Navigating the Post-Bot GW Age - Ethical Trading

Unfortunately, all items look the same, whether they are botted or not. It's not like the items that were botted have some way of telling you, like a big red "B" printed on them. If you won't purchase an item from a seller you think or know bots, someone else will. Some day down the road, that person will go to sell the item and at that point you won't have the slightest clue the history of the item.

For example. It's pretty safe to assume that 99% or 100% of the 20/20 Dragon, Platinum and Bo staves that have been sold in the past 24 months were botted. But I mean, what are you gonna do about it? Are you just never gonna buy a 20/20 Dragon, Platinum, or Bo staff unless you can pry one of the originals from the pre-bot era out of the strong hands of one of the few who still owns them? If they wouldn't sell them during the pre-bot era when they were worth a large fortune, they aren't gonna give them away now for the next to zero market price they are going for now relative to what they used to be.

If you are worried about bots, own items that are not bot-able. You'll be limited to items that are unattainable to most people. q7 max, prenerf, kanaxai/ig/panda, and a few other select items. But most people don't have this kind of luxury.

I mostly only buy stuff from people who post here. There has been talk of a couple people who may/are botters, I have since stayed clear of them for awhile now(and if I had bought anything from them I was unaware of at the time, in addition to a giveaway where i requested a gothic shield with useless stats) . There has been some people with issues towards other players getting ripped off that I will never buy anything from, that have posted here too.We are essentially playing with monopoly money here, unless someone falls into the category of using IRL money to play the game with or sell items to gold selling sites for IRL money

ANet seems to pay no attention to this sort of behavior any more and hasnt for a decade, with a team of two. I have a bigger issue with the gold sellers in Kama, but again , its a 16 year old game held together with bailing wire and duct tape from a game designers pov.

At some point, the game will end and all those things that we collected will be Dust in the Wind so to speak

Quote from Hairy Knight

If you suspect/know a seller bots, do you feel it is ethical to bid/purchase an item from them?

Every one be like :

No

BUT if it's something i need in my collection

Then yes 🤪

Quote from Hairy Knight

While I will not mention any names,

WTB Names

It is almost impossible to get the source of an item today, as well as materials, consumables, armbrace, etc. All we can say is that they have been around long enough to have flooded the GW market. And again, we're talking mostly about purchases, but that goes for sales as well.

From there on the debate is endless and inconsistent, since we can't quantify it. In any case to believe that there is still a stable economy in GW that does not depend on bots is naive.

Quote from PyroLobster

WTB Names

just go to some gold sellers and botting sites to get a consistent list.

(Edit: I'm trying to apply a policy personally, after finishing my main-monk and what i wanted as equipment a short time ago (and the Z title last week, which was an exception...). Don't buy anything, like an Ironman, i take what i drop, nothing else, even if I don't get what I want. For the eventual sales it becomes complicated, exchange could be a way. To see with time.)

Who's got the balls to tag them all in here and stir some shit?

Quote from nik

Who's got the balls to tag them all in here and stir some shit?

I actually recorded some clips (been a while) of some bots (pongmei, chance encounter, dragon moss) a while ago and actually thought about uploading it. But I'm not gonna do that unless there will be any consequences for those that are seen in the video (with consequences I mean a forum blacklist, forum bans or anything like that).
But uploading stuff like that just for the drama is not gonna help anyone...

Back to the original question of this thread:

1. I don't think trading with botters/gold sellers is the most ethical thing to do, since it ruins the (fun in the) game for others. Not gonna get too much into detail here since I'm sure you all know various reasons for why that's the case.

2. I don't think there's a way to guarantee that you're following an ethical way of trading when it comes to the idea of not interacting with or supporting bots.

Imho the best you could do on a personal level is either to A) not buy anything at all from the public market anymore (as mentioned before), or B) finding your own way of identifying "suspicious individuals" and just not interacting with them.

If you keep buying/selling items here or in kamadan at some point you'll be interacting with someone botting or reselling botted items anyway. I personally think it's alright to just keep your eyes open and stay away from "the extremes" which you can easily identify even in this forum.

Quote from Hairy Knight

While I can appreciate a short and succinct answer, I want to extend this line of reasoning.

If you're selling an item, Item A for example. In the last 24 hours, the bids for Item A jumped from 5a to 30a. You know all of the bidders in that period have earned their proceeds from botting. Do you sell it to the winner that bid 30a or to the bidder that bid 5a?

I don't think there are any easy answers to this question.

I think most people would take the 30a. The cynic in me thinks that if you sold it to the 5a buyer, many of those 5a buyers would just turn around and flip the item for 30a and pocket the 25a profit that you were too righteous to take.

If the difference was 27a or 30a, I think maybe you'd get some different answers.

For me botting getting so popular and normal even on legacy made me want to play in Ironman Mode as in my opinion its way to literally avoid them 100%. Recently bots switched from mostly farming materials/pcons to grinding chestruns/spots where they can drop items interesting for collectors and in my opinion its pointless and makes farming for regular players way less rewarding. Constant drop of prices in shields and staffs as well market being flooded with them is obvious consequence. Join me in Ironman mode free of bots .

I also agree more and more (as already pointed out above) with the unequivocal pride of a personal drop, than an unearned purchase (on the merits). It's so much more rewarding, especially in GW1 where max level weapons and armors are available in large numbers and in "easy" access. Only the skin, or the stats (unreplicable, prenerf) in general change the price and justifies it.

On the other hand, buying 60 stacks of Z keys to finish my Z title from one person in Kama, all at once (...) I was like a mollusk that doesn't find the sea in time. No pride, here is your title bye bye.

I find bots to be the lesser evil.

We don't have the playerbase to support the drops this game used to have 10-15 years ago. Imagine millions of players creating their own instances and opening up lockchests/picking up golds, you had a bigger pool of items that entered the market. We can't have that today without the bots. They create an artificial supply - only downside being is that you have single players profiting from this, both ingame and IRL, and that it breaks the rules.

I don't wanna moralize any of this, because I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be able to do anything without the bots. Imagine spending hours upon hours on just farming pcons? Or buying player famed pcons for 10x the price. Won't be sustainable. Wouldn't be fun anymore.

But then when we have botters coming in and pricechecking every single drop every single day in legacy, it gets a bit annoying.

Edit: Thumbs down from someone who would rather sit in his GH alone and look at his collection while the rest of the game has moved on