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

Too add onto this (after marinating in my thoughts overnight), I think the concern extends beyond false bans arising out of honest, human mistakes. I think the concern mainly hinges on the fact that despite the way the rule is written, it fails to distinguish between players who maliciously "orchestrated" extremely profitable trades with players who innocently happened upon extremely profitable trades. In essence, the rule penalizes any high profit margin without consideration of the player's intent--as long as those high profit margins occurred with a real-world trader and without a satisfactory background check. In that sense, the rules don't result in "false bans" since those would in fact be intentional bans. And so while players certainly are now "equipped with a way to protect themselves," the heart of the matter is that the rule leaves players feeling as if they need to protect themselves from punishment by staff more than anything else.

This rule ultimately seeks to address a "gray area" in which it seeks to prohibit players from exploiting the rules to gain unfair advantages over others. But in doing so it inherently raises another "gray area" in which it does not evaluate whether players were actually maliciously seeking to gain unfair advantages over others or were simply participating in the game's market economy. Players must perform a background check when engaging in high-value trades. Players must refrain from engaging in suspicious trades. Any failure to do so--intentional or unintentional--they will be punished just the same. And this aspect of the rule is likely what's leaving such a sour taste in everyone's mouths. Why should players go about their business playing a mushroom game feeling as if they're potential criminals under constant threat of retribution?

So then the question is: Is this rule necessary to tackle this issue with absolutely no other alternative solutions available? Is this rule sufficiently optimized to reduce both the exploitation of real-world trades and the burden on the community? Although these questions were at least tangentially discussed at length throughout the course of this thread, it may be worth revisiting now that the initial gut reaction to the

This is disingenuous, given that it's a two-strike rule. Meaning that having only engaged in such trades "like 3 times ever" could just as easily have resulted in a permanent ban, and if not, at least a temporary ban while losing a bunch of your money.

 

This is such a fantastic post highlighting the key issues. Good stuff, Sen

I want to once again propose some changes to the rule. I think it addresses the gaps Sen mentioned.

1. Raise the cap from 1b. I proposed 10b and recommended bare minimum 2.1b to avoid conflicting and unclear rules around fm merch shops. They made this change I initially proposed. Fantastic.

2. Require that the seller post on the forum the checklist information, and make the buyer only verify that the ign of the seller is listed on the forum post, and potentially answer to the forum thread saying "verified". GMs can manually audit the thread to ensure the sellers info is accurate. They've demonstrated in ban appeals they can manually check all known accounts likely by tracking IPs. any RWTer would have 20 posts on the forums selling 21 attack fs and would immediately be caught. Instead rwters would have to try to trade fs without a forum post. Since buyers have to check the ign on the forum post, it means that any buyer not checking the ign is negligent or guilty of rwt/profiting off of rwt, AND that any seller not posting a thread is guilty of RWT, checkmating rwters because if they post on the forum they'd make so many posts it'd be obvious they are rwting, and if they don't post then both the buyer and seller are immediately guilty.

Once again, this system causes minimal burden to all involved. The responsibilities of all parties is clear. It's as easy as managing ban appeals for GMs, it's as simple as taking 5 extra minutes for sellers to add a bit of info onto their sales threads that they are already 99 percent of the time making for their large sale, and it's easy for buyers because all they have to do is click the link the seller sends them of their thread and make sure the ign of the seller is on that list, and potentially say verified to that thread.

What this does, in short, is create a public ledger of trades 5b+. What was traded, who bought, who sold, at what time.

Would love to hear a GM response to this idea, either publicly or privately if I'm missing some key info about how RWT works that the GMs know about but don't want to share publicly.

 

this rule is made to punish players though, not to protect them. I feel like some people here are kidding to point out how protected players are now with such a rule. With the 5B increase I feel like this rule can be tolerated but it is still really bad, especially if you turn it now in a way as if this was meant to be protective for players - since it is absolutely the oppsoite. It objectively threatens any player that might intentionally or not intentionally deal with any RWT item.

