Alts, Trolls and the end of this game

[Lytse Pier]

I've played alot for 2 or 3 months. After the changes being in a small clan getting a boat has been near impossible. I spent weeks gathering materials and building out parts. It would have been alot easier had ram-o-geddon not sank all my 3rds.

 

So for almost a week I've looked for a boat builder and today I helped a guy build a cerb for near free. Then I get a message that somebody will build my boat on his alt. (hoping karma pays out)I was a little iffy but I've been thinking of buying an alt for the hours as well but we all know where this goes.

 

So, I got burned for a Pavel of materials and I just don't have the heart to keep going. It was good playing with all of you.

 

Hey darkcyd,

 

Trust is a big thing in any MMO or online environment. It is stuff like this that can even dent your faith in humanity, but rest assured there are more good people than jackasses like the one that scammed you in any game; also Naval Action.

 

For what it is worth I am willing to trade you my Pavel ingame and hope that the positive powers in this community will still give you a good feeling about this game and it's community!

 

To my stance on the trading system:

Even though I totally dislike the scamming described by darkcyd, I don't think we should change it, but work also towards a banking system like the the Dutch used with the Bank of Amsterdam and their stock exchange. Bullion (unminted gold) and tradable deposits of wares should be used in interplayer trading. This system could be clan-based, nationbased or even caribbean based for all that matter, but provided as a service to the trading community . It would give less risk in trading wares, but also can be a good moneysink for the game by providing this service to the community.

 

In practice:

 

Bullion DEPOSITS to the Bank of Amsterdam:

You deposit your gold to the bank and pay a periodical fee to maintain a banking presence as the bank has to maintain and protect your unminted gold deposits/bullion. With this stored wealth you can acquire goods that are traded and present in the warehouses of other players that have been sold to the bank and payed in futures.

 

Bullion WITHDRAWAL from the Bank of Amsterdam:

Ofcourse one should still be able to keep his own right to maintain his wealth and use the trading system as it is now. Paying a bank a periodical fee to maintain your bullion is like a real money sink; however, no bullion at the bank means no access to the trading through the trading system provided by the bank as a service!

 

Trade goods DEPOSITS through a by the Bank controlled Trading Company:

This is not a real deposit of goods, but the bank creates a "future" upon an agreed price when your goods sell in the future and your goods are blocked in your warehouses by the bank. Futures cshould be tradable, but have a date when they will be rendered useless and goods will be returned or offered to a European trader. 

 

Trade goods WITHDRAWAL from a by the Bank controlled Trading Company.

By actually activating the future or waiting until it term expires, will seal the deal and the goods will be transfered from one players warehouses to the other players warehouses (perhaps moved by AI?). Bullion will exchange hands and everybody will win or loose money. ;-)

As a last resort the future and any excesss goods could be cashed in at a European trader against very little profits so goods will be retracted from the local economy towards Europe, like it is supposed to be in that age.

 

Fun stuff to think about

AI ships could be used to move the goods across the area and create lucrative hunting grounds for pirates or opportunities for brave national captains to protect their national trade lanes.

Trading futures and speculations could be a real part of cornering markets. Holding the last few futures on those precious iron ingots might be sold between players for higher amounts, but overflow of markets leave your stuff unsold and only returned to you or in the hands of a European trader.

 

Parting thoughts

I know, it should be fleshed out more, but I hope the direction of thinking will inspire the developer to make something really fun and meaningful content to the sandbox and represent the ruthless trading and economical interests that were part of the Caribbean in the age of sail!

 

Hope you guys have fun thinking about it.

Edited April 19, 2016 by Lytse Pier

[Cragger]

Hello Captain.

 

We do not have an official position on this YET.

Previously we believed that we provided the necessary tools to the player to judge the deal they are making. You can decline the trade if you don't like it if you see that you are not getting what you need in the trade window.

 

Perhaps its time to discuss the community view on this case.

