Why I think cross-league trading is just as bad as real-money trading

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Jaerin a écrit :

The fact that Kripp wins races or that someone can get to level 80 doesn't necessarily mean they have more skill. This game is very time intensive. Kripp wins races because he has a lot of time to study the game and find the best builds and methods of winning. If you had the same level of time dedication as him you could be level 90+ too and potentially win races. He didn't say that luck was the ONLY thing that matters and skill is not the ONLY factor either. Time played is a huge factor as well, not only on a single character, but overall.

Being a surgeon isn't skill, it's just time studying!

Being skilled isn't synonymous with being a natural. As a matter of fact, the most skilled people -- in craftsmanship, in medicine, in physical sports, and in computer games -- are those that train efficiently, and train hard.

Time = longer time to learn what works = more skill

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Charan a écrit :

I'm quietly stunned GGG made a cross-league trading board, but at least they put 'UNSAFE!' in the board title, LOL.

I didn't notice that earlier, and I kind of have to agree. I think that this will unfortunately give the practice some measure of legitimacy by making it appear that GGG endorses the practice (regardless of the warning), which might be a boon for scammers.

I think the second problem with creating a cross-league trading board is the fact that the forum policy against "naming and shaming" removes the one mechanism that free markets supposedly have to remove bad actors from the market. The existing anti-scam mechanics like having to inspect the items you are trading for simply do not function in this sort of transaction. The inability of GGG to police trades and the ineffectualness of existing anti-scam mechanics in this context leaves players with only one defense mechanism, the public exposure of scammers.

As a personal opinion, I find it troubling that GGG seems to be making decisions that help to facilitate these things while also actively preventing others from countering scams. I do not believe it is intentional, just not thought out well. The official line seems to be "We are washing our hands of this matter." I could live with this (wouldn't like it, but I wouldn't say much) if people had the freedom to say "Don't trade with this guy, he doesn't uphold his end of the deal."

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57789 a écrit :

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Charan a écrit :

I'm quietly stunned GGG made a cross-league trading board, but at least they put 'UNSAFE!' in the board title, LOL.

I didn't notice that earlier, and I kind of have to agree. I think that this will unfortunately give the practice some measure of legitimacy by making it appear that GGG endorses the practice (regardless of the warning), which might be a boon for scammers.

I think the second problem with creating a cross-league trading board is the fact that the forum policy against "naming and shaming" removes the one mechanism that free markets supposedly have to remove bad actors from the market. This seems to be the only mechanism that would work since GGG seems completely unwilling to do anything about the scammers.

As a personal opinion, I find it troubling that GGG seems to be making decisions that help to facilitate these things while also actively preventing others from countering scams. I do not believe it is intentional, just not thought out well. The official line seems to be "We are washing our hands of this matter." I could live with this (wouldn't like it, but I wouldn't say much) if people had the freedom to say "Don't trade with this guy, he doesn't uphold his end of the deal."

Just a sidenote about the anti-naming-and-shaming policy:
We need naming and shaming in real life (ie neutral third-party product reviews, lawsuits against false advertising) because in real life, it is sometimes hard to tell if something really is as good as advertised. In PoE however, we already do have a 100% foolproof system for telling if you are getting the same thing as advertised, simply by mousing over the item in the trade screen. This is why there is a policy against naming-and-shaming. Players are expected to use the trade screen instead of what amounts to vigilante justice in order to determine if a trade is a scam or not.

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Regarding the cross-league trading forum, I agree that this move does put GGG in a position of inconsistency, in that they appear to be facilitating cross-league trades without providing any mechanism for preventing scams. However, to me, the more harmful part of the equation lies in the fact that they are facilitating cross-league trading at all, rather than the lack of scam protection for people who choose to engage in such trades.

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ScrotieMcB a écrit :

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wonko33 a écrit :

P1 wants to sell an item in default
P2 tell him that if he receives this item in default league, his Hardcore character will give something to P1's character in hardcore?

Yes.

