Manglers "Seasons" and "alphabet Necros"

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Protius, May 21, 2019.

  1. HoodenShuklak Augur

    Yep.

    It comes down to economics and if you're only eating a ban once every few months it still makes a lot of business sense to call it the cost of business and head right back.

    The non professional players might think twice. But look around, selling krono for usd is very much still a part of eq.
  2. Protius Make Everquest TLP's Great, Again.

    If only DBG would employ someone to roam around in game to troublesome areas and take care of it right then and there it would be great. Instead, we come to the forums, send numerous tickets... and get those generic replies about "taking care of it", and end up getting themselves banned from the forums (/cough)...
  3. xmPradah Not a dude

    The problem is EQ doesn't have in-game GMs and Guides anymore, like they used to. Is there still a guide program in place? Do these guides have any ability to "stop" players?

    I'd gladly commit time to the guide program if there were one in place, where the guides could actually make a difference.
  4. code-zero Augur

    Check it out
  5. Artfle New Member

    Everyone talks about the money Daybreak makes off of the botters' subscriptions as compared to the losses it suffers due to quitters put off by the botters. That, to me, misses the real issue with the botters. The real cost to Daybreak, surely, is in lost krono sales to would-be buyers who buy from discount, unsanctioned websites instead.

    Let's dissect this. Logically, the botters are fueled by self-interest. That self-interest undoubtedly manifests itself as a desire to make real life, fungible currency. In order to extract real life currency from a video game, they have to have a way to turn the plat/krono/items into credit card or paypal sales. The only way to do that is to recycle the krono that were originally injected into the game by Daybreak by first accumulating them and then selling them back to players for real currency, albeit it at a lower rate than Daybreak's own pricing.

    These unsanctioned websites literally steal against Daybreak's intellectual property, and I am sure they bother Daybreak. Without the botters, those unsanctioned krono-sale websites go away, leaving Daybreak to enjoy all of its potential krono sales.

    In terms of scale, botters only ever pay for their subs in krono once they are up and running so the ARPU from them has to be nearly negligible. On the other side of the equation, the losses Daybreak suffers from missed krono sales are probably difficult to calculate, but likely hundreds of times greater than the sum of everything made from the bad actors.

    Assuming Daybreak is logical and acts in its own self-interest, I don't think there is any reason to question their motivation to ban everyone involved in unsanctioned krono sales -- both the sellers AND the buyers.

    The thing that I struggle with is how difficult it seems to be for them to catch these folks. I know that systems are often far more complicated than a layperson looking in will perceive, but it *seems* like it ought to be incredibly easy to flag unsanctioned krono sales. You simply look for player-to-player trades where Krono is sold for 1-2 standard deviations below average value at the time. Next, confirm there was no prior /ooc or /auction precipitating the trade. And, finally, confirm no record of prior contact between the two parties (e.g., a guildie lending their friend a krono for free or what have you). If all of those criteria are met, you can be pretty sure that the person is a bad actor. And, if there is a pattern of those trades, then you probably have found an unsanctioned website mule.

    At that point, Daybreak could put a trace on the mule for 1-2 weeks and quietly connect them to the bot army (undoubtedly on a different account) as well as all of their buyers. They could ban all of them or, if they wanted to, ban the unsanctioned sellers and issue a one-time cease-and-desist warning to the buyers. After all, the buyers are likely their lowest hanging fruit for future krono sales and recouping those losses.
  6. Wicked_old Journeyman

    So those that pay one way or the other with multi boxing should be targeted. I can say this, I box, as in myself and one other box, I do it legit. So my friends, who do it well what I suck at two boxing get targeted and those who play live and have fun with outside help, this must all stop to end EQ because you need pure play. Go play 99, this just won't do, btw I play honest, nothing in this war. I just realize you take everything away, you have nothing, I love to play, stop trying to end what pays the bills. It isn't your one box.
  7. code-zero Augur

    Apparently some people still don't realize that every single Krono sold on a 3rd party site in violation of the EULA have to be purchased by someone from DBG first and can in no wise be considered competition.

    DBG has never lost a single Krono sale to any 3rd party site ever.

    This is not a defense of those sites and in fact DBG has regularly shut down such sales in the past and will continue to do so in the future just as plat sales and other violations have been in the past.

