Bugged Deeds?

All this talk about stuff being stolen. You all should know by not that NOTHING can be stolen in EU. All trades are final, whatever happens. If I lend someone a Mod Merc and he never returns it it is NOT stolen from me according to MA's rules. So if David Post (trought Meg) traded the deeds with Marius he can not have stolen them EVER, the trade was a trade just like when I would trade Sweat with someone, nothing more, nothing less.

That being said, IF David Post was told not to sell them or give them away by MA, than it is HIS problem, not Marius', Narfi's or Fatals and something MA should take up with David Post.

atomicstorm said:

Well both parties are selling out now. So good job MA.

Good direction... we need less people in this game.. way too many.........

Click to expand...

This is the worst possible outcome. I'll do what I can to head it off.

melander said:

Dude i agree with you on a lot of other issues but i think you are dead wrong here. In Sweden if you buy even without knowing that a item is stolen gods/sale was never approved by the owner then that item will be returned to the owner and you are shit out of luck and need to take it up with the seller. Thats how it works over here and MAs actions i think reflect this point of view almost to the letter.

Click to expand...

OK, but if this is according Swdish law, than don't you think it should be the police that should confiscate the deeds?
Pretty sure that even in Sweden, when your bike is stolen and you after a while find out where it is, you can not just take it back without getting the police involved.

HardWrath said:

The thing of it is that this land deed was never stolen.

If you create a company and file the necessary paperwork to incorporate it, then that company is yours along with any physical, virtual, or intellectual property created by your company. That's exactly what this land area is. It was the property of Next Island.

If as a company, you enter into an agreement/partnership with another company to bring your planet online and into their virtual universe, they then can limit your ability to sell/transfer your property and items into their virtual universe so as not to disrupt and undermine the economic balance in their virtual economy, which you now are a part of. If you sell/gift/distribute your items without permission, it is not theft, it is however a breach of contract. MindArk, the only entity in a position to enforce the contract would have needed to immediately step in... But they didn't.

A planet partner can create as many land areas and items as they want, and they do, but they can not freely distribute them. If and when they do make an unauthorized sale/transfer of an unapproved item, MindArk needs to immediately step in and remove that item because if they allow it to exist, and especially to be sold from person to person, they then legitimize the existence of that item.

Click to expand...

melander said:

a item is stolen gods/sale was never approved by the owner

Click to expand...

The way i view it is that these deeds were traded for services rendered behind the owners back, Owner meaning MA. The PP owns there respective IP's but surely they don't hold the rights to the ingame items that represents a part of there IP. Of course its litterally impossible for anyone to say how that structure is setup for sure, but if PPs were the rights holds of not only the 3D assets but also the "physical" object code representing those items, then in effect when a PP leaves the platform they are entiteld to remove all objects originating from there planet from the game entirely. Which would also beg the question why Mindark is in charge of all code related matters if in effect they do not own the product that work produces.

I find it hard to belive that Mindark have setup a contract that basically rips out a large chunk of the entire game everytime a business relationship ends. No question that they should have acted immediately, that would have been the best course of action, i don't think the argument of legitimacy is a good one though.


Of course i could be wrong in my assessment of ownership as there is no clear cut way to find that out, we are both making assumptions in this regards to support the structure of our arguments.

Razer said:

OK, but if this is according Swedish law, than don't you think it should be the police that should confiscate the deeds?
Pretty sure that even in Sweden, when your bike is stolen and you after a while find out where it is, you can not just take it back without getting the police involved.

Click to expand...

I would definitly prefer for issues such as these to be handled by the police and in court, hopefully we get to that point one day where these type of situations are handled in that manner alas that is not the case today. By my post i am not trying to say that this was handled just as a situation would be handled in Sweden in real life, you are correct the police would be involved, i am merely trying to explain where i think the basis for this course of action comes from, which is the trade reversal principal from Swedish law.




Best regards
Zweshi

melander said:

The way i view it is that these deeds were traded for services rendered behind the owners back, Owner meaning MA. The PP owns there respective IP's but surely they don't hold the rights to the ingame items that represents a part of there IP. Of course its litterally impossible for anyone to say how that structure is setup for sure, but if PPs were the rights holds of not only the 3D assets but also the "physical" object code representing those items, then in effect when a PP leaves the platform they are entiteld to remove all objects originating from there planet from the game entirely.

