An open discussion on scamming.

[Zhong Xina]

Walter hit the nail in the coffin with this one. If you aren't being scammed out of IRL money or an egregious amount of RP money, then why bother changing the rules? Due diligence goes a long way, and with !trade being a thing, if you fall for a scam you pretty much deserve it in the first place. I can only think of VERY few instances in which you may inadvertently get scammed, like buying base dupes, doors, etc. (anything that can't be traded with !trade). In cases like these, again, a little due diligence goes a long way. Would you trust some random guy who came up to you on the street offering to sell you a brand new iPhone for $10? No. Similarly, would you trust a guy who just joined the server for the first time who offered to sell you a base dupe for $5M? Probably not.

 

In the hundreds of hours I have on this server, even though trades involving IRL $$, I have never been scammed. If you get scammed, then you're SOL. We can't babysit everything and turn this server into a safe bubble (as if it isn't enough of one already) where everyone is treated like a kindergartner and kept 100% out of harm's way. Don't be stupid and you won't get scammed.

 

Also, it adds plenty of RP value. Let scumbags build themselves a bad reputation. Nobody will trust them and they'll migrate to another server like the vultures they are to scam there instead, leaving you safer.

[Timezone]

Alright, this is a good deal to break down but I appreciate the response.

"you absolutely cannot scam over this set limit in any given transaction otherwise you will be permanently banned" is a loose rule?

So I'm looking over the rules and I'm not seeing that quote. Maybe I'm missing it, please let me know if I am.

All im seeing are -

- DO trade at your own discretion and do your research. Being scammed 1 Mil or more DakrRP cash or any amount of IRL money or Suga Dollars is subject to review and punishment. Ask for a staff witness if you are unsure of a transaction

 

- DO NOT scam Custom Class content (including slots & perms)

 

- Selling guns in your gun stand for outrageous prices with the sole intent of either scamming noobs or catching people off guard who happen to misclick your gun stand is not allowed.

 

- If a player has been gone for 30 consecutive days from the server without prior notification, you can revoke their custom class permanent slot without being subject to the scamming rule. It is highly recommended that you record their gametracker (Recommended method is via screenshot) at the time of revocation to prevent future issues.

 

And I absolutely agree with 3/4 of these rules. The first one is the one that I'm making the suggestion about.

You do think it's reasonable that an admin could be called for every transaction period?

No, I don't think it's reasonable that an admin could  be called for every transaction.

I feel like that would sincerely hamper things for everyone. However, I believe staff do also have the tools to quickly verify if someone was scammed or not.

Honestly you could have stopped here, Walter, because I do see where the issue lies. Either this rule exists and staff can breathe or it's stripped and staff can be called 2x more often than they already are.

I think the problem is that I didn't really suggest a replacement for the rule. I don't want admin to be swamped. I dont want players to be scammed.

 

Here's my suggestion and feel free to reject it.-

 

DO trade at your own discretion and do your research. Being scammed any amount of DakrRP cash or any amount of IRL money or Suga Dollars is subject to review and punishment. Ask for a staff witness if you are unsure of a transaction over a million dollars.

 

I feel like updating it to that would do a few things. 

- As the rule currently stands, staff are encouraged to be called on transactions over a million dollars. That will not change with my suggestion.

- This change still makes it incumbent on the player to be responsible and cautious with their transactions.

- This also officially makes scamming against the server rules. Players are expected to show screencaps or recordings for other offenses. Why not make this one of them to help unload staff burden?

- Players who respect the rules will just stop scamming. I really dont think this change will put an extreme amount of pressure on staff.

 

Role play. I have somewhere around 3800 hours on gmod, all in DarkRP. It's called role play.

 

I'm well aware of what role playing is, this is honestly just condescending. I'm not a child and I've also been playing Gmod for a while, although not as much as you. People who scam don't always roleplay. 

Just because it "can't" occur in real life doesn't mean it can't occur in a game.

 

Yup. But that doesn't add anything to the point.

 

You're trying to avoid the entire point of "it honestly just pisses players off" by using the "new players should be able to be braindead zombies and literally apply no sense to trades and be safe" argument.

 

Im not avoiding that point at all. I thought it went without saying that scamming angers the victims, but I guess next time I'll be sure to make it very plain. I never said new players should be braindead. I never said new players should apply no sense.

Just say it. It pisses people off

 

It pisses people off.

At some point, people have to look out for their own interests. That point probably starts with saying "okay I can lose 1400 to this gun dealer but that's cool, but maybe with giving this random guy on the street 500k I should ask to see the merchandise first or use !trade.

 

I completely agree with you. Common sense should be applied to transactions made. However, I feel that the rule encourages people to take advantage of people who genuinely dont know better. Just because some people are 1000iq players doesn't mean that every person on the server applies the same level of judgement and scrutiny to an in game trade. And I see that the point that you guys are making is that they absolutely should be cautious with trades.

Any replies relating to "no RP value" or "no reason to allow" will embolden my views for the reasons listed above.

 

That's completely fair. It's incorrect of me to say it has no RP value. You can absolutely RP a scam and it could be a fun thing to do if that's what you're into.

 

I know this is a long post but there was a lot to unpack. Again, I appreciate everyone's participation. I'm not here for a fight and so far everyone has been, for the most part, very civil. I am entirely prepared to accept that my viewpoint is not shared or reflected in the community, and that's okay. The whole point of this is to make a suggestion that I feel might make the server a better place for more people. :)

 

- Warren

[The Herbalist]

For me, it's just a simple case of allowing freedom of roleplay. It's another completely legitimate method to make a living on the server. As stated before, word will get around you are a scammer, heck back in the day we had a thread operated by a user called Piklas who listed known scammer and their steamIDs. As someone who was scammed back before we had !trade (2017/18) for 300k I can agree it pissed me the fuck off. But as a result, I became more buyer aware and haven't been scammed since, especially with the trade command's addition. If we disallow scamming (which has been a long standing rule and would definitely take time for everyone to be in the same page because frankly not everyone reads the MOTD every day) it would remove an option to make money via RP,  and would have the opposite effect of unburdening staff - more sits will just be made about scamming, or someone will make a forum report for a 50k scam and nobody is going to care about that honestly. Unfortunately, we can never fully remove mean people who do things like scam, you just have to adapt and let them die out themselves. As it stands the hard cap we operate by of 1 million or any irl cash is fine to me.

[Purple Gladiator�]

I do believe that the scam limit should be dropped from 1mil to 500k. New players grind all day to get VIP, just to have someone say "I'll sell you a VIP token for 950k" and then bam, drop the money not knowing better and the seller leaves the server. Then they gotta grind all over again. If the limit is 500k, at least they'll still have a good chunk of their money left.

 

I fully agree that it should remain but be dropped quite a bit. 500k maximum, around 250k minimum.