Scamming?

Could not find a proper section of the forums to post this in.

What's everyones thoughts on scamming within the limits of proper game mechanics.

Should this be allowed?

 

Can you provide an example of what you are thinking?

In an item trade, I would expect some inspection of the item before committing to the trade,

 

Basically representing an item as something that it not or tricking someone into giving you something for nothing while staying in line with game mechanics.

sometimes scams also use weak game mechanics and bend them to their advantage.

For example in Ultima Online you could sell bulk order deeds for resources. Say 10000 lumber. Someone would place an empty bulk order deed on a vendor and label it as 10000 lumber in the item description. People would buy this deed thinking it had 10000 lumber when it had none.

Example two
Someone would place a small house next to a larger house. Player would think he is buying the larger house when in reality he is buying the smaller house.

 

I dont think that Devs/Mods/GMs (whatever) should really get involved, unless game rules are being broken

Now dont get me wrong, I am not one to go around scamming people...
I do however, think that various scams like this are a part of life. Maybe not everyone in the world is full of sunshine and lemondrops, dont let your guard down.

As long as people are not being overly hostile to new players (And running them off).
I am sure that Mods/GMs have more important things to do, than take care of things like this.

Now on the flip side... With possibly only one character slot, a lot is going to be riding on player reputation. If you earn the reputation for screwing people over, things may not be so nice for you online (Just like real life) Maybe you lose customers in your shop? Maybe you become a social outcast?

Kinda fits with the whole Virtue thing doesnt it?

 

The more they can do in the UI to make it difficult to scam, the better. To me, scamming isn't role playing, it's an abuse of game mechanics because even if you could freely attack the person, NPCs or other players see you as the one flagging.

 

In my opinion, pure scamming (which doesn't base on exploiting or bug-using) should be dealt with in-game (it is/can be part of role playing).

 

As far as I am concerned people can scam all day long provided as it isn't via exploiting.

 

There is no value added for permitting any form of scamming--griefing is detrimental to the life of a product and is not roleplaying. At the end of the day, SotA is an entertainment product, not a social simulation.

 

Caveat emptor & Caveat venditor

As long as game mechanics are not being exploited then people should be left to do as they wish. People will soon get to know who the scammers are if there is only one character per account.

 

But that's my point. They <i>are</i> exploiting game mechanics. They are exploiting that the city is a safe zone where either I'm simply not allowed to attack them or if I am allowed, I'm the criminal.

 

This wasn't a problem in EQ. When you went to trade an item with someone, it would pop up in the window. The other player could inspect the item, and the game guaranteed the identification. If the item identified as "sword of uberness" then that was what it was. You then clicked accept or cancel on the trade.

Scams still happened, but only with people who didn't bother to look at what was in the trade window.
(The game even printed out the item name when it was added to the trade window, for Brell's sake).

There was no roleplay/game value to scamming someone, so I hope a similar mechanic is available in SotA.

 

The way I see it, the game should have methods to help prevent scamming. Being able to rename items is nice, but the original base name should always be tied to the item in question.

There will always be people attempting to scam someone else, either via exploits (duplicating items) or via social engineering (hey buddy, i can help you out, gimme your password). While scamming may not be completely preventable, it should never be looked at as "well, its still going to happen, so why try to stop it". SotA, in the end, is still a game meant for people to have fun with and enjoy.


Some could say "why not make scamming other players a game mechanic, much like pick-pocketing something from another player", but the problem there is that you are then ruining the game experience for others. The potential for this to harm the game and player base is greater than any imaginable benefits to the "role playing" nature of the game.

It would be interesting, however, to see special items that could be stolen from you, so you HAVE to keep an eye on them while you have it. These items would have to be rare to the point where when you get them it is an accomplishment, but also they carry a warning that other players may come looking for that item now that it is out in the world. Perhaps "World Unique" items, weapons, etc. Items that are not the best of the best, but are valuable simply because they are very unique (anywhere from 1 to 100 of these items will EVER exist in the world), and the point of them is for players to deal with other players by barter or by blood to get them. Say there are only 10 of a specific "world unique" sword, but there are far more non-unique swords that are far far better when it comes to stats. Think of it like a trophy that could be taken away if you are not careful.

 

I'd say it's too early to talk about specifics, but I would be against all forms of scamming and I'm sure the team would be on the same page.

