How would this be anymore secure than giving another player your ecodolllars? Now you're just giving them an item worth the same amount of ecodollars, but through a sign? Unless you mean you pay the item to a server sign. I'm not sure the system can recognize that you've purchased a certain amount of... ummm what to call this, "feature currency" so that you can then be given a certain priced feature. I don't think MC and buycraft work like that, but I have no clue! So don't take my word for it.

Ignore the above paragraph. I thought you were talking about adding a new currency to pay to people/server. I see you meant purchase the feature directly with the new currency. Again, I'm not sure the system can do that and I fail to see how this would make the server more money as now people are buying things with fake money...

I'm against this suggestion tho. Adding a different currency to buy features, but still giving the new currency to another play isn't any different than what we do now. If you meant the new currency be paid to the server only, well then that's hurting the economy even more cause the ecodollars isn't going back into the economy, it's being taken out... which is already a big problem in my opinion. We need this player to player interaction to keep player markets alive!

Why not just use a mod as the middle man. Say you're buying a $40 feature from me for $10k/USD. So we call Stigarose over to be our middle man. You would pay Stigarose the $400k in-game and he would confirm he has it and hang on to it. Then I would buy the feature for you and once it comes through, Stigarose would pay me the money. Transaction complete. Now say you didn't get the feature. Your in-game money is now with a mod who would have me get in touch with Andrew. I'd have to give the transaction ID of the purchase and try and prove I did buy it, all while your money is safely tucked away with a trusted staff member. In the end, you would either get your feature, or your money back. See... a middle man is a great way to go. :)

 

So if I have this suggestion correct:

- We implement a way to buy some item exclusively through the buycraft store. Purely for example, command blocks.
- Command blocks are buyable through the store for 1 USD each.
- Players can then trade these blocks ingame through trade signs/whatever means they like.
- Players can trade in the blocks for whatever feature they want at the appropriate price (e.g. multihome = 15 blocks, teleport = 20 blocks, etc).

If this is the case, frankly... I don't think items are secure enough for this. Randomly dropped items disappear all the time, people lose things in chests, things get stolen... wouldn't want to handle any of those situations when the items were bought directly with USD.

 

@miguel1118 I totally understand you, I had exactly the same concerns you have now. But see how many features I've got? Let me tell you that they were all purchased from other players¹. I'm a paranoid and I would have never done than, if I wasn't sure the transaction was going to be fine. Sometimes I just trusted the player enough: you gotta do background research and shit, it's painful and if you're new to the server it's very prone to lapses; most of the times I just used the mod-in-the-middle system, which is truly 100% safe².
Assuming the worst, I assume you might have read @Ladyvamptress's comment before she edited it, and I assume she added the explanation on mod-in-the-middle during the edit, so I'll cite the relevant part to make sure you read it:

So I guess this should solve your safety concerns (which were the reason for your suggestion in the first place).
But, even if we still wanted to implement it because "choice among more different ways to do the same thing is fun", @Nicit6 pretty much explained why it would be much more prone to losses.


¹except a very few features, bought with coupon codes I won either from voting, or from build contests and shit. Any feature I have that was bought with irl money, was (legally) bought with someone else's irl money: I committed myself to earn anything with exclusively ingame effort, upon joining the server (and yes, I like to boast about XD).
²unless you don't even trust mods; but even supposing that a mod were to abuse their position to scam you and/or the seller, andrew would personally investigate what was going on (and andrew probably wouldn't have added them to staff in the first place, if he feared they could abuse their position in any way): so this is a circumstance far from likely to happen.

 

I'm even more confused, lol. I don't see how this is a more secure way. I can agree that some people have been scammed when buying features off other players, but there are more sensible ways to protect yourself when buying features from players.

1. Have a sound contract in place (a contract on the forum is best).
2. Get a staff member involved to be the middle man. The staff member can hold your in-game money until you confirm you received the features, then pay the player you bought them from.
3. If you never receive your features, the staff member/the player you bought them from has Andrew look into things.
4. If it's a scam, the staff member returns your in-game money to you and you're free to file a complaint so the player you tried to buy features from is banned.

How is this not safe? I have been here 3 years. My son also plays, I've bought features from other players using in-game money, I've used my own money to buy features for myself and others, and I've even been the staff member playing middle man in feature buying deals between players. I have never once had any problems at all, in either scenario because I make sure I am well protected and I try to educate other players on how they can protect themselves. There is even a thread that tells you who people bought feature off of and how the deal went:
https://ecocitycraft.com/forum/threads/feedback-trading-ecodollars-for-server-features.20726/

It doesn't take very long to check someone out, get an approved contract in place, and have a staff member be the middle man in your transaction, then you are completely protected.

Also, the purpose of people buying features from another player is because they can't buy the feature directly through buycraft, so how will these people be able to buy the tradable item?

 

You're very welcome. It is scary, people do get scammed, unfortunately there is no way to guarantee 100% that people won't get scammed. If you or your friends... or even people who you just know, are ever scared about doing deals with people here, shoot me a message and I'd be happy to help out and try to make sure you guys are as protected as possible. :)

 

*Cough cough* willclo *cough cough*.
But seriously, as many pointed out, you are quite safe using a middleman and there are probably even more risks to handling the currency-item.