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PSyren
02-06-2016, 12:46 AM
Gold gifting either needs to be turned off, or gold trading needs to be turned on since it's pretty much the same thing. Gold gifting has ruined the in game economy btw.

Game
02-06-2016, 01:35 AM
Gold gifting either needs to be turned off, or gold trading needs to be turned on since it's pretty much the same thing. Gold gifting has ruined the in game economy btw.

It is absolutely different. Trading Gold can be abused because the Gold would be limitless from voting on multiple accounts and stock piling it all on one, making it easy to buy expensive Gold items in 1 day. Gold Gifting is literally the same as just buying the Gold yourself and buying items off of the Gold Vendor based on whatever the other person wants, this way they can just do it on their own. I am not seeing your logic here PSyren :(

Dante
02-06-2016, 02:22 AM
Imo trading items for gold should be forbidden (using the gifting feature).
e: i mean also to transfer gold from X to Y, like Game said, which is disabled for stated reasons.

Saying I want you to buy me 2x XYZ from vendor from your gold or that NV for gold is OK.

I never gifted gold or got gifted, but isn't it just that you pay and the other receives it? If so I understand psyrens logic, it's a one way gold trade channel with passively trading gold (gold items) in the economy.

I have no statistics about the gold gifted here, but it's a easy to abuse feature because I don't think "normal" gold gifting happens that often. I understand it's a good deal for the server and you to get money, but it's clearing breaking boundaries if used in that way imo.

Surely a topic to be discussed.

Game
02-06-2016, 03:19 AM
Imo trading items for gold should be forbidden (using the gifting feature).
e: i mean also to transfer gold from X to Y, like Game said, which is disabled for stated reasons.

Saying I want you to buy me 2x XYZ from vendor from your gold or that NV for gold is OK.

I never gifted gold or got gifted, but isn't it just that you pay and the other receives it? If so I understand psyrens logic, it's a one way gold trade channel with passively trading gold (gold items) in the economy.

I have no statistics about the gold gifted here, but it's a easy to abuse feature because I don't think "normal" gold gifting happens that often. I understand it's a good deal for the server and you to get money, but it's clearing breaking boundaries if used in that way imo.

Surely a topic to be discussed.

Okay, give me a scenario where buying Gold for someone else can be abused that cannot be abused if you're just buying it for yourself?

Dante
02-06-2016, 04:12 AM
Well maybe abused was the wrong term. I meant the way of trading for gold, that is for me hard on the boundary with the server rules:

7. No selling or exchanging Items / Accounts / Gold for real life money.
- Annihilus was created for your enjoyment, not your bank account.


8. No attempting to abuse the Gold System in anyway.
- Making multiple accounts just to get the activity and voting Gold each day is completely unacceptable, same with abusing the referral system. You will get banned for this, we will be monitoring this closely!

For me it's clearly against rule 7, isn't it?
I mean people think easy, they say I offer you cow set boots for 5k gold. Someone buys gold as a gift for someone else. Again, I don't now the clear mechanics of gifting, I never used it, but it's a bit obvious if it is like that.

Nothing against Joe here( I mean he is head GM), but how is he able to get ~85 k gold? I mean sure he could be donating and buying gold idk, but I seen instances where people sell items for gold. If you can't trade gold then you do it as a gift? Don't get me wrong I'm just discussing the topic here, idc if you allow this, it's all fair and good with me, it was just an example. I don't think it's abusive.

If you buying it for yourself you can't trade it or transfer it to others, can you? Maybe to your own accounts, I have very little experience with that, but it seems to be like that to me.
So the only way to bring the value actually in the economy besides having it as just numbers in a database is to buy items and sell them for other items. That's a difference to me.

Rule 8 talks about attempting, multi vote is an example for it right? the rule itself is more general. With rule 7 here makes this a attempt for me. Sorry but it's not a gift if you buy gold for someone and he gives items to you.

Game
02-06-2016, 04:48 AM
Well maybe abused was the wrong term. I meant the way of trading for gold, that is for me hard on the boundary with the server rules:

7. No selling or exchanging Items / Accounts / Gold for real life money.
- Annihilus was created for your enjoyment, not your bank account.


8. No attempting to abuse the Gold System in anyway.
- Making multiple accounts just to get the activity and voting Gold each day is completely unacceptable, same with abusing the referral system. You will get banned for this, we will be monitoring this closely!