I find it hard to belive that Mindark have setup a contract that basically rips out a large chunk of the entire game everytime a business relationship ends. No question that they should have acted immediately, that would have been the best course of action, i don't think the argument of legitimacy is a good one though.

Of course i could be wrong in my assessment of ownership as there is no clear cut way to find that out, we are both making assumptions in this regards to support the structure of our arguments.

Click to expand...

The PP owns their own planet, which includes items on that planet.

MindArk owns the platform that enables the PP to bring their products to a shared and very limited market.

MindArk had things in place that allows them to strictly control the type and quantity of any "product" introduced by the Planet Partner so as to maintain overall economic balance.

When these deeds were given to Marius, assuming the same policies were in place then as they are now, the unauthorized sale/transfer was simply that and at most a breach of contract.

A further breach of contract was NI's failure to continue releasing regular updates for their planet. The reason for that was that the primary investor pulled out and the Next Island owners were unable to secure new funding.

In the event of a breach of contract, if egregious enough, that same contract allows MindArk to seize control and ownership of the entire planet along with it's contents. We saw that happen with Calypso when SEE failed to pay what was owed to MindArk.

These deeds were given to Marius before MA took over Next Island.

HardWrath said:

The PP owns their own planet, which includes items on that planet.

Click to expand...

Wording is important here, My assessment is PP's own the intelectual property that is there planet and items of course, They however do not own the individual items themselves though just as you or i don't techincally own the rights to any item in our inventories meaning the owner of those particular deeds is Mindark.

This issue will give only bad reputation to the game ....
If MA took over NI why they say to Narfi to speak with David Post(?!)....

It is obviously that NI has no dev team at all since 2012 (!?)

So how we get in contact with someone who does not want to be anymore a PP(?!)

melander said:

Wording is important here, My assessment is PP's own the intelectual property that is there planet and items of course, They however do not own the individual items themselves though just as you or i don't techincally own the rights to any item in our inventories meaning the owner of those particular deeds is Mindark.

Click to expand...

Well, regarding the items in our inventory, the EULA says one thing, but MindArk's actions when pressed with a lawsuit say something else.... Examples would be the last couple liquidation auctions along with statements made by MindArk that went with them.

My (limited) understanding of the contract the PPs have with MA, a Planet Partner does own their planet and properties on it... As long as the PP stays compliant with that contract. Now, as far as a gun or something created by them but introduced into the economy through the loot system, no, those items I would say that they don't own. How could they? Guns, armor, weapons, blueprints, mining tools, etc are all simply mechanisms to create TT turnover and decay.

Seeing as how the deeds in question were Land Areas, I think it's safe to assume that they were in fact owned by Next Island. However, just because they "owned" those land areas, does not mean they were free to introduce them into the game's economy by transferring them to an individual player whether it be by sale, auction, payment, gift, or whatever.

There isn't a scenario where these Land Areas could have been created without MindArk's knowledge. From what I can tell, MindArk knew of them to simply be for PP held special events....similar to how MindArk owns a non-taxed land area and puts Eomon on it.

I hate to build on assumptions, but we can only assume that the policies in place now were also in place back then, and as a result, the unauthorized transfer of those deeds, was simply an unauthorized transfer... Possibly a breach of contract. The Next Island staff should have knew better, but it's plausible there was a breakdown in communication.

Regardless if there was or not, when NI gave those deeds to Marius, MindArk should have intervened then and sent Marius back to David Post and Meg for acceptable payment for services rendered.

But for whatever reason, MindArk did not do that. Instead they entertained Marius' support cases as he tried to persuade MindArk to activate the Land Areas. Then, Marius sold the deeds to Narfi, and then Narfi sold to Fatal.

So because MindArk failed to act upon the initial transfer to Marius, they are at least partially responsible for the subsequent resales to Narfi and then Fatal.

