Hmmmmm. I dunno then. While I agree that a large majority of the threads on bots drive down the discussion of other issues, I think that not allowing players to discuss bots/farmers with NCSoft is a bad move. And that's basically what this move is doing, cutting off the only avenue of dialogue that players have with NCStaff outside of support for a specific topic. Without that dialogue, we would never have heard from Rust or spam on these topics, as quoted in Tisirin's thread.
So while I agree that the bot threads are *somewhat* detracting from other discussions, I think that cutting off all public discussions with your customers on bots is not a good move. As a customer, I take this as NCSoft basically saying "We have said all we will say on bots and there is nothing our customers can say or do that will make us go any farther than we have in the past. As such, all discussions on the issue are closed." And I think that is a very dangerous stance to take with your customers.
Hmmmmm. I dunno then. While I agree that a large majority of the threads on bots drive down the discussion of other issues, I think that not allowing players to discuss bots/farmers with NCSoft is a bad move. And that's basically what this move is doing, cutting off the only avenue of dialogue that players have with NCStaff outside of support for a specific topic. Without that dialogue, we would never have heard from Rust or spam on these topics, as quoted in Tisirin's thread.
So while I agree that the bot threads are *somewhat* detracting from other discussions, I think that cutting off all public discussions with your customers on bots is not a good move. As a customer, I take this as NCSoft basically saying "We have said all we will say on bots and there is nothing our customers can say or do that will make us go any farther than we have in the past. As such, all discussions on the issue are closed." And I think that is a very dangerous stance to take with your customers.
Good points. However, we are not cutting off all discussions of this issue. We would be happy to hear any new information or issues through PM's, emails, etc. At present, the discussions of these issues on the forums are very repetitive and not very constructive. We wanted to put up the comprehensive replies by Rust and HGMspam to show that we do take the issue seriously. We could have just tried to expunge any mention of it whatsoever, but that would have been pretty disingenuous.
Hmmmmm. I dunno then. While I agree that a large majority of the threads on bots drive down the discussion of other issues, I think that not allowing players to discuss bots/farmers with NCSoft is a bad move. And that's basically what this move is doing, cutting off the only avenue of dialogue that players have with NCStaff outside of support for a specific topic. Without that dialogue, we would never have heard from Rust or spam on these topics, as quoted in Tisirin's thread.
So while I agree that the bot threads are *somewhat* detracting from other discussions, I think that cutting off all public discussions with your customers on bots is not a good move. As a customer, I take this as NCSoft basically saying "We have said all we will say on bots and there is nothing our customers can say or do that will make us go any farther than we have in the past. As such, all discussions on the issue are closed." And I think that is a very dangerous stance to take with your customers.
Good points. However, we are not cutting off all discussions of this issue. We would be happy to hear any new information or issues through PM's, emails, etc. At present, the discussions of these issues on the forums are very repetitive and not very constructive. We wanted to put up the comprehensive replies by Rust and HGMspam to show that we do take the issue seriously. We could have just tried to expunge any mention of it whatsoever, but that would have been pretty disingenuous.
While it is more work, I believe the correct approach would have been to simply remove the redundant threads and point people to the correct posts on the particular topic at hand.
From my point of view on this, it appears the company is grasping at straws having realised they have a major problem that they can't do anything about. It appears to be more of an effort to hide the issue from potential new customers.
If this were a small or minor issue it wouldn't be a big deal, but currently this is the number 1 problem in the game, hence the multiple redundant threads.
Like I said in another thread recently deleted, there has been nothing new said on this topic since I started here a year ago. What else can be said?
It allows people to vent, in a constructive arena. The truth might hurt sometimes.
Thanks
Balis
It's a valid point, and to a certain degree, it's why we let those discussions continue for so long, even after everything was said many times. But even as we took more aggressive and effective action, the repetive threads just grew in number and lessened in useful content and information.
Like I said in another thread recently deleted, there has been nothing new said on this topic since I started here a year ago. What else can be said?
It allows people to vent, in a constructive arena. The truth might hurt sometimes.
Thanks
Balis
Has that arena been really that constructive?
No, because they know it is a problem and they will be fighting it with all the tools they have.
PMs, Emails, Support Tickets are all ways to communicate to NCSoft. Though you won't really hear alot since it isn't out in the public but the e-mails are (Hopefully) not just trashed but tallyed at least.
Mixed feelings - on one hand the threads obviously go nowhere, but on the other any rule forbidding on topic content, no matter how unconstructive, leaves a bad aftertaste.
Oh, and a big "Juchu!" (German for yippie) for off topic forum. :D
I expect that y'all will have quite a bit of feedback. Keep it clean, keep it civil -
I'm sorry, but that just can't be done...
Post about "state of bot" :
Yet again, you people have had to show people you care, because at this point people just thought you didn't care. Locking or deleting posts of this nature will however disgruntle your customers. Many peeps that are new to the boards will start in discussions of this nature. Deleting/locking them when they arrive is bad for longevity. I suggest you move all that spam to the off-topic board.
