Overseas Adena Farmers (Paid Employees)
I got this in my in-box this week games.sina.com.cn/newgame...6221.shtml : It's a link to a Chinese news story that tells about a company that is setup to recruit and employ people to farm adena 24/7 and earn real life cash in exchange for playing on their in-house computers (gathering adena for the company, which sells it against the TOS for real cash). Here's the notes about the link (the player wishes to remain anon, and I've corrected the grammar)
Quote:The news is actually about a company that hires students to play L2 non stop and farm adena heavily. The first 3 pics is their advertisment about recruiting, the 3 pics in the middle are their briefing session (notice the pic on the right is a table on how much money you can earn with your adena), and the last 3 are the adena farmers at work.
As you can see with such a heavy force any regular clan has no way to fight against them. Not to mention they work 24/7.
The company in the article is currently working in Taiwan L2 but the article did mention there are at least 6 similar companies that runs pretty much the same way.
These companies have already ruined the Taiwan L2. In order to gain adena, these farmers will train, KS, Pk, and exploit.
The recent active adena farmers in Sieghardt I've encountered are the CN series (some got banned already), the Kiss series (kiss001, kiss002 and such ) and the O's series (0oChineseDollo0, 0oYuiYeio0 )
If anyone can translate that website, I think we'd be interested in knowing exactly what is being reported on. I'm dubious about how clans may or may not be affected, because leveling a clan and fighting sieges takes away from the adena farming for their wages. It's still an interesting piece and commentary on the Taiwan L2 - let's see how it unfolds in the USA, and how the GM's attack the problem
What we can do on Sieghardt: Feel free to post the player names you find here that you suspect of adena farming on Sieghardt. You should back up your claim(s) with screenshots and a story as to why you believe they are a part of these groups. NOTE THAT POSTING HERE ONLY GETS THE WORD OUT TO OTHER PLAYERS! You should also petition the GM's IN-GAME with what you find, and also email your screenshots to them of the bots/farming and any text you get of converstations you feel are important.
I'm not naive enough to believe this will be stopped dead in it's tracks, but it's good to get the word out and everything we can do to ban their accounts will hit them in the pocketbooks....where it counts
This really is getting out of hand. I wonder how readily NCSoft will ban these people if they only receive screenshots/dialogs. Seems like it would be hard to prove someone is a bot just by their name and them not talking to you. Hopefully we can count on them to do the right thing.
There's also the BOSS### series, the <noun>love / love<noun> series, and others. I forget all that I've seen.
Re: Overseas Adena Farmers (Paid Employees)
All asian players are not botters/adena farmers.
I also doubt that all botters are asian.
Adena farming aside, the whole race issue is getting way out of hand. Its out of hand in the game, embarassingly out of hand on the official forums, and I'm not particularly interested in making it a deal here.
I am against botters. I am also skeptical of dwarves. Asians, however, have my respect unless they do something that removes it; just like every other person that plays the game.
Re: Overseas Adena Farmers (Paid Employees)
The problem is not that <insert nationality here> are playing the game and speaking their own language; most people could really care less. The problem is the growing number of inconsiderate asshats "working" this game.
I say "working" because that is what they do. As the article above states, they are paid to gather as much adena as possible...They are not paid to make friends. As such you will find them blatently botting and kill stealing with no regard for the people who are trying to "play" the game.
Kaiowas Moderator
Posts: 12
(4/21/04 3:45 am) Reply
Re: Overseas Adena Farmers (Paid Employees)
I had a bad experience yesterday in which I got repeatedly KS'd by a couple of players who didn't speak english, upon killing them they used the exploit/bug where you could respawn where you died without losing any XP or being resed. Trying to get away from this, I went deeper into the dungeon, only to find even more, that didn't help me in thel east when I was overwhelmed by mobs and kindly took my breastplate when I dropped.
These same players were harassing everyone on that level, telling lower level players not in groups to "leave" the area and attacking them if they didn't (as happened with one of my clanmates). I spoke negatively about the said chinese players because they're the only ones I've experienced this with personally, and they're the only ones I see that are hired players. I have nothing against any particular race, that whole scenario was just frustrating and if it was anyone else I'd feel the same way.
Colphax ist TOT!
Posts: 9
(4/21/04 10:13 am) Reply
Re: Overseas Adena Farmers (Paid Employees)
I havent done any of the deep SoDA quests simply for the KSing and bot drama that goes on there.
I will agree that not everyone is a bot. I've actually been checked by asians (I think) for being a bot while bowkiting lreins. It may be that I don't feel the need to say "sorry" everytime I hit a mob just after someone else tags it first. Instead, I just move along to another mob. I get into a zone while adena farming where I don't feel the need for wasted effort. There's usually enough spawns for everybody (especially lreins).
