Ice Bear On Loans

Loans in Wynncraft
Loans are quite common in Wynncraft. Usually, it is done between friends however, some players have even tried to make a business out of this by offering loans to the broader public and charging interest. With the number of loans going out and how much money players could have at stake, it is important to get a better understanding of what protections a player might have while lending out a loan.

Rule 7
Do not scam other players.

This rule seems self-explanatory and there even is a thread linked to the rule https://forums.wynncraft.com/thread...splay-of-items-regulation-of-auctions.208084/ explaining it in further detail though strangely it is called rule 8 here. However, I noticed a legal grey area this rule has never clarified.

Loans and Rule 7
Quick question. If a player borrowed a loan and refused to pay it back what would happen to them? I and I think many others would assume that they would be forced to pay up or face punishment under rule 7, No scamming. However, as I looked further into this the answer wasn't so clear.

Let's take a deeper look into what rule 7 actually says. In the clarifying thread scamming, tricking, displaying, and overpricing are mentioned and given definitions. Regarding loans only the first 2 are relevant.

Scamming according to that thread is taking advantage of a lack of knowledge of a player who does not know an item's actual market value. Tricking is defined as essentially a swap of items such as selling one item instead of another. Nowhere in these two definitions is a player required to return a borrowed item as the rules only protect the selling and buying of items but not the borrowing.

Moderator Opinions
The above is only my interpretation of rule 7 and I am not staff so I thought I'd ask some moderators for their interpretation. I asked a total of 11 moderators to which 8 responded with an answer. I declined to message more moderators as I was told this topic was already being discussed among the moderation team. Without further ado, these are the general opinions I got from their responses.

3 Moderators said that they would not or could not intervene
2 Moderators said they were unsure
3 Moderators said they were able to do something

The general reasoning for the moderators who said they could not do anything was that a player is willingly giving out items knowing the risk.

For the three moderators who said they could do something, I asked further about if they could enforce interest i.e. a person agreed to pay interest to the loan. Only 1 moderator said that they could do that.

Conclusions
While my sample size of moderators is quite small I think it is enough to conclude that loans are a grey area when it comes to the rules and that interest will not likely be enforced. I am not encouraging players to take loans and run off with them, that is a scummy thing to do. I just want players to know about how little protection there really is so players should ONLY give loans to people they trust such as friends. Hopefully, a more clear ruling comes out about this topic.

TLDR: Loans are a grey area in the rules and it might or might not be legal to not pay back a loan. Interest on a loan is not likely to be enforced.

 

You know it's a big deal when Ice Bear talks in first person.

 

Loan business should not exists in wynncraft, except for friend loans. Good job ice!

 

tbh loans just shouldnt be a thing since loaners could begin sharking people by charging ridiculous interest rates if they began to be actually enforced.

 

I saw a shout go out in chat the other day, advertising "Ambrosia Loans." I must say, that's an accurate name for such a business. For those who don't know, ambrosia is a food the Greek Gods would consume. Mortals who partook of the food could stomach small amounts, but if you ate too much- have fun in Hades.
The same logic applies to loans, since if you take out too many.. have fun living in the poor house.


Anyways, I hope that the rules can be properly adjusted to take loans into account. It'd also be nice to see actual punishments for scammers, beyond just forcing them to pay what they stole back. These consequences could range from banning their shouting, Trade Market, and TM discord privileges to mutes, temporary bans, and bans in extreme cases.

 

bruh

 

I feel like in general, these types of cases are heavily dependent on the cooperation of both parties. There are possibilities that certain parties don't respond in a helpful manner to try to piece the scenario, and that would make it a lot harder to solve and the unsatisfaction of the parties involved

 

this is why you ask for an item of similar value before loaning

 

Does this include agreements overseen by mods? With concrete proof on the agreement of both sides and clearly stated conditions

Edit 1:

About this, no. You lent them trusting that they will abide by the agreement. If you ran off with loaned money from the bank and spent it all, they dont just say "k moneys gone, you can go." You get arrested, even if they dont get anything back.

Banning players wouldn't be pointless as that discourages people to betray the trust people place on them. Yeah you lost money, but you prevented other players from encountering the same fate.

Edit 2: Collaterals help a bit, but wont fix it entirely, as false pcs could be used to manipulate loans in their favor and one party receives an unfavorable trade

 

Never knew Wynncraft would start to be so representative of the economy, with loan sharks, Ponzi schemes and such. Soon, we will have a fucking stock market with people short squeezing the price and stock of Archangels in order to cause massive losses for the top brass of the Wynncraft economy (you know, the same people who requested a rollback back in like December/January despite a potential rollback severely fucking over the vast majority of players. Sounds just like modern wallstreet). I can't wait for the incoming social class warfare.

 

Ice Bear says some people have already tried to buy out all of a mythic on the market and resell them for higher.

 

Check the official rules thread. We've updated the Moderator Clarification section. This is the official stance of the mod team. If a mod tells you something else, please point them to that section.

 

Hypothetically, could someone set up a bank of sorts, where people can take out loans and repay with interest in a way that is overseen by moderators, to ensure that both ends of the bargain are upheld? As in, would the moderation team be willing to become involved in such an endeavor?

 

That moment when some stupid comment I stole has more likes than the actual post

 

What?

 

?

 

Nah maybe what I said wasnt english, I meant that it’s impossible for most of mods to figure if a pc is good or not and it would take a lot of time to « train » everyone to do it. And even if this time was taken, it’s pretty impossible to know if it’s done on purpose or not. + even when u ask help about that a lot of mods don’t even care...

 

Alr basically, you can no longer trust with asking for loans got it.
Need some quick money? Heres a one time tutorial on how to get rich from tricking unsuspecting players!
Step 1 ask them for a loan and tell them youll pay a bit extra for their moneys worth since yknow they cant use it for a while (not like theyll get it back), preferably a few stacks or more (You can also borrow a mythics)
Step 2 ask a mod to oversee to make them feel its safe to do so
Step 3: Profit!
Just make sure to only do it once, or it might get classified under ponzi scheme.
If you never give returns to investors, you arent a ponzi scheme, you're just taking money directly from a loan, and as the mods say, thats not against the rules! Youre allowed not to pay back people when you owe them money.