[GM Review] Scammers

[Lutzifer]

Well what a great idea to ignore the scamming till a thieves city or guild is implemented. Meanwhile we will continue to loose new users. I have seen people in Tulimshar just starting this game get scammed and quit on the spot.

Now let me paint a picture for you all. Remember when you started. Most of these new players are coming here because TMW is included with their install of Ubunutu. They have no idea there is a wiki or a forum or IRC channels. So Ange1234 is sitting there and says hey give me your shirt and knife i will bless it. They don't know this can't be done they don't know jack. So they drop em they get picked up and this person say well the hell with this game this games sucks and they log out. Now how would you have liked that the first time you tried to play ask yourself this first.

And as far as the notion of PVP everywhere well what's to stop me from sitting anywhere with my bow and no matter if someone scammed me or not. I just sit there and pick em off as they login take thier shirt and knife. Or other items lower players have collected.

There are two sides to the story here we are overlooking as you all aren't noobs dealing with this you are players that have a long history of dealing with scams and have more information about the game and it's mechanics than someone first logging in.

As far as letting then 15 or so names of Ange1234 run around I think a ip ban is in order otherwise it's just a slap in the face to ignore it to all who try to make this a community game. We don't have pvp everywhere we don't have a thieves town or guilds or pickpocketing abilities. All we have here is a person running around ruining the community stealing from noobs who end up quitting cause they lost their gear. And this is pissing off high level players and causing them to leave since no one will do anything about it.

And until we have these other thing something needs to be done. LONG LIVE CAPITAN AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[jeto]

Its one thing to scam someone one time or alike.

But i seen people do it systematicaly with new players.
I think this is wrong and hurts the comunity relay bad.
Some people just don't know the game. They may be new to online gaming at all. Scamming them will just kill the comunity.

I play this game because it has a great comunity. Not like other games where you get scammed all the time, or get called names if you ask stupid questions (every new player asks stupid questions). I think its correct if GMs temp bann people who *systematicaly* try abuse new players. It helps the comunity overall. As some pointed out, this is NOT real world. Its a game. Its not a place to teach other people how bad the real world is. The real world is bad enough.

[Balthazaar]

I agree with Lutz and Jeto. I have witnessed this happen to new players as well, and a few I helped by restoring stuff they were scammed out of myself. But quite a few also said to me:

"Im not gonna play this game anymore if the people are like that here so don't bother helping me get any thing back. If there is no one online to help me you should not have to try to do it yourself."

Anyways that's what I've seen and heard and it's not fun to have to explain to these noobs that the whole community here isn't that way. It's the first thing they see so it's hard to tell them otherwise.

[CapitanAwesome]

The discussion that is going on, is really starting to annoy me, because I am getting quite sick of repeating myself and it is leading nowhere.

All I am trying to do is show the relationship between scamming IRL and scamming in TMW, and that there are punishments IRL, so why not have punishments in TMW?

A temp ban as punishment, is simply my thought on what would be an appropriate punishment to what is essentially a crime of 2 parts, one part being the scammer and the other part being the willing scammee. Because let's face it (and heres one of the parts that I keep repeating) if a person doesn't want to get scammed, the don't! Every player is responsible for their own gear!

I'm all for putting some kind of warning somewhere, but at the end of the day, there was no one standing there when I was born saying "watch out for people selling Rolex watches from trench coats" it was something I learnt along the way, and so should be the way in TMW.

And before you all get back on the "but the game isnt set in the present, its set in a medievil type period" i know that also, and in those times, they beheaded people for STEALING which is just another way of saying "obtaining items by deceit" Does that mean we are going to publicly behead scammers?


And Kage, for the record. I quite often walk around with a bow and arrow shooting fluffy bunny rabbits.... and kangaroos... and pigs.. and I'm not typing this from jail =)

[Goku]

I'll have to agree with Balth, Lutz, and Jeto aswell. New players as well as the ones who are unaware of the forums/irc, etc don't know that scamming is not against the rules.