Because of that and because EU as whole is MindArk's responsibility, it thereby is MindArk's responsibility to resolve this in a satisfactory way.... Especially since the people who originally created this problem (Next Island owners) are no longer involved in EU or their planet. At this point, this late in the game, I believe it's wrong for MindArk support to try and pawn this off on David Post... Especially because the man can not be reached and isn't involved anymore and they know that.

starcollector said:

This issue will give only bad reputation to the game ....
If MA took over NI why they say to Narfi to speak with David Post(?!)....

It is obviously that NI has no dev team at all since 2012 (!?)

So how we get in contact with someone who does not want to be anymore a PP(?!)

Click to expand...

Exactly right.

HardWrath said:

These deeds were given to Marius before MA took over Next Island.

Click to expand...

You seem to be consistently under the misconception that Marius received the deeds as payment. I don't know how you know Narfi or Marius -- but its pretty obvious who is scum and who isn't here.

Marius said:

During this time I was given the land area deeds by one of his employees (Meg) and was told by her that they should be working soon and to start hosting events there. I assumed these were given to me with David Post knowing since Meg worked for him. I waited months for them to be fixed and working so I could get things rolling there. But as most of you all know David Post pretty much lost interest and pulled out of NI development and let go his entire NI team in New York.

Click to expand...

He has clearly indicated that he was basically given company assets for use in official company business. When the company folded, he stole company assets under the pretense that he deserved the deeds as payment.

These lies aside, there is the other plain simple fact of the matter that is:
Marius talked with support to get something working he knew should never work, hoping for profit. When he finally realized he could not -- he pawned the deeds off to Narfi under the pretense that they could be fixed. Narfi did the exact same thing; He talked with support until he realized he just acquired an expensive inventory placeholder, turning around and pawning it off to another person under the pretense it could be fixed.

If Marius or Narfi really thought they were selling a gamble -- why did they first try to get the deed working? If you want to use Narfi's lottery ticket analogy -- they basically checked the ticket, found it was a losing ticket, and sold it to somebody claiming the lottery has not been drawn yet.

If either of these people had integrity, this item would never be sold under the pretense of being "bugged". Who cares if MA never said to not trade it? That's a completely moot point here and its an extremely weak argument used by Narfi and Marius to feign ignorance. The item was known to be intentionally non-functional and MA was right to remove it after witnessing the string of scams this item was perpetuating. Novelty items in the game are all fine and dandy until some greedy turd decides to scam somebody else with it starting a terrible chain that nobody wants to be at the end of.

Defending these kind of actions is what's truly poisonous to this game and it's community. I couldn't care less about who has what reputation -- these actions speak loud enough for me. As far as I'm concerned, there is no way to justify the first or second sale of this deed.

200+ posts here.... I suppose at this point no one can expect anyone to read all the posts:

Marius said:

Took me a while to figure out my account on PCF here so that I could comment on all this mess.

As one of the members of this whole issue from the beginning there are a few things I would like to make straight and clear right now…

The Land Area deeds were never in the hands of Neverdie from my knowledge. For a time I was contracted by David Post and his team over at NextIsland to assist in growing the community and increasing some foot traffic for the planet due to mu community manager experience for other online games. During this time I was given the land area deeds by one of his employees (Meg) and was told by her that they should be working soon and to start hosting events there. I assumed these were given to me with David Post knowing since Meg worked for him. I waited months for them to be fixed and working so I could get things rolling there. But as most of you all know David Post pretty much lost interest and pulled out of NI development and let go his entire NI team in New York.

At this moment here I was sitting with two Land Area deeds on a somewhat dead planet. I spent over a year sending in support cases to MA to try and get these working. (BTW from working in the game engine myself for a time the fix needed to make these work again would take less than 2 hours of actual work). I was always told to go speak to DP about getting them working since he was the planet partner. But this still did not work because there was no way to get in contact with DP anymore from my end. I was also NEVER told by MA in my support cases that the deeds were never intended for sale or trade… Just want to make that clear…

So here I sat with useless deeds to some nice big LA’s that might work one day. As I rarely if ever play in EU I figured why not get them in the hands of someone else who might have a better chance to get them working due to his long standing in the game. An agreement was worked out between myself and Narfi and I traded him the deeds to try to get them to work and to try and bring some life to NI.

After this it was all on Narfi what he did with them. Get them fixed, sell them, keep them forever… It was out of my hands. He knew it would take some effort and be a risk but a small risk sometimes has a great reward.

