Thanks for the informative post but it still is too vague on whether teaming up and playing Tau Dewa patrols in a group was the exploit or if there was something that involved bugs.....Because if it was the former..I still do not see how leveling up via patrols in a group through normal in-game means is cheating.
What about Dyson Ground? I always think that the time vs rewards are ridiculous and broken. And they are, compared to the rest of the game. Everyone knows why. People constantly comment on it. So....huh?
Those rewards are based on the effort of completing the entire zone from 0% control to all 3 dinos. If people did that instead of hopping then the rewards would be considered balanced.
Those rewards are based on the effort of completing the entire zone from 0% control to all 3 dinos. If people did that instead of hopping then the rewards would be considered balanced.
But they don't. It's well known they don't. People complain that they don't. Everyone and their brother knows about it. Even you are implying that it is an "exploit."
I'm no lawyer, but I play one on the forums :cool:
It's just the way it has always been. It's not a theory. The laws apply to wherever the server hardware is physically located at.
If a country has a problem with that, hey that's what firewalls are for. The FBI has prevented American access to plenty of overseas websites before because they do not comply with American law. That's all that really can be done.
They can't bring the people who own those servers on foreign soil to court under American law. The idea is preposterous.
I not only believe that, I know it to be true. If a country has a problem with STO's way of doing business, they have the option of blacklisting Cryptic and PWE from being accessed from within their borders.
The only legal discourse people overseas are given are purely financial in scope. Chargebacks, arbitration, etc., and usually done through a third party (like Paypal or any of the major credit card companies), not between governments.
ah. so because you dont have any legal arguments left, you try it with technical stuff now? fascinating.
but you are realy entertaining... Im just picturing how I found a company, put my servers in somalia, and as the law in somalia is anarchy, I can do whatever I want because the law applys where the server is. lol you are genius!
ah. so because you dont have any legal arguments left, you try it with technical stuff now? fascinating.
but you are realy entertaining... Im just picturing how I found a company, put my servers in somalia, and as the law in somalia is anarchy, I can do whatever I want because the law applys where the server is. lol you are genius!
Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and point out that the U.S. blocks internet access to countries it has no foreign relations with, or is outright hostile to.
WoW had that issue when Iranian players were denied access to the game as a result of economic sanctions against that country. Iranians gave money to Blizzard that they weren't getting back.
There was nothing Blizzard could do about it, either. Iranian law, whether civil or criminal means absolutely nothing to America.
So yeah, good luck with that Somalia theory of yours.
If that's the case, then we got everything we asked. EVERYTHING.
I think Enterprise came in second which is why we started to see the Xindi all of a sudden pop up
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
See, none of what you're saying make any sense. Of course you're supposed to level faster on Elite! Doh! It's Elite, aka considerably harder! Ergo, higher rewards!
So, was my 'exploit' playing on Elite?! And there I was, half-way proud of myself, for not taking the easy road, but going all tough on Elite! Little did I know I would be severely penalized for doing so, later on.
I don't think it makes sense either. I am explaining what I think Cryptic's perspective is.
Basically, that they only put higher skillpoints on Elite at all to make equal to or closer to leveling on Normal (though I think they're underestimating how much slower Elite is).
At the end of the day, I'm deeply disappointed. I said before all of this that I wouldn't likely open my wallet quite as wide as in the past and, frankly, Cryptic seems unwilling to ever do an about face and become a friendly, customer service first oriented company. Tonally, their culture seems to be stuck somewhere between stubborn engineer and SomethingAwful goon.
I'm not going anywhere yet. I don't blame anyone who does. I was waiting for a reply and, frankly, the replies I've seen so far wouldn't cut it at any restaurant or theme park and I don't see why companies with a production orientation operate in such a rough-around-the-edges way. The 300, I can understand evicting from the premises (if they were actually evicted) but nobody else should have been touched or they should have been at least treated as a valued customer.
I went to a Starbucks last week and they mis-posted their hours. When I wrote into to get clarification on their hours, they sent me $10. That is how things should be done. I've been proud of employers I had before that did things that way. That is how I'd do things in business. I wouldn't launch a business model that didn't build in margin for me to do that kind of thing and I frankly don't think ANY business who doesn't handle things that way should stay in business.
