The Scam/Not a Scam debate storyline

[LordArtemis]

Yes, I think a mandatory pop up would not be received well by the playerbase. Though it certainly might mitigate the chance to make a mistake when making a purchase the best, frankly there are all kinds of draconian measures that could be put in place to do so, including and up to price caps and restriction from using the GTN at all.

 

I don't see adding in time mechanics as something that would go over well. I also do not think those kind of mistakes, or the prevention of them is of paramount importance.

 

Instead, it is better to look at improvements to the GTN. Ones that are most likely to be welcomed by the playerbase that will improve the buying and selling experience, and through efficiency reduce the kinds of annoyances that occur with using the system, accidental purchase perhaps being one of them.

[anonnn]

...

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.

...

 

You got sort of confused in the stampede ... the design of my solution is to only force the Purchase Confirmation to pop up when the price about to be paid is 250K or higher. For purchases less than 250K, the Purchase Confirmation would still pop up (unless switched off in Preferences), though it wouldn't have the 5-second delay.

 

And since when does being annoying mean it can't be considered as a solution? They sure enough added the first Purchase Confirmation didn't they? I realized the other day I actually didn't even switch it off on one of my characters, and have been clicking through it without specifically realizing it. Actually it might be still switched on, on ALL of my characters - I don't know yet because I haven't gone and checked. I don't even have a clue whether I've been taking note of the price before clicking the "OK" button, which I think is rather humorous. But I know for certain that if the text were color-coded in price tiers, I would definitely notice THAT automagically before clicking the "OK" button. Especially if there were a 5-second delay, there would be literally 0.0% chance of me not noticing the 250K+ orange and 2M+ red prices.

 

Just how annoying do you think you can claim an enhanced Purchase Confirmation to be?

 

And yes, the solution is to force an even more annoying Purchase Confirmation on everyone (for purchases 250K+). Do you doubt how effective an enhanced Purchase Confirmation would be? Both GTN scams (250K or greater) and accidental resource purchases of bigger stacks (worth 250K+) would become a thing of the past. Particularly significant is there's no way anyone would accidentally purchase an item for 5M or 50M and be devastated by a single mistaken purchase. If they put my solution into the GTN features, they can literally take a deep breath and then reassure themselves that they'll NEVER have to revisit the issue ever again.

 

Just how many times do you think an average person will make a purchase for 250K in a 24-hour period?? I probably average a purchase like that once a week at the most (I collect my own materials). A forced popup once a week is a pretty tiny annoyance to pay, to get a HIGH level of GTN buyer's protection.

[LordArtemis]

You would have to sell it to the playerbase. I would expect they would be resistive to the idea.

 

I could see it flying if perhaps it was OPTIONAL...I think what kills the suggestion is the contention that it is mandatory.

[azudelphi]

And since when does being annoying mean it can't be considered as a solution?

 

If annoying to the point of being ignored, now it's just a delayed mistake and not a prevented mistake.

 

Just how annoying do you think you can claim an enhanced Purchase Confirmation to be?

 

Very annoying.

 

Do you doubt how effective an enhanced Purchase Confirmation would be?

 

Yes. I highly doubt its effectiveness. The buyer in a hurry is still a buyer in a hurry.

 

Both GTN scams (250K or greater) and accidental resource purchases of bigger stacks (worth 250K+) would become a thing of the past.

 

They would likely be a thing of the past if the GTN auto-sorted to lowest total price or lowest price per unit instead of most recent post. Would also be a much quicker change.

 

You would have to sell it to the playerbase. I would expect they would be resistive to the idea.

 

I could see it flying if perhaps it was OPTIONAL...I think what kills the suggestion is the contention that it is mandatory.

 

Accurate.

 

Edit: Additionally it's quite annoying to see the same idea flogged as opposed to a discussion about the ideas that are generally receiving community support or at the very least receive far less resistance.

Edited November 14, 2014 by azudelphi

[OddballEasyEight]

Oh good... this debate is still going on...

