[Discussion] Possible New Safe Trade Feature

[Nails Warstein]

Since I respect everyone's opinion here greatly, I come to you first, and would appreciate your knowledge and suggestions.

As most will agree there is an epidemic that has existed in UO from its very inception called scamming. Yet UO has not done enough to tackle this issue successfully, aside from the random time consuming investigations, which we are all grateful for. Now I propose an option for combating scamming by employing game mechanics.

Currently if you get killed in Felucca, you can apply a murder count towards your murderer. If that player receives so many murder counts, their character becomes RED, and suffers limitations. Here is what I propose, if you like it, I will propose it elsewhere, and send it on to the powers that be.

How about every time we complete a trade where we use a trade window, we get a gump asking us if we were satisfied with our transaction? The same kind of gump you get when you we are asked if we want to report your murderer. This way, every we time we give positive feedback, each player involved in that transaction gains "prestige". This "prestige" could work like loyalty, and it could be applied to your entire account. In addition to receiving prestige, both players will be alerted instantly when players grant prestige and when they do not. This will help us decide if we want to conduct business with these players in the future as well. Maybe set refuse trades with that player/account. Also if a character receives too much negative feedback, it resets their prestige to zero, and further negatives can restrict that character's ability to trade. Remember these restrictions would be applied to their entire account.

Now this is where my idea gets interesting. Could there be some way to display our prestige, so other players can take comfort that we are a trustworthy character? Such as titles, perhaps a new color, instead of being a RED player, you are now a PURPLE player up to the highest prestige title BROKER. Perhaps gain benefits for being a real pillar of the community.

Now could there also be some way to track players prestige in a TOP 100 List that can be viewed on UO.com? This way we as a community can recognize who is legitimate, and who is not. This will also alert us when we see unfamiliar names in the list, and perhaps only those in that list can report them as suspicious, since we generally all know who the main traders are.

This gave me another idea. Raising prestige should not be easy, it should take hundreds of trades, aside from one exception. Players with a higher level of prestige would grant more prestige in each successful trade. Meaning newbie players can grant say a tenth of a percent, while a higher level prestige player can grant a full percentage point. I dare say player to player trades will increase game wide, and promote a sense of community, because it will encourage players to interact more. A lovely side benefit if I do say so myself.

Granted this idea will have to be carefully implemented. I would recommend that you can only receive one positive remark from one particular account per week or 5 business days. This way scammers can't just log a ton of accounts, and have all their characters give one character a lot of positive feedback, and usually most of us only do trade with each other once in a blue moon. I think free trial accounts should not be allowed to participate, and besides I think there should be a feature in place that shows players who is on a free trial account anyways.

I know nothing about coding. I have no idea how complex a feature like this would be. I just took what knowledge I already know that is in place, such as murder count system, account limitations, the old myuo system, granting titles, and name colors. I implore anyone to perfect this feature, and help make UO a safe place to trade.

(editing will be applied with every additional great idea)

 

[Decadence]

The concept is neat, (programming aside on all of this because I think this would be pretty hard to program....) but I can see so many problems come up with this. like a scammer's circle methodically upping the score on some characters and then getting away with that huge big scam. (I understand this is where your idea to watch unknow names, comes in, but to these scammers it is all a challenge to them, and they will have the patience to blend in) Or finding bugs to up your points. Also, there would be nothing to stop grief play, such as childish players giving bad ratings on every transaction done just for fun. Players sitting at the bank trading 1m and 10 m items over and over all day, should definitely not get the merit of someone who has earned trust by brokering a billion plus deal where actual trust was used with the real possibility of being scammed and scammed big! (Aka a trade not able to be completed in a trade window)

 

[Blood Ghoul]

If they would ever do as they say and get rid of checks then maybe you can place that 3 billion gold worth rare in a trade window and the other person can type 3,000,000,000 and then the trade would happen cleanly.. And allow vendor items to be priced at "no limit"

That would take care of just about all the scams

BG

 

[Assia Penryn]

Although I have brokered for folks, I have no desire to see a broker system put in-game. I've seen too many people turn bad and abuse positions of power and trust. If that person's account gets hacked... oh the damage that could happen with an in-game banner of trust. While I applaud your effort in coming up with an idea, it has too many loopholes and ways to be abused. Prestige can be milked with the right tools and patience, much like similar systems of player/player interaction.

I think trustworthiness should be something that is personal and individual. We are all capable of interacting with each other and deciding who is trustworthy to us. If there is a transaction and both parties do not share a trust in the same people or each other, than the transaction shouldn't take place. There should be no "I have to have it" that should cloud people's minds to the contrary. I broker for people without pay and without tips. I do it because it makes the community safer. We live in a virtual world where evil exists and much like in the real world, it takes a community where everyone does their part to help keep everyone safe.

I think if they get rid of physical gold and make it a number on an account or character as Blood Ghoul suggested, it would make our virtual world safer and it should have been implemented years ago.

 

[Merus]

The biggest problem with these types of trades is the pre-imposed limit on the amount of gold available in a single purchase. At present, that is 175 million... the current capacity of the bank box with full storage upgrades.

Finding a way to convert ingame gold to a stored "account balance" with say a limit of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, then allowing that account balance to be used for purchases would be a great start. (ok, that might have a few extra zeros, but you get the idea) Secondly, you would need to remove the artificial cap from items placed for sale on vendors.

The only big hurdle I see is for items that can not really be placed on a vendor... Homes and pets for example (yes I know pets can go in Magincia, but what % of the population really uses that? pfft). House transfers would need a rework of the trade window that would allow the seller to set a displayed price in the trade window which would be withdrawn from the buyers account balance upon acceptance.

