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Omg!!! Emails Lost!!!
velqua
Member Posts: 1,220 Arc User
Yes, I know it's a bit dramatic, but I just lost all of my emails that I received prior to 3/8/2012. WTH!? Was there are an email clean up? Seriously not happy with this! A warning should have been given out about this. Gosh! Not happy! :mad:
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These e-mails are over a year old.. way over a year old, and this makes you this mad? Really?
It was probably a glitch in them trying to fix the e-mail system that they broke. But getting this irate over mails that are this old? Really?
What were on these messages, entire battleplans for the Klingon PvP for the next thousand years? Ships of pure latinum? Or something rarer, an Orion Female who is actually green and not white in color, wearing anything but a bikini?
At what point did you think that on a computer game, that's been known to be buggy as all get out, you shouldn't have backed up anything this important to you?
To keep my items safe (crosses fingers), I am placing my items in my bankers' banks.
I am not one who likes limits in a game when it comes to items.
Anyway...has anyone else had this issue?
But that's the point isn't it. It's a mail system not a free store all. Yes there should have been some warning this change was coming, but being able to store items/doffs on the mail system has been a long time exploit that is finally getting fixed. Maybe it'll finally server as a lesson to all that if you involve yourself with exploits you're gonna get burned eventually.
If you know a better way to bulk-storage doffs for later usage when you're unsure who might need what (keeping track of 10 characters plus fleet needs is a pain), and transferring said doffs between characters, all without using the mail system, and even after spending over 7k zen on doff storage slots anyways, I'd love to hear it.
This post has been edited to remove content which violates the Perfect World Entertainment Community Rules and Policies . ~syberghost
Actually it has been for well over a year now. Just because you don't use it that way doesn't mean others haven't found it highly useful for saving materials for later use whether it is commodities, doffs, or other items. It isn't an exploit unless it is against the game rules and up until this update, there was acceptance of this system and nothing stated. An exploit is utilizing a flaw in the system (such as the old starship in the shuttle mission trick). Heck, the listed features stated unlimited mail as an option so how the heck can you ever state it was an exploit?
This unannounced change disrupted the game by removing one of the few systems available for starbase construction and handling doffs. How else do you handle hundreds of doffs you may acquire while trying to track down those rare white security/med officers so many assignments need? You can't buy enough doff slots to handle this and there is no storage option beyond the 400 doff slots per character (max, can't purchase more).
Calling it an exploit is disengenous and wrong. No developer has ever stated that what we were doing was wrong. The system they designed demanded us to do it this way or have our starbases languish.
First you've said to your answer right there. Using the mail as storage for DOffs takes away money from them with zen purchases for more DOff slots. Pure and simple its a decision to make money, and if you're finding a way for them to not make money, of course they're going to fix it.
Secondly, with over 7k doff storage slots, that should put you upwards of what... 300 DOff slots? I use only 200 of mine for actual missions, if even that much, and the rest is pure storage. Blues and Greens and Purples are almost never used for fleet stations, only whites, and those are easier to keep locked in their packages, and only opened when and if needed. I have entire characters that don't even DOff anymore, they're just there for DOff storage.
Thirdly, a game company does not have to identify anything as an exploit. The mail system was never, ever intended to take the place of other storage avenues (which is why you have other storage avenues), and if you're going to try and argue that this is not the case, you'd have a better chance of selling me a bridge. Mail is there for one reason and one reason only, a communication tool to send items and messages between characters, not to store hundreds of DOffs, and take money away from them. So claiming "it's not an exploit" is either exceptionally gullible on your part, or you're just being arguementative.
:rolleyes:
An exploit is the use of a system in a way that the developers never anticipated in order to create program behavior that undermines the intent of the designers. An example would be filling an in-game mail message so full of text that it overflows the buffer on the game server and allows arbitrary code to be run.
Using the mail system for item storage was an intended feature of the mail system (just like you can do the same with gmail), not an exploit. The fact is, the developers have altered the in-game mail feature and created a lot of problems for their paying customers.
A single item (such as a lockbox ship) has an expected value of well over $100 US so the developers really cannot take a caviler attitude toward problems with items being lost in their mail system when a single in-game mail could contain nearly $1000 US worth of digital product.
Show me where using a communication tool to store items, when you have access to banks, was intended to be used as another unlimited storage space.
This is highly illogical, because if that was the case, I'm sure PWE would be selling us increased mail slots inside the zen store, instead of increased bank, account bank, and DOff slots.
