Notice Introduction of new game rule: Handling real world trade goods

I think the price can be based on demand.
If 99% of the demand is willing to purchase it at a certain price, then it shouldn't sell much lower than that.
For example, if 99% of players are buying 10att FS for 5B, it doesn't make sense to sell at 3B or lower.

The major issue with RWTers is that sell items privately at a much cheaper price to launder their RWT items for legitimate Meso.

 

Rip the >1b item economy lol

 

There is even another problem:

There is lots of players that own high level characters and decent value (not crazy high but in several B to 10B maybe) that I actually know of - and of course there is many more but even I know quite a hand full of these guys, and I am sure they do not know the current market prices and rarely if not ever use the forums when they occassionally come back.
If one of these guys (that are legit players) comes back again as they usually do like once in a while and mostly for big events like Xmas or Aniv (same for me some years) and do a trade with an item of lets say 3-5B value, this will absolutely not be strange or sus at all, and they will get banned just because they did not know better and actually did nothing wrong -> I think this rule is absolutely WRONG.

Military police vibes here, military is not right either at all but they got the weapons to enforce this. But the question is, will an environment like this be good for such a small server? Will it be worth for 1B meso +? I think absolutely NO!

You should at least make a mandatory screen freeze that makes EVERY char do a 20 min quiz or something in their NATIVE language that is NOT skippable!

 

"we introduced this rule after your appeal was filed, therefore we are showing leniency."

Do you guys even read your own policies.

I know this is a private server so you can be as heavy handed with the rules as you please, but the design and implementation of this rule is over the top draconian.

The big problem is: you're thinking of the most extreme cases when you write the rule. Which honestly does make some sense. A naked level 50 with a hacker name is trading you a perfect weapon for 5b. Yeah, any Royals player with any experience knows exactly what's up and frankly should be held accountable.

But what you fail to grasp when writing this rule is that the people enforcing it have to deal with grey areas. And all Royals players know how fickle staff are with enforcing rules.... Including changing them after the fact to suit their purposes (see my first line, or the "mass defaming" rule change, or the lovely June incident for a couple easy examples).

So now any player has no idea what will be enforced before making any trade over 1b. Or even below 1b, since we all know it's possible that staff will change the threshold at any time retroactively without notifying players.

I know RWT is a real problem but holy hell punishing honest players is not the way to fix it.

 

I know players who are level 50 and get easily CS / WS just like that. What if it's their only main character, would that mean they are a suspect of RWT too? It's pretty unfair considering how easy it's to get gear here. Not to mention how easily players give out free items / mesos here such as 10-12 atk gloves + other gear. And it's so fking easy to scam others. What about the players who RWT accounts? What if you bring a friend who is a level 120+ bishop and tell him that it's your main character when it's not and the buyer believes you, will that also be bannable? So many loopholes in this stupid rule. What if i win 5 chaos scrolls in a row as a level 50 ( which does happen ), will that account be suspected too or what? Such time consuming and very annoying way to get banned or even suspected at. At this point i agree with you, no need for GM's if we are doing their job now........

 

Strongly disagree with this rule as others have commented.

• I disagree with the general sentiment of this rule that players should be routinely asking these questions - too much effort required having to ask the questions and keep track of this information over time. If I make a trade now, do I have to keep permanent documentation of this trade when asked about it many years later? If someone is lowering the price for a quick sale, they may not have time to go through this entire background check.
• 1B trades are way too frequent. If this rule must remain implemented, I would suggest increase the threshold to at least 5-10B

 

Is it though? From what they've said in the past, the ban usually comes after GM did investigation into the accounts, not just "omg he bought an item 30% below market price, ban now". If you've been selling for a while now, there should be evidence of you asking for normal price, then starting to lower cuz no one is buying.

 

With this new rule in place:

Does that mean every trade chained with the affected item in question will be removed/reverted? Investigation's can take days or even months so many people would be at a loss since high attack items usually get downgraded. Wouldn't it be better if staff did due diligence and remove these high attack items by scanning the data base frequently?

How do we determine such things when forum accounts can be set to private? Will there be a set price guide from staff? The market for high attack items are based off of demand and the game state. For example, high attack items are less sought out for when everyone realized that scrolling an auf haven circlet gives more boost in damage. How do we determine the difference between "quitting sale" and "rwt activity" because those two activities can coincide with each other. I can point out a bunch of buying and selling threads right now in question but I don't think its fair just because they aren't known in the community or have much forum posts.

I don't think its even fair that @lee1 was temporarily banned when multiple members of the community including previous/current staff members participated in some sort of similar trades. I think it would be more fair going forward instead of applying the ban on him like a scapegoat.

 

It was just a suggestion without much thoughts into the specifics. It could be ironed out via feedback thread but at the current state, the new official rule will ruin the motivation of most players on this server. The players who RWT accounts can be easily caught by GMs via IP/Mac addresses. It seems that if you made an 'attempt' at doing your due diligence, you will not be banned. Claiming you are someone else will cause you to be banned as well.

 

Why not just make

You can easily hide your addresses. Also what if i bring my level level 150 bishop who has 0 mesos as a main account and the other guy who i'm trading will eventually believe me? It just wont work, these rules are not bullet proof. There are many other issues too not just this. I agree with you, i'm already losing motivation to play this server.

 

What's the threshold for the amount of money a person can profit off of a single deal before its nefarious?

I totally agree that going to the same person over and over again for unadvertised deals that net billions in profit seems suspicious but this rule needs to be adjusted, lots of holes as others have pointed out.