At first I thought people were joking around because I have never played an mmorpg where scamming was legal. Can anyone name a few?

Who finds scamming fun anyways? Sure some people like to be mischievous in mmorpg's, but to scam? "I can't wait to get home to play The Mana World so I can scam some people." If these scammers would spend more time actually playing the game than trying to scam others they would get more things accomplished.

I can see it now.. an animated banner advertising TMW. Shows the logo with THE MANA WORLD next to it, then scrolling down lists the feature:

Come join now!
We have PvP
Lots of Cool Monsters
Great Staff Members
And best of all, Scamming Is Aloud!

[Rotonen]

For now a warning for the newbies as they start should help the actual problem mentioned here: nasty people having a feeding ground and scaring newbies away.

Later on in the game if you fall for a scam, you probably deserve it. We have not made it deliberately easy for people to do, after all.

Of course, as always in such cases, if someone proves to be a general arse towards other people time and time again, GM intervention is called for.

[Wombat]

I could give a crap if the conversation is annoying capitan awesome. What a Duck' name! Duck that Chocolate Cupcake. Anyways Mr. Awesome thinks the world is his but he's not Duck' scarface and doesn't have a auto rifle to drill his opponents.

They BEHEADED people. SFW, that isn't the issue because thieves killed their enemies far more than getting caught doing it. It is ridiculous that a GM is demanding respect on his machismo when that isn't winning any points on this argument.

What is winning points is arguments that deal with how game balance is thrown off from the use of scamming. I recommend you take a break from this discussion dawg cause you got nothin' that is goin' to win here. Machismo isn't how the rules are dealt in this game. Try some UFC game and event then machismo is only goin' to win based on your skill on the controller.

Personally, I find scamming to not be "fun". If an enemy chooses to use beguiling tactics on me, I'd accept my losses and attempt to create a player group to block their attempts. I don't use these tactics, but I also don't think someone should be shot by GMs for enhancing the roleplaying experience. However, I think that player groups can step in and attempt to inform new people to the game of the problem and prevent scamming based on exposed information.

Why is Capitan Awesome acting like he is a player group leader? This isn't the activity a GM should be attempting. Instead, such activities should be taken on by player group (i.e. guild) leaders to act in this manner towards potential threats. Please take this into account before acting like you are the god of this game. Otherwise, I think a GM should consider stepping down and attempt to create a player group to do what they think should occur instead of enforcing their personal ethos on the game.

[Jumpy]

ok

joking

so scamming is part of the game
so there are GM
so GM "duty" is to verify that the char is scamming. Then talk to him and have it on a flag "S" for Scammers so that these char are obligatory in the Guild Scammer when it comes.

seriously

inform newcomer on the presentation page of the game that in this game everything can happen. it is a dangerous world full of monsters and that was destroyed buy a volcanic eruption, with gods, warriors, magic to come, guilds to come, helpers, scammers, and clan, groups.

And that's all.

let after that everyone get his own experience in game and let him develop socialy and interact.
just stand clear on the game content like a presentation that could be added in the tmw set up

may be someday we'll have a guild of scammers and a guild of punishers like pvp or whatever

Regards

[Hexy]

seriously
inform newcomer on the presentation page of the game that in this game everything can happen. it is a dangerous world full of monsters and that was destroyed buy a volcanic eruption, with gods, warriors, magic to come, guilds to come, helpers, scammers, and clan, groups.

And that's all.

let after that everyone get his own experience in game and let him develop socialy and interact.
just stand clear on the game content like a presentation that could be added in the tmw set up

thx, i see it like that too, even if i would make the informaton a bit more extensive as you did at this point, but i know it was a exemple.

Ok, as i dont want to get angry like wombat, so just a short addtition.

