Posts by Captain Krompdown

  • About the crystalline q8 15^stance of Sawn...

    But, honey baby child, scams involve one person intentionally deceiving another. You could argue that some of that happened here but it's a stretch.

    The main mechanism by which this deal happened wasn't the buyer deceiving the seller. It was the seller being ignorant and careless. The seller seems to have known that he needed a price check but he chose to ask for a price check from the person standing in front of them who was on the verge of buying a gem of a sword. That is the definition of stupidity. And then the seller decided to not ask anyone else and go ahead with the trade. Those decisions are not the buyer's fault. These are simply things that the seller did to himself in his haste to sell and compete his HoM.

    An offer was made, the offer was accepted, and that's that. Time for everyone involved to get over it. And time for people not involved, including you, to get over it, too.

    It's (often, frequently, not always) dog eat dog out there and you sound like lunch meat.

  • About the crystalline q8 15^stance of Sawn...

    You keep giving examples that involve intentional deception.

    Your (latest) confusion is that you think deception is the *point* of the scam. It's not. The point is profit. Deception is the *mechanism* of the scam, not its point our purpose.

    Add do you know what dupery means? Deception. There is absolutely no deception in offering ectos. It wad just a low offer. The offer progressed to the point of being a deal because of the seller's carelessness and impulsivity. Or maybe he thought he'd be happy top just finish his HoM but then changed his mobs after he found out that he couldn't gotten much more. Who knows? Offering ectos is not dupery.

    Sorry for the typo in my last post. I've fixed it to help save you from any further confusion...but there's only so much I can do. You're just very confused.

  • About the crystalline q8 15^stance of Sawn...

    This is stupid.

    Scams involve intentional deception. The argument for this being a scam is in the fact that the seller asked the buyer if the price being discussed was fair.

    Otherwise, getting a good deal is not a scam.

    A trade mod running off with the loot is a scam. They modded under false pretenses and lied to everyone involved.

    This seller was lied to. That is the only argument I can see for this being a scam. Imagine being in that situation. Someone tells you they've selling that sword to finish their HoM. You ask them how much they need and they tell you. A deal is sitting there waiting to be done. You may never see another sword like this. What do you do? Honestly.

    People can make mistakes and don't need to blame someone else for their ignorance and poor decision making. Grow up.

  • About the crystalline q8 15^stance of Sawn...

    When you wander out there cluelessly waving a sword like that, you're a sheep waiting for the wolves. To assume otherwise is just naive.

    What I think is more interesting about what you have to say is this idea (that you keep circling around but never make explicit) about there being a quantitative way of defining a scam. Do you think there is a certain profit margin that is acceptable and beyond that is a scam? You use a lot of hyperbole to try to make your point (10,000% profit!!! zOmFG!!), but is that what you really think?

  • About the crystalline q8 15^stance of Sawn...

    No doubt what Sawn did wasn't nice. (S)he took advantage of Andrea's impulsivity and laziness. But the impulsivity and laziness were Andrea's. This isn't the real world where there are complex social factors at play that legitimately disadvantage people and put them in difficult situations that they didn't create for themselves. This is a game where life is simple. And, Andrea, you messed up.

    Andrea, you were lazy and impulsive and you got taken for a ride. It's not fun but it's what happens. It's happened to me (looking back, so many mistakes!) but there's nobody but myself to blame. In this case, it's just on you.

    I'm sorry this happened to you, but it didn't just "happen to you". You made the decision to sell an item you knew was valuable without doing adequate research. That is a mistake. I've made the same mistake. Maybe Sawn will toss some armbraces your way. Maybe others will take up a collection to try and make you whole like they do when friends get hacked. I don't know. Both of those would be unusual results. What I know is that you messed up and it sucks.

    If there's a lesson here to be learned that saves you any kind of trouble is real life, then the price you paid will have been worth it. Sorry again for your loss. Many of us know that sting.

