keep this short players who look for ways to use stuff not as intended
happens more in the foundry, PVP and STF'S
the big one is with PYP ground with daily 1440 dilthium where they do private
and stand at spawn kills team till mission is over quick do it 2 more times that is cheap
Your explanation has nothing to do with whether a behavior is correctly defined as an exploit or not.
The only relevant question is whether the developers intended that there be a limit to the storage capacity of the mail system? Given that mail has been widely used for storage since launch and that, in those three years, Cryptic never attempted to place any limits on such program behavior, the most logical conclusion is that the mail behavior was intentional and that it did not represent an exploit.
Just to reiterate, the definition of an exploit is the end-user purposefully causing a program to behave in a way that was UNINTENDED by the developers.
Most use the mail to store Doffs. Doffs were not in the game originally. Additionally one can now purchase additional capacity to have more doffs on their character. That means the original factors that led to the decision to allow unlimited mail store have changed dramatically. Additionally I would wager the amount of players using it and the amount that they are using it has increased by several factors.
Cryptic had to redesign the mail system as they have stated it is all new code. During this redesign they decided allowing unlimited storage with mail was no longer intended.
Many exploits are ignored by devs if they stay under the radar either because they do not notice them, or because player behavior does not make the exploit a big enough problem to devote resources to fixing it or harming those who are not exploiting it as much as others.
Case in point, console clickie daily foundry mission. It was always an exploit, however the harm that could be caused by removing them combined with the resources it would take ment that they allowed players to continue to use them for quite some time. Eventually though the stars aligned and a combination of massive numbers of players exploiting them and the resources to close the exploit became available. The result was the dilithium exchange rate plummeting from high 300s to low 100s even after additional sources of dilithium were created. Much complaining occurred and yet the change remains with us.
I would hazard a guess the mail change is similar. It reached the point where it needed closed due to how many players were using the system to gain massive amounts of unintended storage and it was creating too much stress on the database for the game's health. Additionally it was likely a very small number of players abusing the system with massive numbers of stored doffs.
In the end this thread does not matter. The decision has been made. At best the limit mit may be increased. We can argue semantics until the sun goes down. It will change nothing.
Going from unlimited to 100 ... and introducing a email bug where you can't delete email ... and having a bug that duplicates mail ... and having a bug where expired items disappear.
Need I go on. Making it limited is understandable .... the silly / stupid mistakes and bugs ... not so much.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
No, it means they had more important things to do than mess with the mail system (until it crashed).
think: small company, bug-ridden game, limited manpower, do we fix game-breaking bugs, or fine-tune peripheral systems that SEEM to be running 'okay', do we work on revenue-generating content to keep the doors open, or do we fine-tune peripheral non-game functions that seem to be doing 'okay'...do we-holy **** it crashed!!! FIX IT NOW!!
so they fix it, and discover that there is a hole that cuts into the revenue stream. Free Bank slots, unlimited. Yah, they're gonna fix that, because of two things:
1. The system CRASHED. Twice during peak hours.
2. the unlimited archiving it enabled was cutting into sales of actual, revenue-generating material.
This is a no-brainer, both in how it happened, and why they changed it.
Your statement is speculative and you provide zero evidence to support it. The facts are:
1)The developers designed the mail system to behave this way
2) The developers allowed the mail system to continue to behave this way for three years.
Occam's razor dictates that the simplest hypothesis, that the system was working as the developers intended it to work until they chose to alter the behavior of the system, is the most probable explanation.
Your conclusion is illogical because Occam's razor combined with Baysean inference dictates that for your conclusion to be accepted, you must demonstrate additional evidence clearly supporting your claim, which you have failed to do. Ergo, your conclusion is unsupported and should be rejected.
Have you ever had to put off doing something because something else was a higher priority? Just because Mail happened to be low-priority for three years does NOT mean it was "working as intended", merely that "it's not so broken we have to devote time to fixing it among all the other crises, issues, and problems that are HIGHER priority."
Do you have any evidence that it was, "put off" for three, or does your statement amount to nothing more than idle speculation?
1)The developers designed the mail system to behave this way
And anticipated that abuse of that would be limited in scope and easily contained if it became a problem. Which admittedly they should have realized was a mistake the first time it resulted in the mail database having to be wiped and many people losing items; they should have decreased the limit from 500 to 100 then.
2) The developers allowed the mail system to continue to behave this way for three years.