 

[Nails Warstein]

Above anything, I would wish for weightless account bound gold with no vendor or trade limitations. Yet there has been no mention of doing it since the 15th anniversary party, and its not mentioned as slated for future publishes in Mesanna's producer letter. I am wondering if coding that maybe impossible. Phoenix said they intended to use the game mechanics at Fire Island Casino to make it possible. Unfortunately Phoenix is gone now.

Anyhow, the consensus so far seems to suggest there is nothing that can be done to make my feature possible. No one can think of anyway to make it work? We all give up, and the scammers win! I refuse to accept this, something must be done, I am asking for help. You can scrap my idea for all I care as long as you can come up with idea that works to stop scammers. Amen!

Feature Possible Mechanics

1000 good trades = highest level of prestige
1 bad trade subtracts 100 good trades
If you go below zero good trades = account wide trade limitations

Remember feedback can be left after you receive your own, so if you do get negative feedback, you can give that player negative feedback which would be applied to their entire account. Not sure quality players would throw their reputation away willy nilly.

I am skeptical that a scammer has the discipline to do 1000 successful trades, which would take a long time if you have to wait a full week to get a good feedback from each of their extra accounts and their friends accounts. How often does anyone make a trade where we don't thank each other for a successful trade? Why should anyone fear negative feedback?

My thought is eventually all the quality trustworthy players will be recognized, and players will always ask these players to broker their trades. The point of this feature is to recognize the good trustworthy players, and avoid those who aren't. Like the fake pretenders using the names like Nails Warstein's, Decacence's, Nabin's, so on and so forth.

 

[Chaos Draconix]

During my 3 year hiatus from UO, I played A LOT of World of Warcraft, and while there is always a possibility for scamming, their currency feature sounds exactly like what you are looking for, Its just a number on your backpack that increases or decreases every time you loot, purchase, sell or trade gold, I would think there would still need to be a way that would allow you to transfer gold from one character to another without having to jump through hoops like having to purchase something off a vendor just to get the gold over, I can see where you would think "account wide" gold would be an idea, although back in the good ol' days my brother and I shared an account, and giving him access to my "account wide" gold wouldn't make me happy =P The only possible way to get gold to another one of your characters in WoW is to send it through a mail system, I KNOW I KNOW!! I have played UO and I know what your thinking, You don't want UO to be like WoW and I understand completely, but 12 million subscribers don't lie, they have done something right and they have already perfected some of these problems UO still faces. Don't get me wrong I've noticed UO has made some strides since I've been back, mainly the chat/global chat feature.. But I would still like a way that I could whisper someone across the realm without having to go find them and "Party" with them, Or even just be able to party with them when you aren't near each other so you may have a private conversation without having to stop what your doing, Sorry got off on a tangent but I hope you see what I mean, UO has the capability, the gifted programmers to make anything possible, I believe that even more than just going "check-less" is going to be needed to rid UO of this scum.

 

[Captn Norrington]

That system would be great, but i see one very large flaw to it, lets assume i have the highest level of prestige (1000) and someone that doesnt like me or is simply being a jerk buys an item from me and clicks the bad trade box for no reason. they could then have their friends repeat the cycle as many times as possible. it doesnt seem fair that the scammers could pretty much destroy a brokers ranking in a day or two by doing this.

 

[Deaol]

I think even beyond what nails has mentioned, they need to develop a in game broker system that is 100% fool proof.. and before you say "Yeah, but you know UO and EA this will just build a better fool"

I think it would alleviate all trades woes... its simple.. a NPC takes your item, you put it up for "X" amount of gold and the user who is purchasing it is given a "Keyword" or "Password" to purchase the item (so someone else cannot snipe it) and the buyer has "X" amount of days to pay off a balance or pay the balance and its entirety at that moment. Once full payment is made User gets item and the NPC Broker acts as a vendor holding gold and the player can then transfer gold across their accounts characters.

SIMPLE!

 

[Merus]

I would love to see a broker type steward with a set up like the Arena hosts. You set the item up for bid, select a reserve and a buyout if you wish, a minimum bid increment, minimum time between bids, and an end date if the BO is not met.

Then players can come and enter a bid. When the bid is entered, it is tied directly to that account and the amount of the gold is withdrawn from the account balance (see gold account balance above). If you later increase your bid, the difference is withdrawn from the account balance. Upon the BO being met or the ending auction time being reached, all unsuccessful bids have their gold refunded to their account balance. The winning bidder received the item directly in their back box along with a message they the item has been placed there. If the account is not logged on at the time of the auction end, the first character to log on to that shard on that account received the item in the bank box and the message.

 

[Chaos Draconix]

I think even beyond what nails has mentioned, they need to develop a in game broker system that is 100% fool proof.. and before you say "Yeah, but you know UO and EA this will just build a better fool"

I think it would alleviate all trades woes... its simple.. a NPC takes your item, you put it up for "X" amount of gold and the user who is purchasing it is given a "Keyword" or "Password" to purchase the item (so someone else cannot snipe it) and the buyer has "X" amount of days to pay off a balance or pay the balance and its entirety at that moment. Once full payment is made User gets item and the NPC Broker acts as a vendor holding gold and the player can then transfer gold across their accounts characters.

SIMPLE!

I love this idea, I can't think of a single way it could fail. OR They can go Auction House like WoW Haha, jk.. obviously I'm a Warcraft fan =P

 

[Vexxed]

Non-Physical Gold Gets my Vote. Broker's shouldn't be needed in UO. Having to trust someone to perform a standard transaction beyond 175Mill or even barter things like "Garbs" for more expensive purchases is silly.....