[anonnn]

... Though it certainly might mitigate the chance to make a mistake when making a purchase the best, ...

...

I don't see adding in time mechanics as something that would go over well. I also do not think those kind of mistakes, or the prevention of them is of paramount importance.

...

 

Not of paramount importance? It might be only a handful of people, but the kind of in-game devastation brought by a mistaken purchase of millions of credits (including one reportedly for 50M credits!) is rather a worst-case scenario and leaves the player upset for probably weeks. Not to mention the cold reception and abuse they receive in the Forums if they say they believe they've been scammed by clever pricing schemes. I can't think of any in-game event that reduces a player's enjoyment more than losing MILLIONS of credits to someone on the GTN for something that was worth maybe 10K.

 

In fact I can't think of anything more important than preventing major GTN purchasing errors. Especially given that the implementation of my solution would probably require only a single afternoon to implement, giving it a pretty darn awesome payoff for the amount of effort.

 

Don't you think it'd be a relief if a fix for the potential of major GTN errors would make it into game?? Imagine how many players would be saved from the future disaster of losing millions of credits in a mistaken GTN purchase... over time it's guaranteed to happen to a few more people every so often. And imagine how great it would feel when dishonest people can no longer get their scheming hands on other people's hard-earned credits.

[azudelphi]

Not of paramount importance? It might be only a handful of people, but the kind of in-game devastation brought by a mistaken purchase of millions of credits (including one reportedly for 50M credits!) is rather a worst-case scenario and leaves the player upset for probably weeks. Not to mention the cold reception and abuse they receive in the Forums if they say they believe they've been scammed by clever pricing schemes. I can't think of any in-game event that reduces a player's enjoyment more than losing MILLIONS of credits to someone on the GTN for something that was worth maybe 10K.

 

In fact I can't think of anything more important than preventing major GTN purchasing errors. Especially given that the implementation of my solution would probably require only a single afternoon to implement, giving it a pretty darn awesome payoff for the amount of effort.

 

Don't you think it'd be a relief if a fix for the potential of major GTN errors would make it into game?? Imagine how many players would be saved from the future disaster of losing millions of credits in a mistaken GTN purchase... over time it's guaranteed to happen to a few more people every so often. And imagine how great it would feel when dishonest people can no longer get their scheming hands on other people's hard-earned credits.

 

Do you get paid by a third party for every hit to your suggestion box post?

 

Edit: I think the issue is that you are being incredibly narrow-minded that your solution is the only valid solution and / or the best solution.

Edited November 14, 2014 by azudelphi

[Reno_Tarshil]

Not of paramount importance? It might be only a handful of people, but the kind of in-game devastation brought by a mistaken purchase of millions of credits (including one reportedly for 50M credits!) is rather a worst-case scenario and leaves the player upset for probably weeks. Not to mention the cold reception and abuse they receive in the Forums if they say they believe they've been scammed by clever pricing schemes. I can't think of any in-game event that reduces a player's enjoyment more than losing MILLIONS of credits to someone on the GTN for something that was worth maybe 10K.

 

In fact I can't think of anything more important than preventing major GTN purchasing errors. Especially given that the implementation of my solution would probably require only a single afternoon to implement, giving it a pretty darn awesome payoff for the amount of effort.

 

Don't you think it'd be a relief if a fix for the potential of major GTN errors would make it into game?? Imagine how many players would be saved from the future disaster of losing millions of credits in a mistaken GTN purchase... over time it's guaranteed to happen to a few more people every so often. And imagine how great it would feel when dishonest people can no longer get their scheming hands on other people's hard-earned credits.

 

I can. Playable Content is more important than a supposed solution that would be ignored by many because of it's hinderence and inconvenience, especially when a solution isn't even needed at all.

[Gomla]

Imagine how many players would be saved from the future disaster of losing millions of credits in a mistaken GTN purchase.

