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Friendship: A Cautionary Tale

Discussion in 'SteamRep General Discussion' started by a tasty serving of, Nov 19, 2014.

  1. a tasty serving of

    a tasty serving of New User

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    Throughout my 7 years on steam I have accumulated many valuable items. Even after cashing out partially I still have some good stuff. I have added a lot of people in that time. Some wealthier than me but many more poorer. Those poorer ones I have found a certain pattern in their behavior. At first, it starts with admiration. "Wow, if I had that item I'd be so happy". Later there's always this implication that if only they had my inventory they'd be so nice and generous and ofcourse overjoyed. For the longest time I wondered if that were true. Finally, after some time I decided to try to do an experiment testing them on their generosity especially given the fact that many times its almost expected of me. This would happen during their birthday, christmas and sometimes just cuz.

    I decided to create an alt and fill it in with a few junk items. I then added these friends to see how they'd respond to me when the shoe was on the other side. I made sure to talk to them a bit and eventually come around to acting like they do towards me. "Wow, you have so many cool items I wish i had anything from there I'd be so happy". The people I did this to had atleast a few ok items and weren't complete noobs. What I found from this experiment disturbed me.

    One "friend" right off the bat thinking I didn't know what was going on tried to scam me with the classic steam market money transfer scam. After taking the screenshots I let him know who I was and what I was doing. After a very long pause he typed "ahahahhahah" then again "LOL" then finally after a few more of those he told me that he'd have his items transferred long before anything happened to him then signed off.

    Another "friend" I added was a complete a✿✿✿✿✿✿. He taunted me about owning a mythical item that I'd never be able to own. He then proceeded to insult me . After revealing myself the apologies came but I told him that he lied about being generous and his assholeness were cause for me removing him.

    I proceeded to add the guy I thought would be the nicest to a noob. I told him about me being poor and wishing for any item. He sent a trade offer. I was like what. He adds a crate. He says you said u wanted anything and thats all ur getting. If you want more than you gotta work for it. I accept the crate. Later on my main account he tells me the story. I sign off trade offer my main account with my at to get the crate. I trade offer him with the crate. Lols ensue. However come christmas time Im not gonna go out my way to get him something expensive.

    I got a few more stories along these lines but the TL;DR version of this is that poor players exaggerate the generosity they'd have if they were rich. Moreover, I have a friend who went from broke to rich with a lucky uncrate and if anything hes more greedy now than before yet his level of happiness remains the same. If anything now he desires an even more expensive item says he'd be happy if only he had that. Very unlikely.
  2. Thomas Matthias

    Thomas Matthias Retired Staff

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    So what?
  3. Horse

    Horse Administrator SteamRep Admin

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    Sounds like he needs a friend? Be nice and send him an invite Thomas, don't forget the hugsnkisses.
    Sjru and Ninja Otter With A Taco like this.
  4. SilentReaper(SR)

    SilentReaper(SR) Retired Staff

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    Everybody is begging, and nobody is meaning anything they say. Welcome to Steam Trading. All those "admiration"/begger idiots I just give a huge kick off my Friendslist. They are never worth it, and the only value you can set is whats between you and the other. Anything outside that, lol, don't count on anything. And I never needed to "experiment" or "test" anybody to know that.
    Wrath likes this.
  5. Wrath

    Wrath New User

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    This pleases me.
    Why hasn't VAC banned you yet...
    Nice seeing legit Veterans for once.

    If I can recall correctly, Team Fortress 2 started this whole Items/trade/worth thing with in-game trading that eventually led to the universe we see today. *Like this site* While other games might have come before it, its just not the same VaLVe experience we've all come to love and hate, to this day.

    Unfortunately, this has side effects other than rewarding one person with nice headgear, guns, magic-spike ball you put into other guy, etc...like the 'rich' and the 'poor', almost like 'murica. But that's another tale.

    Point is, no matter what, someone's going to want someone's stuff. Some of these people let those with better luck/cheats/richness be who they are and they make do with what they have. Others, not so much. Then, you have something I was taught in during my tenure with a company as a LPA. 10% of people will not steal. 10% WILL steal. 80% can be swayed either way. Notice how I say people. When I mean people, I mean sentient human beings. You know, the controllers behind the keyboard. That huge 80%, can be swayed by morals, rights, teachings, and one of the biggest factors I've noticed, is opportunity.