Edit: While I said that nut's clarification is really nice - and I still think it is, since it shows the intend of staff very clearly - I dont wanna say it conveys nice content at all, it is just articulated very well and that is nice. But it also makes clear that it threatens everybody and that it was actually discussed and deemed appropriate by staff - while it is nice that staff apparently knows what they want, it is still bad for the atmosphere of the game imo.

 

Disclaimer: I am no longer a part of staff, however, I was involved in the discussions and implementation of this rule. Here is my take on the rule and why it was created and is required:

The primary target of this rule is the ones who have the excessive funds available to be able to purchase attack gear from players that are clearly illegitimate, for under-market values, and abuse the "gray area" within the T&C that previously existed. Transactions like these assist RWTers in liquidating their assets quickly, and without the need for advertisement (which helps them evade being caught).

We have previously had instances where large profits are able to be made by purchasing items from clear multi-red-flag users (lvl 30 mules who won't reveal their mains IGN, selling an item 25b below market value) looking to liquidate their items easily and quickly without the need for advertisement, by going to the select-few players who have the means of purchasing these items on a regular basis to flip for profits. These purchasers have actively used for example: "My friends said it would be too good of a deal 'not' to go through with" as their justification/defense for proceeding in these trades, while never posing the question to staff whether or not they should proceed.

The intention of this rule is to cover the gray area that previously existed within the T&C, which was able to be abused by players who had the means/funds to do so and make massive returns in profit, furthering their ability to make transactions like these ones. Aside from the primary targets of this rule, the rule is meant to bring further awareness to everybody's transactions, and hold people to a certain level of accountability. Intentions are really what matters here at the end of the day. If you are someone who is looking to make one of your first big purchases, congratulations! This rule is not intended to make you fear the persecution of making that purchase you've been saving up for months to make. The rule is in place in order to ensure that when you go to make your large purchase, you have made sure to the best of your ability, that the player you are buying the item from is legitimate.

When players are making purchases for high-value items, 9/10 times, the item is going to be sold by someone who is a veteran player, that has a history of making the transactions that they do, or a history of making risky gambles that can be verified by administrators. If someone is selling an item that is hard to come by, and they have no forum account they have ever made, no main account they will share with you, and no information you are able to research or look into, then most likely there are some red flags in your mind to begin with. This rule ensures that players will acknowledge those red flags and act accordingly. If you think something feels off about a transaction, then don't go thru with it. Submit a report against the player explaining why you had those red flags occur. Worst case scenario (or maybe best case scenario), staff will advise you there is nothing that seems off or wrong with the reported player, meaning, you can proceed with the transaction if the offer still stands at no risk of penalty.

It's hard to address every single question/concern that may arise from this rule, but ultimately it should be known that intentions will show. We all know if we are proceeding with a transaction, or action, that we know is questionable or risky. If it seems too good to be true, it most likely is. If you aren't sure about something, submit a report and/or ask staff. At the end of the day, a person's intentions will show.

The community does not need to concern themselves with whether or not a rule change will affect the workload of current Staff members. Staff members are volunteers who fulfill the needs of the community at their own will. They are not paid for their services. If further assistance is needed for the workload presented to staff, they will hire additional members to assist. At the end of the day, all staff wants to do is help to create a positive environment for everyone, while reducing the amount of RWT that occurs within the server that we all love and care for. By eliminating RWT, it extends the longevity of the server, stabilizes the economy, and creates a fair marketplace for everyone involved.

An adjustment to the T&C to add clarity was required in order to prevent further abuse from happening within the T&C. I hope that everybody can understand this, even though 90% of the people reading this, aren't affected on a regular basis. But if you are making a large purchase, don't do so blindly. Do your research.

P.S. I'm not gone hehe

 

I completley agree with everything you said and the rule is perfect in this matter however that is not what was introduced.

The limit of 1b made it problematic. Now raised to 5b(?) wtf?

You're talking about trades where people clearly takes advantage of RWT and gaining 25b? What was presented was a rule that everyone needed an extra terrabite of harddrive space to record every transaction 1b up.

