Exploitation of New Players and Child Gamers

I have had many arguments on Guild Wars. Everything from philosophy and ethics to religion and morality. However I have come across individuals who don't exactly seem to be the sharpest tools in the shed and seem to think if they scream their ideas repeatedly they are right. I would like to note I am not a troll. Last argument I had was over scammers.

Now this person I was arguing with was an idiot in my book. The argument started simple enough. It was some guy offering to buy any dye for 90 gold in pre-searing Fort Ranik. Now some player comes along and starts yelling to everyone that he is a scammer. It was a female monk. First thing I do is whisper her to be quiet and leave others trying to make money alone. Not: I am not the one offering to buy dye. She says something along the lines of "He is a scammer and everyone must know and that dye is worth more in post do not sell here". I reply that he is not a scammer, merely someone trying to make gold.

My argument for this is that buying from someone who does not know the true value of an item is not wrong. Example: Suppose you went to a pawn shop or a garage sale and you find something like an antique or other item that you know it is easily worth 500 dollars but the seller is only asking 50. You wouldn't tell the seller its worth 500 and that you will give them that much for it. If you do you are an idiot. Although while not saying this to her I would have been more passive in doing this and only buy from single players in explorable zones or by whispering identified newbs and child gamers when they are found to have dye.

She argues that I am a scammer and am basically evil for it. She continues to scream that this guy is a scammer while I try to shut her up. After the third time of telling her to stop being an emo and shutup I tell the guy to go somewhere else and that he can't buy here with this one around.

The argument then begins to heat up. Now I know my opponent was not a bright person, since she would repeatedly attempt to mock yell words by capitalizing all the letters in it. Example: "I am RIGHT scamming is WRONG and your WRONG". I tell her again that I am no scammer merely what I like to call a Passive Exploitive Situationalist. If an oppertunity presents itself its best to take it before someone else does, but one should not intentionally create situations such as this. There is nothing wrong with buying a dye from a noob or child player who doesn't know its value.

My defenition of noob: An idiotic player who prefers not to think for himself and be told everything or a player who will ask someone a question before trying to find the answer on their own. I believe if the means are available you should try to find answers on your own and only ask others when you have no other way to get an answer since many people will lie because it either benefits them (altough this is not always a bad thing) or they simply enjoy lieing (these people I dispise the most since they have no reasoning or logic behind their actions). Definiton of child gamer: A player who is not mature, who expects everything to be handed to them, and whines when things don't go in their favor. There is nothing wrong with exploiting an identified child gamer (or a gamer with the mind of a child) because they are selfish and only see their own benefit as being important, most of them are whinos, and most think way to highly of themselves IMHO. I believe that society teaches kids the wrong things anyway, these days they are taught they should have everything handed to them and that world is nothing but good (I hate people who try to sheild their children from every single thing they perceive as evil, potentially "corrupting their child's impressionable mind", or is a threat to their own values) and that they are capable of doing anything they want when they get older, they aren't what you can do is always restricted in some form be it financial, law, or simply personal ability. Its better to teach them now that the world of is full of people who will expoit them for their own gain rather than suddenly shock them into reality.

She then tells me that scamming is the same as stealing and all stealing is wrong. At this point I see an oppertunity to trip her. I reply "What if someone were starving to death and had no money their only option could be to steal". She says "Situational ethics don't apply here"
I say "I know but you said all". She then acts as if I didn't say that, kinda funny on my part.

I also tell her their is nothing wrong with stealing if who you are stealing from does not realise it or later realise who has done it. I then say I know you are right but I am right aswell. She responds "Both of us can't be right your WRONG". I say "Right and wrong are relative. Everyone is right in their own mind. Hitler thought he was right IN HIS OWN MIND, but no one else thought so". Note: I do not normally capitalize entire words as such, the reason for it was so that what was being said was not twisted or only part of the sentence was taken out of context and to stress I am no Hitler sympathizer (people have a tendancy of interpetting words beyond their original meaning). She then ends the conversation by basically saying "I am right you are wrong, shutup". Then she ignores me.

I apologize for ranting. Please tell me what you think of exploiting unkowledgeable players.

Please... i'm sure you've got something important to say but please... include paragraphs will you?

Paragraphs FTW!

1. Remove her name

2. Add 6-7 paragraphs, that was horrible to read

3. If I see someone selling a black dye for 90 gold I tell them what it's worth, if others are petty enough to exploit that then so be it.

First of, you can't name players, so the names are going to be snipped.