 

There is a solution. Use a consignment system. The person purchasing the crafting being done puts their products into an inventory for the craft. Approves the crafting settings, and gets the end product the ship, minus blueprints/notes that go to the crafter's inventory.

 

Impossible to steal and improves crafting play.

[Cragger]

Why all of a sudden devs need to be the teachers in a kindergarten because players are apparently incapable of looking around therefore we need dumb rules anti ganking and now they are so willing to trust anyone so we have to protect them....

You want to play a sandbox? It looks more like a jail WIth so many rules to appease those that happen to cry more.

 

Simple, games don't survive when only the assholes remain. Even CCP learned this lesson with Eve Online and cracked down on long term destructive and toxic activities. 

[Spam Hands]

Lt Dean scamming again. This does reinforce the fact that player/community measures don't really work that effectively. The player was named, shamed and pilloried in another thread and here he is doing it all over again.

[CompassRose]

Hello Captain.

 

We do not have an official position on this YET.

Previously we believed that we provided the necessary tools to the player to judge the deal they are making. You can decline the trade if you don't like it if you see that you are not getting what you need in the trade window.

 

Perhaps its time to discuss the community view on this case.

 

My view is that you add another layer to the trade window, that allows player A to trade money and raw mats to player B for player B's agreement to refine the raw materials into ship components via labor hours.

 

Trading has become a 2-step process in a lot of cases.  There comes a point in those kinds of trades where a player feels it is better to keep the 2000 gold ore and 2000 coal they were just handed, instead of refining it into 1000 gold ingots and trading those ingots back for 75,000.

[Rosebud]

The loss of your digital items is far less lasting then your lose of trust. Which is more important? Without your digital items you must now spend additional hours to reacquire what you once had. This is irritating and time consuming, but doable. Replacing your trust is not so easily done. In some ways it is a lesson, to not be so trusting...even in a digital world. Sadly in this fake world some do not call upon their noble inclinations but instead their destructive child. This is not localized to this game unfortunately. The truth is you were afforded a wonderful and important opportunity to learn a lesson. Learn this lesson in a digital world insolated from real life because I guarantee you...you will be presented with it in real life and the consequences will be far more dire.

 

That said...The other lesson you need to learn from this rather minor incident, is the worth of trust. Surrounding yourself with people you can trust, people of worth, is far more difficult to accomplish then replacing replaceable items. Trust is the most irreplaceable of items. If you understand the worth of trust, knowledge of it in others will always far exceed any item you forfeit. That moron forfeited his good name for some digitally replaceable crap...you tell me if he came out ahead?

[Jan van Santen]

Easy way around this within the existing system: I have traded a collateral based on the navalactioncraft.com costs in all the bto ship deals I have done.

[Hugo van Grojt]

It is NOT the first time LtDean has done this .... just saying ... plenty of threads on him out there....

 

So:

1. You nation has not done enough to name and shame the bastard so that everyone knows what he and his companions do

2. None of the dev team have had the time / political will to deal with these scammers to date

 

Really sorry to hear you are having a hard time, mate.

[Iratequaker]

Scamming, cheating and exploiting should NOT be tolerated under any circumstances.  There is never a justifiable reason to take advantage of someone like this, it has nothing to do with the game.  The offender should be permanently banned as clear proof has been presented to the admin and the rest of us should take heed that this sort of behavior should not be tolerated.  Ever. 

[sacapus]

This kind of behavior shouldn't be tolerated.

 

Trial them and then, if found guilty, turn them to Pirate and then let the communauty deal with them "in-Game"

Pirate bounty and reward for any players sinking them !!

 

A taste of their own medicine, losing their ships and money and then sailing in Basic Cutter...

[Captain Underpants]

I think that this kind of anti-social behaviour needs to be dealt with very strongly wherever possible.

Players like this can kill smaller 'niche' games such as this and the OP has already said they are leaving as they don't feel they have the heart to continue.

When ordinary, decent players start leaving the game because of the actions of idiots such as this, we must draw a line. After all, who do you want to play this game with; players like the OP or players like Ltdean?