For me, this whole free-to-play thing is over-engineered. Monthly wasn't perfect either. My lesson is in part that what a game maker sells is what they value.
And the next time I look at switching to a different MMO, I want it to be one that sells content access as its primary revenue stream (because then they will value content and my consumption of that content) and one with a phone support hotline with a live operator and nice hold music. Those are the signals that would tell me that somebody is making the game that I want to play.
But like I say: I'm here. I can think of a few things I'd drop money on so I'm not waving around any threats of closing my wallet altogether. I didn't lose anything in the rollback (because I don't play on Elite) and I don't expect anything personally.
But it seems to me that they cast a wide net and included people who would fall outside my definition of exploiting after all and that they have unreasonable standards for grinding and content release cycles, which I sincerely had hoped were a misunderstanding. Those 300 players? Ban them. I wouldn't blink. I'd be reassured if Cryptic banned them, actually, as I always felt Cryptic was uncomfortably reluctant to ban people who deserved it.
Those players who lost a level or two though, who weren't in the 300 or even Tau Dewa but who just ground out new content on Elite? Cryptic's response to them rubs me the wrong way and even if it didn't affect me directly, I don't care for how Cryptic handled it.
If you accidentally undercharge a customer, you don't chase them out to the parking lot and shake them down for change. You eat your loss. Good businesses eat losses rather than upset non-disruptive customers.
Ban the 300. Nobody else should have been touched or, if they were, they should have been shown some first class courtesy for the inconvenience of the rollback.
Why isn't anyone dropping the pretenses and talking about Kobali Prime? I've been poking around a bit, and THAT is where the hidden controversy is coming from.
Cryptic released a new DR mission that appeared to be working fine, and is penalizing people for using it. No fraudulent XP boosts, no level matching, no Tau Dewa... just running a mission exactly as it was presented.
And that's what they're really accusing people of 'exploiting'.
But they don't want to talk about that.
Did you grind at Kobali Prime in a team? Did you grind there for more than 24 hours? Did you grind there more than three days in a row? Did you work hard, earning the legitimate XP that the mission rewarded- not inflated at all- and simply running it more often than Cryptic expected you to?
Then I guess you used an exploit. That's what they seem to think...
I ran some numbers... and at the rate I was earning there, their penalty against me amounts to 19 hours of my life. That's a conservative estimate... it's probably more like a full day.
If they want to penalize me: fine. But they should at least compensate me in return for what they think 19 hours of hard grinding is worth. Because they've taken 19 hours of my life, that I chose to spend grinding under the false pretenses that Cryptic set forth.
And no, it's not legal fraud... I stand for Cryptic/PWE's right to treat us as poorly as they wish. But morally- in terms of effective customer service, and just in my opinion- they owe me. They owe us... for the hours spent grinding the game under their false pretenses.
Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and point out that the U.S. blocks internet access to countries it has no foreign relations with, or is outright hostile to.
WoW had that issue when Iranian players were denied access to the game as a result of economic sanctions against that country.
There was nothing Blizzard could do about it, either. Iranian law, whether civil or criminal means absolutely nothing to America.
So yeah, good luck with that Somalia theory of yours.
The whole what law applies to a server bit is in most cases true. The content of the server and in the case of online games they are required to follow the laws of the country that they are in. An individuals action on the internet are in turn determined by the country that they are in.
A prime example excuse the allusion, but it is the most common and easiest to reference is pornographic sites. The content of these sites MUST abide by the country that the server is located in, and the people accessing it must follow the laws of the country they are in. Such as underage photos and the like are illegal to post on servers hosted in America, but are allowed in other countries. People from other countries are allowed to access it with no fear as their country does not have laws against it, but anyone in America who chooses to access it must face the punishment of the law if they are caught.
Executive Officer of the 1279th Imperial Assault Command
Fleet Admiral Mason
I think Enterprise came in second which is why we started to see the Xindi all of a sudden pop up
Damn. I guess I should have hung out on the forums instead of playing the game. Maybe I could have had some input :rolleyes:. It's a shame this game won't last long enough to see a Cardassian/Dominion expansion.
Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and point out that the U.S. blocks internet access to countries it has no foreign relations with, or is outright hostile to.
WoW had that issue when Iranian players were denied access to the game as a result of economic sanctions against that country.
There was nothing Blizzard could do about it, either. Iranian law, whether civil or criminal means absolutely nothing to America.
So yeah, good luck with that Somalia theory of yours.
everything can be blocked, or not. thats not the topic. the topic was that a company has to respect the local law of a country where it is doing business. you were telling that just the law applys where the server is, and you horribly failed on this. it makes me even smile but I think it got awkward enough for you, this should be enough.
just one last thing... its realy annoying that you post something, and than edit it afterwards. maybe because you are not sure in what you are saying, but who knows.
everything can be blocked, or not. thats not the topic. the topic was that a company has to respect the local law of a country where it is doing business. you were telling that just the law applys where the server is, and you horribly failed on this.
Please tell me how I failed on this. Cryptic can try to work with a country it does business with, but at the end of the day what matters is U.S/California law. That is why disputes are usually handled by financial institutions between countries, rather than governments.
it makes me even smile but I think it got awkward enough for you, this should be enough.
You assume too much.
just one last thing... its realy annoying that you post something, and than edit it afterwards. maybe because you are not sure in what you are saying, but who knows.
What is good for the goose, is good for the gander. I find effective communication to be highly important, and if I feel I am not communicating effectively enough, I will edit my posts.
Sometimes it's a typographical or grammatical error, and sometimes I re-read what I write and believe I could say something better.
This is why pencils have erasers, and why the edit function is there for the STO forums.
I am a frequenter of the forums but I seldom post. However, I felt I should pop out and say thank you for clarifying what you did and why you did it. Having read this, I am pretty certain you did the best you could to solve what was clearly an issue that needed to be fixed.
Thank you for clarifying and being as open as you could be with us.
Your lack of tact is facepalm worthy, how did you ever get out of customer service phone job?
He didn't have one. He's an engineer. That's the problem. All engineers and the only service oriented people seem to be in art, content, or HR, where we only deal with them at all because they are so personally service oriented. Nobody's job is designed around service and service seems to only happen when people work outside their job description.
Cryptic needs service managers. I hope to goodness that the monetization designer they're hiring understands service management and isn't just some social media app wonk with a math degree and an Excel spreadsheet. I wouldn't hold my breath after today though.
No, it's called put your money where your mouth is and issue PWE a chargeback and enjoy your lifetime ban from every PWE game ever made, as long as you get your money from that XP booster back.
If this poster won't do that, then they're not as serious as they want people to believe.
If I bought XP boosts and if I had XP removed, I would be doing that right now.
Please tell me how I failed on this. Cryptic can try to work with a country it does business with, but at the end of the day what matters is U.S/California law. That is why disputes are usually handled by financial institutions between countries, rather than governments.
I told you earlier they have european office. wich means they can be punished for not respecting european law. what a punishment could look like depends on the case - it can be a refund of 10 euro, or the close down of their office or blocking their services. whatever. but than you come with your server theory wich is so absurd it nearly made me speechless. but that "you are a foreign guest on a server" is kinda cute. maybe thats how you understand business - like traveling to hawaii lol
You mean they lost some of the laziest, who found an exploit and happily used it and got spanked for it.
Actually, I know of at least a couple from a channel I'm in who made almost no use of the so-called exploits and who have been around since nearly the beginning, pre F2P. And they weren't just the ones who are all talk and come back a few weeks later. No, they made it quite permanent by giving away their things and deleting their characters.
You mean they lost some of the laziest, who found an exploit and happily used it and got spanked for it.
I hope everyone understands that the hardcore players find the easiest way to do something and do it. That's all tau dewa was, people found the most efficient way to level, not knowing killing npc's was an exploit according to craptic. So contrary to your moronic and ignorant statement, the people who left because of this were not exploiters or lazy but rather parts of the committed playerbase who were willing to grind 2 year old content for hours on end and be happy because they want to support the game despite the lack of content and ridiculous leveling gaps the devs shoved in with DR to suck money.