Second, use "Enter" a bit next time, or at least with /end Wall O' text <.<

Thirdly, I can't say I fully agree with you. While I'll probably not pass up the opportunity if someone were to sell Black dye for 100g, scamming people just for the fun of it isn't fun for the people you're playing with. No one likes being scammed, since it kind of ruins the fun you have while playing. Though the 90g for any dye thing is a pretty good deal in Pre-Searing safe from dealing Silver and Black Dye, it's not really a scam for the other dyes which aren't worth that as much and a good deal for beginning players that don't have a lot of gold yet or veterans needing space while trying to get level 20 in Pre.

That Better?

1. I never said I scam for fun.
2.Their is nothing wrong with naming someone.
3. I fixed the paragraphs.

You're not allowed to use other players names without their permission, remove it or a mod will do it for you.

It's better, the name is still in it though.
Well, basically most GuildWars Players do not really know what scamming really is. They use it as a word for everything where someone else receives the lower end of a trade and by the sheer nature of trades it is not a question of if but a question of how much you are getting "scammed".
Basically in all essence the whole Black Dye Argument or other "abuse missing knowledge" is nothing more but a form of buy low sell high.

After all, market knowledge is key and the first thing i do in a game is to get someone who knows the value of things and is willed to answer me a question or two until i know the value myself or can find it myself.

Now that is a thing many Guild Wars (and onlineplayers in total) confuse about the whole concept. It's not scamming. Scamming is something completely different. If you sell a Mursaat Token as an Ecto... that's a scam. If you somehow manage to make a weapon appear as something else ... that's a scam. Someone putting a lower amount of money into the trade window than bargained for is a scammer.
Scamming in onlinegames is if you willingly advertise or barter for one thing and then during the real trade you exchange it for something else in the hope another person doesn't notice.

This has nothing to do with normal trading.
If the seller agrees on 90 g for a black dye and the buyer does so as well it's a perfectly fine trade. It's out of balance, no doubt but it is still following the principle of buy low sell high. As i said before, it's not a question of if you're winning or losing on a trade but moreover a question of by how much you win or lose.

Besides, yes posting of names is violating the Board Rules you agreed upon when you signed up for it. I'd remove it for this thread to have a future. It's not a matter of if.. it's a matter of just fricking do it :P

Taking advantage of a single opportunity to make a nice profit is fine. Purposefully targeting new players to rip them off is not. Though buying something for much less than it's actual worth is not a scam as defined by Anet or GWGuru or Guildwiki

Happy now?

It is not illegal. But it is unethical, in real life and in games. I would not hesitate to let a player know they were getting conned (as that may be a better term for this kind of activity).

IMO, ALL stealing is wrong, even if you are starving. But I have a strickter ethics code then many.

Thank you Amity and Truth, That was the point I wanted to get across. Its not scamming when both agree on the price even if one trader is unknowlegeable.

I have found certain so called ethics will get in the way of progress most of the time.

You are saying the seller wants 50. In the story you wrote, the seller has no clue, no knowledge of the price, and the buyer is the one who wants it for 50.


I think we should give those without knowledge, the knowledge they need to succeed and not be exploited.


I'm done, no need to quote me, I won't be returning to this particular thread.

Correction on 3rd paragraph: The seller thinks it worth 50 and doesn't know that it is worth 500. Not that the seller is choosing to sell it for 50 while knowing the true value.

IMO, progress at the expense of ethics and doing what is right is not progress at all.

Using the exscuse "The person I scammed was ignorant of the fact that I was scamming him" is not justifiable reason to be a scammer. Stop scamming. The player who said you were scamming was right.

I would like to note that centuries ago many societies thought it was unethical to use a dead body for medical research (some still do), but this got in the way of advancement of medical science.

If I remember right there is no dye trader in pre-searing coreect ?????
On my first toon thru the game, I remember selling all dyes to the merchant
including a black dye, then I get to post Ascalon and what do you know a dye
trader selling black dye for 8k, that sure would have been nice to know.

So imo anyone back in pre-sear trying to buy black and silver dyes for 100g
is a scammer, because there is no way to verify what it is worth, so how
can you possibly know what to sell it for ??????

Now if there is a dye trader in pre-sear, then ignore scam comment and
learn what all the npc's are for.


Sirshadowrunner

Firstly, I agree with the female monk person. This guy buying dye in pre is abusing his knowledge of the system and taking advantage of new players.

Secondly. Who are you to go around pm'ing people to "shut up"? If she wants to do people a favor by advising them of the true price of items in post then its got naff all to do with you.

Some people in this game have morals while others it seem do not. I dont wish to meet you in game.