During most of which time it performed acceptably, with the two exceptions mentioned.
The fact that something is not given priority for a fix doesn't mean it's not a problem; it just means there are bigger concerns. This one got increased in priority because it became a worse problem than it had been, and this time they determined that decreasing the limit was necessary to avoid having this problem a third time.
The bugs introduced in those changes underscore the state the email database had gotten into. Folks are very lucky that the worst problem most had was inability to delete mail, not loss of mail. It's unfortunate that some did experience lost mails; if so many people hadn't been using the mail as infinite bank space, which is clearly unintended or there wouldn't BE a bank, it wouldn't have happened. It's equally true that if Cryptic had decreased the limit years ago, it also wouldn't have happened.
The fact they should have done this years ago doesn't mean they shouldn't have done it now.
Former moderator of these forums. Lifetime sub since before launch. Been here since before public betas. Foundry author of "Franklin Drake Must Die".
Your statement is speculative and you provide zero evidence to support it. The facts are:
1)The developers designed the mail system to behave this way
2) The developers allowed the mail system to continue to behave this way for three years.
Occam's razor dictates that the simplest hypothesis, that the system was working as the developers intended it to work until they chose to alter the behavior of the system, is the most probable explanation.
Your conclusion is illogical because Occam's razor combined with Baysean inference dictates that for your conclusion to be accepted, you must demonstrate additional evidence clearly supporting your claim, which you have failed to do. Ergo, your conclusion is unsupported and should be rejected.
Quod Erat Demonstrandum
Are you serious?
This is about a change in some MMO mail system because people were using it as free storage.
I mean if losing this obviously amazing method of storage is so terrible that it just ruins the game for you to the point where you need to write essays detailing logic and the nuances of arguments then you should probably recheck your priorities.
Regardless, I never used this 'method' of storage because I saw it as incredibly insecure and likely to drop out at any moment, as well as the possibility of it deleting my items because it wasn't designed for long-term storage (which, surprise, it did both!)
Hate to be the person that says 'It doesn't affect me so I don't care' but really if you depended on this then its on you for not planning ahead.
To exploit an enemy i.e You catch them by suprised using flanking and then fire your secondary shot which does more damage and has a change to reduce their damage resistance something like that I guess.
"Omega Class will prevail she cannot be defeated!"
An exploit, is whenever you are not a guy who PvP's often, and then beat the TRIBBLE out of a regular PvP'er.
Also known as cheating or Hack/Hax.
The difference between hack and exploit is pretty simple.
A hack is something like an aimbot, you 'TRIBBLE' the game to provide you an advantage, you repurposed something using assets outside of the game environment.
An exploit is gaining an advantage inside of the game environment using something like a glitch, a bug, etc.
For example, me aimbotting and using other outside programs to make me better in something like call of duty, is HACKING
Me glitching out of the map so that I can shoot people through the map's walls without them seeing me, is EXPLOITING.
Does STO have a special dictionary or does an "Exploit" still require a GLITCH or VULNERABILITY? I'm constantly seeing efficient or large scale use of features in this game being called exploits even though they don't fit Webster's/Wikipedia/or any other definition of one outside of STO. "Was not the intended use." is the only criteria that apparently matters here. By that standard, ANYTHING in game could instantly be called one. I don't know whether to blame players or devs on this one. Thoughts?
Nah it obviously have to have a profit with a negative impact on others.
If I found a bug in the mail system that crashed my pc and did it 200 times in a row I wouldn't get a ban.
If I found a bug in the foundry that let me farm 40,000 dil in 20 minutes I would.
And as far as the mail system goes of course it was un-intentional. When they sit there and sell bank slots (which is ridiculous to me) they quite obviously know the importance people put on item storage.
In addition I know the mail system was an error because I had several additional bugs with it outside not being able to delete mails.
/edit.
Ps. I should say have* because those bugs are still there
Your statement is speculative and you provide zero evidence to support it. The facts are:
1)The developers designed the mail system to behave this way
2) The developers allowed the mail system to continue to behave this way for three years.
Occam's razor dictates that the simplest hypothesis, that the system was working as the developers intended it to work until they chose to alter the behavior of the system, is the most probable explanation.
Your conclusion is illogical because Occam's razor combined with Baysean inference dictates that for your conclusion to be accepted, you must demonstrate additional evidence clearly supporting your claim, which you have failed to do. Ergo, your conclusion is unsupported and should be rejected.