They'd be shooting themselves in the foot, loosing revenue. Who in their right mind would then buy extra slots of anything, if they could use this unlimited system to store stuff.
So no, it wasn't intended for this, unless you can show me where the devs said otherwise. It was a mail system, designed to send and receive items between characters, nothing more. The fact that you choose to equate it with g-mail (which also isn't designed to store items, that's what the cloud is for), is just illogical.
I dont store regular items/equipmemt in there, I put these in banks, account, fleet or toon...
I store BOFFS and DOFFS in there. You cannot store these anywhere else.
BOFFS
Your roster is pathetically small, if you like to switch build regularly to keep things different, you need to keep very many CSV3, AUX2SIF3 etc etc BOFFS so that you can train and train again. The mail is the only way to do this.
DOFFS
I am part of a small fleet with a handful of active contributers. We have a completed embassy and are halfway between T4 and T5.
In order to send off the daily missions I need to handle around 400 white DOFFS PER DAY. THis is from buying some on the exchange, or ones that I earn from recruitment missions, but the vast majority are purchased with Fleet Marks.
We all know how broken the RNG is on these purchases (medical and sec officers are IMPOSSIBLE to get) and this means I have huge surplusses of whites that I may need the next day. I have 400 roster slots on all toons and it is still not enough for doing this. So storing doffs in the mail is the only method (NOTE: this is not storing for indefinite period of time... normally I will use the doffs I store within a week, or at the most a month when a large upgrade comes along and requires everything I have stored)
This 'FIX' that Cryptic have introduced is basically game breaking for smaller fleets such as ours. My mail is now full and wont accept anything, I cannot sort, shuffle whites for missions and all starbase progress has HALTED. It wont start again until I can start using the mail as before.
...#LLAP...
You provide zero evidence to support your claim, ergo, it should be assumed to be false until such time as you can support it with reason and factual evidence. The fact is, the mail system was created without any expiration dates for messages, any item storage limit, or any mail limits.
Occam's razor dictates that, just like most modern webmail accounts, the system was originally designed to allow users to store large amounts of messages and attachments. The most logical accounting of events is that the developers have recently made the conscious decision to no longer allow the mail system to be used as a message and item archive and thus altered the features of the in-game mail.
You do realize that is an argumentum ad ignorantiam logical fallacy, do you not?
As for the people who want to know how to hold onto large numbers of items...well that's what banks and account banks and fleet banks and multiple characters are for.
as for the doff thing.....you didn't have to open all those packs and could have stored them via the packs....but go figure....if you are greedy and decide to risk things and then complain because you knew it was a risk and decided to gamble it.
Virtual items are not real property and thus no one has an obligation to give them back.
We as players simply rent space akin to getting a movie ticket or checking out a book from a library or renting a video. And as such we all know what can happen.
I do feel bad for the OP....but if they truly lost lots of stuff for sticking into their mail and never getting it.....I cant feel too bad for the stupidity factor....sorry but that's just how it is.
If the OP or others who lost mail truly cared they would have made copies or tried to do something else like put items on a character.....they wouldn't have left them sitting in their mail slots until time immoral otherwise.
Now if the OP or others lost items in their account bank or character bank that would be a whole different thing.
Power without Perception is Spiritually useless and therefore of no true value.
=^_^=
You can only have 400 slots per character, period. No more which is woefully inadequate when trying to build a starbase. So your answer is to create more characters and accounts to manage. This requires constant switching to manage doffs to move them around to where they are needed (and you only have 100 attachments for all these accounts) making multiple log ons required. You are hamstringing what is required based on a bizzare thought that mail was an exploit.
You obviously aren't invovled in doffing in any meaningful capacity if you are suggesting this solution. I want to occasionally play the game, not spend all my time switching, and moving doffs from character to character. It is a game, not a spreedsheet simulation. And forcing me to do this will push me from the game and then they will get no money from me.
If they want sales, there are many, many solutions in other threads on the topic that would generate income for the developers and not make us use gamey solution. The simplest is, make doff slots and bank slots have unlimited purchase numbers. Let me buy 1k doff slots on a character if I want or another 60 or 120 bank slots. Hell, sell attachment increase numbers.
What myself and many other begrudge is the unnanounced elimination of a game mechanic used for years, without an adequate substition. It doesn't exist unless you are suggesting the developers want us to genearate a dozen new accounts. Maybe they do to boost their player base numbers for accounting purposes, but that is much more gamey and exploitative than using the mail as most players involved in doffing have been.