So there is my side of things. Pick it apart and blame me if you wish.

MA should never have just removed the deeds from Fatal. Again it is a very simple and easy fix for them and might have brought some life to a plane that is pretty much just eating up server space for them. But no they chose to handle things in a disruptive way and cause havoc in the game.

Also to make it clear again NeverDie had NOTHING to do with these deeds at all… It was all David Post (thru Meg) and me…

-Enzo Marius Romanus

Click to expand...

Marius said:

Yes I was given the deeds to provide a service once they worked and for my assistance in the early stages of NI's birth. To help promote the planet and myself for that matter as I would have been the owner and investing in the LA's. They became mine.

If only I still had communication from in game and email all those years ago between Meg and myself about the deeds. But that email is long gone and no chat log anymore from in game since I have gone thru a few computers since then.

Click to expand...

Marius said:

And I did not get them for free. Yes no ped or money exchanged hands between myself and Meg (DP). But I was on contract with him providing other services of a Community Management nature. So as payment the deeds were also provided to me. Call it out of EU trade but then blame that on the PP for providing me with deeds for services rendered...

Click to expand...

Marius said:

Did I ever once mention that I was unfairly treated? In fact I was treated very well while helping out on NI. As it was my understanding yes they were given to me as payment for my services and I was happy to take them because it meant that I could have tried to get the ball rolling on NI and play more myself. And at that point they became mine. Like someone has said if someone you worked for paid you in an item like a watch or computer for your services then at that point does that item not become yours to do with as you please? If no then one day i would love to have you work for me so that I can pay you in something and then when our time together has ended I can get back everything I gave you.

Click to expand...

HardWrath said:

Ok... Then how did he steal them from Next Island? Did he fly to New York, break into their offices into the middle of the night, log into their computers, and then transfer them to his avatar?

Marius wasn't a planet partner, his role seemed to have been more on the community side of things. It would be nice if he elaborated more on that point but right now the fact remains that there is a sum total of ZERO evidence that even hints at a theft of these deeds by Marius from Next Island.

It's very important that we don't start lobbing unsubstantiated, unfounded, and baseless accusations around at each other in the forums.

Click to expand...

And on the other hand, automatically taking him at his word when he has been vague is also unsubstantiated information. Yet you defend him and bash MA for taking action. We have differing opinions. Mine is simple. His character was originally to be used as a -planet partner employee character. He later used that character to play as a normal player and sold deeds acquired during his tenure with NI.

MA has stated that those deeds were never meant to be sold. Aka, they were planet partner property, not in game deeds. FACTS!

The legal discussion around the transfer of title of goods can be a bit complex, but the central principle remains nemo dat: one cannot transfer a better title than that which one possesses.

While I'm no legal expert, and the law may function differently on some issues in Sweden, so far as I can see at this point:

• David Post (or the NI dev team on his behalf) did not obtain approval for the status of these land deeds to be changed from 'PP item to be used for creation of ingame events' to 'ingame tradeable asset'.
• The deeds thus remain 'PP items to be used for creation of ingame events'.
• As there is no disposable right to the deeds, they cannot be legitimately used for payment to Marius for services rendered. ie the PP cannot transfer to Marius a better title than the PP possesses.
• Nor can Marius transfer that to Narfi, or Narfi to fatal.

While undoubtedly Marius and Narfi believed that they were acting in good faith, to my mind they simply weren't able to legitimately sell an unauthorised item.

Somehow this tangle needs to be unpicked, and I don't envy whoever gets the job (presumably MindArk) of acting as arbiter and negotiating compensation for fatal.

---------------------------------------

In relation to the more general issue of what happens with Next Island now that the PP appears to have abandoned it:

In 2012, Bjorn|MindArk posted the following on EF:

Bjorn|MindArk said:

If a partner for some reason shuts down or goes out of business, MindArk will continue to make the planet's areas available for an extended period of time. Certainly no less than one year, and in most cases much longer.

If it is later decided to merge a defunct planet's areas into another planet area, or to close them, all affected avatar's inventories and items would be migrated to another storage location, and affected avatars would be relocated. In no case would participants lose any items.