Quod Erat Demonstrandum
I really don't mean any disrespect here, but I really think what you're describing is most certainly not the simplest explanation. It's extremely speculative and makes some massive assumptions.
The facts are this:
1. A system was in place without an added limitation.
It's complete and total speculation (and probably wrong speculation) to assert that the exclusion of something was intentional. Unlimited space isn't something they have to actively add; limitations require the extra work. What they did was exclude something, which most certain is not evidence of intent. They literally excluded thousands of things in this game; most of which are because they simply didn't think of it.
If anything, it's evidence that they either didn't think of it or didn't expect people to use it in this manner. The fact that they did add limitations to every other storage application in the entire game strongly suggests this was not intentional.
2. They left the system as it was for years.
Again, to assume this meant they wanted it used this way is a gross assumption. The simplest explanation is that they didn't see it as a problem worth addressing yet.
Let me say again that I mean absolutely no disrespect, but your assertions are pretty much the opposite of Occam's razor. The simplest explanation based on all the evidence is that it was either an oversight or something they didn't expect to be used. You keep ignoring the fact that every other storage unit in the entire game has limits and has had limits since the game launched.
I really don't mean any disrespect here, but I really think what you're describing is most certainly not the simplest explanation. It's extremely speculative and makes some massive assumptions.
The facts are this:
1. A system was in place without an added limitation.
It's complete and total speculation (and probably wrong speculation) to assert that the exclusion of something was intentional. Unlimited space isn't something they have to actively add; limitations require the extra work. What they did was exclude something, which most certain is not evidence of intent.
If anything, if evidence that they either didn't think of it or didn't expect people to use it in this manner. The fact that they did add limitations to every other storage application in the entire game strongly suggests this was not intentional.
2. They left the system as it was for years.
Again, to assume this meant they wanted it use is a gross assumption. The simplest explanation is that they didn't see it as a problem worth addressing yet.
Let me say again that I mean absolutely no disrespect, but your assertions are pretty much the opposite of Occam's razor. The simplest explanation based on all the evidence is that it was either an oversight or something they didn't expect to be used. You keep ignoring the fact that every other storage unit in the entire game has limits and has had limits since the game launched.
You are in error. It is Bayesian probability. Per Bayesian probability we must assume that features in the game have a higher probability of functioning as intended by the developers than of being unintended.
Please familiarize yourself with the difference. I suggest reading the book Bayesian Theory by Jose Bernardo and Adrian Smith.
Also, familiarize yourself with Occam's razor. I suggest starting with the book, The Logic of Scientific Discovery by Karl Popper and I can make additional recommendations once you finish it.
My hypothesis requires only one assumption, an assumption that is supported both by the evidence and by Bayesian probability.
The alternative hypothesis, on the other hand, requires one assumption that is not supported by Baysean probability and one assumption for which there is no evidence. So it is a less valid hypothesis on its face, but Occam's razor further delegitimizes it based upon the need to incorporate an additional assumption.
And anticipated that abuse of that would be limited in scope and easily contained if it became a problem. Which admittedly they should have realized was a mistake the first time it resulted in the mail database having to be wiped and many people losing items; they should have decreased the limit from 500 to 100 then.
During most of which time it performed acceptably, with the two exceptions mentioned.
The fact that something is not given priority for a fix doesn't mean it's not a problem; it just means there are bigger concerns. This one got increased in priority because it became a worse problem than it had been, and this time they determined that decreasing the limit was necessary to avoid having this problem a third time.
The bugs introduced in those changes underscore the state the email database had gotten into. Folks are very lucky that the worst problem most had was inability to delete mail, not loss of mail. It's unfortunate that some did experience lost mails; if so many people hadn't been using the mail as infinite bank space, which is clearly unintended or there wouldn't BE a bank, it wouldn't have happened. It's equally true that if Cryptic had decreased the limit years ago, it also wouldn't have happened.
The fact they should have done this years ago doesn't mean they shouldn't have done it now.
If that is indeed the case, I would have to wonder exactly why the system destabilized so rapidly. Obviously people had been storing hundreds, even thousands of items routinely for years. Also, I have to wonder about the stability of the underlying code. An in-game item should not take that much memory to store. I cannot imagine it takes more than maybe 4 bytes for an item identifier and maybe another 4 bytes for individual item information.
