In light of all the recent complaining about players being scammed, I've decided to help players learn how to avoid being scammed. NOTE: This guide has been updated to reflect ATA's recent changes to the gifting system and item descriptions (9/4/2016). __________________________________________ How to Avoid Being Scammed 1. Introduction to Trading Items How to Trade Items Understanding Ratios 2. Types of Items [*]Giftable Items vs. Non-Giftable Items [*]Hunt Items [*]Attack and Defense Pots [*]Showcase Items [*] Stat Bonus Showcase Items [*]Decorative Showcase Items 3. Types of Players [*]Mains [*]Alts [*]Noobs vs. Newbs [*]Stranger [*]Friend [*]Acquaintance 4. Resources for Investigating a Player before Trading [*]World Chat [*]Player's Wall [*]Your Friends [*]Other Players 5. Conclusion ____________________________________ 1. INTRODUCTION In order to get some of those cool items you want, trading items is necessary. Being scammed is also a risk you inherit, as a player in PIMD, if you decide you want to trade. Because ATA does not currently have installed on PIMD, nor any near future plans to install on PIMD, an automatic trade system, you are responsible for deciding whether another player is trustworthy enough to trade with. I. HOW TO TRADE ITEMS If you've seen a post in World Chat that says something like "My cat for a completed Plushanimals set," you can initiate a trade with that player. Generally, you should post on that player's wall and reply with something regarding your interest to trade. I usually say something like, "I have the Plushanimals set for your cat." From there, you and that player can choose to openly discuss the trade, or take the trade to PM. (If I am trading hypnocats or pizza bikinis, I generally like to follow that player for privacy, as well as for establishing drop times and things of that nature). If you want to trade one Plush Turtle for one Plush Rhino, you view that player's profile, click "Send Gift," scroll down and choose which gift, then click "Send." With recent updates to PIMD's gifting system, you can now send gifts from PM, but you have to be friends with a player in order for this function to work! That item leaves your Showcase, and sits in their notifications until they ACCEPT or DECLINE the item. If the item is accepted, you'll receive a notification in your News Feed, then you wait for the player to send the item you agreed to trade for. If the item is DECLINED, however, both parties are SOL. That item does not return to your showcase and it does not go into a holding place for the other player for later accepting. II. UNDERSTANDING RATIOS Sometimes, players just want to be sent an item for the same item, without all the hassle of trading formally, with wall posts and such. This is usually done by posting something like, "Send me a Bro Chibi, 1:1." The "1:1" is a ratio. This ratio means you send one, they'll send one, too. 2. TYPES OF ITEMS The cool part about items in PIMD is that there are various different item categories! Some are decorative, some have stat bonuses, some help you when you're being attacked or attacking, some help you in parties, some come from participating in ATA's hunts. Some are even giftable, while others cannot be gifted. III. GIFTABLE ITEMS VS. NON-GIFTABLE ITEMS Some items are giftable, while others are not. Giftable items are those that can be traded between players. Non-giftable items, on the other hand, cannot be gifted to other players. To figure out whether an item from your SHOWCASE is, in fact, giftable, you can now, due to recent changes to item descriptions, click on that item in your showcase and if there is an orange gift box in the upper right hand corner, that item is giftable! IV. HUNT ITEMS Hunt items are those items that you receive for participating in the hunts that ATA creates. Some of those items are giftable, some are not. In order to receive hunt items, you must party with your club and collect a certain number of whatever item ATA designates to be eligible to receive items. For example, the Easter hunt required that you collect three different colors of butterflies, which combined into a larger rainbow butterfly. When you collected a minimum of 75 Rainbow Butterflies, you were eligible to receive the lowest tier of hunt items. V. ATTACK AND DEFENSE POTS Attack pots, or items, are bought from the store and are used to give you a boost when completing certain actions in parties and when attacking other players. Attack pots can also be bought to help give you either a strength boost, or an intelligence boost, whichever you prefer. Defense pots are bought from the store and are used to help you defend against players attacking you. Neither attack pots nor defense pots are giftable. VI. SHOWCASE ITEMS Showcase items are those items which are found in your profile, under "Showcase." Some of these items are giftable, some are not. Some of these items give you a stat bonus, while others do not. The ones that do not give you a stat boost are really there for decoration and to show other players what types of parties you have completed, what attack pots you're holding, and what defense pots you're holding. That's from an outsider's view. If you are looking at your own profile, you can see every item you're holding, which includes your Avatar, the number of Speakers you have, and the number of Tokens for the Prize Spinner you have collected. You can also see how many Hypnocats or Pizza Bikinis you have. i. STAT BONUS SHOWCASE ITEMS Stat bonus showcase items are those items which give you, generally speaking, a thousand combined stats (KCS) stat bonus. These items can be giftable, but not all are. These items can be acquired in various ways, such as through trading, participating in hunts, buying them, or waiting for them to drop from SOME parties. ii. DECORATIVE SHOWCASE ITEMS Decorative showcase items, or Permanent Showcase Items, are those items which cannot be gifted to another player, can often drop from parties, and can sometimes be purchased from the store. These items do not generally give any kind of stat bonus and are in your Showcase to show other players, and yourself, your accomplishments on PIMD, such as the number of times you have received the Dumpster Burrito item drop from completing the Dumpster Dive party. Instead of these party drop items giving you a stat bonus, ATA has "Number of times Completed" achievement badges for parties, which do give you stat bonuses, based on the number of times you have completed a party. 