Scamming - What's your take on it?

[alleryn]

I'm not saying you should be arrested in real life for scamming people in game. I don't know where that comparison came from, but it's completely irrelevant to the actual discussion.

An item in game has value in game, so if you steal it in game, you should be punished in game.

That clear enough for you?

Saying "Buyer beware!" Or "Why would you give your mats to a stranger? It's your own fault if you get scammed." is ridiculous. It's condoning a "playstyle" which shouldn't be even remotely thought of as a valid one except in games which have systems for laws and criminal acts. We should be able to trust other players enough to know that if we're requesting that they make us a helmet, that it will be made. It might not be the exact helmet we want due to the randomized nature of mods, but it should be crafted with the proper skill gems, and handed over. We shouldn't have to sit there and worry about being ripped off.

I'm assuming this comment was directed at me.

I don't think anyone suggested you ought to be arrested for in-game scamming. Someone suggested that the game required in-game punishment for scamming because no society allowed people to scam people without punishing them. Since there is no equivalent of an in-game jail (at least at present), we should ban scammers instead, went the argument.

My retort was that in the real world, no one goes to jail for scamming people out of their "real life materials" (unless it's some massive pyramid scheme; i'm talking about seeing someone in the street who says "here take this pile of wood and meet be back here with a dresser"). That kind of behavior is technically illegal, as it violates a verbal contract, but it never would actually result in jail time. What would actually happen as punishment is that the transgressor would earn a bad reputation ("That guy totally ran off with my wood and didn't bring me a dresser. If you are driving around in your pick-up with a big pile of lumber, you should find some other person to make it into an armoire.").

And yeah i think it's reasonable that you shouldn't just assume someone will follow through on an agreement. You should learn to protect yourself, not naively assume people are bound to some externally applied morality to do free service work for you just because you asked.