Curse

TheRaven · Aug 17, 2007, 05:28 PM // 17:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by t_the_nihilst

This is a discussion board, is it not?
So discuss.

Let me offer some topics:

-Are you afraid to trade?

-How do you feel about the fact that innocent people are getting banned, meanwhile very recently people are still out there selling armbraces of truth for 10k each?

-Should buying unidentified gold items from a bot be a bannable offense?

-How do you feel about one-sided trading?

-How do you feel in general knowing that all your trades are being monitored? Does it make you feel safe or uneasy? Why?

In the interest of trying to bring this thread back to the topic that the OP intended, I'll answer these.

-Are you afraid to trade? A little bit. I'm not a high end trader, so I don't think any of my trades could hit Anet radars. I have been involved in 1 sided trades with guildies, but none of the folks in my Alliance were banned so I don't think it's an issue for us.

-How do you feel about the fact that innocent people are getting banned, meanwhile very recently people are still out there selling armbraces of truth for 10k each?
First, I'll dispute the fact that armbraces are currently being traded for 10k. Do you know that to be true? Proof? I see people offering 10k for them, but I don't see any sellers. Heck, I saw a guy about a month ago offering 4k for a mini Panda in Kaineng. He was spamming his offer for several hours. I doubt he ever obtained one.

Unfortunately, this was a bad situation all around. Yes, innocents were banned, but everyone who was banned has the right to appeal the ban and Anet did reverse the decision. I'd be much more concerned if their was no appeal process and the ban was permanent even if you were innocent. (I've played games where that was true and it sucks) I'm not going to say that Anet had no reason to ban you. They did have a reason. You conducted a trade with someone involved in duping. At the time, they have no way of knowing if your guildmate was an innocent or an alt account for a big time duper.

-Should buying unidentified gold items from a bot be a bannable offense?
No way. How can I know for sure whether the seller is a bot, a Chinese gold farmer or simply a 13 year old French-Canadian kid who can't speak good English. Trading with bots is an ethical issue. Each of us has to decide for ourselves whether or not we're comfortable trading with a bot.

-How do you feel about one-sided trading?
Nothing is inherently wrong with 1-sided trading. I could list at least 10 legit reasons to conduct a 1-sided trade, but I could also list at least 10 shady reasons to do it as well. I think Anet should write a program that flags 1-sided trades with certain conditions for review by a human. (Note: I did not say all 1 sided trades should be flagged. Only those that meet certain conditions)

-How do you feel in general knowing that all your trades are being monitored? Does it make you feel safe or uneasy? Why?
Safe. After all, those monitors are what made it possible to catch and ban the dupers so quickly and trace the loot thru to the dupers alt accounts. Also consider the following scenarios:

Scenario 1: I trade 10 ectos to Player X. Player X agrees to pay me 5k for the ectos. He puts 5k in the trade window and cancels trade. He apologizes saying he just realized he has no room in inventory. He runs to storage and again opens trade and puts up 5k. Again he cancels trade. He apologizes saying he hit the wrong button. Again he opens trade and puts up 5g. I accept the trade without carefully checking the window and I get scammed. I can report the player for scamming and Anet has the logs to verify my info.

Scenario 2: I want to buy a nice Chaos Axe. Someone in town approaches me and shows me a nice Req 10 Chaos Axe 15^50. I ask how much and he says he'll sell for 50k. I agree to the price and we make the trade. Later he whispers to me that he wants his axe back. He says a guildie just offered him 90k for it. I refuse and he says he'll report me for scamming if I don't return it.
He has a screenshot of our trade and he doctors it thru photoshop to make it appear that I only paid 50g for the axe. In this case, I'm very glad Anet has logs of the true trade.

Solas · Aug 17, 2007, 05:31 PM // 17:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amorfati87

Personally I think they should give you something, like maybe a free char slot AND an apology. And further, I think the free char slot money should come from the Anet Employee's pocket (the one that actually ok'd the wrongful ban).

yeah punish the company to be causcias, punish them from stopping a potential 1000 armbraces on the market.

fleshharvest · Aug 17, 2007, 08:58 PM // 20:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by lucifer_uk

Were you present for this trade of 34 bolts of linen?

Harsh truth - people can lie to try get themselves out of trouble.

If they are innocent I feel for them, but people haven't been banned unless they've been flagged for dealing in a sized amount of duped stuff. Whether that be from their own accounts or "gifts" from friends.

Response (GM Phields) 08/16/2007 11:45 AM
Hello,

You received 39 duplicated Victory Tokens for nothing in a trade. Your account has been unblocked and you should be able to log in. If you do anything similar with these duplicated items in the future, the account will be permanently closed.

