Well, after my statement yesterday, about Mancs, after a long convo, agreeing that I was correct and that the NIC i had was legitimately earned, turned around today and arbitrarily removed it again, after a 2 hour convo trying to show that even though I had not personally earned NIC or advantage thru this, because of my association to the corp and the activity, i was guilty.

Of course, he proceeded to remove that NIC again.  Trolls, have your fun, I know the "Umads?" are coming...

People, all of us, the entire customer base, need to be concerned how these issues are dealt with and resolved.  When an individual can arbitrarily set a criteria, unpublished, and state that a paying customer violates that criteria, THEN ALL OF US ARE AT RISK!

Anyone of us, ANYONE, can have this applied to them.  There needs to be clear definition of what are exploits, communicated in a visible way, and transparent review and resolution process, that assures fair and equitable resolution of issues.

We pay RL money to be here, and at the same time we are the ones that provide the content to make it interesting, that draws more people to this game, and we need to know that issues will be handled objectively, in good faith, and fairly.

WE ARE ALL AT RISK IN THE FUTURE TO THIS BEHAVIOR, EVERYONE OF US, AND WE NEED AS PAYING CUSTOMERS TO KNOW THAT WE WILL BE TREATED EQUITABLY AND IN GOOD FAITH.

Damn, why didn't I get some points.....

Glimpse hates me, damn...

Excuse me, did you miss something here? The issue is not that the situation needed to be corrected, which it did, but that when asked months ago, the DEVs told us and others that it was OK to do it.  They were ASKED FIRST, assented, and people did it.

A month or 2 later, they turn around, point fingers, and shout "Exploiters, bad boy, bad!!!" and arbitrarily grab NIC out of peoples accounts based on merely having a minimal association with those they claim violated a non-existent rule / regulation.

1)  When informed, they approved the activity
2)  Later, they claim that it is an "exploit"
3) They accuse, by name, corps that actually communicated with them prior to doing it to make sure it did not violate any requirement
4) They then perform punitive action against those entities, and also individual member accounts associated with them, without looking at the transaction logs of where those players actually obtained that NIC, such as kernel sales or assignment rewards, and not by insurance, then claim the reason they did was because the player had over a certain amount of NIC, and associated with the entity the claimed were at fault.

People, if you do not see, not only the hypocrisy of the above, and the arbitrary actions performed, then you are blind.  Nothing prevents this from being repeated again in the future, and those currently praising the DEVS actions because it indirectly benefits themselves or hurts their "enemies", could yourselves be the victim of the same behavior.

Truthful reporting of what actually happened by the people who run this game, objective and critical investigation of issues, transparency of process, and factual reporting is essential to maintain customer trust, and the DEVs handling of this issue has seriously eroded that.   

This should matter to everyone, regardless of being affected by it, negatively or positively, because there has to be a clear process of evaluation and resolution, that is thorough, and respects client rights.

The DEVs have been strangely quite during this whole debate, and we all should be clamoring for them to acknowledge the statements in this thread, and to be objective and truthful in that response.

Hey, MODERATOR, how many threads do we need on this subject, 3 going atm.  Anyhow, this is reposted from other thread, lets get a little logic going here:

Here are the facts people:
A) Devs put in an insuance system, that had short term(16 days at max skill) life, and payouts that actually allowed you to make significantly more than the actual cost to build the bot.

B) Before the announcement that insurance was being turned off, there was no statement on the forums, in the EULA, in the game description of insurance, no where in game or out that this was designated an exploit or a fraud.  People, GMs and Devs, when asked in the past, stated that it is working as intended.

C) Devs were informed, from multiple sources, how this system potentially was "broken", and took no action.

In RL, when you do a Root Cause analysis, you start off with with:

1) What is the issue?
2) What procedure, standard, regulation, etc., that it violates

If you find that there is no regulatory or procedural requirement that the issue violates, you implement corrective action by creating a new requirement to cover the issue.  You cannot at that time claim it is a violation of a requirement, only that your system did not anticipate the need for control of something that at the time was not an issue.

There was not exploit or fraud.  Because there was no rule / requirement / procedure that it violated.  There was no hack, becuase someone did not use out of game mechanics to affect in game performance.  The only ones that are at fault here are the Devs, everything else was done according to the at the time published game rules and functionality.  Corrective Action at this point would be to declare it an exploit, create a mechanic to prevent it, and publish it in an easily referable source, such as an Exploit Forum or list, and state from this point forward, it is not allowed.  To retroactively punish people for something that was not a violation prior to that point is inherently wrong, logically, and ethically.