Here's my opinion:You're not a scammer. You're a con artist. You take advantage of a lack of knowledge on the part of another player, as well as specifically targetting people who do not have that knowledge(be it from laziness or from being 12 years old and not caring to look it up)

The key word is exploit. Whenever I see someone in pre trying to sell black dye for too little, I usually whisper them they should wait and why. Anyone trying to buy for too little, I usually just tell everyone the average price.

This game is a GAME. How are people supposed to enjoy it if they have to worry about people like you trying to take advantage of the fact they just started, rather than helping them out, helping them to enjoy the experience?

As Stemnin said: there's a difference between them offering and not knowing, and you knowingly offering an absurdly low price.
I know you're not a hitler supporter(as you stated) but that statement can be used to justify anything. Do you know how much medical knowledge was gained at the cost of millions of Jews' lives? How about the progress we've made with the economy, at the expense of China's environment(and as a result, the health of people over there). I'm no treehugger, but I do like to think we can slow down progress a little bit, if we can gain that same progress through a safer route. A route that takes into account consequences.

I didn't mean for this to turn into a sermon, but people that use statements like that to justify something(even as trivial as pixels in a game) show an attitude toward other people that simply sickens me.

This of course, is simply my two cents

What are you talking about, Sirshadowrunner? It is possible to know beforehand either through playing the game before or or if you have never played before researching a little about the games economy before even creating your first character (which is what I did).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

Sli Ander please note I said "certain ethics" not all.

Amity I understand Godwin's Law however the reason I referenced Hitler was to make a point one could just as easily substitute any other historical figure considered to be evil. That was just the first one to come to mind.

True, you did say "certain so called ethics". But my statement still stands, because every one of the acts which I mentioned can be justified by the same statement. It's just a matter of deciding where you draw your line. What price you're willing to pay to get your way, as it were.

Oh, and I did read the godwin's law thing on another thread. Interesting stuff, but thats what Hitler gets for setting himself up in such a big spotlight.

This was and still is my first on-line RPG, I did not know about all the on-line
guides and websites untill I played for at least two months, I was not even in
a guild for the first 5 months of playing. These games do have a pretty steep
learning curve, and I am very gratefull for sites like this one, but not
everyone has the time to do lots of research, example, just what is the
manual that comes with the game good for ??? does not have a fraction of
the game info in it ???

have fun and build some karma points from time to time.........

The situation above is simply unethical. The monk acted correctly by alerting everyone the gross disparity between the pricing of the dye. I'd say trying to prevent that knowledge is unethical. If I saw a dude offer a homeless person $50 for a kidney, and I tried to walk over to them to alert that kindney is worth way more but was stopped by another observer who said, "Let them be, they are working out a deal on their own terms." I'd respond with, "Let me go, you're being unethical."

newb: someone new to game.
noob: someone who has been playing for a longer amount of time, but has no skill.

hope you can use it correctly now. ty

First of all, I agree that the prospective buyer was not technically scamming. That said, most would agree that he was attempting to exploit new players for personal profit. Right or wrong, this would eventually influence the way that those new players viewed the existing player-base. This could range from "I sure got taught a lesson - I shouldn't trust people here" to "So that's the way this game is played; I'd better come up with a scheme to get mine" to "This game is full of awful people; I'm going to play something else".

The female monk was attempting to intervene on behalf of the newer players, not trying to keep the buyer from making money. Her action would also influence the way that new players viewed the existing player-base. Something like: "Wow, that guy was a jerk - I'm glad that monk clued me in. I'll have to remember to help others later on as well".

You, as a third party, had three choices:

1. See the buyer as a victim, and step in on his behalf.
2. Ignore the situation.
3. See the new players as victims, and step in on their behalf.

I'm sad to see that you chose the first option. Moral relativism aside, the two sides of this situation have predictable influences on the new players and how they view the game. I would hope that in the future, you might think of trying to influence the game in a way that will help retain new players, not alienate and discourage them.

Really? Interesting to say the least.

If I see someone in pre spamming to buy dye especially black I will
go on all chat every chance I get and say what it is worth in post.

Personally, in GW and RL, I feel that taking advantage of someone's ignorance
is just wrong.

Centuries ago many societies thought it was unethical to kill, unethical to steal, and unethical to deal with another in bad faith....most societies still do. Some things change, others should always remain the same. A wise and thinking person is able to decern between the two.

EDIT: Good to see so many people disagree with this guy. It is good to know there are still more of us then there are of them.