[Galileus]

The offender should be permanently banned as clear proof has been presented to the admin and the rest of us should take heed that this sort of behavior should not be tolerated.  Ever. 

 

Here's the thing - there was never a clear proof.

 

What if - the deal was about to be completed, but OP instead went nerd in chat, made a screenshot, did not agree to the trade-back and went to forums? What if - the discussion ended in the trade back, but OP did not decide to show it? What if - there was actually an agreement over TS that one player trades the other his resources - as is common in dozens of clans?

 

If you were to ban people with that so=called "proof" of yours, you would made that possible:

 

- You join a clan

- You ask someone to craft you a ship

- You give him resources

- You scream "SCAMMER!" in chat

- You screenshot it

 

Bam! You banned someone at will. All the logs show you did the right thing - chat log shows you "giving resources for a Pavel", trade log shows it too, your screenshot shows it. Now what - a trial taking 12h out of Dev's life? And how do you find the truth, with two people saying opposing things? Do we really want a exploit in which you can ban people at will?

 

Think on it. All is well with people screaming "justice!", yet no-one is actually interested in providing the way this justice were to be enforced.

[Magnum]

No need to rebuild the trade system:

 

If your crafter hasn't built up his yard to the point that he can put a finished ship in his trade window while you put the materials and payment in your trade window - you should think long and hard about how much of a real crafter he is. I routinely have enough "mats" on hand to build 10 or 12 ships.

 

If he is an "up and coming" crafter with no built up resources - just ask for a cash bond ----- if the agreed price for the build is "mats, notes and 1 million" ask him to put up a 1 million bond to trade you for the mats and notes, then when the ship is done you trade him 2 million --- 1 million for the ship and 1 million for the return of his bond.

 

Easy Peasy

 

BTW - I would take Xemko up on his generous offer of a ship - I don't believe he even requires you to turn Pirate for it. 

 

If he does I'm British and I'll give you a Pavel for free instead, if you'd rather.

[Flob]

Hello Captain.

 

We do not have an official position on this YET.

Previously we believed that we provided the necessary tools to the player to judge the deal they are making. You can decline the trade if you don't like it if you see that you are not getting what you need in the trade window.

 

Perhaps its time to discuss the community view on this case.

There are suggestions out there to fix this increasing problem

 

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/12002-crafting-commissions/

 

This is happening to a lot of people, people even bragging in chat that this is a legit way to gain mats/notes as the game allows it, and they have no repercussions, not cool, so not cool

[sacapus]

Here's the thing - there was never a clear proof.

 

What if - the deal was about to be completed, but OP instead went nerd in chat, made a screenshot, did not agree to the trade-back and went to forums? What if - the discussion ended in the trade back, but OP did not decide to show it? What if - there was actually an agreement over TS that one player trades the other his resources - as is common in dozens of clans?

 

If you were to ban people with that so=called "proof" of yours, you would made that possible:

 

- You join a clan

- You ask someone to craft you a ship

- You give him resources

- You scream "SCAMMER!" in chat

- You screenshot it

 

Bam! You banned someone at will. All the logs show you did the right thing - chat log shows you "giving resources for a Pavel", trade log shows it too, your screenshot shows it. Now what - a trial taking 12h out of Dev's life? And how do you find the truth, with two people saying opposing things? Do we really want a exploit in which you can ban people at will?

 

Think on it. All is well with people screaming "justice!", yet no-one is actually interested in providing the way this justice were to be enforced.

 

I do agree with you, however, in this case, he admitted in chat. What other proof do you need ?

Search his chat log on the forum, do some research.

 

Nobody forced him to type " I just steal a Pavel" in chat... and nobody else than him typed it.

At least if he has been more "discrete" about it, peoples like this have the tendency to boast themselves toward others, look how smart I am, I just scammed another idiot...

I'm not a big fan of any mechanics restricting play and there will always be players to find a way to abuse them, what about a 7 days as a pirate for punishment, we can let these guys get away with things like this.

