Solution(s) for Accidental Liquidation

[Taejo]

There is a major issue in the game concerning the accidental liquidation of items. Many players love to carry around vanity-like collector's gear to wear and show off while in town. An unfortunate side effect of having these items in our inventory is that they often and mistakenly get liquidated. We then notice the problem later after its too late and we end up contacting customer support begging for our items back. Items such as Heraldic gear, Founder's gear, Illusion gear, and even L32+ Epic gear is constantly prone to human error - overlooking their names and liquidating them based on their rarity (color). There is currently only one "forgiveness" system in place: buy back, and zero deterrent systems in place.

Buy Back System:

The buy back feature is set up so that if you liquidate an item and quickly realize you made a mistake, you can purchase it back for the same price. However, there's a few stipulations that are rather unfavorable to the players:

Let's say you're standing in the guild hall and decide to liquidate 10 items from your inventory. Buy back will display the last 5 liquidated items, even though you liquidated a total of 10. Additionally, buying one item back does not "bump up" the other 5 items you deleted to show up on the list. The most devastating aspect of this is system is once you leave the guild hall, the buy back cache is cleared and your liquidated items are now gone for good. I understand that this may be a deterrent for players to exploit the buy back system as "5 free inventory spaces" or help keep the servers from being bogged down with data. However, I find it hard to believe that anyone would have the mental capacity to remember these items on a daily basis for several weeks of playing, just to save some platinum for 5 inventory spaces. It does not seem to be a very efficient or explicit exploit.

Proposed solutions:
First and foremost, please increase the buy back list from 5 to at least 15 or 20. In it's current state, even if I did quickly realize that I liquidated my Heraldic gear, if it wasn't one of the last 5 items to be liquidated, it's still gone for good
Change the autonomous cache clearing mechanism to instead clear it after a certain amount of time passes (say, 2 hours) or a player decides to log out of their account. Having the list clear after a disconnect or changing zones (maps) is not very forgiving!
Implement a strong deterrent system (see below)

A Deterrent System:

Energizeric stated the best idea to date, and doesn't seem to be a huge resource drainer for the Devs to consider implementing.


How often do we hear the complaint that someone deleted/liquidated an item by accident?

There have been suggestions made in this forum before that there should be a way to lock certain inventory items from being liquidated by accident, but nobody has ever made a suggestion that would be easy for STS to implement without a very large programming addition to the way your inventory functions. Until now that is.....

So here is the solution:

We have 4 loadouts in our inventory. Items like a heraldic armor that we keep to wear as vanity would be included in one of our loadouts. Upon attempting to delete/liquidate any item from inventory, the system will check to see if that item is included in any of your loadouts. If it is included in one of your loadouts, then it will not permit you to liquidate that item and you will instead receive a popup message "This item is included in one of your loadouts and cannot be liquidated."

This "lock" would NOT apply to trading an item or listing it for sale in the auction house.

Taken from: http://www.spacetimestudios.com/showthread.php?116293-Lock-Item-in-Inventory

Please don't take this thread as being a personal outlet for me to vent my frustration. As a recent victim of this dilemma we face, I feel it is my duty to try and help prevent future instances of this happening. At the end of the day, it's not about the monetary value of the item lost - it's the principle of the matter that human error should not only be forgiven at times but also prevented.

Feel free to show your support by providing constructive feedback/suggestions - and while you do, please do not post any disrespect towards the STG Customer Support team. Thank you.

[Taejo]

This is not intended to bash the Customer Support (CS) team, but I'd like to add that the majority of cases submitted to CS do not result in the items being retrieved. This may be due to limited resources or some company policy - I don't know for sure. They still do a great job and work hard. However, if their hands are tied and they can't help us retrieve our lost items, then this further reinforces the reasoning behind my suggestions.

[Drearivev]

This is a great idea! +1

I accidentally opened an Ethyl's egg, when I wanted to give it to my Sorcerer <_>

[Venom]

Locking an item would be THE BEST feature and solution to this. If not, a permanant trash can of say 5-10 items would be a good idea. Whether you logout or change map or get dc, the last 5-10 liquidated items stay in there.

