Buyer Beware! Merchants and Bankers of Ill Repute!

[MalakithSkadi]

 Bounty systems might alleviate this in the future somewhat. 

 

As much as it sounds like a nice feature you really have to go some to get it to work without being abused. What is to stop you just getting a friend in another clan to kill you for the bounty then split the proceeds.

 

You end up with some complex system like Eve where the amount given in bounty is tied to the cost of the ship which I suspect is more development time and test than you would wish to spend on such a system for the moment.

[Spam Hands]

You have nailed your colours to the mast. If the first two scammer traders remain in the TRR clan then it is of course your prerogative.

 

TRR clan members should therefore not unreasonably expect to be treated with suspicion / tarred with the same brush by the wider community in the light of your decision.

 

Good luck with your clan.

[_X_Apophis_X_]

_{The question is time required to solve those cases. If we solve them we stop working. We are ok doing it after release but right now it is impossible.}

_{Main reason again is potential for fabrication of evidence and time required to cross check all trades.}

_{Imagine if someone reports you for scamming and i am sure your logs contain couple of trades where you accepted the resources without paying anything. We need to manually check all those trades and other trades too.} 

 

_{For example}

_{You take resources from someone}

_{You give him a pavel}

 

_{After that trade that someone reports you for scamming (just because he is a jerk). Providing the logs of you taking the resources and not telling us about you giving him back a pavel.}

_{Are we going to contact you? Where? What if you are offline? Do we keep track of you coming back? Or we ban you just based on the report? Or turn pirate.} 

_{What if you took resources and got sick. internet failure. We ban you ? or turn pirate? How do we know about the pavel? Shall we search all your logs now? You come back and we investigate again and.. spend more hours.}

 

_{Basically hours of work and lots of back and forth required to solve even one issue}

_{best advice - DONT TRUST ANYONE. Bounty systems might alleviate this in the future somewhat.} 

 

 

What if we have screen shots of the scammers openly admitting the offence on Brit chat, Ban them I say. Or Hang them from nearest yardarm!

Edited March 6, 2016 by _X_Apophis_X_

[MalakithSkadi]

You have nailed your colours to the mast. If the first two scammer traders remain in the TRR clan then it is of course your prerogative.

 

TRR clan members should therefore not unreasonably expect to be treated with suspicion / tarred with the same brush by the wider community in the light of your decision.

 

Good luck with your clan.

 

If that's the childish way of looking at the world you (or others) wish to run with then by all means be my guest.

 

All trades I carry out swap the completed ship for the resources at the time of trade thereby actually using the safeguards in place within the game to begin with. If the crafter in question doesn't have sufficient stockpile to work in that way you should be questioning if they are worth dealing with to begin with.

Edited March 6, 2016 by MalakithSkadi

[Spam Hands]

Yes, my childish way of looking at the world is not to trust the TRR clan or any of its members because they have known scammers within their ranks.

 

That is my decision to make. I do not trust you. I do not trust the known scammers you have within the TRR clan and consequently by association I will not trust any member of the TRR clan.

 

If you keep known scammers in your clan you dirty your own reputation and the reputation of your clanmates, honest or not.

 

My childish logic extrapolates from this that TRR is a scammers clan and should be avoided.

[ajffighter86]

Am I the only one that feels some blame rests in the hands of the guy who gave his stuff to someone he didn't know?

 

Maybe the best thing to do in response is what has already been done. Publicize it.

 

LtDean has cursed his name. Reputation counts for a lot in an MMORPG. And I'm guessing a lot of us will think twice, even thrice, before just handing our stuff over to strangers in exchange for promises of dream ships.

[Ratline]

After the first incident they were spoken to, as was the entire clan, that further attempts at scamming would be dealt with swiftly.

Unless you have further proof of it occurring since that initial warning was given out no further action will be taken against them.

 

The affected parties haven't attempted to contact me or them for restitution and I refuse to operate a first strike and out policy on topics that are essentially "new" issues (hence the first two are still in clan).

 

Also for the love of god, it isn't "Injuring Mother" at least read the evidence if you are going to jump on a hate bandwagon.

 

Malakith, TRR is your clan? I have to assume you were not online last night. Injuring Thunder spent a considerable amount of time taunting players he had stolen from, saying they were idiots and how much he was enjoying the Trinc he had made from the stolen mats and running off a list of the mats he had stolen (it was considerable, amounting to mats for about 8 or 9 ships if I remember).  Not operating a 'first strike and out' policy is understandable on some issues, but on something like this and with the associated behaviour I'm afraid it is just very weak and discredits your entire clan.

The affected parties most likely have not contacted you because they have no idea who you are, or that you run the clan. The onus here is rather on you to repair the damage done by your members scamming their own nation and trolling about it in nation chat (not just the thieves either, but also those members stating how funny they found it). There is nothing childish about deciding that TRR are not to be trusted, but rather in burying your head in the sand and saying 'not my problem'.