For me it's clearly against rule 7, isn't it?
I mean people think easy, they say I offer you cow set boots for 5k gold. Someone buys gold as a gift for someone else. Again, I don't now the clear mechanics of gifting, I never used it, but it's a bit obvious if it is like that.

Nothing against Joe here( I mean he is head GM), but how is he able to get ~85 k gold? I mean sure he could be donating and buying gold idk, but I seen instances where people sell items for gold. If you can't trade gold then you do it as a gift? Don't get me wrong I'm just discussing the topic here, idc if you allow this, it's all fair and good with me, it was just an example. I don't think it's abusive.

If you buying it for yourself you can't trade it or transfer it to others, can you? Maybe to your own accounts, I have very little experience with that, but it seems to be like that to me.
So the only way to bring the value actually in the economy besides having it as just numbers in a database is to buy items and sell them for other items. That's a difference to me.

Rule 8 talks about attempting, multi vote is an example for it right? the rule itself is more general. With rule 7 here makes this a attempt for me. Sorry but it's not a gift if you buy gold for someone and he gives items to you.

See the thing is the wording itself. It is QUITE literal, it says you are not allowed to sell ANYTHING for real life money. Nobody gifting Gold is making a single dollar off of this server, by gifting Gold the $ goes straight back into the server, not into a player's pocket. Nobody is selling anything for real-life money or anything that goes into their bank account, like the rule states. With the feature to deliver purchased Gold to someone else this allows players who may have found a super rare item with a great roll to get a decent amount of Gold to buy things from the Gold Vendor that they may have taken much longer to obtain otherwise because they aren't as fortunate in real life to have extra money to spend.

The biggest thing about this is the $ goes straight back into the server, like I mentioned earlier. I think a lot of poeple do not realize how much time I have to put into each patch, and when it comes to the content I am a 1-man development team. Many of you may also not realize I am happily married with a son who is about to turn 1. If we didn't have people buying Gold or gifting Gold, do you think I could explain to my wife why I am spending 10+ hours on my days off of work to work on the next patch? We'd be MUCH further behind on content than we are now, and 3.2 would be nowhere near as close as it is, heck I doubt we'd be on 3.0 yet. The way it is setup now is not giving anybody any advantages over others, and it allows me to rationalize working on Annihilus as if it was a second full-time job. I could change it now if you all really somehow feel it is affecting your time here at Annihilus someway or somehow, but I imagine a decent amount of Gold purchasing would slow down, so you would naturally have to expect content creation to slow down as well. If that is a trade you guys are willing to make just let me know!

Dante
02-06-2016, 05:54 AM
Yes you clearly got the point and it's exactly what you say, it's about the wording.
See, you have to explain it and it is clear that nobody makes a real life $ with it. But it's not like you couldn't still sell your account with the gold to someone else for real life money which is nearly impossible for you to detect. I wasn't talking about that. Also I said I understand the advantages of the gold system like that and a great way to get you the money you deserve, you don't have to tell me about your personal life I already know that, we all need to come around with our money and time. See I don't meant to be personal, it's all good with that, all reasonable.

I'm just addressing the ingame economy here. With what you now said, it is clear to me that this way of trading items via the "gift" feature is allowed, which wasn't that clear to me before, so it's maybe not to new players. Maybe also because the literal wording is missleading. But it's a statement now. I'm talking about the rules here, I mean I am a GM, I wanna know what are the rules exactly. Psyren may have known this or not, he was just addressing and caring about the ingame economy too. Technically you don't sell it for real life money, but you have to think about what this does with the economy in game.

For instance if someone sells me something for 1000 gold. He wouldn't accept 1 Zod (~1k Gold) wouldn't he? 1000 gold has more value to it even if the ingame item you get is valued the same at the vendor.
So I am going to gift you 1k, giving the money straight to the server right.
But wouldn't it be the same effect if you wouldn't allow gifting and just allow item trades ( including vendor items of course).

You still get the same amount of "real life money" out of it, but it's not part of the ingame economy to have a side effect currency for ingame trades.

e: So to make the question clear here:

Would changing it like that lower the amount of money you get for the server and your time and effort?

If yes -> keep it, it has reasoning behind it, but try to understand people not liking it that much, no matter what it does for you.