 

Imagine how many players would be saved from future disaster of losing millions of credits if they stopped being idiots and used a bit of common sense.

 

It would take no dev time and possibly save some poor driver a period of depression after he runs over a fool who stops to tie his shoelace in the middle of a road.

 

Common sense, it's an amazing thing.

[anonnn]

...

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.

 

It sounds like you genuinely understand now, the purpose of an enhanced Purchase Confirmation. Inconvenience is the tradeoff for the huge increase in buyer protection. Keep in mind the Purchase Confirmation would still be possible to switch off for purchases under 250K credits. And I'm not sure where you picked up the idea of flashing lights ... or maybe you're just being sarcastic.

 

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?

 

The Purchase Confirmation would pop up for all purchases 250K or more, regardless of whether it was switched off in preferences. And for the 250K+ purchases it would also have the 5-second delay on the "OK" button enabling... during those 5 seconds it would be virtually impossible to not notice a bright color-coded price indicating a price of either 250K+ or 2M+.

 

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?

 

The balance is that the nature of the Purchase Confirmation would be unchanged for purchases under 250K... except for the subtle highlighting of purchases of 100K-249,999 ...for which the only change would be the color of the price. If someone leaves the Purchase Confirmation switched OFF in preferences, they still will NEVER get the popup when they buy an item that's under 250K.

[Orizuru]

Not of paramount importance? It might be only a handful of people, but the kind of in-game devastation brought by a mistaken purchase of millions of credits (including one reportedly for 50M credits!) is rather a worst-case scenario and leaves the player upset for probably weeks. Not to mention the cold reception and abuse they receive in the Forums if they say they believe they've been scammed by clever pricing schemes. I can't think of any in-game event that reduces a player's enjoyment more than losing MILLIONS of credits to someone on the GTN for something that was worth maybe 10K.

 

In fact I can't think of anything more important than preventing major GTN purchasing errors. Especially given that the implementation of my solution would probably require only a single afternoon to implement, giving it a pretty darn awesome payoff for the amount of effort.

 

Don't you think it'd be a relief if a fix for the potential of major GTN errors would make it into game?? Imagine how many players would be saved from the future disaster of losing millions of credits in a mistaken GTN purchase... over time it's guaranteed to happen to a few more people every so often. And imagine how great it would feel when dishonest people can no longer get their scheming hands on other people's hard-earned credits.

 

After years of developing software I can assure you that people ignore most pop-ups after they have seem them once or twice. They simply don't want to deal with them and begin dismissing them without even reading the messages they contain. After the get into the habit of dismissing them, they begin to hate them and curse their very existence and then wish horrible things upon the developer that created them. I've got the emails from users of software I've developed to prove it! The most hilarious part though, is I was against using a pop-up in most of those cases, but I had some end-user like you that was insisting it was necessary to avoid errors. Then a few months later those same users are sending me emails telling me the horrible things they would like to do to me for putting that pop-up message in front of them a few times a day, week, or month.

 

You are asking people to support an idea that would inconvenience 100% of players to solve a problem for 1% of the population. Its a terrible idea. Plain and simple. You just can't let it go though because you seem to think there is some large number of innocent victims out there just waiting for some hero to come along and save them and you desperately want to be that hero.

Edited November 14, 2014 by Orizuru

[Jadescythe]

I'm glad we needed 1,000 posts coming up with ways to stop people from doing something that takes almost no effort to resolve with no development time. Simply double check what you're buying before you buy it.

 

If you really want a solution, however, do what I've seen in some other games. Show your total credit amount as updated after purchase. So if you have 2 million credits and you're going to spend 1 million credits, it will show your new balance to be 1 million credits after purchase.

 

But seriously, nothing needs to be changed other than people not paying attention to what they are doing.

[anonnn]

Imagine how many players would be saved from future disaster of losing millions of credits if they stopped being idiots and used a bit of common sense.

...

Common sense, it's an amazing thing.