The fact that people are foolish to allow themselves to be scammed is neither here nor there for you when it comes to protecting the reputation of your clan. The fact that LtDean is no longer in the clan was not an obvious sign of how you treated it, given that he could easily leave of his own free will and given that the other thieves were still happily boasting of their scams while remaining members.

Edited March 6, 2016 by Ratline

[MalakithSkadi]

PM me a screenshot. You want the onus on me, you need to give me some proof.

Edited March 6, 2016 by MalakithSkadi

[Quineloe]

After the first incident they were spoken to, as was the entire clan, that further attempts at scamming would be dealt with swiftly.

Unless you have further proof of it occurring since that initial warning was given out no further action will be taken against them.

 

The affected parties haven't attempted to contact me or them for restitution and I refuse to operate a first strike and out policy on topics that are essentially "new" issues (hence the first two are still in clan).

 

Also for the love of god, it isn't "Injuring Mother" at least read the evidence if you are going to jump on a hate bandwagon.

 

 

"new" issue? I recall these sort of scams way back to Everquest in 1999. But if that's how you run your clan, that's your business. I wonder if Kotiku will ever receive the Bellona.

Edited March 6, 2016 by Quineloe

[admin]

The fact LtDean isn't in the clan any more should be obvious enough as to how it got responded to.

Lt Dean is the easy case

 

i am talking about false hopes here. If we solve his case (plenty of evidence) scammers will become more careful and will not say "haha i stole it"

What if we have screen shots of the scammers openly admitting the offence on Brit chat, Ban them I say. Or Hang them from nearest yardarm!

 

screens are great

We are trying to see what changes are needed to the rule set (Sea trials rules) but people seem to miss this and focus on speed of resolutions and lack of developer attention to a topic in alpha.

[Taralin Snow]

LtDean has cursed his name. Reputation counts for a lot in an MMORPG. And I'm guessing a lot of us will think twice, even thrice, before just handing our stuff over to strangers in exchange for promises of dream ships.

 

Reputation counts for very little when you can give all your stuff to a friend, delete your character, then recreate with a new name.

[admin]

How about a contract system which would allow mats to be traded for collateral which could be held in escrow? Might be a little complicated to do, but would then mean you can wash your hands of the whole thing and provide us the tools to deal with it. Bounties aren't the way to go in my opinion, way too easy to use as a griefing tool and those with bounties will just let their mates farm them.

 

How is it different from the current trade system? Ask for a collateral in trade chat. 

The only 2 options we see 

 

1) players help us and teach players not to trust strangers keeping trade function

2) disable trade which we did not want to add precisely because of this reasons (But players prevailed)

[Quineloe]

 

After that trade that someone reports you for scamming (just because he is a jerk). Providing the logs of you taking the resources and not telling us about you giving him back a pavel.

Are your logs that unwieldy that you can't pull the entire trade history for two traders?

 

select * from tradelogs where player_1_id = 12345 and player_2_id = 23456

 

oh look, there's two trades. Materials in the first, the Pavel in the second.

 

Now have the guy reporting being scammed explain his report to you.

 

[admin]

Reputation counts for very little when you can give all your stuff to a friend, delete your character, then recreate with a new name.

 

You lose blueprints. 

But again let me ask you. 

What gave him so much reputation in the first place that you give him resources for a 3rd rate with no collateral just like that. 

[Quineloe]

You lose blueprints. 

But again let me ask you. 

What gave him so much reputation in the first place that you give him resources for a 3rd rate with no collateral just like that. 

Being a member of an esteemed clan would be one reason to give out resources.

[admin]

Are your logs that unwieldy that you can't pull the entire trade history for two traders?

 

select * from tradelogs where player_1_id = 12345 and player_2_id = 23456

 

oh look, there's two trades. Materials in the first, the Pavel in the second.

 

Now have the guy reporting being scammed explain his report to you.

 

attacking developers is not allowed -  we have all logs we need but you for some reason descide to give subjective remarks about them instead of focusing on the problem.

it takes manual time to solve this issues. We know that 95% of players want officers, crew and production buildings and are not OK with devs focusing on people who trust strangers too much.

 

Regarding your case.

What if you are still making this pavel and immediately reported. 

You seem to be commenting on issues without thinking through all loopholes.

 

Trade system is simple enough now but gives full clarity. You press accept if you are satisfied with the deal. 

If you dont like the deal dont click accept. Trade encompasses the whole deal (not some hidden arrangements) showing you the real state of things in the worst case scenario

Before other systems are in DONT click accept if you dont like what is in the trade window!

[Ratline]

PM me a screenshot. You want the onus on me, you need to give me some proof.

 

Given that I wasn't scammed, and that from the behaviour of your members the reasonable assumption was that your clan did not care whether people behaved in this manner,  I have no screenshots since they would have served no purpose. I have a swath of your clan on ignore after last night so it's no skin off my nose if you want to sweep it under the carpet. Why don't you speak to Injuring Thunder and ask him about his scamming and his behaviour in chat last night? It would be fascinating to know if he has the gall to deny it, I suspect he does.

