The Scam/Not a Scam debate storyline

[anonnn]

And you should learn to take a hint. If people liked your idea it would be discussed. Instead it's not and you keep trying to force it down people's throats at the solution. The more you try to do this, the more people are going to continue to ignore you.

 

It's not the 100% perfect solution, so move on.

 

You're wrong, and if you attempt an actual technical discussion then I can easily illustrate you as such. Or will you continue to be a coward and run with the confused momentum of pompous false diplomacy?

 

Your only reason is selfishness - you don't want any added inconvenience in the game even if it gets rid of the problem of people continuing to lose a fortune on GTN purchasing mistakes. You probably like the feeling of solidarity of agreement so you just go with whatever the larger group of people is claiming is true, without working the details out for yourself.

 

If someone loses 50M on the GTN for no reason other than they switched off the annoying Purchase Confirmation, then it seems quite OBVIOUS what the solution is. It's kind of comical actually that your attitude towards an involuntary Purchase Confirmation is the exact reason a lot of the big GTN mistakes were made in the first place. It's almost like I can blame YOU personally for all the past and future GTN purchase mistakes that constitute the entire problem.

 

How many days of this thread before you snap out of it and realize the reality of it? How much will it take for you to set aside consideration of yourself and realize that a SMALL amount of inconvenience is worth it, if it saves an endless number of GTN Buyers from experiencing the same devastation of losing millions of credits that others have already experienced?

[anonnn]

...

You seem to think 5 seconds won't be long. But having to count down 5 seconds for every large purchase I make, just to hit 'OK.' No thank you. I don't need your 'saving' if it makes shopping 'annoying.'

...

 

Would you prefer a delay of 4.5 seconds for that "OK" button in the Purchase Confirmation to finally enable?

[Reno_Tarshil]

You're wrong, and if you attempt an actual technical discussion then I can easily illustrate you as such. Or will you continue to be a coward and run with the confused momentum of pompous false diplomacy?

 

Your only reason is selfishness - you don't want any added inconvenience in the game even if it gets rid of the problem of people continuing to lose a fortune on GTN purchasing mistakes. You probably like the feeling of solidarity of agreement so you just go with whatever the larger group of people is claiming is true, without working the details out for yourself.

 

If someone loses 50M on the GTN for no reason other than they switched off the annoying Purchase Confirmation, then it seems quite OBVIOUS what the solution is. It's kind of comical actually that your attitude towards an involuntary Purchase Confirmation is the exact reason a lot of the big GTN mistakes were made in the first place. It's almost like I can blame YOU personally for all the past and future GTN purchase mistakes that constitute the entire problem.

 

How many days of this thread before you snap out of it and realize the reality of it? How much will it take for you to set aside consideration of yourself and realize that a SMALL amount of inconvenience is worth it, if it saves an endless number of GTN Buyers from experiencing the same devastation of losing millions of credits that others have already experienced?

 

There are at least 2 other solutions that are much more effective and not inconvenient to the user compared to your solution.

 

Auto set to lowest to highest price when you search.

 

and

 

Removing decimals.

 

Both of those would be much more effective at providing "buyer protection" without causing inconvenience than your silly "Look at my big flashy colors!" pop-ups, that players ignore in-game already.

[thewitchdoctor]

Would you prefer a delay of 4.5 seconds for that "OK" button in the Purchase Confirmation to finally enable?

 

No.

 

I don't want ANY delay. I do not want ANY *mandatory* dialogue box. I do not want to feel babysat because a few people don't pay attention. And that is what your solution does.

 

If there must be a change: remove decimals. That is what the 'scam' is, right? Manipulation of the decimal to make inattentive people think it is a different number? Remove the decimal and voila: no more 'scam.'

[LordArtemis]

There are at least 2 other solutions that are much more effective and not inconvenient to the user compared to your solution.

 

Auto set to lowest to highest price when you search.

 

and

 

Removing decimals.

 

Both of those would be much more effective at providing "buyer protection" without causing inconvenience than your silly "Look at my big flashy colors!" pop-ups, that players ignore in-game already.