The real question is:

How long can this server handle having only one capable person that can progress rwt investigations? Is it likely that we have someone added to that role? Considering no matter the vetting process we still seem to have our annual GM scandal

 

In my opinion, this server is pretty much doomed unless we get a complete rebalance to trading system. If you want to trade a very expensive item, you both click " trade " but it wont go through unless GM has come into the role and does the investigation itself, i am talking about items worth billions. For low and cheap trades no GM needed. Also this is all because of how easy it's to get NX, mesos and items here.. if rates were lower and AP resets were untradeable, there would be less RWT. We all know how many vote abusers there are who sell AP / do gacha and profit from it, if that weren't the case, the problem would already be solved by 30-50%. Not to mention if this server had better protection against hackers and botters, things would be more chill.

There are servers that don't even allow selling AP resets and getting NX, mesos and items is not as high as here + offer a far more professional staff members including better protection against hackers etc.

 

I understand the need to put an end to those transactions, as there are numerous RWTers out there who don't mind selling their high end wa gear for 20 even 30b cheaper than market price, perfect weapons 5-10b cheaper and so on, Thus creating a crazily profitable and easy to abuse avenue for merchers with alot of meso on hand, and I 100% AGREE that this needs to stop.

The problem here is how you're handling it, why am I as a player - with my limited resources - expected to investigate every player I trade with? What am I looking for in people's forum account? What if they've been around a while but only recently created a forum account? now instead of the one grey area of 'profitting off of RWTers' you're creating multiple grey areas :

• What is their forum account?
  Forum join date / activity doesnt necessarily tell you much about the person, there
  are many dedicated, old players with new, inactive forum accounts, and vice versa.
  
  
• Who are their main characters?
  Am I supposed to ask a player to make a list of their characters before I trade with them?
  
  
• Can they contact you from those accounts?
  "Oh yeah thank you for the list of chars Mr. Katinas, can you PM me from Kaizoko so I can make sure its you?"
  
  
• Around how long have they been playing?
  Again, I understand that an unheard of, naked level 7 mule selling a 23 wa cape is an obvious RWTer, but this still creates alot of grey area, how am I supposed to tell if, lets say a semi active, 145 shadower I've been seeing here and there for the past 2 months made his 18 cape that he's selling by getting lucky on CS or RWT?
  RWTers will obviously make up believable stories of them CSing that item or getting it as a gift from their quitted friend.
  There are also many players who keep their mesos on an 'FM mule' which is usually a low level character they use to open permit stores while playing their main on the side, how am I supposed to tell these people apart from RWTers using a throwaway mule to remain anonymous?
• Does it make sense for them to have these goods comparatively to their MapleRoyals progress?
  Do I chase after every player before trading with them, follow them around to see how they spend their day and how they make their mesos?

• Any of these points not making sense? inform staff prior to trading
  now, who in staff is going to handle this? how long is it going to take to get an answer from staff?
  
  
• You will not get banned or have goods removed if you made legitimate effort in your due diligence and proceeded with the trade where later on the person you traded with turned out to be a real world trader that had you fooled.
  How will staff be able to tell if I did a background check on that person before trading or not?
  Am I gonna have to write and keep a log of every player I traded with to later provide when needed?

-----------------------------------------------
There are many more grey areas and vague general statement that heavily depend on personal interpretation that I don't have time to write up on, but all in all this whole thread makes me just not wanna trade with anyone anymore, because what may seem like an obvious RWTer to you @Tim , or other people in staff with a longer and more hands-on experience in such matters, might seem like another regular player to me and many others.

 

You might as well give everyone on the forum a 'GM intern' tag with the level of due dilligence expected on making trades of items over 1b.

Since trades in the store have been excluded from the rule, wouldn't it make sense to increase the low threshold of 1b to 2.1b+? Makes sense, right?

What if the person i want to buy 7att shoes off doesn't have a forum account? Do we as a community have to create a trading 'whitelist' on the forums to streamline the screening process?

Instead of imposing a draconian rule, why not encourage the community to report suspicious trades they make with people inspiring honesty instead of fear.

I agree there needs to be a better way of finding rwt'ers and removing them from the game but this ain't it chief.

 

Why would any legit player have any issue whatsoever letting you know who they are? If they are hiding behind mule accounts, it is almost certainly because they have something to hide. An immediate and obvious red flag. If it walks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck... The same goes for anyone asking for your discord information to avoid discussion either in-game or here on the forum. Obvious red flag is obvious.

 

Most players keep their stuff with their mules. It's been since 2003 mate. My quickest trade has been like 5 seconds anyways, sometimes you just want to trade.. trade like in every other game. Trade just like in the old days. This clownish shit is getting ridiculous.

 

I think the removal of the item itself makes for a massive penalty that will force legit buyers to do their due diligence. Bans might not be necessary.

 

And can i point out how messed up it is that you need to verify that the other guy is legit in a trade?
Like if i sell leech, i shouldnt have to worry about if the seller is legit, as long as i do the leech and get paid the right amount
If i sell 7 wa fs for 5b when its their price, i shouldnt need to worry where the 7b came from

 

Imo, uninformed/less established players are likely to skim over 'their due diligence' expectations as much as new players seem to skim over like.. the voting roles. (Just using that as an example, because it's something that seems like a common occurrence.) Except that this issue is a lot less simple. Unless they have people who tell them stuff to look out for, they're likely to have more reason to blindly trust someone and less likely to ask questions.

 

I think it's great, so the game will be a better experience for those who don't know the rules