Selling No-Trade Loot Rights

[Daghammerskold]

Is selling (or buying) the loot rights to no-trade items to people who did not participate in the kill ETHICALLY different than buying (or selling) plat?Ethics is about right and wrong, not whether it is against the rules or not. Driving faster than the speed limit is not unethical even if it is illegal. Sleeping with your best friend's wife is unethical even if it is not illegal.Discuss.

[Bored]

To me, as long as the currency used to buy the rights is in-game coin I find it to not be a big deal. Lord knows I have bought/sold my share of looting rights when I played EQ1.

[Valdaglerion]

Ethical? Sure. Why wouldnt you think it was? I participated in the fight and won the loot, what I do with it at that point should be completely up to me. Would it be more ethical to have the only food available and just because I am well fed or dont like the food I have to deny those without food a chance to eat?No-Trade loot shouldnt exist in the first place and at the very least no-Trade loot should be allowed to be swapped in the Shared Bank slots so that the person who participated in the fight, IE the player should be able to use the spoils on any toon they have on a single account.The buy prices of loot in ornate and exquisite chests are ludicrous. A vendor will give you 50g for a piece of legendary gear that drops in a chest but you can sell it for 10p? Oddly enough, the new faction merchants are selling legendary gear for 4-10p per piece. Perhaps the cheap skate vendros and merchants around Norrath need to have their pricing looked at for buybacks of this gear overall.

[Femke]

I think "no trade" has a very good reason to exist... to keep some things rare and out of trading processes. And no, not even swapping via a shared bank account.To the question of the OP, if someone would do so I have no problems with it. Only don't expect me to do so and if I am the leader of a group it will be a no go as well. But for rest, be my quest.Femke.

[Gladiia]

Daghammerskold wrote:

Is selling (or buying) the loot rights to no-trade items to people who did not participate in the kill ETHICALLY different than buying (or selling) plat?Ethics is about right and wrong, not whether it is against the rules or not. Driving faster than the speed limit is not unethical even if it is illegal. Sleeping with your best friend's wife is unethical even if it is not illegal.Discuss.

Driving over the speed limit is indeed unethical.  For every mile per hour faster you go you increase your odds by some extent that you will be the cause or otherwise involved in a fatal crash. 

As for the selling of no-trade loot rights, I don't care.  I think it's awful that we "need" those resrictions already, although I see the reason behind it. 

[Valdaglerion]

Gladiia@The Bazaar wrote:

Driving over the speed limit is indeed unethical.  For every mile per hour faster you go you increase your odds by some extent that you will be the cause or otherwise involved in a fatal crash. 

Ethics is defined by webster's as "pertaining to or dealing with morals or the principles of morality; pertaining to right and wrong in conduct" and has nothing to do with legality. While the act of speeding in and of itself is not unethical, it is illegal because a speed limit has been posted as law. The driver's inability to obey the law makes the act of speeding unethical because of their inability to conduct themselves in accordance with the law. So for philosophical reasons you can argue that any and every illegal action is also unethical. I do not; however, believe the intent of ethics is to prescribe to legality but rather a code of conduct irrespective of legality. I was told at a young age "Character is defined by the things you do when no one else is looking". This is the code of conduct I perceive to be in accordance with ethics. Speeding and getting caught is illegal. Speeding when you know you wont be caught is unethical. Following the posted speed limits when you know you wont be caught is ethical. That is my interpretation of ethics. Just my 2cp for the aside

[StormCinder]

Or, you could use the West Point Three Rules of Thumb:

1. Does this action attempt to deceive anyone or allow anyone to be deceived?

2. Does this action gain or allow the gain of a privilege or advantage to which I or someone else would not otherwise be entitled?

3. Would I be satisfied by the outcome if I were on the receiving end of the action?

SC

[InsertNeko]

While I think it's on the grey area of good/lame, knowing that someone may sell that one item I've been running through COA for A MILLION TIMES and never had drop is a good thing in the back of my mind. relax.

[salle]

Selling of loot rights is a pretty good way of dealing with a problem that perhaps shouldn't have existed in the first place.Scenario:There's a 24 man raid force, they kill a raid mob and no one of these 24 people for some reason or other want the loot that dropped. The loot is no-trade and therefore not worth alot except to be muted, but once it's looted almost all of it's value is gone. Sollution:Do not loot said item, either bring an alt character in to the zone to lo ot or sell the lootright for the item to increase  the guild bank. 

[Sealo]

I think its fine.  You can trade anything in game for anything in game.  As long as no physical money transfers hands.  No RMT.  That's where the line is drawn.The kill is legit, how the loot is distributed is up to the participants.

