What would prevent someone buying a promotion and kicking all of their subordinates? More than one guild (in other games, at least) has been devastated by some obnoxious jerk booting all the members and leaving.
Influence is not guild rank, it’s a currency that accrues to the guild that the guild leader and their appointees can use to open research trees, bonuses, missions, etc. You can’t buy a guild rank with influence.
That is a pretty funny misunderstanding, though.
Yeah, I kept reading “Buy guild promotions with karma” over and over, and “guild promotion” only meant one thing to me. That’s probably because I’ve never paid the NPC to “promote” my guild, but I have promoted guild members.
Consider changing the title, but I think I get it now.
(edited by RoyHarmon.5398)
Dishonest brokers are short-sighted since nobody would trust them anymore if word gets out that they have ran off with the items and gold. I prefer to keep my integrity and continue to earn my broker commissions which are lower than the TP fees.
In theory it’s great, and I’ll just say again I’m not opposed to brokers before I get all cynical. I do believe that there are plenty of honest folks out there that will broker a deal in good faith.
Every day folks get taken advantage of by liars that have managed to convince them that they’re trustworthy, and that’s in a world where there are legal repercussions if you get caught. Some folks are incredibly short sighted and will scam people until they have run out of people that aren’t aware they are a scammer, then they’ll hop servers and start again.
The only folks that have access to data that can prove that someone has been scammed is ANet and I think they’ve got their plate full already. It’s not fair to ask them to police the grey market, so it still comes down to trusting someone who is completely anonymous and has very little chance of any consequences for ripping you off.
You could set up something like the “Better Broker Bureau” where folks could register complaints, but then again, you have to deal with bad apples trying to discredit honest brokers, and they only folks who can prove otherwise are ANet, and it’s not fair to ask them to get involved.
The Internet just brings out the worst in some people. A broker guild might work on one server with a limited number of folks where you can build a reputation and vet your members carefully, but as soon as it grows, it gets harder to manage. It’s not impossible though. I think playing too many MMOs has ruined my faith in humanity
I agree with most of what you said here, but I would add the following:
What are the consequences for violating the arrangement? The inability to do it again with the same people? The only ones with the ability to actually punish an offender are ArenaNet employees, and as has been said, they have enough on their plates without the “honest” brokers on the honor system.
Here’s a hypothetical instance involving an opportunistic player named Bob. He doesn’t see anything wrong with scamming people in the game, because he tells himself it’s a game and it’s not real. However, Bob wants a lot of money and a legendary weapon, and he hasn’t the resources to acquire one himself. He stumbles upon some folks who think a broker would be a good idea, and that gives him an idea, too. Bob convinces them he’s honest, whether by brokering a few smaller trades or simply telling them he had done so. One way or another, he finds himself acting as a third party in a trade for that legendary weapon he’s wanted from the beginning. It just so happens that weapon is worth a large sum of money, too. The two parties send their items to Bob, who promptly blocks them both and absconds with their goods.
You might say, “But then nobody will use him as a broker.” But why would that matter? Bob has a legendary weapon and a couple thousand gold! He doesn’t care if anyone wants him to help them trade. If he really wants to scam people again, he can just buy another game account and start again… It would cost much less than the gold needed to buy a legendary.
I still find it hard to believe anyone is actually using this system. And what’s this about “broker fees”? Are they, I take it, significantly lower than 15%? They’d have to be less than 1%, I would think, in order to justify the loss of security— and I still wouldn’t use it. With the trading post, you know you’re not going to get scammed. With this system, you’re just hoping.
But it’s for the really valuable items that the TP is most useful. A 15% tax ensures that the seller gets the widest possible audience of interested buyers for their item, and protects both the buyer and the seller against getting scammed. Many auction houses in real life charge 30%.
Just factor the 15% into your pricing. In my opinion, it’s well worth the money to bypass the hassle of advertising it and the risk of dealing with an anonymous stranger without any recourse if they rip you off. Would you rather have the 130 gold or an e-mail from support explaining there is no way they can replace the 150 gold item that was stolen from you?
I think for a lot of things, if you used the time you would have spent finding a reputable buyer and negotiating the deal to farm a little, you’d make back most of the 15% fee and you wouldn’t have the risk of getting scammed.
Whether something is worth the 15% tax should be determined by the seller on a per-case basis.
Is a 150g tax on a 1000g sell transaction worth it? Not to me, but again, that is subjective.
The TP would have been a more desirable option for high priced goods if ArenaNet has a hard limit to the TP fees. Otherwise, as items become more expensive, such third party options would become more desirable.
For third party solutions to work, the trusted broker has to be approved by BOTH the seller and the buyer for the transaction and the terms be clearly laid out and communicated.
Also I would suggest a hard max and min limit to the broker fees. You don’t want to waste the broker’s time on transactions dealing with only small amounts of copper.
I know a guy who worked for months to get the Juggernaut, but he decided to circumvent the TP to sell it to a guildmate through the mail system. He was scammed out of thousands of gold and a ton of hard work.
If he had just used the trading post and accepted the 15% fee, probably something like 300 gold, he would be something like 1700 gold richer. Instead, he was so frustrated, he quit the game. I even tried to talk him back into it via Facebook, but he was too upset to consider playing again.Honestly, it really is important. If you’re making 1700 gold, what’s 300?
Well then he should have known me as I would have helped in the transaction ensuring that everything is fair.
Just because one person made a mistake does not imply that there are no honest people left in this world.
I know some people don’t even seek out a trusted proxy for trades like this, which is definitely the WRONG way of doing it. The most important thing for these kinds of trades is to find a trusted proxy for the buyer and seller.
To be honest, I am not worried about ArenaNet’s part of this deal. It is not like they would be pouring huge resources into finding your items back for you if you lose it like this anyway.
It is at the seller’s own risk, but I believe that once the system is on its way for some time, we would know who the trustworthy brokers are and these would be able to broker transactions of higher value.
Interesting. So you’ve been a broker for a while?
I have broker before, but I won’t exactly say that I have been a broker for a while.
How does that work? One party sends you a ton of gold and the other sends you a really valuable item?
You’re right. That’s the perfect solution.
