101 (edited by Saha 2011-02-14 03:40:02)

Re: Insurance action

Arga wrote:

... than agin, it can't hurt to have a few billion NIC to buy kernels to help that along either.

According to devs only close to 1 billion nic was involved in insurance fraud as their investigations show. Stop over-exagerating things!

big_smile

102 (edited by Saha 2011-02-14 03:45:04)

Re: Insurance action

Saha wrote:
Annihilator wrote:
Saha wrote:

...Do YOU want to play a game where one day you might wake up and let's say an extension in which you invested 40k EP is missing because Devs considered it to be overpowered or whatever?

unrealistic example, as removed extensions will free the spent EP...

Yes, example was poor. But it seems you got the message, which is good wink


Actually, now that I think about it.... As a person owning an account with 2 characters with full insurance extensions and insurance being diabled atm with extensions still being there... That was half arsed example=P

103

Re: Insurance action

Dude, read all the post smile ... from Alex in particular.

This also wasn't pointed at infestation which had the t4 prototypes long before the insurance thing could have helped them.

The post is correct, having a few billion to buy kernels would help anyone needing to pay 200-300k per kernel.

104

Re: Insurance action

Saha wrote:
Ember wrote:

...Having a bit of NIC wiped after exploiting isn't unduly harsh so just take it on the chin and move on.

Try rereading what I wrote earlier. NIC wipe is not an issue at all, at least for me (actually I personally lost 0 NIC). Issue is how it was handled, starting from time it took react to how actually "fix" was performed to how DEVs pretended to be white knights fighting the insurance fraud.
While actually those people who are being named and shamed today were pointing out the insurance issues to devs months ago as well as providing with variaety of possible solutions. So yes, go ahead and play white knights. Some people will believe it. But fact is you, Devs, *** up big time and try to channel down your own *** up on people who were actually trying to help you months ago. Way to go.

Wow are you missing the point.  Those being named and shamed are being called out for exploiting. Simple as that.

Should exploiters get a pass because they publicly announced that they could exploit several months ago. Just out of curiosity what do you think would be a fair statute of limitations on exploiting? You do realize that the operative word in insurance fraud is FRAUD? That should have been your first tip off in avoiding it.

As for the whole white night BS I don't see it.  All I see is a few of the worst offenders getting slapped on the wrist and called out for, in your case, doing something that they had already acknowledged as being wrong. herp derp. QQ

But you say it's the DEV's fault for not closing the exploit fast enough? Your like the rapist who gets caught and believes she was asking for it.... those silly DEV's shouldn't have dressed that fraud so sexy, they were begging to have you exploit all over them weren't they? Well you really showed them by coming on the boards and ranting didn't you!

"You're living in a parallel universe." ~Syndic

105

Re: Insurance action

Ember wrote:

But you say it's the DEV's fault for not closing the exploit fast enough? Your like the rapist who gets caught and believes she was asking for it.... those silly DEV's shouldn't have dressed that fraud so sexy, they were begging to have you exploit all over them weren't they? Well you really showed them by coming on the boards and ranting didn't you!

They not only dressed her, mind you not in a dress, but told her to grab her ankles. Unless devs in return to raised concerns stating "it's not possible and it's not profftable" can be interpreted otherwise.

Re: Insurance action

I wanna know who In NA was doing this fraud and why they were holding out on the money

107 (edited by Campana 2011-02-14 04:12:33)

Re: Insurance action

This thread reminds me of this clip

Edit: @Dont do a weed, thanks, I didn't realise you could do that smile

"...playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles."
Bernard Suits, 1978

Re: Insurance action

Dromsex wrote:

Noone is covering up anything Saha. Obviously the game mechanic was created by the DEVs. They are responsible for any game mechanic or bit of coding.

But you are solely responsible for exploiting it.

I am extremely amused by the fact that someone who not only played Neocron, but also liked it enough to call himself "Dromsex" is complaining about using game mechanics in creative ways. It makes me wonder how you even managed to play it, considering that just figuring out a proper CON/Armor setup felt like exploiting faulty game mechanics.
I imagine you must have written an email to the support every time you actually got something to work, demanding that they ban you immediately as those features clearly weren't meant to be functional.