Under those assumptions, you could easily store over 100,000 items in less than 1 mb of memory. I doubt that even the most prolific users were exceeding that. So, I have to wonder if the whole way that items are represented in the backend code is fundamentally inefficient. If that is the case, Cryptic really should get to work on that, because that is probably a fundamental source of slowdowns throughout the game and of massive wastes of storage space, bandwidth, and ram on their servers.
You are in error. It is Bayesian probability. Per Bayesian probability we must assume that features in the game have a higher probability of functioning as intended by the developers than of being unintended.
Please familiarize yourself with the difference. I suggest reading the book Bayesian Theory by Jose Bernardo and Adrian Smith.
Also, familiarize yourself with Occam's razor. I suggest starting with the book, The Logic of Scientific Discovery by Karl Popper and I can make additional recommendations once you finish it.
My hypothesis requires only one assumption, an assumption that is supported both by the evidence and by Bayesian probability.
The alternative hypothesis, on the other hand, requires one assumption that is not supported by Baysean probability and one assumption for which there is no evidence. So it is a less valid hypothesis on its face, but Occam's razor further delegitimizes it based upon the need to incorporate an additional assumption.
Unlimited space for mail is not a feature of the game. It is the absence of a feature of the game. The limitation is what must be added, which they neglected to do.
So this is basically what you say is the "simplest" explanation:
When the developers designed the game, they added limitations for every single storage unit in the entire game. They neglected to add storage limitations to mail, which is traditionally used for transporting items; not storing them.
So- even though they added limitations to every other storage unit in the entire game - the exclusion of a limit added to mail must mean that they intended for players to have unlimited storage, even though they spent time and effort implementing storage limitations on every other storage unit.
How, exactly, is that the simplest or most logical explanation?
That said, I'm out of this. Unlike many folks, the reason I have discussions is to come to some sort of agreement. As soon as I see that's unlikely to happen, I bow out of the debate, and it's pretty obvious that there's absolutely nothing that will bring us to agreement in this case. I'm not saying that as an insult to you; I'm just saying it's pointless to debate further.
Also, to clarify my last statement about dropping out of the debate... I'm not dropping out because of frustration or anger. I just have a rule about not continuing a debate when all information from both sides has been presented and it's obvious that no resolution or compromise is going to be reached. I just don't think it's worth the time to debate the same points over and over.
So it's nothing negative. Just me following one of my weird little forum rules.
You are in error. It is Bayesian probability. Per Bayesian probability we must assume that features in the game have a higher probability of functioning as intended by the developers than of being unintended.
Please familiarize yourself with the difference. I suggest reading the book Bayesian Theory by Jose Bernardo and Adrian Smith.
Also, familiarize yourself with Occam's razor. I suggest starting with the book, The Logic of Scientific Discovery by Karl Popper and I can make additional recommendations once you finish it.
My hypothesis requires only one assumption, an assumption that is supported both by the evidence and by Bayesian probability.
The alternative hypothesis, on the other hand, requires one assumption that is not supported by Baysean probability and one assumption for which there is no evidence. So it is a less valid hypothesis on its face, but Occam's razor further delegitimizes it based upon the need to incorporate an additional assumption.
Occam's Razor dictates that the thing that Cryptic called the mail system was intended to be...erm...a mail system. That only requires the assumption that Cryptic didn't mislabel it. Now, you can argue about Bayesian logic and try to argue that, no, really it was intended as a storage system, and that Cryptic are therefore wrong to try to alter the thing they've called a mail system and labelled as a mail system in the game they've created to act more like a mail system, but that flies in the face of a more straightforward, simple, and, frankly, far more reliable form of logic called 'common sense'.
You are in error. It is Bayesian probability. Per Bayesian probability we must assume that features in the game have a higher probability of functioning as intended by the developers than of being unintended.
Please familiarize yourself with the difference. I suggest reading the book Bayesian Theory by Jose Bernardo and Adrian Smith.
Also, familiarize yourself with Occam's razor. I suggest starting with the book, The Logic of Scientific Discovery by Karl Popper and I can make additional recommendations once you finish it.
My hypothesis requires only one assumption, an assumption that is supported both by the evidence and by Bayesian probability.
The alternative hypothesis, on the other hand, requires one assumption that is not supported by Baysean probability and one assumption for which there is no evidence. So it is a less valid hypothesis on its face, but Occam's razor further delegitimizes it based upon the need to incorporate an additional assumption.
My god man. Go outside. Take in some fresh air. Let that head of yours deflate a little bit.
It's cringeworthy.