[liveja]

Daghammerskold wrote:

Is selling (or buying) the loot rights to no-trade items to people who did not participate in the kill ETHICALLY different than buying (or selling) plat?

It's absolutely different. There's a line in the EULA that says you won't engage in RMT unless you're on the exchange server. I've seen no such line anywhere saying you won't sell the looting rights to No Trade items.

Now, some people might say (& in fact already have) that ethics is what you do when nobody is looking. But in this case, there are a LOT of people looking: 23 others, in fact, & the rest of the server population when you advertise the sale on the chat channel. As someone else pointed out, if you look at this issue through the lens of the West Point 3 Rules Of Thumb, there's no deception, no attempt to manipulate truth, & both buyer & seller are satisfied.

I fail to see how the process can be described as "unethical".

[Rqron]

I.M.H.O.  no trade means no trade ...in any way shape or form..if its no trade then there should NOT be the loophole to sell looting rights. 

This needs to be fixed one way or another. If the Devs want a true no trade item, then make it so that NOBODY outside the original crew can loot it. Otherwise, get rid of the no trade loot philosophy, its useless.

I am ok with no trade items as quest rewards...so what, if it is something I get that I can't use? I got the AA and exp. plus the coin for doing the quest and will get typically the same amount or close on coin again if I sell it to the vendor. Nobody told me to do the quest and I can deny it at the start when I see it rewards something I can't use.... I do them anyways, just for fun :=)) 

But for chest drops especially in the group and raid instances or zones...do it one way or another I absolutely hate this not fully thought out part of the game...good (or not) intentions...bad execution..

I would not mind if all chest drops are made tradeable..  but if it is labled NO TRADE and SOE insist on keeping this  (what I think of nonsense) in place then fix it and make it throughly NO TRADE in every sense. This will keep the constant discussions and anger down a lot and I.M.O. will cut down on the buying of plat. Not that I say everyone who buys a 50,100P or more  looting right to a piece of fabled armor buys plat from the farmers but I do know of a few people who done it to afford the uber gear they did not earn but bought  from the raid guilds loot right sale.

And I know (I have talked to a leader of a raid guild and he told me "so what..not my problem&quot that there are some within those guilds that sell  looting rights do realize that this is happening, that people go and buy plat from farmers to afford those high prices and as such i.m.h.o it does become unethical for them to sell it.

I do realize that a lot of raid guilds use this (what I consider loop hole) to up the guild bank coin and pay for the costs accociated with raiding and that those guilds will have to find a different way such as crafting or harvesting rares to finance raids..this i.m.o. would make it far more interesting then the quick, cheap (not so) buck that can be made from selling looting rights.

I.M.H.O. some of them do it so much and so often they are behaving not better then the plat farmers..but that is my opinion and I am German and known to be opinionated.

J.C.

[liveja]

Rqron wrote:

I.M.H.O.  no trade means no trade ...in any way shape or form..if its no trade then there should NOT be the loophole to sell looting rights. 

Why not? The item itself is not being traded, the looting rights are. Someone comes in, pays the agreed payment, & loots the item from the chest. Once they've done that, it can't be traded.

I'm failing to see the huge issue here.

[Rqron]

****************Why not? The item itself is not being traded, the looting rights are. Someone comes in, pays the agreed payment, & loots the item from the chest. Once they've done that, it can't be traded.

I'm failing to see the huge issue here.*******************

A play of words, the item is effectively traded and as such a no trade item becomes traded to someone else for pay.

As an excample, you work in a store and there is a piece of equipment or whatever that the owner tells you not to sell.  A costumer comes in and wants to buy it and he will pay any price for it...you tell him I can't sell the item to you but I will sell you the right to take it home you will be able to use it, but you will never be able to sell it to someone else.  I don't think you will have your job for very long :=)).

As I said, I think the whole no trade issue is nonsense for chest drops...but it is in place...and as such if SOE insist that there are NO TRADE items..then make them troughly no trade. Its a mater of do it right or don't do it at all.

J.C.

[liveja]

Rqron wrote:

A play of words, the item is effectively traded and as such a no trade item becomes traded to someone else for pay.

Yes, yes, but: so what? What's the big problem?

Obviously it would be an issue in real life, but this isn't real life, & real life analogies don't really have much force here.

So, again I ask: what's the big problem?

[Baccalarium]

Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:

Rqron wrote:

A play of words, the item is effectively traded and as such a no trade item becomes traded to someone else for pay.

Yes, yes, but: so what? What's the big problem?

Obviously it would be an issue in real life, but this isn't real life, & real life analogies don't really have much force here.

So, again I ask: what's the big problem?