Re: Insurance action

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN8YWHrA5ew&t=2m14s

Re: Insurance action

I think everyone deserves to know that, at this point in time, is kernel buying/selling to NPC for profit is considered exploiting. Devs please respond now, I do not want to find out two to three months down the road. Thanks.

Re: Insurance action

I've had long discussions in general chat (with GM's present) about legality of insurance fraud. Was never mentioned that it was illegal. The point is, the devs and gm's knew about this practice for a long time, and even though it may be immoral, it was never mentioned that it was in fact illegal. I only had a few hundred thousand nic taken away from me, which is nothing, but the fact is that the prevalent knowledge was that it was immoral but legal. On a side note, I never knew the true extent of some insurance operations... 800 sequers?

How could anyone have known that this was considered an exploit when the devs made no communication that it was? Consider the above post regarding kernel selling to npc. Some people consider it wrong to sell to npc and reduce supply? How many of you have done that? Of course there is no mention whether it is legal or not, so you would assume that it is legal. Two, three months down the road, you get all the NIC taken away from you because it WAS illegal. I hope dev's can respond to this question, so that we can hold them to their word.

Re: Insurance action

Overall, I feel that it was bad PR to publicly name corps or individuals. The dev's/GM's should have WARNED players that it was illegal, and privately penalize those who continue to do so. I have no bad apple against the dev's for taking my money; I did it a few times and lost 200k nic. It's considered illegal now and i'm fine with them taking the money. I just want to be warned next time i'm doing something illegal that is not known to be illegal.

End of rant.

Re: Insurance action

bureaucracy wrote:
Dromsex wrote:

Noone is covering up anything Saha. Obviously the game mechanic was created by the DEVs. They are responsible for any game mechanic or bit of coding.

But you are solely responsible for exploiting it.

I am extremely amused by the fact that someone who not only played Neocron, but also liked it enough to call himself "Dromsex" is complaining about using game mechanics in creative ways. It makes me wonder how you even managed to play it, considering that just figuring out a proper CON/Armor setup felt like exploiting faulty game mechanics.
I imagine you must have written an email to the support every time you actually got something to work, demanding that they ban you immediately as those features clearly weren't meant to be functional.

Gaulois wrote:

Well... apparently, the simple fact that you could use the the insurance system the way it was designed... is an exploit.

It was a flawed design from the start. Just like we could consider that everyone that sold kernels before the price change, or everyone that produce T4 modules before they require the new material, were exploiters!

I think the devs are forgetting that the bots cost money to produce. It's not a miracle 1 million gain each time. No, it's 10 time less in reason of the production cost.

Plus, I believe it was helping the market to stay healthy, lots of buy order for basic materials, as they could be directly converted in bots, and the in cash.

It's like selling material to NPCs smile


People that exploited this didn't made that much money in the end.  devs removed 5-10x what they should have.

Alexander wrote:

Too little too late. That's all I have to say.Alexander
2011-02-13 14:11:46
I personally lost over 1 billion NIC.



"using game mechanics in creative ways" lmfao its easier to just say exploit its only 1 word guess your not guilty here r u.  MK=2 and X-23  and m2s were the heaviest exploiters trying to minimize what they have done it seems by their posts

Re: Insurance action

its commonsense that they did not intend the insurance to be used in this way anything else is just an excuse  i cheated but i did in a way to not break EULA so its not cheating? exploiting a flaw/bug in the game is always a no no in MMORPGs all over you get caught you get banned .

Re: Insurance action

Immortalmerc, you are right that it is commonsense that insurance is not intended to be used that way. However, many of us have asked devs and gms to clarify on this issue before and they have NEVER said it was illegal or an exploit. To spin your example around, I cheated but I did it in a way to not break EULA and Devs did not say it was a cheat. So is that cheating then? Of course we all know now that the dev's think it is a cheat, it is easy to say that in hindsight. But please consider the months of no response on this issue, and given an illusory perspective that it was OKAY.

