ArenaNet:Developer updates/20080318

[Dev Update] Changes for New Accounts – 18 March 2008
Over the last several months, there has been a significant increase in issues related to real-money trading of Guild Wars gold. Players have noticed increased spamming of gold advertising in the game. ArenaNet and NCsoft have noticed, behind the scenes, a major increase in account fraud that is directly related to the attempt to acquire and sell gold and items.

With ArenaNet and NCsoft banning over 5,000 bot accounts per week, the real-money trading (RMT) companies have a constant appetite for new accounts. One way they obtain new accounts is by making fraudulent purchases using stolen credit cards. We have anti-fraud measures in place to catch and terminate such accounts, but there is a window of time in which these accounts may be used for botting and RMT sales. For any one account this is a small problem, but multiplied by 5,000 accounts per week, it becomes a large problem.

Today, we will be putting a change into the game that will help address this issue. For all newly-created accounts, there will be a 24-hour period in which the characters on that account cannot trade or drop items on the ground. This will affect new accounts that are made once the update goes in; existing accounts are unaffected.

It’s important to say that players will still be able to obtain gold and items from quests and other non-trade means. They will be able to store items in inventory or through the Xunlai Agents. They will simply need to wait one day before trading with other players.

For more information about why and how ArenaNet protects the game from RMT companies, please read our Policy on Real-Money Trading.