The publisher's point of view (based on interaction with GM's and support) on player vs player incidents is that "there are means of dealing with the issue built into the game". The "issue" being: scammers, bad sellers, ripoffs, etc...
Now, the methods built into the game for dealing with this are: A- clan war, which is prety difficult since every scammer I have seen is smart enough to use an alt for it. B- pk, which is pretty hard to do since the scammers etc never ever ever ever ever leave town. or C- petition, which we all know results in the above automated quote from NCSoft.
I propose a simple solution: The servers all go down every Tuesday for maintenance... The servers all come back up (usually) Tuesday after the maintenance. Would it be possible to make EVERYONE who logs back in after maintenance to log in outside of town? That way, if you know who your most hated scammer is, you can call in sick at work, stay home, and wait for him to log on after maintenance, and finally get the opportunity to "use the methods built into the game" to pwn him... I really don't think this is too difficult. At least give us the opportunity to do what you are you telling us to do about the situations...
any time is better than none. "town is supposed to be a safe zone..." is precisely the point of my post. They tell us to deal with it, so I am trying to find a way.
Your posts gives an underlying message that at some point you have been scammed and are pretty (understandably) annoyed about it. Unfortunately it is part of the game. I wish somehow everyone who is new to the game could be given the link to Ellies list of scams. It's comprehensive and well worth looking at. Although scamming to me is wrong, there is no reason why people can't do it. It is up to other players to be cautious and if you do fall for a scam, learn from it.
I agree with you completely. I understand that it is an acceptable tactic to amassing wealth in the game. But, there needs to be SOME way that one can do something about it. NCSoft's patent response which I quoted in OP is proof that the original intent was that players could take matters into their own hands. Please, NCSoft - allow me take the scammers virtual throat in my hands!!! (or at least on the end of my DLE)
And, in response to your statement Madders, it has been almost a year since I was last scammed... I am not uncrossing my fingers yet, as the possibility exists everyday - but the times when I was scammed hurt so dramatically, I have been pondering the issue for all that time. This is the best solution I have come up with... :)
Now, please give me a link to Ellies list of scams - I'd be interested to see how many of them I have fallen for.
The very best way of dealing with it, is to not fall for their tricks.
1. Scammers -> Do not get scammed. Open your eyes while playing and stop watching TV instead of the screen.
2. Bad sellers -> Do not buy from them. Noone forces you to buy an overpriced item.
3. Rip Offs -> see number 2.
The only things, that you cannot deal with cause of town safezones are centered around your own stupidity. If you do play smart, you never got any reason to want to kill scammers or marketeers.
Oh btw, wanna buy some soulhots-D ? They are cheap ! only 22234a each for 10 Soulshots. Deal ?
Ellies list is under player guides on this forum. It really is worth a read. And please don't misunderstand me, I'm not flaming you in any way on my previous post I am just saying it is unfortunate that scamming comes with the game and the only way to avoid it is to know what scams there are and be extra careful, use vent, messenger, private message etc to be sure.
Ref Madders - TY. I will give it a read asap, and probably laugh at myself. I took no offense, but read your post in the spirit it was given, I hope - sound advice. - EDIT - just did a search on the player guides forum - noting comes up... any suggestions on the actual title of the thread?
Ref Schmuze - not falling for their trick is not dealing with it at all. Wenn Du nichts hilfreiches zu sagen hast, sag am besten gar nichts.... I am referring to the whole issue in gerneral - in that NCSoft says deal with it yourself, and there is no means of doing so in a peace zone... I love the way ppl on these forums get so hung up on the wording of posts, rather than looking at the issue being addressed - If your eyes are so wide, kitten, read between the lines. As a clan leader, it is my duty and responsibility to take care of the people under me - many of which have been scammed on numerous occasions. I cannot war the offenders, I cannnot pk the offenders, now you are suggesting that I tell my clannies to "open their eyes"? I would leave a clan with such a response from the leader.
Wel,, but your idea of simply teleporting everyone out of town is absolutely nonsense as well.