Planet partners do not have the ability to shut down an area.

MindArk will of course give ample notice to participants before migrating or disabling any server areas from defunct planets.

Click to expand...

While this was posted in relation to a Rocktropia issue at the time, I think it would be reasonable to assume the same policy would cover Next Island.

Note that while MindArk continues to make the planet servers available for a time, and the items remain ingame, they don't continue to 'develop' the planet.

HardWrath said:

200+ posts here.... I suppose at this point no one can expect anyone to read all the posts:

Click to expand...

I see what you did there. While it is obvious he has been retailoring his statement to make it as vague as possible -- I will not humor you with logic. This is completely unrelated and you are only detracting from the issue by redirecting the subject.


The issue is not his theft -- The issue is the misrepresentation of the nature of the deed prior to sale. Who cares if he stole the deed and sold it to sit in some collector's inventory until obscurity? Nobody would care and nobody would be harmed from this. Unfortunately, this is not the case and the nature of the item has been intentionally misrepresented by both Narfi and Marius for their own personal gain.

Narfi is clearly very intelligent and knew what he was doing is wrong. He has also been doing his best to convince people that he is as much a victim as fatal here despite not being at the losing end of the scam chain.

Ok, at 223 posts to date and I haven't read all of them

Is this:

a) a big can of worms

b) a storm in a tea cup



a) would require MA reaction & reply and b) it'll fizzle or simmer for days to come.



I personally think if you start just 'half creating things', throwing them out there and taking your eye off the ball you can get people creating rare scanner drops, mineable sweat and oh well, mistakes happen.

What matters is solving difficult 'problems' in a speedy manner.

Now I dont know the "ins and outs" of this one but I'm sure a Dev does and I think they should comment and put the fire out before it spreads....

Mega said:

Ok, at 223 posts to date and I haven't read all of them

Is this:

a) a big can of worms

b) a storm in a tea cup



a) would require MA reaction & reply and b) it'll fizzle or simmer for days to come.



I personally think if you start just 'half creating things', throwing them out there and taking your eye off the ball you can get people creating rare scanner drops, mineable sweat and oh well, mistakes happen.

What matters is solving difficult 'problems' in a speedy manner.

Now I dont know the "ins and outs" of this one but I'm sure a Dev does and I think they should comment and put the fire out before it spreads....

Click to expand...

Same question?

But so far i think its a)... this will lead to loosing trust to the game imho.

And tbh i realy can't understand there is no other reliable RCE game you can get withdrawals wihtout putting even cent into the game - competition would fix all of those problems or at least would have choosen strongest game developemnt in the market.

Falagor

Serica said:

The legal discussion around the transfer of title of goods can be a bit complex, but the central principle remains nemo dat: one cannot transfer a better title than that which one possesses.

While I'm no legal expert, and the law may function differently on some issues in Sweden, so far as I can see at this point:

• David Post (or the NI dev team on his behalf) did not obtain approval for the status of these land deeds to be changed from 'PP item to be used for creation of ingame events' to 'ingame tradeable asset'.
• The deeds thus remain 'PP items to be used for creation of ingame events'.
• As there is no disposable right to the deeds, they cannot be legitimately used for payment to Marius for services rendered. ie the PP cannot transfer to Marius a better title than the PP possesses.
• Nor can Marius transfer that to Narfi, or Narfi to fatal.

While undoubtedly Marius and Narfi believed that they were acting in good faith, to my mind they simply weren't able to legitimately sell an unauthorised item.

Somehow this tangle needs to be unpicked, and I don't envy whoever gets the job (presumably MindArk) of acting as arbiter and negotiating compensation for fatal.

---------------------------------------

In relation to the more general issue of what happens with Next Island now that the PP appears to have abandoned it:

In 2012, Bjorn|MindArk posted the following on EF:

If a partner for some reason shuts down or goes out of business, MindArk will continue to make the planet's areas available for an extended period of time. Certainly no less than one year, and in most cases much longer.

If it is later decided to merge a defunct planet's areas into another planet area, or to close them, all affected avatar's inventories and items would be migrated to another storage location, and affected avatars would be relocated. In no case would participants lose any items.

Planet partners do not have the ability to shut down an area.

