Suggestion: With Freedom And Improved Trade For All

Suggestions and Contributions
1

PMU is a nice community!.. except for when it’s not. A recent incident has pushed this suggestion up to the forefront of my contribution agenda because it is imperative to help remedy a darker side of the community and gameplay experience. I’m going to preface this one with a story.

[details]
Gradiusic and a player named Arki were conducting a trade: 26 Honeys for 26k Poke. The Trade function is inefficient for trading quantities of things and, additionally, does not allow a one-sided trade. To trade it using this function, the users would have to do 26 consecutive trades. One Honey for 1k Poke… one… by one… by one…

To sidestep the issue, they agreed to do a private drop trade in Gradiusic"s house. It"s one thing to drop items in public, however a house is considered private because it"s the one and only map that a player truly owns. So they get all their ducks in a row and commence the drop-trade, looking to accomplish 26 trades in one trade with the kind of efficiency the Trade function presently lacks. The items are dropped and, with ungodly speed and wicked intent, a user named Grumm picks them up before the trade is completed, escaping to the ladder as swiftly as he entered. The user then returns within a few seconds to ask if the victims were mad before vacating the premises for good.

[/details]

What would change: The Trade function will be refined to truly, once and for all, remove any need for drop-trading in the community and give users a reasonable way to do business. There are several missing features that are vital to accomplishing just that and, if implemented, will have a positive and lasting effect on everyone’s gameplay experience.

For example,

[ul][li]Add the ability to trade items in bulk (if there is a number ceiling, this number must be high; keep in mind users can have many pages of inventory and thus the Trade function ought to acknowledge and address this)[/li]

[li]Remove the one-sided trade protection. I know this seems counterintuitive to what we’re trying to accomplish, and if that’s what you’re thinking then you’d be absolutely right. It would only be a logical decision if the next step was…[/li]

[li]Add protection against trade changes. Ahah! Now do you see why we won’t need that old trade protection? But what does protection against trade changes… mean? I define it by the implementation of two features. One, a bold and easily visible notification that appears when the trade has changed (a player adds or removes items) and remains for at least ten seconds. Two, a “cool-down” timer that lasts at least ten seconds and prevents a trade from being completed when the trade has changed–it would be reset every time someone changed the items being traded.[/ul][/li]
Why would it change: Currently the rules involving “stolen items” are, by their absence, that if an item is dropped then it’s fair game. Staff is not obligated to replace items. That’s fine and dandy, it places the responsibility on the players, but this system is not fair or acceptable if players are not given a way to trade effectively in all circumstances. How can anyone expect players to be responsible for their items if they don’t even have tools to trade them safely and effectively?

We can only trade items one at a time, and we can’t trade something for nothing. Of course drop-trading exists, of course problems arise from drop-trading, and of course the users who attempt drop-trades aren’t happy. Now what makes Gradiusic and Arki’s case especially important is that they drop traded in the privacy of Gradi’s in-game house–it’d be one thing if they went to the middle of Grassroot and started dropping items–in that case I wouldn’t be defending them at all, but the point is that they didn’t. Then, of all things, the community in chat sided against them! They tried to be responsible for their trading because the Trade function is incomplete at a glance but the bitter truth is that drop-trading, even in private, is NOT safe.

To truly absolve the developers from all responsibility, I propose the above features. Once the players are given a way to conduct every sort of trade, then it makes sense to hold them accountable for their own items–THEN the staff can raise their hands dismissively and shrug saying “Well it’s your fault.”

But it’s then, and only then, when there’s a better Trade function, that it is the player’s fault. As it stands, I don’t believe trading is anywhere near where it needs to be for users to be responsible for trading their items. I’m no one important and it’s fine to operate on the assumption that my opinions are negligible until proven otherwise, but I feel this isn’t healthy for the community and hopefully my presentation will sound logical, fair, and give credence to what I have to say on this. I truly believe this would be a good thing for everyone!