Community member spotlight :
VERY good idea. I'm glad you decided to take on my suggestion, after telling you about how I got to know Kiranya... The layout is hard to naviguate, and you should add dates to articles, as well as reversing the order, in order to have most recent spotlights at the top.
And one more thing : Community members isin't restricted to players... I'd love to see an Interview with Theif Kelbar, Pirate Captain Uthanka or other mobs of interest.
Off-Topic forum
A nice gesture, seen as a confession to L2 players that they are now a community. No talking about sex ? HAhahahahahahahahaha ! God I can talk about sex and make it game related if I wanted to. That's just way too easy to circumvent...
NO, I will not move to the off-topic board. One of my many talents is to speak of everyday things and relating them to L2. But it will fun to see the more obscure ones just moved to off-topic instead of being deleted...
And you shouldn't call it the off-topic board, you should call it the Darkmotion board. ROFL !
Hmmmmm. I dunno then. While I agree that a large majority of the threads on bots drive down the discussion of other issues, I think that not allowing players to discuss bots/farmers with NCSoft is a bad move. And that's basically what this move is doing, cutting off the only avenue of dialogue that players have with NCStaff outside of support for a specific topic. Without that dialogue, we would never have heard from Rust or spam on these topics, as quoted in Tisirin's thread.
So while I agree that the bot threads are *somewhat* detracting from other discussions, I think that cutting off all public discussions with your customers on bots is not a good move. As a customer, I take this as NCSoft basically saying "We have said all we will say on bots and there is nothing our customers can say or do that will make us go any farther than we have in the past. As such, all discussions on the issue are closed." And I think that is a very dangerous stance to take with your customers.
Good points. However, we are not cutting off all discussions of this issue. We would be happy to hear any new information or issues through PM's, emails, etc. At present, the discussions of these issues on the forums are very repetitive and not very constructive. We wanted to put up the comprehensive replies by Rust and HGMspam to show that we do take the issue seriously. We could have just tried to expunge any mention of it whatsoever, but that would have been pretty disingenuous.
Yes but you are cutting off the public (not private via support, PMs or e-mails) discussion. This means that players cannot find out information from other players or NCSoft simply by reading anymore. This is not good.
As an example, I did not know that the in game macros had a character limit and that the shops spamming the exact same text repeatedly were definitely bots if the string they were spamming were longer than a certain number of characters. How did I find this out? By reading the official boards, where a player, not an NCSoft rep posted it. Under these new rules, that post would have deleted/locked and I probably would not have seen it.
Now what did this post by another player enable me to do as a player? Report more bots in an accurate and efficient manner with proof, which according to spam, is important. As spam pointed out, an informed playerbase as to how to report a bot and evidence of botting is an important tool in combatting bots. In limitting the public discussion, you are eliminating knowledge such as this. Only those that use the bot programs or read forums dealing with bot programs will have the knowledge about future enhancements to bot programs and how players could petition bots.
If you want to increase the visibility of other threads beyond the top 10 (which are basically the stickies in GD) then I suggest you change the default threads per page to 50 instead of 10. That, more than anything else you can do, will increase the visibility of more threads.
Like I said in another thread recently deleted, there has been nothing new said on this topic since I started here a year ago. What else can be said?
This is completely untrue. See my example above. In addition, everything that spam and Rust has posted was new at the time of its posting. Its where NC's official stances and policies stemmed from.
We will certainly continue to post relevant and necessary information on this topic as well as any other. Not that all of us together could stop spam if he wants to say something, anyway. :)
Like I said in another thread recently deleted, there has been nothing new said on this topic since I started here a year ago. What else can be said?
It allows people to vent, in a constructive arena. The truth might hurt sometimes.
Thanks
Balis
Has that arena been really that constructive?
No, because they know it is a problem and they will be fighting it with all the tools they have.
PMs, Emails, Support Tickets are all ways to communicate to NCSoft. Though you won't really hear alot since it isn't out in the public but the e-mails are (Hopefully) not just trashed but tallyed at least.
BTW I do like the Community Spot light Section. 5 Stars.
A point you show is it is indeed a tally of what is on the players mind. I saw a spike in bot/ebaying topics spike when the servers were getting full and not letting people log in. Like clock work people were complaining, giving you a tally what was on peoples minds. I hate bots as much as NCSoft does, but I don't think not letting us to talk about is a good idea.
Like clock work people were complaining, giving you a tally what was on peoples minds.
Not so much. It gives you a general feel of people willing to complain. However, it rarely gives you solid information. If all of those people submitted a support ticket, they'd have actual numbers, times, dates, etc.
While I can appreciate your attempt to stem some of the criticism NC is currently facing in regards to the bot issue this is, IMHO, completely the wrong way to go. It is more like saying: "Guys, we have a bot problem are there is NOTHING we can do about it so stop posting about it." You have in a way just confirmed our worst fears, you see the problem but can do nothing.