Actually, I know of at least a couple from a channel I'm in who made almost no use of the so-called exploits and who have been around since nearly the beginning, pre F2P. And they weren't just the ones who are all talk and come back a few weeks later. No, they made it quite permanent by giving away their things and deleting their characters.
Oh no! The horror! My heart is bleeding purple TRIBBLE for these long standing STO veterans quitting the game!
'So-called' exploits???? Are you for real? The developers just posted, telling you it is an exploit. They made the game, they get to make that call. When you make a game, you can tell people what is or isn't exploitive behaviour in your game.
Until that time, please tell us more about elitist douchebags using exploits to max out there spec trees and then rage quitting like children when it all gets taken away. Tell us more.
" Experience is a hard mistress, she gives the tests first, and the lessons after... "
The developers just posted, telling you it is an exploit. They made the game, they get to make that call. When you make a game, you can tell people what is or isn't exploitive behaviour in your game.
How old are you? Just because the devs say something doesn't make it right...dumb***. I probably shouldn't be responding to morons like you it's a waste of time.
How old are you? Just because the devs say something doesn't make it right...dumb***. I probably shouldn't be responding to morons like you it's a waste of time.
I was about to say a similar thing, but you saved me the time. What he doesn't seem to realize is that all these players the game sheds out of what can easily be viewed as at least a colossally incompetent debacle, if not a malicious one, are not just those players lost. Each of them is potentially going to cause many other players who might have otherwise joined the game to be much more hesitant. When a company manages to build up such a negative reputation for issues such as this, it can gradually perpetuate a downward spiral.
'So-called' exploits???? Are you for real? The developers just posted, telling you it is an exploit. They made the game, they get to make that call. When you make a game, you can tell people what is or isn't exploitive behaviour in your game.
I think their assessment is in error if it includes XP resulting simply from playing non-Tau Dewa content on Elite without the level scaling trick.
See: the guy who spent 19 hours killing mobs on Kobali Prime and only got up to something like 60 +2. That's not an exploit and I challenge anyone, developer or not, who defines that as one... because it involved no tricks.
Comments
If that's the case, then we got everything we asked. EVERYTHING.
Those rewards are based on the effort of completing the entire zone from 0% control to all 3 dinos. If people did that instead of hopping then the rewards would be considered balanced.
But they don't. It's well known they don't. People complain that they don't. Everyone and their brother knows about it. Even you are implying that it is an "exploit."
So, what's the difference?
It's just the way it has always been. It's not a theory. The laws apply to wherever the server hardware is physically located at.
If a country has a problem with that, hey that's what firewalls are for. The FBI has prevented American access to plenty of overseas websites before because they do not comply with American law. That's all that really can be done.
They can't bring the people who own those servers on foreign soil to court under American law. The idea is preposterous.
ah. so because you dont have any legal arguments left, you try it with technical stuff now? fascinating.
but you are realy entertaining... Im just picturing how I found a company, put my servers in somalia, and as the law in somalia is anarchy, I can do whatever I want because the law applys where the server is. lol you are genius!
Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and point out that the U.S. blocks internet access to countries it has no foreign relations with, or is outright hostile to.
WoW had that issue when Iranian players were denied access to the game as a result of economic sanctions against that country. Iranians gave money to Blizzard that they weren't getting back.
There was nothing Blizzard could do about it, either. Iranian law, whether civil or criminal means absolutely nothing to America.
So yeah, good luck with that Somalia theory of yours.
I think Enterprise came in second which is why we started to see the Xindi all of a sudden pop up
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Id like to see the next expansion either address the cardis or something from enterprise but a DS9 expansion would be tottaly epic imo
I don't think it makes sense either. I am explaining what I think Cryptic's perspective is.
Basically, that they only put higher skillpoints on Elite at all to make equal to or closer to leveling on Normal (though I think they're underestimating how much slower Elite is).
At the end of the day, I'm deeply disappointed. I said before all of this that I wouldn't likely open my wallet quite as wide as in the past and, frankly, Cryptic seems unwilling to ever do an about face and become a friendly, customer service first oriented company. Tonally, their culture seems to be stuck somewhere between stubborn engineer and SomethingAwful goon.