And there's plenty of real world analogies where a buyer can assign the license/right to use an item to himself or to others, but after the license/right to use an item has been assigned, it is no longer transferable to another.   A new license must be purchased if the buyer wishes to assign the license/right to use an item to someone other than the original assignee.Nothing's broken.   The player the loot is assigned to must still have access to the zone the box is in, and be able to get to it before the box decays.    These seem like sufficient constraints.

[Rqron]

The ""Big Problem"" is that game mechanics and set rules are in place and established for all.  This game could not be played without them. It is a game you right, but where do you want to draw the line to what I am calling ""exploiding"" something that was not intended to be played that way? What rules do we want to break and what rules don't?  NO Trade means NO Trade pure and simple it is a mater of prinziple. I say as long as those rules are there to be followed..and I do not agree with this rule..and I am not saying you are wrong to use this loophole...but as long as it is labled NO TRADE then darnit SOE make it fully NO TRADE.  Or get rid of this designation. Getting rid of this designation I.M.O. would be the best .

J.C.

[Ganlu]

I'll make this easy - No-Trade means the item is not tradeable ONCE IT HAS BEEN LOOTED.Before then, it's fair game.

[Giral]

if someone buys the looting rights to a item , then to them it is ethical to do so

for others it isn't ethical to buy no trade loot

who's right ? it's a matter of ethical opinion and both sides can come up with reasons of why there ethic's are the correct ones

at the end of the day you still have your ethics and they still have theres so nothing has changed except that the person who bought there loot is happy

 how many people actualy buy no trade loot ? it's usualy extremely high priced, and the boxes decay so people only have a limited amount of time to barter for the item, get to the zone and loot it. 

 if someone is buying a no-trade item then they usualy are a casual raider or never raid and would never have a chance at getting a item that could greatly help them solo/group/raid , or a person who has run an instance 80 times and still hasn't got that last set piece and they are geting sick of the game and the instance and thinking of or actualy quiting becuase of it

the amount of people that buy no trade loot is extremely minimalistic , i believe mostly becuase of ethics : ) , and secondly becuase of people not wanting or having that kind of money to spend

didn't realy see much No-trade raid gear being Offered until a few months befor ROK came out when the top guilds had raid zones on farm status, and all there toons and alts were geared out.

if no trade loot was being offered in chat hourly i could see it being a huge issue, but i see it so rarley in level chat and with muting, and alot of people with alts, thats its a non issue

they could just make a Server wide /No-trade loot channel and then nobody that isn't interested would ever have to see it (i know out of sight isn't out of mind and wyle i personaly don't buy No-trade loot ,if others wan't to thats non of my business, im not on a crusade to teach others my ethics in a fantasy game, nor let there ethics ruin the game for me )

 i have Never  once in 3 years of playing eq2 , ever inspected someone and said to myself" i bet they Bought that no-trade item" but i might say to myself" Wow thats a Sweet item that person has"

i agree that all No-trade tags should be removed from the game, and Attunable should also be removed, if i wanna sell my smelly old Boots i should be able to : )

[Ama]

Daghammerskold wrote:

Is selling (or buying) the loot rights to no-trade items to people who did not participate in the kill ETHICALLY different than buying (or selling) plat?Ethics is about right and wrong, not whether it is against the rules or not. Driving faster than the speed limit is not unethical even if it is illegal. Sleeping with your best friend's wife is unethical even if it is not illegal.Discuss.

Unfortunately this a semi-heated topic imho because it does bring up the question of plat sellers. 

Personally I have no problem with it if it does not hold up a group i'm in.  Also as long as the price is fair enough that a majority of the population can get to it *shrug*.  However if you have someone shouting "Selling loots rights to [link] item pst" which any plat seller can copy then it becomes a problem.  You can't distinguish if its a plat seller saying that or a regular person. 

Again personally I have no problem with it, but it does raise certain uneasy questions that deffinately need answering.  Developers may implement no-zoning rules to where a player if he/she zones into an instance they cannot have a chest that just dropped from that mob.  We'll see "locking" of chests to specific players which will probably raise a stink, but be a way to control item fluctuations.

[InsertNeko]

Amana  brings up plat sellers, but in all my experiences with selling loot rights, they never end up in plat seller/farmer hands. 99.99% of players who would be in a position to sell such loot can tell a farmer/seller a mile away (We, the players can see farmers a mile away, but SOE can't lawl). All the times on Cb I've seen people sell loot, once they know it's a farmer trying to buy, they /ignore and move on. The only unethical thing about this imo, is selling loot rights to farmers. Which, thankfully doesn't happen (much).

[liveja]

Rqron wrote:

but as long as it is labled NO TRADE then darnit SOE make it fully NO TRADE.

