Mod Mat K & Manipulator clans Debate

[mario_sunny]

Wow this topic is just as explosive as the RSOF one.

 

 

 

I guess this arguement was inevitable. All it took was one little dump to spark a fericious clash of manipulators vs. jagex.

[Rien]

Jagex could easily end the influence of merchant clans by introducing a rule that organizing in game to buy out a product was a bannable offense. No messing with the GE or any game mechanics that restrict trade; just add the rule and start handing out bans and the clans will disband.

 

Das mentioned the problem with this before; how do you define price manipulation?

 

 

 

There are many players who have access to vast, hoarded stocks of various supplies and resources. If one or more of these players decided to liquidate their assets, and it caused for a significant price fluctuation to occur, how is Jagex to know whether they were secretly "plotting" to manipulate the price or if they were simply selling off their stock? How many percentage points would the price of an item have to rise or fall for the trade to be considered manipulation, anyway? How can Jagex determine the intent of the seller/buyer and find fault in their actions? Why should players be banned when it is the GE that is so severely flawed in the first place?

 

 

 

I could continue on and on with the rhetorical questions.

 

 

 

EDIT: I'm slow to the submit button. :lol:

[forestfrolic]

 

Jagex could easily end the influence of merchant clans by introducing a rule that organizing in game to buy out a product was a bannable offense. No messing with the GE or any game mechanics that restrict trade; just add the rule and start handing out bans and the clans will disband.

 

 

 

Why haven't they done that already?

 

 

 

But if they do

 

How can they prove you are with someone and not a solo merchant?

 

 

 

They would just have to go in merchanting clan chats and look at who's there..

 

 

 

Wow this topic is just as explosive as the RSOF one.

 

 

 

I guess this arguement was inevitable. All it took was one little dump to spark a fericious clash of manipulators vs. jagex.

 

 

 

Definitely not as explosive. At least we're having a decent conversation and most of us are not bashing Mod Mat K or Jagex.

[das]

 

They would just have to go in merchanting clan chats and look at who's there..

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clans survived for years with private forums and applications.

 

 

 

They are idiots who deserved what they got if they did everything in a clan chat with easy entry.

[Rien]

Wow this topic is just as explosive as the RSOF one.

 

 

 

I guess this arguement was inevitable. All it took was one little dump to spark a fericious clash of manipulators vs. jagex.

This thread has been explosive because it's the first interesting, debate-worthy topic to come up in quite awhile. :P

 

 

 

I just can't understand how people can applaud a Jmod for having manipulated an item price to lash out at price-manipulating clans. The hypocrisy is stunning, and it's not even the manipulating players' fault; they're merely a product of a flawed system.

 

 

 

This quote comes to mind in regard to the Jmod's actions:

 

Why do we kill people who are killing people to show that killing people is wrong?

[acenator]

 

Jagex could easily end the influence of merchant clans by introducing a rule that organizing in game to buy out a product was a bannable offense. No messing with the GE or any game mechanics that restrict trade; just add the rule and start handing out bans and the clans will disband.

 

 

 

Why haven't they done that already?

 

 

 

But if they do

 

How can they prove you are with someone and not a solo merchant?

 

I see your point and I don't have an answer other than that Jagex could go off of player reports, find private forums and track players from them and, possibly, use trade histories. All they really have to do is ban a few rich clan leaders and scare off at least most others from trying again.

 

 

 

Not to mention that they could also have their GE Team get to work and (purposely) do what happened to limps and just lower the prices during the middle of the [bleep]es and make the clans lose a ton of money while using the rule as their reason for doing so.

[Master_Smither]

 

Jagex could easily end the influence of merchant clans by introducing a rule that organizing in game to buy out a product was a bannable offense. No messing with the GE or any game mechanics that restrict trade; just add the rule and start handing out bans and the clans will disband.

 

 

 

Why haven't they done that already?

 

 

 

But if they do

 

How can they prove you are with someone and not a solo merchant?

 

I see your point and I don't have an answer other than that Jagex could go off of player reports, find private forums and track players from them and, possibly, use trade histories.

 

 

 

Not to mention that they could also have their GE Team get to work and (purposely) do what happened to limps and just lower the prices during the middle of the [bleep]es and make the clans lose a ton of money while using the rule as their reason for doing so.

 

 

 

They can track what you have bought and sold on the GE for the past week just like they can track who has spent their penguin points that week or not.

[das]

 

I see your point and I don't have an answer other than that Jagex could go off of player reports, find private forums and track players from them and, possibly, use trade histories.

 

 

 

Not to mention that they could also have their GE Team get to work and (purposely) do what happened to limps and just lower the prices during the middle of the [bleep]es and make the clans lose a ton of money while using the rule as their reason for doing so.

 

 

 

how will players report people in a faceless economy? How will they gain entry to very guarded private forums, that if it was outlawed, people would use fake names on probably. How would a trade history differ from an independent merchant?

 

 

 

Big Brother is not an economist. :lol:

[Rien]

It'll be a sad day indeed when Jagex feels obliged to (1) hunt down their own players for inappropriately trading by means of a flawed system and (2) actively sabotage suspected "illegal" trades. :|

[forestfrolic]

Wow this topic is just as explosive as the RSOF one.

 

 

 

I guess this arguement was inevitable. All it took was one little dump to spark a fericious clash of manipulators vs. jagex.

This thread has been explosive because it's the first interesting, debate-worthy topic to come up in quite awhile. :P

 

 

 

I just can't understand how people can applaud a Jmod for having manipulated an item price to lash out at price-manipulating clans. The hypocrisy is stunning, and it's not even the manipulating players' fault; they're merely a product of a flawed system.

 

 

 

This quote comes to mind in regard to the Jmod's actions:

 

Why do we kill people who are killing people to show that killing people is wrong?

 

 

 

First off, we still don't know if Jagex did anything. I highly doubt if they did it was works of Mod Mat K. If you look him up he's just a community management worker.. His job is public relations. Of course, he's witty and has a somewhat crude sense of humor so he's not doing the best of job in the eyes of those who want answers. Secondly, you're right. Let's say Jagex did do this, they should either do it to all things being merched by clans now, issue a new rule, or something. Random attacks against the clans are silly and childish.

[Master_Smither]

It'll be a sad day indeed when Jagex feels obliged to (1) hunt down their own players for inappropriately trading by means of a flawed system and (2) actively sabotage suspected "illegal" trades. :|

 

 

 

So it's a sad day when a company intervenes on a major problem that is hurting their players and the economy? I think not.

 

 

 

Thats like saying it's a sad day when macro's were banned.....

[acenator]

 

I see your point and I don't have an answer other than that Jagex could go off of player reports, find private forums and track players from them and, possibly, use trade histories.

 

 

 

Not to mention that they could also have their GE Team get to work and (purposely) do what happened to limps and just lower the prices during the middle of the [bleep]es and make the clans lose a ton of money while using the rule as their reason for doing so.

 

 

 

how will players report people in a faceless economy? How will they gain entry to very guarded private forums, that if it was outlawed, people would use fake names on probably. How would a trade history differ from an independent merchant?

 

 

 

Big Brother is not an economist. :lol:

 

With instructions on what to buy spreading from person to person, word would (evetually) get out on who was leading a merch clan.

 

 

 

As for private forums, they could cross-reference the trade histories with what is being said on the private forums (gaining access might be a problem, but I'm sure they could figure out a way) and single out groups of people buying up large quatities of a certain item (or jsut drop the search for private forums and just look through the trade histories). Any honest merchant trying to steal a bit of profit from the clan by joining in the buying and then dumping early would have to be treated the same as an actual clan member as, by buying the item without the intent to actually use it (this could be determined by looking at whether or not they bought anything that is needed in order to use said item; if nothing like this exsists, they could jsut wait until the dump and see who just resells everything), they are helping to force the prices up just as the actual members are.

 

 

 

EDIT: As for extremely rich solo merchants who can influence prices with what htey have in their banks, it would be easy to see that only one person was involved and that a ban is not necessary.

 

 

 

Also, the lack of intent to use an item would, of course, need to be applied to all involved in order to make sure innocent people aren't also banned.

[das]

So it's a sad day when a company intervenes on a major problem that is hurting their players and the economy? I think not.

 

 

 

Yeah, I still mourn the loss of free trade. I think it can be :P

 

 

 

 

 

Any honest merchant trying to steal a bit of profit from the clan by joining in the buying and then dumping early would have to be treated the same as an actual clan member as, by buying the item without the intent to actually use it (this could be determined by looking at whether or not they bought anything that is needed in order to use said item; if nothing like this exsists, they could jsut wait until the dump and see who just resells everything), they are helping to force the prices up just as the actual members are.

 

 

 

So lets say......Irits and eye of newts are being controlled, and I have enough money in my bank to buy 99 herb with irits. So I do. But I get Deployed, can't afford the vials or 2nds and try to make them I deserve to be treated the same because I hoarded and mass bought? Sure hope not. What if I change my mind and think herblore sucks and sell them?

 

 

 

or what if I buy irits thinking 'man, irits are in style, i can make cash with these" unbeknownst to me - an entire clan is making a false demand - now I get banned with them? is that fair?

 

 

 

 

 

As for extremely rich solo merchants who can influence prices with what htey have in their banks, it would be easy to see that only one person was involved and that a ban is not necessary.

 

 

 

What if he has bad timing and picks the same thing as the clan out of coincidence? Limps are logical to merchant

[acenator]

So it's a sad day when a company intervenes on a major problem that is hurting their players and the economy? I think not.

 

 

 

Yeah, I still mourn the loss of free trade. I think it can be :P

 

 

 

 

 

Any honest merchant trying to steal a bit of profit from the clan by joining in the buying and then dumping early would have to be treated the same as an actual clan member as, by buying the item without the intent to actually use it (this could be determined by looking at whether or not they bought anything that is needed in order to use said item; if nothing like this exsists, they could jsut wait until the dump and see who just resells everything), they are helping to force the prices up just as the actual members are.

 

 

 

So lets say......Irits and eye of newts are being controlled, and I have enough money in my bank to buy 99 herb with irits. So I do. But I get Deployed, can't afford the vials or 2nds and try to make them I deserve to be treated the same because I hoarded and mass bought? Sure hope not. What if I change my mind and think herblore sucks and sell them?

 

 

 

or what if I buy irits thinking 'man, irits are in style, i can make cash with these" unbeknownst to me - an entire clan is making a false demand - now I get banned with them? is that fair?

 

The first part is easily avoided by looking to see whether or not you dump with/before the clan since your dumping clearly shows that you really didn't want to use said items.

 

 

 

With the second, I can see your point, but any honest merchant would probably be smart enough to see what's happening and get out of the way.

 

 

 

Maybe you're right and trying to ban everyone involved is the wrong way to go. Maybe Jagex should make the rule against organizing a group to manipulate prices and just target clan leaders while also (purposely) repeating what happened to limps and discouraging clans by costing them a bunch of money (again, they could use trade histories for this and is it really that hard to look at an item's price graph and what's going on in-game in regards to that itme and tell whether or not it's being manipulated?).

[Earth_Poet]

Gasoline: Exxon, Mobile, BP, Chevron, Texaco, etc.

 

 

 

Yeah, and here almost every one of those charges 2.53-2.56 in gas. 3 cent difference based on location perhaps. Have you ever seen one of those companies undercut the other by 20 cents a gallon? 50? a whole dollar?

 

 

 

That's because every American gasoline company is purchasing the exact same fuel from the exact same pipelines. Competition within these markets are already tight. Occasionally, there is a "gas wars" between competing gas stations in a local market, which drives prices down. In this instance the customer benefits greatly.

 

 

 

There have also been issues such as the OPEC cartel in the 70s.

 

 

 

Phone/internet: Sprint/embarq, At&T, Time Warner, Netscape, Cricket, Nextel, Altell, Etc.

 

 

 

In many parts of the southeast, Verizon (Frontier now) Owns EVERY phoneline in the area. Sure you can get dsl where I live from 3 now 2 different companies, but those companies just resale it through verizon. I know they do, because I work with one and we bought out the other because they couldn't afford to pay verizon. Same applies to most of the southeast USA. Verizon/AT&T and bell south just wholesale the lines to other companies to resale their service.

 

 

 

There was a time when there was a monopoly on phone service in the U.S. until the early 1980s when Bell was broken up.

 

 

 

The point is, if you are going to use real world examples, then you have consider that even free trade markets have restrictions put in place. Government agencies have stepped in to curb practices similar to what is going on in the Runescape economy. What's going on right now is collusion. Players are working together to buy out a dominant share of a particular item to restrict trade of that item and artificially build demand. Practices similar to this in real world have often forced the government to step in with heavy fines and even prison.

[Rien]

It'll be a sad day indeed when Jagex feels obliged to (1) hunt down their own players for inappropriately trading by means of a flawed system and (2) actively sabotage suspected "illegal" trades. :|

 

 

 

So it's a sad day when a company intervenes on a major problem that is hurting their players and the economy? I think not.

 

 

 

Thats like saying it's a sad day when macro's were banned.....

 

Don't be mistaken; I'm not suggesting that these manipulators are in the right--far from it. It's just that crucifying the mass-merchanting clans is only scapegoating writ large. The players engaged in manipulation practices are merely opportunists making use of the trade system Jagex made available in lieu of a free-market economy; they do not deserve to be vilified and banned to cover for Jagex's mistakes, as they are not the root of the problem--only a symptom. The people at Jagex are brilliant; as part of the gaming company which has gone farther and been more successful than any other in combating RWT, I'm sure they can devise some solution to this problem which will be agreeable to everyone.