How am I to tell my clannies, that their poor lvl 25 main char was killed by some bored lvl 65 idiot, because YOU suggested, that every week, you are not allowed to stay in town. And additionally, I do not see, why the only ones punished should be the ones, that cannot login directly after reboot. There are lots of players, who are not scamming and who would be easy prey for some perma-reds, just because they login around giran instead of IN giran.
The only way to deal with scammers is to avoid them, end of story. Yes, they are playing not fair. But they are playing by the rules. Your job as a clanleader would be to educate your clannies, to avoid the scammers, not deal with the scammers after they scammed you or your kin. Even if you would be allowed to kill them, you would still not get the scammed item back or the money you lost or whatever. You are just asking for a way to relieve your stress, cause you or your buddys were not paying attention.
That is like if I were walking up on a full group of 9 and smack one of them, and expect to not be killed. If I am killed, I cannot say "Hey, they were 9:1 and 30 levels above me. How unfair. How am I do deal with that ?".. Fact is, that I would have no chance to deal with that, but I got to accept it. If I do not attack them, chances are, that they will not kill me.
If I do not get scammed, I do not need to kill scammers to feel better.
It is not against any rules in the game and because of that NCSoft will not doing anything ABOUT those scammers. You want to know how to protect you and your players from being scammed: be aware of the common scams. If a new one is used, make us aware of it. It is the only way to combat the scammers.
Other than the more violent solution, this is your best bet. It's the best way to go about it. If you want to make a stupid comparison to real life, when going into a "shady" neighborhood you dont wear the "bling bling" without drawing unwanted attention. Why? Because you understand that in that neighborhood it would probably be....not so beneficial to your health so to say, so you go "Joe, maybe this might not be the best thing to do. Or maybe i should check somewhere else with the proper ways to go about this! You should try to avoid trouble when visiting Sally in that "shady" neighborhood." "*nods* yes Brain you are very wise in all you say."
the next thing you could say is that this situation is VERY similar to the "fake" rolex or "fake" Oakley sunglasses guys you get here in American Cities. You KNOW either 1 of 2 things happened: 1) They stole the merchandise or 2) they are fake sooooo fake its ridiculous. It's buyer beware. You make the choice of buying stolen goods or fake merchandise. Common sense dictates that maybe you shouldn't buy from shady characters....same in L2.
You make yourself aware that this situation CAN happen, whether it's a good thing or not is for debate. This is how the game was created. It's a pretty rough game to begin with.
The fact remains RL is a Dog Eat Dog World.
So is Lineage 2.
Ref Schmuze: once again, you are missing the point: NCSoft says I as a player have a means of dealing with any offender. I am saying that an offender who never leaves town can never be dealt with. I am proposing a means by which NCSofts instructions can be followed. That is it.
I just do not see a reason to punish the whole community for the faults of a few. With your suggestion, you would hurt hundreds of players, who have never scammed anyone and that cannot be a solution to your problem.
And once again, you cannot kill 100 Million out of someone. If you give me your A-grade helmet, you may kill me anytime you want, I would not care.
The only way to make the scammers really pay, would be to get your money back and that is impossible, unless you manage to scam the scammer.
NCsoft is just saying, that they will not assist you. And they also say, to be careful about scammers, as NCsoft will not help you.
Phreddo, I agree with you that there should be a way to deal with isssues like scammers and other griefers and currently we have none.
However, your solution, while amusing is not a good one.
It will antagonize a lot of innocent players plus it wont be effective at all. You would have to wait for the scammer to come online again and that can take some time. Worse, if you kill your level1 scammer he wont mind at all.
Even worse, your cheme would make it easy to grief on the innocent players I mentioned earlier.
Ok... i'll agree that there COULD be some innocent sufferers.... I had never considered that aspect.
But it bugs me to no end that NCSoft says "there are means..." when there aren't. I KNOW that killing them will not get back what they stole. But it is the only avenue available in game. PK is the only option when NCSoft cannot do anything. So someone propose a better plan... please!
We all get the message "getting scammed boils down to not being cautious enough."
Fine.
Totally NOT the point of this suggestion thread.
