Wildstar's Bot War: A New Incentive

Wildstar has had a bit of a problem with botting and hacked accounts since launch.  In a strange twist I'd never heard of in any other game, Wildstar's Executive Producer Jeremy Gaffney told players on 1 July that between 50% and 70% of all accounts Carbine had banned for botting were hacked.¹  Apparently, because Carbine has players use their email addresses as their login, hackers can purchase lists of passwords and try those, hoping that users have reused their passwords from other games or websites.

Carbine has pushed 2-factor authentication pretty hard since early access.  Wildstar displays Google Authenticator as the default choice, although I understand the use of WinAuth is also supported.  Personally, unless you make a fresh email account for playing Wildstar, I'd choose to use an authenticator.

Carbine offers an incentive package for players to sign up for 2-factor authentication.  At launch, the package included:

• A 2% experience boost to Experience, Renown, and Prestige that allows you to out-level those people whose accounts remain hacker bait.
• A Cybernetic Eyepatch costume item to commemorate your victory over the bad guys. It also improves depth perception.
• The title Certifiably Certified so you can provide official proof to your guild mates that you have earned access to the bank.

Notice the subtle hint to players to make sure all of your guildmates are using an authenticator?  Almost EVE-like in its attempt to reduce corp guild theft.

On Wednesday, Carbine sweetened the pot by offering a free mount for using an authenticator.

The Retroblade Mount For Using 2-Factor Authentication

I don't have stats on the mount because my main is only level 12 and players cannot use mounts until level 15.  I also don't know how much a mount is.  I heard 10 gold, but I don't know if that is just for the mount or to purchase the skill as well.  But if that reduces the cost of getting a mount, then Carbine with this gift will also remove an incentive for purchasing gold on the secondary RMT market as well as getting players to secure their accounts.  Nicely played, Carbine!

Notes:

1.  I'm not saying Wildstar is the first game this has happened in.  Just that Carbine is the first company I've read state this.  The usual culprit is credit card fraud.

Wildstar's Bot War: A July Update

Wildstar's Executive Producer Jeremy Gaffney gave another update on Carbine's continuing war on botters, hackers, and RMT on the forums Tuesday.  As one of the draws of Wildstar for me is to see how a company like Carbine who talked such a good anti-RMT game before launch would actually perform, I'll make more posts like today's.  Which includes posting Gaffney's entire post and offering commentary.  First, a few words from Gaffney:

Tightening Up The Language

Tobold has written a couple of interesting posts over the past two days about botting and RMT in Wildstar.  In his post on botting, Tobold made an interesting point about a statement made by Wildstar's Executive Producer, Jeremy Gaffney, made in his post announcing Wildstar's first ban wave for botting and hacking:

(Gold farmers I hate too, but at least I can understand the reasons behind their actions. They’re trying to make money by spamming, ripping off accounts, and gold, and wasting our support/dev time, which is unethical and borderline evil but at least rational.  I really suggest not buying gold from them if you actually care about such things).

I think Tobold made a good point about Gaffney's use of loose language:

"On the point of gold farmers, I would be more careful with my language. If you call them "gold farmers", I don't consider their actions unethical or evil. Annoying, sure, but as they never actually accepted the premise of the game as being *a game*, but consider it as a form of making a living, I have a hard time condemning them. They don't "cheat", because they don't play, they work. Of course as soon as we talk about "account hackers", which is not totally the same thing even if there is obviously an overlap, we clearly get into the domain of illegality. But somebody who is just farming gold, with or without bots, and then selling it, with or without spam, isn't breaking any real world laws. In fact a gold farmer quite frequently does exactly the same actions as a regular player in need of gold, only they do it more intensively."

Gaffney did not use the term "gold farmers" accurately, at least according to Wikipedia.

"Gold farming is playing a massively multiplayer online game to acquire in-game currency that other players purchase in exchange for real-world money."

The activities he mentioned don't really involve gathering gold in-game like an actual gold farmer would.  I agree that Gaffney should not have used the term gold farmer.  Notice I just want Gaffney to change is terminology; I like the way he thinks.

So what term should he have used?  In connection to Wildstar, gold seller, my preferred term, probably isn't good either.  Why?  Because CREDD, at its core, is just Carbine establishing a primary RMT market for the exchange of in-game currency for real world cash.  Although if everyone agrees to separate the primary RMT market (CREDD) from the secondary RMT market (gold selling outside the CREDD system), then gold seller is probably okay.

Perhaps people should just use the term RMTer.  I'd suggest cupcake, but that's already taken.

Wildstar's Bot War: Carbine's Opening Salvo

Ever since I heard that Carbine planned on introducing C.R.E.D.D., an in-game object similar to EVE Online's PLEX, into Wildstar, I've wanted to see how serious Carbine would take the issues of botting, hacking, and illicit RMT.  Since launch, Wildstar has experienced the initial onslaught from the gold sellers and others who wish to cheat that every game over the past few years has suffered.  Last week, C.R.E.D.D. became available in game, setting up one of the key pillars of its anti-RMT strategy.  Last night, Wildstar's Executive Producer Jeremy Gaffney made the first announcement of the Game Surveillance Unit's work to catch and ban cheaters: