San Mateo (CA) – EA/Mythic’s General Manager Mark Jacobs says gold farmers aren’t welcome in Warhammer Online and adds quite forcefully that they can, “go to hell”.  Jacobs recently posted in a blog that he’s instructed his staff to immediately and publically ban all gold farmers.  To add insult to injury, he says Warhammer Online has a strike team devoted to exterminating gold farmers from the game.

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“I HATE GOLD SELLERS WITH EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING,” Jacobs wrote and this should leave no doubt as to how he feels about people who sell virtual gold for real cash.  Gold farmers have been around ever since the days of Ultima Online and the business is quite profitable.  These businesses often employ low-wage people who spend hours toiling for virtual loot to sell to other players.  The gold farmers then turn around and sell the virtual gold for tens to hundreds of real dollars.

These gold farmers will often advertise items and gold on public chat channels and this annoys players and Jacobs alike.  “I hated seeing their messages when I played WoW or any other MMO,” Jacobs says.  Now that he’s the head of his own MMO, Jacobs has launched his own crusade against gold farmers.

“I’ve been waiting for the day that WAR launched so I could have the absolute pleasure of instituting policies to make their lives more difficult so we could drive them out of WAR.”

So far, 400 gold farmers have been banned and Jacobs says he’s instructed his “strike teams” to have a no tolerance policy against anyone who spams the chat channels for virtual loot or gold.  Such people will be banned immediately.  “My guys ban their useless, time-consuming butts right away,” wrote Jacobs.

To top it all off, the bans are now broadcasted to the public via server-wide messages like, “Tchar’zanek has ordered the slaughter of [Spammer].”

Jacobs bristles at the notion that he is banning the gold farmers for personal gain.  Some people may think Mythic will start selling its own gold, but he just won’t do it.  He adds that he’s even been offered a “very, very tidy sum” to look the other way on gold farming.  His very simple answer to that, “Go to hell.”

EDIT - The banning is fast and furious.  There's a "BanHammer" announcement on the Warhammer Online page that lists 7600+ accounts banned so far.

Mark Jacobs blog

 

Number is currently at 7960 banned

Oct 07, 2008 15:47     

Old news number is past the 7,000 mark. http://herald.warhammeronline.com/warherald/NewsOverview.war
digdug report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Oh Thank You!

Oct 07, 2008 15:47     

Now if they would just add the ability to right-click the people who spam the chat channels with offers of gold and report them without having to click through the help system. Come on! report spammer
MorituriMax report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Sounds like Arena Net

Oct 07, 2008 15:57     

war hammer online must be as fun as GuildWars... The question is; after playing through the whole game what's there left to do BUT farm?
hank report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -4

Shame

Oct 07, 2008 15:59     

They can't ban cheap cash ins from EA, eh?
Revrant report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +2

finally

Oct 07, 2008 17:29     

I've thought gold farming was a stupid idea for a long time, ruins the game for anyone without a bunch of cash to waste. An rpg should not be linked to the user in any way except how the user interfaces with him. you should never be allowed to buy extra for your character, its role palying, your playing the role of a pretend character, and you step out of character and interfere with the entire system when you buy somthing with real cash. Finaly someone takes a stand.

AuriTau report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +4

tracked money

Oct 07, 2008 17:47     

I'm surprised nobody has figured out how to put a serial number on each gold and use that to track how it moves around in the game.
MorituriMax report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +2

Time is money

Oct 07, 2008 17:48     

Well, time is money and some people have more money than time so I think the whole argument is retarded. People with real lives and responsibilities can't compete with kiddies that do nothing but play MMORPGs. So what's the difference?
Coupland report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

re: time is money

Oct 07, 2008 18:50     

Hmmm, maybe they should track how much time each person spends online, and if the average is 30 hours a week, then those who spend less than that online should get some kind of in-game handicap reward. Example: average online time = 30 hpw (hours per week) joe shmo online time = 10 hpw joe gets an ighb (in-game handicap bonus) of 20 gold, the difference at the beginning of the next billing cycle. ..or something similar.

