I had an issue where I used to pay via credit Card, then one day I went to buy Zen, and the option for CC has vanished, only left wth PayPal. WHen I wrote off to ask why, the response was that it is because of the COuntry that i'm in. I am located in Malta, not Mosul! A very strange action to see from them....
To understand why Cryptic implemented steam probation, you just need to remember what was happening at the time. The game was in the middle of the dreaded resonator exploit. Of course no one, but the exploiters, knew it at time. The exploit didn't go public until months later.
The economy was crashing, it was bad for the game, it was bad for Cryptic, and they didn't have a clue what the problem was. So we had to endure several months of economy fixes as Cryptic struggled to pin point the issue. The probation system was a direct result of that. And was just one of many unpopular changes that happened at that time. Remember when we all used to be able to buy and trade keys?
There is nothing "self-explanatory". Unfortunately, you are only willing to accept conclusions that agree with your own pre-determined conclusion that there is some grand conspiracy at work here. There isn't.
PWE has a prerogative to protect itself however it deems fit and necessary. If it means locking down a customer's ZEN until the money has actually changed hands because they've been burned too many times on bad or unverifiable transactions, then that's what they'll do and to the Nine Hells with how other companies or games might do it. How other companies do so is nothing more than a red herring to the argument and irrelevant. However, the fact remains that Steam payments cannot be immediately verified and thus, until the payment actually changes hands and PWE receives funds for the transaction, the ZEN is locked down. Not much to argue there. It's like me buying something from you and saying that I've already given the money to Joe Schmoe and he's gonna send you the money in a week. You're gonna say that I better keep it at home and not sell it to anyone else until Joe shows up with that check. Then next month, I buy again, and even though I've bought from you before, you still can't count on the payment until the check gets there. Sure, on a personal level, it's not gonna happen, but that's much the way Valve works with PWE. PWE doesn't have the option of saying "if it's all the same to you, we can't give you your ZEN until we actually have the money in our hands" so this is the next option available to them.
If PWE was worried about how much of a cut Valve would be taking, they wouldn't have even bothered offering the game on Steam. Simply having access to a larger user base isn't enough. A business isn't going to enter into a relationship with a third party unless there's a mutual benefit. Valve also saves PWE the trouble, cost, and liability of payment processing and security by doing so on their behalf, and in return PWE pays Valve a cut of the sale. PWE wouldn't do so if the cost of Valve's cut was more than they would be saving by letting Valve take payments on their behalf. That's common sense.
so you dont remember how low population was before steam or do not know. you are missing data then to make a better assesement of what really is going on behind the scenes and why they joined steam when they did and what they are getting out of steam since steam's benefit out of this partnership is a drop in their ocean of cash.
To understand why Cryptic implemented steam probation, you just need to remember what was happening at the time. The game was in the middle of the dreaded resonator exploit. Of course no one, but the exploiters, knew it at time. The exploit didn't go public until months later.
The economy was crashing, it was bad for the game, it was bad for Cryptic, and they didn't have a clue what the problem was. So we had to endure several months of economy fixes as Cryptic struggled to pin point the issue. The probation system was a direct result of that. And was just one of many unpopular changes that happened at that time. Remember when we all used to be able to buy and trade keys?
the keys turned to bop cause people were changing their farmed AD to zen buying keys then sold keys at ah with more than 10% profit so basically making free AD just by reselling the same ZEN they made from their AD over and over (if the backlog was big the keys would go for 80+k AD each). you can do the math how much you profit if you do that for 1000s of zen in keys. sort of what is happening now with many zen items that are boe when bought.
To understand why Cryptic implemented steam probation, you just need to remember what was happening at the time. The game was in the middle of the dreaded resonator exploit. Of course no one, but the exploiters, knew it at time. The exploit didn't go public until months later.
The economy was crashing, it was bad for the game, it was bad for Cryptic, and they didn't have a clue what the problem was. So we had to endure several months of economy fixes as Cryptic struggled to pin point the issue. The probation system was a direct result of that. And was just one of many unpopular changes that happened at that time. Remember when we all used to be able to buy and trade keys?
the keys turned to bop cause people were changing their farmed AD to zen buying keys then sold keys at ah with more than 10% profit so basically making free AD just by reselling the same ZEN they made from their AD over and over (if the backlog was big the keys would go for 80+k AD each). you can do the math how much you profit if you do that for 1000s of zen in keys. sort of what is happening now with many zen items that are boe when bought.