 

Responding to what you have to say is very hard for me personally. My intentions are not to bash on current staff whatsoever, however, as I have previously stated within the shoutbox. I did not write the rule that was posted. This is "my" take on the rule.

 

quick question cuz i just returned to playing like 2 days ago
does this affect ALL trades above 5b? or just trades that make insane profit?
cuz I don't see the rationality in being investigated in laundering for a trade at market rates

like if a player bought something that is worth 10b at 10b, and the seller turned out to be a RWTer, how does the buyer get an unfair advantage?
also, how does the 10b received by the RWTer get laundered? unlike the real world, the game is able to track all the currencies, there is no moving cold hard cash in suitcases or any crypto shenanigangs, where things are kept private/untraceable
like all items and mesos are traceable within the game - someone got 10 cs/ws suddenly? cant hide from the system bozo
care to explain the 91 RC + 22WA gloves that you seemingly picked off the ground? must be a pretty good friend or family member

 

My personal response would be to refer back to intentions and red flags.

Was the item you purchased for 10b (valued at 10b), bought from a level 30 mule you have never seen before? Does it look like the seller may have acquired the item illegitimately? Are they a reputable player? If any red flags go off for you, I’d say that your best bet is to avoid the transaction, report the seller, and look for someone else selling the item. If it’s an item that is hard to come by, then most likely you'll either have no red flags due to the seller being reputable or you'll have many red flags about them.

It's best to do your research to the best of your ability, but I’d say depending on what is being bought/sold, how many red flags there reasonably were, and your intentions behind making the purchase (was it for genuine use? is it a very rare item you got for cheap? Are you trying to flip it? Did you know the deal seemed too good to be true?) are all factors worth considering.

So ultimately I would say, no, this rule does not apply only to making profits. It applies to all transactions above the threshold. We do not want to support any RWTers. Just because you bought an item at market value from a sketchy person, doesn't mean you didn't help them (in fact you helped them even more by paying market value), while not doing your part to combat RWT. The more the server combats RWT, the better for everyone.

Once again, don't make your purchases blindly. Do your research, recognize red flags, and don't ignore them. I'll also say again, that this rule is primarily focused on those who “knew” what they were doing, and were flipping high value items off of multi-red-flag users. This rule “does” affect everyone, but it really doesn't affect the mass majority of players as much as they may think. It heavily effects the users who previously abused the gray area and had the excessive funds to continually do so, which is how the rule is intended.

I hope that I did alright trying to explain this from my point of view.

 

What you aren't getting is that we don't want to do all of this nonsense just to buy, sell, and trade expensive items. We want to be able to smega B> 21 att shoe, or post a forum thread about one, and when somebody PMs us, negotiate a deal and simply screen shot the transaction in case we get wrongfully banned in the future. All throughout GMS, and on every private server historically speaking, this one included, that is how trading has taken place. That is a substantial component of this game and it impacts how the market functions. Combating RWT is something the staff need to deal with. That is one of their duties. There is no "doing our part to combat RWT". We are players, not staff members, that burden doesn't fall on our shoulders. Do some people voluntarily help? Of course, but you are essentially mandating that we help you combat RWT as mere players by making our game play more difficult and tedious. Straight-up, if a player wants to buy a 10b item for 10b, the origin of it really only matters to the staff, and that's for them to figure out. If you have a 10b shoe, and I need a 10b shoe, I should be able to buy your 10b shoe without having to pry for information that truly has no impact on the item being purchased by me whatsoever. I don't care about your main account, your forum posts, your trading history, level, or any of that other stuff. The item functions the same for me no matter where it came from and I am not gaining an advantage by purchasing it at the value it holds in the market.

 

After having thought about this whole construct again, this whole thing makes again less sense to me.

So is this rule about fighting RWT in general and wants to threaten players to stop interacting with RWTers in general while somehow also only targeting the very few players, that were doing so in a problematic way, who have also been known explicitly by staff?

