Sales without in game contact, question.

[Guardian 452]

It is acceptable for my character to make a sale over the TMH (Trade Market Hall) but have no physicall contact with the other party.

Example. I make a post on the TMH saying I wish to buy a box of spider silk paying 2,000 True (fair market price).

Player "X" sees the sale in the TMH and replies. I have a box of silk I will sell you for this amount.

I reply: Please leave the silk in a chest in my house/guild hall/shop etc. In said chest you will find your payment of 2,000 true.


This is an acceptable sale involving 2 characters from 2 unique accounts yes?




So... If you replace Player "X" with an alternate character of mine ... this is now considered Muling and is unnacptable because we must go thru a 3rd party (not a character we play) correct?


If the second scenario is not allowed, I would like the GM team to seriously sit down and look at this and put it to discussion. I fail to see how this is causing any harm to the world we play in.


Thanks

G-452

[Masterjack]

I see where you are going with this. I'll bring it up to the team and get back to you with what we come back with.

MJ

[Guardian 452]

I want to be clear I am not asking that we be allowed to "Give" things to our alts at special prices or free.... That is very much unfair and MULING (by my definition)

G-452

[Acacea]

Who wants to monitor that, though? "Maybe we should check how much he is charging himself..." Volunteers? Just having another party involved makes for at least some interaction and a double check, rather than providing all your alt needs through your main just by logging off and on. Maybe you are paying market value and maybe you aren't - it's a lot easier for everyone to just not do it rather than start discussions on who is -really- muling and who isn't, and how often, and...

Not only that, but the other reasoning that was last discussed was metagaming. Instead of seeking out other characters like a new player would, someone buying from himself defaults to his own inventory and knowledge of his main character's stock to handle it.

Your specific example isn't going to blow up the world, and I don't like bunches of regulations, but it's in general a scenario where no one really wants a judgment call to have to be made, or any investigation needed. Not my call, but this is one of the cases I personally kind of lean towards leaving as is, or at least not a free-reign deal. Dunno.

[Guardian 452]

Who wants to monitor what? That people are selling things to their alts at fair market prices? The chests keep track of what goes in and out... so why would anyone "need" to monitor anything? Perhaps I dont know all that can and cant be tracked now.. but it seems easier to track a chest transaction than a player to player transtaction because the chest shows who put in what... and who took out what. So... unless we already have a system in place that tracks player to player transactions I fail to see how doing transactions thru chests (which we can all see are tracked) is going to cause anyone more work.

I dont want to open up the metagaming can of worms here. Or none of use should probably be playing alts at all cause like it or not a certain amount of metagaming DOES happen.

In the example given, unless the persons alt character cant read. I fail to see how that is metagaming to read and reply to a post on the trade market hall. Hey he/she wants spider silk.. I can get spider silk and I need the money! That is metagaming?

People have stores, shops, and guild store fronts that are unlocked. And they post what they have for sale on the TMH So that means to me ANY character can walk in (or read in the case of a TMH post)... see what they have for sale and SHOULD be able to buy something they see. Unless for good RP reasons they shouldnt or cant.  A good example.. my Dark Elf cant shop the Angels Store or Orc Bashers... cause they are inside Port H. If he did actually sneak past the guards and was caught..... its kill on sight!. So in that instance it doesnt work.


I am reminded of when I used to VOLUNTEER for the National Wild Turkey Federation. We held fund raisers where we sold raffle tickes on prizes etc. And us VOLUNTEERS were allowed to also purchase tickets for prizes. Occasionally someone would groan or complain when a person helping run the event would win. But we simply told them... if you feel him/her being on our comittee running this event in any way aided his chances of winning.. we have a stack of comittee applications right here and we would welcome more to VOLUNTEER time and effort as they do. Basically what I am saying is my money is just as green as the next persons.

[Acacea]

I don't really care enough about it to argue with you dude, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference to me. I was only attempting to point out some of the reasons for them having limitations on it - it doesn't look like they'll matter much from your perspective.

[Gulnyr]

To me, selling common stuff (like silk) between characters of one player seems below the belt.  You'd basically just be giving your poorer character gold by choosing to use the poorer character to fill a need of your richer character that the richer character could probably fill just fine by himself.  If you have the time to gather, you're just trying to manipulate things by striking deals between your characters rather than having the character with the need do the gathering.

I'm not articulating this very well...

[Guardian 452]

*blinks a few times*

Thanks MJ for posting this to be discussed further by the GM staff.

G-452


.

