Merchant Guild is great, definitely better than CoF.
Until Item Duping and Gold Glitches came in, and then RMT’s selling billions of gold for 100$.
MG was perfectly playable just a month ago.
I was under the impression duping is an unfounded rumour and was in fact caused by people not knowing how the Lightless Arbour dungeon reward works (it effectively dupes items legitimately for you if you spend the gold)
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I’ve yet to see any evidence that it inflates prices as much as people think and claim it does.
How much of that is RMT, and how much of that is people abusing broken, overpowered builds? Do you actually know?
That isn’t the same at all. Come on.
It’s just a matter of degree. RMT is illegal in the confines of the game. Saying it’s ok because it doesn’t affect you, is like saying that crime is ok as long as it doesn’t affect you. There is no difference other than a degree of severity.
Not to mention that RMTers steal credit cards and money from other people in order to fund their “business”. So it definitely harms people.
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My observation is this… the current batch of chase items are being posted for 50 to 100s of millions of gold right now. And these items are selling (I think, I have been watching them vanish from sale, but they may just have been just unlisted - can we assume they sold?).
Tell me how anyone could possibly amass that much through legit means? In legacy maybe, but in one month since release in Cycle? I “earn” nowhere near that and I play this game approx 30 hours per week. Yes, I could get more if I wasn’t such an Altaholic, but still…
In fact, until 1.0 released, it was the best ARPG trading system in any game, ever!
It was absolutely fantastic until people realised you didn’t need to actually make a sale to earn rep. 
The bargains I picked up were astonishing.
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No, it isn’t. At all. It’s not “a matter of degree” in any way whatsoever. They’re flat out not comparable, period.
Murder is objectively harmful to another human being, always. Murder isn’t wrong because it’s illegal, it’s illegal because it’s wrong. Even when there is a justifiable reason so that the act is not illegal, such as self defense, it has still caused harm.
Buying fake digital items in a video game with real money instead of getting them by playing the game does not objectively cause harm. It could inflate the economy to the moon and it still wouldn’t cause actual, organic harm - as opposed to the manufactured harm of people overreacting to the idea that someone “cheated”. If you and I can’t buy the best items because they cost 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 gold thanks to RMT, we have still not been harmed.
Sometimes they do. And the entire credit and financial industry has been wise to theft and fraud for decades, so it is ultimately little more than a minor inconvenience for almost everyone it affects.
I also think it’s worth saying that I feel you’re being disingenuous here anyway. I will not believe that you, or anyone, sincerely cares about credit card fraud other than to use it as a talking point to prove a position they’ve already decided on. It’s post hoc at best.
Abusing bugs to radically improve farming ability falls under the umbrella of “illegitimate means”, don’t you think?
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And just to be clear here, because this happens every time, I don’t use RMT, I’m not “defending” RMT, and I’m not saying EHG shouldn’t try to stop it. What I’m pushing back on is the hyperbole around RMT and how terrible awful oh my god the game is totally broken forever by people who aren’t actually affected by it in the slightest. It is just as ridiculous as the hyperbole about how oh my god the skills are so hard to respec and oh my god it’s so unfair that Legendary items are hard to get. RMT is a mole hill that everyone makes a mountain out of.
I’ve actually had a family member been a victim of credit card fraud. And yes, eventually he got back the money that was stolen from him. 2 years later! In the meantime, he had to get a loan from the family just to be able to survive without the money that was stolen.
So it’s not post hoc.
The financial industry will eventually (though not always) refund you for your stolen money. But they will fight you in every single step and it will take a long time to get it back, so it’s not just a “minor inconvenience”.
RMT, to me, is an ethical issue. And it’s often overlooked by people that don’t actually have an idea of the people it harms in real life. Lots of times RMT rings are the same that also run online scams and they often enslave/emprison migrants and force them to work for them. It’s a plague that should be fought, much like forced child labour and other inhuman activities.
Sadly, it can’t be solved from a dev viewpoint, but players turning a blind eye to these issues are implicitly condoning these practices. I know that most of the people simply aren’t aware of it and their view of RMT rings are just hackers behind a computer, but the reality is more gruesome.
We’ve learned to live with this (much like we still buy products made with child labour), but it definitely is the case that people are harmed by this. It just isn’t the players.
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Oh? I know nothing of such bugs. Tell me more.
Agree, and that’s the core issue, the grind itself needs to be enjoyable or balance the tedium with an incentive. A carrot that takes 100hr to get to isn’t worth it, no matter how good that single item is.