However, if I feel I got the first hit, I'll fight for the kill. I'll load up on SS's and Powershots/Mortal Blows, whatever it takes to try to make sure what's mine stays mine.
Anyways, I'm grinding away at lreins one day when the spawns pop just right and I wind up with about 3 or four adds on top of my current target. Adds are not a problem for anyone who's kiting without AE, all you have to do is circle around to make sure that your target is closest to you. Kill, loot, click on next victim, rinse and repeat. If anyone happens to pull off one or more of my adds, I'm a little miffed (holdover from my EQ "if it aggros me, its my mob" days), but this is a different game with different rules. So long as I get to kill my current target, I have no complaints.
Usually the adds tend to stack on top of each other with the circle tactic. So when a dagger-wielding DE with a typical asian name jumped one of my adds in the stack, it was no surprise to me that the stack of my target and the 3 adds jumped him. I finished off my target and watched to see what happened. He killed one before dying. so I helped myself to the remaining 2 lreins and continued killing.
Pretty soon, two more asians show up, one a DE archer, the other a dagger wielder, both female. They begin to KS my pulls while talking in chinese, and its fairly obvious that I'm overmatched. So, with my PK senses tingling, I stop and stare at the archer, and she stares back. Knowing that there's not much I can do, I move on further into the area that I'm hunting in, and luckily they don't press the issue.
However, my usual strategy at the time was to pull my mobs back to certain spot, and then circle kite them so as to keep the adds down as much as possible. I was mainly doing this since I was only using a Hunting Bow at the time, making the usual straight line kite impractical thanks to my low dps.
Next thing I know, another DE shows up, with the name of GMOUS. Since I'd seen him at the same area killing lreins earlier, I thought nothing of it...until he unequips his weapons and procedes to atack me, hitting me for 8 points per hit.
Now, I'll admit, I'm a recovering carebear from EQ. I wasn't afraid of this guy's attack, and at the time I was puzzled as to why he was doing this, so I just stood there for about 30 seconds or so, taking about 4-5 hits from this guy before I decided I had more adena farming to do and I ran off.
Later, I read about how most bots are programmed to attack anything that attacks them, and that this is the way that a lot of bots are identified. I now realize that I was being checked for being a bot, but I'm not sure if I was being checked by an actual GM or not. At no time did any of the asians or this GMOUS guy try to whisper me, and the asians only spoke in asian. Plus, I'm not aware of any of the GMs that have all cap names, and the fact that I had seen GMOUS grinding on lreins the day before makes me wonder.
Re: Overseas Adena Farmers (Paid Employees)
Sounds more like he was just trying to sucker you into a fight.
Several bots(or so I assume, based on them killing the closest mob, picking up all adena instantly, and moving to the next target, etc etc) I've attacked, with names like oOcAPSNUMBERsOo, wouldn't fight back. I guess the farmers don't mind if you PK them, because there's another 12 farmers in the same area to kill you when you are red. I've seen some Reds with like 12+ farmers following them.
I don't care if they are Chinese, don't talk to me, and have 2134235LOVE for their name, all I know is with the tactics and overwhelming numbers of these farmers, they = scourge.
Kaiowas Moderator
Posts: 15
(4/21/04 10:42 am) Reply
Re: Overseas Adena Farmers (Paid Employees)
OT: I saw you in-game the other day shank, you ignored me
Re: Overseas Adena Farmers (Paid Employees)
There is a huge army of "mxjy00x" adena farmers spread out on the beach south of wasteland entrance. I lost count of them around 15 or so, they don't seem to be botted, but they do fit the profile of asian and farming adena 24/7. They will also go out of their way to harass anyone who starts killing mobs in their respective areas. I petitioned them and was told by a GM that they were under investigation already and that was about it.
I'm really not sure what NCsoft can do about them except to start blocking foreign IPs, it seems when they get banned they simply create new chars and accounts and repeat the process.
Banning foreign IPs will only make the farming companies start using proxy servers. They'll do it if they feel they can keep getting money from their activities.
So how else could NCSoft fight the adena companies? There are plusses and minuses to each, but here's a few ideas:
* Limit purchases of the software based on household (e-mail or physical address) and/or CC number. This would make it harder for adena farmer companies to buy the accounts they need in bulk, since they would be required to maintain multiple addresses and/or credit card accounts. The impact on actual gamers shouldn't be all that much if they can only hold 4-6 accounts at a time.
