**WINTER OF WOE - BONUS OBJECTIVE POINT**
As previously announced, the team will be distributing an additional point toward milestones to anyone who completed the Absorbing Man fight in the first step of the Winter of Woe.
This point will be distributed at a later time as it requires the team to pull and analyze data.
The timeline has not been set, but work has started.

Gifting Badge Discussion [Merged Threads]

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Comments

  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Posts: 36,168 ★★★★★
    It's been abused before. That's why we had the Level 40 cap added.
  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Posts: 36,168 ★★★★★
    To be honest, that raises a good point. I can remember numerous times it's been abused. It's likely that these people abusing it have exhausted most of our options for keeping it.
  • Tchala_4STLTchala_4STL Posts: 2
    I have already contacted apple as have numerous others about you removing gift badge and just deciding 300 covers it. Never I. My life would I have spend that much money on 300 units. I paid legal currency for a “permanent gift badge” that isn’t permanent. So a financial refund or way better compensation is in order
  • As much as that's how many feel (purchasing the badge, not the units, which everyone has long used BTW), it is not how this works. It's been explained numerous times in the main thread. You bought the units and got the Badge as a bonus. Be it the main reason you purchased said package is irrelevant.

    The service has been 'suspended' not 'terminated.' Suspension insinuates that it will return. Termination insinuates an end of something. So, seeing as how Gifting is under suspension currently, that stands to reason this isn't permanent.

    I understand, and agree that this is frustrating. However, instead of going on 'feelings' you may find some tranquility in logic. Owning the fact you made a choice to purchase units is step 1. Step 2, understanding that there's a difference between suspension and termination of a service. Step 3, understanding why this had to be done. People were using an in game feature to phish credit card information, action was necessary.

    Being mad at Kabam for protecting their interests and their customers by temporarily shutting down an in game feature is a tad ridiculous. The fact they dropped everyone 300 units in the meantime is merely a nice gesture. The situation is terrible. Personally, I'm pissed at the people who casued this, not the people that were forced into action. If they knowingly allowed this to continue, it wouldn't end well for them. So, instead of doing the seemingly nice thing for the community, they did the smart thing, and tried to throw everyone a bone that was effected by it.

    Would I have purchased that Tony Stark's Briefcase without the Badge attached to the deal? No. Just the same, I'm not gonna scream refund for something I got and used for almost 2 years. Maybe if you take a moment and look at the big picture, you'll find there's little else they could've done. Yes, better 'compensation' would've been nice. Fact remains, they weren't really obligated to give anything. Especially if the service returns. Judging by the sound of it, it will once they tighten up the security within it. So long as I don't have to repurchase said Gifting Badge once they fix this, I'm cool with waiting.

    So yeah, 300 units is useful. Not amazing, but useful. Personally, I'm just gonna bide my time and work around this best one can. Frankly, I gave much more than I ever got as I was happy to help anyone within my Alliance if they were in a bind and I was in the position to do so. I can live without it, and will be happy if it returns one day. If it doesn't, and they eventually announce that the service is permanently terminated... then perhaps I'll join the ranks of those whom feel the 300 units is a poor replacement for it. As it currently stands, it isn't the replacement. It's just a kind gesture.
  • DNA3000DNA3000 Posts: 18,470 Guardian

    Just responding to a post all.
    Hopefully they'll come up with something easy like a summoner level minimum threshold to gift, or maybe only able to gift to someone the same level as you or lower.

    Other games have implemented various trade/gift limitations to mitigate fraud or other problems. But how specifically to do that in MCOC depends greatly on the specifics of both what is happening and what can happen given implementation and operational details none of us outside of Kabam have knowledge of.

    Without knowing all the details, I would probably try to implement both gifter limits and gifting limits. In other words, limits on the accounts trying to gift, and limits on precisely who and in what way you could gift. For example, I might consider unlocking gifting on an account based on some content metric, like the Act completion badges. Each one would unlock a higher tier of gifting which would allow for either more gifting or higher value items to be gifted. And on the gift mechanics side, I would look to implement something like only gifting to people on the friends list, and only people who've been friends for some minimum amount of time, so you couldn't just to a drive-by gifting.

    Whenever I've seen this kind of thing occur, the best results come not from making fraud impossible, but rather unprofitable. If you make it too expensive or time consuming for the sellers, and too risky for the buyers, you can reduce this kind of activity to arbitrarily low levels. But it can be tricky to do correctly unless you know all the details.
  • SiriusBreakSiriusBreak Posts: 2,156 Guardian
    edited March 2019

    Is it just me or are people overlooking the possibility this is a temporary thing? Instead of frapping out over a situation that is out of your control, perhaps enter with a level head? Or is that asking too much? It would be nice if we had some clarification on whether we'll get this back down the road. If the answer is yes, then all those screaming rip off and the like are just impatient.