Gah. This turned out to be a bit tl;dr, but for those who do, I hope you find that I tried my best to solve a perceived issue. As always, if you have any questions, ask them! Criticism? Point it out! My ideas are nothin’ special, 5/10 mediocre at best, so I welcome all discussion and dissection as long as we stay constructive and try to move forward.
Thanks for taking the time to read it!

2

To a certain degree, I would say this is their fault since they shouldn’t have announced in public “Let’s drop trade in my house!” PMing the drop trade location to one another would be a better idea. If they had PMed each other instead of shouting it out in public they may not have been robbed.

I agree with item trading in bulk but I don’t see the need for removing the one-sided protection. Just don’t hit Confirm until they put up money or items. Trade changes don’t need a cooldown but I do agree with making the changes more notable.

Now you said that trading is not effective in all circumstances, but it really is. Single item trading can be done with /trade while multi-item trading can be done in a secure location that you tell each other in private messages. Trading is fair either single or multi-item but just be more careful.

In the example that you provided, it’s very likely that they had said it in Local Chat in Grassroot where most players could have heard. In other words if they had spoken in private, this would have never happened.

3

First off I’d like to thank you for taking time to read and reply! I’m glad someone finally did, I was getting a little worried there. Now, let’s get down to business!

This is a direct consequence of a troublesome PM system. Gradiusic couldn’t get PMs to work right, and even if he did, drop-trading is still skirting around what is ultimately an imperfect trade system.

This section of my suggestion does not lend itself nicely to picking and choosing and there’s a specific reason for that: it was tailored to balance of safety and freedom. By arguing to maintain the one-sided protection, you are choosing safety over freedom, but with the updated trade protection there would be no need to sacrifice the freedom of trading something for nothing which means we would still have the ability to give things away safely. Removing the cooldown sacrifices safety for… well, nothing, really. Timeliness, maybe? But what’s ten seconds if it cuts the likelihood of being scammed by tenfold? I don’t see a solid argument against the cooldown safety measure that demonstrates benefits that outweigh the costs, at least not in the fashion you’ve presented it here.

So, to sum it up, picking apart this particular aspect of my suggestion generates redundancies and, additionally, I hold that these two bullet points benefit the overall community greatly.

Combine the two red statements in context. Basically what you just said is “Trading is effective in all circumstances, except for when it’s not.” Kind of like the opening line of my first post, but I meant it as a bad joke whereas you’re basing your position on this statement which you yourself just proved to be contrary. My argument is that the need for drop-trading is irrefutable evidence to the latter rather than the former; if you intend to counter this then you’ll have to explain the logical course that supersedes my criterion in detail. Anything involving drop-trading is not valid because drop-trading is not the Trade function itself.

In the first quote, you said “…they may not have been robbed.” But now you’re saying it would have never happened. Is it possible that someone could be robbed regardless of speaking in public or not? It’s a yes or a no.

4

It’s actually more than a yes or no, Poochiehead.

Yes, it is indeed possible if individuals are naive enough to believe there are no bad people out there, and maybe getting scammed would be beneficial to their growth and development. Would you disagree? For example, if you want a kid to learn how to ride a bike, they’ll undoubtedly fall a few times and get scuffed up. However, these nicks and bruises are definitely worth the long term effect of mastering bike riding.

Isn’t it the same thing with trading? You said Gradiusic didn’t know how to properly PM. Does he know now? Did he inquire this after the fact to better understand an important aspect of the game? Yes or no (the manipulative yes or no trap is pretty fun isn’t it?). Therefore, wasn’t this experience beneficial in the long run, though he might have lost some resources?

In the above quotation, I think you’re more attacking the individual rather than his point. He’s saying that this “theft” could have easily been prevented with some prior thinking. Do you agree? Sure, the trade system isn’t the best. Sure, it could be better. I think, however, you’re overreacting to the whole situation. It’s not at all difficult to trade drop trade safely, it’s not at all difficult to PM, it’s not at all difficult to not get scammed.

If two players agreed to a trade, and then after one player dropped their items the other player took said items and ran off with them; I think that would be one thing. That would be something that needs addressing, BUT THAT’S NOT HAPPENING! No one scams like this, and in all honesty, if you saw someone dropping something you could take… wouldn’t you do the same thing as Grumm?

