I have a radical idea, not for ESO, but for MMOs in general, to address the problem of gold farmers/seller: make it impossible to trade gold.

How would this work? The game would assign prices to all items the same way they do now when selling items to vendors. This "player" price would be variable. It would change based on factors within the game. Say a lot of iron was mined last week, well, the price of iron swords goes down. The player price would be the starting point for the seller. The seller could then choose to sell the item for up to 10% more or 10% less. So if the game determined that the price of an iron sword was 10g, then the seller could sell that sword for anywhere between 9g and 11g. This will allow some leeway for the seller to undercut his competitors, but not so much that a gold seller can buy a 10g iron sword for 1000g.

The trade window would enforce the pricing. There would be a seller on one side and buyer on the other. The value on the buyer side would have to be withing 10% either way of the value on the seller side. Items listed on an AH or vendor would have to conform to the pricing structure as well.

If gold sellers can't trade gold, then they can't sell gold. If they can't sell it, they won't farm it and they won't be in the game.

Along with this system, I would make items have variable quality, like they did in SWG. So if there are 5 iron swords for sale, they might all have different stats, within a range. People would then actually purchase based on quality rather than just price.

But I doubt any game company would have the guts to make a system like this, and too many players would complain about not being able to game the AH or overcharge for their items.

So in other words, handle like the war on drugs? That was a wildly successful program right?

Why would random people whisper at you? Its easy to spot bots, I never mistook a player for a bot in GW2.

No because Zenimax would have to flip some switch to allow people to kill them and put a big marker over their character to let everyone nearby know who they are.

Yes, that is annoying....

Whatever happened to player etiquette?

It's bad enough when two players arrive at a node at the same time (I will often bow to the opposing player and relinquish the node to them), but when you are fighting a mob to get the node/chest and they sneak in and snag it, that is when I wish there was a "feign death" so the mob would agro them.

http://www.webcomicsnation.com/memberimages/g_robot_s.jpg

*laughs*

Yeah, this is it; if there wasn't a market they wouldn't be there. The blame should be placed squarely at the feet of the players that use these 'services'.

I'm hoping due to various mechanics in the game, botting won't be a prevalent as it was in other mmos (e.g. GW2).

You didn't? I know of various people that had this happen to them in GW2 re asking whether they're a bot. Frostgorge Sound seemed a classic place for you to be asked.

My idea for convicted bots are banning of offending accounts, followed by execution of the associated characters, as we saw in the beginning of Skyrim.

If some moron is running around randomly whispering people it won't take long for him to be reported by people.

Bots are easy to spot because they usually run in packs (at least in GW2 the did) and they all did exactly the same thing at the same time. They all turned right at the same time they all turned left at the same time. In ESO you can still die by aggroing other mobs in the area so by definition if you want your bot to work all night you are going to have to have at least two if not more bots working in conjunction with each other. I didn't even keep an eye out for them you can spot them a mile away.

Secondly everyone hates bots anyways so even if there was no bounty system they are still going to report them. All I am asking for is to allow the players to destroy them for fun and then their accounts and IPs can be permabanned afterwards. Getting a couple of gold pieces would be a nice bonus but you wouldn't be able to make a living off of it. If all you do is chase down bots and only get 10 gp for each bot kill you would be wasting your time compared to simply killing normal mobs.

The only people that would be opposed to making it more fun to kill bots would be people intending to use them at some point or purchase gold from them.

What is a bot, and why are they so bad?

Oh yes, but not everyone sees them so clearly. Or else no one would be whispering to anyone.

Davor, a bot is literally a player controlled by a macro or script telling it to repeat something like mine for iron ore or kill a certain enemy for it's loot.

Because ESO and a lot other MMO's respawn ore and enemies in the exact same place, it makes it incredibly easy to set a bot up and start making money.

By taking that loot/resources, and selling it. Especially on an AH if one exists. Then turning around and selling gold in large sums for real life money. Also often progresses into stealing accounts, liquidating their assets, and using their characters to spam gold selling ads until banned.

The 24/7 bot farmers will be a nuisance but I think duped items will be a worse problem. Just a feeling.

Bots should be permabanned and the devs should implement a system to watch what is traded between what players. If a player accepts a trade of a large portion of gold, and later it turns out that account is permabanned, that player should be responsible too for aiding and supporting the bots and be permabanned as well. Like it or not but if the players themselves are at risk of permabanned, how long will the bots survive in the game, if the players won't want to risk getting the banhammer?