Yea, first of all, AD made on the Auction house isnt free AD. It was put into the system by someone, either earned or paid. Its not actually creating AD at all, unlike the resonator exploit. In fact, most AH sales actually remove AD from the game. Especially if the person was foolish enough to price the item at the exact rate as the auction house cut. Bringing up point two, no one was selling anything at a 10% markup, as that would be a 0% percent profit. Keep in mind, this happened long before VIP removed that little issue.
The keys where simply the first easy culprit to the economy problems. Probation came next. And the fixes continued to progress until the exploit was finally uncovered. Case in point, the other two Cryptic games have never had to bind their lockbox keys, and in both games lock box keys are still tradeable.
to be honest i wanna agree with cantankerousmage, but banning their accounts and IP wont help. its super easy to get a new IP adress, this way they will just come back... and their bot-accounts probly arent worth anything, so banning them wont affect them.
gotta wait till Arc checked my purschases. - anyone knows if Arc is doing this in weekends too? i bought Zen on friday.
To understand why Cryptic implemented steam probation, you just need to remember what was happening at the time. The game was in the middle of the dreaded resonator exploit. Of course no one, but the exploiters, knew it at time. The exploit didn't go public until months later.
The economy was crashing, it was bad for the game, it was bad for Cryptic, and they didn't have a clue what the problem was. So we had to endure several months of economy fixes as Cryptic struggled to pin point the issue. The probation system was a direct result of that. And was just one of many unpopular changes that happened at that time. Remember when we all used to be able to buy and trade keys?
the keys turned to bop cause people were changing their farmed AD to zen buying keys then sold keys at ah with more than 10% profit so basically making free AD just by reselling the same ZEN they made from their AD over and over (if the backlog was big the keys would go for 80+k AD each). you can do the math how much you profit if you do that for 1000s of zen in keys. sort of what is happening now with many zen items that are boe when bought.
Yea, first of all, AD made on the Auction house isnt free AD. It was put into the system by someone, either earned or paid. Its not actually creating AD at all, unlike the resonator exploit. In fact, most AH sales actually remove AD from the game. Especially if the person was foolish enough to price the item at the exact rate as the auction house cut. Bringing up point two, no one was selling anything at a 10% markup, as that would be a 0% percent profit. Keep in mind, this happened long before VIP removed that little issue.
The keys where simply the first easy culprit to the economy problems. Probation came next. And the fixes continued to progress until the exploit was finally uncovered. Case in point, the other two Cryptic games have never had to bind their lockbox keys, and in both games lock box keys are still tradeable.
let me clarify then what i meant. lets say one farmed a bit CN and DK back then and one sold the boe items on ah and made 5.000.000 or something like that (doesnt matter the number). One then would use ZAX to change those 5mil to ZEN then use said ZEN to buy keys which he would sell on AH for profit over ah's cut thus making free money from that first "capital". he would then get the "new capital (first capital+profit)" and change to ZEN again, buy keys, sell for profit hence repeating the circle to continuously increase that first capital without farming or doing anything really. just reselling same "capital" basically for profit. multiply that by 1000s of keys and 1000s of times and you can get how some people got LOTS of money from keys. especially when key sales were running and especially when there was a backlog (due to people preferring to pay the premium on keys instead of waiting for 5+ days to change their AD to ZEN). still happening same thing btw with other stuff from zen store that are boe.
To understand why Cryptic implemented steam probation, you just need to remember what was happening at the time. The game was in the middle of the dreaded resonator exploit. Of course no one, but the exploiters, knew it at time. The exploit didn't go public until months later.
The economy was crashing, it was bad for the game, it was bad for Cryptic, and they didn't have a clue what the problem was. So we had to endure several months of economy fixes as Cryptic struggled to pin point the issue. The probation system was a direct result of that. And was just one of many unpopular changes that happened at that time. Remember when we all used to be able to buy and trade keys?
I'm so sick of cheaters ruining the game for everyone else. Just like how they removed AD from leadership because people were using bots on it. If I were Cryptic, I would find a way not only to ban anyone that uses a cheat or an exploit that damages the economy, but also block their IP and machine code, so that they can't make another account from the same location or computer.
@lewstelamon01 I very much appreciate your refuting the conspiracy theorists. However, I come back to my extreme disappointment and frustration that the Arc support page "purchasing zen through steam" makes no mention of the probation period. It says there is no problem buying through Steam - it is all fine and dandy. Well, that page should also inform players about probation and that it can be up to (however many) days. I read this page before making my first (and only!) Steam purchase and had it mentioned the probation I would just have bought through Arc and avoided the hassle. It was incredibly frustrating - I couldn't do what I wanted to in-game for a week because all purchases would be bound, as I found out later.