Game
02-06-2016, 06:03 AM
Yes you clearly got the point and it's exactly what you say, it's about the wording.
See, you have to explain it and it is clear that nobody makes a real life $ with it. But it's not like you couldn't still sell your account with the gold to someone else for real life money which is nearly impossible for you to detect. I wasn't talking about that. Also I said I understand the advantages of the gold system like that and a great way to get you the money you deserve, you don't have to tell me about your personal life I already know that, we all need to come around with our money and time. See I don't meant to be personal, it's all good with that, all reasonable.

I'm just addressing the ingame economy here. With what you now said, it is clear to me that this way of trading items via the "gift" feature is allowed, which wasn't that clear to me before, so it's maybe not to new players. Maybe also because the literal wording is missleading. But it's a statement now. I'm talking about the rules here, I mean I am a GM, I wanna know what are the rules exactly. Psyren may have known this or not, he was just addressing and caring about the ingame economy too. Technically you don't sell it for real life money, but you have to think about what this does with the economy in game.

For instance if someone sells me something for 1000 gold. He wouldn't accept 1 Zod (~1k Gold) wouldn't he? 1000 gold has more value to it even if the ingame item you get is valued the same at the vendor.
So I am going to gift you 1k, giving the money straight to the server right.
But wouldn't it be the same effect if you wouldn't allow gifting and just allow item trades ( including vendor items of course).

You still get the same amount of "real life money" out of it, but it's not part of the ingame economy to have a side effect currency for ingame trades.

I am afraid you just aren't getting it Dante. The wording is quite clear, I just went into more detail than necessary because you didn't seem to understand. It says you cannot sell things for real life money, and nobody is doing that. How does the gifting Gold system allow people to break the rules and sell their account with the Gold on it that wouldn't work if gifting Gold was disabled? People could still technically do it all the same with the Gold they saved up from voting or bought themselves in the past. As for this not being common knowledge that you can do this, it actually mentions it in the FAQ on the front page of the website. And for the record, it isn't hard to detect when an IP address from a completely different location logs into an account and starts spending Gold!

Your example about the Zod is also not really relevant, of course the Gold would be worth a little more because it allows a little more freedom on what the buyer wants to spend the Gold on. They may not know what they want from the store and want to decide later. There may be a few picky people who only want Gold but there aren't going to be many people who buy Gold to gift it to them, and will likely settle for just having users by the Gold items from the vendor for them. This isn't harming a thing and I think you all are overreacting over something that isn't even there. If you stop and think about it there is absolutely nothing that can be abused here that couldn't also technically be abused without gold gifting. The original question I asked you all was how can Gold gifting be abused, and unfortunately I have not gotten an answer.

Dante
02-06-2016, 06:13 AM
Yes it is more a questioning on my side then a discussion, thanks for pointing that out. I'm not overreacting.

I stop answering this now, it's not bad right now I know.
We will see how it goes, I should stop caring for it tbh.

Game
02-06-2016, 06:19 AM
Yes it is more a questioning on my side then a discussion, thanks for pointing that out. I'm not overreacting.

I stop answering this now, it's not bad right now I know.
We will see how it goes, I should stop caring for it tbh.

When it comes down to it people shouldn't expect others to be ready to buy Gold to purchase their item, and if they only accept Gold in that manner then it is absolutely not worth trading with them.

I didn't mean to upset you Dante that certainly wasn't my intention, I am just having trouble seeing issues that Gold gifting is causing. Just about the ONLY person I see getting Gold from this is Mephisto anyways, Gold gifts happen maybe once a week.

Mephisto
02-06-2016, 07:58 AM
The people i traded with all did this to support to server, as they always state that theyre really happy that new content keeps coming! Since now the crashes are literally gone, instead of buying items from the vendor, they want to buy items from me that they really need.
I dont see the problem if i say i sell a cowset for 7.5k gold, i actually get the gold or let them pick all the items from Hadriel. as Alex said before, its much easier for me to pick the items myself this way.
Also im not the only one that got the power to do this, u guys can trade this way aswell.

Eric
02-06-2016, 09:41 AM
I agree with Psyren on this one, the problem is that one person, Mephisto, controls literally all of the gold gifting, and that's not technically a problem for the server, its a problem for the trading market and other players trying to get gold for things, it just doesn't happen. So the market is swayed one direction, toward that single person.
In my opinion, there needs to be a system where gold gifting is available maybe once a week, not unlike the voting system where it's once a day. Just a longer timeframe. And with that, maybe promote it instead of having one person going around saying "I take gold!" And everyone else being confused and unsure if that's even a thing.
Now I agree with you, Alex, and joe about the fact that it supports the sever, but the sever can't just be about how to maintain it financially, there has to be other aspects that go into "a business," now I realize that isn't something you're interested in, but that's really what it is here, and there's nothing wrong with that, but when a business is being run, everything must be accounted for, and with a Diablo 2 server, trading is a big part of it.