3. TYPES OF PLAYERS Within PIMD, there are categories of players, ranging from new to veteran and everything in between. Some of those players are your friends, you trust them and get excited when the light next to their name in PM is green. Some of those players are widely known, some are not. Some players are brand new, want to learn how to play PIMD, while others use PIMD for preying grounds for Roleplay. Whatever the category of player, all have the ability to trade items, and all can be scammers. VII. MAINS Mains, or a player's primary account, often their oldest account, are generally trustworthy and well-known players. These players usually have stats well within the millions, and are part of a large club that completes harder parties with no problem at all. These players have been known to scam. These players have also been known to be very loyal and trustworthy, as well as helpful in most respects. If you are considering trading with a main, you're probably in good hands and will be done right. VII. ALTS Alts, or a player's secondary, or alternate account, often much smaller in stats or comparable to their main in stats are made for a reason. Before trading with a player's alt account, first be wary. That player created an alt for a reason and you don't have any way of knowing what the real reason was. Some create them as extra help in clubs, while others create them for spying, while still others create them to gain for themselves. These players should be thoroughly looked into and, if you can, find out who their main is. If that player is not willing to disclose the username of their main, my advice is don't trade with them because they may have bad intentions. Although, they may just want privacy, and that's a fair assumption, especially for veteran players. If a player is not willing to give up their main, ask why they created an alt, and if the reason sits comfortably with you, then initiate the trade terms. IX. NOOBS VS. NEWBS A "noob" is a player who has no desire to learn the ropes of a roleplaying game. They play to irritate others, distract others, argue, or simply seek Roleplay, in PIMD's specific case. These players don't care about you, how hard you worked for the items you have, or your feelings against scammers. They simply want to cause you to be annoyed. My advice is, unless you're a noob interested in the same things, don't trade with these players. Period. On the other hand, you have "newbs," or players who are indeed new, but have an actual desire to learn how to play, want to follow the rules, and want to make friends. These players often ask for help learning in World Chat, they ask questions related to the game, they show a genuine interest in the hows and whys, and are often in awe of larger stat players and want to know how they got such large stats. These players probably don't have much to trade of value and generally don't know how to trade items. That being said, these players are best not traded with, but simply gifted for no paybacks. Gifting a newb helps welcome them to PIMD, and gives their Showcase a little life. If you decide to trade with a newb, first make sure they understand HOW a trade works, HOW to trade, and what, if any, the consequences are if they do not hold up their end of the deal. X. STRANGER Strangers are players you do not know well enough to trust. These players have no history with you whatsoever and randomly post on your wall asking for a trade, or you do the same to them. Per ATA's own advice, you should avoid trading with strangers. XI. FRIEND A friend is a player you met on PIMD or elsewhere and trust. You have talked to this player, or you know them in real life. You have created a bond with this player and can trust them with some of your secrets. These players will do you no harm, will hold up their end of a trade, and may even go the extra mile for you. Trade with friends before strangers. XII. ACQUAINTANCES Acquaintances are those players you have "bumped into," just like the friend of your friend's friend in real life. You know their name, they have merc'd in your club, laughed with you, and have been loyal as a merc. These players, however, are not friends to you. They can scam you. They can scam you and feel nothing about it. But, they can also become your friend. They are the toddler in the aging cycle. Not yet a child, but no longer a baby. Be wary of these players and exercise caution as if they were a nobody to you. 4. RESOURCES FOR INVESTIGATING A PLAYER BEFORE TRADING There are various public places to post information on PIMD: World Chat, Walls, Forums, Club Announcements, World Chat Announcements, and even a player's gift history. Before initiating a trade with someone, especially a stranger, as a general rule, look in all the places that you can find "scammer" and "player's username" in the same sentence. Post on the players wall to express an interest in their trade proposal, then go on a small search, which generally takes about five minutes. XIII. WORLD CHAT World Chat, also known as Campus Chat, is the best place to start looking. Chances are, if the player you're about to trade with has scammed recently, somebody