The Scam/Not a Scam debate storyline

[Orizuru]

A simple algorithm could easily narrow 95% of the scams, if not more.

 

And how many listings would I have to create at 10% of the market value before that algorithm started thinking the people who are listing the same item at market value are trying to scam buyers?

 

How long before others crack the algorithm and begin using it to destroy the market value for goods to the point where the system only allows items to be listed at a prices that force sellers to take a loss?

Edited November 12, 2014 by Orizuru

[Reno_Tarshil]

True free markets are overrated.

 

Point is I should be able to list an item at w/e price I want.

[azudelphi]

And how many listings would I have to create at 10% of the market value before that algorithm started thinking the people who are listing the same item at market value are trying to scam buyers?

 

How long before others crack the algorithm and begin using it to destroy the market value for goods to the point where the system only allows items to be listed at a prices that force sellers to take a loss?

 

This is exactly why no algorithm should be implemented.

 

UI options for the GTN are the maximum that should be done.

[Vandicus]

True free markets are overrated.

 

^QFT

 

Additionally, blacklisting, or as we call it in MMOs, name and shaming isn't allowed, so we could hardly consider this to be a true free market.

 

Blacklisting is a fundamental practice for a true free market(which is why we use basic regulations instead as a more effective filter).

 

Funnily enough, most free market advocates aren't a huge fan of unions, despite unions typically representing the same kind of abuse of market power as monopolies or monopsonies(which are much more natural in a completely free market).

Edited November 12, 2014 by Vandicus

[LyraineAlei]

You're forgetting the detail that the Purchase Confirmation would only be forced to popup when the purchase is 1M credits or more. Though, 1M credits is probably a bit high of a trigger, maybe 500K is a better trigger level. I don't know about you, but I rarely buy anything for more than 500K.

 

And I didn't spell out the details completely, but I think it would make sense for purchases below the lowest 100K trigger point (the yellow-highlighted price) to not have the 5-second delay.

 

If you don't buy anything more than 500,000 credits often, then filter them out using the max price filter. The pop up, as your suggestion would have it, becomes irrelevant and would still not solve the problem since people would still not read the total price still lose tons of credits to their error.

 

Forcing the popup is sit around for five seconds every time I make a large purchase, would make me less likely to buy anything.

 

The problem I think we're facing here in the suggestions for how to solve the buyer from error, is balancing "hand-holding" with "not holding everyone's hand even if they don't need it".

 

Buyer protection, to use your terms, must be balanced with convenience. That is why the current popup can be disabled, to balance out convenience (just speed clicking) with the closest thing we are ever going to have to a return policy (the popup).

 

From my interpretation of Eric's post, he's said : " You have the filters, you have the sorting methods, and you have a popup. If you don't use them, we can't do anything about it. We'll see if anything can be, or will be, added soon™."

 

Does not sound like "Popup must be improved! All must sit and stare at the popup! Colors!"

[BuriDogshin]

Point is I should be able to list an item at w/e price I want.

Agreed. For example, I have on occasion listed items at 99,999,999 credits, specifically to reduce the odds that someone else would accidentally pay an outrageous amount for an item. No one has ever bought one of my "eight nines" items, probably because few people have that much credit on one toon.

 

If anyone ever does buy one, I'll give them their money back minus the 6% GTN fee, in exchange for whatever they bought. Why? Because to a large extent, we can be who we want to be in a video game to a greater degree than we can in real life, and I don't want to be someone who tries to screw people over by setting them up to make mistakes. Obviously, other people do want to be that kind of person: a "GTN griefer" as it where. I figure they are just as honorable and trustworthy -- that is, not at all -- in real life.

Edited November 12, 2014 by BuriDogshin

[Banthabreeder]

I thought this subject has been answered already by bioware.

 

TAKE YOUR TIME

 

Nuff said. end topic. move on.

[LyraineAlei]

I thought this subject has been answered already by bioware.

 

TAKE YOUR TIME

 

Nuff said. end topic. move on.

 

That part of the topic has ended. Now we're generating thoughts on ways to help those impatient buyers who foolishly auto-click without reading.

