does GGG even ban RMTers

''most people at this point dont see rankings as having any worth at this point if you consider the top nemesis runners abused CoD for several weeks or months to vastly outpace players who didnt use that.

its the same for excessive rmting when maps were more expensive.''

That is exactly my point. Why would such an ethically minded gaming company(lol) wish to maintain their jokingly biased and tainted ladder rankings which are completely corrupt and stacked heavily against the actual legit players at it's current condition? These ladders are not a reflection of who is best.There is zero integrity in these ranks and yet they give out prizes. I know that there are a few players who are excluded from this but those are likely to be the few who would agree with me.

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mammii_banned wrote:

I'm assuming at some point GGG might weigh in on this but... he said it wasn't the fact fg was used... it was the fact it takes too much man power to investigate if money was used to buy the fg... so thats why they give a blanket ban on anything thats not ggg currency to ggg currency/items... sad I had to explain it this far bud...

Well that IS NOT what GGG says.

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Chris wrote:

Real Money/External Trading

Buying and selling items or accounts for real money or external currencies (such as Forum Gold) is not allowed and we will ban people who attempt to engage in it in-game or on the pathofexile.com forums.

The following things are examples of behaviour that could get you banned under this rule:
Posting a trade thread where you ask for things other than Path of Exile items in exchange for your gear.
Offering people money or external currencies in exchange for their Path of Exile items or accounts.
Advertising external item sales sites. It's best to avoid mentioning them by name.
Running a service where you sell items or accounts to people for things other than Path of Exile items.

It is clear as day, and I'm still perplexed how anyone would even think for one minute that there is a difference between FG and real money.

RMT isn't bad because it is real money, it is bad because it is an external currency.
FG isn't bad because it can be bought with real money, it isn't exempt if it hasn't been bought with real money, there need be no connection to real money, it is bad because it is an external currency.

RMT = external currency when used to buy in game items.
FG = external currency when used to buy in game items.
Toenail sandwiches = external currency when used to buy in game items.

If, like you say, GGG are going back on their policy and indeed using mitigation of whether there is a real money contributor, this is really bad and indeed needs some more input.

However, I highly doubt that, I rather think you are still in denial and still refuse to remove your train of thought from the real money aspect and simply can't (heaven knows how/why) see why any external currency, of any kind, period, is bad.

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Nephalim wrote:

Ban even a few high level or well known rmter and publicly announce how much currency they lost and change will sweep the server instantly.

This isn't how it works, and never has. People RMT because they want to RMT. It being against the rules means nothing. They could ban the 10 most well known PoE players for RMTing, and little to nothing would change as far as who else is doing it.

As far as botters are concerned, ultimately it has nothing to do with RMTing in this game. If they were able to make it impossible for people to bot, RMTing would continue at a healthy(unhealthy?) rate.

@Nephalim: It's essentially a moot point. There will always be cheaters; RMT will always be the means of making such cheating profitable in terms of real-world dollars; thus RMT will always be closely linked to cheating. Discussing a utopian vision of a world without botters is a waste of time.

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Magnicon wrote:

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Nephalim wrote:

Ban even a few high level or well known rmter and publicly announce how much currency they lost and change will sweep the server instantly.

This isn't how it works, and never has. People RMT because they want to RMT. It being against the rules means nothing. They could ban the 10 most well known PoE players for RMTing, and little to nothing would change as far as who else is doing it.

As far as botters are concerned, ultimately it has nothing to do with RMTing in this game. If they were able to make it impossible for people to bot, RMTing would continue at a healthy(unhealthy?) rate.

People with the most to lose will be the least likely to take the risk, assuming there is a risk which there is none right now.

You are talking about random joe who wants to rmt once in order to get a crucial gear piece or a mirrored weapon and typically has a character not even over 80. These players will always exist but for the most part, have a far less distortion on the economy. They will continue to rmt even in the face of risk of banning because they have little to lose.