TL;DR: You can’t trust anyone. Be smart, don’t be dumb; if you are dumb, however, your mistakes will end up benefiting you in the long run.

5

If you’re wondering, yes I put him up to this.

Yes, actually, I would! Don’t ask me subjective questions and expect me to concede, you have to use objective reasoning. Otherwise you’re just treading water.

Getting a few scratches is not equivalent to being a victim of theft or scamming, therefore your logical argument via analogy is flawed. Will you argue against that? There are numerous reasons. For one, nothing is being stolen in your analogy. For two, the person who directly crashed the bike was the cyclist (thus he or she is responsible) whereas the person who directly stole the items was not the victim. Grumm went out of his way to grab Gradiusic and Arki’s items.

The yes or no doesn’t work when there’s an inherent logical fallacy, which I have exposed for your benefit. Additionally, the words in the parenthesis are obviously written in such a manner as to mock and act as bait; they are of no relevance when you could have simply criticized my argument style and left the snarky phrasing out of it. Please refrain from making the same ad hominem mistake again, as it’s wholly unnecessary.

No. To continue the analogy you chose, bad as it might be: scratches heal and flesh is replaced, but Gradiusic will never get his items back. So no–in the long run, he loses and that’s that.

Ad Hominem Scoreboard: Johto 1 | Pooch 0

To boot, slinging that kind of accusation is not fair if you’re not going to include a source and argumentative warrant. At no point did I mock, degrade, or troll what12345; every single line defended my suggestion against the claims by targeting logic or argument style, never the person himself. I openly invite you to prove otherwise.

No, I cannot say that his items wouldn’t have been stolen with 100% certainty because any dropped item can be stolen, including his. You just admitted that the trade system isn’t the best and it could be better, and that’s exactly what my suggestion is meant to help with. It’s the nature of a suggestion, and if there is room for improvement, then it is my goal to help this wonderful game improve.

You’re right, that would be one thing; this is even worse because TWO players had their items stolen.

My own personal ethics have no bearing on my argument because I am basing my logic on objectivity, but I’ll entertain the idea: no, I would not. My personal rationalization is that the items were dropped for the purpose of trade and in a personal location belonging to the player, however I’d like to remind you that this is entirely tangent to the discussion.

6

This is a direct consequence of a troublesome PM system. Gradiusic couldn’t get PMs to work right, and even if he did, drop-trading is still skirting around what is ultimately an imperfect trade system.
[/quote]
No. This is a direct consequence of an irresponsible player. Surely one of the trading parties should have known how to PM, or known to ask via Global, where they would have likely got an answer. Another solution would have been going to their house, and then confirm a new location just in case someone had snuck in.

This section of my suggestion does not lend itself nicely to picking and choosing and there’s a specific reason for that: it was tailored to balance of safety and freedom. By arguing to maintain the one-sided protection, you are choosing safety over freedom, but with the updated trade protection there would be no need to sacrifice the freedom of trading something for nothing which means we would still have the ability to give things away safely. Removing the cooldown sacrifices safety for… well, nothing, really. Timeliness, maybe? But what’s ten seconds if it cuts the likelihood of being scammed by tenfold? I don’t see a solid argument against the cooldown safety measure that demonstrates benefits that outweigh the costs, at least not in the fashion you’ve presented it here.

So, to sum it up, picking apart this particular aspect of my suggestion generates redundancies and, additionally, I hold that these two bullet points benefit the overall community greatly.
[/quote]

Again, the only fault is a player’s irresponsibility and patience, a cool down would not be needed if a player took their time and waited for the correct item to be placed in the slot. It’s directly their fault if they lose an item that way.

You’re arguing “Freedom” and “Safety,” and blame the game’s systems for the irresponsibility of players. Which you honestly shouldn’t. Why should we mend things to cater to the irresponsible? If people learned to take their time, this wouldn’t be an issue.
The only thing I see here that’d be needed is being able to trade non-stackable items in bulk.

