Is it manipulation and abuse when CCP comes out with an awesome new use for the Rorqual that causes people to spend cash to get into one and use, then turn around and nerf it and cause people to spend more cash to extract those skills?
What about if I’m asked to come on my ransomers Team Speak and sing a song in which they demand and encore?
What about if someone blows up my ship after I’ve begged them not to?
Where does a perfectly okay in-game activity turn into real life grieving and when should CCP step in. Ultimately that is CCPs call to make on when to step in, but I ask the question: who are all of you to play psychologist and resident barometer of morality to determine when something becomes actual harassment and griefing? I understand that for a lot of you it’s impossible to separate ones morals and code of conduct in a game where you are encouraged to be the villain and that’s cool. What you need to understand is that this is a game. It holds no value in real life other than the entertainment it brings each individual. You are free to come and go as you please as CCP doesn’t demand ‘x’ amount of playtime.
Ero was banned for the harassment, not for anything to do with scamming the in game assets of players, nor for having some of them pod themselves back to an alpha clone state.
I don’t personally see anything in the OP that suggests anything other than an in game scam, as reprehensible as some might find that.
This line from the help page on scams:
Scams that encourage the mark to purchase PLEX in order to acquire the ISK/Items
I have always understood to mean, you couldn’t directly influence them to purchase PLEX as part of the scam.
For example, if they said they didn’t have the ISK to get extractors, it would be a clear EULA breach to tell them to buy PLEX to get the ISK.
If they said they were going to buy PLEX to do it and you encourage them to do that, that would also be a clear breach of the EULA.
However, if you try to scam them out of SP, but have no interest in how they do that, then I can’t personally see how CCP would have issue with that.
If it’s all kept in game, and there’s no harassment as outlined in Falcon’s statement and there is no encouragement to spend real money to make the scam bigger, then as disgusting as some people might find it, it seems like a normal scam.
the writer of that article is a bit dumb calling that gank a real world crime
it was a scam for ingame assets which cant be sold outside the game
what a dummy
yeah not saying its not a tos violation for the guy asking him to buy gtcs
but calling it real life fraud for personal gain is dumb
theres no personal gain involved unless rmt is involved
which is against tos
And that’s all good and fine. If someone wants to give you 2b after three bumps and a few lines of text, congrats and good luck on the loot drops.
And basically it’s as simple as that: stay away from things that cross the line into bad taste or even real life harassment. There is no need to test out how far you actually can go without getting into trouble as there are obviously enough easy marks out there.
I apologize for my anger yesterday. This is a serious topic. it’s about abuse of power.
Free will is not an argument. Your “he made a conscious decision” is nonsense. The conscious decision would have been to just initiate self destruction and not paying any more, but instead his feelings of desperation made the decision for him.
When he pays you, because he wants to get free, then there isn’t necessarily any desperation there.
When you get paid, but then demand more, you cause desperation, grief, disappointment.
When he pays again and you still don’t let him go, then you enjoy the power over him and his desperation.
If you don’t understand that, and rather rationalize your enjoyment of power over him, then you have a serious problem.
don’t believe me? no need! go ask a professional! he’ll tell you the same things! this isn’t about bushido, eHonour or anything like that. it’s about abusing power over others as soon as you deliberately blueball someone and use his desperation against him. and then, when you start increasing the challenges, you go the same route as Erotica1 did.
Singing ransoms are great! asking them to continuously sing more and more simply isn’t. you continuously rationalizing such behaviour will only get you banned eventually, because you apparently lack the empathy to understand why it’s wrong!
We’re not on about a laughable isk doubling scam in Jita.
We’re talking about deliberately and cynically trying to make someone lose all their sp, sp that can only be gained back by either waiting months and months for it to rebuild, or paying out isk or rl cash to recoup it back.
All the while the scammer finds it fun but doesn’t give a flying ■■■■ whether they are causing rl stress or if the mark can ever recover from the loss.
It’s easy to blame any victims for being gullible, but it takes a sick twisted mind to think it up in the first place.
or they could just pay isk for the skill injectors and not lose any sp
its no different from any other kind of ransom in that respect
i think people just got this stigma because it reminds them of the people that were podded in jita in the old days with the bonus room
well that kind of sp destruction isnt possible anymore unless the sp is extracted first
and even then it would be stupid to destroy the sp rather than sell it
plus sp cant be destroyed or extracted below 5.5m sp
so really all this stigma is wasted
the meta has changed but peoples opinions havent
i think its about time they realised their stigmas are a thing of the past and no longer relevant
because to consider ransoming for sp any different to ransoming for isk is double standards
and the only person who has the right to tell ransomers they shouldnt play the game is ccp
Ransoming for “five skill injectors” or the equal amount in Isk may be the same. Using the leverage over you to make you extract your skillpoints and give them to me, is something else.