I came back to Lineage 2 after about a long break and it seems ot have improved for the most part but there is an issue I am having a problem with.
People are scamming other people with alts that they keep rerolling and transfering funds to a main which noone will ever know the name of.
My first experience dealing with the scammer was in Dion where he convod me saying he was my clan mate and he would give me 32 million isk if I leant him my gear for about 2 hours. I of course smelled scam, so I told him to come west of dion to the lake where I was fishing, I then red on the little ******* when he showed up.
Im not stupid. Let me clarify something, I have been scammed one single time in a mmorpg in the last 5 years. My issue is for the newer people that work there ausses off for descent gear and then get screwed inncoently thinking they are trying to help a clan mate.
Sadly there are databases out there I hear where someone can look up any name and see who there clan mates are.
I found out sadly this was not even close to a one time incident, this morning i think someone got scammed also fromt he same person using a diferent alt. And 10 minutes ago in gludin a guy named TheDarkFranchise was doing the same scam. The other alts name was Archmaster.
I have an issue with devs and the people incharge of the game letting people scam others with no concequenses.
Some of the justification for them being lazy and not wanting to deal with it (just like the hackers,ebayers, bots etc) is that honestly they would a lot of customers if they put there foot down. they rather make real life money at the players expense by having a cheaper quality game to play.
I am someone who looks outside the box. Im making it simple, make it against the rules for players to scam other players or im Leaving and taking my 15 dollars a month with me. Noone is forcing me to play with game. Its just that simple. I know 15 dollars a month wont break NC SOFTS bank but let enough people leave and we will see what happens.
More people would quit if scamming became illegal. I think by makeing it a bannable offense L2 would actually lose more customers. I am not a scammer, but i like haveing this aspect of the game. It happens and the general feeling for me at least is just deal with it in-game. I see no need for GM's to be involved, its game experiance. It wouldnt be a MMORPG if there wasnt that sly guy in the dark ally offering you something for nothing. I dont think connng or scamming is a nice way to play, but the option should be there for those who choose the dark path, its role playing after all. Trying to trick someone into giving you there gear is one of the ways available to make adena and gear, if your good at it you can make a nice amount and its an alternative to grinding. If you get conned and lose an item, well, sorry but i guess you deserve it. Ive never fallen for a scam and i never will, its because im experianced and i know never to trade something unless im willing to lose it forever.
Just for emphasis, i do not scam, but i can understand why people do it and i cant understand how people ever fall victim to it. I consider it natural selection, the strong survive and the weak quit and go play WoW.
I find it fun dealing with scammers, waste their time before you name and shame them, call them to you in some distant area go along with the scam right up untill the click the ok in trade box option, then just cross it off, if you desire pk them, then laugh and shame them. Ive managed to get a scammer to come from talkin isle to aden in an attempt to get my gear. I get a free laugh out of it and he is x amount of adena down in teleports. Classic.
More people would quit if scamming became illegal.
I sincerely doubt this. In fact I have heard of people leaving the game after being scammed. Never did I hear somebody say they would leave this game if scamming was forbidden.
TheDarkFranchise: Hey, I need your help. Want to be rich?
Me: Um... okay?
TDF: My brother will bring me 200 million at 9pm.
Me: And... how can I help?
At this point, I'm thinking: Just 600k into my warehouse, and I will give you 10 million once my funds are clear of the Aden Holding Company. It sounds an awful lot like the Nigerian Scam you see in your e-mail. And big brother... is that a new nickname for the adena-buying service?
TDF: Can I borrow your weapon for 20 minutes?
Me: Um... No. I need it.
He's sitting on a strider, so I was tempted to ask him for it as collateral. I should have. Then gone and sold the strider and bought a new +4 Glaive, with plenty to spare... scammed the scammer... Oh well.
I find it fun dealing with scammers, waste their time before you name and shame them, call them to you in some distant area go along with the scam right up untill the click the ok in trade box option, then just cross it off, if you desire pk them, then laugh and shame them. Ive managed to get a scammer to come from talkin isle to aden in an attempt to get my gear. I get a free laugh out of it and he is x amount of adena down in teleports. Classic.
Omg, noooo. Not you too :p
Hehe. I love screwing with scammers, just like you posted there(among others)
Lol i just think its funny that in this game you are allowed to scam someone but not use the word gay.