 

No solution at all has a very predictable outcome. And it's not nice.

 

Even if someone is uncommonly careless when they buy things on the GTN, they still deserve to be protected from major GTN mistakes.

 

Sometimes people can get careless just because they're in a good mood. Can't you imagine how sad it is? A player is bounding along, having the best time ever in the game, because they just learned their first high-end crafting schematic for a Blaster Barrel, goes on the GTN and purchases 5 small stacks of EEE's to craft 5 barrels for guildies... and OH that 5th stack the player just bought was a full stack of 99 EEEs at 100000 CPU instead of 10000 CPU and now their 10M credits are gone and they have no funds to buy the Mass Manips they'll require and the EEEs they accidentally bought are only worth 1M on the market.

 

One second happy as ever, the next second DEVASTATED. All because there wasn't a forced Purchase Confirmation popup for the accidental purchase of an item that cost millions of credits.

[anonnn]

After years of developing software I can assure you that people ignore most pop-ups after they have seem them once or twice. They simply don't want to deal with them and begin dismissing them without even reading the messages they contain.

...

You are asking people to support an idea that would inconvenience 100% of players to solve a problem for 1% of the population. Its a terrible idea. Plain and simple. You just can't let it go though because you seem to think there is some large number of innocent victims out there just waiting for some hero to come along and save them and you desperately want to be that hero.

 

It'd be virtually impossible to ignore the brightly-colored price in the Purchase Confirmation popup when it stays around for 5 seconds before you can click "OK". The price would have a different color for prices 250K+ and for 2M+.

 

You think using the term "Hero" is a good insult but in reality it just makes me smile a little on the inside.

 

And your statistic just needs a bit of correction, from:

. . . . . . ...would inconvenience 100% of players to solve a problem for 1% of the population

to this accurate statistic:

. . . . . . ...would inconvenience 100% of players on 2% of their purchases to solve a problem for 1% of the population

[ScarletBlaze]

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?

 

 

You are going to have to accept that some people do not agree with your idea. My law professor and writing class in college has taught me that arguing about an idea that some people do not agree with is kind of pointless. There is no way you can force a person to agree that your idea is the best solution. People have a free will to determine what idea they think is best.

 

You presented your ideas and instead of arguing over every little point the best idea would be to post your idea and then leave it alone unless someone wants clarification on the issue.

 

Needless debate on an idea is not going to help. Some like different ideas and that is their choice. Your arguing that yours is the best idea is doing nothing but aggravating them. The worst thing my Professor taught me is that you aggravate your audience to the point they will not listen to what you said due to the fact you have aggravated them, which is what it seems you are doing here.

[Tsillah]

Of course having credit storage in your legacy bank can help you not spend money you don't want to spend. Just saying...

[LyraineAlei]

It sounds like you genuinely understand now, the purpose of an enhanced Purchase Confirmation. Inconvenience is the tradeoff for the huge increase in buyer protection. Keep in mind the Purchase Confirmation would still be possible to switch off for purchases under 250K credits. And I'm not sure where you picked up the idea of flashing lights ... or maybe you're just being sarcastic.

 

 

 

The Purchase Confirmation would pop up for all purchases 250K or more, regardless of whether it was switched off in preferences. And for the 250K+ purchases it would also have the 5-second delay on the "OK" button enabling... during those 5 seconds it would be virtually impossible to not notice a bright color-coded price indicating a price of either 250K+ or 2M+.

 

 

 

The balance is that the nature of the Purchase Confirmation would be unchanged for purchases under 250K... except for the subtle highlighting of purchases of 100K-249,999 ...for which the only change would be the color of the price. If someone leaves the Purchase Confirmation switched OFF in preferences, they still will NEVER get the popup when they buy an item that's under 250K.

 

Good lord. I never said I didn't understand your proposal. I said I didn't support it because it seriously crippled the great many buyers who use the tools we already have.