[ycleption]

I agree with what Acacea and Gulnyr have said - I think you're right G-452, if we're talking about an isolated instance, or even an occasional instance of selling a finished product with a well-established value. An iron weapon, a lion bag, etc.
In my mind it does cross lines when you are dealing with low level CNR for the reasons Gulnyr allude to, and even more so if you are dealing with intermediate crafted products - if that were allowed, a single character could essentially be a one-person trade guild with their own characters, selling up the chain, and then distributing the finished goods to their own characters.

Further, and perhaps more importantly, even if you are sending a few messages to arrange terms and price of the sale, selling something to another character involves RP, and involves communication with another community member. I've often used the chest method to sell things to people in other time zones - people I may not have much contact with if it weren't for that kind of out of game RP. Is it ideal? No. But in my mind its preferable to require a minimum amount of effort to RP and connect than have absolutely no RP to make a sale or purchase.

[Hellblazer]

To me, selling common stuff (like silk) between characters of one player seems below the belt.  You'd basically just be giving your poorer character gold by choosing to use the poorer character to fill a need of your richer character that the richer character could probably fill just fine by himself.  If you have the time to gather, you're just trying to manipulate things by striking deals between your characters rather than having the character with the need do the gathering.

I'm not articulating this very well...

I really don't know.. I don't know if I get your general idea right or not sorry. But what is the difference between?

A) Handing true to an other player to gather the things you need even if you have the time to gather them but prefer to spend your time doing something else.

B)Handing true to one of your alt through a third party even if  you have the time to gather the things with your main char but have a need with an alt and both needs can be filled at once.

C) Handing true through a chest to your own alt to fill the needs you have.

I'm not saying I agree with c for everything. Also I'm not saying I'm in total agreement with how the rule is formulated now that the chest keeps track of the transaction. I think a middle ground could be reach, butt he problem is finding that middle ground that promotes Rp and ease on the player(s)

I agree to a point with ycleption saying that it could possibly lead to one player running a full guild with his or her own alts, but without being a guild as you need 5 players to start one. But as long as trues are exchanged, and it is fair. Then it's simply a character buying things he needs from an other characters, no?

Anyhow I'm just trying to see with these question on how the team views the difference itself, even more so with the new chest system in place.

[Nehetsrev]

I can't remember who said it, but I still feel that the statement, "If it feels wrong in some way, don't do it." is applicable here.
 
 Many of the points brought up are valid points from each perspective.  To add my own, sometimes I feel like I don't want to have to wait a real-life day or two to get that new gear for my character from another player, especially now that server population is somewhat sparse.  That said, I still prefer to contact other players in-game to arange sale of any goods simply for the RP interaction, and almost never use the Trade & Market Hall forums.
 
 I do believe it's a great tool to have, to be able to leave things in chests for trades/sales between characters played by seperate players, but I don't really support the idea of using it to get things from one of my own characters to another of my own characters.  To me, that does still just feel a bit wrong, even though I could justify it OOC by saying it's just one character trading with another.
 
 I think we can all agree that we play here because we want contact with other players, right?  So why cheat ourselves of that contact?
 
 Okay, I'm done rambling for now.

[Dorganath]

C) Handing true through a chest to your own alt to fill the needs you have.

This is always a bad idea.

A more complete comment on originally-posted question will be forthcoming shortly.

[Hellblazer]

yeah c is always for exchange of cnrs, I just didn't write it at that time.

[Dorganath]

yeah c is always for exchange of cnrs, I just didn't write it at that time.

Doesn't matter what it's for. It's exchanging goods between characters belonging to the same player without an intermediary third-party.

[Hellblazer]

Doesn't matter what it's for. It's exchanging goods between characters belonging to the same player without an intermediary third-party.

Yep I know I was just making it a bit more clear in case it wasn't with what I had previously written. Anyhow waiting on the fuller comment.

[Masterjack]

The team has come to a consensus on the matter.

The question that was brought to them was, "Is a chest considered a third party for PC transactions now that it logs transactions?"

Our answer:

What we have now is a compromise situation and it works fine as it is. Introducing the chest way allows for what Acacea said "someone buying from himself defaults to his own inventory and knowledge of his main character's stock to handle it. "
In addition it allows for people using their higher level alts to get some CNR and "sell" it to their lower level char through a chest. This is an unfair advantage towards other players that do not have a higher level character, because they need to use the "normal" means of getting those materials: posting in the Trade&Market Hall and/or talking to other players and arranging deals that way.

The chest-route would therefore mean a potential fast-track and unfair advantage which we don't want, would mean that somebody(aka GMs) will likely be expected to check on chest transactions ever so often, and would mean less incentive to seek out and interact with other players.

Player rules in LORE has now been updated to reflect this. LORE: Player Rules