PvPers future in a RuneScape without Gold Farming

[Fey_Warrior]

The truth about IGE and the gold industry

 

 

Gold Selling.

 

 

 

To players like me, nothing is more corrupting than selling. In a virtual world where you are suppoused to earn your your status, some people like to take shortcuts, ruining the game for others (farming anyone?) After my recent post about what IGE owned, I got a lot of positive emails, thanking me for the info. With that feedback in mind, I decided to delve a bit deeper into IGE.

 

 

 

PLEASE NOTE: This has involved a lot of research. Archive.org, whois.sc WHOIS history, talking to people, investigating relationships. It has been an intensive process, and I have documented all that I could (and relied on reliable sources when I couldn't).

 

 

 

In the Beginning

 

 

 

IGE.com was originally used by an imagine processing company. Sometime in the middle of 2003, the company sprung up. While their original history is a bit muddled, the creation of the company is a bit quizzical. The company was founded by Brock Pierce, who was a child actor (his most famous movie being First Kid, with Sinbad). Originally based in Spain, the commpany moved to Hong Kong (I have verified by sources that is where they started). There was an internet rumor/article that later went on claiming that Brock's former partners (from a company called DEN) were infact child molestors. This culminated in the following vulgar flash video (NSFW). Some quotable news pieces:

 

 

 

DEN Founder Marc Collins-Rector Arrested in Spain After Two-Year Manhunt - VentureReporter.net Monday, May 20, 2002, 4:15 PM ET

 

 

 

SIX-MINUTE SHOWS. Although they weren't named in the suit, DEN co-founders Chad M. Shackley, 24, and Brock Pierce, 18, also resigned. Company officials say they left with Collins-Rector because the trio is closely aligned and plans to start a new data-storage business.

 

 

As a (related) aside, DEN was one of the most spectacular flameouts on the web. An interesting read is the [link-expired] board.

 

 

 

So Brock was management in a company that fleeced millions, happened to be in Spain where Collins-Rector was also, and then moved the company to HK right after he got arrested? Interesting bit of coincidences.

 

 

 

With that vulgar picture in mind, we take a break, and look at hte original pioneer.

 

 

 

Gold Industry begins with Yantis

 

 

 

Selling virtual currency was nothing new when Brock came rolling in. eBay had tons of auctions for UO Gold (and still has quite a few). Yet what really got the market going was a Mr. Jonathan Yantis, of MySuperSales fame.

 

 

 

Originally starting with EverQuest, Yantis (as he was referred to) quickly became a villian in the game. Looking to broaden his appeal, Yantis bought out Monkly-Business, which was the favorite hangout for EQ Monks. Gaining more traffic from this, he then expanded and bought out Luclin.com and Prexus.com

 

 

 

What ensued was a firestorm. While M-B had been left alone, Yantis directly moderated the newly bought boards. Removing all bad press about himself, and seeding in threads about how great his service was, the two sites were completely dead within weeks, all links changing from the original sites to newly ones created by users. Yantis had tried using his money to buy part of the market, and he had failed.

 

 

 

This all happened before IGE even existed on the radar.

 

 

 

At this time, Yantis had successfully become the biggest player in the market. Dominating the marketplace at PlayerAuctions.com (Sony had successfully gotten eBay to remove all EQ auctions, and thus people used this site instead), he had also begun to aggressively advertise on other sites. With a 10% comission and a rumored 40% profit margin, Yantis was sitting pretty.

 

 

 

Then came IGE. Well-financed, the company started making inroads into the market. A professional service equal to Yantis, they started to gain market share.

 

 

 

Yantis was not sitting idly. For all the money he (and IGE) were making, their exposure was still very little. He owned a few sites, advertised on a few (but none of the big ones), and was paying quite a bit to advertise through Google and and Goto/Overture. It was with the introduction of IGE that in late 2002 Yantis started playing the SEO game.

 

 

 

A lot of SEO (search engine optimization) can be cast as spam. Stuffing their page with keywords, buying links from pages with high PageRank, these specialists game the system so that their sites show up on top of search engine results. (Please note: A lot of SEOers are great people, who don't spam or [bleep] sites. But an equally large portion is a shady underbelly of the internet).

 

 

 

Suddenly Yantis was getting tons of traffic from search engines. He even broke top 10 on google for the word 'everquest', displacing quality sites with his platinum-selling storefront.

 

 

 

So while Yantis was rapidly getting new customers, whats a competitor to do?

 

 

 

And so begun a movement engineered by IGE to discredit Yantis. While Yantis was marked as being an individual using exploits and dupes to create gold, IGE set themselves up as the 'conscientous' choice, a good and moral company that didn't employ and farmers and just paid wholesalers.

 

 

 

Yes, I'm serious. The sentiment actually shifted with Yantis being blamed for all of EQ's ills and IGE looked up as a 'good' alternative.

 

 

 

But that didn't stop Yantis. Far from it. He kept growing and growing. IGE was also growing (and building contacts with game providers), but was still second to Yantis.

 

 

 

And so this continued until end of 2003. Suddenly MySuperSales went offline. Was all that money making just a mirage?

 

 

 

Not even close. While I cannot trace it specifically to IGE, the attack worked. Whois history shows Yantis suddenly moving to Rackspace after the worm was identified. You can see that Symantec marked its distribution high, so whoever put this out did a good job. Almost sounds like online rackateering.

 

 

 

But this worm was just a preview of the upcoming fierce battle.