* Enforce a language requirement for the NA servers. If you cannot communicate with the GM's, they can't make an informed decision about any problems you may have. North American servers should require English, French, and Spanish, since these are the languages spoken in the NA region. This would affect the adena companies by reducing their potential employee pool. This is a surmountable inconvenience to the farmer companies, but every little bit that makes business harder for the farmer co's is OK in my book. It's a cotroversial policy, dunno if it would actually ever be implemented.
* Go after the adena sellers directly. Sony got Ebay to pull EQ virtual property sales, so that's an option (although there's always PA and the company wbsites themselves). Another is the classic sting. Respond to the ebay deals, then ban all of the accounts and IPs associated with each seller's delivery character. I doubt that the asian adena farmer companies would legally challenge NCSoft in the American courts, and if asian IPs are banned from the NA servers, asian courts would not be an option. A reverse sting would also be possible, but unlikely. Banning customer accounts for buying adena is potentially generating ill will in the market you want to expand, so I don't see it happening.
Re: Overseas Adena Farmers (Paid Employees)
Having a limit to accounts per address would only end up the same as banning foreign IPs. The farmers will maintain hundreds of different accounts and addresses if they feel it will make them money.
There's no way to ever enforce a language on the game as long as anyone can log in from any country. Even if they go to the extreme and patch the client side English only, I don't think that would stop the farmers.
Going on stings of the selling accounts and all related acccounts (same addresses/names/CC/etc) is the best solution in my opinion. If they stay vigilent and don't let the farmers keep enough accounts active at one time, they won't make profit, and they will die off.
Colphax ist TOT!
Posts: 9
(4/26/04 12:58 pm) Reply
Re: Overseas Adena Farmers (Paid Employees)
The account limitations and the language requirement are basically nuisance measures designed to make the farmer companies costs of doing business increase. They'd need to spend money keeping the books straight if it was made so that they could only pay for a limited amount of accounts with each credit card and/or address.
As far as the language requirement goes, if a GM talks to a player, and that player doesn't respond in one of the required languages in a timely manner, or in another language, GM places the account on immediate suspension. Another nuisance tactic, but if the farmers can't rely on having the accounts they need, it might not make economic sense for them to continue.
Sina plays in March on 15 the newsfrom today beginning, Taiwan "Heaven II" starts to block overseas IP, in other words, plays outside the family except Taiwan and the Hong Kong area, other local IP will be unable to land its game server, approximately 20,000 will play the family once more by heartless making a clean sweep, performed last October 23 the South Korean heaven server to block that once more which overseas IP landed.
Announces the original text
At the forum purchases the heaven coin the card
Heaven coin transaction ΥΠΙΜ advertisement
Two time blocks IP, its basic reason is nearly consistent. In "II a clothing endures about Heaven" seals IP in the announcement, the reason indicates as follows:
"Although the network is does not have the national boundary distinction, but, the complete service needs to have the human resources which the region differentiates to provide a better service. Heaven II game service copyright peace treaty signs which according to this company and between heaven II development company NCsoft only in Taiwan and Hong Kong area, to, the port area game service in principle only to lives plays the family in Taiwan and the Hong Kong area to provide the game service."
From this may see, this time endures seals the IP motion question the key is: According to the NCsoft peace treaty, Taiwan, outside the Hong Kong area "Heaven II" will play the family to provide the service by its local operation company.
But, merely said from the game content, a section game regardless of is in South Korea or in China, how many its substantive content and doesn't have is different, why but can have that many plays the family to have to play Taiwan, the Hong Kong server game? The matter behind has in addition because of -
The high quota profit hypothesized coin transaction attracted the overseas to play the family, now at last was the event basis is at. According to stipulation which according to this announced, after March 15, a clothing "Heaven II" in will not be able again to appear the mainland to play family's form, but fact how?
The day coin transaction business staff trains one of scenes
The day coin transaction business staff trains second scene
In the near future clothing day coin selling price contrast
The day coin transaction - can not but mention once more topic
Last October, the home station has published"Chinese and South Korean Heaven Coin Underground Transaction Report of investigation"an article, the author through 2 month-long thorough investigations, discovered the Chinese and South Korean heaven coin underground transaction has formed an integrity but the huge industrial chain, moreover has the quite great fund to flow with the profit, and has a big crowd of stable being employed.
But today "Heaven II" a clothing endures seals IP the behind, also is a heaven coin underground transaction army. Said from the form and the flow, two kind of phenomena forms and the content, as well as finally cause the result, is exactly the same. Below, the author listed several examples to perform to describe this kind of phenomenon:
Example one:
Young Zhang is the Jiangsu person, the clothing heaven II just male measured time, his started to begin to prepare the ideal money transaction each matters concerned.
