CCP Rise
C C P
C C P Alliance
3200
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Posted - 2013.11.21 17:02:00 -
[1] - Quote
This is a problem that my team has been hoping to fix for quite some time now. We were prepared to make changes for the Rubicon release but after a lengthy discussion with the CSM we didn't feel satisfied with current solutions and so now we want to open up the discussion to you guys for help.
In case you aren't sure what I'm talking about:
The Margin Trading Scam exploits the mechanic where a character with the Margin Trading skill can place buy orders and only place a portion of the ISK in escrow. If they then transfer all of their ISK away, the order will fail when someone tries to sell to it, essentially allowing them to make a fake buy order. Usually this means players make purchases that are grossly overpriced with the expectation that they can sell them to the margin trading-based buy order and make money, but instead are left with a pile of items that they will have to take a loss on.
I want to make another thing clear about this issue which came up when talking with the CSM:
This isn't about scamming or whether or not it's okay for people to trick other people, which is obviously extremely EVE and we have no problem with. The issue here is that the client (via the market interface) is essentially lying to the player by showing an order which can't actually be filled.
The solution we proposed to the CSM initially was based around the idea that if you didn't have enough money in your wallet to back an order, that order would be cancelled. This would still allow traders to benefit from being able to have multiple orders for which they couldn't cover the total. For example, I could have one buy order for a thorax at 5 mil, and another order for a rupture at 5 mil with only 7 mil in my wallet. If my wallet went below 5mil, it would cancel both orders.
There are several problems with this solution, this biggest of which is that it puts unwanted pressure on legitimate up-and-coming market traders who need to be able to leverage the ISK they have. There is also a lot of advanced market gameplay around putting up very large buy orders which you can't technically cover, but which also will never realistically get filled. If you guys have feelings either way about this solution please share.
A second possibility which emerged from the discussion was built around marking orders in the market interface based on whether or not they were placed using margin trading. This would mean that when you place a buy order you would have to decide whether that would be a 'guaranteed' order or not, and then it would be marked (colored or check boxed or something) in the market interface so that people would know whether there was risk involved in trying to fill the order. This has several problems also, including: making legitimate market activity seem shady, making the interface more confusing, adding clicks for people placing orders and also costing new players money by steering them away from cheaper orders because of fear of scams.
It's a complex problem and we want to handle it carefully but we would appreciate any ideas or insights you guys can provide to help us.
Thanks!
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