Reselling renamed items to scam other players

+1

I'd like to say something snarky about gamers and personal responsibility, but unfortunately it applies to humans as a whole.

 

Don't have an issue with highlighting items etc etc.......its what appears to be the ban happy direction that this game is going is where I have the issue.

 

We're not ban happy, there's no direction the game is going in that regard. We simply need to clarify for those very very few that cause problems, and ensure the rest of the community understands why we take those very occasional actions. That's all. I know it can look like it's a wider issue when we promote it as a single post like this, but it really is an isolated issue overall.

 

Well, I might be misunderstanding what you're referring to, but I would have to disagree.

I'm the last person to give SotA a glowing review at this stage and I think my displeasure is well-documented, but I don't think I was lied to when I invested.

Investments are risk, pure and simple. Nothing is guaranteed. If I don't like the outcome then I walk away from the investment or try and reclaim some of my losses.

Investments are gambling, pure and simple. Never invest more than you can afford to lose.

 

Great addition, and swift, too. I don't get how helping players identify certain types of items (i.e. reward or renamed) can be seen as such a detriment to the community. Not everyone reads the forums daily, but in that case it might also be helpful to include a key to the color schemes in the Player Guide.

 

I'm hoping players will be allowed to dye bags in the future...

 

Me too, but that might result in a new colored bag "scam."

My main point was that this will not be the last "scam." In the future there will be numerous others of all varying types, and if you're going to take on the role of policing player trades it's going to get more and more costly to the company moving forward. I think it's an unnecessary venture if you simply point out up front that players are responsible for verifying the details of their own trades. Then you can spend your time doing more productive things than sorting out requests for support regarding bad trades.

Even the current "fix" could end up a waste of time and backfiring. For example, I'm thinking the highlighted text of a renamed item might even appear more desirable to an uniformed or new player than plain white text. Highlighting an item gives the impression that it's better than normal, i.e. the colored pledge reward bags. So the attempt at preventing the scam may actually have the opposite effect on the least informed. New or uninformed players are not reading or posting here, nor would they likely even bother to report that they were scammed or even know that scams were report-able.

Personally, I don't like the inconsistency of having highlighted text for some items, it looks messy. If it had to be done I would have gone with italics or a different font first.

 

Why can't the trade/sale windows display actual item info and not renames? And likewise, can't trade/sale windows open any containers and display their contents? I know this is more coding work for portalarium, but having to manage scammers will probably be a fulltime job. Some smarter coding that removes most of the possible methods for scammers seems preferable.

I know there will probalby be more ways discovered to scam people, but it seem like this particular method could be almost completely eliminated with some interface redesign.

 

This is a great suggestion. Not just because of potential scammers, but it makes sense under normal conditions. That way players could sell bundles of things in bags, like reagents for certain spells, and the player knows exactly what and how much of each item they'd be purchasing.

Personally, I think item descriptions could be a whole lot better across the board, too. Maybe something for the feedback forums?

 

Indeed, we may always be battling this type of problem, and will always be vigilant. This is where we especially appreciate the community's watch on when exploits come up. Dozens of submissions to us (privately) have been received since we put out our policy updates on exploits, and we greatly appreciate them. Not all have been actual exploits, but without the community's feedback, I don't know if we would have caught all that were exploits.

 

One of the founding moments of my early life literally as I graduated college was paying UO. What I learned in UO more then anything was pure capitalism. UO was filled with scams and scammer because it was such an open design.

I never scammed myself, but I was taken a few items by things like the inventory stack. I saw noobs get scammed daily.

What it taught me in life was to not trust anyone when it comes to money. Something I think most people in my country (USA) just dont understand about our extreme version of capitalism.

I say SOTA stays like UO and stays free capitalism which includes scamming people (non-exploit)... People can learn a life lesson. Actually.. people need this life lesson.

I hope Lord British sees this because I think he would agree.

 

Ultima Online - I got scammed one time, the old drop trade window, re-trade identical looking item, I didn't look again I just completed the trade, etc. It was a very valuable lesson, I have kept the item I got in the scam deal visible in my backpack or in my bank window to this day to remind me every time I log in to be wary of similar situations.

V/R Brickbat

 

Me i have been told that of course ... don't trust anyone for money. But i have been told too that there is rules you need to follow in reality... if you don't follow them well you live with the consequence. I think scammer need to learn that life lesson too. Portalarium have state its not allowed ... so its not allowed. That's it.. in real life scamming people can give you a free ticket to jail ... so getting ban from a video games is a easier lesson for them to learn

And let's be honnest scamming dont really make anyone happy outside scammer. I don't think it is good for the reputation of the game . And since you enjoy capitalism that much you will understand that keeping a good player experience ( like protect against scammer) gonna bring more people , sell more copy of this game and portalarium gonna make more money

People came to play a game , cause they want to relax , have fun and disconnect a little bit from real life. Not to get life lesson and be remember at each corner how humanity suck...

 

seems a little extreme, but I can see that there is not enough staff to examine claims on a case by case basis. Maybe instead of ban, move thier avatar to a cage in a public location so people can level on them instead of a gust ball.

 

No public shaming under any circumstance! It would be hurtful.

 

The kind of scamming we are talking about happens every day in the real world and is not a free ticket to jail. The entire Auto industry from dealers to mechanics would all be thrown in jail for what they do. People actually go into dealers to buy a $25K MSRP car and somehow walk out spending $35K. Buyer beware.

Im perfectly fine with people being banned for obvious exploits.

But here is the key, people are putting crafted bags up for sale that have the crafters name on them, renaming the bag as something else and selling them. I have actually seen this in game on other things that are crafted (named) and have counterparts on the add-on store.Yet, people buy them, I see it laugh and move on.

They buyer should however have a record of the name of the person selling it so they may take out retribution on the person either by PvP (if flagged) or slandering their reputation (which does matter in this game, especially if you are a big doner and plan on being around for a while).

Buyer Beware.

 

Maybe the jail cells in The Clink can be put to good use! I always thought it would be really interesting if the Yew prison in Ultima Online was used to lock up a murderer or thief for varying amounts of time based upon their crimes every time they were turned in for the bounty or killed by guards. Then everyone could go visit the jail to see who justice was brought to that week. Instead they had murderers take a stat loss if they resurrected within a certain time period, which just left them afk in game as ghosts working off their time of the stat loss sentence, which was not very interesting at all.

 

Good move guys

We don't need scamming fools in our community.

 

Slander as meta game?

I don't even know how to wrap my head around that sort of thing as an in game tactic. I see players pushing initiatives that are obvious metas... but to target someone with a campaign of slander (the telling of untruths) just to wreck their reputation seems like something over the top crazy. TBH, it probably falls into a category of harassment and would probably get you banned quicker than scamming.

 

There should be NOTHING in the game (or any game for that matter) that can deliver you an instant perma ban. Imagine if something (anything) happened that caused someone who meant no harm to lose a $5,000 investment in this game? That is shameful, disgusting and basically causing me to debate quitting the game over this type of behavior right now. I was actually one who bought something for 800g and lost my money to a scammer. I deleted the item. I learned my lesson. No, I won't tell anyone who the persons name is - I would hate to see them get banned over 50 cents. Regardless of the actual policy regarding naming conventions (or anything else for that matter) the system should be tiered. If you do something against whatever policy, you get a 3 day ban. Do it again, 7 day ban. I suppose if you keep on doing it, let it hit a perma ban.

PS: *IF* I continue to play this game, and someone @ Portalarium perma bans me for something stupid, I can personally guarantee that I will fly to the office and ask for ALL of my pledge money back.

EDIT: Typo