Org Credits

Dec

Historically, credits have been treated as an OOC thing and not within the realm of HELP SECONDS. After all, it's generally cheaper to buy on one character and distribute to your other ones.

This generally works well, but we've been having more issues with the credits obtained from organizational purchases. There are many people that do not feel it is proper to buy org credits with one player and transfer them to an alt that is not in the same organization. Rules wise this starts to get into a grey area, but unlike gold, we have not flat out banned credit transfers between alts, even those not purchased via the website.

We have considered different alternatives to this issue, and are considering making it so all org credits become bound after being transferred. This seems to be the most in line with what people expect, but I would like to know your thoughts. If no one says anything, I plan to implement this later this month. (As if no one will say anything)

Please note that if you're inclined to suggest something else, it really needs to be simple and mechanical. The number one thing that slows down development is contested issues, and adding a new source of them is not in the cards.

- Dec

Naruj

Org credits are in character property, bought by a character using in character gold or earned by a character in exchange for in character actions.

Any other interpretation doesn't make sense. We offer credits to citizens at a tremendous discount in order to further our aims as an organization - not to allow alts to funnel cheap credits to their mains.

Glijije

I agree that people should not be transferring city/council credits to alt

I can't think of any reasonable alternate way to stop the transfer that wouldn't result in excessive issues.

Therefore, I agree that org credit sales should be bound to the character who buys them.

Ryse

I agree with Glijijijijijijije.

Rokas

I'm against mechanically forcing org credits to be bound for the simple fact that there aren't many ways to introduce unbound credits in the credit market. I think if all org credits are immediately bound, the promo market would suffer immensely.

It would also prevent distribution to guilds without a new syntax, and really, guilds should be getting their own credits and not relying on orgs.

I think the best solution is to treat org credits as a third type of credit, sort of like Iron Elite (so fourth type?). Introduce a concept of IC credits. Org credits would be IC credits, but they can be sold on the credit market or used in the promo market. If they're transferred to another character, they remain designated as IC credits; I don't have strong opinions if they shouldn't get converted to normal credits if sold through a market. But it does draw a clear line that those credits aren't intended to be transferred to alts.

Naruj

I would probably start by just adding an AGREE confirmation whenever credits are transferred between two characters on the same account, that confirms they understand that sending credits earned in game to an alt is a violation of policy and could result in the loss of both characters.

An occasional non-regular audit of credit transactions between characters logged on with the same IP would fix the problem fairly quickly, and not require a lot of administrative overhead.

Myrcella

I will post here, what I sent to Dec in a message.

I know a lot of my citizens purchase org credits so they can buy things on promotion. In Khandava, we do bound credits at 5k per credit and unbound credits at 10k per - so double the cost. I feel like making it where org credits are only bound, puts a hinder on the promo market and drives it up even more, in addition to bringing down morale. I assume that some people may transfer org credits to their alts - which is why I make the price twice the cost than regular (that being said, please don't misinterpret that I am 'for people doing that'). I know that a lot of people (at least in Khandava) have been complaining, because there used to be events ran quite frequently world wide with unbound credits as prizes and now, they feel like this is the only way (other than buying credits off the credit sale market which are typically way overpriced). That being said, I'm against making org-credits bound only. I think that it will hurt more than it will help and it should be up to the discretion of the City or Council, as far as how they distribute them.

Kalynthari

Just make it so the char you're transferring to has to be logged in.

If you're buying promo market items from an alt, that's already abuse of seconds. If you're logging in both chars to do the transfer, then that's multiplaying which is also bannable.

If you want to split website bought credits, issue yourself and get them to handle it.

Ocaris

Kalynthari said:

Just make it so the char you're transferring to has to be logged in.

If you're buying promo market items from an alt, that's already abuse of seconds. If you're logging in both chars to do the transfer, then that's multiplaying which is also bannable.

If you want to split website bought credits, issue yourself and get them to handle it.

This, or make all website credits account bound like Iron Realms Elite

Naruj

Ocaris said:

Kalynthari said:

Just make it so the char you're transferring to has to be logged in.

If you're buying promo market items from an alt, that's already abuse of seconds. If you're logging in both chars to do the transfer, then that's multiplaying which is also bannable.

If you want to split website bought credits, issue yourself and get them to handle it.

This, or make all website credits account bound like Iron Realms Elite

I don't know if this would be an allowed change, but I'm all in favor of pushing website credits into the membership transfer syntax.

Fanglor

The above suggestion is rather silly, if you consider someone will pay real cash to be unable to do with whatever they want,  (including being IRE's LARGEST way to put new credits in the market by the way, not that it's used for that primarily at all.) I think it's only fair with membership credits due to the discount. 

As far as a general solution, Org credits shouldn't be transferable to another character, I think I'd agree. Is there no way for an IRE account to track this? Or just label this under one of the Help Seconds rules and call it a day without mechanically enforcing it? It's like people that Multiplay (Which is illegal yes?) you should be able to track them, and if not then this is just a lost cause.