I agree. I mean, what's the problem with telling your friends that you're finally coming out of the closet. That is why you want to use the word "gay", right?
Nothing beats the censorship of "buttcheeks" back in C1. :D
re: Scamming and people leaving. How many people do you think left in open beta or prelude or C1 due to being PKed? That's still no reason to remove open PvP from the game.
If someone can't deal with keeping their eyes open on the market - Lineage II isn't the game for them.
Scamming happens. It's happened to me, but when it did, I learned a lesson. Game items are worthless, but the lesson is invaluable. It's a choice you make, not in the game, but with your life. Who can you trust? Random people you met playing a game? What are you trusting them with? Anyone who gets scammed should know how to avoid it. It's a 1 time deal, or at least it should be. Anyone not learning from things like this aren't ready for this game and should quit anyways.
Think that says it all, never give anybody your stuff, why would they want your stuff anyway, would you hand over millions of adena's worth of stuff because somebody wants to see what it looks like on them?. Scammings part of human nature, some people like to do it and I for one wouldn't see them banded for it.
I, for one, disagree whole-heartedly that NCS would lose more people if scamming was banned than they do because it is unhindered.
And tbch, if I had to weigh the choice of losing honest players or scammers, well you all should know by now what choice I'd make.
Now, I agree that every player who get's scammed owns final responsibility for giving their gear away or dropping it on the ground or what-have-you. I don't have the solution that will please you all.
But when a player leaves the game envronment, goes to a login screen and creates a character whose name is a close facsimile of another's, that is no longer an in-game issue. It does not take place within the confines of the game environment and instead is a manipulation of the game mechanics itself... the same justification used to come down on exploiters who more often than not actually manipulate the game entirely within the gaming environment!
I love the idea that a player's actions have repercussions. However, the fact of this scam technique is that toss-away alts are made to conduct the scams. They conduct these scams in safe zones. They are anonymous to the player base. They can freight goods to another toon or trade to a nearby account, completely anonymously.
There is no player ability to police this, whereas in RL (which is often used in comparison to this aspect of l2) there are clues, evidence and a real risk of being caught and made to pay for crimes committed.
The game mechanics (anonimity, safe zone, freight, etc) allow for a clueless, seamless and punishmentless (word?) crime to happen brazenly, openly and wholly without consequence.
Hey, scammers who do it on their mains and are made to defend their actions by the player base, now THAT's something I would support (even though I still find scammers to be scum). But the scamming techniques involving toons that never leave a safe zone and/or are disposable anonymous toons? That is an exploit of the mechanics to allow for maximum return with absolute zero risk. Certainly not something the normal player would associate with l2.
Scam is thing that most hard to proove.
Even name scam is thing that could be exploited in both ways.
You can easely find the ways yourself.
So its just shouldn't be a case.
Dealing with it in game very easy on other hand.
There was good thread long time ago, to make improvements, that will help player to notice scam.
But thread like this - just simple junk.
Creating an alt to scam someone, invovles you makeing a new character and takeing up a space on an account, it then takes something like 6-7 days to delete the char just to try the scam again. Its not a great scam cos at best you can do it a few times per account then you have to wait a week to do it again. The scammer in the end is paying with their own real life cash to take your items, is this better then e baying for items? i think it is as bots arnt getting payed for it.
More people would quit if scamming became illegal.
I sincerely doubt this. In fact I have heard of people leaving the game after being scammed. Never did I hear somebody say they would leave this game if scamming was forbidden.
i think your wrong about that some wont even touch adena from other players thinking is a bot farmer and clanless players dont have the resourses to buy their gear cause they dont want to spend the time playing the game economics.
so if they make it a bannable ofence you will see them quiting the game i dont care if they do but i can give you the best advise in the game DONT GIVE YOUR GEAR TO ANYONE unless you know the person very well and you trust him. I can tell you that everything that was given to me i gave it back even that nice stryder in town a couple of days ago. my rule is if it not mine i gave it back. plain and simple. that way you get to know pLL and make friends.
Creating an alt to scam someone, invovles you makeing a new character and takeing up a space on an account, it then takes something like 6-7 days to delete the char just to try the scam again. Its not a great scam cos at best you can do it a few times per account then you have to wait a week to do it again. The scammer in the end is paying with their own real life cash to take your items, is this better then e baying for items? i think it is as bots arnt getting payed for it.