If that’s your thing, that’s fine. Nothing against it if you enjoy it. I remember posting about farming gold to buy decent LP items in MG when I eventually hit rank 8 in Q4 2025… :)… and someone replied it should only take about 200hr for the amount I was pursuing. I don’t play games for 200hr in total these days so I just chalked that up to the “probably never going to happen” fairy and moved on. Sure I post here about hoping things will change, but the game we have is what we have until EHG chooses otherwise.
My friend group play LE on Friday evenings, perhaps Sun after church and that’s it. We’re def casual players, and we’ve already gotten our moneys worth anyway. I’m tweaking a necro build now currently with 4 mini-golems and that’s enjoyable, but I see the end coming. I don’t have the mats to play the crafting lottery, and most of my gear seems decent for my playtime. For now, it’s still fun though.
I really don’t get that drama about RMTers, especially in LE. They buy gold, buy desired item and that’s it, they can’t re-sell it for profit, they can’t do sht with it, any player can achieve what they did with money without money in reasonable time XD It doesn’t hurt anyone except them cause grinding for better gear is the essence of H&S, they’re buying it so they’re missing that part. It’s impossible to stop it, the only thing is to stop it from affecting any other player which I think LE does with unability to re-sell things.
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I’m not sure I like LE enough to do that yet, but I won’t say I haven’t done it in the past. Reminded me of a funny story in D3 though that had a similarly terrible initial RNG problem. My wife bought me a RMAH gift card so I could buy a Skorn for my Witch Doctor, because getting decent drops was equally impossible in that game before “Loot 2.0”.
I can still see her walking into the room telling me to “just buy the darn axe so we can move on” lol.
I’m sorry that your family member had a bad experience with getting CC fraud cleaned up. I mean that sincerely, because I’ve had one too. But that kind of experience is not the norm.
Meanwhile, talking about RMT companies like they’re drug cartels and sweatshops is not a Brooklyn Bridge I’m interested in buying today, thanks though.
I’m going to butcher this thought, but it seems as though the LP system has taken the place of the traditional “sets” in the sense that sets used you grant you more affixs than allowed by wearing multiple pieces of each set. Here it seems as if super rare Uniques are granting that mechanic, but on a singular item.
Nah, LP on high level uniques was meant as pure chase, while giving you more options with lower level uniques.
They are working on bringing sets up to par with them.
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RMT will be in every game that has trading. To this date, the hackers seem to win over the anti Hacking community but at the end, its a well beloved feature by majority.
As much as it sucks, buyers aren’t the problem, we can laugh at them spending their hard earned money for it and hate/envy them if they are able to just spend like that.
The sellers are the smaller issue, look at the bigger picture, the way they can obtain them through various cheats/exploits/bots/etc. is the problem.
For example, you have botting. 1 bot vs 100 bots is a immense difference on impact. If you can’t stop something, at least slow it down but most of the times, they can easily increase their numbers with minimum effort. I wouldn’t be as mad if someone was actually dedicated to using 100 actual computers for 100 bots vs able to use 1 computer for 100 bots.
I don’t mind rmah or even P2W as long as the game isn’t competitive focused, PVP/leaderboards/etc. For leaderboards, the simple fix is just a separate leaderboard for SSF players but then, with such a thing implemented, i bet there will still be complaints.
As long as it doesn’t affect you in that way, why does it matter what others choose to do? RMAH isn’t the reason the economy is ruined, it’s just how the game is. Many item’s have no value or use, gold was exploited and too easy to get, bots took advantage of farming, etc.
Can you stop everyone from buying and feeding sellers? No, but you can stop/slow them down from farming as effective.
I wouldn’t mind if someone dedicated RMAH. In fact, it will just making hardcore gamers aka nerds or whatever you call it, more accepting in society. Let’s be real, hardcore gamers are frowned upon if they are not making any money but you can have other hobbies such as sports that you can invest all your time in and it’s accepted in society.
Being able to monetize and/or getting incentives for gaming will be the future, just watch. Some games already allow you to monetize and earn, through crypto and such, but idk how effective and active that currently is.
I see we’ve moved on from Strawmen to Gaslighting. Yes, that’s exactly what he’s saying. Murder is perfectly fine, as long as he, or anyone he cares about, isn’t murdered.
Now, on to the real (stupid) discussion…
I would say that Item Duping and a game without a worthwhile Currency Sink is a bigger cause of inflation that RMT. After all, RMT are just exchanging currency gotten in the game, right? And, if it’s in the game, and is never removed, then it just continues to devalue itself.