Oh, and you're wrong too. I'm not going to use any big words, but your arguments are absurd. I don't even care about this issue, I don't want to build a starbase by myself so don't need an infinite amount of doff storage. I did see it coming, though.
surprisingly, I was told this was "working as intended"
'working as designed' not 'working as intended' which means it is not a bug parse but it's not something that they wanted to allow. Kinda like the mail system I would wager.
'scuse the guy who didn't spend four years bull****ting in coffee houses, but "Occam's Razor" in layman's terms comes down to "The simplest explanation is usually the right one".
<...logical statements omitted...>
See how that works? It's simple, it doesn't require weird leaps of faith in the selflessness of the original development team, my model works on observable workplace human behaviour, from the laziness to the rush to change things now that conditions have likewise changed (resources are now available, the system's showing stress, etc.)
That's actually a logical, crystal clear point you've made. Assuming they solve the "what to do about doffs for fleet projects" thing, I think I can accept the cap thanks to your convincing argument. (I did hear an unconfirmed rumor that the mail DID have a 1000 item cap originally. [Can anyone confirm?] If so, the whole pre-doff system argument goes right out the window as they simply LOWERED the limit and no way can using something to the limit be called an "exploit".)
'working as designed' not 'working as intended' which means it is not a bug parse but it's not something that they wanted to allow. Kinda like the mail system I would wager.
It will be changed at some point I'm sure.
Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if they suddenly changed that and the "exploiters" got blamed. *sigh*
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] If your post is anything like, "I have a sandwich so you can't be starving" it's time to rethink posting. ~thlaylierah
So realistically, you only need to have the exact number of doffs that you need. ~leadme2kirk
'scuse the guy who didn't spend four years bull****ting in coffee houses, but "Occam's Razor" in layman's terms comes down to "The simplest explanation is usually the right one".
That is incorrect.
Think about it. If Occam's razor meant what you think it means, then Thor would be a more logical explanation for thunder than electrostatics, because, after all, Mj?lnir is simpler.
I suggest you review the texts I recommended.
---post aboce is logicalspock's---
EDIT: This thread is now trending very closely to actually discussing exploits, which is not allowed. I'm going to close it to be sure that does not happen as I would hate to see anyone banned. -Brandon
Comments
happens more in the foundry, PVP and STF'S
the big one is with PYP ground with daily 1440 dilthium where they do private
and stand at spawn kills team till mission is over quick do it 2 more times that is cheap
Most use the mail to store Doffs. Doffs were not in the game originally. Additionally one can now purchase additional capacity to have more doffs on their character. That means the original factors that led to the decision to allow unlimited mail store have changed dramatically. Additionally I would wager the amount of players using it and the amount that they are using it has increased by several factors.
Cryptic had to redesign the mail system as they have stated it is all new code. During this redesign they decided allowing unlimited storage with mail was no longer intended.
Many exploits are ignored by devs if they stay under the radar either because they do not notice them, or because player behavior does not make the exploit a big enough problem to devote resources to fixing it or harming those who are not exploiting it as much as others.
Case in point, console clickie daily foundry mission. It was always an exploit, however the harm that could be caused by removing them combined with the resources it would take ment that they allowed players to continue to use them for quite some time. Eventually though the stars aligned and a combination of massive numbers of players exploiting them and the resources to close the exploit became available. The result was the dilithium exchange rate plummeting from high 300s to low 100s even after additional sources of dilithium were created. Much complaining occurred and yet the change remains with us.
I would hazard a guess the mail change is similar. It reached the point where it needed closed due to how many players were using the system to gain massive amounts of unintended storage and it was creating too much stress on the database for the game's health. Additionally it was likely a very small number of players abusing the system with massive numbers of stored doffs.
In the end this thread does not matter. The decision has been made. At best the limit mit may be increased. We can argue semantics until the sun goes down. It will change nothing.
Need I go on. Making it limited is understandable .... the silly / stupid mistakes and bugs ... not so much.
- Judge Aaron Satie
Your statement is speculative and you provide zero evidence to support it. The facts are:
1)The developers designed the mail system to behave this way
2) The developers allowed the mail system to continue to behave this way for three years.
Occam's razor dictates that the simplest hypothesis, that the system was working as the developers intended it to work until they chose to alter the behavior of the system, is the most probable explanation.
