Suggestion: Remove the Black Market

  • In all of the server merge discussions, one of the most common complaints has been regarding the use of military bank accounts. These are accounts that players use to store huge amounts of ships and troops, to be used later by others as needed. In some cases, these accounts have been built up to store so much military that the Generals/Military scores are in the millions.


    I personally have witnessed an account like this briefly visiting one of my servers, offering its services, then leaving. Many people on the boards here have stated it feels like these accounts offer an unfair advantage to players/alliances who have access to them. Some people have offered suggestions of limiting how much can be stored, or causing gold to be expended during vmode, or limiting use of the black market once out of vmode. Some people have suggested eliminating the use of legal multis. It is my continued belief that none of these suggestions would have the intended effect of preventing the use of military banks. But these would have plenty of unintended effects on people who play by the rules and have done nothing to contribute to this phenomenon.


    I do, however, have a suggestion of my own: Eliminate the Black Market completely. People can still trade/sell/donate sulfur to teammates to build up military. People can still support friends and teammates by buying high priced goods. But this way people would actually have to build their own military and not rely on others selling it to them. There would be no point in having an account with a 20 million military score. And this would also be equitable to everyone.


    Over the years, Gameforge has added the ability to purchase almost anything with ambrosia: time, resources, speeding up of ships. But we've never had an option to buy military. I believe this was intentional and a wise decision. I believe it's also time to remove that option from player-to-player interactions as well.




    (And now, to brace for the incoming objections.)

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  • An old rule of game development here: if something has been invented, it won't be removed. Such suggestions have been rejected in the past with the same reason.

    Gold pillaging was invented and then removed why will not be the same for black market ?

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  • Quote from Draxo

    An old rule of game development here: if something has been invented, it won't be removed. Such suggestions have been rejected in the past with the same reason.


    If something turns out to be unbalanced or open to abuse, it can be removed. This has been done in the past. Remember gold pillaging? It was unbalanced and removed. Remember when the piracy rewards were huge? Those were changed, too, because they were causing problems.


    There is precedent for Gameforge to fix things that turned out to be broken.

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    Turmoil's in the air

    Hold your breath be deadly calm

    Make a final prayer

    Don't forget what you have done

  • As I recall, one of the prime reasons for removing gold pillaging was that it was far too easy to get flagged for bashing - you were allowed no more than 6 attacks on a person in a day and at the time you could do what was called a chain attack. If all attacks other than the first arrived very quickly each got to loot gold. Having 20+ attacks lined up was a sight to see. But if it went wrong you got umpteen separate attacks which was against the rules. Also, at the time people deliberately kept their ports low level because looting was based on the port size so having a high level port (5+) was an open invitation. Then Gameforge changed the way looting worked in 0.3.0 and looting goods became independent of port size. So you could loot lots of goods which you could then sell for cash.

  • I agree with June. Remove the Black Market. Now with legal multi accounts Black Market skews the game.

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  • I believe the bashing rules were removed because occupation was introduced. If someone was occupied and rebelled, that would look like the occupier attacked, Prior to occupation, any attack was manually initiated by the attacker. Occupation changed all that. Bashing was removed well after the gold pillaging disappeared.

    viZb6W5.png


    Turmoil's in the air

    Hold your breath be deadly calm

    Make a final prayer

    Don't forget what you have done

  • If black market is kept, then the logical next step is that I should be able to build up buildings and sell them. how would you like to buy a level 32 academy?


    If we ignore what we label these things (hideout, spearman, ram ship, etc) these are merely virtual items which take time and resources to build.


    by allowing people to purchase these items without the time or the varied types of resource investment, this bypasses one of the fundamental aspects of this game.


    And consider that gold can be purchased outright for ambrosia. That makes this very simply - pay to win.


    So the one with the most ambrosia, wins.


    And this is way better than merely buying spartans. Many types of troops etc. Plus, since the price is adjustable - way cheaper. 1 ambrosia (roughly) buys 3 spartans. At the best package, 1 ambrosia buys about 1000 gold. Even the lowest package, 1 ambrosia buys about 100 gold. Spartans don't even come close to comparing to this.