Altruism has its place it will get in the way of personal suvival. Homeless people have no initiatative Hollerith. Why sell a kidney for 50$ when the homeless person if he really needed the money and had the abilty to do so why not take it from the person trying to buy his kidney if he can't he has proven the buyer is superior. A homeless person does not need to be destitute and downtrodden. This situation calls for theft for survival only if he his homeless by workings beyond his control and has no other way to survive. If he brought this homelessness on him self he deserves what he gets If drugs, alchoholism, are gambling the reason he has brought it on himself.
But only a complete idiot would not know the value of a kidney even a homeless person would know that it could easily be worth a few thousand dollars. Therefore the argument you state is not a very good example.

You went there knowing and with the intent to swindle new players.

scam
–noun 1. a confidence game or other fraudulent scheme, esp. for making a quick profit; swindle.
–verb (used with object)
2. to cheat or defraud with a scam.

—Related forms
scammer, noun

Or you can think of it like this

fraud –noun
1. deceit, trickery, sharp practice, or breach of confidence, perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage.
2. a particular instance of such deceit or trickery: mail fraud; election frauds.
3. any deception, trickery, or humbug: That diet book is a fraud and a waste of time.
4. a person who makes deceitful pretenses; sham; poseur.

If someone is selling a green item or a dye for much less than what it's worth, I will take advantage of the situation.

Why? It's their fault for not taking a few moments to research the value of what they have (this research can, most of the time, be done by visiting a dye merchant)

I don't feel sorry for people that are too lazy to have at least a basic knowledge of the Guild Wars economy, you're practically asking to be scammed.

First, please make sure to keep perspective here. We're not talking about a particularly viscious crime, no one should be burned at the stake or anything. That said.

.........

It's amazing what Evil will use to disguise itself. "Passive Exploitive Situationalist" is about as blatant as it gets. It's all well and good to use euphimisms to describe what you do... but let's not try and hide behind the terminology.

The dye example, buying black for 90 gold, is not directly comparable to the buy-sell market. One of the most important facets of the "buy-low sell-high" idea is the free will and time choices involved. Many of the items I have bought have been from people desperate to get rid of items from their storage; and likewise, I have sold items below what I know I COULD get for them, simply because I need the space.

Crystallines are an excellent example of uncertainty as well. When you see a purple "while hexed" crystalline sword, you may think you can sell it for far more than the seller is offering. The seller does not, or does not have the patience to find a buyer. When you buy it for 100k + 5ecto and sell it for 100k + 60 ecto, that is your reward for being patient and finding someone interested enough to buy a crystalline. It's an uncertain market, where price checks can widely vary.

Dye is not at all comparable. There is a very firm market rate, observable at any dye trader. In fact, many people have advocated the use of black dye as the new ecto, becase (unlike ecto) black dyes have remained very consistant price-wise. Ectos have gone as high as 11-12k, and as low as 5k. I don't know that I've ever seen black dye dip for long below 8k or above 9k.

Reviewing the targets.... the person selling the crystalline has, in all likelihood, been playing for some time. They understand the volatile nature of the crystalline market. They may not be adept at wielding the market yet, but at the very least, they know what they don't know.

Newbies have no chance.

Even with the most in-depth review of the game... well, let's use PvP as an example. Try going into the #guildwarsguru channel on Gamesurge.net's IRC (or, better yet, #gwp) and talk about PvP strategies and build you think would win, after reading a bunch of websites but not being allowed to play even in Random Arenas. You won't last two minutes before you start getting torn apart... and at least in this case, again, you'd understand what you were missing out on.

People new to Guild Wars have no idea where to begin finding out what they don't know. Even things as simple as armor (what? 60 chest and 60 legs don't give me 120 armor???) can cause confusion among players who may be very skilled at {WoW, Final Fantasy, Diablo, etc}. I agree perfectly when you say "My defenition of noob: An idiotic player who prefers not to think for himself and be told everything or a player who will ask someone a question before trying to find the answer on their own." ... but often, thinking for yourself is not sufficient when only on your first character in pre-sear, surrounded by other newbies and/or people like yourself who are only too willing to tell them that black dye should be sold for 90 gold.

You do yourself in with:
"Its better to teach them now that the world of is full of people who will expoit them for their own gain rather than suddenly shock them into reality."
"I also tell her their is nothing wrong with stealing if who you are stealing from does not realise it or later realise who has done it."

Have you absolutely NO morality about you? Something isn't wrong unless the victim immediately realizes the crime? Is there nothing wrong with the man who sleeps with a few women, knowing he has AIDS but does not tell them? Would you not punish the doctor who injected a slow-acting poison into his victims and left the city? In both examples, the victims would not discover the crime until some time later--perhaps even years, in the case of the AIDS example.... yet it is still wrong.

((as a side note, the person who was sad enough to argue with you indeed did it very badly. And in many cases--ESPECIALLY in morality arguments--two people can both be right, and wrong. This reflects rather badly on her to be sure.... but I can't say that her state makes a bit of difference about you. Please don't try to show how wrong she was, in order to make yourself look right.))