I'm not going anywhere yet. I don't blame anyone who does. I was waiting for a reply and, frankly, the replies I've seen so far wouldn't cut it at any restaurant or theme park and I don't see why companies with a production orientation operate in such a rough-around-the-edges way. The 300, I can understand evicting from the premises (if they were actually evicted) but nobody else should have been touched or they should have been at least treated as a valued customer.
I went to a Starbucks last week and they mis-posted their hours. When I wrote into to get clarification on their hours, they sent me $10. That is how things should be done. I've been proud of employers I had before that did things that way. That is how I'd do things in business. I wouldn't launch a business model that didn't build in margin for me to do that kind of thing and I frankly don't think ANY business who doesn't handle things that way should stay in business.
For me, this whole free-to-play thing is over-engineered. Monthly wasn't perfect either. My lesson is in part that what a game maker sells is what they value.
And the next time I look at switching to a different MMO, I want it to be one that sells content access as its primary revenue stream (because then they will value content and my consumption of that content) and one with a phone support hotline with a live operator and nice hold music. Those are the signals that would tell me that somebody is making the game that I want to play.
But like I say: I'm here. I can think of a few things I'd drop money on so I'm not waving around any threats of closing my wallet altogether. I didn't lose anything in the rollback (because I don't play on Elite) and I don't expect anything personally.
But it seems to me that they cast a wide net and included people who would fall outside my definition of exploiting after all and that they have unreasonable standards for grinding and content release cycles, which I sincerely had hoped were a misunderstanding. Those 300 players? Ban them. I wouldn't blink. I'd be reassured if Cryptic banned them, actually, as I always felt Cryptic was uncomfortably reluctant to ban people who deserved it.
Those players who lost a level or two though, who weren't in the 300 or even Tau Dewa but who just ground out new content on Elite? Cryptic's response to them rubs me the wrong way and even if it didn't affect me directly, I don't care for how Cryptic handled it.
If you accidentally undercharge a customer, you don't chase them out to the parking lot and shake them down for change. You eat your loss. Good businesses eat losses rather than upset non-disruptive customers.
Ban the 300. Nobody else should have been touched or, if they were, they should have been shown some first class courtesy for the inconvenience of the rollback.
Cryptic released a new DR mission that appeared to be working fine, and is penalizing people for using it. No fraudulent XP boosts, no level matching, no Tau Dewa... just running a mission exactly as it was presented.
And that's what they're really accusing people of 'exploiting'.
But they don't want to talk about that.
Did you grind at Kobali Prime in a team? Did you grind there for more than 24 hours? Did you grind there more than three days in a row? Did you work hard, earning the legitimate XP that the mission rewarded- not inflated at all- and simply running it more often than Cryptic expected you to?
Then I guess you used an exploit. That's what they seem to think...
I ran some numbers... and at the rate I was earning there, their penalty against me amounts to 19 hours of my life. That's a conservative estimate... it's probably more like a full day.
If they want to penalize me: fine. But they should at least compensate me in return for what they think 19 hours of hard grinding is worth. Because they've taken 19 hours of my life, that I chose to spend grinding under the false pretenses that Cryptic set forth.
And no, it's not legal fraud... I stand for Cryptic/PWE's right to treat us as poorly as they wish. But morally- in terms of effective customer service, and just in my opinion- they owe me. They owe us... for the hours spent grinding the game under their false pretenses.
The whole what law applies to a server bit is in most cases true. The content of the server and in the case of online games they are required to follow the laws of the country that they are in. An individuals action on the internet are in turn determined by the country that they are in.
A prime example excuse the allusion, but it is the most common and easiest to reference is pornographic sites. The content of these sites MUST abide by the country that the server is located in, and the people accessing it must follow the laws of the country they are in. Such as underage photos and the like are illegal to post on servers hosted in America, but are allowed in other countries. People from other countries are allowed to access it with no fear as their country does not have laws against it, but anyone in America who chooses to access it must face the punishment of the law if they are caught.