 

 

 

Yantis begins acquiring MMO websites

 

 

 

Around New Year's of 2004, while everyone at SOE was busy eating and sleeping, Yantis announced the acquisition of a few sites. Starting with EQBeastlord and EQDruids, the sites had suddenly sold out to Yantis. But this time, instead of moderating the forums, Yantis opted to just stick his banner on the site, and leave it alone. A smart move - most newbies would end up just viewing the content anyway, missing all the [bleep]ing happening in the forums. And since he wasn't moderating the sites, a lot of the links never got removed.

 

 

 

And so began a movement that finally broke down the barrier and made currency selling common.

 

 

 

Happy with the results from the first days, Yantis started snapping up websites left and right. Before SOE even new what had happened, half a dozen class websites were under Yantis' ownership. And he wasn't done - not even close. Over the next few weeks, deals were made, only to be broken by IGE waving around money. The peak (with EQ) came with interealms.com - the largest forum community, it suppousedly went for over $50,000. What made this even more nuts was that Yantis had already bought and paid for the site. The owner actually returned the wire transfer and stated that Yantis, enraged with what had happened, actually threatened to sue him for breach of contract.

 

 

 

Along the way, in continuing to develop its relationship with game developers, IGE hired Themis Group, an MMO consulting company. After a fierce backlash, the company removed all signs of the deal ever having occured. Themis Group also owns the WarCry Network.

 

 

 

That never happened, as what happened next blew most people's minds.

 

 

 

 

 

Note: I've only provided a link back to the Original Author of the Article being one the editor of the the following MMO fansite wow.Azzor.com. This is only a teaser and a small part of the whole article; as such I've not provided any contextual links provided in the actual article from that site.

 

 

 

Please contact them if you have any questions regarding the research behind this article. It's important to keep in mind like for RuneScape fansites:

 

The staff of Azzor is entirely volunteer. No one gets paid a salary for what we do. Its all for the love of the community.

 

Like our community they too are in this battle against those who would seek to undermine the principles where:

In a virtual world where you are suppoused to earn your your status, some people like to take shortcuts, ruining the game for others.

 

 

 

For those interested in what MMO websites are doing as a wider community to oppose the RWT industry please visit NoGold.org:

 

NoGold.org is an organization of MMORPG webmasters who are opposed to the secondary market which exists outside of MMORPG games. Members of our organization have adopted a zero-tolerance policy against gold selling, account selling, item selling, power leveling, exploits, bots, and related ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ãâ¦Ã¢â¬ÅservicesÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬ÃâÃ

[Alex_Ewan_1]

At least people can not buy there way to the top anymore.

[mrmyk]

PvP'ers have a future in Runescape. Bounty hunter, duel tournaments, clan wars and hopefully in the near future a 1 v 1 PvP area will provide a good substitute for the old wilderness and perhaps more in time as those updates are used to their full potential which is currently not happening.

[Fey_Warrior]

PvP'ers have a future in Runescape. Bounty hunter, duel tournaments, clan wars and hopefully in the near future a 1 v 1 PvP area will provide a good substitute for the old wilderness and perhaps more in time as those updates are used to their full potential which is currently not happening.

 

 

 

I believe personally this will be a big focus for updates for the next 6 to 12 months for a number of reasons:

 

 

 

1) Jagex has stated that they do not see the updates as perfect or as any full replacement for what has been removed.

 

2) All the PvP updates have been for F2P and P2P; meaning there's no currently no incentive for those who mainly played for in the P2P Wilderness to remain Members (they presently get the same features in F2P).

 

3) To entice the Member's who've left they'll need to add a lot of new content to replace all the PvP game-play lost with the removal of PKing in the Wilderness.

 

4) Jagex has stated there will be at least a risky (dangerous with Item Loss) 1v1 PvP update being added back to the game that isn't covered by current updates.

 

5) Jagex have indicated further unspecified PvP updates will likely be made.

 

 

 

I suspect it's highly unlikely they'll be adding any PvP areas that will also involve skilling. This would due in part to all the problems and unpopularity of such areas in the past; as well as the fact that skilling in PvP environments would likely be loophole to be exploited by RWTers.

 

 

 

So the features to be added will be for PvPers only, and likely PvPers who've gained ranking in PvP mini-games (or Clan Wars if they add a Hi-Scores system for Clan Chats) as well as those who are proven players in other game-play (Kudos/Quest Points/Total Skill Levels/Duel Tournament Ranking/Barbarian Assault) which will be similar in the way that the proposed increase in Trading/Staking Cap will be based on Quest Points.

 

 

 

Using all the measures for genuine players, this will hopefully allow new risky PvP areas that only genuine players can use.

 

 

 

It will mean:

 

 

 

* No more non-combat skilling in PvP environments

 

* No easily accessible PvP environment to new players.

 

* No more newcomers being PKed.

 

 

 

This will ensure cheap (untrained) accounts aren't being used in PvP *only* environments. They will be areas for High Levelled players to go into combat and take great risks with expensive items (with further restrictions on use of Protect Item Prayer).

 

 

 

Hopefully these areas will also see improvements to the current combat system, and measures to ensure at least reasonable ranges of combat levels for combat between players, to ensure a reasonable chance of decently matched battles. It's unlikely I feel that the old incremental Wilderness Level system will be returning though.

 

 

 

For all these reasons, now is the time for any player who still is a member, who wants to have a say in what 'new' features get added to the game to post their suggestions for new risky PvP *only* features on the ORSF now.

 

 

 

If players wait 6 months to post what they think should be added, those features are already likely to be added or be nearly completed; so don't miss having your say.

 

 

 

Regards,

 

 

 

Fey.