Safe trades

[Baby]

I've witnessed so often, how people were asking for Poly Pillows or Ai Armor in OOC to equip something, and didn't get help, and it makes me sad. Because I for example really would like to help people out with whatever they need, but of course I wouldn't lend such valuable items to a random stranger, just to never see them again. And that's probably the reason for others as well to not help, because we know we can't convince a GM to give us our stuff back after a trade was accepted.

So that's why I kept thinking on how to maybe solve this issue, and came up with this: A trade secured with some sort of contract both players need to accept.
The contract could say something like "Player A borrowed Item X from Player B and will give it back" or something. Doesn't really matter.
That way the GM will get an info that this trade was made with a contract and in case Player A doesn't get Item X back within a set timeframe, the GM can part Playber B from Item X and give it back to Player A.

This wouldn't affect the normal trade which could still be done by "accept, accept, yes, yes". Just add some sort of button that can be selected when trading.

Tata

[Notcrattey]

Or we could just get a lending system. Lend for x amount of time then automatically return to the lender.

[Wakizaka]

Or we could just get a lending system. Lend for x amount of time then automatically return to the lender.

I would prefer this type of method for lending, as it would not require GM intervention to retrieve goods if the trade goes bad. And if it was implemented, it would be good to be able to lend a backpack at a time.

I've sadly lost an entire ql223 CSS set in the past due to someone borrowing it, went offline 2 hours later, and never to be seen again. :/

[Baby]

Or we could just get a lending system. Lend for x amount of time then automatically return to the lender.

Nice idea too, but what if the borrower logs off? Will it still go back to lender? Or only the next time the borrower logs on? What if the lender is offline then?

Another scenario I just thought of, that wasn't considered in my OP either, what if the borrower mules the item to another char on a different account?

[Wakizaka]

It would be sent back via the "mail"-type system automatically after the allotted amount of time expires, real-time and not /played.

Regarding the secondary scenario, the initial lend order would take preference over any subsequent lending of the item(s) or moving to another character. Or, the item(s) in question could be flagged with to be non-tradeable outside of the lending system framework.

[Baby]

So a little like the GMI?

Just thinking of borrow orders instead of sell/buy. Maybe even with some sort of fee for the borrow requests, to get money out of the game. So not the lender gets money, it just goes into nothingness. Or maybe a 10% rate for the lender.
So the borrower could even set a timeframe like 1hr to equip something and the lender could decide if they're fine with that.

Then adding your suggestion with the send-back-via-mail-system and it could work I guess.

[Platypus135]

I won't deny that lending people expensive stuff is an issue, but if you're paranoid about them stealing your stuff why not ask for some collateral of similar value?

[Baby]

I won't deny that lending people expensive stuff is an issue, but if you're paranoid about them stealing your stuff why not ask for some collateral of similar value?

Because people who need to borrow expensive stuff usually don't have anything of similar worth, because they're probably either low level or fairly new to the game, or even worse, froobs.
If they're high level with theoretically something similar to trade for that needed item, they usually have it themselves anyway.
That's at least my experience.

Even if not, similar value is complicated I'd say. When I lend someone a ql 300 CC sleeve what can they give me in return? A bp full of stuff I don't need? Not to mention that then I have to spend a lot of time selling the stuff to get the money to buy me a new CC sleeve.
I simply wouldn't take the risk.

[Difs]

What if player A lends player B the item and player B sells it to player C ?
Even if they put a tracking option and send the item back to the owner, player B has the money and player C has no item and no money
This will make lots of QQs

[Aeliniyah]

What if player A lends player B the item and player B sells it to player C ?
Even if they put a tracking option and send the item back to the owner, player B has the money and player C has no item and no money
This will make lots of QQs

The item in question should get a temporary nodrop flag until returned to the original owner.

It's always good to have dreams and this surely is a good one. However i'm pretty sure it's pointless to ask fc to add anything this useful, which would require a lot of work to get done, to the game at this point.

we should rather ask them to break something that works fine or is extremely important to the game. They seem to be capable to fulfill those requests, even if nobody asks them to.

[hokutonoken]

Fc can always do a instore nano can spray that temp buff what armor can do...but you've to still meet the requirements to use that ql nano/amour ^_=...doesn't solve the lending prob...but maybe another way to look at buffing and profitting ^_=

[Baby]

New GD, new chance for this? Or something similar?

[gresh]

This is an awesome suggestion with more good suggestions following in the replies. Fully agree and bump

[Cratertina]

Hah, as awesome as this seems, as a player id rather see devs work on other stuff. Like rebalance.

People who cannot afford item they wanna borrow, have bigger needs than getting that item and should tend to those first.