How Sony handles Alt exploiting

One of the top concerns from the community the past several weeks has been in-game advertisements from players attempting to sell in-game coin for real world money. We’ve been working on removing such players from EverQuest II on an individual basis since the phenomenon started, but we wanted to go a step further. After looking into the issue, it turns out that most of these players are on free Trial accounts and can simply create a new account after they are banned.

We discussed possible solutions and have been working on implementing what we’ve come up with for some time now, and I now have information about what we’ll be doing to resolve the situation. In short, we’re going to apply some simple restrictions to Trial of the Isle accounts. These restrictions will have relatively little impact on legitimate new players but should help curtail all that annoying spam.

With these restrictions, Trial of the Isle accounts cannot:

Trade with other players (i.e. they cannot use the Trade Window).
Receive in-game mail from players on their server (note that they can still receive in-game mail cross-server, as such emails can’t have attachments anyway).

Send in-game mail via the Norrathian Express.
Buy or list items on the broker. Browsing for items is okay.
Join or start guilds. Browsing for guilds is okay.
Speak on global channels such as "Freeport" or level channels. They will still be able to read them.
Send a tell to someone who does not have the Trial member on their Friends list.
Send a tell to someone on another server or different game.

These changes should reduce most of the gold seller spam you may have seen over the past month or so while impacting Trial players are minimally as possible. You should see this as part of an upcoming Hotfix as soon as everything has been thoroughly tested out. Thank you for your patience while we worked on resolving the issue.

One of the common ways to abuse and exploit Second Life has always been by use of alts. After registration was opened up in June, that method became so much easier and more unlimited that it actually created an easy avenue for unscrupulous players to repeatedly disrupt events and take down sims.

The Lindens' response was to capture MAC addresses so that alts could no longer be used by someone on the same computer once they were banned. While this method has its own fallibilities and drawbacks, it does seem to have put a dent in the overall griefer numbers -- whether MAC addressing has banned sufficient numbers or not, the more important thing is that griefers perceive that they could be held accountable for their actions.

Sony has announced a different tack to a similar problem in EQ2. There, it's not so much griefing as it is the use of alt accounts to spam advertise the sale of gold for real money. (Sale of in-game currency through third party sites is against their TOS).

They slammed the door by simply removing the ability to trade or chat with anyone not in the tutorial area while you're still in your trial phase of the game:

In SL terms, what they've done is prevent unverifieds from buying, selling, or IMming except under very rigidly controlled circumstances.

Now, I'm certainly not suggesting that LL ever do that - there are ways to make $L in SL with an unverified account, and some non-US residents would not be able to gain verified status very easily anyway. But I did think it was interesting that other companies seem to be far more assertive and fearless when it comes to enforcing their TOS than do the Lindens.

Some griefers plan ahead. They would create lots of alts and simply wait for them to ripen.

But I did think it was interesting that other companies seem to be far more assertive and fearless when it comes to enforcing their TOS than do the Lindens.

There is a crucial difference you are missing between these games: SL has no temporary trial accounts.

Sony can much more afford to remove fundamental game functions from EQII's free trial accounts because those accounts had finite lifespans anyway. Reducing the functionality of Basic accounts will discourage people from playing SL more than doing something analogous to trial accounts will affect EQII.

This is the same method used by Blizzard for WoW trial accounts, too. No player-to-player trading.

Some griefers plan ahead. They would create lots of alts and simply wait for them to ripen.

Yea but Im sure that in order for the alt in EQ to ripen one would have to pay for it.

LL cannot bring back free CC verification because Visa no longer permit it.

LL could however bring back simply charging for Basic accounts - but that would exclude all the people who don't readily have use of a suitable form of payment.

Presumably if you can manage to get a computer you should, in some capacity, be able to get at the very minimum a checking account. Paypal's requirements for use are so ridiculously easy now that the excuse of "I don't have a credit card" isn't plausable. At 16 I was moved-out on my own with bills and rent and I had a checking account under my name, so any old adult should be able to manage that. When I joined there were no free accounts, you had to pay 9.95 at a minimum to play. Removing that requirement was a moronic act on the part of LL and they can't honestly stand and say they're trying to keep underagers and/or griefers out after doing something like that.

Oh, furthermore, doesn't Visa/Mastercard now even offer those prepaid credit cards that can be refilled with cash? Sheesh.

Some international users don't necessarily have cards that LL will accept.

Not everyone wants a credit card. There are several folks I know in RL who have houses, computers, jobs, cars, all of the stuff you'd expect, but are happy with just a debit card.