Re: Insurance action

Saha wrote:
Wraithbane wrote:

Laughter!... Oh, I'm quite aware of whats going on here. Bottom line, those involved EXPLOITED an in game system in a fashion it was not intended to be used for, to their own benefit, and now they are howling like banshees because the fruits of their exploits have been taken from them. All of the rest of the smoke and mirrors some are attempting to use are just obfuscation, meant to distract from that fundamental point.

I have to give AC credit. Even with a small team and limited resources, they much more quickly addressed a serious exploit, in a more timely fashion than I've seen CCP do in some cases in EVE. That speaks well for their concern about the games economy. The fact that they also didn't perma ban those involved, speaks well of their even handed approach.

Are you trying to look ***? Since you are succeeding quite admirably.

I'm one of the most posting persons on the issue. I haven't lost a single NIC. Nor do I mind that my corp did. For last 2 months I don't think I've had more than 3 million NIC myself, yet I'm able to fit t4s and to actually afford losing them. From the talks with the guys, they don't give a *** about lost NIC either. It just doesn't matter enough to make a fuss about it. And no, it doesn't matter not because we frauded enough NIC. No, it's because we know how to make stuff properly.

Yet you together with bunch of other clowns are jumping in joy thinking EXPLOITERS GOT PWNED LOL. We didn't. Devs, in your lingo, got PWNED LOL by their poor handling of the issue and that is concern we are raising. You are applauding them for technically letting poor system go live, then ignoring the warnings given by loads of people and then removing in game stuff which was generated by their ignorance.
Do you want to sit there and fap while under your nose a precedent of Devs covering their mistakes by blaming players is happening? If this goes untouched once, it'll happen again. And again. Do YOU want to play a game where one day you might wake up and let's say an extension in which you invested 40k EP is missing because Devs considered it to be overpowered or whatever?


Classic example... Open up with personal attacks, and then continue with smoke and mirrors.  Have you thought of running for political office? ^^  Of course the mistake was made by the Dev's. They are the only ones doing the coding around here... But the *choice* to EXPLOIT that mistake was made by the players involved.  Who got off easy, compared to some other game companies I've had experience with. I don't see them blaming the players for their mistake. But they are (rightly) taking action against those who exploited that mistake.

AC is a small indy company(10 people last I heard) who are working on their first game.  Given the complex nature of the software and hardware involved, I'm amazed that the client/server is as stable as it is, and that there are as few major issues as I've seen so far.   Bottom line, if you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

If you can't kill it, don't make it mad.

117

Re: Insurance action

Devs can't list out everything explicitly; there is something in the EULA about missuse of game mechanics. Also, getting a little more NIC back on insurance than the cost of a bot + insurance is not a game breaker in and of itself.

The exploit itself is not even fully exploitable to the majority of the population, and it wasn't until it was fully and truely exploited on an industrial scale that it became an issue the devs needed to deal with.

When it got to the point it needed to be stopped, they had no choice but to penalize everyone that had even a small profit from the exploit to make it fair, even though only major corporations could fully exploit.

Players buying bots off the market and insuring them and losing them in PVP may have made enough NIC back to buy and insure another bot + a few thousand extra, but lost NIC overall because of the module costs.

Corps with large scale mining, dedicated industrial characters, and EP in insurance could quickly convert bots to cash without waiting to sell on the market. This isn't even a matter of the insurance payout being played versus the current cost of the bots. It was just more expiedient to build and scrap bots than it was to sell them.

There was SO MUCH ore and SO LITTLE pvp that there was just no market for the volume of bots that dedicated players could produce; something like 36 Mechs every 3 days per dedicated industrialist alt.

It was wrong and against the spirit of the game to build'n-bash but it still points back to the game itself

1) having too much and too easy resources
2) not enough reason to pvp and lose bots the right way
3) crafting designed to support massive pvp, again without the pvp

CS didn't have the production capacity or resources to mine and build or even buy and build so didn't have anything to do with this, but if we had, we probably would have also. I can totally see why a CEO sitting on the NIC and resouces to produce 100's of bots a day wouldn't just want to 'waste' time by not making them.

I really really have to point the finger back at the game here, and by extensions the devs. I don't think Infestation gave a sh*t about the NIC. If there was any reason in the game for blowing up more bots legitimately, they would have done so.