else has already exposed them as a scammer. Usually, when a player is scammed, they don't post "Bobby is a scammer!" just one time - they post it SEVERAL times. Some people go as far wasting all 25 of their hoarded speakers on exposing a scammer, or even spamming World Chat to the point they get silenced by the Mods. NOTE: Accusing another player of being a scammer in public channels, even if you have proof, is silence-able. If you are scammed, e-mail Support (support@athinkingape.com) and send Screen Shots, your username, the game you play (PIMD), and a description of your problem. XIV. PLAYER'S WALL Believe it or not, a player's wall can help you avoid being scammed. Things to look for are: The number of recent "trusted trader" posts from others on that player's wall, any conflict on that player's wall, and the type of posts on that player's wall. Look for recent "trusted trader" posts because people change. A post from 6 weeks ago may not be accurate for the present. Also, you should find the name of the player's club, if they have one, and make sure the "trusted trader" posts are from people other than club members. As a rule, clubs are like family and stick together, so fake "trusted trader" posts can happen. If a player is in constant conflict, evidenced by the number of recent and past angry comments on their wall, you're best to not trade with them. I say this because some people here are serious about farming, while not as serious as in the past, and will attack any player thought to be associated with their "farmee." If you don't want conflict, avoid trading where conflict is constant. Look at the content, or type, of posts on a player's wall. If you see a lot of requests for Roleplay, a lot of racism, or a lot of crap talking, just avoid inserting yourself into that player's life. This goes hand-in-hand with avoiding conflicts to save yourself the headache of undue in-game stress. XV. YOUR FRIENDS Friends on PIMD are great to have. They are fun to talk to, fun to have in your circle, and provide you a third resource for avoiding scammers. Recently, I traded with a player and was done very well by him. Now, we turn to one another for items almost daily. I also turn to him for advice on trading. I got an unusual trade proposal, I asked him if he had heard of the player, and he confirmed he had, but nothing specifically relating to their trade habits. He asked me what their trade proposal was, and I enlightened him. He then told me it was odd due to the value of my items versus theirs, gave me current ratios for my items as they compared to that player's, and told me to be careful. I went ahead with the trade, only to find out this player could, in fact, be trusted. I shared this information with my trade friend, and he began trading with that player also, with no harm reported as of yet. Your friends on PIMD will have your back and they'll alert you to the scammers. Sometimes, you just have to ask them for their opinion on the trade proposal. XVI. OTHER PLAYERS Other players are good sources of information on PIMD. Some know a lot about the game and keep up with the latest scammer trends. They will know who to warn you about. Also, they will blatantly tell you if a player scammed them. But how do you know a player even sent items to another player? Look at the player's wall you intend to trade with. They have a section for gifts sent to them. If a player's username is there, but they haven't posted a "trusted trader" tag on that player's wall, Wall them and ask them to follow you back so you can ask them an important question. If they follow you back, PM them and ask them if they were scammed by Bobby, or if they just gifted Bobby. They will tell you if they were scammed. You may have to repeat the wall-follow-PM method a couple of times to find out what's up, but eventually, you'll get an honest answer. My RS tested this method for me and it worked, and to both of our surprises, we found out that a player who came across as very trusted, was actually a scammer. 5. CONCLUSION I hope this guide will help some people learn to use their resources to the full extent before trading. I also hope that it helps to deter scammers even a little bit, since the players' eyes can now be opened a little more. We have all always had the same resources available to us to avoid being the victim of a scam, but some, like myself, utilize them to their fullest capacity, while others simply do not. Instead of whining about how you were scammed, take precaution. And if one method of investigating leads you nowhere, use them ALL. If you are serious about avoiding a scam, nothing is "too much" to do before trading. Special Thanks Special thanks to my RS for helping me test these theories over time. Special thanks to -pinkalicious- for saving the day with her BB coding skills by BB coding this entire thing!
My RS and I tested that out before I updated the guide and she did not get the item back when I declined it. Are you on an Android device, by chance? Some things vary with iOS and Android devices.
Someone else on the outdated version of this guide's thread said that ATA changed it, but I couldn't find the announcement, and my RS and I tested it. I'll have to e-mail Support and get clarification.
You'd be surprised. When I first made this guide a few months ago, Forums was nothing but people whining about how they were scammed.
I found ATA's announcement regarding this. Thanks for the information, guys! I'll have to update this and change that bit.
I'm sure they do. But, like I said in this guide, if you choose to trade, you inherit the risk of being scammed. The ONLY way to 100% avoid being scammed is by not trading. This guide is kind of like when people say to use birth control, ya know? If you're going to actively trade, here are some things you can do to lessen your risk.