    What they don't do and should never do is arbitrarily ban or suspend accounts based on accusations without doing extensive investigations. Of course this is seen as "doing nothing" or worse by a vocal minority who frequently catch suspension for vigilantism. Just because you were busted for training almost immediately after doing it wasn't because "daybreak protects botters" it was because you're a knucklehead who trained in front of a guide or GM who was investigating the accused botter.
  8. Risiko Augur

    That last part you said, "can in no wise be considered competition," is incorrect.

    Even though any krono sold on the secondary market was originally purchased from DBG (or SoE), when the secondary buyer pays for it, they are buying it from someone other than DBG. That is money that DBG could have garnered from that secondary customer. That is lost revenue, and it does end up being competition for the sale of that product.

    Let me break this down for you in simpler terms.

    Scenario 1:
    1. Customer A purchases 1 krono from DBG
    2. Customer A sells 1 krono to customer B on black market for cash in the real world
    3. Customer B consumes krono in game
    Scenario 2:
    1. Customer A purchases 1 krono from DBG
    2. Customer B purchases 1 krono from DBG
    3. Customer B consumes krono in game
    In scenario 1, DBG makes profit from the sale of the 1 krono to customer A, but they see no profit from the sale of the same krono to customer B.

    In scenario 2, DBG makes profit from the sale of the 1 krono to customer A and then also makes profilt from the sale of 1 krono to customer B.

    Scenario 2 nets DBG two krono sales where as scenario 1 only nets DBG one krono sale. Considering that the black market on average sells krono for about half what DBG sells them for, that makes the black market seem like a better buy for the customer which in turn makes the black market end up being serious competition for DBG.
  9. BlueberryWerewolf Augur

    There is no way to generate Krono other than buying one from DBG, so there is no case in which DBG loses money by a player buying a Krono on the black market.

    It is possible to purchase an existing Krono without buying it directly from DBG, because Krono can be traded in-game for other items, but that Krono was still originally purchased from DBG, so there can be no loss of revenue from its sale.

    Krono is DBG's way of dipping their toes in the black market sale of Platinum. It is their way of generating revenue from a system that previously did an end run around their revenue stream.
  10. Risiko Augur

    I literally just explained this above, but what the hell. Might as well explain it again for those who don't take the time to read the thread.

    If customer B buys customer A's krono that Customer A bought from DBG, then DBG makes a profit on ONE krono sale which was the krono they sold to Customer A originally.

    In contrast, if customer A buys a krono from DBG and customer B buys a krono from DBG, then DBG makes a prfit on TWO krono sales.

    By customer B buying a krono from customer A, DBG loses the money that customer B was going to give them for the krono IF they had bought it from DBG instead of buying it on the black market.

    This really is not that hard of a concept to understand. At this point, I am inclined to believe that you people do understand it, and you simply choose to not accept it.
  11. BlueberryWerewolf Augur

    The problem with your explanation is that it is incorrectly assuming that there is somehow some other way to generate Krono other than buying it from DBG.
  12. BlueberryWerewolf Augur

    In your second scenario, the purchase of a Krono by Player A is entirely irrelevant.

    Either Player B buys a Krono directly or Player B buys a Krono someone else bought directly. That is the only revenue stream that matters to DBG.

    What DBG also benefits from is Player A buying a Krono and trading it for platinum instead of Player A simply paying a third party site for the transfer of platinum.

    Krono is a net win for DBG in all scenarios.
  13. Risiko Augur

    OMG... seriously... /sigh
  14. BlueberryWerewolf Augur

    You're looking at this as if DBG is selling a Coach bag and these third party sites are selling Couch bags, and so every purchase of a Couch bag is a lost sale of a Coach bag.

    That is not how Krono works.
  15. Atabishii Elder

    Guess everyone was wrong saying that the necro's who farmed HG's were banned. He's literally sitting at the translocator with all 24 char's right now.
  16. Risiko Augur

    That's because it was a suspension rather than a ban which in and of itself is proof that DBG doesn't give one flip about botting. They are just suspending people that go around the truebox code.

    Personally, if I worked at that company, I would not be able to sleep at night knowing just how sleazy their practices as a service provider have become. It's shameful at best.
  17. Mad_Mikey Elder

    The mage bot groups are back in OOT also. Both picks.
  18. KronoKing Elder

    yep unattended gameplay is like 7 day suspension
  19. Risiko Augur

    When bedroom operations running emulators have more integrity than the company who actually produces the game, you have truly, truly hit absolute rock bottom.
  20. Xanathol Augur

    All those necros went straight to the Chief camp in Droga too. Absolutely wonderful DBG, just awesome.