But mark my words, this will do nothing to steam the wave to criticism, it will, if anything, only increase.
If the goal was to stop redundant postings on the same ole topics over and over again, then that's what you should have done. Simple enforcement of the existing policies would have accomplished that.
As I stated before, this move just makes you look poorly in the eyes of the customer. It's kinda of unfortunate really, as you were beginning to gain back some credibility lately.
This feels like we're going back to the old days of banning people for talking about GameGuard.
Matilda, the problems is not that we can do nothing, but that we can say nothing - or at least, very little. And I definitely agree with SirElrohir in this - or I would have fought this change tooth and nail - but there is no part of this dead horse that has not been pounded to a pulp. It's not doing anything productive, just making the forums messy.
Like clock work people were complaining, giving you a tally what was on peoples minds.
If all of those people submitted a support ticket, they'd have actual numbers, times, dates, etc.
If all those people DID submit a ticket, I'd accuse them all of being bots.
Support ticket my ***. Hunting bots is not my job, it's spam's job.
You miss-read. We weren't talking about bots. We were talking about not being able to log on because the server was full OF BOTS.
Edited in the important line that SirE forgot, which is the entire point since people won't be able to post about it on the boards anymore. Discussion about server being full = OK. Discussion about server being full of bots = NOT OK.
You miss-read. We weren't talking about bots. We were talking about not being able to log on because the server was full OF BOTS.
Edited in the important line that SirE forgot, which is the entire point since people won't be able to post about it on the boards anymore. Discussion about server being full = OK. Discussion about server being full of bots = NOT OK.
Don't change what I said to support your [censored] agenda. You have NO PROOF they were full of bots. Put up or shut up.
Matilda, the problems is not that we can do nothing, but that we can say nothing - or at least, very little. And I definitely agree with SirElrohir in this - or I would have fought this change tooth and nail - but there is no part of this dead horse that has not been pounded to a pulp. It's not doing anything productive, just making the forums messy.
Sarge
I like quoting myself when people say things like "not doing anything productive" when I show that's not true:
As an example, I did not know that the in game macros had a character limit and that the shops spamming the exact same text repeatedly were definitely bots if the string they were spamming were longer than a certain number of characters. How did I find this out? By reading the official boards, where a player, not an NCSoft rep posted it. Under these new rules, that post would have deleted/locked and I probably would not have seen it.
Now what did this post by another player enable me to do as a player? Report more bots in an accurate and efficient manner with proof, which according to spam, is important. As spam pointed out, an informed playerbase as to how to report a bot and evidence of botting is an important tool in combatting bots. In limitting the public discussion, you are eliminating knowledge such as this. Only those that use the bot programs or read forums dealing with bot programs will have the knowledge about future enhancements to bot programs and how players could petition bots.
Now you can either disagree that its productive, in which case you are saying that spam is wrong/lying and reporting bots isn't important or you can agree that there are SOME productive things that come about from players discussing bots on the official forums or you can just ignore me again ^_^
Matilda, the problems is not that we can do nothing, but that we can say nothing - or at least, very little. And I definitely agree with SirElrohir in this - or I would have fought this change tooth and nail - but there is no part of this dead horse that has not been pounded to a pulp. It's not doing anything productive, just making the forums messy.
Sarge
I like quoting myself when people say things like "not doing anything productive" when I show that's not true:
As an example, I did not know that the in game macros had a character limit and that the shops spamming the exact same text repeatedly were definitely bots if the string they were spamming were longer than a certain number of characters. How did I find this out? By reading the official boards, where a player, not an NCSoft rep posted it. Under these new rules, that post would have deleted/locked and I probably would not have seen it.
Now what did this post by another player enable me to do as a player? Report more bots in an accurate and efficient manner with proof, which according to spam, is important. As spam pointed out, an informed playerbase as to how to report a bot and evidence of botting is an important tool in combatting bots. In limitting the public discussion, you are eliminating knowledge such as this. Only those that use the bot programs or read forums dealing with bot programs will have the knowledge about future enhancements to bot programs and how players could petition bots.
Now you can either disagree that its productive, in which case you are saying that spam is wrong/lying and reporting bots isn't important or you can agree that there are SOME productive things that come about from players discussing bots on the official forums or you can just ignore me again ^_^
You miss-read. We weren't talking about bots. We were talking about not being able to log on because the server was full OF BOTS.
Edited in the important line that SirE forgot, which is the entire point since people won't be able to post about it on the boards anymore. Discussion about server being full = OK. Discussion about server being full of bots = NOT OK.
Don't change what I said to support your [censored] agenda. You have NO PROOF they were full of bots. Put up or shut up.
