Scamming - What's your take on it?

[Crissa]

Being an ass is exactly what should be punishable. What else would be?

[Khariel]

I'm still new to the game so I don't know all the nuances. If there is a glaring design issue that makes it easy to grief, then sure; have a rule against it or have it looked down upon. But generally, I don't think being an ass should be punishable, so long as you're not breaking game mechanics. I mean, c'mon... this isn't pre-school. I think it only helps the game, really.

I've never scammed anyone. I just don't like an environment where people are forced to act a certain way, I want some spice in my mmo.

How exactly does stealing from people help the game in any way?

[Khaylara]

How exactly does stealing from people help the game in any way?

I think the people who are pro-scamming are RP oriented, they want to be "in character" playing thieves and whatnot. It's not against the rules but anyone who does it is pretty much excluded by the community.

I'm not a RPer myself but if some feels it adds to the immersion they can "scam" without actually pulling a shifty, pretend to pickpocket etc, that's harmless. Advocating for real scams though is not gonna go down well.

[Citan]

Since this thread seems to somehow just keep going, I figured I'd weigh in with some thoughts.

First, I don't want scamming in the game, where players lose items or valuables to other players due to trickery. That's a form of PvP, really: it's tricking another player and causing them misery for your joy. It's a terrible fit for this PvE game.

However, unless we're a crazy-huge success, I can't imagine having the personnel to deal with a huge number of scamming complaints. A few, sure, but a ton? No. So we'll need to do our best to make the game scam-resistant via tech. But that's often MUCH harder than it sounds, though -- for instance, letting people craft something with your materials, then give you the result, while making sure nobody steals anything or changes anything up in the process? VERY hard. Not on my immediate todo list. Maybe not happening ever. Instead, we've moved toward more scam-resistant game systems, like augment gems. Augmentation has that extra step in the middle of the process specifically to make it easier to trade them. In time I expect more systems to work like that.

And of course, when that fails, we'll just ban for griefing. I realize that right now, someone who's banned could just make a new account, but when we're on Steam and B2P, banning is a significant deterrent.

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Lastly, I want to talk about the broader topic of "being a dick". Scamming is one way of being a dick, and it's not allowed. But there are a few ways of being a dick that ARE allowed. These are basically practical-joke level dickishness. They involve tricking other players, but they aren't scams, because there aren't huge or devastating consequences for the victim.

An example is poisoned food. You can poison food with iocaine powder and give that food to other players. They can eat it and DIE. That makes you a dick, but it's really not that big a deal to die in Project: Gorgon. Even if you're Hardcore Mode, you'd just go get your stuff. It's a prank.

Another example? Words of power. You can be a dick and trick people by giving them bad words of power. Trick somebody into dying with one? Ha ha, you're a dick, but it's okay. However, there are exceptions even here. Tricking newbies into saying a word of power that gives them Leprosy (a much worse fate than death)? That's not a practical joke: it might make the newbie unable to play until somebody cures them. That's way too dickish. On the other hand, tricking a level 100 player with leprosy? Eh... it's not as dickish because it doesn't impact them nearly as much.

Some people like to say "if the game allows it, it should be okay", but that attitude is how you get shitty, limited, boring, terrible games. For instance, bad names: we don't allow you to call people names in chat. You can exclaim "motherfucker!" once in a while, we don't mind that, but you can NEVER say "you're a motherfucker" to another player. It's true that the game technically lets you do it, but that's because the alternative would be horrible draconian chat filtering.

Another example? Stealing kills. A high-level player can follow a newbie around and steal their kills just for laughs. That's not a joke, it's griefing, and obviously against the terms of service. The game technically allows it because the alternative would be draconian locale-restrictions that would make the game suck.

The point is that I'm not making a game for children, so I'm not willing to take out all the fun things in the game just to prevent people going over the line. That means you can't use the notion of "if the game allows it, it's okay". If you go over the line, we'll just have to ban you, even though the game technically allowed you to do it.

I also realize that some people have a hard time with social concepts like "practical jokes". (I'm not being snide or sarcastic here -- it can be tough for some people.) If you can't tell the difference between a practical joke and griefing, you should avoid doing either so that you don't get banned. We're not going to try to list every possible joke, or where the lines are. If you don't think you can tell where the line is... just don't do it at all.

[cratoh]

However, unless we're a crazy-huge success, I can't imagine having the personnel to deal with a huge number of scamming complaints. A few, sure, but a ton? No. So we'll need to do our best to make the game scam-resistant via tech. But that's often MUCH harder than it sounds, though -- for instance, letting people craft something with your materials, then give you the result, while making sure nobody steals anything or changes anything up in the process? VERY hard. Not on my immediate todo list. Maybe not happening ever. Instead, we've moved toward more scam-resistant game systems, like augment gems. Augmentation has that extra step in the middle of the process specifically to make it easier to trade them. In time I expect more systems to work like that.

I know I'm always saying 'eq2 did blah blah this way' but... one thing they introduced over time was a consignment crafting system where, if i remember rightly, you opened a craft/trade window, and dropped the components in it, then the crafter would make the item, and the finished prouct ended up in the commissioner's pack. One thing that makes things hard with PG currently is, yes I do craft bulk stuff for peopel searching for the perfect mod set up, but they don't have any way of knowing how many tries you did or anything really. A craft/trade commission system would be most welcome!

[Khaylara]

I don't take pay for my crafting but can't you just give them all the resulted items? So they can see clearly how many attempts you had before a proc? I just do that, if people provide the mats I give them back everything i crafted + leftover materials.

[Crissa]

Oh, yeah. You could make a player work order system where the work order was 'provide ingredients' and 'provide crafting (ingredients already included)'.

So when you find a crafter and they say they can do a recipe, they could write a work order that's the recipe. Then you follow the work order, fill out the ingredients, and return it. Then when it's handed over, the crafter just has to show up and fill the skill requirements.

The work order system already exists! It'd even allow asynchronous deals, unlike the WoW or EQ ones.

[AngelTerri]

If you think to stoop low enough to scam someone for entertainment, I want nothing to do with you. Simple as that.

Let me expand on what I mean.

You need to mentally and willingly go into a game to scam a person or grief them. So purposefully going up to me and doing such is being an a-hole. And I will let you know that.

EverQuest was full of scammers back in the early days when people traded in the Commonlands Tunnel. There was no special lock trade window with extra protection. What scammers did was link an item into chat, which has a specific icon. Then when a person comes up to buy it, the scammer would quickly put another item in, usually a crappy item, that has the same icon as the linked item and quickly accept the trade, then log out.

That is being an a-hat as the scammer willingly and knowingly went to scam someone.

Griefing comes in many flavors. Players that grief others by killing mobs needed for others to finish quests. Players locking down entire zones or camps. Players who die over and over at a zoneline so others can't move or crash.

Griefing should have the consequence of a warning on first offense, temp ban on second, and ban on third. By them, one kinda should realize the griefer just is there to ruin the game for others.

In regards to scamming, it would mainly cover things for trading. But PG seems to have the added protection to a trade window, so switching for another item won't work. The worst scenario is someone running off with all the materials and not making the goods. I do like EverQuest 2's take on commission crafting, so the crafter gets the items, but the asker gets the result with no problem.