Ingame cash -- time for a change?

Discussion in 'Gotham City (General Gameplay)' started by Apollonia, Jun 30, 2021.

  1. DeitySupreme Steadfast Player

    I still don’t think you understand how IP banning works, or maybe I’m overestimating how effective it is. If so id like someone to elaborate me on this topic. But there are essentially 2 forms of IP band. An address ban or a spectrum of addresses connected to the router. So any and all accounts trying to login from that router will be unable to regardless of what account they are on. So if a person is using 1 account to play, 1 account to hack, and 1 account to find clients than the IP ban will get them all banned regardless of them switching router addresses.

    Now a person can use something to get around that I won’t mention incase someone is banned and they are trying to find a way around it. But that could also be stopped by the devs creating an in game software to track and ban these accounts too using key words. Yes key words change but the software target phrases can be updated as time passes. Almost all modern games have this feature built in.

    So instead of trying to punish the whole player base just fix the actual problem
  2. TKMcClone Steadfast Player

    The problem with the game economy is attributable to gold sellers and game items having real world cash value. full stop. Wealth redistribution will happen naturally if the gold sellers are gone and game cash stays in game with a capped broker price.

    Here's an example,
    I get a chroma pack in a booster bundle and sell it on the broker for $50 million.
    The buyer sells it for $150 million and then sells $100 million to the gold sellers.
    The second buyer keeps the chroma for a year, and sells it for $300 million
    The third buyer takes all the x chroma packs and increases the list price by $100 million each
    The third buyers profit is $500 million which they sell to the gold sellers.
    The fourth buyer consumes the x chroma pack and a few years later sells his entire account.

    Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how I see the problem.
  3. Proxystar #Perception

    There are static IP addresses and dynamic IP addresses, both are assigned by your internet service provider.

    A static IP address never changes and is permanently assigned to the customer a dynamic address is one assigned to the customer from a pool of available addresses and can be changed by the user through their hardware or cycling their connection.

    Most companies would be reluctant to IP address ban a user not only because for reasons you have alluded to it can be evaded but also because banning dynamic addresses and certainly an entire spectrum of addresses (these aren't shared by a router, they're potentially shared by multiple customers) can innocently ban multiple other users on that particular internet provider, you'd effectively be banning numerous innocent existing users or potential future customers who simply use the same ISP in an attempt to punish someone.
    • Like x 2
  4. TKMcClone Steadfast Player

    Things will equalize, particularly with time capsules. Does it matter if everything super rare is 1 billion, if everyone has a billion to spend or something worth a billion to sell? Rare items won't be horded in the same way. Items that the community likes will be consumed making them more rare, but with a maximum value.

    It might also increase time capsule sales if players can't buy gold from accounts that aren't really playing the game.
  5. TKMcClone Steadfast Player

    Okay
    IP bans are problematic. But, let's say it's close to perfect and they reduce the accounts shouting for gold sites by 80%.
    What are you going to do about the accounts that actually buy and sell cash? It's not the same person.
    If a player is the 'type' who buys / sells cash to play an mmo, I think they can find a gold selller online without seeing it in shout?
  6. TKMcClone Steadfast Player

    Another (Draconian) measure for gold shouters would be to restrict posting access to main chat channels until Level 30. LFG, Trade verus, shout are all visible but have restricted posting. Create a default channel called 'help'(?) for characters level 1 - 29. Everyone would have access to ''help' but shout is still the default at level 30. This would force gold shouters to be level 30 before accessing the bulk of the player base. Personal & league chat channels would still be available to everyone.
  7. Proxystar #Perception

    You're right years ago the advertising in game for gold selling was not as prolific they didn't do it because GM's were active in game, you'd get ban hammered immediately and they knew it.

    That presence isn't there any more and that presence I strongly think needs to return, not only to clean up that type of behavior but also to clean up general abuse and language that runs rife in the likes of trade chat. I don't mean either the general banter that goes on, I mean the stuff in there that at times is vile hatred and at times homophobic and racist.

    The selling has always been there but if its more underground less people are using it because they have to decide to more actively search it out, it isn't smashed in their face where a player that might not have otherwise bought cash only did so through opportunistically seeing that they could through an in game advertisement the devs could be clamping down on.
    • Like x 2
  8. TKMcClone Steadfast Player


    Having GM's online would be awesome. I'm all for warning people about language and such. I'm sure that monitoring chat to bab gold shouters would help too.

    Ultimately those gold sellers/buyers are still in the game, not playing and just messing with the broker. The players that have a ton of billions will still be able to trade cash for items, set values and control the broker. Players with have a trade economy that affects the broker economy. If some players can buy something for 1 billion and trade it for 2 billion or sell it for a gift card, they'll do it. I suspect that most everyone reading this thread knows someone who used real cash to trade for a game item or game cash. Even just between friends. It all sets the value outside the game world.
  9. L T Devoted Player

    With the cash cap going away the developers have a lot more options for fighting inflation and.managing cash in the economy.
  10. Apollonia Dedicated Player

    Still wondering if there's any official plans to tackle this issue.
    • Like x 1
  11. Kimone Luthor Genetech Clone

    it seems like their plan was "remove premium cash cap". that's it. in its entirety.
  12. TKMcClone Steadfast Player

    I think anything other than shutting down trade between accounts is just lip service. If things are worth many billions or real money outside the broker, then trying to control the broker is useless. With the cash cap removed it is the perfect time to do it. Even just try it for six month to see if it works.

    I wish a Dev would comment on this issue, it's hard to know if they even see the game economy and outside influence as a problem.
  13. willflynne 10000 Post Club


    Looks like they're keeping their "hands-off" approach in place right now. Whether or not there's some kind of cash sink (which would help tremendously) coming in with or after the next episode is unknown.