Hmmm were you not talking about people posting about the server being full of bots on the official forums? Here's a review of the discussion since you apparently need to re-read it:
I saw a spike in bot/ebaying topics spike when the servers were getting full and not letting people log in. Like clock work people were complaining, giving you a tally what was on peoples minds.
to which you responded:
Not so much. It gives you a general feel of people willing to complain. However, it rarely gives you solid information. If all of those people submitted a support ticket, they'd have actual numbers, times, dates, etc.
And I never said that I had PROOF that the servers were full of bots. But that's what people were discussing when they made the posts/threads. Are you denying this fact? Are you also denying that under the new rules, which is what this thread is about, that they would not be allowed to discuss that here anymore?
You miss-read. We weren't talking about bots. We were talking about not being able to log on because the server was full OF BOTS.
Edited in the important line that SirE forgot, which is the entire point since people won't be able to post about it on the boards anymore. Discussion about server being full = OK. Discussion about server being full of bots = NOT OK.
Don't change what I said to support your [censored] agenda. You have NO PROOF they were full of bots. Put up or shut up.
Hmmm were you not talking about people posting about the server being full of bots on the official forums? Here's a review of the discussion since you apparently need to re-read it:
I saw a spike in bot/ebaying topics spike when the servers were getting full and not letting people log in. Like clock work people were complaining, giving you a tally what was on peoples minds.
to which you responded:
Not so much. It gives you a general feel of people willing to complain. However, it rarely gives you solid information. If all of those people submitted a support ticket, they'd have actual numbers, times, dates, etc.
And I never said that I had PROOF that the servers were full of bots. But that's what people were discussing when they made the posts/threads. Are you denying this fact? Are you also denying that under the new rules, which is what this thread is about, that they would not be allowed to discuss that here anymore?
Where did I mention bots? Perhaps you need to re-read. Most post discussed the merits of contacting support as opposed to "venting" on the forums.
Actually, we've been seeing a large number of new players from Europe since the release of their retail box and these numbers indicate strongly that this is the cause of the increased server traffic. In essence, there are new players coming in, something I remember being popularly requested quite recently.
I think this is a good example of an issue being blamed on something that is not the actual cause, in this case bots.
Don't change what I said to support your [censored] agenda. You have NO PROOF they were full of bots. Put up or shut up.
I agree, proving it would be very hard but that ALL server returned to normal after the latest ban hammer is quite the coincidence wouldn't you say?
Hardly proof. Normal players ALWAYS have problems getting back on the servers after changes.
SirElrohir,
Which is why I said it was quite the coincidence and NOT proof so please do not answer it as if I have stated it as some kind of fact.
Matilda
Okay. You said "coincidence". I will agree with this. However, there has ALWAYS been problems with normal players getting back on after updates. It happens EVERY SINGLE TIME. I countered your coincidence with a plausable explanation.
While I can appreciate your attempt to stem some of the criticism NC is currently facing in regards to the bot issue this is, IMHO, completely the wrong way to go. It is more like saying: "Guys, we have a bot problem are there is NOTHING we can do about it so stop posting about it." You have in a way just confirmed our worst fears, you see the problem but can do nothing.
But mark my words, this will do nothing to steam the wave to criticism, it will, if anything, only increase.
Matilda
Slight point of order here. You have termed this change as an attempt to stem or censor criticism of NCsoft regarding this issue. That is NOT the case. If that were the case, it would be much more effective to merely change the overall forum rules without a thread explaining the change and then just delete all posts on this subject.
What we have done was to openly and publicly remind the community of what we have said on this issue, which is not insignificant, and which addresses every single facet of the issue that we CAN address.
This change was implemented as an open, transparent way to stop the highly repetitive and unconstructive threads on this subject that appear in General Discussion. If, as has been suggested, we had just used constant moderation to address this problem, I'm sure the complaints would have been the same. I preferred being open about it. It was my call.
Actually, we've been seeing a large number of new players from Europe since the release of their retail box and these numbers indicate strongly that this is the cause of the increased server traffic. In essence, there are new players coming in, something I remember being popularly requested quite recently.
I think this is a good example of an issue being blamed on someing that is not the actual cause, in this case bots.
Rust,
I must admit that I take this as extremely good news. If the influx of new players really is that great that is truly good news for a game I love. It also proves what a good idea it would with a re-release here in the US :)
Well, back to topic. If that now is the case, that new players are causing the FULL messages then we might need new servers. Also, if something would have been stated about that (All the new players coming in that is) maybe we would not have jumped to conclusion regarding the FULL server message.
You miss-read. We weren't talking about bots. We were talking about not being able to log on because the server was full OF BOTS.
Edited in the important line that SirE forgot, which is the entire point since people won't be able to post about it on the boards anymore. Discussion about server being full = OK. Discussion about server being full of bots = NOT OK.
Don't change what I said to support your [censored] agenda. You have NO PROOF they were full of bots. Put up or shut up.