It is No Trade. It can be looted by one person & one person only, who can only vendor it from then on.

Look, let's say I'm in a raid, & I win the roll for a No Trade item, but before I loot it, someone on the raid force offers me 30 plat to let them loot it instead. Is it wrong for me to take that offer? If so why?

If not, what's the difference between that, & offering it up for sale in the chat channels?

[Catsy]

Yawn. Not this tired old nonsense again?Look, here are the facts.1. The NO-TRADE flag does one thing and one thing only: it prevents you from trading the item to another player after it has been looted. It has nothing to do with looting restrictions.2. There are no rules about who can loot a NO-TRADE item, aside from the timed looting restrictions built into the chest.3. The NO-TRADE flag is not meant to make it so that only a person who participated in killing the mob can loot it. If you don't believe me, Exhibit A is the fact that NO-TRADE items can be looted by anyone once the looting restrictions rot. QED.4. Dev has specifically stated that selling/trading looting rights for in-game remuneration is not against the rules.Now can we put this dead horse to rest once and for all?

[Eugam]

Hisenflaye@Crushbone wrote:

Amana  brings up plat sellers, but in all my experiences with selling loot rights, they never end up in plat seller/farmer hands. 99.99% of players who would be in a position to sell such loot can tell a farmer/seller a mile away (We, the players can see farmers a mile away, but SOE can't lawl). All the times on Cb I've seen people sell loot, once they know it's a farmer trying to buy, they /ignore and move on. The only unethical thing about this imo, is selling loot rights to farmers. Which, thankfully doesn't happen (much).

This one gave me a smile No dear, a plat farmer never buys relic, fabled, legendary set items. They sell plat and only plat. They sell the plat so players can afford loot rights The 2nd problem is that some of those who sell loot rights are plat farmers. 25-200 plat with a single loot right deal. Thats easy money and the RMT seller/farmer makes double money. People buy the plat from them to be able to buy the loot rights from the same group of people.Well, loot rights where sold since Frippy the Froglok looted his first pair of fabled socks I think its not ethic. Why not just give the loot away to someone in need for free ? But its no crime and nobody is forced to do it. Its rather simple to have good legendary gear in EQ2.

[Dreadpatch]

Great points in both directions. Surprisingly enough, the consensus points to removing no-trade altogether. I'm sort of forced to agree on anything except quest rewards. Quest rewards can't be sold for loot rights, so that aspect would still be in the game. With that said, where's our Epic weapon quest lines? LOL

[feldon30]

I'd like to see us allowed to trade one NO TRADE item per month.

[Gnevil]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with selling loot rights.  Does it bypass the gaming mechanics put in place?  Yes it does, fabled raid drops ect are for raiders attempting the toughest content in raids.  The solo player or grouper shouldn't need the top end pieces to be effective in their game play.  Well then along comes Rok and the tough factor of mobs has gone up way more then our ability to kill them.  So the point that top end gear isn't needed by the average player becomes not so true.Anyway thats getting off on a tangent, NO TRADE means once looted it cannot be traded... thats it in a nutshell.  What a guild or group does when they pop the chest and discover they really can't use the item is of very little consequence to the server population at large.  Trading one form of in game reward ie. plat for another in game reward ie. loot rights to a NO TRADE item is nothing.Only reason anyone would be against this is if they had issues where they worked their [Removed for Content] off to get said item to drop and player x bought the item thus diminishing their accomplishment.  Well after the first month or two that becomes a non issue as 90% of all raid drops are being muted in Rok raids tiers 1 and 2 as it is.  Very little of that gear is worth crap right now to the upper tier raid guilds, why not boost the guild bank a bit to be able to afford masters and what not to make their own raid force better.  After all most of the masters dropped are being sold by the solo and group players as it is and thus they regain some of the plat they paid that guild to loot an item that they would not see until they had trivialized that raid content anyway. If it goes against your personal ethics to buy the loot, then don't otherwise why waste any time worrying about it. 

[Kenazeer]

Had this big discussion bak in April...link here.

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=355414

Some of my comments from that thread...(easier then typing them all out again)

I think your main confusion here is that your are taking a restriction upon movement as an intended restriction upon sale. "No Trade" simply means just that; once it is in your inventory it is yours forever. In that sense, there is a secondary restriction upon the item entering the market, but there is nothing at all to keep one from selling looting rights.

Further, this has always gone on in games, a fact I am 100% positive of which all the devs are aware, yet there was no primary restriction placed into the mechanics to keep it from happening in EQ2.

Additionally, there is no specific reference to this being against the rules in either the EULA or TOS.

