Be wary, my friends. The nerds are restless tonight.
I haven’t read the entire thread linked to in the article, but I’m kind of unclear as to who was in the wrong on this one.
Well, there’s the bit where SWG apparently banned anyone who had ever duped money and anyone who had ever been given duped money as a tip, or in exchange for services, or for goods, or found it on the ground… some are claiming the number is as high as 44 thousand banned.
Is this Star Wars Rebellion? :)
And don’t forget the part where CSRs, faced with protests well within any normal code of conduct, started teleporting random people - some of whom weren’t even involved - into deep space or distant planets where they were faced with the possibility of imminent death.
SOE’s response to difficult situations in SWG seems to be to take the shotgun approach. I’m glad I’m not playing, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this leads to a radical downswing in subscriptions.
MMO players are such gluttons for abuse. It’s hilarious. Any reasonable person would sever all ties with SoE after an indicent like that, but instead the nerds threaten the GM’s and CSR’s because they know deep down that the game is their life and they have no place else to go, so they want change or at least an illusion so they can resume grinding away time in the real life simulator as per the status quo.
MMO players are such gluttons for abuse. It’s hilarious. Any reasonable person would sever all ties with SoE after an indicent like that, but instead the nerds threaten the GM’s and CSR’s because they know deep down that the game is their life and they have no place else to go, so they want change or at least an illusion so they can resume grinding away time in the real life simulator as per the status quo.[/quote]
That’s about as broad as SOE’s approach to this situation. Not everyone is a catasser.
but most like catass.
The true idiocy is at SOE, in fact. One of the devs announced PRIOR to any action that anyone caught with duped currency would be banned. Of course, dupers allegedly started /tipping or “donating” duped money to innocents as a grief tactic. When SOE finally decided to actually start banning people, duped currency had propagated far more widely than at the time of the announcement.
This is all third hand, though, since I don’t play SWG or read any SWG boards myself.
You know, considering this board is full of would-be gaming journalists, I’m surprised no one has bothered to try to contact SOE for an interview.
It’d be a scoop, y’know. I don’t play MMORPG’s at all and find most of the discussion dull and irrelevant, and yet this is fascinating to me.
This is news.
Go do your jobs, gaming journalists! Gimme an SOE interview scoop!
Good luck. You have to get through SOE’s PR department first. Otherwise, your source has to remain anonymous because his/her job is on the line if management finds the leak.
Why not interview the management?
If SOE was at all interested in any form of honesty regarding this clusterfuck, the playerbase would already know about it. The very reason management would have the heads of a leaker is the same reason why management won’t give an interview. And PR sure as hell isn’t going to give any useful information.
Really, SOE has nothing at all to gain by publicizing what’s going on here. Assuming MrJoshua is right*, then SOE mishandled this situation from the get-go. They told the dupers that the banstick was coming, told the dupers that it would use a simple algorithm to figure out who to hit, and thus simultaneously gave them a way out, and the most powerful griefing weapon I’ve ever seen. And now that people are justifiably pissed, they take the worst of all possible responses to the situation by assuming that the shotgun they just fired into the crowd of SWG players automagically only hit cheaters, unless the victim proves otherwise.
Management is not going to give an interview. They’re going to try to shut everyone up as fast as possible and pretend it never happened.
*[size=2]I’m sure you are, but you’re the only person I’ve read who has made this claim.[/size]
MrJoshua is telling the truth. You can find this on numerous sites, including unofficial SWG fansites and, for very brief instances, on the main boards themselves.
There are screenshots showing the demonstrations, if you care to look for them. I knew about this last week. It happened on the 11th or 17th or something, I believe.
SOE sucks. They treat their customers worse than any publisher I can think of considering their customers pay them $13+ monthly and, in the case of EQ, have all swallowed 7 or so $30 expansions to the original $50 game.
No, no! I’ve read the demonstration material for myself, as well as something about why it’s happening. It’s only the part about SOE announcing the conditions of the ban ahead of time that I’m depending on him for. :)
I smell a class action lawsuit in the works!
I suspect it would be hard to get enough in damages to make it worthwhile, given that it’s only a game and that SOE can hire decent legal talent.
Bad press for SOE right before EQ2, though. Not that I was planning to play it…
I d/l Anarchy Online on Saturday on the free 7-day trial. I logged in on Sunday, made a character (Polito, lvl3 Adv on RK1!) and chose Omnitek as my affiliation. Within 10mins of me reaching the training ground, sitting down to learn the UI and then wander about a bit, something wonderful happened. As if by magic, out of nowhere popped a real human CS advisor (or Advisors of Rubi-Ka, apparently) and asked me if I was okay and if he could help me with anything.
I declined (I’ve played MMORPGs before, and could futz my way through), and thanked him, but what a great way to help someone who maybe hasn’t played this sort of game before. There’s obviously some flag that sends a /petition when the first character on a new account logs in for the first time, but the mechanics don’t really matter.
Someone will pop up here and tell me why AO is shite, but they do seem to have grasped how to treat a paying customer, and the importance of first impressions.
If SOE was at all interested in any form of honesty regarding this clusterfuck, the playerbase would already know about it. The very reason management would have the heads of a leaker is the same reason why management won’t give an interview. And PR sure as hell isn’t going to give any useful information.
Really, SOE has nothing at all to gain by publicizing what’s going on here. Assuming MrJoshua is right*, then SOE mishandled this situation from the get-go. They told the dupers that the banstick was coming, told the dupers that it would use a simple algorithm to figure out who to hit, and thus simultaneously gave them a way out, and the most powerful griefing weapon I’ve ever seen. And now that people are justifiably pissed, they take the worst of all possible responses to the situation by assuming that the shotgun they just fired into the crowd of SWG players automagically only hit cheaters, unless the victim proves otherwise.
Management is not going to give an interview. They’re going to try to shut everyone up as fast as possible and pretend it never happened.
*[size=2]I’m sure you are, but you’re the only person I’ve read who has made this claim.[/size][/quote]
In the absence of comment from management, this is perfectly reasonable. All the more reason why I want to hear what SOE themselves have to say about this.
Don’t any of you know how to bullshit your way into a phone interview?
I’m pretty sure that an announcement on banning dupers was right on the login screen’s current announcements, something along the lines of ‘we know there’s a credit dupe and we’re going to smack the dupers with the ban stick’.
This announcement may have been a public warning to innocent players after an earlier leak that led to people giving away duped credits though.