MindArk will of course give ample notice to participants before migrating or disabling any server areas from defunct planets.

Click to expand...

While this was posted in relation to a Rocktropia issue at the time, I think it would be reasonable to assume the same policy would cover Next Island.

Note that while MindArk continues to make the planet servers available for a time, and the items remain ingame, they don't continue to 'develop' the planet.

Click to expand...

Also note the enlarged text.

The problem was created on MA's watch and allowed to fester on MA's watch. It's really irrelevant at this point whether the PP intended to give away the LA or not, as again the PP is defunct and will obviously not be making reparations. MA needs to resolve this, and the way they resolve it should reflect the fact that they haven't been as careful with PP object creation and distribution as they should have been.

Doer said:

Also note the enlarged text.

The problem was created on MA's watch and allowed to fester on MA's watch. It's really irrelevant at this point whether the PP intended to give away the LA or not, as again the PP is defunct and will obviously not be making reparations. MA needs to resolve this, and the way they resolve it should reflect the fact that they haven't been as careful with PP object creation and distribution as they should have been.

Click to expand...

He is absolutely right. ^^

I seriously can't believe the how blind some of you other people are. They took away an item that they allowed in game. Period. They broke their own rules and they lied about it. Nothing else fucking matters anymore, and so many people don't see the real issue. And those of us that do are sick of it. In the end you will see a lot more selling out than just the 2 so far.

If ANY of you don't fight for these deeds to remain and work, then you don't give a shit about this game, because the second you let them take something away that they allowed in game (by not fixing or removing them long ago), you just killed the game.

Where will it stop? Will they just keep taking shit away and never explain themselves? You want to let them do that? They refused to respond, and they took something away from someone that people had bought in good faith.

Half of you want to sit back and let them do it. JFC! Fine, let MA take the Archons you bought in good faith too, while they are at it! All they have to say is "oops, those weren't supposed to be authorized, either"

When a bunch of boneless sissy's in here want to defend MA and let them lie and take items... let someone basically fuck up and get away with it, and let them break their own fucking rules, well, then this is a community I don't even want to be part of anymore.

I have read this damn thread 30 times. I am fucking disgusted by some of you. I hope MA takes something you bought in good faith, and when they do, don't come crying to the forum.

Sunsout Gunsout said:

He is absolutely right. ^^

I seriously can't believe the how blind some of you other people are. They took away an item that they allowed in game. Period. They broke their own rules and they lied about it. Nothing else fucking matters anymore, and so many people don't see the real issue. And those of us that do are sick of it. In the end you will see a lot more selling out than just the 2 so far.

If ANY of you don't fight for these deeds to remain and work, then you don't give a shit about this game, because the second you let them take something away that they allowed in game (by not fixing or removing them long ago), you just killed the game.

Where will it stop? Will they just keep taking shit away and never explain themselves? You want to let them do that? They refused to respond, and they took something away from someone that people had bought in good faith.

Half of you want to sit back and let them do it. JFC! Fine, let MA take the Archons you bought in good faith too, while they are at it! All they have to say is "oops, those weren't supposed to be authorized, either"

When a bunch of boneless sissy's in here want to defend MA and let them lie and take items... let someone basically fuck up and get away with it, and let them break their own fucking rules, well, then this is a community I don't even want to be part of anymore.

I have read this damn thread 30 times. I am fucking disgusted by some of you. I hope MA takes something you bought in good faith, and when they do, don't come crying to the forum.

Click to expand...

If they let the deeds remain in game, I have no issue with that. if they make something work just because it was sold after it was not supposed to be, well that's just bending to the will of the money. These were never meant to be player owned land areas. Fine, let fatal keep the deeds. But DO NOT make the land areas work as they were never intended to.

Doer said:

...

The problem was created on MA's watch and allowed to fester on MA's watch. It's really irrelevant at this point whether the PP intended to give away the LA or not, as again the PP is defunct and will obviously not be making reparations. MA needs to resolve this, and the way they resolve it should reflect the fact that they haven't been as careful with PP object creation and distribution as they should have been.

Click to expand...

Yes, the best solution would have been (and still is) for MA to give Fatal the amount he paid Narfi for the deeds and then remove the deeds. It's pocket change for MA. Problem solved.


