[GM Review] Scammers

[John P]

+1 Information is the best bet.
But, there are some people that choose not to read/learn about the game before playing. Upcoming generations have ever-receding attention spans. 'Generation of immediate satisfaction' is what young people are today. They just want to get killing and get money. Players need to be spoon fed. Sure you 'grew up and learned the hard way not to fall for scams', but people didn't 'grow up' in TMW. It is an entirely new world and they need to be educated.

To help with getting information to the people:
1) News page on login should be a lot bigger and permanently provide links to wiki and forum. Whether people read into the game or not, out of sheer curiosity they will read news. "Valuable information can be found on the wiki page at wiki.themanaworld.org". That word 'valuable' is invaluable...
2)Ian should have another section added to his newbie lessons about scamming in general and realistic gameplay.
3)To better entice people to read Ian's information, it should be made clear by Ian that reading what he has to say yields a reward.

+1 GMs are not police. If we want police, they can be a separate entity, but as has been said, this game is still too undeveloped for something like that.

+1 Real world example is bad. Anyway, if I went to the police and said some person scammed me out of money, they would NOT hunt him down, they would laugh in my face. Australian police would do the same. What proof do I have? If multiple people reported a scam going on by a guy (and they wouldn't know his name) the police might pick him up, process him, and release him while sighing over the waste of time. And in medieval time, the guards would also laugh in your face, then spit in it. Thievery is completely different. We know that the person didn't STEAL it from you because you already have a veil of protection called nobody has access to your inventory but you.

Scamming IS illegal, but it is very prevalent in real life because it is hard to enforce. It's all he said/she said under the table stuff.

[Black Don]

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.

In real life children are protected by their parents. The Law does not step in to remove the name calling bully or the milk money stealer. The Law protects for only the big crimes. In fact the resources put in to a fraud crime are way lower then a bank robbery. It comes down to this we only have a few GM's do you want them to keep botting down or to police every little transaction that happens in tmw. I say you live you learn. Its a game if you get scammed then get over it and move on. I think the best you can do is what people have been doing is if there is a scammer post it here and expose them. It will follow them for the rest of their time here.

If we are to do a complete relation to real life most fraud ends with a fine placed on the person committing the fraud and the people who had there money stolen never get back what they had lost, if they get anything back. YOU alone are responsible for your actions. If a store short changes you when you buy from them the police are not going to shut the store down. The punishment should fit the crime. And you can't legislate common sense. People have to use it or don't. Caveat Emptor

[Jumpy]

i was just proposing to explain when people install the game (as it is done in so many game) the backstory and presenting what guild can be found (or kind of people)

ej

when spirits were called god .... since then, in the actual time, scammers, warriors, salers salors magician, archer, .... and that's all.

not to do like take care you can be scammed

as john said earlier some don't read the long explanation of law issues and so on and click immediately on the I agree button.

i am talking of a small description with pics coming and explaining people
mana
gods
world
guild
quest
and rules that exists in this world (not talking of what rian does. We are not going to redoo one's work)

Regards

Ps. isn't there a competition launched to redoo the install part (graphics)?

[Black Don]

i was just proposing to explain when people install the game (as it is done in so many game) the backstory and presenting what guild can be found (or kind of people)

ej

when spirits were called god .... since then, in the actual time, scammers, warriors, salers salors magician, archer, .... and that's all.

not to do like take care you can be scammed

as john said earlier some don't read the long explanation of law issues and so on and click immediately on the I agree button.

i am talking of a small description with pics coming and explaining people
mana
gods
world
guild
quest
and rules that exists in this world (not talking of what rian does. We are not going to redoo one's work)

Regards

Ps. isn't there a competition launched to redoo the install part (graphics)?

No matter how you pretty it up people will still jump over it and click agree and ignore it if they want too. Whether they read it or not they have to agree to those rules to play. So its in their best interest to read them and if they don't to bad cause they agreed to them.

[Katze]

...

IMO, the idea of publishing who are scammers is a good idea. We (Bjørn) can do IP checks. So if some scammer creates a new char, he can quickly be identified and be written down on the forums.

This way people 'd get warned. And they can keep away from those scammers. People who don't know about the forums 'd still need to be warned about scammers in general when signing in. And they 'd need to be warned by others.

Another or additional option 'd be to ban well known scammers for some time.

There should still be some rule about it and we GMs (and devs) are currently thinking about what to do....not that we do have any results just now.

[feline monstrosity]

I am very much against the idea of "blacklists" of players. All it does is cause grudges and bad feelings and I don't think it's a very good solution to the problem. It'll only cause more problems. I oppose this.

[Goku]

Is there really a point in opposing it though? Most people who get scammed will eventually find their way to the forums and post who scammed them. And even if there isn't an official "blacklist" the person who is said to have scammed will be looked badly upon by the community.

[feline monstrosity]

But creating a blacklist would only encourage and enforce that sort of finger-pointing attitude.

[Wombat]

At the Los Viscerales meeting today (Dimonds Cove Saturdays 22:00 UTC) we discussed scammers.

Here are a couple points we basically went over to prevent scamming from having a larger affect.

- LV will publish names of scammers as we discover them and post them on our webpage.

- LV will put more effort into new player helping and attempt to inform new players of scammers and their tricks before scammers get to them first, as much as possible.

I personally will attempt to discuss more with other guilds and player groups on ways of handling this problem which will empower players instead of handing more power to the GMs. I hope by doing these efforts we will strengthen our player community and putting more trust into guilds that sorely need a stronger purpose in the game.

[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.

Sounds like you got scammed by a different scam.

I could give a Chocolate Cupcake I have tons of gear
That really wasn't my point.

[Hexy]

haha funny not?

i take part in a discussion of ingame scam, and i get rl scammed xD

very interesting discussion, and like the way it goes. But i cant participate more, not even play the game

Saturday my apartment god robbed, and my brother and me dont have any pc anymore, so we cant use internet.

I will see how fast i can get a new one...

Until that, i will hope to get some times the posibility to watch in here by a cyber coffee.

C U laterz im off for investigation

Have fun ingame and kill 'em all for me

*Sad that i couldn't participate at the discussion-meeting that was at Saturday.

[Addex]

If you read a medival book, It could be some shady guy that said that he could enchance something, Then steal it.
That means, It's like an RPG feeling, But well, People should be banned who claim to be GMs.
That's not RPG at all.