Stash tabs and Lightless Arbor are the only gold sinks in LE. With MG practically making LA pointless – would you rather gamble 15 million on the 1 in 2349081293048234092 chance of getting your item, or just spend 10 million in the AH and get it?
Stash Tabs aren’t as necessary with improvements to loot filters… especially with the MG being a thing now. So, all gold is solely for the purpose of buying/selling in the AH. What do you think is going to happen.
So now, let’s look at Item Duping – something that (apparently) has been running amuck this entire cycle, and has had nothing, that I have seen, done about it. Well, other than reducing the sell value of Arena keys. I would think that creating billions in currency through item/gold duping is a bigger cause of the inflation, than a few RMT sites. I mean, where did all the gold come from, in the first place? Unless your assertion that only RMT sites partake in the illegal/unlawful/immoral/deplorable/communist actions such as Botting and Item/Currency Duping.
Also, I don’t think billions in Gold could have been created in the shadows. That amount of gold, suddenly being created, should have set off some red flags, if it was being monitored. Legacy’s MG economy is already destroyed. There’s no way to recover it, outside of creating a currency, proprietary to MG and the AH. So, it will be interesting to see what happens with Cycle 2. I’m just glad I play CoF, even with all of its shortcomings, instead of the shit show that is the AH ( in any game it shows up in).
What about pet stores? You are aware of puppy and kitten mills, yes?
Sports? You are aware about sports gambling and game-fixing, yes?
How about the food industry? You’re aware of some plants being accused of unethical treatment of the animals being raised for the meat industry?
Clothing? You’re aware of child labor and sweat shops run in countries lax in laws regarding employee rights?
Electronics? See above.
Religion? Far too many unethical issues to list in this lifetime.
I’m sure everything you interact with is tainted, in one way or another, by some unethical practice. I’m curious why RMT is where you decide to draw the proverbial line.
Depends on how we define harm. If you go for the definition of physical injury, then no. Maybe the occasional gamer breaking their hand when smashing it on the table out of frustration with bots.
In many games, bot armies with character names like QWSHRS farm in the same instances as other players and will directly harm/hinder their gaming experience.
Do you actually have a clue what that means?
If at all, you are gaslighting. I would just call it playing the blame-game.
Because you try to manipulate people to think it is EHG’s fault that RMTers and their customers do what they do.
It is not EHG’s fault. It might be a consequence of creating a game that has the intended friction of grinding, but this is no fault. It’s a design choice and staple of the genre in isometric ARPGs.
Do you want to know whose fault RMT selling and buying is? It is the fault of the people offering or using RMT services. Nothing more, nothing less.
Whatever other issues in the game exist, it doesn’t take away from the responsibility of RMTers and buyers.
Yes, I am. That’s why my family and I got all their dogs either from friends or friends of friends, or from an animal shelter. One puppy, because the vetenarian we visited regularly, called us because some rich woman was shocked when her dog had 9 puppies at once and wanted the majority euthanized.
Because it isn’t sport (leisure time), it has become a business. When you start to do something professional, it isn’t sport anymore - it’s work. I neither gamble nor watch sports, partly for that reason. I fix my gambling itch in games with RNG and don’t cry about bricked items 
Indeed, and I try to buy groceries with some awareness of the problems. Like eating vegetarian and vegan more often than not.
Yeah, that’s why I don’t buy any fast fashion, but robust quality stuff I can wear for years. I buy sportswear produced from plastic that was harvested out from the sea. ~$50 for a shirt.
Now, maybe some things I do or buy aren’t 100% ethically produced. That doesn’t mean I gave up all inhibitions and buy from every scumbag just because it is cheap and easy, disregarding how they got it. If I know someone is fishy, there will be no deal, thank you very much.
I don’t buy game keys from 3rd party sites (except Humble Bundle), even if I could get games cheaper.
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Trade system need rework and limits, better without it. But sometimes we want to exchange with some random people who we knows like from discord or forum. And game providing such option would be great. May be some resonances, but not for friends. You need two resonances to trade with other player. Just trade, barter with things or gifting. The problem is guys who want to buy items can’t buy items. And this problem idk how to resolve. In my opinion for my game I just skip those guys, better kill MG and make CoF for all. The arpg game about gear and gear farming with killing bosses, not for free items. But some people need time to play and don’t have, they compensating with trade. Create another game mode with higher drop rates for them? Or something. Hard players play normal LE with CoF and resonance trading, all other who want free gear on another isolated mod/server with higher rates.
Well, exchanging things with resonates can be RTM too, but drop rate is limited and that can’t happens to often like with auction.