Giving back the improved storehouses

[Mannerheim]

BB knew about it midday on Saturday and had people working on a no downtime fix which they got done later on same day. If people would have contacted support and waited for the reply on Monday what to do, can they use or sell the extra they would have less problems now. Support is for issue tracking. Even if they know about stuff they get metrics of most common problems or emergency situations. Less reports, less priority. Posting it to forums would have spread the damage.

Instead some people exploited like no tomorrow and some less, trade filled with storehouses being tried to be money laundered. Anyone who clicks to get the storehouse, logs out for 15 min to get game status in semi-passive mode and then relogins and repeats over 4 times in 12h and thinks there is nothing wrong or weird happening is stupid or ignorant that they should be banned just for that.

Players have some responsibility too even if BB sucks at bug testing. However BB should get their news posting up to date and communicate better. It took almost a week to get info about this to players even tho they knew about the problem same day it happened. Where was the front page post/warning about calendar problem during weekend?

[litsa]

so i let them to star menu for tommorow i dont want to be out of game for some stores i am over 2 years on sttlers

[Splotch]

Haven't read the thread, way too big, just chipping in my two-penneth.

Obtaining more than one storehouse may have been innocent and accidental which is why they're not calling for everyone who got more than one to give all of them back. Obtaining more than the number they specified in this ban mail was a result of repetition of the same procedure and at that point the procedure was clearly unintentional, therefore that is the textbook definition of exploitation.

Yes it was their flaw but that argument could be used to support any and all exploitation. For example, if I managed to get 10,000 coins by some repeating some nefarious procedure over and over when I realise I can get 100 free coins I'm exploiting that flaw, would a valid defence be the flaw shouldn't exist for me to exploit it..? I don't think so. You don't like my speedhack and aimbot in your multiplayer FPS ? Well I should be able to build one, I shouldn't be penalised for using your flaw! ... It just doesn't work as a defence.

If you did something and you got a free imp. storehouse out of it and you repeated that mistake you would be repeating that mistake deliberately to benefit from it... If the mistake blew up a lvl5 Exotic Wood sawmill instead of giving you a free imp. storehouse would you do it again or would you learn from that first mistake ?

I really don't see the problem in giving back what obviously wasn't on offer.

[Yperellanios]

I would be willing to give back the storehouses under 2 conditions:

1. BB should admit their mistake FIRST. After all it's THEIR mistake that allowed me and other players to do this not mine. If they had tested their game properly before release this wouldn't have happened.

2. They should refrain from calling people "cheaters" and "hackers" and threatening with bans. There is a civilized way to communicate and I think a company like BB would have at least someone that can write a polite text asking for the storehouses back and not some bs like "GIVE THEM BACK CHEATERS OR WE WILL BAN YOU"

As long as the 2 conditions do not apply I will NOT return the storehouses to my star menu. If they decide to ban me so be it. I will not tolerate bullying of any sort especially from people that are guilty themselves. I will be happy to spend my money in another game.

[Larili]

Mannerheim wrote:

Anyone who clicks to get the storehouse, logs out for 15 min to get game status in semi-passive mode and then relogins and repeats over 4 times in 12h and thinks there is nothing wrong or weird happening is stupid or ignorant that they should be banned just for that.

I don't know how the game is working over on Newfoundland, but I often have to refresh, log in log out ( 15mins or 30mins as the fix recommended here on forum) just to get some of the game to work, quite often more than 4 times in a much shorter than 12hr time span, I know there is something wrong and weird happening, its called bad programming/server ability and/or game development. I don't see why after enduring all this to get my Settler fix I should be banned for it and called stupid....addicted, lonely and sad I don't mind, but please not stupid
Further more, who created all this multiple clicking of buttons in the first place? If it appears in TSO it must require multiple clicks, whether its worth it or not, who are we to argue, arguing costs us valuable clicking time
Splotch wrote:

I really don't see the problem in giving back what obviously wasn't on offer.

I do, the Devs will continue to produce a sub standard game with no consequences sticking at their door. From the moment I saw this mentioned I thought to myself nice side step BB .
I wonder how much time and effort is being spent repairing this event ( script to remove storehouses from star ) to cover up the inadequacy of the original coding and testing, let alone the `fix' which was applied at the beginning of the event. Beside which these are storehouses not production buildings, their effect on server `economies' is very limited, some have argued that giving away the Gold tower was far more damaging in the short term to server economies.....and that was BB driven
ps. I thought that the change in entrance to the imp. storehouse as seen on test was another bug....but perhaps its a Dev revenge to punish ALL the player base for the few that have shown up their shortcomings

[Splotch]

I really don't see the problem in giving back what obviously wasn't on offer.

I do, the Devs will continue to produce a sub standard game with no consequences sticking at their door. From the moment I saw this mentioned I thought to myself nice side step BB .