 

Not to mention making purchases with a mule that only carries 50k at a time. That is what I do to prevent mistakes...When I have to make a large purchase I mail the exact amount to my purchase mule.

[thewitchdoctor]

If someone loses 50M on the GTN for no reason other than they switched off the annoying Purchase Confirmation, then it seems quite OBVIOUS what the solution is.

 

No. No, if someone lost 50 million credits for no other reason that they turned off the annoying Purchase Confirmation, then it is darn well obvious that forcing a mandatory Purchase Confirmation on everyone else is NOT the solution.

[Knorlac]

There are at least 2 other solutions that are much more effective and not inconvenient to the user compared to your solution.

 

Auto set to lowest to highest price when you search.

 

and

 

Removing decimals.

 

Both of those would be much more effective at providing "buyer protection" without causing inconvenience than your silly "Look at my big flashy colors!" pop-ups, that players ignore in-game already.

 

It doesn't happe too often, but I find myself in agreement with you.

 

This would be my preferred solution as well. Having a mandatory dialogue box with a delay of multiple seconds is just too much of an inconvenience IMO. Removing decimals and sorting by lowest price as a default on the other hand wouldn't only serve as an added layer of buyer protection, but would be convenient for everyone via establishing a cleaner GTN display and saving time on clicking the sort options.

[thewitchdoctor]

... serve as an added layer of buyer protection

 

But it also positively sidesteps the debate on whether or not Bioware even should 'protect the buyer.' (I, for one, say that other than providing a secure trade methodology, it is up to the buyer to take care of themself. I do not want Bioware deciding what is or is not 'safe' for me.)

[Heal-To-Full]

A forced pop-up on every purchase - even every large purchase - is very annoying.

These forced pop-ups are why people get caught in the first place: after your 100,000th GTN deal, you get used to ignoring it as part of the routine.

 

A better option, and one taken directly from real-life, would be presenting a "check out" spreadsheet upon exiting the GTN. Or even without exiting - just a counter of how much you've spent on a big button saying "check out".

 

No pop-ups on purchases.

No mandatory delays.

But when you click the "check out" button, a small spreadsheet is presented, on which you can cancel any purchase or click "confirm" for all, upon which they get mailed to you. And preferably in a single mail (up to 8 items of course), not a dozen single-item mails.

 

As to what happens to the item in the meantime... Most listings will sit there forever, if you're worried about someone else snatching it, you can always click "checkout" right away. That's two buttons (checkout, confirm) instead of one, but two buttons for many purchases, not one for each purchase.

Edited November 14, 2014 by Heal-To-Full

[eartharioch]

Then put your money where your mouth is. Make a technical discussion of it rather than just make empty statements.

 

What EXACTLY is deficient about the solution I'm proposing? Because from where I'm looking, an enhanced Purchase Confirmation will be there protecting a GTN Buyer during EVERY large purchase they make. The person who lost 5M credits? Protected. The person who lost 50M credits? Protected.

 

And that's not a guess.

 

And the person who intentionally spent 5 credits on a piece of Desh? Protected. Even though he didn't need to be.

[thewitchdoctor]

A better option, and one taken directly from real-life, would be presenting a "checkout" spreadsheet upon exiting the GTN. Or even without exiting - just a counter of how much you've spent on a big button saying "check out".

 

No pop-ups on purchases at all. But when you click the "check out" button, a small spreadsheet is presented, on which you can cancel any purchase or click "confirm" for all, upon which they get mailed to you. And preferably in a single mail (up to 8 items of course), not a dozen single-item mails.

 

How is that different though? Isn't it still another step between my selecting and receiving? It is interesting, though.

 

I wonder if a 'modern' GTN wouldn't have a completely different interface? So, I search for items either by type or name and then instead of a list of all the results, I just get the cheapest result? Perhaps I also input quantity? Perhaps then selling an item is less a 'fire and forget' posting but rather a 'I have [X] that I can supply for [Y]?'