    Judging by the wording, specifically 'suspension,' it seems like they plan to bring it back once they figure out a way to stop the abuse. Until then, it's turned off. So, with that in mind, it would stand to reason that the Gifting Badge you purchased will still work. So, as there's a situation caused by scummy people occurring, we cannot Gift for the time being. That's my general takeaway from the original post. So, perhaps, be patient and see what happens? It is only day 1 afterall.

    The message reads, to me, that gifting is suspended forever, but during special gifting events will be reactivated.
    This is from the original post.


  • DNA3000DNA3000 Posts: 18,470 Guardian
    Axo4545 said:

    Tsunani said:

    Badrose said:

    May someone explain what fraud are we talking about? It's just for people sending stuff to their second account???


    No, we mean real world Fraud that includes stolen information and fraudulent purchases.
    So the problem is with the purchases, not with gifts, remove the purchase hability
    This is not something that can be done on an account by account basis. Taking action on their account wouldn't stop them from creating a new one.
    If you follow that logic then why ban anyone for any reason? They will just create a new account according to this.
    Because banning accounts only works if there's an actual loss when you ban an account. If you're banning someone with an account that has a lot of time and expense put into it, that ban has teeth. For some kinds of prohibited activity this works. But if you're banning an account that was only created to assist with fraud, that account might be entirely sacrificial and banning it doesn't cost the fraudsters enough to stop the practice.
  • ColleenColleen Posts: 173
    This is a way for kabam to not ban the whales. Like did they even think this through??? I gifted my friend 1500 units worth of ggc (I’m f2p so that’s a lot) and we made a deal that he’d gradually pay me them back when I needed them most (he helped me A LOT during cap marvel mini eq) he still owes me over 1000 units worth of items and now I wasted my time grinding all those units for it to go down the drain
  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Posts: 36,168 ★★★★★
    If someone is banned for breaking TOS within the game, that's one thing. They can start a new Account. Providing that they follow the rules the second time, they will be fine. If not, that will be dealt with accordingly at some point. It's not the same when you allow people to make new Accounts to commit Fraud. There's collateral damage that happens between them opening the Accounts and Kabam banning them. When we're talking illegal activity, it's not something that is light collateral damage.
  • DNA3000DNA3000 Posts: 18,470 Guardian

    It will remain to be seen if apple or Google think the refund was adequate, in light of the in-game impact and the implications of the original purchase cost.

    It is not their place to make that judgment, nor are they likely to do so outside of extreme circumstances. Micromanaging the judgment of their app vendors when it comes to activity like this is the kind of thing that can blow up in their face: there's zero benefit to them relative to the relations issue with their development communities that can cause.

    I do find it kind of ironic that the Apple guidelines have clarified their stance on gifting to state clearly that the kind of gifting that MCOC implements is explicitly allowed, whereas prior versions of the guidelines could be interpreted to state it wasn't allowed. I (and I think most Apple developers) assumed this referred to a different situation for historical reasons, but Apple seems to have settled the matter definitively. Just in time for Kabam to disable gifting.
  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Posts: 36,168 ★★★★★
    Also, given the fact that the Fraud involved purchasing through Apple and/or Google, I would naturally assume Kabam has been in conversation with their partners therein.
  • DNA3000DNA3000 Posts: 18,470 Guardian

    At the end of the day, it's well within kabams right to take the badge away at any point.

    Not if it was paid for. If I buy a product, it is now mine. It cannot be taken back without just compensation. The debate is over whether this is just compensation, not whether compensation should be required. Compensation is undoubtedly required.
    If you buy a product it is now yours. But you didn't buy a product. You are required to agree that you only pay to use things in the game, that you don't own anything, you don't gain ownership of anything in any way, and you have no ownership rights of any kind. If you do not agree these statements are true, you are not allowed to legally play the game. You are stealing service from an online service provider.
  • Tchala_4STLTchala_4STL Posts: 2
    If they had issues with this stop allowing the badge to be purchased. This isn’t something given to you in the game for playing. This is something people paid actual money for they went to work and clocked in and out or however to have the ability to do. If your going to just remove it they deserve their money back not a freaking 300 units. That’s a slap in the face. Maybe a couple 5* crystals and 300 units or 1000 units or something to really make it up for taking our money and taking it away. Your taking it away for fraudulent use but taking money for something and taking it away is also fraud. Your defrauding your customers. You even put it in the apology. It wasn’t “permanent” so you lied
  • DNA3000DNA3000 Posts: 18,470 Guardian
    Colleen said:

    This is a way for kabam to not ban the whales. Like did they even think this through??? I gifted my friend 1500 units worth of ggc (I’m f2p so that’s a lot) and we made a deal that he’d gradually pay me them back when I needed them most (he helped me A LOT during cap marvel mini eq) he still owes me over 1000 units worth of items and now I wasted my time grinding all those units for it to go down the drain

    In spite of the skepticism of some, I'm reasonably sure gifting isn't gone permanently. They need time to put better controls in place to limit the kinds of fraud that gifting enables, and that could take quite a bit of time. But as others have pointed out, if they re-enable gifting for gifting events, any fraud that could occur with gifting badges will be able to occur during those events. This is a problem that Kabam must solve eventually, and disabling the gifting badges is almost certainly a short term way to mitigate the problem until a better solution can be devised. In the extreme case, this may require Kabam to build better tracking databases for all in-game transactions that would allow them to better analyze for fraud fast enough to stop the fraud from being profitable.

    It might take weeks or months for anti-fraud measures to be devised. But while I could be completely wrong here, I would be surprised if gifting didn't come back some time this year.
  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Posts: 36,168 ★★★★★
    Okay, let's back this up. You're equating stealing from peoples' Credit Cards outside of the game with being caught cheating within the game. Let that sink in.
  • DNA3000DNA3000 Posts: 18,470 Guardian
    Axo4545 said:

    DNA3000 said:

    Axo4545 said:

    Tsunani said:

    Badrose said:

    May someone explain what fraud are we talking about? It's just for people sending stuff to their second account???


    No, we mean real world Fraud that includes stolen information and fraudulent purchases.
    So the problem is with the purchases, not with gifts, remove the purchase hability
    This is not something that can be done on an account by account basis. Taking action on their account wouldn't stop them from creating a new one.
    If you follow that logic then why ban anyone for any reason? They will just create a new account according to this.
    Because banning accounts only works if there's an actual loss when you ban an account. If you're banning someone with an account that has a lot of time and expense put into it, that ban has teeth. For some kinds of prohibited activity this works. But if you're banning an account that was only created to assist with fraud, that account might be entirely sacrificial and banning it doesn't cost the fraudsters enough to stop the practice.
    Spin it however you want the words say "taking action on their account wouldn't stop them from creating a new one" and no matter how you try to explain it that would be true for banning anyone for any reason. It doesn't matter if they were banned for this, for modding, for account sharing, or anything else. They can still create a new account. There is nothing anywhere in the statement about the value of the account or anything you mentioned. Can really comment on anything implied because we don't know what is implied. So , you statement doesn't really apply since all that is basically said is banning their accounts would do mo good because they could just create a new one. That applies to any account.
    P.S. I know you like to make long speeches so go for it buddy, won't change the facts.
    Words seem to be something you like to emit, not actually read.
  • Fred_JoeityFred_Joeity Posts: 1,168 ★★★
    edited March 2019
    Thank you @GroundedWisdom and @DNA3000 for going at this logically. I get why people are upset, but regurgitating the same kind of hate and spam isn’t helping. To reiterate, people have a right to be mad, they also have a right to be unreasonable about it, but it’s irritating to hear the same arguments over and over, especially when some of the “suggestions” aren’t entirely viable.
  • John757John757 Posts: 1,085 ★★★
    Conspiracy theory, Kabam released that human torch was coming next month today to try to suppress the thoughts on the gifting badge
  • liquidkarmaliquidkarma Posts: 80
    edited March 2019
    does anyone else remember that old anecdote from the 90s about how, one angry phone call represents 10 people who feel the same way, and one angry letter in the mail represents 100 people who feel the same way? the reasoning being that it takes more concentrated effort to send a letter in the mail, and that amount of effort is a bellwether for general societal temperature.

    i remember this from back then, i tried to google it just now but too many years have passed since people still sent letters i guess because i couldn't find any reference to it on the internet.

    anyway. people are angry at kabam. i was, but i smoked weed all day and i don't care anymore, i'll take the 300 units. i bet there are 10 other stoners out there who would agree with me lol. but i'm not crazy right? i swear this is some sort of Rule of Tens or something but the google machine yields squat.
  • CallmelaFleurCallmelaFleur Posts: 231
    Permanent. haha. Just complete screwed over every content creator on Youtube who has subscribers gift that can't afford cash donations. How about you give some cash refunds to the legit players and start charging the money launderers with crimes.
This discussion has been closed.