[Reno_Tarshil]

That part of the topic has ended. Now we're generating thoughts on ways to help those impatient buyers who foolishly auto-click without reading.

 

Technically telling impatient people to be patient is helping.

[robertthebard]

I thought this subject has been answered already by bioware.

 

TAKE YOUR TIME

 

Nuff said. end topic. move on.

 

It has been answered by BioWare, the answer was "not a scam, but I'll forward this to see what can be done about it". Now we're discussing the "what can be done about it" part. If something about that bothers you, I'd have to ask: Why?

[LyraineAlei]

Technically telling impatient people to be patient is helping.

 

But those impatient buyers are too impatient to listen. *shakes head* Today's world of instant gratification leads to so many problems. Not that I'm immune to it.

[TUXs]

The only clear solution is to be careful and pay attention to what you are buying. Some UI improvements would help. Some QoL improvements would help as well, but until players take responsibility for using the tools they are given in a manner that is effective and efficient, then the problem will continue to remain an issue.

For now, you're correct...but a better UI would make a world of difference. I'm not trying to pass blame for those who made mistakes, I'm advocating for it to be more difficult for those easy mistakes to happen. That all starts with the UI imo.

[dscount]

For now, you're correct...but a better UI would make a world of difference. I'm not trying to pass blame for those who made mistakes, I'm advocating for it to be more difficult for those easy mistakes to happen. That all starts with the UI imo.

 

AGREE with TUX's on this one.

 

Fix the UI issue and this problem goes away. Yes we have a shiny button, yes we have scumbags playing MMO's (Who wudda thunk it...), but still a QOL improvement that needs to be made here. Fix the FIRST Sort filter.

[LordArtemis]

I'm surprised you don't support (10), since that is just asking for BW to display numbers in the standard format that everybody dealing with money has been using for hundreds of years and requires the least effort (it should be just changing one or two characters in one line of code).

 

Also, you didn't mention my variant one (1)/(2), which was that listings from people on the ignore list would still be shown, but they would be grayed out and have the purchase button disabled (being modified to warn that you are purchasing from an ignored seller or prompting you to remove seller from ignore list would be acceptable, but just disabling is probably easier). It's not a trivial difference -- I don't support (1) because even if I wish to choose not to do business with certain sellers, I don't want to lose the ability to see what they are doing in my markets of interest. Personally, I don't see the need for a "favorite sellers" indicator like you want in (2), although it wouldn't bug me if BW added it, but I'd rather leave their listings (and the "ignored" sellers' listings) where they lie in the sort order. An "only show favorites" option would be ok, as long as the ability to see the listings relative to other listings is preserved. If the prices are close, you should still see your favorite sellers, but if the prices aren't close, how much do you really like other sellers?

 

 

EDIT: Also, you didn't mention:

o Changing the current Pop-Up option from a check box (so, "always on" or "always off") to a "slider" (so popping whenever the [total] price is over a given value). A value of '0' would retain the current "always on" behavior, but if users can control the degree of risk they want to accept, they should in theory be less likely to automatically hit 'ok', and thus the Pop-Up would be more effective. Also, should be easy to program.

 

o Adding a second Pop-Up trigger (still one box) with a slider (as above), but for the price-per-unit instead of the total price. To be useful, this trigger should only be applied to stackable items (i.e., ones where the price-per-unit and total price could be different).

 

Thank you for the comment earth, your right, I should support 10 as well.

 

Let me look over your other suggestions and add them to the list. I will do so later. Thanks.

 

I would also like to add that I do not support the idea of an algorithm, only because I think this MIGHT effect legitimate sellers. That said, I do support the idea of being able to mark "bad sellers" myself, for my eyes only, in the GTN interface so I can sort them to the bottom of every search.

 

That still allows me to see their sales, if they change their ways.

Edited November 12, 2014 by LordArtemis

[anonnn]

If you don't buy anything more than 500,000 credits often, then filter them out using the max price filter.