Now young Zhang has 20 machines, under some 40 individual 24 hours uninterrupted in game ΄ςΗ®, in addition, he also has the family, the account number quantity probably is about 70, in the hand 20 machines proxy servers have not had the problem, but under family's proxy has not done well.
According to young Zhang introduced that, plays the family inside the clothing mainland probably to have more than 20,000 people, 80% all specially is engaged in the hypothesized coin transaction, they are called its play "the Renminbi soldier".
Example two:
Shandong's Xiao Li, also is engaged in mainland and the Taiwan day coin transaction. He tells the author, makes this to make money but actually really makes money, might be too tired, after IP sealed, he has not continued the meaning which did. He has also disclosed his February to the author the income situation: It in 13 clothing 10 ID, the role rank all between 25-29, except employs outside personnel's expenditure, in the hand is left over more than 30,000 Yuan, the income is quite considerable.
Then, entire clothing transaction market has in a big way?
Young Zhang tells the author: Has 10,000 mainland according to a clothing in to play the family every day to calculate, 80% will be "the Renminbi soldier", if each person may deliver 250,000 heaven coins every day, then the entire mainland one day will have 2 billion hypothesized coins to flow in Taiwan, will be allowed to exchange £¤ 220 Yuan ratios according to 1 million heaven coins to calculate, daily transaction total amount unexpectedly nearly 500,000 Renminbi.
According to the author investigates, at some home well-known game forums, like the angel, 1T1T and so on, all has specially the information exchange tectonic plate which sets up for this kind of crowd. May discover from the forum card that, is engaged in the clothing day coin transaction to proliferate the nation, places such as Fujian, Zhejiang, Shandong, Guangdong, Hunan, Jiangsu, Hubei, Sichuan, Liaoning, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Chongqing all had the suitable scale organization, specially carries on under the development family's service.
In these transaction organization, Fujian contains the feather network technical service limited company has representative very much.
Example three:
Contains the feather network is a company which a Taiwan person sets up, in October, 2003 establishes, the development the nearly half year, has until now compared with other small companies has many is obvious differently place:
The new employment advertise joins the company staff, all must carry on some service training, can assign afterwards carries on to the different place the work, its monthly salary basis hits the day coin the quantity to decide, roughly between 500-1000 Yuan.
Next is the service entire. Started from last October, to contain the feather network to involve Han Futian male the coin transaction, after the Taiwan heaven II measures, contained the feather the main service to transfer a clothing. In addition, contained the feather network also once to carry on the transaction in the date clothing.
Besides the day coin transaction, contains the feather network also for ordinary to play the family to provide sufficient value service service and so on card purchase, clothing proxy server.
Young Zhang tells the author, the picture contains the feather network such company, the mainland and Taiwan adds almost has 6 to be many, they are grasping the overwhelming majority "the Renminbi soldier" account number.
One of day coin transaction company job sites
Second day coin transaction company job site
Third day coin transaction company job site
"The Renminbi soldier" will continue to guard a clothing
On March 15, after Taiwan "Heaven II" overseas IP seals, ordinary plays the possibility which the family continues to stay behind to be very small, the price not Philippines's spot card and the agent expense, can make them to shrink back at the sight. But, the picture "the Renminbi soldier" such will play the family to be able the resident clothing, will return to the local game server the possibility not to be big.
First, although the mainland "Heaven II" male measures in namely, but the domestic day coin transaction market cannot very quickly form a present clothing the scale, its profit margin cannot be higher than a clothing.
Next, the existing proxy technology already very was mature, after the overseas IP blockade, was not big to its influence.
Once more, the high quota profit cannot change too in a big way in the short period, this is a reason which most attracts them to stay behind.
Appendix:
"Heaven II - Overseas IP Limit Announcement"
Dear plays the family, hello:
Extremely thank everywhere plays the family to the heaven II support and the loving care! Although the network is does not have the national boundary distinction, but, the complete service needs to have the human resources which the region differentiates to provide a better service.
Heaven II game service copyright peace treaty signs which according to this company and between heaven II development company NCsoft only in Taiwan and Hong Kong area, to, the port area game service in principle only to lives plays the family in Taiwan and the Hong Kong area to provide the game service.
Therefore, this company in time decision all services policy and transport business policy take this principle as a standard, other areas play the family, will manage the heaven II local company by each place to provide the game service. We in March 15, 2004 comprehensive limit overseas IP, at the appointed time besides, the port area will be unable and so on to enter the Taiwan game server. Thanks everybody to the heaven II support, also asks the overseas to play the family to forgive, and continues to support local the heaven II, thanks!
(Sina plays one's own special report, if must reprint, please give the source)
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