Fleet Admiral Mason
Damn. I guess I should have hung out on the forums instead of playing the game. Maybe I could have had some input :rolleyes:. It's a shame this game won't last long enough to see a Cardassian/Dominion expansion.
everything can be blocked, or not. thats not the topic. the topic was that a company has to respect the local law of a country where it is doing business. you were telling that just the law applys where the server is, and you horribly failed on this. it makes me even smile
just one last thing... its realy annoying that you post something, and than edit it afterwards. maybe because you are not sure in what you are saying, but who knows.
Please tell me how I failed on this. Cryptic can try to work with a country it does business with, but at the end of the day what matters is U.S/California law. That is why disputes are usually handled by financial institutions between countries, rather than governments.
You assume too much.
What is good for the goose, is good for the gander. I find effective communication to be highly important, and if I feel I am not communicating effectively enough, I will edit my posts.
Sometimes it's a typographical or grammatical error, and sometimes I re-read what I write and believe I could say something better.
This is why pencils have erasers, and why the edit function is there for the STO forums.
Thank you for clarifying and being as open as you could be with us.
He didn't have one. He's an engineer. That's the problem. All engineers and the only service oriented people seem to be in art, content, or HR, where we only deal with them at all because they are so personally service oriented. Nobody's job is designed around service and service seems to only happen when people work outside their job description.
Cryptic needs service managers. I hope to goodness that the monetization designer they're hiring understands service management and isn't just some social media app wonk with a math degree and an Excel spreadsheet. I wouldn't hold my breath after today though.
While I may not agree with the direction the game is headed, this is a reasonable explanation that I appreciate being shared.
You mean they lost some of the laziest, who found an exploit and happily used it and got spanked for it.
If I bought XP boosts and if I had XP removed, I would be doing that right now.
I told you earlier they have european office. wich means they can be punished for not respecting european law. what a punishment could look like depends on the case - it can be a refund of 10 euro, or the close down of their office or blocking their services. whatever. but than you come with your server theory wich is so absurd it nearly made me speechless. but that "you are a foreign guest on a server" is kinda cute. maybe thats how you understand business - like traveling to hawaii lol
Actually, I know of at least a couple from a channel I'm in who made almost no use of the so-called exploits and who have been around since nearly the beginning, pre F2P. And they weren't just the ones who are all talk and come back a few weeks later. No, they made it quite permanent by giving away their things and deleting their characters.
I hope everyone understands that the hardcore players find the easiest way to do something and do it. That's all tau dewa was, people found the most efficient way to level, not knowing killing npc's was an exploit according to craptic. So contrary to your moronic and ignorant statement, the people who left because of this were not exploiters or lazy but rather parts of the committed playerbase who were willing to grind 2 year old content for hours on end and be happy because they want to support the game despite the lack of content and ridiculous leveling gaps the devs shoved in with DR to suck money.
Shut up you absolute ballbag. Thanks.
Oh no! The horror! My heart is bleeding purple TRIBBLE for these long standing STO veterans quitting the game!
'So-called' exploits???? Are you for real? The developers just posted, telling you it is an exploit. They made the game, they get to make that call. When you make a game, you can tell people what is or isn't exploitive behaviour in your game.
Until that time, please tell us more about elitist douchebags using exploits to max out there spec trees and then rage quitting like children when it all gets taken away. Tell us more.
How old are you? Just because the devs say something doesn't make it right...dumb***. I probably shouldn't be responding to morons like you it's a waste of time.
Of Course ... this was the bestexploit, YET ...
I was about to say a similar thing, but you saved me the time. What he doesn't seem to realize is that all these players the game sheds out of what can easily be viewed as at least a colossally incompetent debacle, if not a malicious one, are not just those players lost. Each of them is potentially going to cause many other players who might have otherwise joined the game to be much more hesitant. When a company manages to build up such a negative reputation for issues such as this, it can gradually perpetuate a downward spiral.
I think their assessment is in error if it includes XP resulting simply from playing non-Tau Dewa content on Elite without the level scaling trick.
See: the guy who spent 19 hours killing mobs on Kobali Prime and only got up to something like 60 +2. That's not an exploit and I challenge anyone, developer or not, who defines that as one... because it involved no tricks.