    The good news is that you went out there wanting to sell your sword to finish your HoM. And that's exactly what you did. Selling for the price you want is never a bad deal. I've gotten several items for much less than market value from people in your position. The only difference was that those people were knowingly selling cheap because they wanted to finish their HoM and they thought their items would have a good home with me (and they were right). Those people had knowledge and acted on the basis of their knowledge. You decided to not do that. Next time, please take the time to look for a legitimate collector. That sword belongs in the hands of someone who will give it a good home.

  • Crystaline Sword q8

    Quote from jack l eventreur

    Selling high and buy low? Since when paying a valuable item around 1% of it’s true value is fair? 10.000% INSTANT profit ^^ . Who on earth would do that (sell his house 100 times that its true price) ? Don’t tell me the initial owner was aware of current market. Seriously , he paid in ectos, what is your answer to that ? Even froggies q13 are sold in armbraces (1 or 2 , but w/e). Don’t tell me the buyer didn’t made it on purpose. This trade, IF it happened was a trickery at all points.

    So ok, let’s say I misunderstood your question 2) , not pointing out that it was extremely explicit. Who am i? I’m no juge or moral thinker or anything. As I said. Just a human, who’s moral sens was destroyed seeing such abuse applauded.

    Nothing to do with PhD members , or the manners how their fortune were made. I respect them all, mostly because it seems to me that they made their collection with a real spirit (gather real pieces of art together) , and not only for cash profite. To be honest , I don’t understand why you talked about the subject, implying that I had anything against you/them.

    One last thing, that you avoid to answer in my last post:

    What would be your reaction if the initial owner was one of your fiend/relative. Be honest plz.

    Look. I talked about myself, my guildies, my friends, and my teachers because you repeatedly and adamantly made the blanket statement that buying low and selling high is somehow a scam. If that's true, then everyone who does it is a scammer, including me, my guildies, my friends, and my teachers.

    I'm not saying that you don't have a point about trading ethics, but "buying low and selling high is a scam" isn't your point. It's not even an idea worth entertaining. You seem to be getting closer to your point when you start to talk about the purposes for which profit is being made. Assembling museum-quality collections is something that you seem to approve of (I knew we could agree on something!) while going just for cash profit is a less-than-idea goal. Your issue seems to be with purposes. You seem to have some idea what you think is a "good" purpose and what might be a "bad" purpose. That is, like it or not, a moral judgment. I also have my perspective on that but I'm not going around splattering it all over people because, in the end, it doesn't matter.

    Story for you. I remember having conversations in-game (and even in a thread...I don't remember if it was here or on Guru) about the best deals traders ever made. I chipped in a few from my trading days. One that I remember off the top of my head was buying a req 8 15^50 ascalon maul for 37k. That was a good deal and it was a good story. What it wasn't was a scam.

    How would I react if a friend/relative/guildie sold something for too little? This has happened. My own flesh and blood brother has a problem with reading what's in front of him sometimes and at least twice has fallen for actual scams (involving purposeful deception). One of those mess-ups cost us a req 7 15^50 sword. How did I react? By telling him that he's a dumbass.

    Because, sometimes, he is.

  • Crystaline Sword q8

    You seem to be having a hard time understanding things today, so I'll make it simple:

    1) A sale is made when two people agree to a price. Knowledge is a tool in that interaction. A person who sells without knowledge is careless. That person is not stupid and is not a victim of a scam.

    2) You seem to have completely missed the boat on this one. You think I'm whipping out some e-peen or reputation and turning that into an ad hominem attack on you. The fact that you read my question that way probably has more to do with your insecurities than anything.

    When I asked "Who the eff are you?" I meant who are you to act as moral arbiter of whether buying low and selling high is a scam, especially when you admit to doing it yourself and claim that everyone here has done it (nobody seems to be objecting to that claim). When you do it, it's ok and it's an exception but when someone else does it, it's a scam. Get off your high horse and accept the fact that buying low and selling high is the main way by which *honest* collections are built. If a person has achieved any kind of wealth in this game (or at some point become rich enough to have assembled a significant collection) and did it the right way (not by hacking, not using a credit card), it was done mostly by buying low and selling high.

