create a new 'Purchase Alert' to protect GTN buyers

[Feargal]

If you didn't have the courage to address the topic of protecting players from GTN accidents and to be on-topic without resorting to sniveling trolling to try to create the illusion of an argument, you should have never posted here in the first place.

 

My last post in this thread: we have addressed protecting players from GTN accidents. Most of us have addressed it by refuting that GTN "accidents" exist. That refutation is as valid an argument as your argument that the DO exist.

 

Multiple posters have rejected your premise, but you continue to insist that the only way to participate in "your" thread is to accept your, in my opinion flawed, premise. That's tantamount to agreeing with you, which I, and many others, do not.

 

You can't expect someone to agree with you and disagree at the same time.

 

Lastly, do you seriously believe that only people who agree with you should be posting here. Have you not read any other thread? Do you seriously not know how this works. You write fairly well so you are obviously not stupid, so it puzzles me, and, it seems, many others, why you are being so obtuse.

[anonnn]

No, they are losing creds due to their own inattentiveness. That needs to be fixed ASAP.

...

 

How you remain confused on the issue is that you're only here to troll and ignore all reason from the Original Poster. If you don't see value in eliminating very close to 100% of GTN accidents, then it's just your personal failure that you don't think catastrophically bad player experiences is a problem for SWToR.

 

If you don't have the ability to study the solution I've described to verify that it would in fact eliminate most and maybe ALL GTN accidents, then you shouldn't have been so opinionated on something for which you have no actual understanding.

 

Your opinion on the topic amounts to nothing more than a very selfish "I refuse to let my GTN ever be affected in any way I don't approve of" even though the very solution that causes that small amount of convenience to yourself would also prevent ENORMOUS CATASTROPHE for many players over the entire future lifetime of the game. When a solution which by the nature of the problem will require trade offs, people such as yourself with the rotten attitude that you have just cause a complete standstill of what would be improvement and progress, with the only considerations being fickle individualistic ones that never try to provide help to anyone but your one little self.

[anonnn]

Because, to the OP, your change makes his change ineffective.

 

It's either mandatory for 5 seconds, or mandatory for 3 seconds. OP believes the effectiveness comes from the forced delay. Removing the forced delay in any way, means that people who turn it off have no protection.

 

On this, he has made it abundantly clear there is no room for compromise. Sadly, this is why his idea won't see the light of day.

 

Well, hold on, it's obvious that implementing this solution only for those who have switched ON the preference for 'Purchase Confirmation Dialog' would be better than making no change at all. The developers of the game are free to decide what to implement and the exact design to use. They're free to use only a small portion of my suggestion.

 

However, that's like saying that locking half the windows in the children's orphanage at night is an appropriate level of security measure. Why would you not choose to simply lock ALL the windows so the security and protection is comprehensive and at 100% quality? The inconvenience of this solution to the average player is extremely small so I think the attitudes of opposition seen in this thread are correspondingly extremely selfish.

 

If you're not willing to give up a small bit of convenience for yourself, in order to prevent ATROCIOUS adversity for other players, then it simply means you're not benevolent towards the player community. That you and the several other over-aggressive fake debaters in this thread are not willing to compromise in order to increase GTN buyer protection when that protection is badly needed is just sad.

 

I'm willing to accept the existence of a forced and delayed popup for MY expensive GTN purchases, yet you are not. Can you make any legitimate guesses why that is?

[azudelphi]

I'm willing to accept the existence of a forced and delayed popup for MY expensive GTN purchases, yet you are not. Can you make any legitimate guesses why that is?

 

Because I am considering the other people inconvenienced and weighing that against the few people that are affected by their own mistakes? Because I consider the instances that you describe as atrocious to also be extremely limited in frequency. Because I don't believe the community as a whole is ready to accept a burden to protect a relative hand-full of people. Because I believe in general in personal accountability and responsibility.