Take care,
The Guild Wars Support Team

Yeah, mass trading ftw. Quite being such a delusional asshat. Innocent people got banned. Anet failed, deal with it. And no apology. I also sent response asking them why didn't the person who traded me these tokens get banned? Why did they ignore the 549 tokens I received from someone else right before for free? Also, what behavior sent up this red flag so I can avoid doing anything like it in the future.

Their response..... CLOSED TICKET. GG ANET!!! Also, I love how they refuse to put anything about bannings on their website. They know it's terrible PR 2 weeks before GW:EN comes out. God forbid they'd make Gaile do any actual work, she'd rather be on guru, getting into flame wars with me.

And to answer the questions: Yes, I'm paranoid as hell to trade with anyone, and refuse to do so until GW:EN is released.

Malus_Necro · Aug 17, 2007, 10:00 PM // 22:00

An Auction House like other MMORPG's would sort everything out as the items you'd be wanting to sell would be taken under Anets direct eyes and they'd be able to monitor everything being sold and it would be impossible to get people scamming. It would also bring the games economy closer to the players and better mae a better knowledge base for all. But this would cost them more (due to databases, maintenance and the game's server system) and would probably involve them considering somesort of monthly cost.

As far as I'm aware GW2 is gonna remain at no monthly costs, correct me if this is wrong, if so how will they be able to compare to the WoW's and the LotR's if they wont have the vast databases that they have which is one of the primary reason for the fees.

I'm expecting it could be similar to 9Dragons, and items will have to be purchased from an online shop to get maximum experience. If not I'm expecting some sort of fee.

t_the_nihilst · Aug 17, 2007, 10:14 PM // 22:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by fleshharvest

Response (GM Phields) 08/16/2007 11:45 AM
Hello,

You received 39 duplicated Victory Tokens for nothing in a trade. Your account has been unblocked and you should be able to log in. If you do anything similar with these duplicated items in the future, the account will be permanently closed.

Take care,
The Guild Wars Support Team

Yeah, mass trading ftw. Quite being such a delusional asshat. Innocent people got banned. Anet failed, deal with it. And no apology. I also sent response asking them why didn't the person who traded me these tokens get banned? Why did they ignore the 549 tokens I received from someone else right before for free? Also, what behavior sent up this red flag so I can avoid doing anything like it in the future.

Their response..... CLOSED TICKET. GG ANET!!! Also, I love how they refuse to put anything about bannings on their website. They know it's terrible PR 2 weeks before GW:EN comes out. God forbid they'd make Gaile do any actual work, she'd rather be on guru, getting into flame wars with me.

And to answer the questions: Yes, I'm paranoid as hell to trade with anyone, and refuse to do so until GW:EN is released.

We really need that statue we were talking about in out new guild hall, lol.
*pew pew!*

moonmonday · Aug 17, 2007, 10:19 PM // 22:19

Honestly I think that banning someone outright without warning is inexcusable, and it has made me reluctant to trade with anyone I don't personally know. While we do not indeed pay for playing this game, we do pay to buy it and we are supporting it by being present in the game.

The responsibility for maintaining the game lies with Anet, and the fact is that they are simply not doing a good enough job keeping bots out, and they are banning real people who often had absolutely no idea they had been traded duplicated items and so forth. If they really wanted to alert people, they could have easily added an amount of code to make any duplicated items show up as duplicated. Honestly, if they can detect them, they can add code that can do the same thing. There's no excuse for victimising people who are completely ignorant of any wrongdoing.

Furthermore, the 'economy' of this game is entirely imaginary. Personally I think some items have entered into the realm of the ridiculous, and after a point it stops being fun when the 'economy' becomes outrageously imbalanced. They are not doing a good job of keeping that up, either, and there are plenty of items that are just unfeasibly expensive, which never go down in price to any extent.

Causing the players to suffer for incompetence on the part of the administration is simply inexcusable, and there is absolutely no question of responsibility here. While it is awful for people to dupe items and have bots (and I have seen so many in my time playing), it's even more awful for the players to feel paranoid about trading with others because they don't want to be wrongly banned by incompetent administration. And yes, it is incompetence because this approach is so hamfisted and causes much more work than if they had done their jobs adequately and accounted for the fact that many people have no idea if they have duplicated items. It's more work to have to go back and undo things that you did without making sure.

And why don't they just remove the items from the game, if they know exactly what they are, how much of them they are, and where they came from? There are just far too many details about many of these bannings and issues that make it clear someone just wasn't doing their job at an acceptable level.