7

PMU is the only gaming community I know of that has people who would shamelessly blame victims more than thieves. You and your arguments are truly my antithesis, but that’s tangent and irrelevant if I’m to remain objective. I’ll just cut straight to it:

Again, the only fault is a player’s irresponsibility and patience, a cool down would not be needed if a player took their time and waited for the correct item to be placed in the slot. It’s directly their fault if they lose an item that way.

How is it directly their fault for an unsuccessful drop trade if the drop trade would have been successful without interference from a third party? Such a conclusion is illogical; it’s obviously the direct action of stealing the item that breaks the trade. Not using a work-around for the trade function is an absence of action, or in other words an indirect action. It is based on this foundation that I reach this conclusion: a rationalization which holds the victims more accountable lacks an objective concept of direct and indirect fault. I would only concede that the victims in some cases are indirectly responsible, but that is not your argument at all; you’re consistently placing the larger burden on victims, and that is utterly incompatible with the logic analysis I’ve just presented.

Please consider that.

It seems you have the same criterion (“irresponsibility”) split into three, so this rebuttal will just address them all.

8

You don’t seem to understand the reason why the victim gets beat up. In the eyes of most players. The /trade system is rather fair. The victim gets beat up because they complained about being mugged when they could /trade. Keep in mind that the majority of the community believes that the system is fair.

As for the second quote, Lman is talking about the Trade Command. A player would only get ripped off if they did not have patience. There would be no third-party interference with /trade unless you chose to drop-trade. Even if you did choose to drop-trade, there would be no interference if they had been more private using PMs instead of Local Chat. I understand that in the example you provided that they didn’t know how to PM. If they had asked how to PM then this would have never happened.

To expand on what I said on the “ten second cooldown”. Ten seconds is overkill, even if the cooldown is as little as one it still is not needed. Like what Lman had said, it is the player’s irresponsibility and lack of patience that causes the thievery to occur in the first place.

9

Negligence doesn’t transfer the fault/crime. If one walks around at night in an area with an above average crime rate and gets robbed, then yes he or she did something that put them at risk, but no judge would find that the victim is directly responsible for the crime that’s committed nor is the victim punished. He or she certainly isn’t shrugged off as some in this community will do so casually.

Additionally, you make baseless claims that the majority of the community feels as you two do. It’s a matter of ethics but that’s an empty argument if you don’t cite a source for this data. As far as ethics go, even if it is a majority, that doesn’t make it right so it’d be an illogical argument if you chose to pursue it.

To expand on what I said on the “ten second cooldown”. Ten seconds is overkill, even if the cooldown is as little as one it still is not needed. Like what Lman had said, it is the player’s irresponsibility and lack of patience that causes the thievery to occur in the first place.

It is the inability to distribute items in every situation that causes thievery to occur. If users are given a trade tool that lets them accomplish what they can accomplish in a drop trade faster and safer than an actual drop trade, then fewer people will drop trade. The cooldown prevents scam artists from ripping off users by changing items at the last instant and me having to come back to these very suggestion forums to bark up this same tree again to defend users who were scammed out of massive amounts of items, this time by the bulk trade feature that I proposed. I will not sit idly and allow one of my suggestions to hurt the community even more because it was adopted in an incomplete form.

As I’ve said in an earlier post: to truly keep our community safe and still give them a versatile and intuitive trade function, this suggestion must be taken as a whole. Not cherry-picked, not deconstructed, and not disregarded.

10

If the staff team would allow polls to be conducted under Suggestions and Contributions Forum I can give you numbers. Numbers that can back up my claim. The reason why the majority chooses to batter the victim rather than the robber is because they could have used /trade instead of drop-trading. Inefficient yes, but true. The community chooses to do so based only on someone’s choice, not of their reasoning.

I understand the reasoning for implementing the whole of the suggestion but would that not complicate things? As Lman had said, you are arguing over “Freedom” or “Safety”. PMs and cooldowns would be Safety, drop-trading would be Freedom. You created this suggestion because you wish for Freedom and Safety, but this idea would only provide Safety and not Freedom.