Edited November 14, 2014 by thewitchdoctor

[thewitchdoctor]

Hmmm. And maybe sellers have a tab that they can sort by to see what their item is trending for. Then they can input their product for a known value. And then instead of depositing the item into the GTN it is kept in a 'legacy' storage that we all (would in this scenario) have and the quantity is placed into an escrow so it cannot be used or otherwise disposed of.

 

Eh, rambling.

Edited November 14, 2014 by thewitchdoctor

[anonnn]

...I don't want ANY delay. I do not want ANY *mandatory* dialogue box. I do not want to feel babysat because a few people don't pay attention. And that is what your solution does.

 

If there must be a change: remove decimals. That is what the 'scam' is, right? Manipulation of the decimal to make inattentive people think it is a different number? Remove the decimal and voila: no more 'scam.'

 

When you use the term "babysat" I see that as a positive sign - the involuntary Purchase Confirmation with the delay equals due diligence as far as GTN buyer protection is concerned. The only scams I can think of that wouldn't be defeated by an involuntary 250k-triggered Purchase Confirmation with 5-second delay and brightly-colored alert text is scams for under 250K.

 

Removing decimals is definitely needed, and is indeed likely to defeat a certain portion of the possible pricing scams. However there's at least 1 other scam I'm aware of, and removing decimals definitely doesn't help with that, and sorting doesn't help with it either. There's also simple mis-clicks on the wrong "Buy" button that should genuinely be prevented the same as any other potentially mistaken purchase.

 

Here's one more purchase mistake that needs to be factored in. Consider ANY shopper just buying small stacks of somewhat rare materials at normal prices of perhaps 15K CPU who buys several small stacks of 4 at 60K each and then accidentally clicks a full stack of 99 units which would deplete their entire saved credits of 1.5M. Even though the full stack of 99 was priced at the exact same CPU as the smaller stacks, don't you think buyers should be protected from mistaken purchases such as that? Materials will always be bought with the list sorted by lowest CPU first... so a 250K involuntary Purchase Confirmation is literally the ONLY thing that could protect a buyer in that situation. "Pay Attention" is not an acceptable solution for any of the possible purchasing mistakes.

[anonnn]

No. No, if someone lost 50 million credits for no other reason that they turned off the annoying Purchase Confirmation, then it is darn well obvious that forcing a mandatory Purchase Confirmation on everyone else is NOT the solution.

 

That is some seriously dizzying logic... if we had a list of all the known mistaken GTN purchases that were more than 1M we could quantify it a little better.

 

Why would the game not force a Purchase Confirmation for a purchase as gigantic as 50M? If you ask me that's ridiculous lol

[Knorlac]

But it also positively sidesteps the debate on whether or not Bioware even should 'protect the buyer.' (I, for one, say that other than providing a secure trade methodology, it is up to the buyer to take care of themself. I do not want Bioware deciding what is or is not 'safe' for me.)

 

Well, the proposed changes should be not too hard or time consuming to implement, as they would rather be changes to the already existing system than new additions. Fact is, that GTN mistakes of vast magnitudes do happen and they negatively impact paying customers who might even stop playing after loosing all of their earnings.

 

So it might make sense for BW to alleviate said problems without even having to restrict players from posting items for whatever price they see fit. From a personal standpoint I'm in favour of implementing such protection as long as it doesn't take away an unreasonable amount of dev-time, which doesn't seem to be the case and doesn't create an unreasonable inconvenience for the people who don't care about added protection, which also doesn't seem to be the case.

 

While the fault for the mistakes lies almost entirely with the buyer, I don't wish it happening to anybody and I do frown upon the "scammers", to say the least and would like to see their abillity to continue their practises reduced to an absolute minimum.

Edited November 14, 2014 by Knorlac

[thewitchdoctor]

When you use the term "babysat" I see that as a positive sign

 

I fundamentally disagree with you on this point. It is not Bioware's duty to make sure that there is no possible harm for you on the GTN.

 

You may as well just make the GTN a vendor. That is the only way to ensure that your buyer can come to no harm.