 

The only reliable buyer protection is automatic buyer protection. If it requires the player to elect to participate in it, it doesn't equal buyer protection, then it's merely a tool that's available that happens to support something that a buyer COULD use to protect themselves in some percentage of possible buying mistakes. Since some of the buying mistakes involve the player clicking on a "Buy" button that's either the wrong item entirely, or is an item within a series of items they're buying, the only logical place to put the enhanced buyer protection is an enhanced Purchase Confirmation.

 

The objective can only be to protect the buyers in the situations where buying errors are occurring. This means ignoring the player-elective tools that require a choice to participate in the self-protection procedure.

 

The pop up, as your suggestion would have it, becomes irrelevant and would still not solve the problem since people would still not read the total price still lose tons of credits to their error.

 

You're just failing to imagine the flow of the purchase process. As an example, suppose someone makes a series of purchases that they think are all stacks of 2 units of rare materials at 15,000 CPU and it turns out the 10th one they buy in the list was a maximum stack at a total price of 1,485,000 credits. The Purchase Confirmation would forcibly pop up (even if it's disabled in Preferences) with the price in bright orange text, and the "OK" button would only become enabled after 5 seconds. There's close to a 100% probability that the player is going to take note of this bright orange text and that they can't click the "OK" button because it's grayed out. So they're going to glance at the price to see what it really is, because this is an unexpected scenario for a 30K purchase and the bright color is indicative of an alert situation. . . DING! ...crisis averted and their 1.5M credits they've saved up doesn't dwindle to a mere 15K in that moment. Claiming that a player can ignore bright orange text in a non-dismissible popup is a little suspicious.

 

Most buying errors will be averted by just the 5-second Purchase Confirmation with the color-coded price. So you calling it irrelevant brings your point of view into question.

 

Forcing the popup is sit around for five seconds every time I make a large purchase, would make me less likely to buy anything.

...

 

...perhaps a forced popup duration of 4.5 seconds is preferable?

.

Edited November 12, 2014 by anonnn

[LordArtemis]

Technically telling impatient people to be patient is helping.

 

So is telling a drowning person to swim

[Orizuru]

For now, you're correct...but a better UI would make a world of difference. I'm not trying to pass blame for those who made mistakes, I'm advocating for it to be more difficult for those easy mistakes to happen. That all starts with the UI imo.

 

I agree that improving the UI would reduce the number of occurrences, but I doubt it would remove the possibility entirely. You can only fool-proof a system so much before the system produces a better fool.

 

Even the most thoughtfully designed UI can be used incorrectly when people become complacent and inattentive to how they are using it.

[azudelphi]

The only reliable buyer protection is automatic buyer protection. /snip

 

Most buying errors will be averted by just the 5-second Purchase Confirmation with the color-coded price. So you calling it irrelevant brings your point of view into question.

 

...perhaps a forced popup duration of 4.5 seconds is preferable?

.

 

Formatting / UI options for the current GTN seem to be the most popular and widely approved methods of potentially reducing these problems while minimizing frustration.

 

LordArtemis has a fantastic list of changes. Half of which are sorting / format changes which require little to no system overhaul. The majority of which would leave the GTN functionality the same as it is now, if not a tad more versatile thanks to more options.

 

The forced duration pop-up window is not necessary though.

 

I agree that improving the UI would reduce the number of occurrences, but I doubt it would remove the possibility entirely. You can only fool-proof a system so much before the system produces a better fool.

 

Even the most thoughtfully designed UI can be used incorrectly when people become complacent and inattentive to how they are using it.

 

Agreed. That being said having seen most of LordArtemis's list, I do think that if 4 or 5 of the formatting changes were made, the people who make mistakes would gain far less community sympathy and this issue would go away.

Edited November 12, 2014 by azudelphi

[TUXs]

I agree that improving the UI would reduce the number of occurrences, but I doubt it would remove the possibility entirely. You can only fool-proof a system so much before the system produces a better fool.

 

Even the most thoughtfully designed UI can be used incorrectly when people become complacent and inattentive to how they are using it.

We agree. I'm not trying to make it "impossible" to screw up, but who hasn't sorted by unit twice and went "huh?" as you almost click the buy button? The UI needs work...it's not "terrible", but a few tiny adjustments and it'd be a HUGE improvement.