Don't want to sound too mean here...
But you do realize that star bases are designed for a fleet of players.....not a single player?
And also you do realize you can trade 4 of a rank of duty officers up for a higher rank right?
And you also realize you didn't have to open every duty officer pack you get.....and you can get free duty officers by just doing duty officer requisition missions?
Just making sure you do realize all of this....and this wouldnt make you juggle anything.
And as for the entire you need tons for a star base.....since you donate them you wouldn't need to store them because they would be gone at that point......if you are hoarding trying to have what you think you will need for the future......then why exactly you have not already used them is beyond any scope or common sense..I mean.....I realize it takes a few days to have a base finish some activity when you fulfill it.....but sitting on that many duty officers means you had ample time to already complete the base.
Power without Perception is Spiritually useless and therefore of no true value.
=^_^=
Under American common law, a Roll's Royce is not real property either, but that does not mean that it has no monetary value or that the owner does not have the legal right to the property they purchased.
I can only assume that you wrote "real property" when what you truly meant to write was tangible property. If that is the case, I should bring to your attention the fact that simply because something is a service or a piece of intangible property does not mean that, "no one has an obligation to give it back." The obligation would be up to a judge to determine, not you, I, or Perfect World.
Power without Perception is Spiritually useless and therefore of no true value.
=^_^=
The OP and all effected people need to just contact the tech support and have them data mine and get the information back for them.
And they had best hurry or the data might get erased as I am not sure what these games
use as a time frame for keeping track of old data.
And if I where them I would maybe try to get ahold of a live person for this.....because I am not sure email would be very timely.
Only reason I even just thought of this....is because of something about a year ago that happened.....I think I recall something being given to all players via in game email...and some players either didn't get it, erased it by accident, or something like that.....and so as I recall they where told to contact support.
Power without Perception is Spiritually useless and therefore of no true value.
=^_^=
Excuse me, you do realize that trading 5 doffs for 1 of the higher ranks costs 500 dil to do once. And the result is 1 doff with minimal value on the exchange. Lets say I was doing a normal run of 200 boxes and I got 50 medical and 150 science. To process those 150 officer via reassignment, it would cost me 15,000 dilithium for 30 green officers. If you think that is a wise investment in dil, I have a bridge I am looking to unload for a very reasonable amount of Zen. If it cost me 1500 dil, I mgiht consider it, but 2 days worth of refining on 1 character, to get rid of 150 science isn't a wise use of dilithium in my estimation.
Second. I am in a larger fleet, but getting those medical and security doffs are really really really hard. Many don't want to do it or are less effective, so unless you use doff purchases on the starbase the assignments can lag quite a bit. Getting the last 20 or 30 medical doffs or security doffs can result in 100 of the tactical or science types which you then have to deal with. The standard method was to store them and use them when a new assignment opened up, but that takes time.
The doffs are not needed in equal numbers and do not appear exactly when needed. I can't sell them fast enough or store them now. I am not hording, I am trying to use the resources I PAID FOR in fleet credits, ec, or time. I don't want 100 white doffs, but I don't want to flush them down the toilet either.
The point is that the mail system has had changes other than a deletion problem fix WITHOUT NOTICE, and items in the mail system have gone missing.
It doesn't matter if the mail contained stored items, were archived empty mails or had items in transit between characters.
They have been removed of deleted without a warning, and there was nothing in the patch notes other than a "mail system fix" for the inability to delete mails.
Most games have a time limit on in game mail systems, I operated on the assumption that this one did too.
It seems that it didn't, and so players using it to store items can hardly be an exploit, as they were simply using a facility that was there either by oversight or design by the developers.
Players who had simply sent a mail with an item to a friend or alt that has not been opened yet can hardly be said to be using this as an exploit. Yet those items could easily have been deleted too.
If Cryptic were going to wipe the mail, it should have been announced in the patch notes, giving people a chance to retrieve their items.
If the mail wipe was an unintended consequence of the "mail fix", then that's Cryptic's fault and items should be restored asap.
And do you realize from one single duty officer mission you get 25 dilithium since you can do 20 at a time and complete them within an hour if you take the right ones that means you make 500 per hour simply from that if you want to be lazy. From a single sitting in the que mission you can make 1000 dilithium by fighting some borg. And a catgirl pointed out to me the other day.....if you have a specific mission you can get 25,000 dilithium once per day which takes about 30 minutes....of course you need a specific reputation, which I don't have.