At least after reading Pure's view of the rule, to me all of this looks much more confusing again, because still at that moment I am wondering, what is this rule explicitly supposed to do and what are players explicitly forced to do if they wish to continue playing this server?

If you say, everyone doing high lvl trades - regardless of them being profitable or not - should do their detective word, then announce it that way without exceptions and without additional clauses. If the problem is high value trades where people take advantages of 25B and more, why are you guys then setting limits in low value ranges such as 1-5B?

These kind of contradictions are just confusing and it just leaves the impression as if staff was just handing over this big mess to me as a player and say "there you do your part now" .

Regarding that "a note wont help" comment made by GM Nut previously:

After having thought about it, I think it was not the case that there was a visible notice before that asked for player help to combat RWT. I was playing for years, was on forums and ingame yet I never came across such an explicit note that asked me not to trade to random unknown lv30 mules. It was simply not announced nor advertised well enough.
While there may have been some vague notes floating around, and while leveling up and meeting more and more other players and groups, I learned about it over the years, it was still not clear at all to me as an average player that this is actually a huge deal for you guys, so how am I suddenly supposed to have known all of these indepth details about this server?

There is also no concise notification easily accessible that is showing how bad RWT is for this server. It is not like the screen freezes and there is a "Welcome to the server, please help us to keep it RWT free to make this server live forever in mushroom peace" at account creation or something that is really showing the severity and asking for serious player contribution. The server rules however are shown at this point but why is there no note about your greatest enemy - RWT and how we as a player can help you combat it? The first time I really encountered this RWT thing in all its true severity is actually in this thread here, were I was threatened to get banned if I do not help out the staff, seemingly out of nowhere - which actually rather turns me away from anycontribution than makes me want to help (and I actually evaded trades before that I was not sure of).

Moreover, apparently the original problem causing this rule to emerge from the depths of this server, was players taking advantage of RWT money laundry, repeatedly and knowingly?

It still makes no sense to me to threaten everybody and force everybody to be on board, instead of asking for help, the more I think about it.

If staff is aware of certain players damaging the server's structure why can they not simply warn them and then ban them, if said players do not comply. If this is done in a fair manner and with clear execution, I find it hard to believe that any non-RWTer would say a word against it since staff did their job and protected their own server integrity just as it is supposed to be.

To say that you guys have to comply to server rules and cannot ban people out of nowhere, I do not understand why this holds you back proactively but the same premise does not hold you back from banning players retrospectively? So you have to comply to your own rules but also you do not? There is even rules that state that any game abuse is bannable, just refer to that and warn problematic players instead of letting them get away.

I will definitely try to contribute against RWT and definitely not take trades with potential RWT background (which I actually proved in the past btw), however getting threatened by a ban as a legit player rather drives me away and I honestly think that creating a generally paranoid atmosphere, where everyone has to suspect everyone, that this is not a good state for a community to thrive upon.

So I really think you guys should either find a crystal clear wording for such a hostile rule, decreasing the severity of punishment or change it by either splitting it up in several rules or adjusting it to be clear and consise as a combined law.

 

I do get the part that we should not support RWTers
but I do not see how affecting all trades - such as buying like a 86WA craven (mid - high tier equipment above 5b), and maybe selling it later when upgrading, and having to document a ton of everything for the small off chance that the buyer/seller is a RWTer, is going to help in combating RWTing

for example player A has 10b and looking to buy a 11WA FS, 7b is the current market rate from lurking abit on the forums
player B is selling a 11WA FS on smega for 7.2b - that's a match, its at market rate, nothing looks off, just go grab it and go, ez
if the off chance that player B is a RWTer, they get that 7.2b and what can they do with it? if they sell mesos to player C, someone gets a imbalanced wealth increase, that's flagged and its back to the old game of "explain your funds"
and with the current rules, player A gets 14 days and item removal, very ragequittable
player B gets rekt since player C got caught n subsequently rekt

