IP block – MMO Fallout

ArcheAge Says Dosvidanya To Non-Russian Players

ArcheAge is a long time coming to the west, so long in fact that dedicated players decided to forego the wait and jump on board the Russian servers hosted by Mail.ru. Hopefully none of them have spent a lot of money on the game, as Mail.ru has announced that access to the servers will be restricted to gamers in Russia and former Soviet states. The IP block was requested by XL Games and provides no details on whether or not players who have already invested money only to be blocked will be able to receive any sort of refund or compensation.

If only Mikhail Gorbachev were here to tear down this wall.

(Source: Announcement)

NCSoft Latest Anti-RMT Shot: Bans All Chinese IPs

Gold farming in Aion is a pretty major problem. Similar to NCSoft’s other big name title, Lineage II, Aion players have become accustomed over the years to logging in and going through the ritual of reporting and blocking the new set of bots spamming the multiple chat groups and sending them whispers of cheap gold, fast delivery, and poor English (as opposed to MMO Fallout’s gold farming service which carries high prices, no delivery, and a staff of folks who understand English very well, especially the more vulgar parts of it). NCSoft has put forward various efforts to improving the process, like automatically clearing ignore lists of banned accounts, all the way back to launch when NCSoft sent GM’s in-game to blow up gold spammers.

And now, NCSoft declared all-out war on gold farming by firing the first shot: Banning IPs. NCSoft will be blocking Chinese IPs from creating accounts on Aion, due to high RMT traffic coming from the country. As for proxies, they will be blocked too if they become a problem:

Please note that proxies have become an integral tool for illicit behavior in MMOs, and as a result we do target them when we undertake anti-RMT efforts. However, legitimate latency reduction services are recognized, and a proxy will not be banned unless it is confirmed to be part of unsanctioned behavior.

And what happens if the gold farmers leave China? NCSoft is willing to follow them. The post makes note that should the gold farming become a problem from another country, NCSoft may begin knocking out access from other countries on a case-by-case basis. This only applies to newly created accounts, it does not stop current accounts from using their game.

(Source: NCSoft Aion)

TERA: No Stinking IP Blocks!

tera-europe — We must bring the fight against TERA.

A few months ago, we talked about area restrictions in MMOs, as a few select incidents brought up questions of legality and responsibility on the part of the publisher. Due to legal agreements, the publisher for an MMO in North America cannot allow players from Europe if another company has publishing rights in that region, otherwise they risk negating their agreement. In cases such as Aika Online, the two companies may come to an agreement allowing existing players to continue using their accounts, while more controversial incidents resulted in players being blocked with no reimbursement even after they had paid sums of money in the cash shop.

Luckily for players of TERA, the community manager Scapes has revealed that players will not be region restricted, although they will have to purchase the correct client. In short: A player from Europe will be able to purchase a North American client, and play on the servers, and vice versa.

Our goal is to give players the choice as to which server they are going to discover the world of TERA. In a time that players are becoming more connected around the world, we believe that IP blocking has no place in a world class Action MMO. Note that accounts created with one publisher will not be able to access the other publisher’s servers. Additionally, player data such as characters or progression will not be shared or transferrable between different publishers’ servers.

So there you have it. Find a server and stick with it.