As for trading in the bridge officers taking dilithium....not one of the star fleet officers located in the star fleet accedemy asked me for that....nor did the Klingon ones...so not sure where you are getting the dilithium costs like that.
And the requisition missions don't cost any dilithium at all....though they do need to have good duty officers involved in them or else you will always get a white one.
But then you can always trade 4 in for an adorian of higher grade.....or maybe a Vulcan or one of the other races....not sure where they all are in the star fleet academy.
<had to edit this bit in>
The only reason I even know about this....is because I have been trying for a long time to convert my entire duty officer regiment on one character to ferengi...but since the trade in gives random officers...and since it takes time to get more and I have been addicted to playing differing characters instead....this is one of my longer duration sort of goals in the game...I wont tell you how many times I have gotten a ferengi doctor duty officer by trading in four white ones......lets just say I now wonder if I ever need medical treatment on my own ship.....I wonder how much latinum it would take to get good care.
Power without Perception is Spiritually useless and therefore of no true value.
=^_^=
Considering I am a life time subscriber I buy every bank and Doff expansion going how in any realistic way can I run an alt with a 10 mail limit imposed on each alt by having an account wide 100 item limit
If the limit was per character I could understand 1 character =100 item mailbox.
10 characters = 1000 itemmail box not 10 items per character
I paid for my character slots why are my extra characters treated like second class characters
Fine factual and reasonable evidence... I'll provide mine, where's yours. All I see is basically saying "I'm right, and you're not until you prove it..." so I'll prove it.
First fact... there is a bank system in the game designed to hold items. This is both a character and account wide banks.
Second fact... these banks are not infinite in space. They are restricted, and can only be expanded upon by spending zen or by getting a gold account.
Third fact... there is a DOff storage system in game, designed to hold DOffs.
Forth fact... this storage space is not infinite in space. It is restricted, and can only be expanded upon by spending zen.
Fifth fact... there is a BOff storage system in game, designed to hold BOffs.
Sixth fact... this system is not infinite in space. It is restricted, and can only be expanded upon by leveling up, or by spending zen.
Seventh fact... there is a mail system. Call it what you want, massage system, communication system, mail system. It is not a storage system. By definition, mail, messages, or communication systems are not designed to store items or messages, but to transport messages from one local to another.
Eighth fact... on game launch, no bank or bag was infinite in storage space. All cost something, even EC to expand upon reaching max level.
These are facts.
The next requires logic. Something that you seem to be in short supply of, regardless of your name.
PWE would not put in place an infinite account wide storage space, that cost zero anything to use, that all players have access too, regardless of subscription, when they have restricted all other storage spaces behind purchases of money or zen.
Okay so there's my proof... where's yours?
To the OP and anyone else hit by this problem: I do feel bad for you, regardless of what you were saving the mail and or items for. Regardless of how you look at it, all of these people were using the system as it worked and any loss of mail, with or without attachments, must be extremely frustrating. Though I doubt your mail and/or items can or will be recovered, I do feel bad for you.
To those that argue it is NOT an exploit: Technically speaking, using the system in a manner other than what it was designed for IS an exploit. The mail system was never designed as a "storage" area. Now, before the argument begins (again) that there was never a time limit, item limit, etc, etc; let me point out that the lack thereof does not constitute an intent by Cryptic for it to be used as "storage." The intent therein was to allow users plenty of time to recover any items sent through mail either from themselves, another player, or the exchange. Do keep in mind there was not originally an Account Bank and character to character transfer within an account was done through mail. The idea was to allow players time, not provide an unlimited storage source. However, due to the mail system being used as extra storage, Cryptic has taken measures to stop what is an exploitative practice. However, they have not outright called it such, made a big issue of it, nor punished any player for doing so because it was a design flaw of their making. Were it to be an intentional exploit initiated or created by a player or players, they would punish, but they can't very well punish players for an exploit they created themselves. So it is an exploit, but a dev created one. Because it has been exploited, the devs have decided to remedy the situation. Obviously if it had been intended for storage use, nothing would have been done.
To those who are commenting against those that used the mail exploit: Keep in mind that exploit they used has been there since launch. Bashing them for using it despite its long existence makes no sense. Had the devs come in and asked players not to do so and stated intentions to fix it, and they still used it, then you might have reason to complain. However, you can't blame them for making use of what resources they can since it was available. I'm not condoning such actions, but I also won't condemn, insult, or otherwise harass someone for doing so, especially when the system was left that way for over 3 years. Do try to show patience regardless of your own opinion.