MA always seems to go for the worst choice on the 'What should we logically do?' list; instead of the best choice.

"Oh let's just seize the deeds with no compensation." Who the hell thought that was a good idea from a PR standpoint?

I've come to believe that MA just doesn't care about the players perception of them; they know the addicted will just keep on depositing. Why should they worry?

The more I read the posts by Marius, the more and more pissed I get at David Post and Meg.

RedThothCrowley said:

If they let the deeds remain in game, I have no issue with that. if they make something work just because it was sold after it was not supposed to be, well that's just bending to the will of the money. These were never meant to be player owned land areas. Fine, let fatal keep the deeds. But DO NOT make the land areas work as they were never intended to.

Click to expand...

You are all assuming intent. We don't even know for sure what the intent was.

And anyways, what the intent was doesn't matter. The intention doesn't change a thing because of what MA did (by waiting to do anything and ignoring it, they basically gave the deeds their existence by allowing them in game, and allowing them to be traded!)

It was MA's screw up. AFAIC the deeds exist in the context a good faith purchaser bought them...I.e. a bugged deed that needs to get fixed, THAT'S what MA allowed in the game, that's what they made people think, and that's what they should man-up and create. These are land deeds that are bugged no more, no less, and MA should give them back, and once they are bothered with enough support cases, maybe get around one day to fixing the bug like a good fucking boss should, just like they eventually have fixed other bugged LA's in the past.

Wow, looks messy.

No comments for/against/what to do from me, just looks a big clusterfck.

I just hope all gets resolved amicably.

Sunsout Gunsout said:

You are all assuming intent. We don't even know for sure what the intent was.

And anyways, what the intent was doesn't matter. Make the deeds reflect the intention if you can prove it, if not, make the deeds a LA and admit you fucked up. Either way, the intention doesn't change what MA did (by waiting to do anything and ignoring it, they basically gave the deeds their existence by allowing them in game, and allowing them to be traded!)

It was MA's screw up. AFAIC the deeds exist in the context a good faith purchaser bought them...I.e. a bugged deed that needs to get fixed, THAT'S what MA allowed in the game, that's what they made people think, and that's what they should man-up and create. These are land deeds that are bugged no more, no less, and MA should give them back, and once they are bothered with enough support cases, maybe get around one day to fixing the bug like a good fucking boss should, just like they eventually have fixed other bugged LA's in the past.

Click to expand...

I have read all of the correspondence with MA (Narfi's anyhow as he is the only one with enough balls to make it available). Nowhere did MA ever state these were bugged deeds with any intent of being fixed. They are even named differently and it can be easily assumed they were not intended to be used by players. I still think the fault lies with the employee who used his account to play and sold the deeds.

Sure, MA compounded the situation by letting it linger. That in no way means anyone should get an LA that was never meant to exist as a player owned object. Someone else put it great. If Marco had sold his gun after he left but it did not function, should MA make it function just because money was exchanged? No, the item was never intended to be used by players.

Three possible outcomes here:

1. MA does nothing, doesn't return the deeds, doesn't make them functional, and doesn't compensate Fatal. This will cause a lot of people to lose faith, sell, and then withdraw. Do you want to pay for that MA? Actually, it will be the rest of us who remain who will pay for it, wont it?

2. MA compensates Fatal for the deeds with PED... this will indicate to me that MA does not intend to keep Next Island operational long term

3. MA returns the deeds and makes them functional.. this will indicate that MA intends to keep NI alive in some capacity long term.

HardWrath said:

Three possible outcomes here:

1. MA does nothing, doesn't return the deeds, doesn't make them functional, and doesn't compensate Fatal. This will cause a lot of people to lose faith, sell, and then withdraw. Do you want to pay for that MA? Actually, it will be the rest of us who remain who will pay for it, wont it?

2. MA compensates Fatal for the deeds with PED... this will indicate to me that MA does not intend to keep Next Island operational long term

3. MA returns the deeds and makes them functional.. this will indicate that MA intends to keep NI alive in some capacity long term.

Click to expand...