Hmmm were you not talking about people posting about the server being full of bots on the official forums? Here's a review of the discussion since you apparently need to re-read it:
I saw a spike in bot/ebaying topics spike when the servers were getting full and not letting people log in. Like clock work people were complaining, giving you a tally what was on peoples minds.
to which you responded:
Not so much. It gives you a general feel of people willing to complain. However, it rarely gives you solid information. If all of those people submitted a support ticket, they'd have actual numbers, times, dates, etc.
And I never said that I had PROOF that the servers were full of bots. But that's what people were discussing when they made the posts/threads. Are you denying this fact? Are you also denying that under the new rules, which is what this thread is about, that they would not be allowed to discuss that here anymore?
Where did I mention bots? Perhaps you need to re-read. Most post discussed the merits of contacting support as opposed to "venting" on the forums.
You were responding to someone who was talking about people posting about bots. I highlighted it in bold for you above. Just because you took sentence of his paragraph out of context to try to show a point you were attempting to make does not mean that the OP that sparked the discussion was NOT about increased posting about botting/ebaying when the servers became full.
Maybe "YOU" weren't talking about bots, but Balis certainly was, as I pointed out. Choose your own words more carefully next time and say "I" instead of "we" and don't leave out sections of other people's posts when you quote them when it specifically deals with the topic you claim is not being discussed. Just because YOU don't mention it doesn't mean the person you are replying to did NOT mention it. Yes, SirE, these forums do have other people posting on them other than yourself and you would serve yourself well if you actually read ALL of other people's posts instead of just the sections you want to read.
I for one am GLAD that all these bot discussions are done and overwith. I got sick of reading the same thing over and over again.
bots..wah
bots..wah
bots..wah
I said it before and I'll say it again. I don't know which is more annoying..the number of bots in game or the number of bot threads on the message boards.
I must admit that I take this as extremely good news. If the influx of new players really is that great that is truly good news for a game I love. It also proves what a good idea it would with a re-release here in the US :)
Well, back to topic. If that now is the case, that new players are causing the FULL messages then we might need new servers. Also, if something would have been stated about that (All the new players coming in that is) maybe we would not have jumped to conclusion regarding the FULL server message.
Matilda
I like to be careful with the word "prove." ;)
We've been in the process of assessing this information continuously over a significant period of time, including measures to potentially correct the issues.
Actually, we've been seeing a large number of new players from Europe since the release of their retail box and these numbers indicate strongly that this is the cause of the increased server traffic. In essence, there are new players coming in, something I remember being popularly requested quite recently.
I think this is a good example of an issue being blamed on something that is not the actual cause, in this case bots.
I suppose the only way we will be able to verify this is to wait for the Q4 IRs. Should make an interesting read ^_^
I have a hard time believing that Europeans alone are causing access denied issues on servers 1, 2, 3 and 9 but I suppose it is possible.
Actually, we've been seeing a large number of new players from Europe since the release of their retail box and these numbers indicate strongly that this is the cause of the increased server traffic. In essence, there are new players coming in, something I remember being popularly requested quite recently.
I think this is a good example of an issue being blamed on something that is not the actual cause, in this case bots.
Thats great news! I tip my hat to you.
If this info was released in regards to some of the "Servers Full" topics it might have stemmed the amount of bot/ebaying topics that are in deed pointless. Rumors about bots/ebaying should be the ones that get the exacto knife, ones that pop up in the future should be pointed to (with link) to what Rust and Spam have said about bots/ebaying, and if by chance some new info, or honest question that was not clear about bots/ebaying pops up it should be left to mature.
If this policy is to continue, as I see you guys not budging on this then you must tread carefully how you lock/prune them, or risk an underlying anger.
Also, Rust me boy, I would take heed of another MMORPG that is on its death bed.
At last I read, SWG took 13% of the market share worldwide, but with its "NGE" or New Game Enchantments, they are seeing a HUGE exodus of people. Most of the fansites that provided a servey reported an overwhelming majority of subscribers are leaving the game. Their forums or riddled with "I quit" post, and SOE has been in financial trouble with this game already.
Hindemith is seeing an increase in "Im new" threads...maybe this is tied in, aye? :D
Okay, Choch, you're right. Every problem in L2 is because of bots. No proof required. It just "is".
I've never said anything like this nor have I ever implied or agreed with anyone who has said this :) If you can't handle me pointing out what the other people you are having a discussion with are talking about, then perhaps you should read a little more carefully next time and figure what other people are talking about before using the word "we" instead of "i."
Personally I think that around 60% of the problems with L2 stem from the playerbase. The other 40% are from NCSoft. I've said that before, but I wouldn't expect you to know that since that would require you to actually read instead of just post.
Okay, Choch, you're right. Every problem in L2 is because of bots. No proof required. It just "is".
I've never said anything like this nor have I ever implied or agreed with anyone who has said this :) If you can't handle me pointing out what the other people you are having a discussion with are talking about, then perhaps you should read a little more carefully next time and figure what other people are talking about before using the word "we" instead of "i."
I never claimed you said that. Read my first sentence. You should've stopped there. You assumed the rest of my post was directed at you. You assumed too much.