Again, for those this fix has inconvenienced, I do feel for you. Regardless of my opinion, I am sorry to hear it has created problems. I hope you are able to recover one way or another.
7th Joint Task Force
Third Reserve Flotilla
House of Sigma
Your facts are overwhelmed by the fact that mail system they implimented was listed as being unlimited (as shown here and still showed as unlimited: http://sto.perfectworld.com/about/freetoplay/features-matrix. Add to it the fact that the present system of virtually unlimited mail has been in effect for over a year without it being addressed. Also the mail as I understood it previously had a limiit of about 2500 attachments so it wasn't exactly unlimited but most people don't have a need for that storage.
Your facts do not support your conclusion that it was intended. Storage options in game are limited so no more can be acquired once purchase limits are reached. Purchased slots were a convience to have them the items readily available. Mail is inconvient as it can only be accessed at limited terminals so it was less effective for those on the go compared to bank.
Furthermore, you overlooked 1 key fact. Fact 9, the mail system wasn't changed until it was implimented in Neverwinter and other PWE games. It is the perfect world mailing system that is insanely across platform that led to the mail foulups now and the present limitation.
It is clear that the facts support a conclusion that this change was unintended, implimented for another game and imposed on us, without any understanding how this will impact players. As the developers cannot change it for one game, it is forced on us to preserve the design of their new game. An arbitrary limit of 100 attachments across all accounts is woefully inadequate for doffing, exchange sales, and moving items around if you have more than a handful of characters on a given account. It punishes people for consolidating characters on one account.
All many of us want is a recognition of these issues and an ingame solution to address the problems it created. Whether that is purchasing attachments. Unlocking storage restrictions so we can purcahse additional storage, or another in game mechanic. However the present system had negatively affected many players without any adequate means of continuing play in game areas such as starbase construction and doffing.
What do I do? Nothing, I trim my stuff down until I fit the limits. I'm in a smallish fleet, and I've found 400 duty officer slots to be more then enough for my fleets needs. Of course I'm not carrying the entire burden of my fleet either, trying to do all 400 DOffs per mission either on my own.
Items, each of my characters generally have a primary build, an alt build, and a rarely used tertiary build. I have yet to run out of bank slots. Most of my ship items that I need are kept on other ships, that you generally get for free anyway. Bridge Officers, I sit on a minimum of 12 per character, that's without the BO slot increase. That gives me 2 completely different builds if I want it, and two more BOs that can be traded in as necessary. If I needed more, I can always buy more BO slots, those aren't really all that big of a deal. The ones I get for DOffing, generally are junk anyway, and go on the auction for EC.
Most of my characters can get away with 200 DOffs. If you're dedicated to DOffing, you'll max out DOff missions pretty quickly, then you can keep the DOffs you want just for those rare DOff missions that give you cool stuff. The rest can be executed for incompetence, sent off as changling spies, or what have you. Then all 150 slots you open up, become pure white Doffs for the fleet.
Now, If I had unlimited funds? I'd make more characters, each one maxed out in the above items, to hold all my stuff, until I didn't need any more.
Read again. It says you have unlimited ACCESS to the mail system, as per your link, not unlimited mail. Which means you can always enter and use the mail system. No where does it say you can have unlimited STORAGE on the mail system.
Unless you can find me another definition for the word ACCESS which is a synonym for STORAGE, your rebutal is faulty, not my facts.
As to Neverwinter being the cause, that may be true, or it simply may be true that they've been intending to fix this EXPLOIT for quite some time, but decided to wait until LoR came out with its expanded systems.
You theory however has no facts other then timing to support it.
Edit: Hmm... this was supposed to be an edit, not its own new post
If I recall correctly, the mail system was also limited to 500 items. There was and is still no way to increase that and no way to store the doffs that the game requires.
Thus a feature that was touted as "unlimited" in Cryptics own words is one of the following:
* False advertising.
* Not fit for purpose.
* A lie that has subsequently been revealed.
* All the above.
Cryptic and Pwe have every right to do whatever they like with and to their products. What they do not have the right to do is obtain money by deception, which is what this could be legally interpreted as.
If you claim that something is unlimited, then it must be exactly that. Otherwise you are legally required to list it as large, and accompany that with a full and clear list of all the limitations.
Sig by my better half.