As I see it with everybody and his momma using the damage bug they might as well shut down the game or just wait for every alliance to have 500k players. What a fun game eh? :p
Or you can do it the Cereal Killer way!
The way CK is going about it is not kosher for only 1 reason, and I will get to it. Other than the 1 reason coming up, there is no difference between this and the PR hitting people of a few games ago. If you don't like it, kill them while they are doing that (as I repeatedly said during the PR thing)...alas, therein lies the crux of the matter. At least the PR thing is in the news and you can attempt to murder that person cruelly.
Armada has worked this game with PRs to build routes that made us money and when used differently lots of exp. But everyone has maps and by now should know which ports in Anconus are the suspect ports. Hit them if you don't like what we are doing. CK will be a little tougher, but really, there are only a finite amount of UNOs in the universe. In the long run, Armada is still getting traded exp and for the HoF that'll be good, and CK is not, they are getting meaningless exp
I will add this though: As long as there are other ways to gain exp, there will be ways to find loopholes. People will lay mines and hit them for exp, or hit ports, or hit each other, or whatever. The trade formula needs a lower limit to gain exp, damage to players needs to have less exp, kills need a little more, etc. Its a changing game.
Armada has worked this game with PRs to build routes that made us money and when used differently lots of exp. But everyone has maps and by now should know which ports in Anconus are the suspect ports. Hit them if you don't like what we are doing. CK will be a little tougher, but really, there are only a finite amount of UNOs in the universe. In the long run, Armada is still getting traded exp and for the HoF that'll be good, and CK is not, they are getting meaningless exp
I will add this though: As long as there are other ways to gain exp, there will be ways to find loopholes. People will lay mines and hit them for exp, or hit ports, or hit each other, or whatever. The trade formula needs a lower limit to gain exp, damage to players needs to have less exp, kills need a little more, etc. Its a changing game.
TE's pathetic abuse of the PR loophole was not just an abuse of a loophole, by wasting turns on it, they ruined the game. CK is doing the same thing. Why do you play this game if you are going to just waste turns for xp? I would also like to know who in TD is doing that crap. If you are going to accuse, you better back it up.
oc12 here, what you playing with slowpoke?
1. Armada way: as far as I can see Armada way is not cheating even if they haven't told Spock. The trade formula is intended to work that way. It is supposed to give you more xp per hold when trading with fewer holds. All Armada did was take it to the logical conclusion. I myself thought of doing something similar early in this game, but my brain froze and I didn't realize that you needed a relatively long route for that to work.
2. CK way: Here, I would like to draw a parralel to arranged kills. While it's not illegal per se, it's frowned upon and seen as evidence of being a multi. Unless my memory is failing me, on the very few instances when the people doing it were deemed to be innocent of being multis the primary gain(kills) was removed while we did not touch xp gained etc. So, if in this case Spock does deem the action to be illegal, which I don't think he will, the punishment should be the removal of the primary gain which is the damage done to other players HoF category.
3. Legality vs honourability: I've only mentioned the legality of those actions. Whether they were honourable is a completely different question. If you consider the actions dishonourable feel free to shun/ignore/pod players involved. I have no opinion on that matter.
4. Should those features stay?: Since it appears that a large part of the playerbase is not happy with them and the problems are easily fixed, I see no reason not to remove them. Of course, the final decision is Spock's. If they are to be removed it should be done when the current game ends.
2. CK way: Here, I would like to draw a parralel to arranged kills. While it's not illegal per se, it's frowned upon and seen as evidence of being a multi. Unless my memory is failing me, on the very few instances when the people doing it were deemed to be innocent of being multis the primary gain(kills) was removed while we did not touch xp gained etc. So, if in this case Spock does deem the action to be illegal, which I don't think he will, the punishment should be the removal of the primary gain which is the damage done to other players HoF category.
3. Legality vs honourability: I've only mentioned the legality of those actions. Whether they were honourable is a completely different question. If you consider the actions dishonourable feel free to shun/ignore/pod players involved. I have no opinion on that matter.
4. Should those features stay?: Since it appears that a large part of the playerbase is not happy with them and the problems are easily fixed, I see no reason not to remove them. Of course, the final decision is Spock's. If they are to be removed it should be done when the current game ends.
Imhotep put it perfectly. If you dont/didnt like what Armada was doing, all we(non-armada alliances) had to do was invade and devestate their galaxy. Simple enough. Kill the planets, kill the ports, and walla, no more exp trick. Im not armada, but come on, you ppl need to stop whinning. I personally feel that if those of you that ARE calling this a cheat(armadas) were in the alliance that found it first, YOU would be defending it. You may think in you're head its a cheat, but its not. As has already been said, it can easily be countered...just get a fleet together and fix it. And if all you're gonna do is do yourself in another alliance...then why are you whinning about it then?
As for CK, well thats something that cant be detected. You may be right by saying there is only a finite amount of UNO's, but thats kind of underscoring the issue.
As was mentioned by someone else in this thread, banning(or suspending) the ppl in CK that used this exploit, is a bad idea. THat would just drive most, if not all of them away from the game...we dont need that. Reducing their exp is also a bad idea...it will just lead to a majority of them going in-active, which we also dont want. Warning them from doing it again, or otherwise they WILL/COULD be suspended might work. In fact, warn ANYONE who does could suffer the consequenses, but let it go until the game is over, and have a fix for it by next game...simple enough solution.