Finally, it has been brought up publicly, and even commented upon by the devs, yet no effort whatsoever has been made by SOE to curb this behavior.

It is pretty clear SOE does not consider the selling of looting rights to be any type of actionable offense. It may be your opinion that it is against the rules, but SOE differs.

__________________________________________________ _____

So what is the difference between selling looting rights and having someone tag along in the raid. Hell, is there a mob in the game that cannot be killed by 23 people actually doing the fighting? Does it matter if the tagalong casts one spell...two...three...fifty? It's all semantics. The problem people seem to have is the degree to which others "earn" the loot they are getting. This concept of having to pass some threshhold where loot earned is "legitimate" is so [I cannot control my vocabulary] subjective as to be impossible to judge.

Say there is a guild that raids but is not hardcore. Say they have a person who does nothing but craft for the guild, they are a crafting fiend with multiple high level crafters, and everything they do for other guild members is done at cost. Say this person does adventure, but is not part of the raid force. Say a piece of loot drops that no one in the regular raid force needs. Is giving that piece of loot as a "reward" to the crafters adventure toon wrong?

Imagine this same circumstance, except that the person is merely friends with everyone in the guild, and not guilded. Is giving that person a piece of "reward" loot wrong?

In both of those cases I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. Why? Because the GUILD has earned the loot, not the individual. The guild can use the loot in whatever way they see fit in furthering the needs of the guild.

The continuum seems to be hard core raider, part time raider, seldom raider, tagalong who helps, tagalong who doesn't, someone who isn't even there. You can probably make a case for anyone from part time on down as to not "earning" loot, but the point is not that any individual earns it, the GUILD earns it.

__________________________________________________ __________

In my mind it doesn't matter whether the loot is tradable or not. Here is where I come down:

Guilds earn raid loot, players don't.

The guild decides whether an action helps or hinders it.

When a players exertion of effort, current or prior, and in whatever form it may be, helps a guild, the guild has a right to reward that person as they see fit.

There is nothing either against the rules, or unethical, about selling no drop loot in my opinion.

__________________________________________________ __________

Portion below Bolded by me 1-2-08

Finally found the original Moorgard comment. It was added as a note to a thread that was being locked.

Edit: Locking an abusive thread that should have been locked a while ago.

Selling the right to loot a chest is kind of lame, but as long as someone killed a mob legitimately there is no violation of the game rules.

Personally, I've been on raids where a class-specific item dropped that was No Trade, and nobody on the raid could use it. We looked for someone else online who could and invited them in to loot it (for no charge, of course). While you can claim they didn't earn the right to wear that gear, it still seemed a nice thing to do. So far my server hasn't been destroyed as a result.

Message Edited by Moorgard on 07-27-2006 01:51 PM

[Galeden]

The 2 problems I have with it is 1) your basicly saying "pay or it gets destroyed."  This part goes back to EQ1 for me, because raiding guilds had strict rules on not allowing people to get any loot, even if its rotting, unless they are a member 2 months, jump through so many hoops, etc.  I would never join such a guild because of their policies.  To destroy something that has no big value, that no one else would even want, yet it might be an upgrade for someone who hasn't raided for years, is just wrong to me.  To think that someone might apply the same thing and sell said item to someone willing to pay yet deny someone who was actually there...  Anyway this may or may not be the case, but still its somewhat simmilar.  The other fact is that you are selling something that should technicly be open to anyone, since the corpse unlocks after a certain time.  To sell something that is open to anyone to loot to me is abusing the system, again in EQ1 time the corpse was held locked by raid members, and if anyone approched the corpse that hadn't payed, the item was instantly destroyed rather then someone getting it.  Again, thats wrong. It may not be wrong to the game rules, but its wrong because of the attitude behind it, which does not make for friendly game play.  I've seen people try to do this with all sorts of things, from raid drops, to simple newbie quest items, which is really despicable.  The machanics may be different in EQ2 but the attitude behind it is the same, it just works slightly differently.  BTW I have no problem with giving it to someone, as long as no one there needs it, only if money is demanded in return.

So no its not against the rules, but that doesn't mean its in anyway that it's a fair or justifiable policy.

[Kaleyen]

Galeden wrote:

So no its not against the rules, but that doesn't mean its in anyway that it's a fair or justifiable policy.

How do you figure?  Player A spends their time in game raiding and their guild gets a drop that nobody wants.  Player B spends their time in group instances/solo'ing and has saved up enough money to buy the item from Player A's guild...why shouldn't Player B be able to spend their plat on an item?And secondly, what do you care if an item gets transmuted?  Fabled adornments can be hard to come by sometimes and with RoK itemization a lot of items are getting transmuted.