 

Edit: And that hand-full of people are, in at least partiality, responsible for the atrocious mistakes they make. You may call it systemic, but the player has the final button press. Making it all the more unlikely that the community as a whole will have the sympathy required to mandate a burden onto themselves. Call it lacking in compassion, call it selfish, call it mean, dredge up whatever insults you want... I am being practical.

 

Bonus Edit: The issue is that the first floor windows are locked, the second floor windows are locked, up to the 5th floor where a couple windows are unlocked... sure, someone *could* get in that window with a ladder, but is it truly a security issue? Is that something you really have to be planning to protect for? Should you say that not only do the first floor windows have to be locked, but now we should put landmines outside the orphanage? I highly doubt it.

Edited January 29, 2015 by azudelphi

[anonnn]

My last post in this thread: we have addressed protecting players from GTN accidents. Most of us have addressed it by refuting that GTN "accidents" exist. That refutation is as valid an argument as your argument that the DO exist.

...

 

Are you really convinced that there exists ANYONE that could determine exactly how many players have had significant GTN accidents? Even the developer themselves can only be aware of the GTN accidents that the victim decides to report.

 

Unless you want to pretend that all talk about multiple players losing millions of credits on a single mistaken GTN purchase is some kind of conspiracy and some kind of lie, it's already indicated that GTN accidents are occurring on a regular basis. And it's obvious just from using the GTN myself that the purchase process is highly fallible and a mistake could happen for anyone if they get just a little more hurried or a little more distracted and inattentive.

 

It's like how I'll be holding my phone in my hand while distracted having to answer a question from someone, and when I get back to my phone I see that one of my important Apps is about to be deleted with just one more errant press (on the 'OK' button in the "Delete App" dialog) while I was holding it like a frisbee at my side. These sorts of UI accidents have a way of JUST HAPPENING now and then.

 

Getting ahold of exact statistics cannot be made a required part the the decision process of whether to improve the Purchase Confirmation dialog, because it's simply not possible collect the statistics.

 

So, basically, you haven't really addressed much of anything. You've only spun uselessly to demand an impossible investigation process. Which, I understood from the start (believe me) that trolls really really love to do.

[azudelphi]

It's like how I'll be holding my phone in my hand while distracted having to answer a question from someone, and when I get back to my phone I see that one of my important Apps is about to be deleted with just one more errant press (on the 'OK' button in the "Delete App" dialog) while I was holding it like a frisbee at my side. These sorts of UI accidents have a way of JUST HAPPENING now and then.

 

Okay... now we're getting somewhere. Let's say you did delete the app, who would be responsible? Would you call the app developer and demand a change to their app?

 

No. You'd take responsibility for failing to lock your screen (only takes a quick second), reinstall the app, and restore the damage in whatever time it takes... that's what a responsible, mature adult would do.

 

Why are fake internet money points any different to this scenario?

Edited January 29, 2015 by azudelphi

[anonnn]

Because I am considering the other people inconvenienced and weighing that against the few people that are affected by their own mistakes? Because I consider the instances that you describe as atrocious to also be extremely limited in frequency.

...

 

For me it doesn't take any more than ONE victim of a severe GTN accident (I've heard of both 5M and 10M credits losses) to realize that the GTN's purchase confirmation feature is inadequate. And particularly because of the strong possibility of some of those GTN accidents being the result of predatory practices of maliciously priced items that sellers might be hoping someone will buy on accident. Again, it's impossible to gather statistics on this, even for the developers themselves.

 

What you have to manage is a leap of faith that more than just a few people have experienced extreme GTN accidents and that the peril from GTN accidents is just as real as it seems from your own experience clicking items in that tiny cluttered table display on the GTN.

 

At the very least you have to admit that there's the immediate potential for a buyer to click 'Buy' in a hurry and immediately click 'OK' in the popup to hurry through the purchase process, only to realize that the item bought was costing MILLIONS of credits rather than thousands.