A cooldown would take away time. Time that you could have spent using /trade. Time that you could have used to drop-trade and risk being robbed. Time that you could have used to play PMU instead of taking time trading because of a cooldown.
You would require a cooldown every time the trade changes. Add your item, take ten seconds, add your friend’s item, take another ten seconds, and repeat every time you trade. This would be an inconvenience especially if you are not trading in bulk or are exchanging multiple types of items. This inconvenience may cause players to go back to drop-trading, thus starting this all over again.

11

Firstly, forgive me for not posting earlier. I’ve been meaning to write a reply, but I never got around to doing it. uvu;;

Sorry for the long post, but there is a TLDR / Conclusion part near the bottom if you really don’t feel like reading this…

@Bulk Trading
Now THIS is something I think we can all agree on. It’s been missing for a long time and this is one of the factors that contribute to the ancient ways of what I’d like to dub “Drop Trading”. (“One of the factors?” Don’t worry. I’ll get to it later.)

@Removing Trade Protection + Adding Protection Against Trade Changes
I’d like to highlight the Steam Trading System as an example. There are a few things it does really well:

[hr][/hr]

1. It is possible to trade multiple items at once.
Again, the bulk trading we’ve been needing for a very long time.

2. Icons of the items being offered makes trading very user-friendly.
Both traders benefit from this. Sometimes things will go wrong. Maybe you didn’t see that last zero was missing or maybe the item’s name was too similar to something else’s name. It would really suck if you fail-traded for an item/offer you never planned to obtain/accept. A possibly useful safety measure.

3. Both traders must click a checkbox that says they agree to the conditions, then they can trade.
Another safety measure. This checkbox turns blue when you’ve clicked it, and green when both players have agreed to each other’s offers.

4. You can clearly see when the offer has been changed.
When the offer has been changed, the checkbox will go back to being the usual Steam background color. This makes changes in the offer obvious.

4.5 When the offer has been changed, both players must agree to the trade conditions (again).
Another safety net.

[hr][/hr]

Anyway, I bring the Steam Trading System up because it does its job very well. It offers multiple safety nets for its user in case of malicious intent. (Barring scamming. That depends solely on the knowledge of the user, something that we can help with, but not directly prevent.)

[hr][/hr]

(I apologize in advance if this argument/reasoning has already been mentioned, but:)

So you say that “Oh, they should have been more careful and use the /trade command. Better be safe than sorry!”
Your point stands to a certain extent, but keep this in mind:

Okay, so. I mentioned earlier that I would expand on “one of the factors that contribute to the ancient ways of what I’d like to dub ‘Drop Trading’.”

Quite frankly, I’d use the “Drop Trading” method over the trade system because it’s just so much easier to use, and here’s why.

• The current trade system is too unwieldy and inefficient.
It’s lacking some core features (such as those I’ve highlighted in my explanation of the Steam trading system).

And because it’s lacking these core, user-friendly features…
• There is not enough of an incentive to use the trade system.

Besides these two points, there is no reason to not add extra safety features for /trade users.

By not adding these extra safety features, you’re just refusing to advance the outdated, inefficient trade system we currently use and thus promote this “Drop Trading” method. Not to mention, it seems sort of silly that there is no punishment for stealing when we’ve done nothing to enhance our faulty trade system.

[hr][/hr]

TLDR / Conclusion

The solution to ending the “Drop Trading” method is to promote the trade system with positive features that will reward users with an easy, safe, and fast way to trade.

If we refuse to move forward, thieves, who will go unpunished no matter what evidence has been put up, have no reason to stop their malicious ways.

12

  1. I’m arguing for a balance of safety and freedom. I define “freedom” as the ability to do what you can do in drop trades (trade items in bulk and give away an item for nothing). By that definition, yes, my proposal is free. I define “safety” as using this freedom with less chance of theft or scams than drop trading. By that definition, my proposal is safe.