    The black market is just a bad idea for so many reasons.

  • why remove black market


    Black market it good in war

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    (player account)SaLeH YoUnIs(EN)(BR)

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  • Absolutely agree. This is the simplest and probably the most effective solution I have seen on-board recently (how I haven't thought about it myself, haha).

    As for implementing it, perhaps some sort of petition would be useful? If a good portion of players signs it, then maybe... Although I understand that usually online petitions can be filled by anyone, therefore it doesn't mean they hold that much weight, but still, better than nothing I suppose.

  • why remove black market


    Black market it good in war

    Learn how to play the game then you won't need multi accounts and Black Markets.

    I can play 11 account in one account

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    (player account)SaLeH YoUnIs(EN)(BR)

    (player account)ڝڦڔ ڣڶڛطـﯧْـن(AE)

    :saint:If you have a death wish, come close to me:saint:


    Always keep in mind that you're not alone here and that behind every account there is a human being that does not want to be insulted or treated badly, just like you don't want to be treated that way.

    8)(Alpha.AE)(Delta.AE)(Zelos.AE)(Ares.AE_soon.Ares EN).(Kerberos.BR)8)

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  • Wars were great long before the black market. ;)

    Yes beautiful war but gamforge update black market how you can use black market

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    (player account)SaLeH YoUnIs(EN)(BR)

    (player account)ڝڦڔ ڣڶڛطـﯧْـن(AE)

    :saint:If you have a death wish, come close to me:saint:


    Always keep in mind that you're not alone here and that behind every account there is a human being that does not want to be insulted or treated badly, just like you don't want to be treated that way.

    8)(Alpha.AE)(Delta.AE)(Zelos.AE)(Ares.AE_soon.Ares EN).(Kerberos.BR)8)

    My birth

    IV/XII/MCMXCVI



  • In the old ancient forum some years ago we did a vote on suggestion that black market sales be subject to a post vmode cooldown (personally I favour 7 days)


    tally was about 130 in favour and 12 against


    I think it was the most voted on suggestion ever for Beta world


    funnily enough I don't think there were in the annals of history any suggestion I saw enacted by GF - so maybe that suggestions section was a just a let of steam device :-)


    true to form and subsequently many a time this suggestion is met with barely concealed GF scorn and poo poo


    even poo pooing the poo poo at many a juncture

  • I fully agree to get rid of the black market. On the new servers where I have arrived after the merge I have witnessed these obscure military scores - primarily used by people and alliances that do not put effort nor competence in their attacks.


    By getting rid of black markets even smaller players that understand the warfare can withstand attacks from very big players. With the black market it all comes down to whom has the biggest military bank - and hey everybody can put together an attackforce with rocket ships and steam rams and then just attack with massive military.


    I vote for killing the black market.

  • I fully agree to get rid of the black market. On the new servers where I have arrived after the merge I have witnessed these obscure military scores - primarily used by people and alliances that do not put effort nor competence in their attacks.


    By getting rid of black markets even smaller players that understand the warfare can withstand attacks from very big players. With the black market it all comes down to whom has the biggest military bank - and hey everybody can put together an attackforce with rocket ships and steam rams and then just attack with massive military.


    I vote for killing the black market.

    Unfortunately the people that can change this dont want to and i'm sure you can figure out why.

  • Please could GF answer to this without closing the thread....


    grateful if you could link us to the online GF documentation that rescinds the T&C regarding anonymisation VPN etc

  • I believe the bashing rules were removed because occupation was introduced. If someone was occupied and rebelled, that would look like the occupier attacked, Prior to occupation, any attack was manually initiated by the attacker. Occupation changed all that. Bashing was removed well after the gold pillaging disappeared.

    No, bashing was removed due to lack of violations. It was incumbent upon the victim to prove. Although, staff claimed they monitored it. I disbelieve that as a friend would do it to inactive accounts without trouble. A player knowing the rules could have reported him. He would be in trouble until he proved the town was inactive and a SGO/GO decided to release him from Ika prison.


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