Think of it from the scammers perspective - If the scammer has only 1 character slot left, and tries to scam somebody but fails 3 times in a row. He has to delete those character 3 times durring the month to continue scamming. The scam would at most take an hour each time he tries. So lets say approx 3 hours of the scam a month. The forth time he succeeds and scams about 50 mil. In a month, the person spent a few hours trying to scam, spent the rest of his time leveling his main / making adena, and came out with an EXTRA 50 mil. In the end, it is well worth it.
Scammers are often very smart people that find ways to make money alot easier, therefore making the game more enjoyable to them.
be realistic now :P GMs have bots on the 'illegal' list and there are still a bunch of them ingame, i see them every day and report those i can even if it does waste my time ^^ making scammers illegal wouldnt do a **** thing...
if you dont want to be scammed, keep your eyes open, always make your trades through a buy or sell shop and double check items and prices... read PM'd names carefully, if its a person your familiar with invite them to group for a moment and ask if they pmmed you, if its some genius selling a bone helm advertised as brig helm... well just look at what your reading there, not too hard to spot >.>
be realistic now :P GMs have bots on the 'illegal' list and there are still a bunch of them ingame, i see them every day and report those i can even if it does waste my time ^^ making scammers illegal wouldnt do a **** thing...
Ok, ncsoft does ban bots! No they don't bann these types of scammers! One question though, how in the hell does anyone actually fall for these types of scams... For god sakes, the freakin guy pming you is speaking Engrish (well maybe if your friend did I could understand)... If he is a clan member tell him to confirm that he wants to trade through clan chat...if it isn't, pm your friend using the MSN pm system...
It isn't hard to avoid...I have had this attempted on me about 6 times, I always pm the guy back calling him a scammer noob. He just goes, "haha" and continues talking... I then have the 'real player' pm the scammer...and that usually fixes it! :)
It is called be smart guys....I am suprised that after 6 months of this kind of scamming going on, that is still WORKS...WTH!
Edit: Whoops sorry about rezzing this thread, I was directed to it from else where and didn't know it was a month old!
for those of you saying there are means to deal with scammers in game...what the hell are you talking about? Do you even play?
There is NO way to deal with scammers in game. Hell if they stay in a town all their toon's life, you can't to do anything to them. NOTHING at all.
Its stupid how much leeway this game gives to scammers. Sure you can scam, I have no problem with that, but hell if I see for examplea scammer in the market place selling a helmet for a A grade one, there should be an option that I can do to mark that person as being a scammer. For example put up a banner next to him that says SCAMMER. Right now there is no way in hell to alert people he is a scammer, unless you stand next to him and shout scammer for hours and hours and hours...which no sane person is willing to do.
Like it was suggested before, every town should have a bulletin board with the names of scammers that have been reported and verified, located near the GK. Those names should live in there for as long as that toon is not deleted. With something like this, it would then be your own **** fault if you got scammed by said person. You just failed to get yourself alerted. But right now, its stupid how NCSOFT actually favors the scammers in the game, giving THEM the advantage over honest players.
You can put a banner next to the sell-shop scammer. Park your toon with a title "ScumDorf is SCAMMING --->' right next to him when you go afk. I bet you will be blue when you come back in the morning!
Okay. I got scammed once, and it was the hardest point in my life of L2... I got so ****** and posted 2 (I think) threads (different subjects) about this case.. One about being warned, and one suggesting an in-game option of scamming-prevention.. Now with all the talk, you have got me beat.. I deserved that scam.. And if you would know how the scam worked, you would laugh at me so much (so I am not telling until requested).. But there is one thing, though, I have to point out: In real life, let's say I have a video game.. My friend comes over and says "Hey can I borrow that game" and I would go "Hey, yeah, of course!", now he would steal the game (Police people are disabled ^^) I would just go over there and beat him, or if case is sincere KILL TEH BASTARD (not really).. But do you get my point? Forcing things out of people like that isn't working in L2.. Hell, when he scammed me, I couldn't even PK him since my gear is gone.. But I deserved that scam, and will live on..
By the way: The idea of setting up signs could be really cool.. And to prevent the abuse of this, the sign needed a GM acceptance before it was set up, so people wouldn't spam this feature..