Also, build'n-bash is not the same exploit as manipulating the insurance payout so you could buy bots straight off the market and blow them up for profit. If there is insurance, and you build bots using gathered resources, you're always going to make a profit. The question is if you would make MORE NIC selling the bot or selling the ORE then in making a bot; which you may if the market could stand it, but its INSTANT NIC with the insurance...

of course after while you get enough NIC, and bored of gathering, so you just buy the ore and switch to Buy'n-bash. This is where its a real exploit, because you are doing very little work for the profit.

Once Buy'n-bash became prevalent, insurance became totally broken and we get the dev post.

I and my corp didn't do this, but I find the 'high-horse' attitude of some players just truely miss the mark in the "spin the wheel of blame" game.

Lets hope that not only the players that let their greed run away, but also the devs, take away from this that the game needs attention; and keeping your loyal players informed of what is going on in the grand scheme is invaluable.

Re: Insurance action

Alfredson wrote:

Immortalmerc, you are right that it is commonsense that insurance is not intended to be used that way. However, many of us have asked devs and gms to clarify on this issue before and they have NEVER said it was illegal or an exploit. To spin your example around, I cheated but I did it in a way to not break EULA and Devs did not say it was a cheat. So is that cheating then? Of course we all know now that the dev's think it is a cheat, it is easy to say that in hindsight. But please consider the months of no response on this issue, and given an illusory perspective that it was OKAY.

Alfredson just to clarify my statement was general not directed at you

119

Re: Insurance action

Instead of taking from individuals who comitted this so called "offence", you have gone and taken 2/3s of our Corps account, the Corp never did this, individuals did, thats money people in our Corp have worked hard for, have been putting in a lot of time for, time we are paying real cash for !
You *** up, not us, if your going to have insurance, how hard is it to increase the premiums on accounts that have made claims in the past 1 or 2 weeks, no claim bonus and all that ***, make more than 3 claims in a period of time and the insurance company black ban you for a time.
What has happened here is no different from some guy getting his mate to steal his car so he can claim on his insurance.

120 (edited by Dromsex 2011-02-14 10:15:16)

Re: Insurance action

bureaucracy wrote:
Dromsex wrote:

Noone is covering up anything Saha. Obviously the game mechanic was created by the DEVs. They are responsible for any game mechanic or bit of coding.

But you are solely responsible for exploiting it.

I am extremely amused by the fact that someone who not only played Neocron, but also liked it enough to call himself "Dromsex" is complaining about using game mechanics in creative ways. It makes me wonder how you even managed to play it, considering that just figuring out a proper CON/Armor setup felt like exploiting faulty game mechanics.
I imagine you must have written an email to the support every time you actually got something to work, demanding that they ban you immediately as those features clearly weren't meant to be functional.

Insurance fraud is not a creative way tu use game mechanics - its a major exploit in this game and you got caught. Thats what these threads are about.

But i understand its a new situation guys - you get caught as usual but only in this game you dont get perm banned.

Its funny how infestation members get cought in every game for the same thing, be it Neocron, MO and now PO.

Re: Insurance action

BULL ****

There is no autorun. Only autostop. - Weapon X

122

Re: Insurance action

Ive just read about this on another site.

Seems the rest of the world are impressed by Devs that finally have the stones to name and shame,  and I just came to say that I agree with that feeling and to say how much respect I have for you.   I genuinly hope that you continue and dont be put off by the QQ.

Oh, I also admit to coming to laugh my *** off at those shamed trying to justify their actions and even try to deny it!...

great.. great reading!

I'm even tempted to play again xD

Re: Insurance action

Sade wrote:

Ive just read about this on another site.

Seems the rest of the world are impressed by Devs that finally have the stones to name and shame,  and I just came to say that I agree with that feeling and to say how much respect I have for you.   I genuinly hope that you continue and dont be put off by the QQ.

Oh, I also admit to coming to laugh my *** off at those shamed trying to justify their actions and even try to deny it!...

great.. great reading!