as for player A, how much due diligence is enough?
A: you made it?
B: nah bought it awhile back, gonna upgrade to something better in abit
(proceeds with trade)
^ this looks way too light for a "due diligence" in my books, but the level of interaction would be more or less natural
or
A: you made it?
B: nah bought it awhile back, gonna upgrade to something better in abit
A: who did you buy it from?
B: can't remember, has been awhile ago and it was from before the rules came in and it was from a guy smegaing
(proceeds with trade)
^ heck this looks natural enough that it might become meta, and we get shifting goalposts of what is the minimum acceptable "due diligence"
or
A: you made it?
B: yeah, just randomly threw scrolls in for fun and see how it goes
^what more can we ask if we were player A, this looks like another meta reply and is it enough?

the thing is that even though 5b is a mid-high amount for most players, it would still be considered quite low as compared to the grand escapades that we see on the ban appeals with people getting 30k washed NL + 22WA BWG + 95DPS ,total worth being waaaaaaaaaay above 50b
also I don't think i have ever seen the ban appeals with the story "care to explain how you got a 136WA stonetooth on your 25k hp hero?" (slightly above 5b worth)

the only case where I see the 5b threshold for general trades, affecting RWTers, is when:
they are building items of interest (RC, FS, ST, and other high value items), and is trying to sell off the incomplete/imperfect items, but even then, they would be spending more or less an equal amount to build these items in the first place, which already takes time if they are playing normally ,thus they will have a history to them, making them trade freely;
or
if they are cheating which would result in the sketchy player with no history thing, but that is awfully specific because
1. they have to be a cheater (botter, hacker, etc.)
2. they have to be spending their resources gained to attempt building high value items that usually makes no profit
3. they did not choose to just farm mesos directly to sell and just build items
4. cheater is not banned yet

I feel that the blanket 5b threshold is pretty much an overzealous implementation of a rule, that not only inconveniences players, but gives the feeling of a looming threat above their heads, while not really achieving much in combating RWT, all while possibly shifting the grey zone of "due diligence" in the long run when people have more believable meta responses
the resources have to come from somewhere - farming, gacha, botting, etc. the rule can be circumvented by selling farmed items instead of the mid/high value items, because there is no difference in meso value for the RWTer

if the rule was more of an advisory or just fixed to the end game gears (91RC, 139 skis, etc), I'm pretty sure its to be expected to do due diligence, and there will not be much of any controversy or effect on the general playerbase
the bans and item removals should be targeting the profits, because there is more to gain, and way more suspicious

 

I personally hear everyone and their concerns. I just want to say that I was personally never an advocate for having a set “valuation” on what is bannable and what is not. Personally I think setting a marker of 1b or 5b naturally causes too much panic and paranoia for the community.

I had been trying to advocate within staff chat, that if someone makes a 1 time purchase making them, for instance, profits of 25b+ on a singular item, that we should be capable of looking into the details of the trade, and the logic behind why the trade was followed thru on without any questions or red flags.

Additionally, I think this rule should apply to players who buy cheaper items from knowingly questionable players for below market prices for their own advantage (like buying CS/WS for 300m ea without questioning the seller as to why they are so cheap).

Patterns in a players behaviors are discoverable to determine a persons intentions.

Another point I want to touch on, is that staff does currently hold the ability to change any rules, or ban any users, for any reasons that they see fit, whether it is outlined within the T&C or not. I personally advocated for that to be used against the players that were given a lenient ban with no penalties given. Staff however decided that it would be viewed upon staff in a negative light, if we were to enforce these rules upon players, that were not previously specified within the T&C. I must admit, that it is unreasonable of the community to assume that everybody would have had no problems with Staff doing so. The repercussions of such actions would have had much larger consequences by the community, with harsher judgment given to staff, and people speculating that we will do “whatever we want, whenever we want, to suit our own needs”. This would have caused even more chaos that was not worth it. The players in question, abused the gray area in the T&C, and forced staff into a position of having to update the T&C in order to be able to fairly enforce the rules.