I had a not-so-pleasant surprise this past weekend (double refinement) in which my Steam probation reared its ugly head again . . . when you are on probation and buy off the Zen market, you _do_ get a message that the item will be BtA. What you don't find out is that, for example, if you bought preservation wards (as I did while on probation, with a coupon) that the item you USE the preservation ward ON will be BtA even after the probation period has expired. I got that nice surprise this weekend! Glad I'd only had 10 such pres wards, and due to refinement odds, I wound up with just one bound weapon enchantment. I know and understand that purchases while on probation stay bound after probation. But in this case, having the item I use the pres wards on being BtA (months later) is frankly ridiculous.
@lewstelamon01 - So, no conspiracy here, just a plain common-sense business question. Why doesn't the support page stating Steam is fine to use explain about the probation period? It would seem a sensible place to include the information, which should be shared openly. Would you agree? Perhaps someone at PWE/Arc should edit the page to provide more useful information.
@lewstelamon01 I very much appreciate your refuting the conspiracy theorists. However, I come back to my extreme disappointment and frustration that the Arc support page "purchasing zen through steam" makes no mention of the probation period. It says there is no problem buying through Steam - it is all fine and dandy. Well, that page should also inform players about probation and that it can be up to (however many) days. I read this page before making my first (and only!) Steam purchase and had it mentioned the probation I would just have bought through Arc and avoided the hassle. It was incredibly frustrating - I couldn't do what I wanted to in-game for a week because all purchases would be bound, as I found out later.
I had a not-so-pleasant surprise this past weekend (double refinement) in which my Steam probation reared its ugly head again . . . when you are on probation and buy off the Zen market, you _do_ get a message that the item will be BtA. What you don't find out is that, for example, if you bought preservation wards (as I did while on probation, with a coupon) that the item you USE the preservation ward ON will be BtA even after the probation period has expired. I got that nice surprise this weekend! Glad I'd only had 10 such pres wards, and due to refinement odds, I wound up with just one bound weapon enchantment. I know and understand that purchases while on probation stay bound after probation. But in this case, having the item I use the pres wards on being BtA (months later) is frankly ridiculous.
@lewstelamon01 - So, no conspiracy here, just a plain common-sense business question. Why doesn't the support page stating Steam is fine to use explain about the probation period? It would seem a sensible place to include the information, which should be shared openly. Would you agree? Perhaps someone at PWE/Arc should edit the page to provide more useful information.
The probation doesn't just affect Steam purchases, though, it affects ANY purchase made with a new payment method or a payment method not immediately verifiable. If you were to use a new credit card and purchase directly from PWE, your ZEN would also be bound until the payment method was verified.
ROLL TIDE ROLL
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
I don't quite follow that not telling people up front about probation is a security issue. It certainly doesn't sit well with anyone who has been caught by it.
It's amazing that people are still being caught in this 'trap'. A simple warning would reduce a lot of grief, and maybe prevent future misunderstandings. If fraud is so bad with Steam they might as well disable it.
so i contacted Arc at costumer service about me bought Zen with Steam. the answer i was getting back was a standard email which probly everyone gets when they are frustrated bout this issue. Arc: ''Customer Service is unable to remove or alter the probation or probation length, and we apologize for the inconvenience.'' So i responded with - Do you have any idea when this '' temporary probation'' will end? its been 3 days now and i still cant do anything i really want. If Costumer services isnt able to help me with this problem, Who can i contact to make sure this will get solved quickly?
No response back right now, so i contacted the ''Live-Support'', which is avaible at certain times, and since i got alot of time difference, i tried it multiple times, with luck
I dont know if im allowed to post screenshots, so i wont before i get in trouble So i was talking to a GM called JackHammer, i told him about my problem with the steam and also that the costumer service isnt able to assist me in this issue. I got a reply back that also the GM's/Live-chat arent able to solve this. Hm? I asked him if he might knows how long this will last, since im waiting for 3/4 days now, he replied again that he can not assist me with this issue. kinda seemed like it was a BOT lol. So i asked him if theres anyone else who CAN help me, since none of the people i spoke to can. you can guess the reply..
after asking JackHammer the same question in diffrent ways, i STILL get the same answer. NONE of them can help me. Then he updated my ticket with my questions, while Costumer service said they can NOT help me either.
After i was asking if there is anyone who can help me, he disconnected me.
Seriously? is this how we costumers getting helped? i feel ashamed for supporting this game by buying Zen.
Lol and why couldnt anyone told me this.. thanks Lewste. Do you might know if this same problem will happen when i buy zen DIRECTLY through Arc with a Paysafecard?