Your conclusion is illogical because Occam's razor combined with Baysean inference dictates that for your conclusion to be accepted, you must demonstrate additional evidence clearly supporting your claim, which you have failed to do. Ergo, your conclusion is unsupported and should be rejected.
Quod Erat Demonstrandum
Do you have any evidence that it was, "put off" for three, or does your statement amount to nothing more than idle speculation?
If it is the former, please present the evidence.
And anticipated that abuse of that would be limited in scope and easily contained if it became a problem. Which admittedly they should have realized was a mistake the first time it resulted in the mail database having to be wiped and many people losing items; they should have decreased the limit from 500 to 100 then.
During most of which time it performed acceptably, with the two exceptions mentioned.
The fact that something is not given priority for a fix doesn't mean it's not a problem; it just means there are bigger concerns. This one got increased in priority because it became a worse problem than it had been, and this time they determined that decreasing the limit was necessary to avoid having this problem a third time.
The bugs introduced in those changes underscore the state the email database had gotten into. Folks are very lucky that the worst problem most had was inability to delete mail, not loss of mail. It's unfortunate that some did experience lost mails; if so many people hadn't been using the mail as infinite bank space, which is clearly unintended or there wouldn't BE a bank, it wouldn't have happened. It's equally true that if Cryptic had decreased the limit years ago, it also wouldn't have happened.
The fact they should have done this years ago doesn't mean they shouldn't have done it now.
Are you serious?
This is about a change in some MMO mail system because people were using it as free storage.
I mean if losing this obviously amazing method of storage is so terrible that it just ruins the game for you to the point where you need to write essays detailing logic and the nuances of arguments then you should probably recheck your priorities.
Regardless, I never used this 'method' of storage because I saw it as incredibly insecure and likely to drop out at any moment, as well as the possibility of it deleting my items because it wasn't designed for long-term storage (which, surprise, it did both!)
Hate to be the person that says 'It doesn't affect me so I don't care' but really if you depended on this then its on you for not planning ahead.
To exploit an enemy i.e You catch them by suprised using flanking and then fire your secondary shot which does more damage and has a change to reduce their damage resistance something like that I guess.
Also known as cheating or Hack/Hax.
The difference between hack and exploit is pretty simple.
A hack is something like an aimbot, you 'TRIBBLE' the game to provide you an advantage, you repurposed something using assets outside of the game environment.
An exploit is gaining an advantage inside of the game environment using something like a glitch, a bug, etc.
For example, me aimbotting and using other outside programs to make me better in something like call of duty, is HACKING
Me glitching out of the map so that I can shoot people through the map's walls without them seeing me, is EXPLOITING.
Just thought i'd clear that up.
Nah it obviously have to have a profit with a negative impact on others.
If I found a bug in the mail system that crashed my pc and did it 200 times in a row I wouldn't get a ban.
If I found a bug in the foundry that let me farm 40,000 dil in 20 minutes I would.
And as far as the mail system goes of course it was un-intentional. When they sit there and sell bank slots (which is ridiculous to me) they quite obviously know the importance people put on item storage.
In addition I know the mail system was an error because I had several additional bugs with it outside not being able to delete mails.
/edit.
Ps. I should say have* because those bugs are still there
No need... In my experience, it's the same in PvP... Especially if you are just a good player with a good ship.
I really don't mean any disrespect here, but I really think what you're describing is most certainly not the simplest explanation. It's extremely speculative and makes some massive assumptions.
The facts are this:
1. A system was in place without an added limitation.
It's complete and total speculation (and probably wrong speculation) to assert that the exclusion of something was intentional. Unlimited space isn't something they have to actively add; limitations require the extra work. What they did was exclude something, which most certain is not evidence of intent. They literally excluded thousands of things in this game; most of which are because they simply didn't think of it.
If anything, it's evidence that they either didn't think of it or didn't expect people to use it in this manner. The fact that they did add limitations to every other storage application in the entire game strongly suggests this was not intentional.
2. They left the system as it was for years.
Again, to assume this meant they wanted it used this way is a gross assumption. The simplest explanation is that they didn't see it as a problem worth addressing yet.
Let me say again that I mean absolutely no disrespect, but your assertions are pretty much the opposite of Occam's razor. The simplest explanation based on all the evidence is that it was either an oversight or something they didn't expect to be used. You keep ignoring the fact that every other storage unit in the entire game has limits and has had limits since the game launched.
You are in error. It is Bayesian probability. Per Bayesian probability we must assume that features in the game have a higher probability of functioning as intended by the developers than of being unintended.