Another point... I want to touch on additionally, is the fact that I “understand” people just want to smega that they are looking to purchase an item and haggle a deal and just go thru with it. In response to that, I say that I personally have banned multiple users in the past, simply for purchasing leech from a user that was botting. We do specify within the T&C that benefitting off of hackers is a bannable offense. You could argue that the person paid for their leech even though the leecher was a botter. But from Staff’s perspective, we cannot be expected to know who is and who is not associated with a person breaking the rules. We can only know who is associated with the person that is actively breaking the rules at the time.

This is why ban appeals exist. If every ban that was given out was always expected to be 100% accurate and correct, ban appeals would not exist. The unfortunate reality of the situation, is that staff is not perfect, and we do not know every detail involved in every situation. That is where ban appeals come into play. That is when players can provide the additional details to fill in the blanks for how their situation was misunderstood or misinterpreted.

I feel as if people are under the impression that if they make a singular trade with someone that is illegitimate, that all of a sudden they are “done” for. Which is not the case. But if you show patterns of your actions over time, and/or are knowingly negligent to a singular trade that makes you massive amounts of profit, you “should” be held accountable.

People might not want to put in their due diligence and own effort, but the fact is, this is a private server and not a legitimate company. I’m sorry if you want to be lazy and ignorant to whom you make your deals with, but unfortunately in order for the server to flourish and continue in its success, it requires the cooperation of its players. This server is “not” pay to win, and does not have the means in order to pay for a proper staff to handle these issues. So because players are offered a free version of this game, that does not require them to purchase items for real $ in order to progress, that yes, staff is requesting and requiring a certain level of accountability to be held by its players. If you play this server, you can afford to not be ignorant.

MapleStory as a whole is going downhill in general. The population is dwindling everywhere. If you ask me, it is silly of people to assume that “some other server will do it if you won’t”, because you are wrong. The servers and population that we see remaining, most likely won’t increase again, because this is a game of the past, and it is dying. So if you don’t want to put in your own effort to help the remnants of who and what is left of this game, all I will say, is don’t expect it to be made up somewhere else. We are at the end of a generation. Accept it and help, or don't complain when the server is harmed by the effects further down the road.

Edit: changed my wording at the end.

 

do we want to preserve and prolong the server's life? if we are playing for the nostalgia, and are continuing to play, then I would say its a given
should there be rules to keep the experience as ideal of an experience as possible? absolutely

but what I feel about the rule is that it creates a stuffier experience for the players, which makes it less pleasant to continue on, as there are less freedoms for players
along with having to play along with a new grey zone of "due diligence", the rule just adds a new sour taste in the mouth

my issue with the big red words for this new rule, is that the spirit of banning is usually when a player gets an unfair advantage, whereas the blanketing nature to cover all trades just seems weird
to illustrate
1. vote abuse - they get more NX which can be used to get more APR, gacha tix, etc., easy to see the unfair advantage
2. looting other people's items on the map - they got resources for tehcnically low/no effort, can see the unfair advantage
3. botting and hacking - low/ no effort to gain in game resources, levels, etc., easy to see the unfair advantage
4. RWT - bypassing the grind of the game, easy to see the unfair advantage
these are the ones which we see alot in the ban appeals, and we understand that these acts are unfair

however for some of the extensions type of bans, it takes abit of mental gymnastics to work around to see that there some form of unfair advantage
1. buy leech from a botter/hacker - leecher gets access to an unfair leech, as botters can go on for hours on end and there is no need to find another, or the hacker/macro seller can kill a lot faster than naturally possible as a player, making the leech extra effective
2. botter in the same party - the party gets more exp than natural, as there is a non-player within the party, which makes the training/farming effectiveness higher than natural (actual players only)
3. hacker's leftover items from hitting the whole map - even though the hacker is breaking the rules and should be banned, but the player looting gets items without having to put in effort, thus an advantage

for the case of this rule, i can only see the advantage only in the case of profiting
if a player buys severely underpriced items to sell for a profit - either the buyer is scamming, or if the seller is trying to dump items to launder RWT'd items, or items gained from hacking
- buyer is getting an unfair advantage in having an imbalanced trade which far exceeds the market value

if a player buys a market value item to use/ flip - these are NORMAL behaviours, player is just playing the game as NORMAL, why the bans and the item removals?

so really, why blanket all trades that cross the treshold, with bans and all, when the rule sounds more like a PSA for the most part, and the ones who are deserving of the bans are those profitting?

