I take exception to that. Unless the owner was a grade A ass I wouldn't rob someone of their hard earned belongings. Hell the other day some fellas left their door unlocked by accident. I simply went inside took the keys out of their boxes and locked them up; leaving the keys neatly organized on a key ring near the boxes.EVeee wrote:killing a character with a house rune and key and recalling there to loot it, which anyone here would do.
I enjoyed reading thisSheer Luck wrote:Personal thought here.. it's an age thing, a technology thing.EVeee wrote: The first is - why is it so widely considered repulsive to scam people?
In the day, many older players <Mid-20's + > brought their real-world morals with them. Murdering someone, taking their possessions and slaughtering their livestock in RL resulted in inconvenient prison terms. To these players, they came into the gates of UO and had to adjust personal beliefs to match the scenario. This is the world the "writers" and Richard Garriot intended. They built this "sandbox" coming from the same mindset. It has been well documented that they were quite shocked when....
Many Younger players viewed UO differently. They were raised with Nintendos, Sega and the internet. This wasn't an inclusive a social media for them, it was another video game.
Games had RULES: You did this you got *Loot* .... Do that, and you *Died*.
Everything they saw in UO was based on that. They went with the the profit margin. They PK'd. They stole, and they Scammed. No Moral compass applied. Pretty simple, really.
An older *Blue* player got PWND in-game and thought
"Man, WTF. UO is full of Dirtbags."
A Younger *Red* Player gets PWND and thinks *Man that was freakin' AWESOME, how did he do that??*
It's about the rules, Man!EVeee wrote: My second question is - to what extent (if any) is scamming punishable by staff/admins? .
Anything that happens in-game, according to the mechanics of the era, is fair game. Spell-book scams, Real Estate Douche-baggery, Trade Window then Steal, are all era-accurate. These things were part of what UO was in Era, and are all intended to be in UOSA.
OTOH, things are different outside the client. Luring anyone into the above type of scam using IRC or forums will get you WTFADMINPWNED, post haste. These bans are generally only for the medium they occur in. IRC luring someone into a pack of PK's, could result in a ban from #Secondage: Generally, there is no Game Account ban based on this behavior.
There's an element of scamming that is deliberately devious and personally offensive. Trust is established and then broken, and the entire process is violating. If I'm going to PK someone; they know what's up, and they've at the least got a sporting chance to run/recall/fight back. If I'm looting your house, a portion of that is on you. Secure your shit and own your portion of the responsibility. Some may disagree, but I'd argue that all of that's missing in a scam.Hicha wrote:People hate scamming (or thievery for that matter) because they feel it is an unjust way to lose items or gold. How scamming/stealing is anymore unjust than kill griefing, getting pked or ganked is beyond me.
What is the difference between scamming in-game versus using irc or the forums to do the exact same thing? What exactly changes that make it 'ok' one way and 'bannable' another?mxmx23 wrote:Scamming via forums/irc should be ban-able.
Scamming within the game is era accurate and the way it should be.
Lol... this goes right back to what I said earlier -Hicha wrote:What is the difference between scamming in-game versus using irc or the forums to do the exact same thing? What exactly changes that make it 'ok' one way and 'bannable' another?
The difference is only that these guys feel that it's different and so they draw a mental/moral line there. They think their Line of Right and Wrong is the only one and everyone should abide by it. If someone else whose moral line was straighter complained about ganking or house looting they'd mock them from one end of the forum to the other. But when someone steps outside these guys comfort level, suddenly it's a whole different story. Personally I draw the line even earlier than in-game scamming, but I don't try to make everyone do what I do. Unfortunately, unless you're the shard owner, it's kind of difficult to force everyone else to follow your personal code of conduct no matter how much you'd like to.EVeee wrote:It's a matter of 'I'm comfortable with screwing you this much and I don't want to be screwed any worse than that either'. And when someone escalates it past that point, people get butthurt but it happens sometimes. If you treat people as non-humans in the context of the game, whose fault is it really if they decide you're a tool in or out of game?
TBH it really shouldn't matter how or where someone tries to scam you. It's always your fault if you get scammed, bottom line. So in-game, forums, irc....I really don't care. In the end, all the trading is done in-game anyways.Hicha wrote:What is the difference between scamming in-game versus using irc or the forums to do the exact same thing? What exactly changes that make it 'ok' one way and 'bannable' another?
Which is why people complain, because the game doesn't hold their hand, because it punishes them cruelly for being lazy or stupid.mxmx23 wrote:TBH it really shouldn't matter how or where someone tries to scam you. It's always your fault if you get scammed, bottom line. So in-game, forums, irc....I really don't care. In the end, all the trading is done in-game anyways.Hicha wrote:What is the difference between scamming in-game versus using irc or the forums to do the exact same thing? What exactly changes that make it 'ok' one way and 'bannable' another?
Scamming, among other things, is part of what sets UO apart from every other game that has come after it....well, basically everything that came after this era.
Shit happens in this game. Sometimes you get pk'd and lose your lewts. Sometimes you buy a 'full' spell book with 0 spells in it. Sometimes you get sloppy and decide to bring your house key with you cause you're sick of unlocking your door.....oops