[LyraineAlei]

Formatting / UI options for the current GTN seem to be the most popular and widely approved methods of potentially reducing these problems while minimizing frustration.

 

 

 

Agreed. That being said having seen most of LordArtemis's list, I do think that if 4 or 5 of the formatting changes were made, the people who make mistakes would gain far less community sympathy and this issue would go away.

 

LordArtemis has a fantastic list of changes. Half of which are sorting / format changes which require little to no system overhaul. The majority of which would leave the GTN functionality the same as it is now, if not a tad more versatile thanks to more options.

 

The forced duration pop-up window is not necessary though.

 

^ A far eloquent way of saying what I was going to, but my words would have been less kind.

[LordArtemis]

Exactly, You can NOT protect sellers and buyers from themselves. They will ALWAYS find new ways to make mistakes.

 

That does not mean that improvements can not or should not be made, but they should not be made ONLY for the sake of protecting sellers or buyers IMO.

 

Instead, we should look at the overall merit of every suggestion, and whether or not it would benefit ALL players, sellers and buyers, as a convenience feature.

 

I think most of the suggestions made in this thread (a few I have to add to my list that I missed) are worthy of consideration. Only a few should be flat out rejected IMO.

 

I do not support ANY suggestion that punishes sellers or buyers directly OR controls the market. I would prefer to control the market by making choices as to whom I wish to give my business.

[LordArtemis]

Formatting / UI options for the current GTN seem to be the most popular and widely approved methods of potentially reducing these problems while minimizing frustration.

 

LordArtemis has a fantastic list of changes. Half of which are sorting / format changes which require little to no system overhaul. The majority of which would leave the GTN functionality the same as it is now, if not a tad more versatile thanks to more options.

 

The forced duration pop-up window is not necessary though.

 

 

 

Agreed. That being said having seen most of LordArtemis's list, I do think that if 4 or 5 of the formatting changes were made, the people who make mistakes would gain far less community sympathy and this issue would go away.

 

Thanks, but note that I am only responsible for one suggestion on that list. Many folks contributed to it...I just wanted to make that clear.

 

I compiled it for the sake of discussion.

 

I agree, I do not think the purchase delay thing is a universal QoL improvement. Therefore I do not support it.

[azudelphi]

^ A far eloquent way of saying what I was going to, but my words would have been less kind.

 

Well, aside from the fact I realized I inserted the quote at the wrong spot... the flow is a tad off, lol.

 

Thanks, but note that I am only responsible for one suggestion on that list. Many folks contributed to it...I just wanted to make that clear.

 

I compiled it for the sake of discussion.

 

I agree, I do not think the purchase delay thing is a universal QoL improvement. Therefore I do not support it.

 

Well, I didn't mean to imply I was giving credit for all suggestions to you, but much of the credit goes to you for the compiling and tracking of it. Kudos to you for that!

 

Edit: And good job page 140 of this thread for being one of the more positive pages in this thread, haha. Don't screw it up posts #1399 and #1400!

 

Bonus Edit: Well done LordArtemis and TUXs for keeping this page clear

Edited November 12, 2014 by azudelphi

[LordArtemis]

Well, aside from the fact I realized I inserted the quote at the wrong spot... the flow is a tad off, lol.

 

 

 

Well, I didn't mean to imply I was giving credit for all suggestions to you, but much of the credit goes to you for the compiling and tracking of it. Kudos to you for that!

 

Thank you for that. I felt it was the only way to move forward...and I think we are doing that.

[TUXs]

Thanks, but note that I am only responsible for one suggestion on that list. Many folks contributed to it...I just wanted to make that clear.

 

I compiled it for the sake of discussion.

 

I agree, I do not think the purchase delay thing is a universal QoL improvement. Therefore I do not support it.

 

Whatever...don't be so humble You do a great job of taking on these ridiculous threads and trying to come up with a summary that keeps us on topic, working towards a solution, rather than devolving into a debate about who's "to blame"...I don't say it enough, but I appreciate your topic neutrality in things like this