New Shard Instead of Wipe

sshate

Just make a new shard for people who want to start over fresh. Give each player the option to wipe their own characters to get all the Z and Founder/Promo items they bought with real money re-credited to their account (though it's a 1-time choice before they log back in to avoid exploit).

For the rest of us who feel that cleaning up dirty accounts is enough. We can have the option to stay.

I think it's easy to track down all the dirty accounts if they simply track the IP logs and mail logs (I know they most likely have this due to earlier issue of ghosting old mails). Furthermore, expired AH listing are ghosting on client, so that means AH listings also don't get removed after expiring. This is not Cryptic's first MMO. Hunting down the cheaters is just a matter of several SQL scripts. Just because the programmer who wrote the AH exploit was unthoughtful, doesn't mean the server/DB engineers are not great at what they do. The economy might still suffer some after-effect but IMO, inflation was inevitable with the way AD is given out in truck-load amounts through dailies, skirmish, and professions. I'd bite the slightly sped up inflation rate than to grind through the same 1-30 content yet again. lol

j0mberwaki

They're going to bring all the shards together upon launch, I thought? What point would a fourth shard be when those very same players would be returned at that point? This is strictly on the basis that "I thought" and "full merge".



Also, I think it'd be kinda cool if everyone would stop making their own 'WELL THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED AND I WANNA SAY' because I'm pretty sure there's a sticky somewhere that says don't do that - unless the mods changed it, which... idk anymore.

mcleod71

what would b the point the sploiters would just roll tons there too

j0mberwaki

mcleod71 wrote: »

what would b the point the sploiters would just roll tons there too

Also a valid point. A new shard doesn't solve all of NW's exploit problems. There's probably some left to be found out, and many more will continue trying... There needs to be something, but first - ban the baddies.

sshate

When population gets so low that they merge all the server, all the rich players (legit or not) with 100,000,000 AD and mules full of purple-clad lvl 60s will have moved on to the next hot game. This happens with all the MMOs ever made. I strongly believe that majority of dirty AD will be removed. Lingering effects of this circus will be trivial compared to the amount of AD that are generated through daily, events, and professions over the next several months or year.

If anything, farmers with 100 free accounts chaining professions on Gateway using script is real problem that people are not (yet) rioting about.

scalretdoom

They can still convert their AD to Zen and move to new server with Zen

j0mberwaki

sshate wrote: »

When population gets so low that they merge all the server, all the rich players (legit or not) with 100,000,000 AD and mules full of purple-clad lvl 60s will have moved on to the next hot game. This happens with all the MMOs ever made. I strongly believe that majority of dirty AD will be removed. Lingering effects of this circus will be trivial compared to the amount of AD that are generated through daily, events, and professions over the next several months or year.

If anything, farmers with 100 free accounts chaining professions on Gateway using script is real problem that people are not (yet) rioting about.

Yes, but... There's still no point for a new shard, I don't see why PW/Cryptic/Whoever would make that decision just yet. Exploiters would move to that server just like any other server and nothing would be gained.

sshate

Cheaters and Hackers will always be there. You can only play cat-n-mouse game, and try to minimize damage every time it happens. Until online taboo have real-life consequences, cheating will always be an everything-to-gain-nothing-to-lose endeavor.

sshate

j0mberwaki wrote: »

Yes, but... There's still no point for a new shard, I don't see why PW/Cryptic/Whoever would make that decision just yet. Exploiters would move to that server just like any other server and nothing would be gained.

Giving your paying customers what makes them happy is always the most ideal solution, rational/efficient or not. A new shard allow BOTH camps of players to get what they want.

sshate

scalretdoom wrote: »

They can still convert their AD to Zen and move to new server with Zen

AD is the limiting factor in the economy. Zen is not. They would never design a system that puts a cap on their income. No. That part was very cleverly designed and thoughtfully tested/implemented.