There are dozens of uo freeshards, I will name one just to prove a point, the most popular uo freeshard 'uo gamers' 'hybrid', that shard allows scamming and quite frankly encourages it, I will tell the story. One time I made a 'donation' for an item, it was the solitary time I've ever made a donation to any uo-freeshard, literally within 10 minutes of obtaining the item for $25.00 it was scammed from me in-game by a long time lurker in the game who was an expert scammer. I immediately complained to the management of the shard, the highest authority of the shard, the guy that owns and maintains it, I will not name any names, not the name of the scammer or the shard owner, but I will say the shard owner defended the scammer 100% and totally refused to take the item back from the scammer or give me the item back, he literally would rather refund my 25 bucks than take the item back from the scammer and give it back to me, but he was also very reluctant to refund the 25 bucks, very pigheaded that guy is. The scammer to this day still plays the shard and still attempts to scam players on a daily basis, I don't play that shard anymore, UO is dead, even in freeshard form in my opinion, it can be fun for nostalgic purposes for a few minutes but it's lost it's magic, being an original 1997 phase 1 beta tester I've experienced the best of the best of that game and now it's down to the bottom of the barrel and the worst of the worst.

I really hope the staff of SOTA highly discourage scamming and take action against those who scam. I can tell a story of early UO in 1997 when the game launched. One time I was exploring, the 1st week of release of UO in late 1997, and I came across a large tower, one of the few ones placed in Britanna at the time, I walked inside the tower (it was unlocked) and I saw 2 players decorating. Back then lockdowns didn't exist, and they were decorating their tower with server-birth items, I noticed they might be somewhat valuable (back then we didn't know server birth items were even rare, just that they looked somewhat cool), so I grabbed a handful of server birth items, flasks mostly, bubbling flasks and candles and things like that, I put them in my bank and I logged out. When I logged back in maybe 2 hours later I noticed all of the items I took were gone including a barrel full of stuff that I didn't take. What happened is a Game Master had full access to my bank account even when I was logged off! A feature I didn't know existed. The people I took the items from complained and there must have been few Dr Pepper's back then so my bank account was discovered quickly. I fully 100% support the actions the GM took against me, even though I technically didn't scam anyone nor use the stealing skill I did take items from an unlocked house while they were decorating and thanks to players like myself they made a better game with lockdowns possible, but the spirit of what the GM did I feel will likely be the same spirit of the SOTA team, to protect the honest players who work hard, earn a living enough to own a house and decorate that house. If some method exists in SOTA to steal house decorations for example I'm sure they will do their best to correct any such issue. Best thing you can do is report a bug instead of keeping it a secret and exploiting it, this alone is the best way to combat scammers. Find out exactly how the scam works and let everyone know about it so the scam dies before it is used on a mass scale. Post about it on the forums, share the details to protect the players but tell a Game Master or team member first if possible.

 

@Razimus: how exactly did he scam you? I wouldn't mind hearing the specifics as to "how" he scammed you, not just the fact that he "did" scam you.

 

The scammers in L2 had this predictable broken English
"let down your weapon"
"want to see p.atk"
"rest assured friend i will give back"

The same lines over and over.

If there are reasonable buy/sell/craft "shops" and a trade interface that makes it hard to scam, I'm for it.

I do understand that some scamming is part of role playing, but much of it really is an exploit.

 

I would like to see legitimate Counterfeiting in game. The ability to craft cheap crappy plastic swords that are effectively useless all tarted up to "look" like crystal swords and sold by dodgey looking guys hanging out alleyways. Then you can come back with a linch mob for revenge. It'd add some spark to the game.

Possibly some passive skill/combination of skills could help identify counterfeit items before you use them, better crafted counterfeit items would be hard to detect. Unskilled detectors could avoid being ripped off by paying higher prices at well reputed stores .

 

should scammers be allowed to do what they want in the game? sure, if scammers are also allowed to have everything taken away from them when they get caught as a punishment and then go to jail...because thats what happens to scammers in real life when they get caught.
So, you wanna scam, be prepared for the consequences.

 

Whether scammers, PKers, thieves or general nuisances, there needs to be enough disincentives to keep that population small. The problem with all of these is not that they happen (tho the victim may think otherwise), but that they happen with way more frequency than is realistic. Too many and too often will destroy the game for most players.

Anonymity breeds bad behavior. I don't know why people wish to be jerks, but they will be if they can get away with it. As far as scamming goes there need to be sufficient tools to verify any trade and they need to be obvious. Regardless of the tools available there will always be some people that will fall for it. Probably the same folks who would send their bank account info to the son of a Nigerian "king".

 

Mugly is just jealous that he doesn't get mail from the king, and isn't privy to the killer investment opportunities that I am.

 

If it's within game mechanics sure it should be possible.

When did it become a programmer's job to write code to replace common sense?