A cautionary tale for Realmers, and an appeal to the community:

Hello everyone; I feel it's important to share my story about something that happened to me on the Realm this weekend. I'm not looking for sympathy, but I wanted to make this for a number of reasons - the main two being:
-To help prevent this from happening to others
-To encourage current Realmers to reflect on their behaviour in-game and on discord

Some background:
After playing The Realm religiously in the late nineties as a teenager, I had all but forgotten about this game. Two months ago I decided to look the game up on a whim, and to my surprise I found it was still up and running. Sweet! Needless to say I have been playing almost every single day since starting again back in May - and loving it! Perhaps we have crossed path's in my time back on The Realm - my main toons are Aerfalle/Shinobi.

Since my return I have spent a lot of time on the game, mostly by leveling a full group to 3k and gearing those toons. I think the prestige system and all the changes to the game are great, but what really got me hooked again was the friends I made along the way.

A cautionary tale:
Back in June I found a very prestigious item in ToD; a Glowie Bandanna. These types of finds are extremely rare - so rare that you should probably never count on finding one. After announcing my find, I immediately had several people in my tells looking to purchase it for obscene amounts of gold. In the end, I decided to hang onto it as suggested by several good friends in game, they said I would probably never find another.

This weekend, I was scammed out of it. Long story short; I had a lapse in judgement and let someone who I thought to be a guildmate try it on, and they stole it. This is a person who I had previously traded with, was regarded as honest, and had been active in trading channels since I remember starting to trade.

It turns out that this person is known to scam and has been doing it a long time. They made the character with the intent to build up a good reputation, and I guess this was their payday. They must be feeling pretty proud of their scheme this weekend. They are a member of a well-known guild, and the guild is apparently fine with it. This weekend, I lost a lot of respect for that guild.

If you need more details about how the scam went down, feel free to message me in-game. Mainly, I just want to warn new and returning players that there are some active players who are working elaborate scams, patiently waiting for their opportunity to rob you blind - so be extremely careful who you trust.

An appeal to Realmers:
I don't care that much about the Glowie Bandanna - it hurts, but it's something I can get over. I didn't punch my monitor, scream in rage or cry. After the scam I logged out and decided to play another game with some real life friends. I'll probably be back on The Realm sometime soon.

I will tell you what bothers me though.

What does bother me is thinking that it could have just as easily happened to someone else. It could have happened to someone who, for whatever reason, is not as resilient as I am. It could have happened to someone who has a lot going on in their life and is already in a really low place. It could have happened to someone who places a lot of value on their in-game items or uses Realm as their window to the world. It could have happened to someone who might just quit the game for good as a result of a scam like this.

The Realm is a 25 year old game and I'm assuming we are all adults. It saddens me to see that in our small community we still have some that aren't empathetic towards others. After the scam went down, I was more disapointed by how some members of the community behaved toward one-another than I was from the actual scam.

I already had one of my better Realm friends stop playing this week due to harassment from others and I am scared that others will follow suit.

Hiding behind every toon is a human being - please remember that. With all that is going on in the world right now, we need to be supporting one another - not tearing eachother down.

Stay safe Realm,

Aerfalle / Shinobi

I've held my tongue for awhile. I've considered the player a friend since at least the start of FF, maybe MW too? And I have no issue if a player chooses to scam. I think a few bad guys in MMOs make them more exciting.

But too many of these stories over the last few months. Create a toon, gain trust, ruin someone's experience. If I was in charge, he'd be banned. Too many players lost because of one specific player.

*Impersonating any existing person or character for the purpose of fraud
*Promote or engage in “disruptive behavior”, disruptive behavior includes but is not limited to, any dialogue that purposefully interferes with the right of others to play or enjoy the game
*Harassment is not necessarily limited to the type of language used, but the intent

I had something simliar happen, but I was the buyer of some Armor.. I handed over 1.4 million to CyberPunk.. He said, "thank you, laughed and telepoted off." Not quite the same as losing a Glowie, but bothered me enoough that I almost did not return.

I feel very sorry for you. I am sad that this happened to you. I too had a similar experience with someone I trusted. I'm over it now, and it is was my fault in the first place after all. I hope you return to Realm and don't let this person spoil your experience here. Please consider me as one of your friends.

Scammers are complete garbage. It definitely turns people away from the game when this kind of thing happens. A ban for scamming should have long since been a thing and all associated accounts. A trade window should also have been a top priority decades ago.

Scammers are lowly humans likely have crap lives and minimal worthwhile real life interactions. Have never been loved most likely. Overall you should pity these pitiful humans.

I've held my tongue for awhile. I've considered the player a friend since at least the start of FF, maybe MW too? And I have no issue if a player chooses to scam. I think a few bad guys in MMOs make them more exciting.

But too many of these stories over the last few months. Create a toon, gain trust, ruin someone's experience. If I was in charge, he'd be banned. Too many players lost because of one specific player.

*Impersonating any existing person or character for the purpose of fraud
*Promote or engage in “disruptive behavior”, disruptive behavior includes but is not limited to, any dialogue that purposefully interferes with the right of others to play or enjoy the game
*Harassment is not necessarily limited to the type of language used, but the intent

I've yet to see someone quit the game after being scammed, with the potential exception being Healie after Goof stole a YMMB. In some instances, a player will rage unsub and then return soon after. In most instances, the player simply adapts and becomes more cautious. The players lost to scamming narrative sounds convincing, but doesn't reflect reality. Let's reference the OP case. Two players were scammed simultaneously. One took it fairly well and wrote this calm, articulate post. The other player wasn't taking it as well, so the gold was returned to them.

*Impersonating any existing person or character for the purpose of fraud - namescamming is against the guidelines and I've personally never seen it occur since it was added

*Promote or engage in “disruptive behavior”, disruptive behavior includes but is not limited to, any dialogue that purposefully interferes with the right of others to play or enjoy the game - a scammed trade is no more disruptive than jumping a player in the overworld or pickpocketing them. What could veer toward something considered as disruptive is the content of the dialogue and/or actions before, during or after any of these events.

*Harassment is not necessarily limited to the type of language used, but the intent - a trade gone awry is not harassment. For that to qualify as harassment, repeatedly targeting one individual could perhaps qualify and/or continual bragging about such scam to embarrass a player could also venture into that territory. Again, the same could apply to killing a player in PvP and repeatedly making fun of them about it.

I am not opposed to trade windows and if that's what the playerbase wants, I'm all for it. However, as the game currently stands, scamming isn't against the guidelines.

Never said scamming is against guidelines. In fact, I used to praise you for it. I respect the OG "silver tongued" type scammer.

I have an issue with creating an anon toon to specifically scam. And in some cases it's been to scam a specific individual.

"Fight" and "Steal" are game buttons. Not even close to comparable. And the only people I've had after dialogue with are the ones that obviously want the after dialogue. The ones that take it to channel, etc. Most of the time, it's game button and move on.

Scamming is fine… the problem is that there is no way to prevent it. If it were semi-realistic, I'm seeing that gold before I'm handing over that item… and we're going to exchange at the same time.

That being said, I'm looking to get back into The Realm once I can link my old ass account. But if you remember the MECH clans, you know that there are people you can and people you can't trust. Sounds like that guild is essentially what old MECH was. Unless MECH is still around… I dunno, I can't get in.

Scammers are scum. Whats most impressive about people scamming in the Realm is that the game is so old. Its clear that scammers don't care about the item, its a mental kick or power trip for them. Pretty disgusting imo.

What happened to Intermediaries? Are they no longer a thing??

Get a MM