    That's just reality. Feel free to whine about it all you want.

    3) I don't know the person who bought the sword, the person who sold the sword, or the person asking for the price check. I do know that it's stupid to make the blanket statement that buying low and selling high is a scam. The items in this game and the markets that they created were part of what made this game sp spectacular. Many of the best friends that I've had in this game and people who I admired and learned from taught me the markets that they knew best and I used that knowledge to assemble a collection that celebrates the history of our game. I lead a guild full and like-minded collectors who achieved what they have by buying low and selling high.

    So, if I'm defending anything, it's trading as a way of playing the game. Some great things have been achieved thanks to buying low and selling high. Buying low and selling high has served good purposes and it may serve malicious purposes. But the problem isn't with buying low and selling high. I was not a scammer. My guild is not filled with scammers. My friends and teachers are not scammers.

  • Crystaline Sword q8

    You seem to be making a lot of assumptions about the person asking for the PC and about my knowledge of that person.

    There's nothing in this thread that indicates that this person consistently scams people, or plans on RMT. Maybe he does all those things, I don't know. That's certainly not the behavior I'm congratulating.

    Let me clue you in to a little piece of reality. All of us started out this game broke. ZERO GOLD. If you become rich in this game, it's not through farming or any other kind of manual labor. It's by knowing a market and working it well (I'm ignoring credit card warriors and hackers). Buying low and selling high is an integral part of the game for many people and has been for years and years. I have no idea why people have taken to calling this a "scam" lately. It makes no sense.

    I've seen many people claim that buying low and selling high a "scam". But you've done it, I did it in my playing days, and you seem comfortable in saying that we've all done it. So what you're objecting to clearly is not buying low and selling high. You're objecting to instances of said behavior that you deem to be malicious. And, since you've deemed yourself the moral arbiter around here, I have two questions for you:

    1) What evidence do you have that this case is malicious? As I said, I'm not congratulating any malicious behavior.

    2) Who the eff are you?

    Sword is priceless.

  • Crystaline Sword q8

    Quote from E T

    C’mon own up who’s pulled off the Best Buy in the last 5 years.

    You're stupid not to.

    Opportunity only knocks only once -- and then only for those who know enough to listen.

    That sword's worth whatever you're willing to let it go for. I had one like that, which I used as the centerpiece of my trade for a truly unique piece of GW history.

    You should wait until you get an offer that makes your eyes roll back in your head.

    Nice find!

  • What is a PC? Philosophy to calm everyone down - hopefully :)

    Have to agree with my brother on this one (both about what he said and about not making it through the first post...I'll work on that!).

    The PC forum has always been a cesspool of market manipulation (in whatever direction benefits the currently powerful "gurus") and has never born much resemblance to what is actually possible.

    I think that information about actual sales of similar items (price, when the sale was made) is useful, but only for loose reference. I suppose that information about non-sales of similar items (e.g., "One of those has been for sale on legacy for XXXe for the last 2 weeks and nobody's taken it.") is also useful.

    Unfortunately, what often happen on PC threads is that people don't talk in facts. They talk in terms of their own beliefs about what an item should be worth. That is most often pointless. And sometimes they go one step further and argue about whose version of "should" is right. That is useless. If we are going to say that there is a market for an item, then there very well may also be segments to that market -- some potential customers who are only willing to pay a certain amount and other potential customers that may be willing to pay much more. Even the most benevolent PCer may only be familiar with one or another segment of the market.

    That is why, IMO, the only useful info that can come from a PC thread is factual information about recent (non-)sales of similar items. But even that needs to be taken with a large grain of salt. That information is just as much about the seller's skill and determination as it is about the value of an item on the market.

  • Heavy shields (Req 13 Str)

    Quote from MaxBorken

    There are three heavy shields on their way to you via Kabong, old chap.

