Alright, I don't particularly understand this fully, but there's a bit of a dilemma that I dealt with today. This is NOT a report thread, so forgive me for being long-winded, but I'm just trying to be as detailed as possible. I set up a shop (IGN: Cooke) in FM 16 by the door. Totally legit, open space, etc...no glitching or anything like that. I began setting up a shop, although I had NOT clicked "open store" yet. I noticed someone (IGN: ireiia) appear in the portal, so I went ahead and clicked open shop, to secure the spot. I figured that ireiia was trying to snatch the spot, which is fine - I would've done the same thing - the spot is fair game until a shop is opened. Anyways, I managed to click "open store" before he could open his. Shortly after, his shop opened, directly on top of mine. Nevertheless, I managed to open mine faster, so the spot (as far as I was aware) was secure. I clicked in the middle of both shops to see which was on the bottom, and it registered as clicking on MY shop (asking if I wanted to perform shop maintenance), indicating that I was on the bottom, and therefore, had opened my shop first. It is my understanding that the second person to open a shop on the same spot will not be able to access the spot. So, upon seeing the spot secure, yes, I snidely said, "nice try" to ireiia. A dick move, sure, but not against the rules by any means. I was simply happy that I managed to get my shop opened and avoid having it stolen out from under me. Anyways - a few minutes later, a comrade asked me where my shop was, so that I could obtain splits from a Zakum run. Upon disclosing my shop's location, the person was unable to find my shop. I went back to see that ireiia's shop was open, and mine had disappeared. I whispered ireiia, asking what the deal was. While I imagine that he was simply contacting a GM to close his shop, as I imagine he could not close it manually with mine in the way, ireiia informed me that the GM had to close both shops. Ireiia was aware of this, as he informed me he was able to secure the spot because he "waited" for the GM to close both shops. Nevertheless, as I said before - this is not a report thread, as ireiia did nothing wrong anyways. My issue lies with how the GM closed both shops, instead of simply closing ireiia's. My shop was opened first, as made clear by the fact that clicking on it opened mine instead of his, so I do not see why BOTH shops had to be closed. But because ireiia knew this, and waited around for the GM to close both shops, he was able to walk away with a spot. Was the GM physically unable to close the shop without closing mine first (because it was on the bottom, possibly preventing a GM from directly clicking on ireiia's)? I imagine there was a way to close ireiia's shop without closing mine, but if there was not, then I understand why both shops had to close. If not, I would like to know the rationale as to why both shops had to close. I don't expect a GM to close his shop and return the spot to me or anything, I just would appreciate clarification on the policy, the methods, and/or the reasoning as to why BOTH shops were closed. Insight from whichever GM performed the action would probably be best, but really any clarification would be fine. TL; DR: I opened my shop. Someone else tried to open before me, but failed, and was stuck with a shop on top of mine, unable to close it. I was first to secure the spot. GM apparently had to close both shops. Other person ended up getting the spot because he knew this, and waited around for the GM to arrive so he could open his shop again. My question is, why did both shops have to close? I won the race. If a GM could have closed his shop by doing like "/closeshop IGN" or something like that, then there was no reason to close my shop as well. P.S.: A notification message would have been appreciated. Had I not been expecting splits, I could have gone upwards of 24 hours thinking I had a shop up, when in reality, it had been down the whole time. Thanks for reading. Any clarification, from GMs or otherwise, would be appreciated.
Hi there, I don't know exactly what happened from a GM perspective as I don't even know (nor honestly care) what GM was involved in this case but as a result of this thread, we did some testing and figured out a foolproof way to determine which store is there first. Prior to this, some of the staff thought there were exceptions and it would be possible to be at the spot first, but your store would appear on top and seem to appear to be the second one there. Because of that belief, some of the staff felt it was necessary to close both shops. Notifications aren't given because many times players aren't online and it's not really their job to notify you of your store closing, especially if it's not supposed to be open in the first place. I don't know what to say for your personal experience, but we now know for sure how to ensure that unless both stores cannot be accessed, only one store needs to be closed, and that store would be the one who opens later.
Yesterday I had the same issue as the OP and I'm not satisfied of how the situation was handled. After the latest server restart I opened a shop at FM2 on a spot before another user did, some seconds after opening my shop he opened his and thus it was overlapping mine (both shops were easily accessible, they were just somewhat close). After about half an hour I noticed my shop was closed and Mateo's shop was still up, which makes me think he also reported it to a GM and waited for both shops to be closed so he could snag the spot afterwards. Oh by the way, he sent me whispers before my shop closed saying something like "GG, a GM will close down both shops anyway", as if he were trying to tell me he would get the spot anyway. What I don't understand is why my shop was closed down when: a) When clicking where both shops overlapped mine opened up, which means mine was opened first. b) My shop appeared behind the other one, which made it appear to be the first one there. c) Both were accessible, the other guy had easy access to his shop (to either place items to sell or to close it). d) Despite both shops being accessible mine was still closed down, which means shops are not only closed they can't be accessed. I'm pretty happy there's a new policy regarding the FM spot issues, however even with the old policy and the points given above I can't see why my shop closed at all.
What happened in the past, is the past. We can't do anything about that now. I posted what will be done in cases like this from here on out, and that's all we can do.