 

And hopefully you see value in the possibility of finding a solution that would remove the potential for GTN buyers to lose credits in that pitfall that's enabled by the particular GTN design that was chosen.

 

I don't like it. I don't like their GTN design. They left a HUGE hole for potential mistakes, and multiple players have crashed and burned miserably in that hole. I myself have not... more than one poster has assumed that I'm merely whining about my own experience on the GTN.

[azudelphi]

For me it doesn't take any more than ONE victim of a severe GTN accident (I've heard of both 5M and 10M credits losses) to realize that the GTN's purchase confirmation feature is inadequate.

 

Well, while noble... it isn't practical. It does take more than one. If it were a systemic issue, it needs a solution. If the incidents are isolated, then it leans more towards "buyer beware" and "personal responsibility."

[g_land]

I don't like it. I don't like their GTN design. They left a HUGE hole for potential mistakes, and multiple players have crashed and burned miserably in that hole. I myself have not... more than one poster has assumed that I'm merely whining about my own experience on the GTN.

 

You have talked about the rights of these people who had "gtn accidents" but you completely ignore the fact that your method would have a more adverse effect on everyone else. The idea that any thing with a set time requirement would erase 100% of these "gtn accidents" is just silly, if there is a mandatory amount of time, people will just look at other things on the screen or maybe even not at the computer. There is no way to prevent 100% of occurrences, all you would accomplish is make all the other people, who can protect themselves by paying attention, mad. You have literally no ground to stand on in this. Especially since you have no actual numbers to back your argument up.

[ekwalizer]

Not a single troll is remaining on-topic and posting even a single thing that's contributory towards the topic of the thread. If you're not going to contribute, don't post.

 

Players are losing credits in GTN accidents. This needs to be fixed ASAP.

My suggestion would be a perfect fix for this problem. If you don't have any useful suggestions of how to improve my idea (and keep it effective, obviously) then don't post.

 

The perfect solution is that players pay attention to what THEY are doing.

 

It is the buyers responsibility to verify that they are buying the correct item at the cheapest available price.

 

What you want to do is try to fix "stupid". That can't be done.

[anonnn]

See what I'm saying? I've already addressed and dismissed everything that was just said since my last post. If you can't stay on topic and can't avoid repeating things already said, then stop posting.

 

To not seek a solution is unacceptable. Because in the future it's guaranteed that more players will have GTN accidents and lose millions of credits. It's simple probability and eventuality. If you don't care, that just makes you a weak member of the player community.

 

The only solution even on the table is the one I presented in my original post. Along with dumbed-down variants of my suggestion that's nothing more than removing parts of my solution that people think isn't a worthwhile tradeoff to get close to perfect protection against (major) GTN mistakes.

Edited January 29, 2015 by anonnn

[azudelphi]

See what I'm saying? I've already addressed and dismissed everything that was just said since my last post. If you can't stay on topic and can't avoid repeating things already said, then stop posting.

 

No solution is unacceptable. Because in the future it's guaranteed that more players will have GTN accidents and lose millions of credits. It's simple probability and eventuality. If you don't care, that just makes you a weak member of the player community.

 

The only solution even on the table is the one I presented in my original post. Along with dumbed-down variants of my suggestion that's nothing more than removing parts of my solution that people think isn't a worthwhile tradeoff to get close to perfect protection against (major) GTN mistakes.

 

Well, kudos on your determination. Keep hunting that white whale, Captain Ahab...

 

Edit: But, I mean, if analogous anecdotes, logic, and reason have no place in your discussion and will be dismissed out of hand by you, then I am formally out. You can keep insulting people with different opinions than you, but it will get your idea no where and I can guarantee in the future it will make people more likely to view your new ideas with contempt.

 

In fact, take a second to realize that the people you call "trolling" seem to generally be on the same page when it comes to your idea. Perhaps, they are actually on the right track for what might be the best way to approach your problem. Perhaps, given there has been no collusion, they may have a better idea of the community reaction to your idea. Just a thought...