[thewitchdoctor]

That is some seriously dizzying logic... if we had a list of all the known mistaken GTN purchases that were more than 1M we could quantify it a little better.

 

Why would the game not force a Purchase Confirmation for a purchase as gigantic as 50M? If you ask me that's ridiculous lol

 

I quoted you nearly verbatim. You are right, I find your logic dizzying.

 

We have what you want already. An annoying (your words!) Purchase Confirmation box. On every purchase! 50 million credits or 5 credits. And guess what: it is so bloody annoying that people, including your hypothetical buyer that needs to be 'protected' from himself, has already turned it off. So your solution is to force an even more annoying Purchase Confirmation on everyone.

 

That is dizzying logic.

[thewitchdoctor]

Well, the proposed changes should be not too hard or time consuming to implement ...

 

If time is going to be spent, then don't bandaid fix some 'problem.' Make the GTN into the best possible GTN it could be. That I could get behind.

 

A half-arsed measure to babysit players that already don't take care of themselves? Nah.

 

A genuinely first-rate GTN to highlight what Bioware can do? Sure!

[anonnn]

...

These forced pop-ups are why people get caught in the first place: after your 100,000th GTN deal, you get used to ignoring it as part of the routine.

....

 

Want to hear something REALLY weird? While working out the details of an improved Purchase Confirmation feature, I realized that if there's no brightly-colored text for larger purchases, a GTN buyer would be MORE protected if they switched off the Purchase Confirmation in Preferences. This is because switching it off in Preferences would only switch it off for purchases under 250K, and at that point you'd ONLY get a popup for purchases that are 250K or more. So the popup would be an automatic signal that you're buying something for 250K+ and if you weren't expecting it was that expensive of an item then it sure would get your attention.

 

This dynamic is the exact reason why the colored text for the price in the Purchase Confirmation is important. Because if any color shows up in the Purchase Confirmation when it pops up, the buyer won't be able to mistake it for the regular every-day Purchase Confirmation that has only black and white.

Edited November 14, 2014 by anonnn

[thewitchdoctor]

While working out the details ...

 

Sorry, it is still an annoying mandatory pop-up.

 

It can flash neon and sing a pretty song ... it is still an annoying mandatory pop-up.

[anonnn]

Sorry, it is still an annoying mandatory pop-up.

 

It can flash neon and sing a pretty song ... it is still an annoying mandatory pop-up.

 

OOOO. Audio alerts. I hadn't even thought of that yet. Wow you are good . . . holy sh(*@#@

.

.

No seriously! With good audio cues the delay on the "OK" button in the Purchase Confirmation could probably be reduced to about 3 seconds and still be highly effective...

Edited November 14, 2014 by anonnn

[thewitchdoctor]

OOOO. Audio alerts. I hadn't even thought of that yet. Wow you are good . . . holy sh(*@#@

.

.

No seriously! With good audio cues the delay on the "OK" button in the Purchase Confirmation could probably be reduced to about 3 seconds and still be highly effective...

 

OK, thanks for the trolling. Lord Artemis, I leave this wonderful thread to you.

[anonnn]

OK, thanks for the trolling. Lord Artemis, I leave this wonderful thread to you.

 

lol hmm

[azudelphi]

If time is going to be spent, then don't bandaid fix some 'problem.' Make the GTN into the best possible GTN it could be. That I could get behind.

 

A half-arsed measure to babysit players that already don't take care of themselves? Nah.

 

A genuinely first-rate GTN to highlight what Bioware can do? Sure!

 

I am going to, I think, agree and disagree at the same time? I don't know for sure.

 

My stance would be, if this particular issue can be put to rest using a minimal couple of changes that don't require development, strictly implementation... then those changes should be made.

 

Basically, in my mind, 3-4 changes and the GTN is slightly improved and from a buyer's protection standpoint, the predatory posts would disappear:

- Unified decimal formatting (whether it is 2 places or 0 places, as long as the decimal point is aligned)

- Text justification (again, aligning the decimal point)

- Changing the default sorting from most recent (current setting) to lowest total price

 

You do the first two and the order of magnitude of the price and price per unit is more clearly distinguishable. You do the third one and predatory posts should never see the first page of search results unless the market is bone dry.

