Middleman,bans, for gm/admin's mostly.

[Boora]

hey guys, might be not my place cause there isn't any suggestion forum i could find, but...
lets start , in most games, in the main forum of these games/the biggest known forum there's always a list of middlemans,
what that means ? , basically to oversee a deal with tokens(at least in this game its tokens)
its really easy, put a list of Trusted people that will accept the role of middleman and when a guy will want to buy tokens, he'll have the right to pm a middleman and ask him to oversee the deal, for a middleman to work he must be vouched by the admin/gm's or be a CG, the buyer will give the middleman the poke/money, the seller will send the tokens and when the buyer gives the OK that he got the tokens the middleman gives the seller the pokes/money, its really simply, it'll solve 99% of the token scams,
now you can always make it clean that mm(middleman) is only to be used in trades that requires trust, and ask the middleman if he's free before.
i'l suggest all the CG and few REALLY trusted members , but again not my place to suggest anyone, its yours

about the bans, again not my place, but. i saw people getting perm'ed for things they shouldn't been banned or at least perm'ed for...
for example, a guy admits to having a auto clicker cause he's too tired to click on the fishing thingy.. ok i agree he broke the rule but i higly doubt that deserves a perm ban, im pretty sure a one month ban is more then ok the guy will learn his leasson and wont lose everything he worked on so hard, cause come on, people with over 300hours get banned today for cussing/inappropriate names, and again its OK and better then ok, it means the gm's are doing a great job, but if someone said "f@ck you" in all chat, ban him for a month, i garuntee he wont be doing that again, dont overlook all the hours and hours he put in the game cause of one mistake, for inappropriate names, please, look into the guys hours/pokes if you see he's serious about the game, at the very least let him xfer it to another account, if the name wasn't so obviously inappropriate if it was, well i doubt he'll get to 300hours(example) without ban anyway...
my point is the gm's are doing incredable job, just please, use the 30 days ban more often, i literaly went through 6 pages on the ban appeal forum, in my eyes all justified ofc, but on some of them it should most def not be a perm.
thanks for listening and i really hope you guys dont take it the wrong way , i am trying to help as some gm i think chocobo said in one of the ban threads i saw, its mostly a kids game, and they spend tons of hours on the game, and unless they hacked/botted/duped/ i dont think it should be a perm ban
thanks agian.
Boora.

 

[risefromruins]

The staff would not like to be associated with telling people who or who not to trust in this game. While the middleman theory is a good idea in itself, that is not what the job of a CG is. Going off of that, doing so would put the staff in a tough position. What if a player who is "trusted" decides to scam someone? Who would you blame...the scammer or the person who told you that you would be safe trading with them? Situations like this are the reason why the staff tend to stay away from such programs.

---

Bans are always a touchy subject, but what you think about speedhacking/fishbotting is slightly different than what actually happens. As a player who legitimately owns quite a good amount of shiny pokemon, rare and common, knowing that someone can obtain the same pokemon by running a program is upsetting. Furthermore, use of these third party programs tends to lag the server even more and can even cause unexpected crashes. It is written directly within the Terms of Service that use of third party programs is illegal yet players still see the need to use them and wonder why they lose the right to their account when they are caught.

The same goes for inappropriate names. As this is a game rated PG, and the rule is right in the Terms of Service, there is no reason for someone to create a username that is not PG.

Also, no one is ever perm banned for inappropriate language unless it becomes a reoccurring offense. Most language bans last no more then 2 weeks, depending on the severity.

---

It really is sad to say, but those who are usually guilty of hacking in some way will not learn and they will do it again. I've seen it more times then I can count, and I'm not even a GM.

 

[HitmonFonty]

I agree with Rise that staff should not vouch for anyone in trading. I certainly don't know any player save my own children well enough to feel I can safely say they will never cheat in this game. Too often even the most well known and 'trusted' players turn out to be doing it.

I personally don't think anyone should risk token trading as it is. If it were possible, and I was told it wouldn't be easily done, I would have thought it best to shut down friend donations due to the prevalence scamming a couple of months ago.

Just about every player who is banned gets a second chance. I think this is fair but I don't believe someone who bots should ever be able to recover the account they were caught botting on. Even if one pokemon- one dollar- was gotten on their account illegally I don't think it should be in the game. I have spent too many hours genuinely hunting rare pokemon to ever think otherwise. The second chance is on a new account, or other accounts they have not been found cheating on. Swearing never gets a permanent ban as far as I know, it is always a temp ban and never as long as 30 days, again to my knowledge. I am not a GM myself of course, but the above information is easily found just looking at a few ban appeals over a long period of time.