And Inc, after a little thought, i can see where you are coming from about what i said...'ill refuse to acknowledge any of them get to 500k'...well, you did make it work, so its completely justifiable. I just dont feel that its in the spirit of what trading is all about. But good job on getting the trade scheme set up and running though
As for CK, well thats something that cant be detected. You may be right by saying there is only a finite amount of UNO's, but thats kind of underscoring the issue.
As was mentioned by someone else in this thread, banning(or suspending) the ppl in CK that used this exploit, is a bad idea. THat would just drive most, if not all of them away from the game...we dont need that. Reducing their exp is also a bad idea...it will just lead to a majority of them going in-active, which we also dont want. Warning them from doing it again, or otherwise they WILL/COULD be suspended might work. In fact, warn ANYONE who does could suffer the consequenses, but let it go until the game is over, and have a fix for it by next game...simple enough solution.
And Inc, after a little thought, i can see where you are coming from about what i said...'ill refuse to acknowledge any of them get to 500k'...well, you did make it work, so its completely justifiable. I just dont feel that its in the spirit of what trading is all about. But good job on getting the trade scheme set up and running though
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TahKillahz
- Beta Tester
- Posts: 32
- Joined: Tue May 21, 2002 6:55 pm
- Location: Jersey
Thats funny. You say we should get a warning for abusing one game formula while armada been abusing another 1 and thats perfectly ok.
I wonder if Inc and lotus would be 1-2 if they havnt been doing that. You cant punish people or give them a warning for doing something which is implanted in the game formula's, we just used it some other way. No place said its not allowed, therefor its allowed, just like using planets, and doing 1 good trades, at least untill code change or there are strict rules saying its not.
I wonder if Inc and lotus would be 1-2 if they havnt been doing that. You cant punish people or give them a warning for doing something which is implanted in the game formula's, we just used it some other way. No place said its not allowed, therefor its allowed, just like using planets, and doing 1 good trades, at least untill code change or there are strict rules saying its not.
Tah, you need to ease up buddy. You were in TE during the PR crap and I didn't approve of that loophole abuse then and I don't approve of it now. While I am on this thread :D about it, I am in fact doing something. For the last week, I have continually cleared Armada's warp and sectors of mines to make it easy for TD and others to PR. LoM PR'd one port but more work needs to be done to end the uber route.
oc12 here, what you playing with slowpoke?
Immy I can't say I see any justification for the CK way even though you say there are a finite number of Unos in the game. That is true of course, but first off checking all Unos takes a load of time, you can't be really sure when they do it unless they're on CPL and you monitor them closely and finally you can do it inside your own well-defended home galaxy where no one will just go in and check an Uno to see if you're there. Basically the amount of turns and time you need to invest to successfully stop CK's (and others') abuse is, in my opinion, way too high and as such I see it as an unfairly gained advantage ie cheating.
Blum I can't really see how you can say the primary gain from CK's "method" is the damage done to others on HoF list. In all essence that means nothing to the game whereas the XP gained means a lot for the game. After all by now most of CK's players can run around without fear of people seeing them and basically do as they please and hunt as they please. Therefore the XP is a much more important gain than the HoF gain and as such if anything should be removed then in my opinion it should be the XP.
Remlak I was the one who mentioned the suspension and XP removal. I do understand your point and I do realize we need players for SMR, but a low player base is that a good justification for not punishing cheaters? What happens to games that are full of cheating? The player base gets lower. Personally I think a public statement from Spock or some of the other admins clarifying whether or not this is illegal is the best way to do it and in the event they says it's cheating then anyone doing it after that should be punished.
Xar that is a valid point, however there is the matter of ethics. On an ethical level the "Armada bug" is way above the "CK bug", but in essence I think both things are wrong and should be removed. As I said, even though it might not happen , I think Spock or some other game admin needs to just make a public statement on this.
In my opinion the best move would be to check out if the bugs can be easily removed, if yes then take the game down for the short while it takes and then launch it again as is.
Until then I will strongly consider using these bugs myself. I am in no way willing to give an unfair advantage to others because of bug abuse that isn't fixed. After all there is no justification in that because it doesn't require skill or time which regular XP gain actually does so if I can gain double the XP in half the time using a bug everybody else uses why wouldn't I?
Blum I can't really see how you can say the primary gain from CK's "method" is the damage done to others on HoF list. In all essence that means nothing to the game whereas the XP gained means a lot for the game. After all by now most of CK's players can run around without fear of people seeing them and basically do as they please and hunt as they please. Therefore the XP is a much more important gain than the HoF gain and as such if anything should be removed then in my opinion it should be the XP.
Remlak I was the one who mentioned the suspension and XP removal. I do understand your point and I do realize we need players for SMR, but a low player base is that a good justification for not punishing cheaters? What happens to games that are full of cheating? The player base gets lower. Personally I think a public statement from Spock or some of the other admins clarifying whether or not this is illegal is the best way to do it and in the event they says it's cheating then anyone doing it after that should be punished.
Xar that is a valid point, however there is the matter of ethics. On an ethical level the "Armada bug" is way above the "CK bug", but in essence I think both things are wrong and should be removed. As I said, even though it might not happen
, I think Spock or some other game admin needs to just make a public statement on this.In my opinion the best move would be to check out if the bugs can be easily removed, if yes then take the game down for the short while it takes and then launch it again as is.
Until then I will strongly consider using these bugs myself. I am in no way willing to give an unfair advantage to others because of bug abuse that isn't fixed. After all there is no justification in that because it doesn't require skill or time which regular XP gain actually does so if I can gain double the XP in half the time using a bug everybody else uses why wouldn't I?