 

I respect your views, I think at this point the best route to take will be to wait and see who gets banned for this in the future. I don't personally think all that many people will end up getting banned for this moving forward, and if they do, I'm sure they will place a ban appeal where the details can be provided for everyone to see.

 

Try this excuse in a real court and you will quickly find out that most legal systems have no sympathy for your apathy. If you bought a bunch of goods from some guy in a trench coat on a shady street corner, don't be surprised when the police show up and arrest you. Dealing with black market sellers is a crime, knowingly buying stolen goods is a crime, and participating in money laundering is a crime.

They aren't asking you to write a biography on the person you're buying from, just take a moment to consider what you're doing. A naked level 20 named "IliLlilI" selling some crazy expensive items is super sketchy. A geared high level player selling the same item is not. And if that just happens to be a mule for a legitimate player, then that's easily established.

People need to quit acting like this rule is demanding you spend more than like 2 minutes considering your transaction. 90% of the time your transactions are small enough to be under the (now sensible) 5b limit, and when they are over the limit, 90% of the time the person will immediately and obviously be trustworthy. That last 1% of your overall transactions that just happen to be for very high value and just happen to be with someone who doesn't seem like they could reasonably be in possession of such an item, all you have to do is ask.
A casual "Wow, where did you even get this?" can reveal a whole lot about a person's legitimacy.

 

I say this respectfully: I don't want to have the chance of getting banned falsely and having to put everything on ban appeal for everyone to judge my reputation, so I for one have been taking a hiatus until this situation is sorted.

 

the thing is that the rule sounds more like a PSA to begin with, and enforcing a ban with item removals comes on too strongly when it involves regular trades instead of the profiteering ones

also, the issue i have with the casual small talk being remotely capable to find the legitimacy, is that it will devolve to meta responses where the part of "due diligence" is undermined
"wow how did you get this?"
scrolled it awhile back / bought it awhile back
you remember when you made it?
couple of years ago????? i had like a 130 ST and just yolo'd the stuff i got from gach and see if i can get anything better - nothing else can be asked after this, at this point, and I i have a feeling that most people would just shrug off the due diligence part with this response

"who sold it to you" would give more insight, but even then, if someone wanted to be lazy to sell off their stuff, they would go to "scrolled it myself" "gacha'd the items"
then there will be the issue of a shifting goalpost of the "due diligence" where everybody be doubting "scrolled it myself/gacha" being the case, which is odd, because these are more or less integral activities in the game

so this would bring a new problem, does that mean that everybody who bought items from someone who claimed to have "scrolled the items myself" would require admin verification all the time?
because i can really see people using this as a 1 answer to rule them all kind of thing
99+% of the trades will be legitimate, where this response just cuts the conversation, any prying any further is not getting anywhere; can we really say players never scroll or gacha their own stuff?
the very small number of trade where it does involve buying items of market value from a RWTer, assuming the RWTer just says the response "made it myself"
is the buyer at fault for asking "how you got this" and getting a common conversation ender "made it myself" as a response?
is getting such conversation ending replies, which sounds perfectly rational, enough due diligence?

then there would then be a new rule where lying/inaccurately auditing the source of your items can get bans, which has another problem - more admin work to even possibly enforce, and probably more backlash like "you guys just want us all to do GMs work, without being a GM"

 

Actually, let me illustrate why the rule does not protect fair trades properly

Say you are in the mood and budget for a 82 craven (approx 5-6b valuation), both players knowing the current rules

You find a buyer who has a 82 craven at 5.5b

You: hey where did you get that
Seller: bought this a couple of years ago, can't remember the seller's name tho
You: no screenshots or anything?
Seller: nah, didnt think it was necessary back then

From this conversation
1. If the trade continues and the seller was related to RWT, did the buyer do enough?
2. Sure, the buyer can be like, sus, not gonna buy, then no trades happen, hooray we fought RWT

With the power of hypotesis and omniscience,
what if the seller was legitimate and truly forgot the seller, and did not bother with screenshots, lost the screenshots, etc. back then, because the rule never exisited back when they first got the item?

