The online racing simulator
Hackers alert / license rental
(189 posts, closed, started )
Quote from P V L :The problem is that more than one person uses the same account, not the TC economy.

I think you are not seeing my point (that took me a long time to understand) that the reason someone allows multiple people to use the same account, is to gain TC money. And this only happens, because there is a real world value applied to TC money.

Quote from P V L :And yes, of course it would be a great issue for TC if we could not send any cash between accounts.

Why "of course" ? I really don't know why you have to be able to donate money, but I am interested, which is why I asked. Big grin

Sometimes if a feature does more harm than good, things get better when it is removed. Smile
You may not get it, I got a very long experience and a good feeling what changes may cause.

If TC would disable the ability to send cash its possible its gone in some months, at least

almost dead. Many people may not agree with my view to future but its what I see. P V L.
Quote from P V L :You may not get it, I got a very long experience and a good feeling what changes may cause.

If TC would disable the ability to send cash its possible its gone in some months, at least

almost dead. Many people may not agree with my view to future but its what I see. P V L.

Maybe money transfers can be monitored?
Quote from RealistAdam :

In fact, trading is a must to play any game (online rp games). Where there is no trade, the server crashes.



that's what i meant
It will be difficult to track money transfers. To prevent this from being detected, they send small amounts of money or within a certain period of time. The only way to change this system is to introduce the barter system. I don't know if there is this Tc server. I'm a new player, but roleplay servers usually have a barter system. Giving money in exchange for a product. In this way, perhaps the rental account system can be solved. (As I said, the TC server is in English and I do not know many things. Maybe this system I mentioned exists. I have never seen it.) I gave this information based on RP games.
Quote from Scawen :Your account is one of nearly 40 accounts known to be temporarily taken by this person. The number was around 20 a few days ago.

We still don't know where the passwords have come from. It looks like old data. They make several attempts, usually failing but then they find one that works. This is why I suggest people should change their passwords if they haven't been changed for a long time.

In several cases the person has logged into the website as well. I guess sometimes the web password is similar to the game password.

Have you, in the past, entered your details into one of the Russian or Brazilian pirate servers, or any other website? Have you installed software for LFS purposes, from a source that you couldn't really trust 100% or anything else?

I don't want to write the list of accounts that have been compromised, but I would like to know where the hacker has got his info.

I was playing in Pereul*k project, so that could be reason
Quote from 0033549 :I was playing in Pereul*k project, so that could be reason

Thanks for the information. Thumbs up

I don't need more info from you now, but would like to know if any of the other affected people have similar information.
Stopping money transfers between players would simply crash the TC economy which has been working (pretty well) for all the years the server has been operating. From how I see it, a group of people who join the TC servers are taking advantage of this system by having multiple people contribute to the virtual income of a single account. This virtual income is then sold to other players who don't wish to grind the virtual money themselves (so they can buy vehicles or accessories for example), in exchange for actual real-life currencies.

In all honesty, it seems a little unfair to suggest to potentially destroy the entire server economy simply because of this specific issue. The TC staff are already working on alleviating the issue, perhaps the fastest way to solve this would be to have some conversation between the hosts of the TC servers and the LFS devs as there is surely a workaround solution that can clear up this issue without sabotaging a server that many players actively cherish.
Quote from Scawen :Thanks. Do you think there would be any real harm to TC if you could not donate money between accounts? As if I understand correctly, that should prevent the purchase of TC money by lazy people who aren't playing in the spirit intended.


Apparently it does, if I understand correctly, because part of the reason for existence of rented accounts is to gain TC money. Rented accounts don't really make much money from the rental charge, but the account owner gains TC money, which they can sell to rich lazy players.

So apparently the TC economy and its crossover to the real world is fueling the rental account phenomenon. Looking

Not even the craziest use of game economies. For a while, people used Team Fortress 2 (and other Steam games) to launder money. Buy items with stolen credit cards and then sell them for real cash off-market. The volume of transactions was fairly high.
Very entertaining how long it took our Developer to understand why people pay real € for € in a virtual currency (TC Cash). This happens in pretty much every game with ingame currencies/values/items.

It has nothing to do with rented accounts - in fact, if accounts are rented and people earn TC Cash and sell it to other users to earn real money they can eventually buy their own, NEW LFS license (stonks for our bike-boy and Victor vV).

Also, since it's been mentioned wrong few times. 1€ is around 10.000 TC Cash and not 1.000.

Greetings from the Cash Dealer on [TC] (Total TC Cash sold: 10,008,886 for 993.84 €)
Quote from hsvdin0 :Also, since it's been mentioned wrong few times. 1€ is around 10.000 TC Cash and not 1.000.

Thanks, I've corrected it in my post and quotes of it.
Quote from Vilix :Stopping money transfers between players would simply crash the TC economy

So simple, you can't even explain it?

Just like PVL you can only say "of course" or "simply" but you don't give a single example of why it's necessary.

Quote from Vilix :In all honesty, it seems a little unfair to suggest to potentially destroy the entire server economy

Who suggested that? If you are referring to me, you are mistaken. I have repeatedly asked why it is necessary to allow money transfer between players, but have not received an answer yet.

Quote from hsvdin0 :It has nothing to do with rented accounts - in fact

Before commenting, maybe you should read back a few pages, and you will start to understand there is a link to rental accounts.

Repeat: It appears that the rental accounts are a tool for illegal account pirates (called 'owners') who rent out their accounts to gain TC money which they then sell for real money. This is a criminal activity enabled by TC money transfers. That is a fact, not an opinion. Even if you don't like it, it's still a fact. Don't fall into the modern human thing of denying things just because you don't like that they are true.
I think maybe from lfspro
Unfortunately, I started this one thread about two separate subjects which are probably not related.