 

But really, the biggest issue is that your vitriol towards people who dissent is the real negativity in the community.

Edited January 30, 2015 by azudelphi

[anonnn]

Well, kudos on your determination. Keep hunting that white whale, Captain Ahab...

 

[TravelersWay]

Kudos for being the first person to post an alternative solution to the thread. I don't doubt that your idea would be just as effective at preventing GTN accidents. In fact it's the same method they used in SWG when you clicked to delete one of your characters (you had to type in the exact name of your character before it would be deleted).

It's a method used by many games for the same purpose for the most part. It helps prevent the quick misclicks of the wrong button.

 

However, from an ease-of-use and elegance standpoint, it wouldn't be a very enjoyable UI. Re-entering the price for oddly-priced items would become a bit of a chore that would become frustrating if a player keeps making typos in that box.

Well, as noted, it seems your method can be just as onerous to some users as well. Having to wait to complete a transaction that they may already have double-checked and confirmed to be desired, especially if they are participating in several transactions in a row can be frustrating as well. As for typos, sure we all fat-finger once in a while, but that would only serve to reinforce the notion of ensuring that the price they are trying to type out is indeed the price they want to pay. Truth be told, I don't recall any gamer complaining about that being an issue with the system as it is used for now, as mentioned above.

 

What I like most about the usability of my suggestion is that the bright color for expensive prices, combined with the 3-5 second delay provides not only an alert of when a price IS particularly expensive, it also gives nearly immediate reassurance that a particular purchase ISN'T expensive, because there WON'T be any bright color in the Purchase Confirmation. This gives feedback for all purchases, which is a nice facilitation of the purchase process.

But again, multi-colored text does not benefit those who have varying degrees of color blindness. Plus the delay can also work against the system as those who are impatient enough to click-through the current box have a strong likelihood of simply focusing on something else until the timer runs out, thereby negating the usefulness of the timer.

 

The bright color of the expensive price combined with a possible (Jawa?) graphical icon that upgrades to a more extravagant icon at larger price tiers, is called User Interface Redundancy, and it's a good technique for ensuring a UI is clear to as many people as possible. If you quickly go read:

3. Redundancy and intuitive use

it might be good background information to help understand the method of the design of my suggestion. The idea is to provide instant visual indicators of the price range of the item, along with establishing a guarantee (in the form of a delayed 'OK' button) that the user will genuinely verify the price level of the item.

 

One other problem that this particular suggestion doesn't resolve is the subjectivity of what "expensive" and "affordable" are in terms of cost. 10 million credits may be deemed expensive according to the system, but it may be a drop in the bucket to someone who has hundreds of millions of credits at this point. Something that may be deemed cheap at 75k or even 50k still might mean the bulk of someone's credits are spent if they buy the item. Having the Jawa icons wouldn't be any help of solving that issue. Nor would this solve the issue of overpaying for a particular item. perhaps 10 million is a reasonable price for one item, while 50k is a vast overprice on another item.

 

Ultimately, while still more onerous than the current system, forcing the user to input the price they are paying may be the only way to ensure that "accidents" do not happen as it forces people to become interactive, instead of passively waiting for a timer to expire, while needing minimal coding to the current system to implement.

[anonnn]

...

Edit: ... You can keep insulting people with different opinions than you, but it will get your idea no where and I can guarantee in the future it will make people more likely to view your new ideas with contempt.

 

In fact, take a second to realize that the people you call "trolling" seem to generally be on the same page when it comes to your idea. Perhaps, they are actually on the right track for what might be the best way to approach your problem. Perhaps, given there has been no collusion, they may have a better idea of the community reaction to your idea. Just a thought...

...

 

.