TL;DR version, gold gifting needs to be addressed.

Mephisto
02-06-2016, 10:12 AM
I never knew it was possible as well, till Jared did a trade like this, maybe it should be edited in FAQ - how to get gold?

jonsnow
02-06-2016, 10:18 AM
I think the game economy would be better and people would be happier if all gold items could be obtainable in game.

Game
02-06-2016, 10:21 AM
I agree with Psyren on this one, the problem is that one person, Mephisto, controls literally all of the gold gifting, and that's not technically a problem for the server, its a problem for the trading market and other players trying to get gold for things, it just doesn't happen. So the market is swayed one direction, toward that single person.
In my opinion, there needs to be a system where gold gifting is available maybe once a week, not unlike the voting system where it's once a day. Just a longer timeframe. And with that, maybe promote it instead of having one person going around saying "I take gold!" And everyone else being confused and unsure if that's even a thing.
Now I agree with you, Alex, and joe about the fact that it supports the sever, but the sever can't just be about how to maintain it financially, there has to be other aspects that go into "a business," now I realize that isn't something you're interested in, but that's really what it is here, and there's nothing wrong with that, but when a business is being run, everything must be accounted for, and with a Diablo 2 server, trading is a big part of it.


TL;DR version, gold gifting needs to be addressed.

It is in the FAQ, although I guess if my staff doesn't read FAQ I can't expect normal players to!

I am just seriously trying to figure out how Gold Gifting is such a huge problem, what damage is it doing? Especially since most valuable items are obtained by playing the game, not spending Gold. Especially with 3.2 coming out and rares being potential best in slots for some classes, you will get rich by MFing and playing the game, not Gold Gifting. Mephisto has a lot of Gold because he has the most items in the game because of his dedication to the server. He traded several Crucible items from Level 20 before 90% of people could even get to Level 20. Anyone else who has the same items as Mephisto can trade for Gold just as well as Mephisto has. I am STILL waiting for someone to explain how Mephisto is somehow running a Monopoly on the economy because of his high Gold count?

What gets under my skin though is you are saying that I do not want to run the server properly and am only focused on the financial parts of it, what in the world are you basing this off of? Infact it seems like I am the only one thinking logically in this thread.



I never knew it was possible as well, till Jared did a trade like this, maybe it should be edited in FAQ - how to get gold?

It is in the FAQ, lol :) Look closer!

Game
02-06-2016, 10:23 AM
I think the game economy would be better and people would be happier if all gold items could be obtainable in game.

This will never happen, sorry! This is a different topic but any item with actual stats (aside from the Dice I think?) are completely obtainable in-game. The rest are the effects and are completely aesthetic, and they would be worth nothing if they were found in-game as well. If I made them drop anyone who's ever bought them would feel extremely disappointed.

jonsnow
02-06-2016, 10:27 AM
This will never happen, sorry! This is a different topic but any item with actual stats (aside from the Dice I think?) are completely obtainable in-game. The rest are the effects and are completely aesthetic, and they would be worth nothing if they were found in-game as well. If I made them drop anyone who's ever bought them would feel extremely disappointed.

You are right, i was mainly thinking about dice and orbs.

Game
02-06-2016, 10:28 AM
You are right, i was mainly thinking about dice and orbs.

Orb of Transmogrification is already obtainable in-game, as it stated in the patch notes when it came out you can cube all of the Divine Gems and create one. We may try and add a rough recipe for the Alchemy orb as well.

Mephisto
02-06-2016, 10:44 AM
'' You can also purchase Gold and have it delivered to someone else's account, just type their forum account name under "To Account" when typing in the Gold amount you are purchasing. ''
Was this rule added later on? When i started here i dont recall seeing that line, might have just missed it!

