Warning, Old Diablo Scam now in Path of Exile

People who grief or scam others in online games always say that it's just a game and that they would never do something like that in real life. I honestly cannot imagine how that is supposed to work. Either you are a dick or you are not.

agreed with the person that said this is a life lesson

much better to lose some video game currency and learn not to be a dumbass then lose you bank account

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Jojas wrote:

People who grief or scam others in online games always say that it's just a game and that they would never do something like that in real life. I honestly cannot imagine how that is supposed to work. Either you are a dick or you are not.

"People who attack or kill others in online games always say that it's just a game and that they would never do something like that in real life. I honestly cannot imagine how that is supposed to work. Either you are a murderer or you are not."

If you seriously consider being scammed out of property and finances in real life, which directly affects your quality of life, to be equivalent to losing some digital stuff in a game, then you need to reevaluate your view because it's incredibly skewed.

I'll give you a hint, the digital thing you lost isn't worth anything in real life. You're not going to go without food or lose your house over it.

Games are timesinks you voluntarily play for entertainment. If someone scams you or kills you or anything similar in a video game, you lose some of the time you volunteered, and nothing else. That time was specifically allotted by you as "time to play this video game", and so you "wasted" a bit of your time that you were technically wasting anyways. The same can be said for every enemy that kills you while you try to progress through the game, it makes you lose some "time spent on video games" (although it really doesn't, since you were playing for the purposes of entertainment, and you received that entertainment whether you died later or not).

Real life, on the other hand, is something everyone is forced to engage in at all times and the acts you commit against people actually have meaningful consequences for them.

It's kind of disturbing there are people who can't make the distinction between reality and fantasy.

Don't you have to hover over the item to complete trade? I don't get how people get tricked by it now.

Yeah, this is common in some other titles, such as, every game I've ever played that has similar trading systems. I've never understood how this works on people. I used to sit and watch the spammers in Eve hook people again and again and again. Boggles my brain.

@AzraelX: You might not have needed to write all you wrote had I been a bit more clear. Or had a better grasp of the english language. What I meant is that I cannot imagine someone who scams or griefs other people in online games to be a nice, decent, honest person in real life. He might be, I don't know, I just do not see how being an asshole to people on the left and being nice and decent to people on the right fit together to make a whole. Do you know what I mean?
Either one of these traits must be false, and I think it naturally to assume that it's the "good" one that is.

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AzraelX wrote:

If someone scams you or kills you or anything similar in a video game, you lose some of the time you volunteered, and nothing else.

This of course is very rational, but I think only very, very, VERY few people are able to see it that way once they are scammed of something precious.
If I buy something on Ebay and the next day it's gone, I say shit and forget about it. But if I spend dozens of hours shaping my char, developing my gear, going through tremendous ups and downs and then all of a sudden it's gone, it is a whole different matter. It is not a matter of "time you volunteered", it is a matter of dedication being violated.

I think scamming - and even more so griefing - is a terrible practice. As far as I'm concerned only people with a severe lack of empathy or their empathy turned off due to greed or a sadistic or mean streak are able to do so. And - as I said - I'm not able to see how you can employ traits like these in a game enviroment without having them in real life as well.

edit: Of course I do not think that everyone who does NOT scam other people is automatically nice and decent. They might be just as dicks as the scammers. The scammers in actively seeking to take advantage of other people's shortcomings are a special bunch though.

My friend did this scam on me with very low level items, I'm glad I learned the lesson rather cheaply.

Vanilla WOW. C.O.D. Packages. I was wary but you can't put something shiny in a box and not expect me to bite. Lesson learned and I thought it was hilarious.

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AzraelX wrote:

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Jojas wrote:

People who grief or scam others in online games always say that it's just a game and that they would never do something like that in real life. I honestly cannot imagine how that is supposed to work. Either you are a dick or you are not.

"People who attack or kill others in online games always say that it's just a game and that they would never do something like that in real life. I honestly cannot imagine how that is supposed to work. Either you are a murderer or you are not."

If you seriously consider being scammed out of property and finances in real life, which directly affects your quality of life, to be equivalent to losing some digital stuff in a game, then you need to reevaluate your view because it's incredibly skewed.

I'll give you a hint, the digital thing you lost isn't worth anything in real life. You're not going to go without food or lose your house over it.

Games are timesinks you voluntarily play for entertainment. If someone scams you or kills you or anything similar in a video game, you lose some of the time you volunteered, and nothing else. That time was specifically allotted by you as "time to play this video game", and so you "wasted" a bit of your time that you were technically wasting anyways. The same can be said for every enemy that kills you while you try to progress through the game, it makes you lose some "time spent on video games" (although it really doesn't, since you were playing for the purposes of entertainment, and you received that entertainment whether you died later or not).

Real life, on the other hand, is something everyone is forced to engage in at all times and the acts you commit against people actually have meaningful consequences for them.

It's kind of disturbing there are people who can't make the distinction between reality and fantasy.

1) Bad example. The game encourages you to kill stuff, but that's ok because nearly all of us know the difference between a game and reality. The game does not encourage you to scam other people, so if you do so, then that's a conscious decision which no one forced you to take.

The desire to scam people comes from a player's mentality. The idea that you don't want to put in your own legitimate time to gain something, so you'll just take it from someone else. When you take someone's item without properly compensating them, you're also taking away the real life time that they invested into attaining that item. You don't need to suffer material loss for an action taken against you to be wrong. Losing something abstract, like time, is a major grievance for some people (particularly for those with busy lives who don't have that much time to play games to begin with).

2) You are in no position to tell other people that something is worth nothing, including virtual items. Value is a subjective matter, and that's made very clear by those who spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on virtual items (even though that's against the rules in PoE, it still happens). I think that buying virtual items is foolish, but that's still just my opinion. Even ignoring the 'real value' factor, there's still the issue of time and dedication which can be just as important for many people.

3) Don't try to discredit others by suggesting that they don't know the difference between reality and games. This is the second time I've seen you do that, and your argument was logically fallacious (filled with holes and strawmen) both times. They know the difference, and there's no need to pretend that there's zero connection between online and real life behaviours. There are tons of dicks in real life, which is why there are also so many online (in fact, the anonymity and ease with which they can get away with their actions attracts them to this medium).

Sure, acting like a dick in games doesn't necessarily mean you are one in real life too. Maybe some people just like to roleplay being a dick (PoE is set in a cutthroat universe, after all). However, it's safe to say that a lot of people who act like dicks in games do so because they are ones in real life too. I'm not saying they would carry out real scams (perhaps if only because they know there would probably be negative consequences for themselves, such as getting caught and going to prison) but they are certainly the type of people who can be real twats.