WHere is the INTENDED USE defined?  Who decides what is intended, and not?  And how is that criteria communicated to the players, so they know?

Still have not shown it as exploiting ot violating anything, other than your opinion.

EDIT:  Don't get me wrong, I thought the system was poorly designed and defined, and needed to be changed.  However, my issue is with the way it has been handled.  To out of the blue accuse people or corps of violating the rules, and summarily issuing judgement/punishement, without discussion or a thorough investigation, is not justice.  It is a knee jerk reaction, and to retroactively punish people for lack of the DEVS listening to advice in the past about this issue, and they having stated to several people tht it is working as intended until it is changed, is logically and ethically wrong.  Everyone who plays this game needs to understand, that when you allow people to use arbitrary decision, and make accusations, not based on the facts, is not in anyone's interest, regardless how it might or might not benefit someone.

I luv comments like this...it shows that despite 6.5 million years of hominid evolution, that many people still do not know how to use a brain.

Here are the facts people:
A) Devs put in an insuance system, that had short term(16 days at max skill) life, and payouts that actually allowed you to make significantly more than the actual cost to build the bot.

B) Before the announcement that insurance was being turned off, there was no statement on the forums, in the EULA, in the game description of insurance, no where in game or out that this was designated an exploit or a fraud.  People, GMs and Devs, when asked in the past, stated that it is working as intended.

C) Devs were informed, from multiple sources, how this system potentially was "broken", and took no action.

In RL, when you do a Root Cause analysis, you start off with with:

1) What is the issue?
2) What procedure, standard, regulation, etc., that it violates

If you find that there is no regulatory or procedural requirement that the issue violates, you implement corrective action by creating a new requirement to cover the issue.  You cannot at that time claim it is a violation of a requirement, only that your system did not anticipate the need for control of something that at the time was not an issue.

There was not exploit or fraud.  Because there was no rule / requirement / procedure that it violated.  There was no hack, becuase someone did not use out of game mechanics to affect in game performance.  The only ones that are at fault here are the Devs, everything else was done according to the at the time published game rules and functionality.  Corrective Action at this point would be to declare it an exploit, create a mechanic to prevent it, and publish it in an easily referable source, such as an Exploit Forum or list, and state from this point forward, it is not allowed.  To retroactively punish people for something that was not a violation prior to that point is inherently wrong, logically, and ethically.

At previously pointed out, apparently you did not read the original post...THINK, yourself!

The idea is to DECREASE the extent of territory that can be locked down, while expanding tha amount of landmass, and creating multiple access lanes beyond the 3 current per island, and give individuals and individual corps the ablity to get into beta areas, and in such a large landmass that they actually could "hide" out there and have to be found in order to do anything about it.

This gives access to beta for everyone, and reduces the ablity of the current alliances to monopolize beta.

Rather than shields that blobs can huddle behind them, which forces an attacker to approach them close range (within the shields) to engage, learn to PVP effectively as a mobile group, utilize the terrain, and actually have to use tactics during an engagement.

I think this video shows why Adom wants a shield generator - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9ewK9qYLZU

This video shows what happens when you DO USE TACTICS.  If you have a shielded area, that you have to enter to engage, it eliminates ranged combat, and allows a group to blob up safely at one point, without consequences.

The proper counter to an ewar group is ANOTHER EWAR GROUP with LIGHT AND ASSAULT BACKUP!  not reduce ewar speed.

Alf, you may be a dev, but making PVP a concensual thing on beta islands is the worst possible idea which only a carebear could conceive.  Beta = risk, you can be attacked at any time, or attack at any time.  This is what makes it exciting and dynamic.  If PVP ever becomes a matter of mutual consent on beta, or just arena based, the first thing any avid PVPer will do is quit this game.  It would be the worst possible decision if you want a dynamic, exciting, and sandbox environment...

You forget the dynamic respawn ... faster you kill them the faster they respawn.  Ppl, this is an MMO, and as much as you keep trying to solo even PVE, it's set up for ppl to work together.  Bring more friends, kill it faster, get faster respawn...