Whether or not you pity or sympathize with someone who has been scammed is not relevant to this topic. I get it. OP gets it. Not the point.
The point is, NCS says "deal with it in-game" and yet there is no practical way to deal with it in game currently.
OP is looking for a way to bring some sense of justice to the scammers that sit in town protected. Un like your enemies, they don't have to take any risk by XPing, can remain completely anonymous and there is literally nothing a player can do to deal with them in game.
Avoidance, again, is not the issue.
I'm not in favor of the teleport outside of town thing either for what it's worth, buit this isn't a "bash the dude for getting scammed" post either. He's trying to come up with a suggestion that let's him actually repay a scamming tool.
I'm definitely in favor of that (and nope, I've never personally been scammed) and would be all for a practical means of retribution.
Dealing with scammers, three additional possibilities:
1. Every night when I logged off I would sit my town dwarf next to the scammer with a title "SCAMMERNAME is a Scammer" to ruin his business.
2. Since scammers are often the kind of people who cheat, report all bots you see. If the scammer has a bot toon on his/her account, when the bot eventually gets banned, the scammer will loose all the toons and loot from their scams.
3. Have alts who are not linked to your main. Make different friends. Perhaps one day your alt will be invited to a clan which just happens to include the scammers main and they will brag about the scamming. Borrow their gear to see what it looks like. Well, hmmmm does this make you a scammer, too?
I propose a simpler solution: Don't be stupid and give your gear to anyone and read what you're buy. No coding required. Effects available immediately.
Best thing I found is get the word out use shout trade to do this put up notice in server forum that so and so scamer. Sometimes when you shout so and scamer you can draw them out of town if it is not afk scam. Best is to look with both eyes and if it sounds too good look again. If someone comes up to you and tells you they want to help you unless they are a freind chaces are they want to help themselves.
I propose a simpler solution: Don't be stupid and give your gear to anyone and read what you're buy. No coding required. Effects available immediately.
Whats required? A cup of Coffee when you play? (I dunno, Coca Cola for kids? go go sugar!)
All those elements can be easily introduced to your gaming day =D
P.S. There really is no simple solution for dealing with anything, if it was 'Simple' im sure people would have found it out by now, being the huge MMO market dating back, a decade? (Someone quickly tell me when UO was made!)
P.S. There really is no simple solution for dealing with anything, if it was 'Simple' im sure people would have found it out by now, being the huge MMO market dating back, a decade? (Someone quickly tell me when UO was made!)
Here's the thing I cannot wrap my little brain around. Those that have earned (yeah, I'll give everyone the benefit of the doubt on this) all of their grossly expensive gear and hand it over to someone without knowing who they are just amaze me. Those are exactly the kinds of people that should know better. How does this happen?
I am currently using b-grade duals. I have *never* in this game held an a-grade weapon. Last thing I would do is hand over my gear to the first person that trade spams me a the track.
Rum I also shout scammer names when I spot them, screenshot them and host the images (need to do that again with our new clan site). It's a kind thing to help warn players, but misses the point of the thread.
The reporting bots thing, stab in the dark. It is assumptive and I don't think any of us are holding our breath for either side of that issuye to be dealt with through the GM method.
Infiltrating clans? 1) good luck, still a stab in the dark prospect. 2) How many scammers will fall for their own methods? 3) How much time is that method going to take IF you get into a clan AND that clan harbors a scammer AND he admits it to you AND he agrees to let you boorow his stuff?
I think the OP is looking for something a little more practical. Not sure that there is such a thing.
Sir E. If someone is on a PermaRed they have to have, at least at some point, left town. That is what we will call an Apple.
A scammer does not leave town. Cannot be hit, zergged, or otherwise at all affected. We'll call that an Orange.
The low level PK victim can always shout and maybe someone of higher level (or with an alt) can do something about the PKer.
The Scammer however is always protected.
When you reach a high level, you may not be able to avenge your death on the PKer that got you, but you could patrol lowbie areas and take out the modern day reds harrassing lowbies.
Once again, you are helpless to repay Scammers regardless of time in game and efforts made.