Finally, tokens will soon be able to be safely traded on the new playerdex so even if a middleman was a practical idea it won't be needed.

 

[Chocobo7]

In my opinion this is an overly simplistic view on these issues, you can't always take things at face value as its seems you might have in one or two points.

lets start , in most games, in the main forum of these games/the biggest known forum there's always a list of middlemans,
what that means ? , basically to oversee a deal with tokens(at least in this game its tokens)
its really easy, put a list of Trusted people that will accept the role of middleman and when a guy will want to buy tokens, he'll have the right to pm a middleman and ask him to oversee the deal, for a middleman to work he must be vouched by the admin/gm's or be a CG, the buyer will give the middleman the poke/money, the seller will send the tokens and when the buyer gives the OK that he got the tokens the middleman gives the seller the pokes/money, its really simply, it'll solve 99% of the token scams,
now you can always make it clean that mm(middleman) is only to be used in trades that requires trust, and ask the middleman if he's free before.
i'l suggest all the CG and few REALLY trusted members , but again not my place to suggest anyone, its yours

I can honestly say I've never seen or heard this in any online game, from games ranging from WoW or Guild Wars along to smaller MMOs and even Minecraft servers. In my honst opinion, it sounds like a complete waste of time for those involved (especially staff members who already have their own jobs to do ingame) and counter intuitive to the size of the game and how things tend to flow here, the amount of people that would be needed to be these middlemen to keep up with their demand would be too high to reasonably maintiain. Rise is also 100% correct in saying that we staff don't want to get involved in things like this, if anyone of these 'trusted' players ever broke the role and scammed someone it would be disaterous for us, there used to be topics that had this same idea for trsuted members but as Rise (who made it) was a staff member, it was closed for these very reasons.

about the bans, again not my place, but. i saw people getting perm'ed for things they shouldn't been banned or at least perm'ed for...
for example, a guy admits to having a auto clicker cause he's too tired to click on the fishing thingy.. ok i agree he broke the rule but i higly doubt that deserves a perm ban, im pretty sure a one month ban is more then ok the guy will learn his leasson and wont lose everything he worked on so hard

Your first problem here, people lie. You can never believe what a person says in there ban appeal at face value as many of them will say whatever they can to get unbanned, or at least a reduced sentence, its a GMs job to use the resources available to them to filter out what is lies and what is truth and depending on the case the original descision can indeed be changed or completely overturned. What a permanent ban does is stop the persons access to the illegally gained pokemon/money/items and not the game itself, they are always free to make a new account and prove they can change. People who use illegal programs also tend to have not worked hard for what they have, the program done it all for them.

people with over 300hours get banned today for cussing/inappropriate names, and again its OK and better then ok, it means the gm's are doing a great job, but if someone said "f@ck you" in all chat, ban him for a month, i garuntee he wont be doing that again, dont overlook all the hours and hours he put in the game cause of one mistake, for inappropriate names, please, look into the guys hours/pokes if you see he's serious about the game, at the very least let him xfer it to another account, if the name wasn't so obviously inappropriate if it was, well i doubt he'll get to 300hours(example) without ban anyway...

This shows a lack of undertsanding on the normal policy in regards to bans, firstly bans for inappropriate names happen when we are made aware of them - its not our intention to let them accrue the amount of hours some of them do. On language, a perm ban is extremely rare and only happens in the most extreme circumstances, the majority don't even get banned but are rather dealt with via mutes/kicks ingame, if there is no one ingame to deal with them then offenders will usually get a ban of a few days if its worthy of it. Bans of 30 days for a few words is extremely over zealous and more often harmful to the game.

my point is the gm's are doing incredable job, just please, use the 30 days ban more often, i literaly went through 6 pages on the ban appeal forum, in my eyes all justified ofc, but on some of them it should most def not be a perm.

You need to remember, this is a game in BETA - players are here, first and foremost, as testers wether they know this or not and the fact that they are trying so hard to break the rules of a game still in development shows they have no intentions of doing they role they are meant to, and they are certianly not going to do anything that doesn't directly benefit them. The game does not need that sort of person and I feel entirely justified in banning someone who will not contribute to anything other than their own digital pockets.

thanks for listening and i really hope you guys dont take it the wrong way , i am trying to help as some gm i think chocobo said in one of the ban threads i saw, its mostly a kids game, and they spend tons of hours on the game, and unless they hacked/botted/duped/ i dont think it should be a perm ban
thanks agian.
Boora.

