So here’s an idea blizz:
If it doesn’t already exist, how about you code a searchable spreadsheet that logs all trades/mailings. One for each server. Since we’re using this data to catch gold buyers you can narrow it to only transactions where gold was traded/mailed.
Now when send out your ban waves, you check that list against the trade/mail log and ban any account receiving the gold.
You would even catch the laundering bots since you could just follow the chain of trades/mailings. And ultimately at the end you catch the players buying the gold. Ban them.
It wouldn’t take long from word of mouth for players to see that buying gold gets them banned.
They must already have this system in place right? I’ve heard of people being banned for gold buying before. Generally you get a “suspension” for buying, and a ban for selling.
This is why the bots are more aggressive on some servers than others.
If they’re running into Org/SW and screaming “YOU BUY GOLD NOW COME WOW GOLD DOT COME” it’s because there’s a ton of people on that server buying gold.
From old posts people DO get banned for breaking TOS. Buying gold with real money outside of Retail tokens is against the agreed upon ToS for Classic. Blizzard has said before perma banning a player for this sort of offence usually doesnt stop that behaviour as much as you believe it would.
Player A buys gold and gets caught. he has 2 level 60 characters and spent alot of time on the account.
Blizz has the authority to perma ban the account for breaking ToS.
The perma ban the player - Now the player still wants to play wow but the player is no longer as invested and wants to shortcut to 60 with a new character incentivising buying more gold since the player doesnt really care about this new account knowing it too can be perma banned.
Blizz takes the gold away and punishes by temp ban and watches the account from now on. The player is thankful that they at least keep the playtime they put in and now knowing they are being closly watched no longer buys gold. Also the player lost the money and the gold with items and any progress from the transaction.
Option 2 has been much more efficient in stopping the behavior. Sadly its not as easy as you put it to catch gold sellers or buyers since methods have been changed many times to avoid detection. If it was as simple as
Then Blizz would have put this in years ago in retail…
It’s a good suggestion, but not strictly because of your reason. Gold Buyers and Botters share a relationship to one another. Both should be banned. Not just one or the other.
If you think this solves the problem you are delusional. As someone mentioned earlier, permabanning someone for buying gold just incentivizes them buying a new character and buying even more gold. Even simple warnings to gold buyers and temp bans can go a long way. They will know they’re being watched.
The “searchable spreadsheet” in this case pretty much already exists. This is a relatively decent way to think of how a relational database works, which (afaik, they use).
It may even be better to keep an immutable ledger of transactions, such as something like an Event Store (I think this may actually either be available through the dbms they use, or as part of whatever it is they are doing already).
What other ways would gold be involved in transactions? Or are you just suggesting to filter on transactions that involved gold?
This sort of sounds reasonable, but imagine a real life scenario where a gas station gets closed down, because a known gold seller bought cigarettes there.
Better deterrent than nothing at all. I would rather both the buyer and the seller get banned. That’s a much better statement than letting those who enable botters exists.
Trading gold is not a problem nor harms the economy. The entire reason gold is tradable is so that you can TRADE it.
What has ruined the economy are the cheaters that farm gold at a faster than legitimate rate. They undermine the value of work for normal players and inflate gold. Now there’s a situation where gold is cheaper to buy than to farm; which ideally should never be the case.
Yes anything is better than nothing at all but I would characterize this as the nuclear option. People care about their characters. Permaban first offense buyers and you perpetuate the problem, because many will jump right back in and buy a new character on TOP of gold…so now you’re funding that category of botters too.
From a pure business perspective, you are also more likely to retain a customer if their character is simply temp banned. And they will likely think twice before committing “crimes” again. Repeat offenders are a different story.