Personally I think the reluctance to trade with other players due to paranoia about banning hits the 'economy' much harder than a handful of people duplicating what is usually not even very rare items. 34 linen? Please. That's not going to throw a spanner into even the merchants' prices. I've had runs through the wilderness where I've had 15 linen drop from one monster for me. But people not being willing to trade with each other...now that will affect the economy, and sharply.

Sorry to have gone on so long, but I think this is an important issue that needs to be addressed. Speaking analytically, the problem of reluctance to trade -- which is widespread, in my experience and circle of friends -- is much more detrimental to the game's economy than random duplications. And yes, I am very worried that one trade for something completely pedestrian that I happened to need will somehow curse me. I shouldn't have to worry about that; the administration should find a better, more acceptable way to deal with these things that have come in and continue to come in under their radar. If they have the capability of finding them, they should apply that to preventing them instead of making innocent players suffer, and that's all there is to it.

lucifer_uk · Aug 17, 2007, 11:08 PM // 23:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by fleshharvest

You received 39 duplicated Victory Tokens for nothing in a trade

There you go. That is why your account was flagged. You could have just been a duper unloading gear on different accounts all they knew that is why you needed to be investigated.

VitisVinifera · Aug 17, 2007, 11:19 PM // 23:19

I have been more hesitant and leery about trading, and after reading this thread I'm even MORE hesitant. Banned for 39 victory tokens? Bolts of linen? This is getting out of hand (the bannings as well as the dupes). Both the overly zealous and unfair (and eventually overturned) bans AND the duping are hurting the game, and stigmatizing it. This is bad on both ends.

lucifer_uk · Aug 17, 2007, 11:23 PM // 23:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by VitisVinifera

I have been more hesitant and leery about trading, and after reading this thread I'm even MORE hesitant. Banned for 39 victory tokens? Bolts of linen? This is getting out of hand (the bannings as well as the dupes). Both the overly zealous and unfair (and eventually overturned) bans AND the duping are hurting the game, and stigmatizing it. This is bad on both ends.

Those "overly zealous and unfair" bans as you put it all included duped items, the bans were to give anet chance to examine whether the person knowingly or unknowingly exchanged those items whilst providing damage limitation to the economy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

Hey, all,

Yes, trading is just fine, now. We had several people working on the account investigations, but at this point we feel that the matter has been fully dealt with, and legitimate trading should be A-Ok.

Now, if someone sidles up to you in a dark alleyway and offers you an armbrace for the bargain basement price of 44 gold pieces, you might way to run in the opposite direction.

But seriously, unless we find another account that was involved in the actual duping, in the receipt of ridiculous amounts of items, or that was engaged in clearly bogus "trades," trading for items of all kinds is good to go now.

Now we have official word on this there isn't much point continuing this scaremongering thread unless someone can provide evidence hard or soft that it is currently unsafe to trade.

VitisVinifera · Aug 17, 2007, 11:27 PM // 23:27

lucifer, I appreciate you putting that here, but Gaile has already shown herself to be ignorant on certain occasions and incorrect on others (regarding the duping, hacking, and banning), and with GWEN about to launch, I'm not going to put myself at risk for a ban I can't see coming

lucifer_uk · Aug 17, 2007, 11:32 PM // 23:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by VitisVinifera

lucifer, I appreciate you putting that here, but Gaile has already shown herself to be ignorant on certain occasions and incorrect on others (regarding the duping, hacking, and banning), and with GWEN about to launch, I'm not going to put myself at risk for a ban I can't see coming

Then your welcome to miss out on the trading frenzy that will be GW:EN.
Most players have been and will continue to trade.
Anet banned all those involved in suspicous trading, those who were unwittingly involved have been cleared. All those that knew what they were doing are banned. The exploit has been removed so there are no new duped items currently on the market.

The OP's title subconsciously says it all:

Paranoid:
1. of, like, or suffering from paranoia.

Paranoia:
1. Psychiatry. a mental disorder characterized by systematized delusions and the projection of personal conflicts, which are ascribed to the supposed hostility of others, sometimes progressing to disturbances of consciousness and aggressive acts believed to be performed in self-defense or as a mission.
2. Baseless or excessive suspicion of the motives of others.
3. Extreme, irrational distrust of others.

VitisVinifera · Aug 17, 2007, 11:41 PM // 23:41

I will feel free trading GWEN items -- they will of course all be new, after the duping was closed.

Beyond that, my decisions are just how I perceive things, not a declaration or edict for everyone else to follow. I can't claim I know every detail about things, and don't have time to. I just have a lot to lose and want to play it on the conservative (paranoid perhaps) side.

lucifer_uk · Aug 17, 2007, 11:47 PM // 23:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by VitisVinifera

I will feel free trading GWEN items -- they will of course all be new, after the duping was closed.