Side note:

The people you're trying to pass off as its own community (excluding me lol) said next to nothing of substance in this ENTIRE thread which is now bloated by endless obstructionism, ignorance of reason, dismissal of design ethics, ignorance of justification, and ignorance of the technical specifics of my suggested change. Your intent is to suggest that the number of people for or against the idea is all that matters, which is a clear indication of the lack of objectivity and lack of due consideration from the entire lot of you. This all, of course, is what I figured would happen from the start which was why I addressed that consideration in the 'Side note on objections and feasibility' in my original post. The only poster who's demonstrated a balanced consideration of all players is myself.

 

I'm sure you can go back, read my original post, and suddenly realize that not only was it obvious to me from the start that selfish people would freak out about an involuntary Purchase Confirmation, but that I did everything possible every step of the way to dissuade them all from trolling my thread like they've done.

 

And I find it just as predictable that you took your previous post that ended actually on an extremely positive note on my part and added the most ridiculously fallacious characterization and insult against me thus far here.

 

Such are trolls. If I ended up criticizing you and others for trolling my thread so aimlessly, the last thing you should have done was pretend it wasn't your desired effect. Because trolls (literally) always do the exact thing you've done, step by step. The entire gamut of mouthing off and mis-characterization and vilification is cookie-cutter troll behavior, as if you're just some war droid with inflexible programming.

 

NOTE: responding to this side note and not also to the main body of this post would qualify as an off-topic post and will be reported.

 

 

The truth is that the ONLY legitimate criticism of my suggestion was:

• the Purchase Confirmation becomes partly involuntary for all players
  
• players might look away for the few seconds of the delay of the Purchase Confirmation's 'OK' button
  

 

Since I addressed the involuntary nature of the solution from the start as a necessary tradeoff, and the idea of players intentionally looking away from the delayed Purchase Confirmation (without ever noticing the bright text) is completely implausible, none of the trolling in this thread even has a remote chance of being a legitimate debate point and doesn't merit further discussion. The lack of objectivity and civility is actually entirely typical of a forum environment where trolls are being allowed to run rampant trashing threads without any consequence from moderators.

 

NOW. If people will stop posting any fickle off-topic nonsense or insults or already-addressed concerns into my suggestion thread, it'll leave room for OTHER players to potentially post genuine contributions to this thread.

 

It's already understood that an involuntary Purchase Confirmation window with a delay on the 'OK' button is an inconvenience to players. However, as I stated many times already, the inconvenience is the required tradeoff and is a minimal inconvenience by design by being only for expensive purchases. I changed the suggestion to have a 3-second delay instead of a 5-second delay if 'Purchase Confirmation Dialog' is switched off in Preferences, so the suggestion is incorporating even more consideration of ALL players.

 

Repeated complaining about the tradeoffs without any new contribution to the discussion will be ignored and reported.

Edited January 30, 2015 by anonnn

[branmakmuffin]

The truth is that the ONLY legitimate criticism of my suggestion was:

• the Purchase Confirmation becomes partly involuntary for all players
  
• players might look away for the few seconds of the delay of the Purchase Confirmation's 'OK' button
  

"There is nothing to fix because there is no problem" is also a perfectly legitimate criticism, You just don't happen to like it.

[JPryde]

Good luck for you in convincing anyone that the "tradeoff" as you call it, is as necessary as you believe it is.

 

Many people in this thread are not convinced that the tradeoff is necessary and as such your idea isn't necessary to be implemented.

 

I do see, that you believe that your opinion is a universal truth, but at the end of the day your opinion is just that... an opinion. Calling an opinion a fact doesn't make it one and as you did dismiss all calls for data to back your claim as trolling, your facts are only claims... and the devs are unlikely to waste ressources on claims alone. Especially not as this thread shows, that there seems to be more than a little opposition to your idea.

[azudelphi]

[sARCASM]

Good luck for you in convincing anyone that the "tradeoff" as you call it, is as necessary as you believe it is.

 

He doesn't need to convince you or any other player. Only the developers.

 

Many people in this thread are not convinced that the tradeoff is necessary and as such your idea isn't necessary to be implemented.

 

Stop being a troll. Stop being uncivil. Stop being selfish! What would you say to someone who lost all their credits?

