Assembly Hall

There is are a number of individuals and organisations showing a severe and flagrant disregard for the ToS. Avoiding naming said parties, I'd prefer to address the bending and outright breaking of this rule...



SELLING/REFERRING SALES OF ETCs WITH "BONUS ISK CREDIT" BREAKS THIS RULE.

This is blatant and arrogant disregard for the rules, and an obvious, long running attempt to launder in game gains for out of game profits. Some of these operations will even allow you to simply withdraw this supposed "credit" for it's ISK value within minutes of receiving it, without using any of the services provided. No matter how you try to spin it, this is RMTing for ISK at it's most stealthiest.

THIS HAS TO STOP.

There CAN NOT be one set of rules for the average player, and another for people selling ETCs. This is RMTing/RMT laundering no matter how anyone cuts it. This "ETC with ISK" is no different to selling a "paperclip with ISK" on eBay, other than CCP getting a few dollars for the sale of an ETC.

My main concern is this: This promotes botting, and makes the sale and purchase of botted ISK simple and clean for the buyer once the botting cartels catch wind of this (if they haven't already). It's a slippery slope, and can only end in disaster, since once you remove the fear of asset strips/account bans for ISK buyers, it will become a pandemic problem.

I'm not calling for account bans. But a warning with a blanket pardon for everyone who has been breaking this rule seems fair, then strict enforcement from here on in.

Since the OP is against botting, I wholeheartedly approve. This **** shouldn't even be an issue.

I don't see how this contradicts the TOS. If anything, it makes those wishing to violate the TOS even harder.

You're buying an in-game item with in-game currency. This item improves your in-game capabilities by allowing you to fly for another month.

Likewise, the people buying the PLEXes are purchasing an in-game item for out-of-game currency directly from the manufacturer, which doesn't violate the TOS either. It's the same as buying the Collector's Edition and getting the golden pod, or for that matter it's the same as anything on the Aurum market.

The PLEXes make it much harder for RMTers to do business, as CCP is very efficient at stopping those who RMT as well as those who buy from the RMTers. It provides a way to use RL currency to help your character out without destroying the effort of those who have the ISK to spend. RMTers find it hard to compete with the player prices for currency exchange, especially with the thousands of bans that CCP have enacted.

If you see some people botting (as you so adamantly claim), then report them and CCP will switfly bring down the banhammer on them. If you just don't like the fact that people can do this in the game, in complete compliance with CCP's business method, then Wow is a quick download away.

I see what you mean now, but this will never be easy for the ones who offer this. First off, if the ISK was gained through some illicit means, CCP will track it down. They keep records of every transaction in this game, and the paper trail will be obvious.

It's always been advised to buy ETCs from reliable sources. The people who buy them from the illicit dealers will have their 100m taken away, and maybe even the ETC will be invalid. While it's good to keep CCP informed about the tactics of the RMTers, I don't think this is something to sound a klaxon alarm about.

I met and talked to Dr. EyjoG when I was in Iceland during the CSM summit. I have experience to say that CCP's crack macro/RMT team either has this under control or soon will.

I petitioned this months ago. They said they'd investigate it. Since then they have given them free rare ships... I wonder if I ever hear of the petition again.

RMTing doesn't need to have anything to do with macro-ing. They have a legitimate way to make lots of isk, like many others in Eve. The problem is their sale of isk for $$ (RMTing) which CCP seems to allow because it's coupled to the sale of a GTC. If this is allowed then I might just start my own GTC webshop with an isk promotion. Would be even easier if CCP just said: give us x% and you can sell all the isk you want.

If they're offering the item for the same price as the competition, how is that money laundering? They're giving people a bonus to shop with them, that's good business. If they were selling it at an inflated price and delivering ISK in return, that would be RMT.

If it can be shown that they were provided those ETC by CCP through a gift or at a reduced cost, then this is another gifting issue which CCP is really looking into. If they sold the ETC for greater amounts than the competition, then it's stealth-RMT. If they simply want to share some of their (insane) wealth, that's up to them.

In either case, it's not money laundering if they're simply adding a bonus to the fair-price sale. I dislike their track record in dealings with CCP, but I'm not gonna wag a finger at Somer for RMT if there simply is no evidence of it.