[Kergan]

The fact that people do come back after losing the gear due to a ban is evidence of how addicted most people who play this game are, to the game itself. That's why I base the argument off of it.

I agree people who get banned for cheating in a video game are the ones who are so addicted they'll come back after they get caught. But saying this is the norm for a person playing here is just flat out wrong.

Secondly, having money you earned in RL taken from you isn't the same as having items taken from a character on an emu, or that character deleted. You don't actually own the character or the pixels, you are essentially borrowing them and they can be taken away if it is seen to be necessary. Sirken could technically ban us both because his corn flakes didn't taste right this morning.

Of course it isn't the same as real life money. Next time I'll say widgets or something instead of money, because you completely missed the point. Having something you earned/received legitimately taken away is much worse than having something you took illegitimately taken away - how's that?

Obtaining items and plat has always been harder on pvp servers going back to the original four. If your guild is small can it raid all content? Less numbers doesn't mean more opportunity just because camps may be open more often, and pvp involves more CRs than just PVE. Pvp also allows the possibility that the camp you just started gets taken from you before you get the drop you need. The fact that transfers are done at 3 to 1 and 4 to 1, is evidence in itself.

Less numbers does mean more opportunity in a game with a slow spawn rate and 100% non instanced content. And PVP is irrelevant when there are plenty of cash camps where you won't see another player for hours. You're talking like I haven't played on r99 and know what it is like and I'm somehow speculating on this. I know it's true because I've seen it over the last 2 years with my own eyes.

More staff time dedicated to monitoring red/blue transfers means less time monitoring other things. Plus I never said blubies aren't welcome, I just think they should come in as the game was intended to from the start of an account, with nothing.

I agree about the staff time, but I just personally believe removing the biggest barrier of entry from someone coming off the only real recruitment pool red has is more of a benefit than a drawback. Agree to disagree I guess.

Putting an incentive on doing time as a guide doesn't necessarily mean you will attracted the 'wrong' people, that's your personal assumption. But thinking that we are going to get enough guides to work for free just because they love to do it is 'living in a perfect world'. I myself don't play seven days a week for 8 plus hours a day, or for that matter even close to it. So I wouldn't take what little play time I do have to donate it to monitor people who can't act right in the first place. I would however gladly donate some of my time to doing so if it was fairly (looking at it from both sides perspective, so it doesn't unbalance play) compensated, therefore making up in some way for the time I've lost in game. Does that mean I'm in it for the wrong reasons? I don't RMT, train, hack, or exploit; are there other wrong reasons to do it? If so what are they and why would it negatively affect the guide program. SOE used to let guildes play for free if they worked so much time in the program, to attract people to do it. I met guides who did it for that reason and told me about it. Don't recall ever having a reason to think they were bad guides, they were actually good at it and nice guys to boot as far as I could tell.

There is no shortage of guide/staff applications without adding any incentive to it. It just takes them a ridiculous amount of time to vet people because of the long history of abuse of power here.