[admin]

Being a member of an esteemed clan would be one reason to give out resources.

 

Then its a clan issue and clan should return the resources if they want to stay reputable.

[Powderhorn]

I think there needs to be space for scammers and con artists as well.  It IS an open world, sandbox game, after all.  However, the abusive/taunting chat SHOULD easily be dealt with via chat ban, at least in my opinion.  But that's not the point of this thread.  I really am aiming to name and shame the cons, and, as I mentioned earlier, would like to add in the legitimate businesspeople, but I've yet to see anyone make any recommendations for that list.

 

All that aside, I hope that TRR has no affiliation with the gaming community with the same letters from the Battle Grounds 2 game and (more recently) the Napoleonic mod of Mount and Blade:  Warband.  (I would like some answer on that, one way or another.)

[Ratline]

How is it different from the current trade system? Ask for a collateral in trade chat. 

The only 2 options we see 

 

1) players help us and teach players not to trust strangers keeping trade function

2) disable trade which we did not want to add precisely because of this reasons (But players prevailed)

 

Of course it's different... such a system would not exist as a recognised way of conducting such trades in the real world if it was no different from simply handing over goods/collateral to the parties involved. It's a way of formalising the agreement, placing conditions and time limits and ensuring the collateral is held by a disinterested 3rd party. It works irl and it works in games such as EVE.

Saying the only two options are leave it like it is or disable trade is not encouraging.

Edited March 6, 2016 by Ratline

[Ratline]

I think there needs to be space for scammers and con artists as well.  It IS an open world, sandbox game, after all.  However, the abusive/taunting chat SHOULD easily be dealt with via chat ban, at least in my opinion.  But that's not the point of this thread.  I really am aiming to name and shame the cons, and, as I mentioned earlier, would like to add in the legitimate businesspeople, but I've yet to see anyone make any recommendations for that list.

 

All that aside, I hope that TRR has no affiliation with the gaming community with the same letters from the Battle Grounds 2 game and (more recently) the Napoleonic mod of Mount and Blade:  Warband.  (I would like some answer on that, one way or another.)

 

You can only allow space for scammers and con artists if there is a way for recourse to be sought by the victims. IRL if somebody scams you there are options beyond 'suck it up'. You can go to the police, go to the courts, or go around with some very large mates and have a friendly word with the scammers kneecaps. None of these are options in this game, scamming is risk free. Even more so now that the devs have enabled people to simply scam away, hand their stuff to a mate and delete/rename their character with no loss even of xp.

[Quineloe]

I am not attacking you... I just think it odd that a blatant false report like this would actually work. You'd see the trade for the materials in the log, I would assume you'd also see the trade that gave the Pavel back

 

Of course he could report right away, but the report is not going to be reviewed right away, by the time a moderator would review it, you'd either have the ship being traded or the shipwright at least sending a dozen messages to the recipient "hey don't you want your ship now?"

[Spam Hands]

Then its a clan issue and clan should return the resources if they want to stay reputable.

Will the TRR clan return the resources and stay reputable? Or will the TRR clan show that it is comprised of mewling, doghearted thieves.

[admin]

I am not attacking you... I just think it odd that a blatant false report like this would actually work. You'd see the trade for the materials in the log, I would assume you'd also see the trade that gave the Pavel back

 

Of course he could report right away, but the report is not going to be reviewed right away, by the time a moderator would review it, you'd either have the ship being traded or the shipwright at least sending a dozen messages to the recipient "hey don't you want your ship now?"

 

You just dont understand. 

Logs show the deals yes. But someone have to do manual work. Our principle that all problems must be cut off by design.  Manual work costs a lot of money and time.

False reports also increase the manual work for checking if the report is true or not. All reports can be forged (photoshopped chat etc) further increasing manual work.

Great systems are automatic and it is our main principle of work. Good products do not require constant manual human maintenance and cut cheating potential by design.

 

So for me if player to player trade allows scamming and players forget basic life principles of not trusting strangers on the internet - it is better to just switch off trade as it was done initially (if all trade had to go through the market eliminating ALL scamming completely).

 

 

Like right now. I am reading this instead of working on the game, while 95% of players wait for me to handle the issue that they dont care about at all, because they only trade with friends and need epic events, officers more ships etc.  I am focused on problems of 95% of players during the development. 

 

remember it is alpha and game is in development. some things are not working or do not exist (like service professionals reading logs for example)

[Ratline]

Tbh at this point, if you are unable/unwilling to provide tools to counter this sort of thing (and I understand that there are higher priority things to do, and agree) you should disable direct trade. It would also stop the problem of people exploiting player trades to reroll and keep their gear, be they switching nation or scammers undergoing a facelift.

Edited March 6, 2016 by Ratline