SOOOOOOOOO........
The topic if this thread deals with trying to find a way in game to DO something about scammers.
Aside from the repetetive, dead-horse-beating "don't let yourself get scammed" diatribe, anyone have any suggestions that are actually On Topic?
The topic if this thread deals with trying to find a way in game to DO something about scammers.
If you want to narrowly discuss how to get revenge against the person that scammed you? You don't. Period.
What can you do against scammers (besides the obvious dead-horse stuff)? Drill into your clanmates how to avoid scams. Constantly. Every time you get a new member, pound it into them. Tell them that no one will be asking for their gear (or shouldn't be). Instruct them on avoiding scammers and that scamming is not tolerated.
How to deal with them has already been mentioned, simply do not fall for them.
The problem of course with scammers is that they often use the statistic bulk approach that during any one night you might have 1000 aware visiters, but you might get 2 who's just on their bad day, make a mistake or whatnot, and then the scam is worth it.
Works much like spam emails, they don't care if 10 million people delete the mail if just 100 fall for it.
Ok... i'll agree that there COULD be some innocent sufferers.... I had never considered that aspect.
But it bugs me to no end that NCSoft says "there are means..." when there aren't. I KNOW that killing them will not get back what they stole. But it is the only avenue available in game. PK is the only option when NCSoft cannot do anything. So someone propose a better plan... please!
There is no current way. The only way I see (and I don't think it is a good idea) is to make all of a player's alts listed somewhere. If you get scammed by Alt0001, and Alt0001 is an alt of HonorablePlayer, you would know who to seek 'in-game redress' from.
Now, I am NOT suggesting this. Many folks use alts as a way of 'getting away' for a bit, and this would make that impossible. But it is the only way I see of 'dealing with it in-game.'
Hmmm.. you know, this could be a quest. 'Act of Revenge' or something. You have to walk through fire, but at the end, an NPC will give you the highest-level character that has a specific-named alt. "Congratulations Angdil, you have brought me 100 severed toes of Antharas. I can now tell you that Alt0001 is an alt of HonorablePlayer.'
Well, for all the many good uses that scammer/griefer hunters as well as clan leaders could out that info.... I grudgingly am more in favor of the privacy.
NCSoft is already doing the best thing they can do to make scamming more difficult without compromising anyone: They're making it more obvious. The warning message, the spelt out quantities.
There have been two other suggestions that stuck in my mind, and which go along a similar vein:
- PMs from friends, clan and alliance members should bear a different colour than those from random people. To help with this, expand the friendslist - there are way too many people with full friendslists.
- When inputting a greater quantity of items than a store offers, cancel the deal. This is, of course, a hassle for some people trying to 'buy out' stores, but getting used to actually typing the full, proper number does not take that long.
It might also be possible to introduce a "safe" deal at a warehouse - both people enter their respective half of the deal in the window, and if neither is modified within 5 minutes, the deal goes through - 5 minutes is fast enough not to be annoying, and very much long enough to realise you just gave your things to the wrong person. I'm not sure if anyone would actually be willing to use such a service though. >.>
Again and again my posts got attacked here, cause I were not giving a "solution".
Well, guess what, when there was a fire and your house burned down, the house IS burned down. No matter what you do to the one, who set the house on fire, it will not give you a new house.
Elro did repeat it a few times, you cannot deal with a scammer. Even if a scammer would leave town every hour to walk around town once, you could only kill them. But you would gain not a single adena of your loss back by killing them. Contrary, you would go red, raise your PK score for absolute no effect.
There is no way to deal with scammers, once you are scammed. That is why so many people (including me) suggest to do you best to PREVENT scamming from happening. Retribution is a waste of time.
As for the alt-name thing.. It wouldn't work, as every John Doe got 2-3 accounts at their hands, so the scammer char would not have any ties to the true main chars.
Do not fall for scams and warn all other people of scams. That makes their business a waste of time and that is the only way to hurt them.
