. who wasnt ebayed :p and never was till.. last month when I left the game.. so get your facts right b4 you speak.
 

UndyingAngel

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Revz said:
Sadly it seems I cared about the integrity of the game more than the people running it :( In the early days being called an "ebayer" was a pretty big insult. But then again peoples reputations mattered and the community was quite tight. By the time I left it was just a mess of ebayed accounts and shitty egos.

I also think it had a lot to do with the fact that most guilds were desperate for members and would gladly overlook a bought account if it got them a level 50 member. If you call them on it they get all defensive. On the other hand we kicked you out for buying/selling as soon as we found out because we had a bit of moral backbone.

heh and I agree.. with you on most of that.. I only ever ebayed 1 ACCOUNT 1 level 50.. I still had 5 of my own... I just dont like being judged becuase I brought somthing.. at the time I brought the account.. I didnt even know it was wrong.. took me over 12 months to get a good rep.. on my pally.. becuase it was ebayed.. you live and lean.. but I will still defend my self if someone abuses me about it.. Iv played the game for 3 years.. with my orignal char. if you look at the game now.. I dont like 1/2 of the population is the orignal ower.. which is a shame
 

Revz

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I'd still be interested to see a response from Jup (who seems to know a bit about this) or Requiel about the enforcement in light of all this. It does seem that if you keep your nose clean and aren't hacking or causing major trouble on a bought account then you can quite happily go on playing with it for as long as you want. Even freely admitting the account is bought while in game doesn't seem to warrant any action (what more proof do you need?). Basically if they were serious about dealing with this particular breach of the EULA they could - but obviously they aren't as it would create more work and massively cut into the population given how many accounts seem to be bought and sold now.

Furthermore I think the community would actually be quite upset by it since they seem to have gotten so laissez faire about the issue. I bet there are an awful lot of people out there in guids who have a couple of members with bought accounts.
 

Oboy

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actually you cant accuse the person who baught an account for doing anything wrong or illegal, he hasnt read and accepted the CoC.
When he starts play he accept the CoC and aslong hes not breaking it hes not doing anything wrong.
 

IainC

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Revz said:
I'd still be interested to see a response from Jup (who seems to know a bit about this) or Requiel about the enforcement in light of all this. It does seem that if you keep your nose clean and aren't hacking or causing major trouble on a bought account then you can quite happily go on playing with it for as long as you want. Even freely admitting the account is bought while in game doesn't seem to warrant any action (what more proof do you need?). Basically if they were serious about dealing with this particular breach of the EULA they could - but obviously they aren't as it would create more work and massively cut into the population given how many accounts seem to be bought and sold now.

Furthermore I think the community would actually be quite upset by it since they seem to have gotten so laissez faire about the issue. I bet there are an awful lot of people out there in guids who have a couple of members with bought accounts.
In general we don't enforce it very strongly as it's a victimless 'crime' and we have better things to do with our time. When an account that has been traded starts to cause problems for us however, then we won't hesitate to shut it down and the fact that it's been traded will be taken into account when determining the punishment for lesser breaches of the CoC. We still reserve the right to take action against traded accounts and uphold our CoC, but this particular area is a very low priority.
 

Revz

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I see, thanks for the reply. Is this an approach that has evolved over time or has GOA always viewed account trading in this manner? Do you take any action if people report them as traded or is it just if they are guilty of other things as well? Also, how do you differentiate account trading from other real money transactions (RMT) in game? Especially if the account is laden with items and plat for example.

Obviously if plat farming accounts were causing a problem for legitimate players you would presumably deal with them but if someone is selling in game money and items for real money on Ebay it would seem to fit the profile of a "victimless crime" and hence slip under your radar. There has been a lot of talk about all of this recently with SOE bringing in Sony Exchange for certain servers in EQ2 and so it is very interesting to see the spectrum of responses from different companies. I guess as the game ages even further your response to the issue may change again?
 

Melachi

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GReaper said:
GOA has never taken any action on a traded account, unless there has been any other problems (hacking, character deletion, etc.).

It may be against the EULA of DAoC Europe, but they've never enforced it.

GOA has taken action on traded accounts, back when trading was begining to take off a friend of mine bought an account, he had some small problem(character stuck or something) and rightnowed it, but rightnowed it with his other account. Kemor replyed asking why he was using Account A for Account B's problem and asked if the account was traded, my friend hoping for a bit of leniency decided to admit that it was traded, hoping at the very least Kemor would give him an hour or two to swap cash over, he didnt the arrogant git banned the account straight away.
 

IainC

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Revz said:
I see, thanks for the reply. Is this an approach that has evolved over time or has GOA always viewed account trading in this manner? Do you take any action if people report them as traded or is it just if they are guilty of other things as well? Also, how do you differentiate account trading from other real money transactions (RMT) in game? Especially if the account is laden with items and plat for example.

Obviously if plat farming accounts were causing a problem for legitimate players you would presumably deal with them but if someone is selling in game money and items for real money on Ebay it would seem to fit the profile of a "victimless crime" and hence slip under your radar. There has been a lot of talk about all of this recently with SOE bringing in Sony Exchange for certain servers in EQ2 and so it is very interesting to see the spectrum of responses from different companies. I guess as the game ages even further your response to the issue may change again?
Our underlying approach is that it's wrong and you aren't allowed to do it. Of course it does happen and we are aware of it. While we may turn a blind eye to most of it, we will still take action if we feel that the game is being adversely affected by someone's actions. Spamming account/RL cash trades in /br for example will get you slapped as will large scale commercial farming - I recently shut down the European operations of a well-known plats-for-cash website for example.

It's a matter of degree and discretion. If you never give us a reason to look too closely at your account then the chances are very good you'll never have to worry about it. If we ever need to spend time and resources clearing up a situation that would have been avoided if you had followed the CoC, then expect a fairly serious slap.
 

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