 

Functionality of the GTN is left untouched. No additional inconvenience to players. Predatory posters take a hit. Time required to implement these changes should be minimal.

 

All objectives are satisfied.

 

Note: I am not protecting players from mistakes through these changes. I couldn't disagree more with Anonnn that the objective needs to make it so a fool is never parted with his credits. I do believe that there are consequences to being too hasty and a lack of neural activity. I do not feel Bioware has a duty to protect a buyer from themselves, especially when doing so creates a "YOU'RE THE ONE MILLIONTH VISITOR TO THIS SITE!" style annoying pop-up.

Edited November 14, 2014 by azudelphi

[LyraineAlei]

You just lost ALL credibility . . .

S/he lost all credibility to you.

 

The other solutions don't provide comprehensive buyer protection, is the point. Unless you're proposing a solution based on improving the existing Purchase Confirmation, you're just pushing a partial solution that's only going to protect buyers from a fraction of the GTN purchase mistakes they might make. Basically you're asking everyone to jump out of an airplane with half a parachute.

 

Not that display enhancements to the GTN search results won't help, sure it will. But you're suggesting scrapping the perfect solution to buyer protection just to suit your own minor convenience. When did you become so damned selfish?

 

 

Allow me to take your whole post to me apart, and respond to you whole post, even though you refuse to respond to the whole post of anyone else.

 

Jumping out of a plane with half a parachute will cause death. Or serious injury. Losing tons of credits with only cause a few moments of annoyance, maybe rage. No foul damage has been done to you character other than a hit to the wallet.

 

Now, you want hand-holding, Mama hugs, "It's okay baby, no big meanie seller's gonna hurt you," flashing lights, sounds and general inconvenience.

 

The whole issue you're tackling is that they turn off the popup or ignore it. Let me as you, do you click or even look at the banners that announce you as the "1,000,000th visitor" and to "click here for your grand prize!" or do you just ignore it because it is such an eyesore no one really even bothers with?

 

No.

 

People see the popup so often they ignore it/turn it off? And your solution only works if everyone is willing to put up with it. So you think bright colors will make people pay attention? News Flash, if it did we'd all be hitting those "1,000,000th visitor" banners. News Flash, highlighting important things to pay attention to only works for some people. News Flash, bright colors don't work for everyone, as I am evidence of, since I have to keep rereading your posts after realizing I skipped something. News Flash, you aren't even reading this now are you because I have a big wall of red text! News Flash if you add sounds, people aren't going to listen; do you know how many people just turn off their sound so they can use Treek without bleeding ears?

 

The whole issue most of us are dealing with are that most people don't want more popups, and ignore them, so most of us are trying to armchair develop ways to use the existing tools to make that popup irrelevant.

 

Adding things like colors will add more development time to put. I put in my favorite as an example, where they only need to change the already-in-place autosort value from whatever numbers are for [most recent] to the values for [lowest price] without requiring us to hit the sort button in the first place.

 

I am selfish? Very well, yes, in your opinion . Because I, and many others like me, already use the tools available to avoid being price gouged.

 

In my opinion, your "buyer protection" plan is not perfect because le gasp! People actually ignore popups already and no bright colors, sounds or timers will change that! And you insisting that we're all selfish for not liking your idea, is selfish because you want those of us who know how to search for things on our own, to waste our time with your popups design.

 

There needs to be a balance between hand-holding and convenience. Go to a big store, how many of those customers are using the self-checkouts, and how many are using the checkout stands with cashiers? How many of those people get into the shortest possible line they see?

 

Think once on your answer to each. Think again, to quote your own signature.

 

Care to respond to a whole post, or are you just going to attack a snippet because you can't attack, or won't attack, the rest because it is logical and sound reasoning for why your plan doesn't work.

 

Edit: Colors added for the quoted person's benefit since s/he seems to use colors to help make his/her points attention getting.

Edited November 14, 2014 by LyraineAlei