Personally I think that around 60% of the problems with L2 stem from the playerbase. The other 40% are from NCSoft. I've said that before, but I wouldn't expect you to know that since that would require you to actually read instead of just post.
I honestly don't remember you posting this before, so that's on me. However, where do you get your numbers?
Okay, Choch, you're right. Every problem in L2 is because of bots. No proof required. It just "is".
I've never said anything like this nor have I ever implied or agreed with anyone who has said this :) If you can't handle me pointing out what the other people you are having a discussion with are talking about, then perhaps you should read a little more carefully next time and figure what other people are talking about before using the word "we" instead of "i."
I never claimed you said that. Read my first sentence. You should've stopped there. You assumed the rest of my post was directed at you. You assumed too much.
Fair enough. Just try to remember that I'm right in the future then and do a little more reading. Sorry, I'm not conditioned to stop reading in the middle of a post like you are :)
Personally I think that around 60% of the problems with L2 stem from the playerbase. The other 40% are from NCSoft. I've said that before, but I wouldn't expect you to know that since that would require you to actually read instead of just post.
I honestly don't remember you posting this before, so that's on me. However, where do you get your numbers?
I think that the majority of the major problems with L2 stem from the playerbase; however, it is not an overwhelming majority. Therefore, around 60/40 playerbase/NCSoft.
I honestly don't remember you posting this before, so that's on me. However, where do you get your numbers?
I think that the majority of the major problems with L2 stem from the playerbase; however, it is not an overwhelming majority. Therefore, around 60/40 playerbase/NCSoft.
Of course there are positive gems of information that pop out of the deluge of bot threads. No different that the majority of other threads. You get 20 posts of garbage, and a handful that actually have value.
Yes, it is common sense that some handy tidbits will never reach the light of day if we are not allowed to discuss the issue.
Yes it is also true that 90%, maybe more, of the posts on the topic were garbage.
Is it worth losing the good posts in order to keep out the garbage?
To me, I don't mind skimming over 19 garbage posts to get one valuable one. Hell I do it every day.
Using this method to get a reduction in posts about Bots/Ebay is very bad for NCSoft's image.
That right there is the problem at hand.
TBH there isn't much you can say to us that's going to change that.
The simple fact is that Botting/Ebaying are the 2 top problems you face right now, which is why there are so many posts on those topics. The message we are getting is, "Sorry we can't do anything about it, but let's stop talking about it now."
Simple guys. Stop the Botting and Ebaying and we'll stop making threads on it.
You are just attempting to treat a symptom of the problem, not the actual problem. It's likely to make the problem worse and not better.
If you ignore the problem, it will go away. Now the dungeons won't be filled with bots, and the servers won't be full anymore, and real playrs won't quit for other games.
I honestly don't remember you posting this before, so that's on me. However, where do you get your numbers?
I think that the majority of the major problems with L2 stem from the playerbase; however, it is not an overwhelming majority. Therefore, around 60/40 playerbase/NCSoft.
So, you made up the numbers from a "gut feeling"?
No, I thought it through before coming up with those numbers. If you really want I can PM you with the outline of my thinking and the progress of my thought because its pretty irrelevant to the OT of this thread.
Yes it is also true that 90%, maybe more, of the posts on the topic were garbage.
Is it worth losing the good posts in order to keep out the garbage?
According to NCSoft's logic, either there were no good posts or there were so few, that yes, it is worth losing future good posts to keep out the trash. Personally, I disagree since that's how most forums are.
The simple fact is that Botting/Ebaying are the 2 top problems you face right now, which is why there are so many posts on those topics. The message we are getting is, "Sorry we can't do anything about it, but let's stop talking about it now."
Simple guys. Stop the Botting and Ebaying and we'll stop making threads on it.
You are just attempting to treat a symptom of the problem, not the actual problem. It's likely to make the problem worse and not better.
Yes and no. They're saying they can't SAY anything, not that they can't DO anything. And one of the reasons that people are making so many posts is that they are expressing their discontent and saying that NCSoft is not DOING enough.
I wouldn't really care if this policy came out and botting/ebaying weren't a pretty serious issue/problem with the game and I don't think anyone else would either. Because I don't really care what they SAY, as long as I agree with and am satisfied with what they DO. Its when I'm dissasitified that I really want to talk about it. Maybe I'm wrong and people would still be up in arms about being told they can't talk about something anyways even if they didn't think it wasn't a real issue.
However, I do think botting/ebaying is a problem and therefore I have a problem with the fact that we are no longer allowed to publicly discuss it with NCSoft, we can only discuss it with NCSoft in private.
And yeah, the logic of stop the botting and ebaying and players will stop talking about it is simple, but the act of actually stopping the botting and ebaying is not so simple.
umm.. so if the could DO something it only stands to reason that they would. Since they haven't done anything, it's only logical that they can't. (Unless you believe the conspiracy theories. hehe)
Go back to the week after the mass banning and see how many posts there were in there praising NCSoft.