Please familiarize yourself with the difference. I suggest reading the book Bayesian Theory by Jose Bernardo and Adrian Smith.
Also, familiarize yourself with Occam's razor. I suggest starting with the book, The Logic of Scientific Discovery by Karl Popper and I can make additional recommendations once you finish it.
My hypothesis requires only one assumption, an assumption that is supported both by the evidence and by Bayesian probability.
The alternative hypothesis, on the other hand, requires one assumption that is not supported by Baysean probability and one assumption for which there is no evidence. So it is a less valid hypothesis on its face, but Occam's razor further delegitimizes it based upon the need to incorporate an additional assumption.
If that is indeed the case, I would have to wonder exactly why the system destabilized so rapidly. Obviously people had been storing hundreds, even thousands of items routinely for years. Also, I have to wonder about the stability of the underlying code. An in-game item should not take that much memory to store. I cannot imagine it takes more than maybe 4 bytes for an item identifier and maybe another 4 bytes for individual item information.
Under those assumptions, you could easily store over 100,000 items in less than 1 mb of memory. I doubt that even the most prolific users were exceeding that. So, I have to wonder if the whole way that items are represented in the backend code is fundamentally inefficient. If that is the case, Cryptic really should get to work on that, because that is probably a fundamental source of slowdowns throughout the game and of massive wastes of storage space, bandwidth, and ram on their servers.
Unlimited space for mail is not a feature of the game. It is the absence of a feature of the game. The limitation is what must be added, which they neglected to do.
So this is basically what you say is the "simplest" explanation:
When the developers designed the game, they added limitations for every single storage unit in the entire game. They neglected to add storage limitations to mail, which is traditionally used for transporting items; not storing them.
So- even though they added limitations to every other storage unit in the entire game - the exclusion of a limit added to mail must mean that they intended for players to have unlimited storage, even though they spent time and effort implementing storage limitations on every other storage unit.
How, exactly, is that the simplest or most logical explanation?
That said, I'm out of this. Unlike many folks, the reason I have discussions is to come to some sort of agreement. As soon as I see that's unlikely to happen, I bow out of the debate, and it's pretty obvious that there's absolutely nothing that will bring us to agreement in this case. I'm not saying that as an insult to you; I'm just saying it's pointless to debate further.
So it's nothing negative. Just me following one of my weird little forum rules.
Occam's Razor dictates that the thing that Cryptic called the mail system was intended to be...erm...a mail system. That only requires the assumption that Cryptic didn't mislabel it. Now, you can argue about Bayesian logic and try to argue that, no, really it was intended as a storage system, and that Cryptic are therefore wrong to try to alter the thing they've called a mail system and labelled as a mail system in the game they've created to act more like a mail system, but that flies in the face of a more straightforward, simple, and, frankly, far more reliable form of logic called 'common sense'.
My god man. Go outside. Take in some fresh air. Let that head of yours deflate a little bit.
It's cringeworthy.
Oh, and you're wrong too. I'm not going to use any big words, but your arguments are absurd. I don't even care about this issue, I don't want to build a starbase by myself so don't need an infinite amount of doff storage. I did see it coming, though.
Kirk's Protege.
surprisingly, I was told this was "working as intended"
'working as designed' not 'working as intended' which means it is not a bug parse but it's not something that they wanted to allow. Kinda like the mail system I would wager.
It will be changed at some point I'm sure.
That's actually a logical, crystal clear point you've made. Assuming they solve the "what to do about doffs for fleet projects" thing, I think I can accept the cap thanks to your convincing argument. (I did hear an unconfirmed rumor that the mail DID have a 1000 item cap originally. [Can anyone confirm?] If so, the whole pre-doff system argument goes right out the window as they simply LOWERED the limit and no way can using something to the limit be called an "exploit".)
Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if they suddenly changed that and the "exploiters" got blamed. *sigh*
If your post is anything like, "I have a sandwich so you can't be starving" it's time to rethink posting. ~thlaylierah
That is incorrect.
Think about it. If Occam's razor meant what you think it means, then Thor would be a more logical explanation for thunder than electrostatics, because, after all, Mj?lnir is simpler.
I suggest you review the texts I recommended.
---post aboce is logicalspock's---
EDIT: This thread is now trending very closely to actually discussing exploits, which is not allowed. I'm going to close it to be sure that does not happen as I would hate to see anyone banned. -Brandon