What happens now, the seller has to content to people who take risks in (1.) above, which promotes a culture of sounds good enough, which will shift the definition of "due diligence" later on
Or
The item is as good as junk because, assuming all players assume not enough documentation = sus, RWTer, investigate

What if the threshhold is shifted further up then?
Well its gonna be the same problem, just with less voices, and less probability until we reach the point of solely the top tier stuff, where the rule would actually combat the usual territory of RWTers
Because building things like 20WA gloves, 89-91RC, takes a truly monumental amount of effort to make, which is most unlikely to hear "i forgot" "no screenshots/ forum", without a sizeable audit trail

Ever heard of a player with 91 RC that solo played much like an ironman, farmed the 56RC, white scrolls from NLC gacha since day 1, never interacted with anybody, no screenshots to celebrate achievements and milestones, and then decided in the present "Heck imma just sell this away"?

The thing is that the nature of endgame gear is that players with them have a history to them
Buying step by step till they reach the top
Because getting a 91 RC straight is kinda bad in minmax value
Because a 76 RC with a 15WA glove already achieves the same result at 1/6 the cost
82 RC with a 15WA glove? 6 more WA than a 91RC at 1/4 the price
The diminishing returns are not worth getting endgame straight up

So it is very unlikely for an endgame/ near endgame gear to be sold randomly without any history or any cross reference

Even at the current 5b threshhold it is still within a rational, yolo, not gonna think twice kind of level, because it can be reached by some lucky random CS a FS to 6/4 or 7/4, after a drunk weekend or long week destress; even with the "new to server" excuse, or like "returned after 3 years, voted now and then", it is still possible with some crazy luck, but that would just need the admins to check out that one super rare case

So i really feel that the rule should be reduced to a PSA and bans really only be targetting imbalanced trade profits, or the blanket to be affecting near end/ endgame levels of trades

 

So I just went into my very thin Mapleroyals Screenshots folder which apart from random funny shit and pictures of some friends also happens to include some of the very few "high-value" trades that I ever made, which is laughable for most players - averaging at around 4.5B (1-7.5ish) in value each.

And you know what I found a screenshot of me buying a Nisrock for apparently 3B coins and 2 CS back then apparently some years ago. And I was like WTF I bought such a valuable Nisrock?? Which stats?? No Idea man, I completely forgot about it, but thinking about it now I think it was around 131-133 ATT and back then my first bick weapon LMAO.

In contrast to that and very interestingly, all these recently banned RWT milkers actually HAD SCREENSHOTS of every single trade they made over the last few years and KNEW ABOUT EVERY TRADE quite well.

So, if you ask me now, no I have no damn clue what now-not-so-good-anymore items I bought years ago on one of my multiple high lvl chars and for what reason. I absolutely do not remember anymore at all and this is a good thing since it means at least in one way I got a healthly mind and apparently a life of some sort that is worth remembering in contrast to some meaningless Nisrock and the likes.

So yea I will answer you such a meaningless phrase and you will not buy my Nisrock (I actually do not have it anymore and I think I lost it to the mighty Leafre forge now that I remember it in the shadows), both of us being seemingly legitimate players. Hoooowray, we did it, the server is save again.

 

You are acting like they expect you to conduct a thorough and fully documented forensic investigation on every transaction, which is not what they said. No one is demanding that you handcuff someone to a chair and interrogate them about the entire history of every item.


Could staff maybe provide some picture or video examples of how they actually want this to work so people can understand it better?