The number of Bot posts that week had to have dropped by 75% at least.. well until they started to come back anyhow.
There must be something wrong with me..
I would have thought.. hey what's with all these bot and ebay posts.. **Banhammer stomps bots and ebayers**.. wow look all those negative posts are gone now.
It's not like the flood of posts were from people just making some [censored] up. ROFL
Having given this subject even more thought, I am really starting to find the whole thing laughable.
umm.. so if the could DO something it only stands to reason that they would. Since they haven't done anything, it's only logical that they can't. (Unless you believe the conspiracy theories. hehe)
Go back to the week after the mass banning and see how many posts there were in there praising NCSoft.
The number of Bot posts that week had to have dropped by 75% at least.. well until they started to come back anyhow.
See but this shows that NCSoft CAN and DOES do something about the bots/farmers. People just started posting again because to them, it wasn't enough :)
Actually, we've been seeing a large number of new players from Europe since the release of their retail box and these numbers indicate strongly that this is the cause of the increased server traffic. In essence, there are new players coming in, something I remember being popularly requested quite recently.
I think this is a good example of an issue being blamed on something that is not the actual cause, in this case bots.
Ok...I can follow this up to a point...but if you can truly tell the difference between a new bot account and a new player account somehow...why aren't they dealt with totally effectively? :confused:
That you got a large number of european players might coincide pretty well with certain bad programs being put up for easy purchase for europeans a little while back as well.
umm.. so if the could DO something it only stands to reason that they would. Since they haven't done anything, it's only logical that they can't. (Unless you believe the conspiracy theories. hehe)
Go back to the week after the mass banning and see how many posts there were in there praising NCSoft.
The number of Bot posts that week had to have dropped by 75% at least.. well until they started to come back anyhow.
See but this shows that NCSoft CAN and DOES do something about the bots/farmers. People just started posting again because to them, it wasn't enough :)
Yup..
So I have an idea.. instead of addressing the problem directly, which would make people stop [censored] about it. Let's just make a rule that they can no longer talk about it.
GIMME A BREAK.
How in the hell are you people allowing someone to write their own freaking client to connect to your servers and you can't do [censored] about it???????????
That right there is humiliating.
So instead, we're supposed to just no talk about it anymore?
lol...
aww geez, now I'm going to get in trouble for loling at work. Prolly gonna start coming at me with the pee pee test cup any minute.
This is hilarious. I'd be ashamed if I worked for NCSoft, but I don't.
I feel sorry for you guys (and gals) who do though.
Now now, those attacks are uncalled for, NCSoft NA does not develop the client at all, its made in korea, while they do change it, its big business to change the program to function again, we're talking millions of dollars of profit.
I dont understand why you guys are so upset about this. They aren't totally nixing it. If that was the case, they wouldn't have given you the option of PMing them I for one am glad that I don't have to log in and read the same thing over and over again. Its like reading the Sunday paper everyday and wondering why there isn't anything new going on.
As far as new players not being able to read about it or find information on it, they can just ask players in game why there is endless shout in game or why those players are all running in line doing the exact same movement. Just like some people quit or threaten to quit over the amount of bots in game, I quit reading the boards due to the insane amount of "omg bots" threads that were popping up every other day. Not everyone likes to read that crap over and over again.
There hasn't been anything worth reading on the boards in awhile but I quite enjoy reading how everyone is upset that they can no longer be repetitive and use their L2BotThreadWriter program. :)
rofl.. if we don't talk about it maybe it will go away..
on the other hand with an off topic section we can now spam away happily driving our post counts up through the roof!! WOOHOO!!
Yup, talk about sweeping under the carpet.
As someone who was less inclined to blame The Company for the botting problems and more inclined to blame the players themselves this moves disgusts me to the core.
we can either fix the problem or just make them stop talking about it..
It's pretty assinine that you only see it as either/or.
Problem: Repetitive posts on same topic. In this case topic is bots.
Possible Solutions:
1. Make a rule: No more Bot posts.
2. Get rid of the bots. (Proven to work, since just a few weeks ago this is exactly what happened.)
3. Enforce existing rules about repetitious posts.
(You're right.. I forgot number 3 there.)
Can you think of any other solutions to the problem? I am confident there are more. I just kinda went for the obvious ones..
oh oh.. I just thought of another.. this is the one I use with my wife:
4. Create another problem, thus giving them something else to [censored] about, thus diverting attention away from the problem we would rather not discuss.
Perhaps if we can find a better solution for them, they will reconsider just banning a specific topic.
Now now, those attacks are uncalled for, NCSoft NA does not develop the client at all, its made in korea, while they do change it, its big business to change the program to function again, we're talking millions of dollars of profit.
You state yourself that the bot makers are 100% reactionary. Certainly the people who stand to make those millions are going to have someone on hand to get them back up and running ASAP.