[falmear]

I accidentally sold some items and when I contacted customer service to get them back they told me they couldn't find that I had sold them in the server logs. One was the glephnir and when I told them that this is a quest item and they could check that I done the quest I never got a response. Anyways, it would be good to have a way to prevent liquidating certain items. So I'd like to see something like this implemented.

[Morholt]

But there is a system!
Just buy lots of stash spaces! Then you'll only have to remember 1-3 pieces in your inventory.

Lol :P

[Deadroth]

Great suggestion. I would love to see improvments like that in Gear menu and Buy Back system :)

[IronMonkey]

A lock feature will be the best solution for this as suggested by Defamed. You may have heraldics for a rogue but youre a mage, ofc it wont be included in your loadouts.

A simple lock goes a long way of protecting our most treasured possessions.

[Taejo]

But there is a system!
Just buy lots of stash spaces! Then you'll only have to remember 1-3 pieces in your inventory.

Lol :P

Thanks for the feedback. I'm sure many of us already know about the stash spaces, and utilize them as such. I for one have 35 stash spots and keep most of my collector's gear in there. However, we're only human, and from time to time we still forget to put away our items before going into a map to kill monsters, etc. There's no point in having collector's gear if it's going to sit in the stash all the time because we're paranoid about accidentally liquidating them. I realize that to STG, collector's gear may not be a very important aspect of the game - however, for many of it's loyal patrons, it is extremely important. This has been evident in every game STG has released: from Pocket Legends to Dark Legends. In fact, Pocket Legends is the first MMORPG I've seen where people are fanatic about collector's gear - it's truly a wonderful thing for the game's economy and overall enjoyment!

I know this topic doesn't incorporate the majority of players within the game. In fact, it's probably on the same level as scam deterrents, suggestions and feedback. However, it is effecting players, it is a problem, and it creates more work for customer service to not have any fixes in place.


A lock feature will be the best solution for this as suggested by Defamed. You may have heraldics for a rogue but youre a mage, ofc it wont be included in your loadouts.

A simple lock goes a long way of protecting our most treasured possessions.

Agreed. But I would also like to see some sort of change be made to the buy back feature as well. This seems to be the biggest factor within the issue itself - especially the cache clearing mechanism.

[Veluthe]

Good idea.

I dont have collective gear nor have been victim if this. I do have two sets of gears i use though. I just remember not to liquidate up to a certain # of inventory spaces since all gear i use is at top. But i can see how this solution we would fix for those who have liquidated.

[Morholt]

I was being a bit facetious with the comment. ;)
I'm well aware of how fanatic people can be over collectable gear in non-mobile mmorpgs.

But the issue is somewhat in sts' favor, as it is an incentive to buy lots of stash spaces, which are heavy on plat, considering how much cheaper inventory spaces are. Locking items would also cut into plat sales, as most people would use their inventory asa stash and be plenty fine moving only 5 items at a time between characters on an account.

And the accidental deletion is in their favor as well. If you delete a collectible...well, a collector is now left to try getting another (which should now be even more valuable, since there are less now). Now you're left to farm another 7 million gold for a replacement. It keeps you playing the game, with something as an objective to do. And along the way of being on the game, working on replacing your old item, you are likely to purchase a few elixirs and such. Possibly even be around long enough for the release of something platinum costing, such as a cool new pet or another Mines or Nordr.

I can't see these kinds of things being implemented.

[Taejo]

Let me first say - with what everyone is about to read - that I'm not trying to gain sympathy nor garner it for others who have liquidated precious belongings in the past. Regardless of the fact that these types of situations are primarily our own fault, the subsequent chain of events from my personal experience has left a bad taste in my mouth. I don't share the same motivation as others might to simply 'farm more gold for another collector's item'. By ignoring the issue, myself and others are still at risk in the future if no deterrents are implemented. STG is a good and honest company that listens vigilantly to it's customers' feedback. Maybe this is just speaking from my own, personal upbringing, but people always come first in a business. If they intend to follow your logic and take advantage of these types of situations, then maybe I'm investing my time in the wrong place.

That's just my feelings about the topic. Don't take it as some open threat to leaving the game; but these situations often times "kill the buzz", if you know what I mean.