Hello fellow MyMers, Following up on the recent survey asking for unbiased feedback on MyM from our Community, we want to open a discussion on the No Refund policy located here. Currently we deny any and all refunds as policy to prevent having to play judge and head off arguments. This has both good and bad aspects. The good being that with an active all-inclusive policy, everyone is treated the same and there is no suspicion of giving "special treatment", thereby reducing the conflict between players and staff on that subject. The bad being that even in cases that the server/network is at fault we are still unable to provide a refund on behalf of the network officially (realizing that sometimes staff members do offer items out of their inventory as a player, but do not do so a member of staff ). We'd like to hear how the players view the policy and open it up to a discussion to see what can be done to make things more "fair" for both the staff and the players.
I think it is best setup as it can be. And I think if something major is caused by server you always find way how to return it to the state before the crash. And IT IS A GAME so even i can be mad i can always make a new one unles it is something from botania artefacts :-D . Thats all.
You know i like the way it is even if players find it harsh i prefer the rule than see staff having to go around giving stuff without a way to know if the player is lying or not
i agree however i think that this rule is harsh for instance on ferrit i placed down my sagmill and someone else crashed the server.. my sagmill and my lava gens were deleated in the rollback i asked for a refund and was told no refund.... so i was setback for Hours because i couldnt submit the crates...
yeah.. this rule i think should stay as is.. harsh but fair. if staff cant see proof that said item actually exsisted then its to easy to lie and get items you should not have. and it would be an unjustified mental strain on staff to always have to try and act as judge in theese situations. there are some items however. like some wichery or botania items, cant remember wich, that you can only make once. those items should leave some sort of trace in the player data or somwhere.. so for those items there may be possible with some leniency. IF there is possible to find the data string in some data somwhere in the bowels of mym.. or maybe if the player can demonstrate that they infact cannot craft said item and prism can not find them hiding it somwhere. then maybe a refund could happen. maybe.
WHAT IF they can see it though... or they can reset the achievements so they can get them again botania btw
if they can see proof then i belive there could be the possibillity to refund. but then again. that could lead to tons of players just wasting staff time to have them investigate stuff that might not have never happened:/ and also there is a surprising amount of players that are so disconnected from what they are doing that they cant even figure out wich way there death marker is pointing and so they call staff to refund their items:/ if strict no refund is practiced tthere is less of that
As a member of the staff team I would simply like to say that the rule as stands makes the decision very simple in cases of refunds. When you allow for refunds you create a dilemma in staff having to make a judgement call as to if something should be "refunded". Also, adding a refund policy allows for players of unscrupulous natures to attempt to cheat the server by claiming that they have lost something that they in fact have never had. If a refund policy were put in place who would have the say as to who gets a refund and who does not? How would the decision come to pass? What do we do if we find that players are abusing it to get better stuff (i.e. "I had a alumite hammer with all the upgrades on it" we replace it with a new one. What we did not know was that it only had 5 durability left on it and now the player has a brand new one.) There are several very large discussions that we would need to hash out before we could think about how to implement this kind of major change into the servers. These are just some of my concerns, and, I look forward to hearing more on this subject. M1NN10N Sr. Moderator
As both a staff member and a player i see both sides of the issue. on the one hand glitches happen and sometimes it is the servers fault (or another player's fault) and it seems punishing to new players (or even old players) who loose something that they have spent hours, days or even weeks of work on. I have lost quite a few things in my time at mym, and i know it feels so frustrating that you may even quit playing for a time because of it (i'm sure most of us here have ragequit at least once) that being said there is also the staff side of things. As a staff member at mym I know that compared to other servers i have been on (and been a staff member for) this server has very active and fast responding staff who are both friendly and who don't abuse their powers. Coming from my experience as a staff member from another server, i know what it is like to be a staff member for a server that gives back items. on the staff side we spent 80% on average of our time investigating item losses and determining what was lost and then refunding the items. On top of the increased amount of time spent poking around logs trying to figure out what exactly was lost (instead of having time to fix said bugs without being plagued with hundreds of item return requests) eventually lead to that servers demise. While i know not everyone looking for a refund of items is trying to cheat us the potential is still out there. I know you may think that such a small change wouldn't cause that much of an issue, but from my own experience it really can cause problems. My vote is to keep the rules as is. sincerely, Metalobism MyM Moderator
As a player I see no issue with the no-refund policy. If an item was lost due to some reason then you can get the item back eventually with more work. I have lost many things and while it was awful I know that I can always get it back in due time with more work. It is a game and in a game I can get what I had before, it just could take a little time and some little growls lol.