Exploiting is wrong; the fact that you use the word so casually convicts you. Some people, caught up in the "greed is good" mentality, try to hold such exploitism up as virtue... either by denying the worth of their victims (("If they were dumb enough to fall for it...")) or by screaming that there is nothing wrong with self-gain, with the sacrifice of others for self.

However, this failed philosophy perverts the true nature of self-interest. It's all well and good to strive for your own benefit, but how much of your own integrity are you willing to sell? True capitalism relies on the ability to earn, through your own work and effort--not through the exploitation of others, but the COOPERATION of others--that results in the creation of wealth.... not the destruction or subterfuge which you advocate. The idea behind capitalism is win-win, where a builder would gladly sell his creation for money, and a buyer would gladly give up money to live in the creation. Both benefit.

Selling black dye for 90gold, as opposed to 8.5k at the trader, hardly benefits the new player. Blaming him or her for lack of knowledge does not convict them--ideally, they're trying to learn and just haven't learned about dyes yet, which make up only one facet of this great game..... no, sir, it convicts you for your contempt for humanity.

OK,,,one thing that should be addressed here is that there is a differencve between a scam and a rip off.

A scam is either the buyer or seller totally misrepresenting what an item is etc (mursaat tokens rather than ecto for example) Lying.

A rip off is intentionally getting something for far less or far more than it's worth at the expense of a player who doesn't/can't know better. Conning.

There is a difference. Personally I'm tired of ppl screaming scam when they just got the worse end of a trade.

That said, it's still really sad to be ripping off the nooblets in pre. Seriously. Learn to farm or somthing. You say you weren't doing it, but then why do you care if she started screaming? You feel justified pming her to shut up when you weren't even involved? She was trying to keep noobies from losing what to them is aLOt of gold, you were supporting someone ripping them off. Hmmmm.....

I'm with Sirshadowrunner, it's all about the karma points. I'm not even getting into the ethical/progess thing, that's not worth my time and doesn't belong in this thread really.


Lmfao Amity, loved that as a comment.

1. The black dye case is an especially unique one in rpgs. Typically you cannot get items that are worth a lot early in the game, you have to wait till later. So, based on intuition and past game experience, the black dye drops in pre-searing or Shing jea are an anomaly. For example, you won't find a max dmg 15^50 weapon (rare skin or otherwise) in the training area.

2. The merchant will only pay 1g for all dyes, which creates the impression that they are worthless and that all dyes are the same. There is no dye trader in pre-searing, so the player can't try to sell to them and find out the true (market) value of the dye.

3. I don't expect that players should have to visit forums like these or other websites in order to not get totally ripped off in a game. A game requiring that is going overboard.

Let's say a child or a poor person were to find a rare coin that's worth a lot. The prior experience of the poor person or child is that a coin is worth less than a bill (paper money). If they take the coin to the grocery store, the storekeeper tells them it's hardly worth anything and that the most it will buy is a loaf of bread or less. Some buyer (typically rich), who knows the market value of the coin, tries to buy the coin off the child or poor person for fraction of what it is worth but for more than what the storekeeper pays. A passer-by notices this and tries to warn all those around, saying "If you find a coin you haven't seen before, chances are that it might be rare. Hang on to it until you can find out it's true value. Don't sell to this person for a paltry sum." You happen to be there at the same time and tell the person issuing the warning to shut the hell up. You believe that it serves the poor person or the child right that they don't know the value of the coin because they haven't bothered to look it up.

I think that's a poor excuse for trying to profit off the ignorance of others. Your attempts to keep the person issuing the warning quiet show that you don't want the people to become educated. But there is no other way for them to become educated about black dye prices until post-searing.

Now, if there were a Tablet of Wisdom (Game Economy), that the players simply didn't bother to read or if they decided to bypass some training on the game economy, I'd have no problem saying it's completely their fault. However, in this case, even a genius or a millionaire in real life (since you seem to think that stupidity is involved here somehow) would likely get suckered into a bad deal.

I guess you're saying that if you found 10 black dyes in pre-searing and sold them all for 90g apiece, and found out their real value later, you'd blame yourself. Because you like to research a GAME even while you're in the training area??? Sorry, but your argument holds no water whatsoever.

Say, where was that dye trader in Pre-Searing again? I'd love to steer new players there, so they can educate themselves.

Oh wait, there isn't one...well, might as well rip them off.

This is arguably true. I'd love, however, for you to apply it in your original example. I hadn't realised that the rip-off artist was fighting for his very life! Gasp!