For the password subject, I have now started a new thread: https://www.lfs.net/forum/thread/107278
Scawen, malicious intends apart, money is used in a number of ways on roleplay servers: like buying cars/items/properties, trading cars/items/properties, sending a small amount of money as an apology for a crash, etc.
Money enables trading between players, which in addition to property exchange, give some sort of links between players.

As described above, virtual money holds value to who are interested.

It's not rare to see "real" items/currency being exchanged for virtual gains.
And that seems to be true for any kind of game with in game trading.

Sorry for my undetailed view point. Smile
Quote from Scawen :
Before commenting, maybe you should read back a few pages, and you will start to understand there is a link to rental accounts.

Repeat: It appears that the rental accounts are a tool for illegal account pirates (called 'owners') who rent out their accounts to gain TC money which they then sell for real money. This is a criminal activity enabled by TC money transfers. That is a fact, not an opinion. Even if you don't like it, it's still a fact. Don't fall into the modern human thing of denying things just because you don't like that they are true.

I told you in my comment already what the "link" is. Poor people who can't afford their license rent an account, pay rent (TC Cash) and with the excess they made they can eventually buy their NEW OWN license by selling their TC Cash to people like me. Eventually, a brand new paid license for you instead of no new licences cause some people can't afford it.

If you still don't get this and only see negative aspects of the abiliy of buying/selling/sending TC Cash I don't really feel like explaining anything further makes sense to a person who apparently can't imagine why people would even spend real money in something virtual.

Also it surprised me how you stopped my quote after "in fact", while actually "in fact, (...)" starts an addition with another point I made and I did not use it to say the first part of my sentence is a fact. Now this probably comes down to me not being a native english speaker, but I'm pretty sure you now realize what I was saying.
Just another thing that may be worth mentioning:

Don't use the same username and same password that you use for your LFS account on any website that requires you to register when it comes to website from LFS (Not talking about TC OR LFS ITSELF)

I've known people that would not encrypt people's information when registering to a forum or a website that would basically just steal their account and change the password.

Just a tip that people should follow.
Quote from hsvdin0 :If you still don't get this

Just a quick note, it's you who doesn't get what's going on, but I won't explain again.
Quote from Scawen :So simple, you can't even explain it?

Just like PVL you can only say "of course" or "simply" but you don't give a single example of why it's necessary.


I apologize, I assumed it was understood why it was such an important part of the economy but I'll explain it then.

The TC Economy is circular. It promotes player interactions and roleplaying opportunities which most of the time involve an exchange of money or items or vehicles. For example, one of the biggest "jobs" a player can act as is a Tow or Medical car, which is a job that helps players who are flipped or stuck in certain places and cannot move. The Tow and Med job can use certain tools to save and unflip the vehicle, and usually this interaction is finished with a generous donation from the person who has been saved to the rescuer.

TC also has a complete marketplace economy, where players can sell, buy and trade second-hand vehicles that have been put up on the market. Money-transfers promotes bargaining and clever trading and negotiation between players that wish to exchange vehicles or items (items being a winch for example for a tow vehicle, or a garage space so you can purchase more cars).

Players can also send each other money if they are friends or in a dedicated team (usually to help out someone buy a new vehicle) or if someone happens to crash into you, they can use a command that reimburses the person with some money depending on the severity of the crash. The list of examples that show money-transfers between players is crucial goes on and on, but I think these examples illustrate it well enough.

Removing this feature would mean that certain jobs like Tow or Med which I've mentioned would become obsolete, as there would be no compensation opportunities available. There would be no trading between players so that people can experience different cars or items. There would be no reimbursement system if you accidentally crash into someone. There are many more examples of why it's a poor decision to remove this feature, and if this hasn't convinced you then please talk to the TC staff about it.
People just don't understand some things, they have the mindset that I can buy S3 the easy way. Smile
It is always a mistake to transfert shitty concept from the real world into virtual ones.
Who need cops & robbers when we can simply race ?
Who needs money when everything is already available for free ?

Why didn't you TC guys break the money mess at first sign of abuse ? because u believe it is a normal part of this world. Simple.
U even call it "economy", wich tells a lot about your model and references.

As long as people think that money is an elementary particle of the cosmos and things can't exist without it, we are screwed.
Quote from turbofan :
Who need cops & robbers when we can simply race ?

that's rich coming from the admin of the parking server lol
I see a few people wearing blinders. The meaning of the idiom means not being able to perceive or evaluate things around him well. He cannot see anything objectively. For this reason, this expression means not being objective or understanding events as one wishes.
Quote from Vilix :I apologize, I assumed it was understood why it was such an important part of the economy but I'll explain it then.

Thanks for taking the time to give examples to paint a fuller picture.

I suppose most of the things you mention (jobs/repairs/trade of items) could be done using fixed prices and that would provide the fun without the unbridled capitalism that appears to be currently corrupting the server and replicating real world inequality.

I like (or should that be 'liked' in the past tense) that in LFS, after buying a license, everyone is equal. There are reasons why we don't have prices on items you can add. I mean, reasons other than us developers being idiots for not squeezing the community for every penny they are worth, like many other game companies do. I actually like creating an environment where people can race or play free from consideration of real life finances.

So I'm sad to see that money and corruption is creeping into LFS servers and creating incentives to abuse our license system.

Quote from turbofan :As long as people think that money is an elementary particle of the cosmos and things can't exist without it, we are screwed.

Agreed! Big grin
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Hackers alert / license rental
(189 posts, closed, started )
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