Quote:
Originally Posted by Gori
My contention is that SOE never has, and never will, go after buyers. Therefore, such a scheme as LFG posits, one where there is irrefutable public evidence a seller was banned for the act of selling, would never occur for it would force SOE to turn a blind eye or investigate/ban a portion of it subscription base of normal players.
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I'm not suggesting that SoE go after buyers, although I applaud Sigil for saying they will do that.
Me setting up a massive EQ2 sting operation, where I make an identity as a PlayerAuction regular, get positive feedbacks, then buy small quantities of plat on all or most servers, would be direct and irrefutable evidence that the accounts selling me the plat had violated SoE's ToS and game rules by selling it.
SoE has the ability to track one plat - each coin is individually coded with a number, and the path it takes can be traced from the moment it was first earned.
SoE customer service is EXTREMELY experienced in these matters, and has reversed decisions in the past where innocent player accounts were banned after being involved in a transaction with a bot or plat seller. But I'm not talking about any of that here at all. What I'm talking about is much simpler.
The largest plat sellers maintain multiple accounts on each server. My plan would to be to make several buys over the course of a week from many of the same ones, on both the evil and good sides, since they keep toons with plat ready to go on each side. This would net the largest number of different accounts, and would largely shut down the EQ2 secondary market for a time if all those accounts and *directly* associated accounts were banned at once.
What SoE could do is a small amount of additional research on its end to determine who the banned accounts had recently OBTAINED coin from. The shuffling of coin between these seller toons is significant, and they try to keep plat spread out between multiple accounts to minimize risk. But while doing that, they also create an evidence chain between those accounts. With irrefutable proof of an account selling plat for dollars, SoE could make the call on where to draw the line.
I'm not suggesting that SoE do a complete purge that might include actual player accounts. I'm merely suggesting that they allow me or someone like me to try and catch actively selling accounts, then trace transactions between those accounts and the bot/farmer accounts that handed them the same coin.
One thing you apparently believe is that IGE and other leading members of the MMO gold mafia still buy plat from players. They did in the past, but pretty much stopped doing that a while back. They don't need to buy coin from players any longer - they get all they need from their own farmers and agents these days. The MMO gold mafia is a vertical industry, and the large companies handle everything in house, from farming to sales. The "street level" sweep I suggest would only take in and eliminate accounts and coin held by leading plat sellers on every server.
Desperate times call for new ideas and creative solutions. MMO companies recruit players as volunteer forum moderators, advisors, guides, class leaders, and for many other purposes. A MMO company cannot get away with doing what I can legally do, and am willing to do, as a volunteer, for no charge except reimbursement of proven expenses authorized in advance.
Re: Offer to SoE: I'll deliver 100 plat sellers in 1 week