    "How much can I mooch off my friend?" "How can I get that?" "What happens after?" " Who's going to stop me?" "I'll do this once, and never do it again." "Haha, sucker" etc...a bunch of thoughts can come up in their heads and even someone you seem to believe is good heart, friendly, might not be all that they seem. Since you can't see other's emotions online (Yet), you can't use your human senses to gauge whether someone's about to pull something. It's quite easy to wear masks online in this day and age, with the internet being so big.

    However, back to the point. If you can truly believe such a thing, how is it you haven't acknowledge that generally, people will do things to benefit them, even if it has a cost, as long as the reward is greater than the risk?

    The answer, human behavior! We all have our kinks, breaking points, habits, hobbies...but it's you know, something you should see by now if you walk outside and observe.

    Let's stop here for a second. This 'friend' of yours, he'd be happy if you had 'anything' from you...is it because of the item itself, or is it something a little more specific?

    I think they should be happy to have you as a friend, if they've seen the generosity you've given before...or have yet to, they should have waited instead of acting like that.
    Opportunist. You found what he'll do when he thinks he can get away with it. Good show.
    I won't lie and say I haven't bashed a random add before for poking me for s✿✿✿, but that's because they're trying to mooch off MY gifts, things people have given me! I don't give away my gifts, I go and buy my own to giff...and no offense, like a human, I don't even know this derp and he's right off the block asking me for shite? Go shrekt yerself mate.

    No offense, just my thoughts.
    To date, I've seen, even my own communities, ban for begging. Even if it doesn't happen on their servers, one of em usually goes out their way to do so if there's evidence of it. Kinda like the first two scenarios.

    Any who, he gave something because someone asked and told him the sob story, you swayed him towards the fake 'nice' side, but found out he didn't go full circle. What'd you expect, him to giff someting that's valued? Again, people want this stuff, they're pretty certain of keeping it.

    Keep what you steal, in a manner of speaking.
    Of course they do, it's in our nature to do so. If you can acknowledge the fact and keep yourself on a path that you can look yourself in the mirror with, then the world's not that bad.

    But this is the internet after all. Worse, it's Steam. Worse, it's SteamRep. Probably not going to find the most jolly and truthful people here most of the time, not including the people that run this website...maybe. I'm in your head!

    Oh and a tl:dr version:
    [​IMG]

    To add to @SilentReaper(SR) 's post pretty much.

    Welcome to Steam's Trading/Inventory communities, please leave your sanity at the door.

    Trust is a funny word too...but that's another subject all together with it's own lengthy thoughts. Here's a sample though, a few certain friends, who I shall not name, have asked me several times why I don't run off with items they themselves give me, or items stuck in my backpack during a transaction where I'm the middlederp. 99% of the time, I usually just thrash on them about s✿✿✿ not being mine. Rarely 1% do I remove, I just make notes in my head or log it...just in case something happens down the line~
  6. SilentReaper(SR)

    SilentReaper(SR) Retired Staff

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    Wait, you mean the big blue room? Nah, those kids are really scared to death of it. You only get them outside if the power went down and they have to fix the junction box on the outside of the house. In order to do that, they prepare to dress up with all the "armor" they can find and at least have 2 baseball bats and a shotgun with them to defend themselves from the zombies.

    And trust... only people who value their friendships and the continuance of that will have that as a ingrained personality trait. Nobody stays friends with somebody that lies to them or steals from them. And by extension, if that person values their friends to be like that as well. All this implicates that the trust in the friendship will severely degrade if found out that such a friend does such, for no matter what, the thought will come up that they will do the same to you. And so this will enforce this. Most people will not think it thru about the repercussions that will happen before doing the act itself, and I mean outside the above described (law, kicked from work/school, banned from xx, etc). Lying or cheating ppl are everywhere, and trust is something one needs to earn, and once earned, losing that is not a great prospect to them. Trust has therefore a lot of unseen benefits to someone. This is why scammers that try the trust route, almost never get beyond a few hundred dollars of trust before they get too greedy and discard it by scamming someone. Hence one should not go trade all of the sudden for 1000 dollar with a guy that so far its highest trade was for a max head or w/e, that is just asking for trouble.
    Wrath likes this.
  7. Wrath

    Wrath New User

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    LOL. No, I mean the city, like Dallas, Texas, or New York City, New York. (No offense intended towards anyone.)

    Although I completely agree with your statement. You also cheated and stole my exact words I wanted to say about trust...well, not exactly but I had a nail to hammer, you instead used a bolt. XD
  8. SilentReaper(SR)

    SilentReaper(SR) Retired Staff

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    wha? a bolt? I upgraded to a wall to tear down.
  9. Wrath

    Wrath New User

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    [​IMG]