"Town Tokens"?

Right now we all know how many scammers there are profitteering off newbies in beacons, and part of the reason why this is the case is perhaps a run is not a tangible thing that can be traded in a trade window.

For all intents and purposes all the records that Anet will have on their systems will probably just show the customer paying 2 plat to the scammer at a certain time and location, and that's it.. not that there is anything conclusive or suspicious about that.

What I'd propose is, to have a new "town token" item, similar to the "Start sword" found at the ascalon merchant. The town token is free, and will be customised to the uid of the person buying it (ie the runner). At the start of the run, the runner will then exchange this town token to the customer for the said amount of gold. The town token will expire (perhaps change colour or something) when the customer enters the named town with the player for which the token is customised to.

I doubt it will be too hard to implement, and it will definitely cut down on running scams. Besides quests can probably be designed around it, like collecting all town tokens to gain a certain PvE rank for instance.

Please discuss.

Please don't raise issues like how running ruins the game yadda yadda. Many things ruin the game, running is not one of them.

how will this prevent scaming if the token is free...
what does it do, protect the money?
i dont get it.

So what if the customer doesn't enter the town, what happens then? He loses the money paid for the token? Or does the token just teleport a player to a town, if so, that'll just increase the problems.

/not signed

Many Scammers? I don't think there are many scamming forge runners. From my forge running experience it really isnt to profitable to scam. Currently runs go for about 3k, and in most cases people are required to pay 1.5-2k at snakes bend. If you make it to snakes you have completed the longest and hardest part of the run. From there on out the run is a piece of cake and a short one at that. For the amout of time it takes the remaining 1k or so is definitly worth it to finish the run. I dont reccommend it, but if a runner IS scamming, it would be the most profitable to leave after rancor...saving himself maybe 5 mins. From rancor its easy to find a free run to droks, meaning even the 'profitable' scammers arnt really screwing you over too badly. If they do scam at Snakes they are stupid because they could of gotten more money. So either way I dont see scamming as a big problem on forge runs making you're version of "town tokens" unneccisary.

My version of "Town tokens"
I think it would be cool to have a repetable quest that rewards "town tokens" that are 1 time uses that simply teleport you to a town. for example have a quest that involes you getting from beacons to droks, and the reward is a token to droks, that you could sell. this would take care of scamming imo, but would probly kill the running economy.

Mattjones, your version of the "Town token" wouldn't kill the running economy, it'd flat out replace it.

...but there's still something about this that just doesn't sit right with me. I don't like this idea at all, but I can't quite put my finger on why....

Nope, you guys misinterpreted it.

As of now what's a "running transaction" as perceived by the system? Nothing. It is simply the transfer of fees from the runee to the runner. Needless to say when the scammed player is trying to seek recourse by reporting the scammer, they'd have to take a bazillion screen shots.

Is that really necessarily?

What's going to happen with the town token is:

1) Runner picks up the token from say Drok's and Rankor. Mind you, these tokens are not meant to be gold sinks or anything. They are just tokens.
2) These tokens are customized to the runner's name
3) At the start of the run, the runner issues the tokens to the runee as part of the transaction
4) The tokens deactivate themselves with some form of indication when the runee enters the towns with the runner.

Addressing some earlier questions, "what if the runee doesn't enter the town?"

Let me turn it back to you, what if the runee quits after paying you 1/2 at snake's dance?

There is no problem.

I didn't know ANet wanted people to be run. [/sarcasm]

/No sign

Bleh Stupid noobies can found out the hard way like everyone else has once in their life

So your basicly saying that you got screwed in a scam so everyone else deserves to?

I still don't get that token idea, someone explain

Anet already has a "town token". Once you enter a town, it shows up on your map. You pay for it by getting to the town in the first place, usually by beating msisions, or exploring areas.

As bad as it is, running scamming isn't that bad. Its free money for the runner, and MOST of the time its a good ride for the Runee. I've made alot of Chars to 20 and didn't need to run.

It's a high risk for a high profit. Deal with the losses from risks and move on though missions if you really don't wana get run somewhere and scammed.