Wow, I wonder how much money I could make if I started an escrow service :)

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VoxelSquid a écrit :

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However, to me, the more harmful part of the equation lies in the fact that they are facilitating cross-league trading at all, rather than the lack of scam protection for people who choose to engage in such trades.

I don't disagree with this, but I'm operating off the assumption that they will not remove the board. My point was more "Ok, now that you've done that. Here's what you have to do now as a result."

I'll also be editing my previous post about naming and shaming policy, since I left out a really important point about the existing scam protections being wholly ineffectual in cross-league trading. Although, I suppose there is another inconsistency here. Naming and shaming was also banned because it was thought to be too easy to abuse, and I fail to see how cross-league trading is any more difficult to abuse.

I just see Cross-League Trading as a scammers Playground.

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57789 a écrit :

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VoxelSquid a écrit :

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However, to me, the more harmful part of the equation lies in the fact that they are facilitating cross-league trading at all, rather than the lack of scam protection for people who choose to engage in such trades.

I don't disagree with this, but I'm operating off the assumption that they will not remove the board. My point was more "Ok, now that you've done that. Here's what you have to do now as a result."

I'll also be editing my previous post about naming and shaming policy, since I left out a really important point about the existing scam protections being wholly ineffectual in cross-league trading. Although, I suppose there is another inconsistency here. Naming and shaming was also banned because it was thought to be too easy to abuse, and I fail to see how cross-league trading is any more difficult to abuse.

Well, in this case you can actually do something yourself that will have a very tangible effect on the practice in question: Start scamming people in cross-league trades. The more rampant scamming is, the less attractive it will be. The less attractive it is, the less people will do it.

Inversely you could start doing honest trades with favorable prices to encourage the practice. In the end, how the players (ab)use the "feature" will determine what form it takes. This is one of the beautiful aspects of player-governed game systems :)

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ScrotieMcB a écrit :

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Courageous a écrit :

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Not only are you exposing yourself to being scammed, you are also damaging the integrity of the game environment ....

How so? Neither currencies nor items actually flow from SC->HC in such a trade.

Although this is true in a hard sense, in an effective sense it is not; cross-league trading transforms the Hardcore player's "worthless" death-to-Default items into a usable commodity. This makes the Default economy feel the full force of inflation due to Hardcore-to-Default death-based transfers.

Well you're wrong about that.

I was in the first 1 week race in OB on a duelist and logged out(alive) for a patch and logged in to default after the patch.(it was the duelist patch)What I then did was gave all my gear away in trade and deleted the character.


This is what I would have done on any character I had that died in HC as I didn't play SC at the time. But I do know I'm not even close to the only person who would give away all their items to default players if they only play HC.

Now, I actually play SC(as well as HC) because I have a few friends that are too impatient to play HC. I would obviously just trade the items and delete the character. So you see from my little corner of the world nothing changed at all. Since my items would still be going into the default market.


The only advantage is recouping some loss in HC. Besides, you don't have any impact on the HC economy at all. All that really happens is a decrease in buying power from sc -> hc and an increase in buying power from hc -> sc.

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Squirry a écrit :

Well, in this case you can actually do something yourself that will have a very tangible effect on the practice in question: Start scamming people in cross-league trades. The more rampant scamming is, the less attractive it will be. The less attractive it is, the less people will do it.

Inversely you could start doing honest trades with favorable prices to encourage the practice. In the end, how the players (ab)use the "feature" will determine what form it takes. This is one of the beautiful aspects of player-governed game systems :)

I could, but it's not really an option because I think ripping other people off is unethical, even in games. (Ripping off actual people at least, a lot of my ethics go out the window when it comes to NPCs if my time spent in GTA is any indication.)

As I mentioned before, legitimacy is an issue. I think that being an honest sc/hc trader may very well do more harm than good, because scammers will benefit from the legitimacy that honest traders bring to the practice. I may provide an honest trade to one player, while providing many more with a false sense of security.

HC which partake in this type of trade aren't really HC. They are the same ones that say every death is due to desync and have macros for Alt_f4 and logout scripts.

They are an abomination to what HC is supposed to be and should be shunned.

They are why SC make fun of the HC issues.