    Got them -- thank you, Max! This one in particular is a thing of beauty:

    NRQsd4I.jpg


    Lauren, thanks for letting me know about your shield. For now, though, I'm going to steer clear of tactics shields. As you can imagine, shields that require me to think in order to use them aren't compatible with my general approach. What happens if I do all that thinking and the shield doesn't agree with me? Do we fight? Do I need a shield to protect me from this shield that thinks it's so smart? I don't know and I don't like where this is headed. It just seems more complicated than it needs to be. Let's stick to strength shields.

  • Heavy shields (Req 13 Str)

    Human cultural traditions are littered with stories of powerful artifacts that require greatness from the heroes and gods destined to wield them. Excalibur and Mjolnir are just two examples. These items, although impossible to use for most, rewarded those capable of wielding them with great power. In my particular case, I was blessed with both the temperament and physical attributes that made extreme anger-fighting a natural fit. Relying almost exclusively on rage, brute strength, and confrontational posturing, I have survived for more than 18 years in the Guild Wars universe.

    With this in mind, I'd like to buy (or, more precisely, have O Kabongolina O buy for me) the following:

    Req 13 Str shields

    • You may have trouble lifting these extraordinarily massive shields. Feel free to call Kabong over to inspect. He has specialized equipment that he can use to manipulate the item and transport it, if a deal is reached.
    • Although I'm interested in all perfectly dual-modded shields, I prefer shields with perfect mods such as 30/-2 (stance), +45/-2 (stance), 30/-5(20) or older variants including -2(10%) and -3(10%), and dual reduction shields (-2/-2 or -2/-3). Some attribute (30/+1(20%)) and 30/+10 shields may also be interesting, depending on the attribute/second mod. Even certain condition shields may pique my interest. Enchantments will only be tolerated if they would allow me to complete a set.
    • Again, please do not try to move these shields yourself, especially if you are a monk, elementalist, mesmer, or otherwise incapacitated.
    • I will be happy to demonstrate proper usage of your item, if a deal is reached. Please don't ask me things like "How do you use this thing?". There will be time for that after our business is finished. Also, please do not ask Kabong to demonstrate. He needs two hands just to use low-requirement hammers.

  • Crystalline swords, what makes them wanted

    Quote from Pleikki

    didnt imy have it before dwa or am i remembering completely wrong.

    This is something like standing in the Louvre and asking if the nazis had stolen this piece during WWII. (Please understand that I'm not comparing Imy with nazis!) I guess it's a matter of historical record but the fact that the question needs to be asked only serves to highlight the vital function of the museum.

    There's a lot of bull$hit out there and items of this quality are often in the middle of it. In the process, they often end up banned or with some idiot/child's name scrawled across them.

    They deserve better.

  • Crystalline swords, what makes them wanted

    I founded [PhD] more than a decade ago. In that time, one of the things that has made our little guild unique in the Guild Wars universe is the number of unprovoked public attacks made by people who don't know better, who can't wrap their heads around how what we do is even possible, or who are simply jealous.

    There are 3 +5e crystallines in existence. 2 of them are resting in [PhD]. The fact that this is not surprising is too much for some people to handle. I think jealousy is natural but might be tempered if people like Sight Seeing understood the mission of the guild a little better. Being in [PhD] isn't about being rich. [PhD] is about preserving the history of the game, as manifested in its items [1]. This is why I argue against customization of items of a certain quality and why, over the years, people have decided that certain museum-quality items belong in the [PhD] gallery. It's not about gaining individual glory. It's about preserving and celebrating the beauty of this world, which we all enjoy so much. This is also why so many people came out of the woodwork to help Kabong on his recent pursuit of green hammers. So, fortunately, one of the other things that makes [PhD] unique in the Guild Wars universe is the amount of support and appreciation that people have for our mission. This is just part of the beauty of this world and part of what keeps us going, and we are grateful [2].

    Both of those swords arrived the old fashioned way [3]. Some find this fact incomprehensible, especially given the rampant cheating that has been part of the game for so long. Not only has [PhD] committed itself to doing what many consider to be impossible, but we also actually get the job done. Repeatedly. For more than a decade.

    I used to take these attacks seriously.

    I don't anymore.

    Move along, nothing to see.