Don't think of this as anythign against you, we always appreciate the feeback from our players, read the comments on BETA, and it is highly encouraged, I just feel in this case the ideas were misplaced.

 

[Boora]

thanks for replying and yeah i know its nothing against me,
about the bans, you're 100% correct, but you don't see it from a players point of view, lets say i messed up , unless i was dumb enough to hack/bot/scam , i don't think i would deserve a perm ban, from the top of my head,
some dude used "gernia" or something like that, i truly don't remember the full name, point is,hernia is the inappripriate name , not gernia
i don't think that kid should've been banned and not a perm one, he obviously didn't open the acc just to antagonize the staff, he made the account cause that's the nick he uses in all his games, at the very least help him move his pokemon's or stuff to a diff char, i mean there was no intent here.
or the "harrysac" i have to admit i laughed my *** off on that thread, and the dude is an idiot, but what if his name really was HAROLD SACC ,
another kid told you "i'm sorry i was too tired to click so i used autoclicker" sure, against the rules, but all it does is click, i doubt if that dude was banned for 30 days insted he'll do it again... unless he actually botted and i dont know, cause you are right, people lie.

about the middleman, i still think its a brilliant idea, but i do agree the staff cant risk the few people he'll appoint to scam or do something
the staff can only help pick the few guys, but still tell people to take Screen shots, and tell them that the middlemans aren't part of the staff ,
this way even though the middleman is trusted he wont even think about scamming and everyone is happy, and even if you're right choco
better to have a scam a week involving a middleman that easily tracked down and banned ,then 10-20 ? or more i believe, some go unreported.
but if its only me here that thinks its a good idea,
how about an extra slot in trade for tokens, just like pokemoney
and an npc that sells all the token store items in-game
or make the membership an ITEM and it doesn't activates until someone double clicks it,
just some ideas lol,
anyway i was just trying to help , thanks for listening

Boora.

 

[Chocobo7]

some dude used "gernia" or something like that, i truly don't remember the full name, point is,hernia is the inappripriate name , not gernia
i don't think that kid should've been banned and not a perm one, he obviously didn't open the acc just to antagonize the staff, he made the account cause that's the nick he uses in all his games, at the very least help him move his pokemon's or stuff to a diff char, i mean there was no intent here.
or the "harrysac" i have to admit i laughed my <img src='./images/smilies/censored.png' alt='Censored'> off on that thread, and the dude is an idiot, but what if his name really was HAROLD SACC ,

The reason for having bans for names is not related to the staff themselves, but due to the fact that PWO is a PG game, meaning kids can and do play. Account names fall under the same rules as the chat, language and discussion unsuitable for the age rating of them game is not allowed no matter what form it takes and people have free access to the rules to see this before they make an account, which when made is then agreeing to the ToS and rules of the game. In the case when there name does seem inappropriate but is from there actual name then they are allowed to keep the account name providing they can prove that this is the case, I know for a fact that this does happen.

another kid told you "i'm sorry i was too tired to click so i used autoclicker" sure, against the rules, but all it does is click, i doubt if that dude was banned for 30 days insted he'll do it again... unless he actually botted and i dont know, cause you are right, people lie.

Any program that automates the gameplay outside of what is provided by PWO is considered a bot or a bot-like program, so yes, this would be admission of botting.

about the middleman, i still think its a brilliant idea, but i do agree the staff cant risk the few people he'll appoint to scam or do something
the staff can only help pick the few guys, but still tell people to take Screen shots, and tell them that the middlemans aren't part of the staff ,
this way even though the middleman is trusted he wont even think about scamming and everyone is happy, and even if you're right choco
better to have a scam a week involving a middleman that easily tracked down and banned ,then 10-20 ? or more i believe, some go unreported.
but if its only me here that thinks its a good idea,

We still can't risk being liable for any problems that occur, people being scammed by just the actions of the two traders is one thing but involving the staff is risking more than someone losing money. I will suggest waiting until the new Playerdex is ready though, to see what impact that has upon these issues.

 

[Boora]

Can't really argue with anything you said,
the methods are a bit harsh at some cases if you ask me, but yeah its true,
thanks for replying btw

 

[Pansy]

I'm going to move this to General PWO Talk.