Scamming - What's your take on it?

Let me start off on this foot first, I do not condone scamming nor would I ever partake in it. I believe it is a very untrustworthy thing to do, it's morally (game-wise) wrong to do, and it tarnishes your name beyond belief if found out or caught.

But should it be considered a punishable offense by administration? No, I do not think so.

I believe good players / people are just as much allowed as evil players / people. What do I think is allowed, and not allowed?

Not Allowed:
Hacking - Obvious reasons.
Exploiting - Obvious Reasons.
Harassment - In the form of, bringing things from the real world. I believe RP has it's place in a game like this.

Allowed:
Scamming - People like playing con artists.
Griefing - How ever you can do that, it should be allowed. While staying within the fair bounds of the game.


Now like I said, I don't condone what I believe should be allowed - I dislike it, and wish people /didn't/ do it - regardless.. It should be allowed as I don't choose the play styles of others and have no right to ruin that for them so long as it is fair.

My question to you, the community and administration is this - Should this be a bannable offense? Is it a bannable offense? If it's not, what would -we- the players do about this. I'm just curious where every one stands on the topic.

I don't think it has a place in Project Gorgon. The game has only recently shifted to a more economy-focused environment; earlier on, people would just hand out bits and pieces as people needed them. Until you mentioned it just now, the thought of someone scamming in PG had never crossed my mind, but with the game heading down the economy path, I can imagine it'll eventually be an issue.

The player base is incredibly small; you're going to be remembered as a scammer, and people will eventually be skeptical of dealing with low-level alts.

So I'd just say.. avoid it all together. WoW had a good handle on it - if someone said something in chat, they were bound to their word via the chatlogs - I.e. "you give me this, I'll do this for you" - and they don't do that thing, well, then that can be addressed through a report, with appropriate punishment.

If it were a competitive PvP game, then sure - I'd be all for scamming; but PG is most definitely a PvE game, and a co-operative one at that. I don't think purposely allowing a toxic action to take place in the game would do it any credit.

How do you scam?

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Originally Posted by Easylivin

How do you scam?

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Convince some one to give you items, in return you'll make some thing for them with those items or come back with some thing different.

Assuming a new character could earn any kind of trust with a player that isn't a newbie, there isn't much to gain with scamming. The person would have to recreate the character because once they scam once, they are done. And now what do they get? 4-5 items that take 30 minutes or so to get?


Scamming is crappy and adds no value to the game.

Nobody wants more telemarketer scammers calling them. Why would they want to deal with it in game?

WOP scamming seems to be fun, accepted, and okay as long as the price of the WOP isn't high. Other than that I can see no reason to scam anyone for all the reasons listed by others above.

The developer's rights to ensure the growth and continued existence of the game, override anything else. If people put that in jeopardy by creating a toxic, unfriendly climate in the game, the developers have to step in and curb that behavior with any means necessary. There is roleplaying, but they got to make sure people are having fun. WOP is more of a prank then a scam, unless I missed something. So it comes down to impact, the bigger the impact on the player base the more likely the devs step in. I think there is a broad category in one of the EULA or Code of Conduct, that would cover this, a don't go wrecking it for everyone kind of thing.

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Originally Posted by ShieldBreaker

WOP is more of a prank then a scam, unless I missed something.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Easylivin

How do you scam?

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Idk....To the scammer, its just a prank but to the prankee/scammee, its a prank if you know the person really well and a scam if you don't.

Confusing, bc this is the only example I could come up with on how to scam someone in PG without getting banned. Unless someone starts a pyramid scheme with ingame people and resources. Although, would you consider overpriced goods a scam?

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Originally Posted by Gervase

Let me start off on this foot first, I do not condone scamming nor would I ever partake in it. I believe it is a very untrustworthy thing to do, it's morally (game-wise) wrong to do, and it tarnishes your name beyond belief if found out or caught.

But should it be considered a punishable offense by administration? No, I do not think so.

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And /thread. What's the point? If someone wants to scam other people, let them.

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Originally Posted by ShieldBreaker

The developer's rights to ensure the growth and continued existence of the game, override anything else. If people put that in jeopardy by creating a toxic, unfriendly climate in the game, the developers have to step in and curb that behavior with any means necessary.

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LOL.

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Originally Posted by ShieldBreaker

There is roleplaying, but they got to make sure people are having fun.

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Rofl. Make up your mind already, is it RP and freedom and letting people have fun their way or is it just a bannable offense. violation.

So far, the developers don't make sure that players are having fun all the time, hence the decline in online numbers. Please note, no great scammers in the game yet. Scammers are not the greatest evil, infact people should not give their valuables to any strangers. that's like the rule # 1.

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Originally Posted by Hood

Idk....To the scammer, its just a prank but to the prankee/scammee, its a prank if you know the person really well and a scam if you don't.

Confusing, bc this is the only example I could come up with on how to scam someone in PG without getting banned. Unless someone starts a pyramid scheme with ingame people and resources. Although, would you consider overpriced goods a scam?

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Okay assuming that what you are talking about is like someone asks for a teleport to crypt word, and someone replies here use this. And it is a death word or sickness word. Or some say oh look I got a Sword XP word, anyone want here it is, and the first person who says it finds out it is a death word instead. This is the sort of thing you mean right?

I actually can think of other scams that could be used that would rob players and would be hard to detect, but I don't want to give people ideas. A less effective scam would be to sell any item that looks like another item for the higher valued items price. If someone did it once, they could claim it was a mistake, repeated use would be obvious. This would require a person accepting a trade for the bad item, without double checking what they are getting. But someone determined to do it would keep trying till they got someone. This behavior is more likely while the game is free, because there is no cost to being banned. Once you have to buy the game it will be less likely for people to risk scamming, but it won't go away 100% no matter what.