MorituriMax report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1

Its simple

Oct 07, 2008 19:00     

The game sux anyway. with or without gold farmers.
Rdawg report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Rdawg poodle

Oct 07, 2008 21:29     

if it sux dont play and dont bore us with your personal snide remarks.
MorituriMax report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

@hank

Oct 07, 2008 23:54     

well, my understanding is that its main focus is RVR as put forth in DAOC. There's simply really no end to the hours of fun that RVR brings. Now, i haven't had a chance to play much of war but the little i have played is pretty cool so far. Just wish my computer wasn't so fricking old! :)
wsp_epsilon report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Great stuff

Oct 08, 2008 03:38     

I love my MMOs and there is nothing that ruins a game like currency farmers. Don't just ban them... shoot them is what I say! No mercy!
The Trutherizer report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Not enough

Oct 08, 2008 08:59     

This is nothing but a publicity stunt. It's great to announce how many people has been banned because of gold spammers. It's nice to see such a large number being banned. But that's nothing, to really strike at the gold spammers, you need to ban the root IP or domain. Hit them in the IP not the account. Anyone can open up an account, use the free trial and spam the crap out of the channels. That does nothing in the gold spam war. It can also be taken another step further, localize the IP in the game, keep US players on US servers, keep Europeans on European servers, etc.

Devon M report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +2

One and only solution

Oct 08, 2008 09:58     

Restrict free trial accaunt to talk in general chat,to wisper other player and to use trade.Simply mute free trials. Instantly ban full accaunt who spam gold selling.
Igor report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +2

a few things

Oct 08, 2008 11:31     

First, I like Igor's solution. Second, the RVR content is similar to battlegrounds in WoW, but there are tons more scenarios and much more content. You don't feel the need to 'farm' renown (honor), you just play and have a good time. Outside of RVR scenarios the world battles are great. It's like back in WoW, when battlegrounds didn't exist and there were a few places where 15-20 or so high levels would sit and bash on each other hours on end and it was best fun the game ever saw. This game sets the scene for situations like that, and they are not only commonplace, but fun as hell.

crash report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

This article is SO funny. As far as I can see, very...

Oct 08, 2008 13:07     

This article is SO funny. As far as I can see, very little is done against gold sellers. Every 30 seconds or so, I receive gold ads through "tells" from the same people, day after day even though I report them. The Ignore command does not even work against these people, so it seems as though Mythic is even HELPING those people to spam us... It is a known problem for Mythic and NOTHING that I can actually see in the game has been done about it.

SBeaudry report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1

If "ignore" actually worked, it would reduce the pr...

Oct 08, 2008 13:19     

If "ignore" actually worked, it would reduce the problem a bit...
SBeaudry report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

My theory on this

Oct 08, 2008 14:18     

I always thought you should just create servers with time limits. Want to play 24/7? Then you plan on the Full Time Server and get normal experience. Only have 1 Hr a day? They you play on the Very Little Time server and get say, 5x normal experience and higher loot probabilities, however, once your Hour is up, you get DC'd until tomorrow. Something like that would allow everyone to enjoy all parts of the game without unduly punishing the geeks that have 24 hours to play per day.

Jim report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -2

Anda's Game

Oct 08, 2008 20:55     

Cory Doctorow has a short story called Anda's Game that deals with this very issue; namely, poor children in developing countries hired as goldfarmers. It's a great read if you have an hour: http://www.authorama.com/andas-game-1.html
Capissen report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

SBeaudry for the win.

Oct 09, 2008 14:44     

yeah man. You said it. Ignore doesn't work. Fix ignore and in conjunction with the other stuff we should be set.
wmcgritt report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

It's BIG business.

Oct 10, 2008 20:08     

Gold farming is actually a pretty big business over in China. We get requests all the time from people over there, calling us and asking if we want to join them, selling gold and share the profits. Then again, it can't be THAT big if the bribe they offered him was just a “very, very tidy sum” vpgames.com vpgameslive.com
Stefan report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

KHYATI

Oct 11, 2008 10:04     

SMALLER
TANMAY report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

GAMES

Oct 11, 2008 10:05     

BORING GAMES
TANMAY report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

At last

Oct 13, 2008 00:45     

About time, I had to close my forum because of all the WarHammer/ WOW gold Spam I hate them with a Vengeance.
Barefoottech report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0