 

 

 

Hunting their own players is not the answer, rather, they should be working with us to solve this.

[Master_Smither]

I'm sure Jagex would take weeks to figure out whether someone is price manipulating or not with long logs of their ge transactions. They arn't going to go on one sale or purchase and ban someone right there. I'm pretty sure they'd treat this like macroing and do a heavy search into the person's account for a month or so back.

[acenator]

It'll be a sad day indeed when Jagex feels obliged to (1) hunt down their own players for inappropriately trading by means of a flawed system and (2) actively sabotage suspected "illegal" trades. :|

 

 

 

So it's a sad day when a company intervenes on a major problem that is hurting their players and the economy? I think not.

 

 

 

Thats like saying it's a sad day when macro's were banned.....

 

Don't be mistaken; I'm not suggesting that these manipulators are in the right--far from it. It's just that crucifying the mass-merchanting clans is only scapegoating writ large. The players engaged in manipulation practices are merely opportunists making use of the trade system Jagex made available in lieu of a free-market economy; they do not deserve to be vilified and banned to cover for Jagex's mistakes, as they are not the root of the problem--only a symptom. The people at Jagex are brilliant; as part of the gaming company which has gone farther and been more successful than any other in combating RWT, I'm sure they can devise some solution to this problem which will be agreeable to everyone.

 

 

 

Hunting their own players is not the answer, rather, they should be working with us to solve this.

 

I couldn't agree more. It's just that, while formulating and working on a plan to fix this, they could also do a few basic things (such as adding a rule with a grace period to allow people who don't want to break the rules time to get out and "resetting" prices in the middle of a buyout using the afore-mentioned rule as the reason for their actions) and try to at least limit the manipulation.

[das]

I'd rather them be honest about how the GE works and give trade freedoms to higher level accounts. Honestly why would I waste my 8 year old account to do something dumb? I should of earned free trade.

[Rien]

I couldn't agree more. It's just that, while formulating and working on a plan to fix this, they could also do a few basic things (such as adding a rule with a grace period to allow people who don't want to break the rules time to get out and "resetting" prices in the middle of a buyout using the afore-mentioned rule as the reason for their actions) and try to at least limit the manipulation.

 

Ahh, certainly. A great deal of the confusion now is a product of miscommunication. Jagex needs to publically announce (and not just in some clan chat or RSOF thread) that they are opposed to price manipulation; that has to be the first step. I doubt that they'll be able to issue a clearly-defined rule forbidding it (as we've seen in this thread, there are simply too many conditionals involved), but there must be some way to take action and gradually limit or curb price manipulation.

 

 

 

There are reasonable methods to handle the situation, I'm sure, but taking pot-shots at individual clans is definitely not the answer.

[Master_Smither]

 

There are reasonable methods to handle the situation, I'm sure, but taking pot-shots at individual clans is definitely not the answer.

 

 

 

There is no proof to say that they did adjust prices manually and if magzar's explanation is correct then that is proof they didn't.

[das]

No proof to say they didnt though either.

 

 

 

If his explanation is correct, I dont see why everyone wouldn't be mad that older lower offers get met before newer higher offers.

[Rien]

 

There are reasonable methods to handle the situation, I'm sure, but taking pot-shots at individual clans is definitely not the answer.

 

 

 

There is no proof to say that they did adjust prices manually and if magzar's explanation is correct then that is proof they didn't.

 

I hope that's true; I'd be relieved to learn that it is. :lol:

[Master_Smither]

No proof to say they didnt though either.

 

 

 

If his explanation is correct, I dont see why everyone wouldn't be mad that older lower offers get met before newer higher offers.

 

 

 

You'll have to give him the benifit of the doubt though Das. It's alot easier to blame a single person than all the people who had the lower offers or the whole system so they choose to go for him.

 

 

 

Also I'm sure if he did it he would be punished at work because I highly doubt Jagex supports such behavior.

[forestfrolic]

No proof to say they didnt though either.

 

 

 

If his explanation is correct, I dont see why everyone wouldn't be mad that older lower offers get met before newer higher offers.

 

 

 

You'll have to give him the benifit of the doubt though Das. It's alot easier to blame a single person than all the people who had the lower offers or the whole system so they choose to go for him.

 

 

 

Also I'm sure if he did it he would be punished at work because I highly doubt Jagex supports such behavior.

 

 

 

Mod Mat K would not be able to access the grand exchange like that to change prices. That's not his job. He's just a public relations mod. Besides, I doubt any mod would change anything on their own.. that's now how Jagex works. And to think a mod would is stupid.. this is their jobs. I'm sure they take things seriously when needed.