  2. You might have misunderstood the general nature of trade timers; it doesn’t continuously stack ten seconds on top of ten seconds when an item is added or removed–for example, once the timer starts and one item is changed after a second, the timer would simply reset and you’d have waited one second plus ten seconds. The timer simply resets and you review the current trade offer for ten seconds. The timer also does not affect the speed at which you can change, add, or remove items, it merely dictates the amount of time both parties have to review the trade before the trade is accepted, which means it has no particular effect on trading in bulk versus trading small amounts of items. It eliminates the issues of clicking trade by mistake, or scam artists changing the trade at the last second and taking all your items. So trading items in bulk is just a matter of putting them all up for trade, then taking ten seconds to look over the trade to make sure everything’s right.

Again, I stress that without this safety feature, people can and will be robbed in new ways.

13

Negligence doesn’t transfer the fault/crime. If one walks around at night in an area with an above average crime rate and gets robbed, then yes he or she did something that put them at risk, but no judge would find that the victim is directly responsible for the crime that’s committed nor is the victim punished. He or she certainly isn’t shrugged off as some in this community will do so casually.
[/quote]
You’re comparing an online world to the real world, there’s your first mistake.
It is against the LAW in the real world, however it’s not a rule in PMU. Mainly due to the fact you do not have much objective proof to prove that someone stole it, or it was a set up. Also, being it isn’t a rule in PMU so thieves are not penalized, so they lose their rep in PMU, that’s all.

Additionally, you make baseless claims that the majority of the community feels as you two do. It’s a matter of ethics but that’s an empty argument if you don’t cite a source for this data. As far as ethics go, even if it is a majority, that doesn’t make it right so it’d be an illogical argument if you chose to pursue it.

Except this is true, most of the people in PMU will say “You should have used /trade” ask on global one day and see.’

Again, I stress that without this safety feature, people can and will be robbed in new ways.

Again, I stress if the “victims” took their time and were more careful, this would NOT be an issue. You’re making it sound like if we don’t add some safety lock to it everyone is going to get things stolen from them left and right, which would not be the case.

14

I agree with this, I hate how players can get away with theft and an improved trade system would help prevent this.

15

No. It wouldn’t. It wouldn’t do ANYTHING with theft.

Theft really only happens if:
1 You drop trade and do not make it in a secure and private location.
2 You are not patient and don’t pay attention to what you’re doing in the trade window
3 Trade with people you do not know/trust.

You should be MORE RESPONSIBLE with your own items, if theft is an issue. This is typically not a huge issue in PMU because people know how to deal with their own items. Only the new and naive will get their items stolen; which could be a valuable lesson to learn for them.

All the opposing sides suggestions, save bulk trading, can easily be resolved by players being more responsible and careful with their items, so do not need to be implemented in any way, shape, and/or form.

16

No. It wouldn’t. It wouldn’t do ANYTHING with theft.

Theft really only happens if:
1 You drop trade and do not make it in a secure and private location.
2 You are not patient and don’t pay attention to what you’re doing in the trade window
3 Trade with people you do not know/trust.

You should be MORE RESPONSIBLE with your own items, if theft is an issue. This is typically not a huge issue in PMU because people know how to deal with their own items. Only the new and naive will get their items stolen; which could be a valuable lesson to learn for them.

All the opposing sides suggestions, save bulk trading, can easily be resolved by players being more responsible and careful with their items, so do not need to be implemented in any way, shape, and/or form.[/quote]

Look, look. (I’ve talked more about this in my wall of text post up on the top of this page, but here’s the shortened version, kinda.)

Drop trading equals theft (or higher chance of theft). Our faulty trading system leads to (more) drop trading.
Faulty Trading System -> Drop Trading -> Theft

(Applying some logic here: if p then q; if q then r; therefore, if p then r)

Faulty Trading System -> Theft.

We have to focus on the source of the problem, not its negative after-effects, so we can end the problem.

[hr][/hr]

Drop trading is a thing because there is no good incentive besides a safe trade to use the /trade system.
No bulk trading, no helpful features - it’s unwieldy. Why use it when drop trading is so much easier?

So, if we revamp the trading system, making it easier and more efficient, more people will switch over to /trade, lessening the chance of thefts from drop trading.

17

Of course, that’s really the only thing I believe would inevitably improve theft, by eliminating the use of drop trading.