 

And as my currently updating laptop can attest, I (among many others) can easily ignore popups. Even when they are important and telling me that to finalize the updates for my operating system, it will reboot in 10:00, 10:59, 10:58. And then rebooting because it was a popup and I automatically ignore them.

 

Flashing colors was an exaggeration, but not by much.

 

The balance is not achieved by forcing us to wait a number of seconds before hitting "buy" if/when we do make a large purchase.

 

Stop pretending your idea is the only one that works. It isn't. It is just the most aggravating one that will drive people into rage quitting the GTN and never touching it again, possibly even stalling the market as suddenly to sell anything, every drops the prices of everything, and lose out on maximum profit.

 

Wait. That is what you want, isn't it? The ability to buy things at a lower price because you want things to be less than 250k? So if your suggestion were put in place, the whole flow of the market would stiffle up and suddenly nothing over 250k would sell because no one wants to deal with the time delay popup.

 

I see what your plan is now.

 

I do not support it. Free in-game market! No popups if we don't want them! Free in-game market!

[LordArtemis]

Not of paramount importance? It might be only a handful of people, but the kind of in-game devastation brought by a mistaken purchase of millions of credits (including one reportedly for 50M credits!) is rather a worst-case scenario and leaves the player upset for probably weeks. Not to mention the cold reception and abuse they receive in the Forums if they say they believe they've been scammed by clever pricing schemes. I can't think of any in-game event that reduces a player's enjoyment more than losing MILLIONS of credits to someone on the GTN for something that was worth maybe 10K.

 

In fact I can't think of anything more important than preventing major GTN purchasing errors. Especially given that the implementation of my solution would probably require only a single afternoon to implement, giving it a pretty darn awesome payoff for the amount of effort.

 

Don't you think it'd be a relief if a fix for the potential of major GTN errors would make it into game?? Imagine how many players would be saved from the future disaster of losing millions of credits in a mistaken GTN purchase... over time it's guaranteed to happen to a few more people every so often. And imagine how great it would feel when dishonest people can no longer get their scheming hands on other people's hard-earned credits.

 

You can certainly think that way. I can also hold to my line of reasoning.

 

Generally speaking, changing game mechanics to protect the few at the expense of most is not usually something that goes over well in MMOs, this being one of those things.

 

I think that the suggestions in the list have more merit. I also think they are more realistic AND have a much greater chance of being implement.

 

Personally I see little to no chance of a mandatory nag screen being added to that game.

 

That does not mean I am right...it is just my view.

 

You can continue to promote your suggestion as you wish. But continuing to demand that folks accept your view as the only reputable view is obviously not going to work.

 

Drop the mandatory requirement and then perhaps we can talk. Otherwise I see little reason to support your idea.

Edited November 15, 2014 by LordArtemis

[LordArtemis]

The list, reposted for newcomers to the thread. The list remains unchanged at this point.

 

IMO Buyers and Sellers have to both take responsibility for their behavior. Since most are unwilling to do that, this argument continues despite the efforts of some folks to just discuss the merits of the suggestions as QoL improvements for the GTN.

 

Here are most of the non-punitive suggestions made during the discussion.

 

1) The ability to ignore a character name on the GTN, so the items sold by that character are not shown in searches.

2) The ability to place a red flag on sellers you do not like, green flag on ones you prefer, and a sort function to move red flags to the bottom of a search, green flags to the top. Only you would see the flags you apply.

3) Remove the ability for the system to display fractional currency in the "price per unit" field.

4) Have the formatting right justified instead of left justified.

5) Have the ignore list also apply to the GTN.

6) Add a price per unit option for posting items for sale.

7) Default the GTN to sorting by lowest price first, or lowest per unit price.

8) Larger text for the price display.

9) Add a toggle to remove the display of fractional currency in the "price per item" field.

10) Line up all prices on the decimal, and display .00 for non fractional amounts.

11) Option to apply a maximum buyout price threshold to warn players if they exceed set amount in the purchase.