And i agree with dice and orb alchemy should be obtainable without gold,
Thats why i suggested 7 Divine topaz for a dice ( Seeing how 2 gems ( non skull ) are 1 hr value ) someone can make the choice to spend 3.5 hr to make a dice himself. Or he can just magic find all the 7 topaz's! either way it will still take some time to get some dice this way!
Ive been thinking about a recipe for the orb of alchemy, but thats a hard one :/

PSyren
02-06-2016, 01:02 PM
K enough about mephisto. This thread wasn't made to be directed toward and one in particular. That being said yes I have read the rules, and I do understand them and I also understand this rule very well.

7. No selling or exchanging Items / Accounts / Gold for real life money.
- Annihilus was created for your enjoyment, not your bank account.

I'm not sure how gold gifting is different then spending irl money vs items except for the fact that it supports the server. So new gg items start to be dependent on how much $$$ you have in your bank account with gold gifting. So even though gold gifting is helping the server prosper and I'm glad that it helps alex out, but it's still starting to ruin the economy. It may not effect items that only have a face value of a hr, but with new items it most definitely effects the ability to buy those since as soon as people get a new item that is one of the best they instantly put the item up for sale vs gold. Weather they sell it or not is irrelevant, but they refuse other reasonable offers because all they want from you is to spend your hard earned money to buy an item for them. It's a nice loop hole for rule number 7 there. This in turn will start to set an example for new players on what trading should be on annihilus, and if you go and look in the trading section it there may not be many people doing it but it's certainly increasing in the number of people who were doing it. So am I expected if I wanted to get an item when new content comes out to save up my money so I can buy it from the guy selling it for gold because they wont accept any other offer ?

With that being said tbh idc at this point and I wish I never made this thread because it seems like a bash fest for no reason. Anyway that's my two cents and I wont be posting here again.

thessarill
02-06-2016, 01:07 PM
The economy isn't ruined because of mephisto ( even if he can rule the next 5 ladder resets with that amount of gold, but its not the problem here), the economy is ruined by greedy people, a lot of new players ( and i really like them all) are wrong about a lot of items value, for exemple, cow sets items, they used to have a value for a loooonggggg time, and, its like everyone can have them easily. But there value started to grow because of some new players ( 1 in particular but i wont name him) who was only playing here for 2 weeks and was selling cow items for like 50% more expensive thant they used to be.
And new players continue to try to sell to this price, because they follow a guy who just wanted to be richer ( he autoproclamed himself as richer player of the serv... lol) .
And now, people have no real clue of what "normal" item value are.

+ the downgrading system of runes was a good idea at 1rst.
But it involve some troubles: runes lowest than ber aren't consider by players as High runes anymore.
A lot of greedy people dont even want to trade runes below tor or zod because with downgrading scroll being free, you can do ALL runes with 2 tors ( or 1 if you pay for a upgrading scroll).
The good thing to settle this would simply to put a little price on downgrading runes ( and when i say little, its little, like 50gold) so people wont abuse the system.
It would be like :" you have 1 tor, good, you can downgrade it to zod for 50 gold, to cham for 100, to jah for 150 and to ber for 200."
200 gold for 1 ber is not a lot, but it can avoid people to make 10 bers with 10 runes.
you have 10 tor? you want 10 bers? its 2000gold dude.
I overact it but, the point is here: giving people the possibility to make any runes for free isnt a good option at all, it's like playin a baldurs gate (obivious choice) and cheating to have 500k gold. There's no point to it, and it ruin the gaming experience of a lot of person.

Now, runes have no more value, people are trading orbs and dices. But we have to remember, the original diablo experience was for everyone a rune based economy.

I dont know if i'm clear, i dont know if people think like me, but i hope it can make a good reaction ( and not a trolling/flaming post)

acyroma
02-06-2016, 02:15 PM
Removing gold gifting will do nothing to change the situation.

Before people realized gold gifting was a thing, they would talk to mephisto, who would say xxx dyes/orbs/dice for the items you want, then they'd donate and buy the items from hadriel and do the trade with mephisto. I never heard a complaint about the economy being ruined back then before gold gifting was a thing, yet gold gifting essentially still happened.

The only real difference is the fact that instead of mephisto stockpiling hadriel items on mules where people cannot tell how much wealth he has, he is holding onto the gold, which everyone can clearly see. The only difference on the economy here is that in the next ladder mephisto can bring some of his wealth with him. That being said, if gold gifting had never been a thing, do you honestly believe mephisto would be lacking gold at the start of next ladder?

So, people are complaining that the economy is just recently ruined, yet the thing they are blaming has been happening for 8+ months.

Clearly, gold gifting is not the problem.