1. The system of punishment that some propagate in this discussion is outdated, every psycological informed person knows that punsihment is no solution for avoiding crime or wrong behavior. It helps us maybe to feel better with the possibility of a payback, and thats it. Psycologics in germany found out years ago that if the punishment of a court is harder, the possibility of backslide is even higher.

It is solluting even less if the punishment is just a temporaly ban in a Game where everybody can make as much chars or acc's as he wants to, and if the ban gets liftet he goes and gets the scammed items of this char and goes on with another one. If anyone means i am against bans he's totaly, but totaly wrong. I just want to think about a true solution, and temporal-ban in my eyes is nothing that can help in this case. But ban right away if you think it helps...

2. Yes, scamming is a part of the game untill there is a solution that can prevent it. INFORMATION could prevent.

[Jumpy]

i would follow your idea

think of irc chan
when someone is kicked
- first reaction is "whyyyyy???"
- second one is doing it again to see if this time he is better than the GM
- third time is to troll and launch debates
- fourth time is a ban (starting again the process go back to first reaction)

if there is only one everything is ok but... it becomes a "sport" as wishes to reach some power in the chan position is goal of some and then some people quit and then new policies come and then...

well i stop here the explanation, i am convinced, you all understood.

[Black Don]

this thread is silly. Why do you expect the law to regulate so people don't have to use their common sense. There is no scam out there that if you use your common sense you can see through. Like people trying to get you to drop or put things in the trade window. I mean some of the scams are people saying they can help other people with an 'Active Cheat' and upgrade equipment. The way I see it someone was trying to find a way to get a head in the game with a cheat and got ripped off instead. Sounds like they got what they dissevered. When I was a noob I was smart enough not to think that if I dropped something that someone would not take it. All of this is talk about scammers is pointless. In real life there is no one telling me about every scam out there, but when something seems to good to be true or out of place I know enough not to get caught up in it. I call that common sense. You can never regulate it so people don't have to use it. If its a deal to good to be true its cause it is.

[Wombat]

this thread is silly. Why do you expect the law to regulate so people don't have to use their common sense. There is no scam out there that if you use your common sense you can see through. Like people trying to get you to drop or put things in the trade window. I mean some of the scams are people saying they can help other people with an 'Active Cheat' and upgrade equipment. The way I see it someone was trying to find a way to get a head in the game with a cheat and got ripped off instead. Sounds like they got what they dissevered. When I was a noob I was smart enough not to think that if I dropped something that someone would not take it. All of this is talk about scammers is pointless. In real life there is no one telling me about every scam out there, but when something seems to good to be true or out of place I know enough not to get caught up in it. I call that common sense. You can never regulate it so people don't have to use it. If its a deal to good to be true its cause it is.

+1

[Wombat]

I agree with Lutz and Jeto. I have witnessed this happen to new players as well, and a few I helped by restoring stuff they were scammed out of myself. But quite a few also said to me:

"Im not gonna play this game anymore if the people are like that here so don't bother helping me get any thing back. If there is no one online to help me you should not have to try to do it yourself."

Anyways that's what I've seen and heard and it's not fun to have to explain to these noobs that the whole community here isn't that way. It's the first thing they see so it's hard to tell them otherwise.

Sounds like you got scammed by a different scam.

[Goku]

And is scamming illegal in real life?

Oh, but this is just a game right? Then don't use the arguments that "in real life you have to use common sense", "no one tells me about every scam", "if it's too good to be true it's cause it is"..

[jeto]

In real life there is no one telling me about every scam out there, but when something seems to good to be true or out of place I know enough not to get caught up in it. I call that common sense. You can never regulate it so people don't have to use it. If its a deal to good to be true its cause it is.

There is a reason why in real world children are protcted by law much better than adults. Its more or less consens they don't have the experience to judge what is "too good to be true". This too is the reason why people abuse/scam children are punished much harder than if the same thing happens to adults.

Most of the people posting here have lot of experience in online gaming. Its easy for us to judge correctly. But this doesnt apply for a lot other people.