 

I do see, that you believe that your opinion is a universal truth, but at the end of the day your opinion is just that... an opinion. Calling an opinion a fact doesn't make it one and as you did dismiss all calls for data to back your claim as trolling, your facts are only claims... and the devs are unlikely to waste ressources on claims alone. Especially not as this thread shows, that there seems to be more than a little opposition to your idea.

 

Don't be so pedantic and request data. If you were sensible you'd see that his claims are indeed factually accurate. Because factually, at least one person will lose credits... and that's unacceptable!

 

[/sARCASM]

 

Sorry OP, meant to stay away (mainly to not bump this thread any more), but given the fact it was bumped anyways, figured I'd let you take a break from responding to the "trolls". Gotcha covered

Edited January 30, 2015 by azudelphi

[DOHboy]

if it saves just one person 1 credit, isn't it worth the 100's of hours required to do development and testing?

 

I mean if it saves one person a million credits of funny money, it must be worth it to save someone 500k credits...

if it saves one person 500k credits if it saves 2 people 250k credits still worth it right" since now you are helping 2 people. surely those 2 peoples credits are worth just as much as that one persons...

 

If i save 100 people 5000 credits is that not the same as saving 1 person 500,000 credits now i'm helping 100 people and never know. those 100 people could easily become a person saved 1 million credits.

[anonnn]

"There is nothing to fix because there is no problem" is also a perfectly legitimate criticism, You just don't happen to like it.

 

Well here's a player reporting that he lost 6 million credits in a GTN accident. Not only that, another person in that same thread claims to have lost over 6 million credits in a GTN accident. That's kinda bad statistics for what's probably only 2 weeks time, wouldn't you say??

 

Imagine how many additional (major) GTN accidents there have been recently, that we don't know about...

[DOHboy]

Well here's a player reporting that he lost 6 million credits in a GTN accident. Not only that, another person in that same thread claims to have lost over 6 million credits in a GTN accident. That's kinda bad statistics for what's probably only 2 weeks time, wouldn't you say??

 

Imagine how many additional (major) GTN accidents there have been recently, that we don't know about...

 

imagine the number of NON GTN "accidents" that have gone on over the 3+ years. Take the number of "accidents" divided by the number of NON accidents and if you approach a number even approaching .00001 i would be amazed.

 

but you are right, do it for the helpless since they can not help themselves.

[Kianabamin]

How about just pay attention?

That requires no additional coding.

[JPryde]

Well here's a player reporting that he lost 6 million credits in a GTN accident. ....

That player, who lost the 6 Million does himself ask for an adjustable treshhold for another popup... which was more than once mentioned as a compromise in this thread, as it is the same as allowing it for players to turn their security voluntarily off.

 

You however insist, that this would not be enough and that everyone regardless of ever having had any problems would in the future be required to abide by what you deem right... And THAT is the thing that produces the massive backfire you see in this thread.

[anonnn]

...

but you are right, do it for the helpless since they can not help themselves.

 

.

That's all anyone needs to consider. Perfect!

.

.

[anonnn]

That player, who lost the 6 Million does himself ask for an adjustable treshhold for another popup... which was more than once mentioned as a compromise in this thread, as it is the same as allowing it for players to turn their security voluntarily off.

...

 

Now you have solid (and seemingly legitimate) data on two MAJOR gtn accidents and you've just made wild conclusions before finding out if either player even had the existing Purchase Confirmation enabled, or if they simply clicked quickly on the confirmation popup without genuinely verifying the price.

 

Myself I don't need to investigate anything, once I know there are major GTN accidents occurring it's obvious it's going to keep happening to additional players here and there in the future, since I also have my own direct experience clicking on 'Buy' buttons and nearly making mistakes of a similar nature.

 

It's important (extremely important) to protect the bank accounts of players since credits are difficult to earn and those credits are a huge factor of how we enjoy the game, buying entertaining items and premium gear.