I'm even tempted to play again xD

Mr Sade I have more fragments for you to recycle. big_smile

[18:20:30] <GLiMPSE> Chairman Of My Heart o/
CIR Complaint Form

The Imperial Grand Wizard of Justice

Re: Insurance action

Dromsex wrote:

Insurance fraud is not a creative way tu use game mechanics - its a major exploit in this game and you got caught. Thats what these threads are about.

See, that is exactly the point. We didn't get caught. We told the Devs in personal convos that implementing any kind of insurance mechanic would lead to it being exploited, therefor it would be a bad idea to do so. They however were confident that their method to calculate and adjust the payouts would prevent that. Later we told them how it is being used, how much profit is being gained by doing so and that we are doing it right now. At no point did they ever state that they do not want us or anyone to use it in this way. Had they done so all of this would be a completely different story.
Perpetuum Online is Avatar Creation's game, hence it is entirely up to them to determine what the rules are. Up until now their approach to exploits, bugs and questionable game mechanics wasn't to cry to people about how they shouldn't be using them until they come around to do something about it, they just went and fixed it as quickly as possible. That is an admirable attitude and it shows that if something goes wrong, they accept responsibility for it and implement an immediate solution.
If we tell them in great detail that a certain game mechanic is being used in a way that deviates from it's seemingly intended purpose and all they have to say to it is that it's working as intended, then that's how it is.
Lots of different games have entirely different rules. While in some games, I remember that being the case with SWG years ago, you could get banned if you disturbed someone who was using a macro to afk-grind. You could also get banned for scamming. EvE however does not punish anyone for scamming as it is exactly the kind of feel they want to have in their sandbox MMO. If you use macros however you will get banned for it.

Speaking of EvE, this entire affair reminds me a lot of the ferrogel scandal. The difference however is that CCP was unaware for several years that it was happening and it was a very obvious item dupe, things appeared out of nothing. Once they did find out, players who were engaging in it got banned. CCP has taken great care to backtrack what happened and tried very hard not to punish anyone who may not have been actually involved with it, however seeing as EvE is one of those games where lots of account sharing, especially in the logistic and production department happens, this wasn't an easy task. Yet after the initial ban wave several people got unbanned which is an impressive display of lenience as account sharing is an EULA violation in itself. They have removed corp assets that have been purchased using ISK gained from this exploit and left the rest alone.
Something CCP never did was release a list of people who did any of this. The reason some corps/alliances were known to be involved in this was someone hacking their forums and publishing it.

Let's compare this to how it was handled here. The DEVs have been warned before they put the mechanic in the game, they knew it was happening once it was in the game and reassured to us that there is nothing wrong with it. Now they suddenly turn around, declare it an exploit in retrospect, wipe NIC off accounts almost at random (later admitting to having punished the wrong person and returning the NIC) and point fingers at the very same people who have been telling them about this issue the entire time AND who they confirmed to that it's ok.
The sole reason why we are upset about it is that it was handled in such an unprofessional way. It's not about the NIC and as we have proven to Norhoop yesterday, we are still very much operational.
While I realize that quite a bit of work from the DEVs went into the poor result we are confronted with here and approve of the fact that the flawed insurance system has been removed, it's just not good enough.
I hope something like this doesn't happen ever again, however if it does I would wish for it to be handled more competently.


Dromsex wrote:

But i understand its a new situation guys - you get caught as usual but only in this game you dont get perm banned.

We've been helping the DEVs where ever we somehow could, because we actually want to see this game succeed. That does not quite compare to what I did in Neocron, much less to what my guys started doing once I left.


Dromsex wrote:

Its funny how infestation members get cought in every game for the same thing, be it Neocron, MO and now PO.

Feel free to add EvE to that list as I happened to be in Ev0ke during the ferrogel thing. I didn't have anything to do with it, believe it or not, but I did get some insight into how it was dealt with by CCP.

Anyway, as long as the DEVs don't end up shooting themselves in the foot with issues like this, it's all gonna work out somehow. A few people got upset, we got epically trolled, moving on.

Re: Insurance action

bureaucracy wrote:

we got epically trolled

Indeed. This troll put DEV Zoom in the lead on my CoolPoints™ Leaderboard.