Schmuse - your posts get attacked becasue you continue to stray from the point of the thread - the issue at hand is not: "it's a shame we cannot do anything about scammers but ignore them" but rather "NCSoft says deal with it, so this is a proposition to do just that". Everyone who has read, will read, didn't read, will ignore, cannot read, is illiterate, is blind, plays the game, does not play the game, and/or is a total and complete moron, will agree that the best way to not get scammed is to not get scammed. Kudo's to you for repeatedly stating the obvious. Now, please contribute something on topic, or go make your own thread where u can spout off about how your method not to get scammed is the greatest thing since the maginot line... which is basically what you've been saying all along anyway.
Very much the same, as you are repeating yourself over and over, crying, that NCsoft is saying "deal with it" and lacking the possibility to do so.
Once again:
Dealing with the issue, does not necessarily mean, that you are required to let it happen first and demand a way of revenge then, as you are doing.
There are matters in the game, where you got no chance in hell of ever getting revenge. Scammers are just one part of it. If you get killed by a PK, there is nothing you can do to get revenge right at hand and even if you get revenge, you will not get your lost exp back. If you are trained and you drop a valuable item, it is lost, no matter how many times you kill the trainer.
Avoidance IS a way of dealing with the problem. If you know, that a certain area like EG is invested with PKs during a certain time each day, and you know, that you cannot beat them, then your only chance is to not go there. You cannot still go there and then blame NCsoft for not having a means to "deal with it".
NCsoft says "deal with it in game". They are not saying "you can get your revenge for it in game".
Your opening posts idea is utter nonsense for the problem you describe. It will do absolutely nothing to protect your clannies from scams. It will not get you any scammed item back. It will not make anyone lower prices. It will just be a fun time for PK kiddies and nothing more.
I got my own way of "dealing" with scammers, which works for over two years already.
If you find a better way to deal with scammers, feel free to post, but just cause the way most people are dealing with scammers is a way that you do not like, does not mean that they are wrong and you are right.
This thread is a lost cause. The OP just wants NCSoft to give him his stuff back.
Growing up, if I had told my dad that I was being bullied at school, unless it was someone much older, he would've said "Deal with it."
"Deal with it" either means do nothing and accept it or grab whatever is handy and KO the bully. But, "Deal with it" never meant "I'll go with you to school and hold your hand."
OK - I give up. It is hopeless to ask people for an intelligent response to the idea presented, as the forum trolls will corrupt the thread and forcefeed people thier point of view ad nauseum. I do not expect NCSoft to give me gear, as I have lost none that they can return. But I will admit that Elrohir and Schmusekatze are so dense that they cannot see the point that I am trying to discuss here, and therefore I surrender. It is pointless to try and talk to someone so narrow-minded that they cannot contribute, and since I cannot prevent either of you from repeatedly taking the thread off topic, I swill just let it die.
OK - I give up. It is hopeless to ask people for an intelligent response to the idea presented, as the forum trolls will corrupt the thread and forcefeed people thier point of view ad nauseum. I do not expect NCSoft to give me gear, as I have lost none that they can return. But I will admit that Elrohir and Schmusekatze are so dense that they cannot see the point that I am trying to discuss here, and therefore I surrender. It is pointless to try and talk to someone so narrow-minded that they cannot contribute, and since I cannot prevent either of you from repeatedly taking the thread off topic, I swill just let it die.
Translation, I can't communicate my point and can't take advice that was given so I'll call people names, take my ball and go home.
Well, neither Elrohir nor Schmusekatze are dense. They are among the more enlightened and well spoken people here. Stubborn? Yes. But far from dense.
I've tried wrapping my head around the scammer issue since I was warned about them in my first week in the game. I have no viable ideas to offer.
The only way I've been able to deal with scammers is through prevention (the suggestions already made here) and through alerting the general citizenship, which on many occasions has gotten me flamed by the very people I warned.
I'd like a reasonable method to make scammers pay a consequence which is the point of this thread. So far, we got nothing.
I'd like a reasonable method to make scammers pay a consequence which is the point of this thread. So far, we got nothing.
Personally I like to see them go away empty-handed however if someone comes up with something better (and reasonable), I'm all ears. Haven't heard anything good yet, though.