12) Optional to apply a maximum per item price threshold to warn players if they exceed set amount in the purchase.

 

 

I support 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. I really like 2, 6 and 9. 6 seems to be the most popular one so far. I don't see the harm in 11 and 12, so they are included for folks to discuss, though I would not rate it as one of my favorite in the list.

[Gomla]

2) The ability to place a red flag on sellers you do not like, green flag on ones you prefer, and a sort function to move red flags to the bottom of a search, green flags to the top. Only you would see the flags you apply

 

Far too easy to bypass.

 

GTN alts. I don't sell or buy on my "main" and I know a hell of a lot of folk have "bank" or "auction" characters they use for things like that.

 

It would be far too easy for a small group or guild to keep making alts after each sale to bypass something like that.

 

Some of those folk are making millions, no matter what is done they will do their best to keep that income going.

[LordArtemis]

Far too easy to bypass.

 

GTN alts. I don't sell or buy on my "main" and I know a hell of a lot of folk have "bank" or "auction" characters they use for things like that.

 

It would be far too easy for a small group or guild to keep making alts after each sale to bypass something like that.

 

Some of those folk are making millions, no matter what is done they will do their best to keep that income going.

 

Fair enough, but I would say that I keep a personal list, and I have only had 3 folks stop posting since I started. It has 24 names of sellers that I refuse to do business with.

 

You do make a valid point though. It would be pretty easy to bypass.

[anonnn]

...

The worst thing my Professor taught me is that you aggravate your audience to the point they will not listen to what you said due to the fact you have aggravated them, which is what it seems you are doing here.

 

I have a good answer for every possible criticism, because my solution works and is already balanced to be as unobtrusive as it needs to be, without leaving a gaping hole in buyer protection. So of course you're aggravated! Because you are stubborn and not holding the right answer.

 

It's impossible to overstate exactly how little effort it would require to implement the changes in my solution. It's constrained to that tiny already-existing Purchase Confirmation window, so it'd be literally a breeze to implement.

[LordArtemis]

Well, It is not important whether we support the idea or not. it is only important to impress Bioware with the idea so THEY will support it. They are ones that decide.

[MagikFingerz]

I have a good answer for every possible criticism, because my solution works and is already balanced to be as unobtrusive as it needs to be, without leaving a gaping hole in buyer protection. So of course you're aggravated! Because you are stubborn and not holding the right answer.

 

It's impossible to overstate exactly how little effort it would require to implement the changes in my solution. It's constrained to that tiny already-existing Purchase Confirmation window, so it'd be literally a breeze to implement.

 

Well, you're persistent, I'll give you that. But how many people telling you your "solution" is bad does it take before you realize that they might be on to something? Has there even been a single person saying they want a big flashy pop-up forced on them, even among all the people crying "scam"?

 

And unless you're an experienced software/game developer (and I highly doubt you are), you have NO idea how easy it is to implement something. I would venture a guess that the pop-up being tied to the purchase price isn't as easy as one might think.

[Gomla]

I have a good answer for every possible criticism, because my solution works and is already balanced to be as unobtrusive as it needs to be, without leaving a gaping hole in buyer protection. So of course you're aggravated! Because you are stubborn and not holding the right answer.

 

It's impossible to overstate exactly how little effort it would require to implement the changes in my solution. It's constrained to that tiny already-existing Purchase Confirmation window, so it'd be literally a breeze to implement.

 

Nothing, allow me to repeat for emphasis, nothing is easy when it comes to coding.

 

As soon as you change one line it affects other parts of the code even if you think it shouldn't.

 

Why should all of us be forced to endure an irritating pop up because a minority can't engage their brain and pay attention to what they are doing.

 

Whether your idea would save that minority from themselves or not is irrelevant when it's a truly terrible idea.

 

People hate pop ups. I hate pop ups with the burning passion of a thousand suns so "your solution" is one that I really don't like and will argue against ever having implemented.

Edited November 15, 2014 by Gomla