I'm talking about the 10 biggest rmt'ers in the server with thousands of exalts in their tabs, fully mirrored bis gear sets, and level 90+ chars. These players will always exist but their numbers can be made vastly lower by banning their high level rmt buddies. If youre telling me the very real risk of banning vs the non existent risk of banning does not discourage someone with a 95+ char, and 800 exalts worth of gear from rmting then I dont think we are playing the same game.

Deterrence doesnt solve the problem but its certainly going to make an noticeable impact. At the very least, banning the top 10 rmters on standard would liberate likely over 800,000 exalts from the economy.

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Nephalim wrote:

These players will always exist but their numbers can be made vastly lower by banning their high level rmt buddies.

This is simply wrong, and shows a great deal of ignorance about online gaming in general. It doesn't work that way, for anyone, and it never has. You're making an assumption that is proven wrong daily by history, both for online gaming, and the real world.

There are only two options for GGG to make an impact on RMTing.
1. Address the reasons so many people RMT to begin with.
2. Invent some new method of getting actual proof in a legal way.

One of these options is actually possible.

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Magnicon wrote:

"

Nephalim wrote:

These players will always exist but their numbers can be made vastly lower by banning their high level rmt buddies.

This is simply wrong, and shows a great deal of ignorance about online gaming in general. It doesn't work that way, for anyone, and it never has. You're making an assumption that is proven wrong daily by history, both for online gaming, and the real world.

There are only two options for GGG to make an impact on RMTing.
1. Address the reasons so many people RMT to begin with.
2. Invent some new method of getting actual proof in a legal way.

One of these options is actually possible.

Can you show us where this has been proven in an online game - explicitly that banning high profile cheaters has no effect on the prevalence of rmt?

More interestingly, how does one measure the prevalence of rmt or the lack rmting caused by an event? I'm genuinely curious at this point.

From my experience, I can tell you that GGG does not ban RMTers... They just tell you to report the issue blabla and say that they are looking into it. Even if you have a video where the person you are reporting ADMITS to RMT they won't take action. I know a lot of people (even very well known persons) that are RMTing or did it in the past and I reported some of them. GGG never took any action even thought RMT is the biggest issue this game has... If i wasn't for all those scrubs who bought into this game I would actually still be playing it and supporting it and not just lurking in these forums out of boredom at work.

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reboticon wrote:

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Baskerville wrote:

It'd be interesting if GGG would look at the top 200 ladder players and see if any are suspicious of RMT. I would guess they are not, RMT is a problem but not a huge as this OP suggests.

I laughed until I nearly choked to death.

This was actually pretty good. Dont usually laugh out loud.

I guess it's time to state the obvious one more time. *sigh*


1. If you treat this game as PvE fun and not being competitive in any way, RMT-ing isn't really affecting you. Fits of jealousy don't count.

2. The reason this is a PvE-centered game is because results in competitive leagues and PvP depend mostly on resource investment, not on skill. By "resource" I mean time, but that could be replaced with another resource - money. The core concept is still the same.

3. It follows that people who want to compete in this game are willing to spend an enormous amount of resources for it. They wouldn't even think of competing otherwise. This does not apply only to short-term races which, incidentally, are not affected by RMT as far as I know. I am talking about a huge investment of hours per day, not total hours.

4. The players who are willing or able to dedicate most of their time to competitive play, particularly in a PvE-centric game, are a minority.

5. It is safe to assume that a gaming company would never do something for a minority if it would have a negative impact on the larger player base.

6. All the suggested draconian anti-RMT measures would have a huge global impact on the game and it couldn't be otherwise. They are bound to make a lot of people unhappy. Therefore, it is extremely unrealistic to hope for something like that.

Seems to me the most reasonable thing to do would be to play the game as PvE and not give a damn about any "competitive" aspects of it. Time to say it again: if one wishes to compete, there are many excellent PvP-based games. And, again - short-term races look like a good alternative if someone is hell-bent on competing in PoE.