There just gonna ruin the game for some other players. It start with stealing, what's next...

It's in line with what pirate will do, then pirate you become...

 

It definitely needs to be addressed in some players cases when the proof are 100% overwhelming.

[Quineloe]

Here's something to make you even angrier:

 

https://www.google.de/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=oGEXV8KeJeva8AfgzIHAAg&gws_rd=ssl#safe=off&q=site:forum.game-labs.net+ltdean

 

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/11579-buyer-beware-merchants-and-bankers-of-ill-repute/

 

He's done this before, and the game staff is fine with it.

 

 

As a nation, we're supposed to work together. This really is the antithesis of cooperation, and "it's too much work" is not good enough a reason to ignore scamming.

Edited April 20, 2016 by Quineloe

[CptEdwardKenway]

Too many trolls and scammers in this game lately. Hope he will get ban for this.

 

I will give you brand new Pavel for free.

Contact me in game, Xemko (Pirate).

 

I don't think we need any ship from you.

[Magnum]

I don't think we need any ship from you.

 

Pretty cavalier with a very generous offer - Xemko is a TESTER first and a Pirate second (I hope).

 

And - shouldn't you let the OP speak for himself?

[Xemko]

 

 

BTW - I would take Xemko up on his generous offer of a ship - I don't believe he even requires you to turn Pirate for it. 

 

If he does I'm British and I'll give you a Pavel for free instead, if you'd rather.

 

No need to turn Pirate lol. We could use a Free Port, Cayman Brac for example.

[Fizzer]

Most of you people are absurd.  All you have to do is ask the builder for collateral in exchange for your mats.

 

1 mil gold, or a similarly valuable ship.  Say you want a Pavel, the builder needs to give you something like a Bellona or a pile of gold in exchange for your mats.  If the builder can't afford it than they're either a scammer or a junk crafter who can't manage reasonable inventory or gold balance.  Remember that you're generally doing the builder a favor by bringing them mats.  Unless they're a level 50 with all BPs, you're giving them crafting XP with zero effort on their part.  If they can't pony up collateral, tough cookies.

 

All this crying over scams is quite funny, the game supports what is effectively instant escrow trading so its up to you to protect yourself.

[Captain]

I've played alot for 2 or 3 months. After the changes being in a small clan getting a boat has been near impossible. I spent weeks gathering materials and building out parts. It would have been alot easier had ram-o-geddon not sank all my 3rds.

 

So for almost a week I've looked for a boat builder and today I helped a guy build a cerb for near free. Then I get a message that somebody will build my boat on his alt. (hoping karma pays out)I was a little iffy but I've been thinking of buying an alt for the hours as well but we all know where this goes.

 

So, I got burned for a Pavel of materials and I just don't have the heart to keep going. It was good playing with all of you.

 

I bet he's still laughing about the 'i'll cost you 40$ for a steam ban" 

 

You shouldn't lie to people you're upset with, it just makes them happy. 

[Ignatius Magnus]

Show some trading reputation for both parts in the trade window? Plus ability to like/dislike or something.

Edited April 22, 2016 by Ignatius Magnus

[Mayhem Like Me]

i do not think the developers could make enough buttons to prevent people from being asses.  Personally, I would have bought the ship from the "shipbuilder" after it was constructed and he could have acquired the mats any way he wished.  Yes, you may have payed a little extra - but you should know the fair market price prior to agreeing to purchase and if the guy would have purchased a ship this way then he would still be sailing.  It is unfortunate that this ass ripped him off - but truth is the guy played right into his game and was ignorant with his possessions.  There is an old saying, "If you are not wise with your possessions, a thief will be!"

[The MetaBaron]

TL;DR don't give your stuff to people you don't trust.

 

Shhhhh, don't bring in common sense. OP just needs to accept responsibility for how this happened. If you don't want to buy a ship that someone has put up for sale, and you don't want to take the time to either make friends in TS that craft, AND you don't want to join a Clan with trusted crafters...... well there really is only so much the game can do for you.