How about a 4th possible outcome? I would imagine that Fatal would be happy to get his peds back. How about if MA makes the deeds work and then auction them off. Fatal gets his original peds back and MA uses the rest of the peds from the sale to help improve NI. Would anyone think that maybe something like this would be the best possible solution?

Jabez said:

How about a 4th possible outcome? I would imagine that Fatal would be happy to get his peds back. How about if MA makes the deeds work and then auction them off. Fatal gets his original peds back and MA uses the rest of the peds from the sale to help improve NI. Would anyone think that maybe something like this would be the best possible solution?

Click to expand...

As long as we had a clear and firm statement about MA's intent with NI (or any neglected/defunct planet) I think this would be a good solution. But MA needs to come out and say something...something that allows us to regain trust...otherwise there will be no confidence, and the deeds will probably sell for less than what fatal paid.

Jabez said:

How about a 4th possible outcome? I would imagine that Fatal would be happy to get his peds back. How about if MA makes the deeds work and then auction them off. Fatal gets his original peds back and MA uses the rest of the peds from the sale to help improve NI. Would anyone think that maybe something like this would be the best possible solution?

Click to expand...

That also would be good

All the issues aside, is anyone wondering what this means for the rest of us?

This could potentially mean that MindArk can remove any item in game if they just tell us that is was not meant to be in the game anyway. "Oh RAZER, that Mod Fap and Mod Merc you just bought were not supposed to be in game, so we removed them from your inventory, we are sorry about that."

I see a big issue with that to be honest. It is not about this sale specific but about what it means in the long run in general.

Whats next, will they remove the items that were obtained in the past as a result of a repair bug (which duplicated the items) and after they have been sold 100's of times? Are you sure you do not have any of those items ?

Razer said:

All the issues aside, is anyone wondering what this means for the rest of us?

This could potentially mean that MindArk can remove any item in game if they just tell us that is was not meant to be in the game anyway. "Oh RAZER, that Mod Fap and Mod Merc you just bought were not supposed to be in game, so we removed them from your inventory, we are sorry about that."

I see a big issue with that to be honest. It is not about this sale specific but about what it means in the long run in general.

Whats next, will they remove the items that were obtained in the past as a result of a repair bug (which duplicated the items) and after they have been sold 100's of times? Are you sure you do not have any of those items ?

Click to expand...

They already do that, and have been doing that all along...

Wake up!

Everything is on their server.

Personal Revives went bye bye a long time ago... shouldn't have been in game...

In game stockmarket went bye bye a long time ago... shouldn't have been in game...

Look at how many estates got screwed up at VU 10 with promises to fix them, and those fixes never came... that should have been a clue.

Look at how many estates get functionality changed after the estates were purchased (number of item points change as hallways are no longer considered inside, apartment buildings get flip flopped at vu 10 and never rearranged back to original locations, buildings moved around all over the place, some estates buried under ground and inaccessible until lots of support tickets finally make them possibly viewable again, turrets moved around all of the time letting mob trains in to cities here and there, etc.)

Taming went missing for how long now (still promises of coming back, but it's not here yet)...

They removed 'owner' from apartment and CLD deeds and converted the wording to say 'holder' long ago... that should have given you a clue.

They recently created a liquidation avatar to take assets and resell them that they just took off of avatars they banned, etc. That should have given you a clue... Now that that system is in place, they can potentially use it for stuff like this if they deem that's the appropriate action to take I guess?

In the past they compensated for mistakes the devs made. That trend stopped a few years ago for the most part, after they realized how many mistakes they made when they moved to Cryengine that they didn't have enough staff to fix in any timely manner whatsoever... Now it's all hit an miss as the Real Cash Economy sadly seems to be transforming in to the Real Crash Economy.

EULA says everything is "as is." That says it all. Take it or leave it...

You are paying for pixels on a server you don't own and always have been. The only difference now is that you are starting to realize just what that means.

Never spend more than you can afford to happily lose. That way you won't be sad if your 'investment' turns in to pixelated dust as a dev hits the delete key, regardless of if they promised to do so or not.

Sunsout Gunsout said:

But MA needs to come out and say something...something that allows us to regain trust...otherwise there will be no confidence, and the deeds will probably sell for less than what fatal paid.

Click to expand...

Rofl, there you go with MA's "Improved communication"