Ok what if you get an initial rare perfect gold and someone offeres you 100k + xx ectos. Are you going to take it or live in fear that the ectos could be duped even though the automated banning sweep and the manual bans have finished?

Angelica · Aug 18, 2007, 12:10 AM // 00:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by MistressYichi

Its moreso a fear of transfering items between accounts or giving items to friends rather than trading. Trading items for gold/ectos/whatever still shows you an actual log of being active in a trade item for x. The problem and paranoia will come with services such as spider capping, running, or simple having a friend or guildmate transfer items or gold from one account to another. I have something like 200-300k on my second account that has been accumulated that i wanted to bring to my main account to have some cash to just blow on whatever (2nd acct is pvp account), but with the recent crackdown and heightened tensions, its got me a little curious and hesitant about it at the moment....

^^ You shouldn't be.

I have two accounts and almost every week I transfer items from one to the other and I had no problems.

Please people don't make me afraid to use the game.

I play to enjoy a few hours out of the reality of real life I don't need to be aggravated and stressed anymore.

I should stop reading these forums I get anxious and preoccupied!

VitisVinifera · Aug 18, 2007, 12:38 AM // 00:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by lucifer_uk

Ok what if you get an initial rare perfect gold and someone offeres you 100k + xx ectos. Are you going to take it or live in fear that the ectos could be duped even though the automated banning sweep and the manual bans have finished?

if someone is going to offer big $, they are probably an established trader. I'll look at their track record in the high-end forums and if it all looks cool, I'd sell it, that is, if I didn't want to keep it (I tend to keep the first of any rare skin perfect item I get, such as my 1st r9 Col Scim, 1st r9 Zod sword with inherent 15^50, etc).

that's not being paranoid, that's being smart, imo

Darkobra · Aug 18, 2007, 01:23 AM // 01:23

I just hope the Asura I bought for 3k for a friend today was legit. He was the only one in my guild without an Asura, I saw one going cheap so I bought him it. Now it's not a case of just ME being banned if it was really duplicated, but a case of HIM being banned too. But according to Gaile, everything is sorted, so I'm assuming I'm safe. But then again, 39 duplicated victory tokens... Ah well. Back to Elder Scrolls.

t_the_nihilst · Aug 18, 2007, 02:12 AM // 02:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by lucifer_uk

Now we have official word on this there isn't much point continuing this scaremongering thread unless someone can provide evidence hard or soft that it is currently unsafe to trade.

Yeah, because we all know how reliable Gaile's word is.
Didn't she initially say that the bannings were in the single digits?
Think about it. Has she in past been wrong about anything? Think real hard.

Get real, people! Use your common sense. Gaile Gray works for ANET/NSOFT and is trying to cover their behind. I know you all love GW, but don't follow them so blindly that you disregard any notion of wrong doing.

Just because something doesn't happen to you doesn't mean that it isn't happening. You may have never met a billionaire but that doesn't mean that Donald Trump is public invention.

But I suppose you naysayers won't believe unless it happens to you, will it?
Awareness is important in any community. I and my guild ARE NOT single-handedly trying to bring down Guild Wars. As a matter of fact, we aren't trying to bring it down at all. We love Guild Wars. Do we wish that they were more careful with how they conduct business? Indeed we do!

If you choose not to see past the nose on your face, then I feel sort of bad for you. Denying this problem will not prevent others from talking about it. I think if we are to truly get passed it the public first needs to BE AWARE of it through proper discussion like this.

$neekie · Aug 18, 2007, 09:19 AM // 09:19

k, probabely shouldent get in to this discusion. As i didnt even knew the armbraces excisted, before all the duping crap....

But 2 things @ t_the_nihilst: 1. You did get your account back so Anet does follow up and correct mistakes.

2. Shouldent you be blaming your guildleader and officers(wich you guys still call friends)?? They are the ones that put you in that position, they are the ones that risked your account. I would be pissed at them not Anet

Mzzls

lucifer_uk · Aug 18, 2007, 10:37 AM // 10:37

If anyone can provide hard (or even soft) evidence that trading is currently unsafe then I will gladly apologise and duly jump on the paranoia bandwagon.

Until then, stop scaremongering trading just because your account was temp banned for investigation after you dealt in duped goods unknowingly.

Your welcome to miss out on trading because of your pride but you will be the one missing out on an integral part of the playing experience.

The Herbalizer · Aug 18, 2007, 10:46 AM // 10:46

I have done a few big trades and no problems have occured. Same with tons of others I know. I would maybe just lay off trading rare limited mini pets for a while.