    Don't feed the trolls.

    io7YmGp.jpg

    :thumbup:

    [1] There is more to say about this, especially regarding how Max's work has helped to preserve the community and, in the process, the game itself in ways that are much more concrete and effective than celebrating pretty pixels.

    [2] The fact that so many people have donated items or have specifically wanted to trade/sell their items to members of [PhD] points to something even bigger. Guild Wars is a world that people love and want to preserve and protect. That is the strongest possible testament to the beauty of this game. If our guild's mission means anything to anyone, it's only because of the brilliant work of the game's developers.

    [3] I still miss the items I traded for the +5e crys that's on my account. I won't list the items here because 1) I don't think it would change anybody's mind about anything, 2) it would read like some kind of humble brag and this really isn't about me, and 3) I regret having to trade those items to someone who was an obvious cheater. Glazen never deserved to hold those items but it was a necessary evil in order to preserve the sword. The items that I traded were each sufficient to be the crown jewel in almost anyone's collection and I hope that they have all found safe, deserving homes. Sometimes tough choices need to be made when you don't have unlimited (or credit csrd fueled) resources.

  • Crystalline swords, what makes them wanted

    Crystalline swords are like BMWs. It's a poor person's rich person's car. If you don't know better, you feel like this is as good as it gets. You have to work to afford one, but it's accessible. Once you have one, you've gained the ability to show off in some conventional way that is popular among a certain (large) crowd.

    I think what you need to understand about crystallines is that they were never that rare. There was a neverending supply of them coming from HoH and, at some point, a chest. If you watched the game notifications and knew the game at all, you knew exactly who was getting their chance at a new crystalline sword and you knew exactly when it was happening. Customization has something to do with the state of the crystalline market but there aren't more of them around because people have stopped playing, often involuntarily. Many of the people who were good enough at the game to gain direct access to crystalline swords and who were rich enough to hoard/collect them also cheated miserably and have been (rightfully) banned.

    I've owned several high-quality crystallines but have always used them to trade for items that I consider more interesting. There's only one that I've ever bothered to hold onto. It's one of the +5 energy crystallines, which makes it a true relic, in my mind.

  • Underappreciated items

    @ Looney: I'm with you -- I've always also been a fan of the bronze shield. I'd love to have one (either very heavy or very light) with some stance mods on it (WTB!). Definitely an underrated skin imo.

    @ Emma: Sorry, I think I misspoke. I just meant that you couldn't get those mods on that skin with an inscribable warlord shield. I'll edit -- thanks for catching that. Nice to learn you're a fellow Reefclaw's refugee! :)

  • Underappreciated items

    You know me. I hate your inscribable bull$hit. Your unique green horsecrap is second on my list of your stuff that I can't stand. You and your children's toys are a disgrace to the game. You should be food for an Iboga. Seriously, what are you doing with your life?

    Having said that, I logged into a second warrior that I hatched to play through some content with Lady Kromp. I decided to play her au naturale (I mean the warrior, not Lady Kromp, although I do also play Lady Kromp au naturale If youknow whatI'm saying). This character wouldn't have access to any of my previously accumulated items or funds and would have to work with what she got in drops and what she could buy with whatever gold she could scrounge. It's been a while since Lady Kromp and I have played, so when I logged into this character, I was surprised to see that she was using what looked like a Summit Warlord Shield. Had I broken down and given her an item from my vault? Did I give in and buy an inscribable POS for her?

    It turns out that she was carrying Reefclaw's Refuge. I looked at the thing and I thought it was pretty sweet, especially for a strength war on a budget. Take a look at this thing:

    q7o5ZsV.jpg

    Even for those of us not on a budget, it's a great skin that you normally can't get in str and it has fun mods that you can't reproduce with an inscribable warlord. So maybe I'm late to the party on greens or maybe I'm getting soft in my old age, but any way you cut it, I don't think I was giving this item the love it deserves.

    I thought it might be fun to see if you all have any other examples of underappreciated items. Are there any items that aren't super-collectible or popular that you think deserve a little love?