I think the rule should stay as is. It's fair to everyone and causes the least drama. As angry as someone might be in the short term they lost something to a crash or glitch, the kind of drama that comes from the alternative is usually far worse and more disastrous.
I gotta be honest with you, I havent read the above comments, mainly as it is still early and I cant see straight XD. BUT! I see it as IF, and ONLY IF, it is the servers fault (This doesn't include Rollbacks and such) then you should be able for a refund, What could be done is if a player has lost their items we leave it up to a higher staff member more so an Admin or Long-Term Snr Mods. This, while a suggestion, is quite a good idea in my eyes. Opinions welcome on the idea.
As a staff member I can see a few issues with this. IF the user was to lie and say oh I had 2 Lava Gens x64 2 sets of Draconium Armour, Then there would start to be some issues, The only way I could see this working if the player had some proof of what they had, Otherwise I can see the economy becoming quite broken from people lying about having items. I would also wonder does this include items that can not be found when someone is sorting your grief out? As that's a common one I get asked about. As a player I find this quite a useful thing to have, Due to the amount of times you lose items when something goes wrong. I don't really have much to say as a player other then the idea seems good.
I believe that the no refund rule, as it is currently used is fine. If I feel super bad I replace or of personal stock.
If this would be added it would be hard to draw the line. In theory we would be able to say in case of A we return items but if B we won't. I'm sure however that soon enough there will be a case which doesn't fit A nor B. If it's a grief case we are talking about then I'm still going to vote for no. In lot's of griefs not all items can be returned (used in crafting, hidden too well, ...). If we're going to refund then we're basically the dupe machine here. Imagin a player that goes on holiday. He "griefs" his friends ultra expensive armor before he leaves and hides it. After refund (and ban) the griefer comes back online and now they have 2 sets. The griefer was on holiday so he missed the ban duration anyway. The example may be a bit far fetched but the thing is that it didn't take me very long to think of something that would (maybe) be able to exploid the system. The players here are smart so they will find other (and probably better) ways to do this.
Am I frustrated when I lose items due to powers outside of my control? Sure Would I be more frustrated to see things being returned to players and situations much like the one CommonExplosion brought up happening? You bet.
The ONLY way I could possibly see having refunds for <insert reason here> might be sort of an "insurance" if you will. The player would have to either pay with credits or MyM's, (similar to claimblocks) and would be able to "insure" one item for limited periods of time. Of course, the idea is much easier in text than it is in implementation. As stated in the current no-refunds policy, if a glitch/lag caused you to die or lose items, you'd eventually shrug it off and move on in single player. The only reason I could see for a refund would be in the case of losing purchased items before they are ever placed/used in the world.
On thing nobody mentioned yet. If you buy something with rl money and you lose this because of a crash. place the chest -> get the items -> server crash. database will have marked the purchase as used and you dont have any items. If something like that happens. It should be replaced. Also "in dubio pro reo" (no idea what's the term/phrase in english). at least when it comes to rl money. That would make a really bad sells tactic if this stuff isnt replaced. ;-)
No refunds are the best way to keep it fair for all. The only time i think a refund should happen is if a player has payed real money for items and lost them due to a roll back or crash.(and can be proven). For anything thing else like grief, crashes, deaths (even due to bugs) or anything in between should have a no refund policy. This allows the staff and players to handle these situations all the same, with no refund.