As I said in the rest of my post, just because a bug exists it is not an excuse for exploiting it... If you think that people exploiting the bug to get multiple improved storehouses is a viable way to express frustration that the game is "sub standard" then you only have to look at the outcome to see if it's effective... It isn't, they've got to give them back and I'd hazard a guess that next time those same people wont be getting a friendly warning to give back their ill-gotten gains.

Beside which these are storehouses not production buildings, their effect on server `economies' is very limited.

That much is true, their impact when used is virtually zero as far as the player driven economy goes with the only notable benefit being the ability to list larger stacks on the TO. However, that doesn't change the fact that some players exploited the bug to get storehouses, they then sold those on for pure profit and that's where this kind of thing most certainly does hurt the playerbase at large... Whoever exploited that bug and sold those structures gained an unfair advantage over those who didn't.

How about if I cheated and conjured myself up 100k gold coins via an exploit ? Would you have any problem with me keeping that considering it's worth the sale price of about 7 imp. storehouses ? How about if we factor in that by cheating like that I could switch my Golden Tower off for a year and, relatively speaking, even if everyone buffed theirs 24/7 for a year they'd only just be catching up on what I'd done a year down the line ?

Bigger picture dude... Bigger picture.

[SmurfAsH]

I would be willing to give back the storehouses under 2 conditions:

1. BB should admit their mistake FIRST. After all it's THEIR mistake that allowed me and other players to do this not mine. If they had tested their game properly before release this wouldn't have happened.

They have stated it as a bug, so yes.. They have admit their mistake.

2. They should refrain from calling people "cheaters" and "hackers" and threatening with bans. There is a civilized way to communicate and I think a company like BB would have at least someone that can write a polite text asking for the storehouses back and not some bs like "GIVE THEM BACK CHEATERS OR WE WILL BAN YOU"

As long as the 2 conditions do not apply I will NOT return the storehouses to my star menu. If they decide to ban me so be it. I will not tolerate bullying of any sort especially from people that are guilty themselves. I will be happy to spend my money in another game.

They have not called anyone "cheaters" and "hackers". Just pointing people to "contact the Support team. Choose the category "Cheat & Hack" and write "Improved Storehouse Exploit" in the subject field".

Now I've read a mail sent from BB to a player who redeemed 4 or more storehouses.. That mail is in no way threatening, but quite polite.. Thou I admit it's pretty absurd way to deal with it - as I've already mentioned, they could have handled it a lot better.

However, the way many players are behaving here it's really like they knew they did something they shouldn't and now expect the worst out of it.

[Mannerheim]

I don't know how the game is working over on Newfoundland, but I often have to refresh, log in log out ( 15mins or 30mins as the fix recommended here on forum) just to get some of the game to work, quite often more than 4 times in a much shorter than 12hr time span, I know there is something wrong and weird happening, its called bad programming/server ability and/or game development. I don't see why after enduring all this to get my Settler fix I should be banned for it and called stupid....addicted, lonely and sad I don't mind, but please not stupid

• When someone is clicking to get the storehouse for the 4th time in short time span and does not think there is anything wrong it's plain stupidity or ignorance.
• When someone knows from the past there is bad programming involved and bugs every now and then in this game and clicks the storehouse for the 4th time in short time span is plain exploiter. There is not much between here.
• Also anyone who clicked one extra storehouse at the start (it was available for very short time) of event and then continued clicking more than 1-2 at the end is plain exploiter as they spammed the calendar problem news in-game and front page at start.

[Bullllhead]

Perhaps there is another way to look at it... for those of us who joined while the game was in formal beta finding and exploiting the bugs was often the fastest way to promote positive and effective action.


In the end I am puzzled by BB's stance on this as it swings past a fair, moderate response and nibbles on a draconic edge and then in an arbitrary fashion regarding the level of contravention. Again, while I don't have any sympathy for those who knowingly exploited the bug it doesn't matter... stop rolling out events with major bugs in them.

[Gerontius]

They have stated it as a bug, so yes.. They have admit their mistake.

They have said there was a bug, they didn't say it was theirs. They could be blaming Flash for interpreting their coding wrong! And they certainly haven't apologised for this bug or any of the others that littered the event.

That's exactly what the people saying they should be able to keep their 5 storehouses are doing. They admit to having got lots of storehouses, but make no apologies for it and aren't going to do anything themselves about it.

BB should take responsibility for their mistake first and perhaps show people they've learned a lesson or two from their myriad failures. Then there might be an argument that the people who exploited the bug should give their ill-gotten gains back. At present, I'm not seeing any reason to support BB's position in this because BB are not being fair to the players and show no signs of being fair in the future - that's the "bigger picture" here.

Changing tack slighty, I personally think it must have been a bug that rain of arrows and other non-event buffs could be used to remove football camps. It wasn't mentioned in the info about the event, so presumably wasn't intentional, so presumably everyone who used rain of arrows was exploiting a bug and should either give back all the items they obtained from the football shop or be banned in the interests of fairness.