Lol and why couldnt anyone told me this.. thanks Lewste. Do you might know if this same problem will happen when i buy zen DIRECTLY through Arc with a Paysafecard?
Unfortunately, I couldn't say. Sorry If I even had to hazard a guess, I'd say your chances were 50/50.
ROLL TIDE ROLL
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
It's amazing that people are still being caught in this 'trap'. A simple warning would reduce a lot of grief, and maybe prevent future misunderstandings. If fraud is so bad with Steam they might as well disable it.
if they take it off steam the population will be like before it first got on steam (not that it is that far off now).
I dont get a answer from support or the live-chat neither, what am i suppose to do. im sure they know all the answers to my question, but they are rather sending me a standard email.
A big warning BEFORE you buy zen would have make the diffrence here. but hey, im just a costumer.
Comments
The economy was crashing, it was bad for the game, it was bad for Cryptic, and they didn't have a clue what the problem was. So we had to endure several months of economy fixes as Cryptic struggled to pin point the issue. The probation system was a direct result of that. And was just one of many unpopular changes that happened at that time. Remember when we all used to be able to buy and trade keys?
sort of what is happening now with many zen items that are boe when bought.
The keys where simply the first easy culprit to the economy problems. Probation came next. And the fixes continued to progress until the exploit was finally uncovered. Case in point, the other two Cryptic games have never had to bind their lockbox keys, and in both games lock box keys are still tradeable.
its super easy to get a new IP adress, this way they will just come back...
and their bot-accounts probly arent worth anything, so banning them wont affect them.
gotta wait till Arc checked my purschases. - anyone knows if Arc is doing this in weekends too? i bought Zen on friday.
still happening same thing btw with other stuff from zen store that are boe.
My apologies if the link doesn't work right - my first time trying this in a post:
support.arcgames.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4223/~/purchasing-zen-through-steam
I had a not-so-pleasant surprise this past weekend (double refinement) in which my Steam probation reared its ugly head again . . . when you are on probation and buy off the Zen market, you _do_ get a message that the item will be BtA. What you don't find out is that, for example, if you bought preservation wards (as I did while on probation, with a coupon) that the item you USE the preservation ward ON will be BtA even after the probation period has expired. I got that nice surprise this weekend! Glad I'd only had 10 such pres wards, and due to refinement odds, I wound up with just one bound weapon enchantment. I know and understand that purchases while on probation stay bound after probation. But in this case, having the item I use the pres wards on being BtA (months later) is frankly ridiculous.
@lewstelamon01 - So, no conspiracy here, just a plain common-sense business question. Why doesn't the support page stating Steam is fine to use explain about the probation period? It would seem a sensible place to include the information, which should be shared openly. Would you agree? Perhaps someone at PWE/Arc should edit the page to provide more useful information.
The probation doesn't just affect Steam purchases, though, it affects ANY purchase made with a new payment method or a payment method not immediately verifiable. If you were to use a new credit card and purchase directly from PWE, your ZEN would also be bound until the payment method was verified.
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
the answer i was getting back was a standard email which probly everyone gets when they are frustrated bout this issue.
Arc: ''Customer Service is unable to remove or alter the probation or probation length, and we apologize for the inconvenience.''
So i responded with - Do you have any idea when this '' temporary probation'' will end? its been 3 days now and i still cant do anything i really want. If Costumer services isnt able to help me with this problem, Who can i contact to make sure this will get solved quickly?
No response back right now, so i contacted the ''Live-Support'', which is avaible at certain times, and since i got alot of time difference, i tried it multiple times, with luck
I dont know if im allowed to post screenshots, so i wont before i get in trouble
So i was talking to a GM called JackHammer, i told him about my problem with the steam and also that the costumer service isnt able to assist me in this issue.
I got a reply back that also the GM's/Live-chat arent able to solve this. Hm?
I asked him if he might knows how long this will last, since im waiting for 3/4 days now, he replied again that he can not assist me with this issue. kinda seemed like it was a BOT lol.
So i asked him if theres anyone else who CAN help me, since none of the people i spoke to can. you can guess the reply..
after asking JackHammer the same question in diffrent ways, i STILL get the same answer. NONE of them can help me.
Then he updated my ticket with my questions, while Costumer service said they can NOT help me either.
After i was asking if there is anyone who can help me, he disconnected me.
Seriously? is this how we costumers getting helped? i feel ashamed for supporting this game by buying Zen.
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
A big warning BEFORE you buy zen would have make the diffrence here. but hey, im just a costumer.
thanks for helping out guys