If NCSoft made the effort though, they could make these guys' lives a living hell.. which would at the very least keep the bot proggie out of the mainstream..
Which in turn would reduce the number of bot posts significantly.
This policy is obviously a direct result of my recent posting frenzy on the botting and cheating epidemic this game is going through.
Let it be known that a post of mine challenging the GMs to go into any 50+ dungeon on any server and tell us to our face that it isn't infested with bots was almost immediately deleted from this forum. This policy, coupled with the deletion of my post (and probably the banning of my forum account soon), should tell everyone that NC knows their game is a bot and cheat ridden mess that they are trying to mask it by preventing discussions on the topic.
Reasons they are setting this policy:
> New customers may find out about the bot & cheat problems and not sign up
> They are unwilling to allocate the resources needed to combat the problem and don't want to deal with the dicsussions
> They are connected to the RL money making schemes in the game and have no plans on banning cheaters, botters, and farmers.
What else could it be? There wouldn't be countless posts on this topic if it wasn't a severe problem, and yet they tell us nothing.
Thank you for your time here, but I'm sure they will ban me for this to prevent more revelations of negative truths about their game.
NCSoft never has and never will care about what we as players feel. If something is a problem, they do their best to shut everyone up who happens to mention it.
They do not communicate.
They do not listen.
They do not care.
Thank you for playing Lineage ][.
Now I doubt they will like my attitude here, but I have a challenge for them. Instead of trying to shut people like me down, why dont you try giving us reasons to change our opinion?
Ok, this is all I'm going to say about this thread. I have had a lot if "thoughts" about this thread, but I'm just going to comment on this...............
Actually, we've been seeing a large number of new players from Europe since the release of their retail box and these numbers indicate strongly that this is the cause of the increased server traffic. In essence, there are new players coming in, something I remember being popularly requested quite recently.
I think this is a good example of an issue being blamed on something that is not the actual cause, in this case bots.
Rust, you couldn't have mentioned this little tidbit weeks ago when it started?? Seems to me that could have freed up some board space and squashed some rumors eh? Or was this something that was also "not allowed" to be commented upon until now?
Working on the problem - more or less successfully, no doubt - and shutting them up a bit about that while we are.
You can either believe NCSoft lies about their efforts or they're being honest. If you believe they lie, there is no point in asking them for open communication - and if you believe they're being honest, as much as I disagree with this decision, I think it is understandable that they don't want those working hard on a solution to constantly be slapped around verbally on their own forums.
But they can't stop it by means of banning (although conspiracy theories are against the rules) or locking/deleting, because then, just this will happen: People will say they're trying to keep the community hush-hush while not doing anything about the real problem.
It's a lose-lose situation for them, no matter what they do. I emphasise again that I don't like the decision, but I can understand it very well.
Ok, this is all I'm going to say about this thread. I have had a lot if "thoughts" about this thread, but I'm just going to comment on this...............
Actually, we've been seeing a large number of new players from Europe since the release of their retail box and these numbers indicate strongly that this is the cause of the increased server traffic. In essence, there are new players coming in, something I remember being popularly requested quite recently.
I think this is a good example of an issue being blamed on something that is not the actual cause, in this case bots.
Rust, you couldn't have mentioned this little tidbit weeks ago when it started?? Seems to me that could have freed up some board space and squashed some rumors eh? Or was this something that was also "not allowed" to be commented upon until now?
Blame the Germans... it's always those evil, evil Germans. :mad:
And as I said - I really don't approve either. But at some point, doesn't everyone get the urge to shout. They just shouted in a very restrained manner.
From what I see in this thread, NC should put up a BOT, E-BAY and I HATE NC forum.
Off topic forum my ***, make a I HATE NC FORUM !
P.S. : Use of caps is cleverly intended.
Have Fun ! ™
BoardPK
Official Board Devil
I think I just had a stroke of GENUIS!
How about if they fix the problem.. stop making excuses and fix it.
That could lead to happy customers.. and then the new people and the people who are considering buying the game could come here and say how great it is that they finally cleaned up the cheating garbage and they might BUY the game..
what a concept.. I can't believe after a year and a half it just came to me..
They do not communicate.
They do not listen.
They do not care.
Thank you for playing Lineage ][.
This I'm going to have to take exception to. They do in fact listen and they do really care.
The communication, I would agree needs improvement, and they have shown vast improvements in their communication over the past year, which I think shows that they do listen and care.
So why do we still have these problems? From my experience meeting them, I would say that their hands are tied on many issues. I've tried to figure out why they're tied and who tied them, but Rust ran away from me and hid in Korea. I think he was using a RL bot and had it set to instant BSOE as soon as it detected me.
But seriously, I think that they simply lack the staff (and money) required for them to do many of the things that we as a community want. I think that they lack the technical ability (because Lineage II is developed in Korea) to make some of the changes that would greatly decrease botting/ebaying/farming and help them police it. The former may change with an increased playerbase and demand but the latter will almost undoubtedly not change unless they opened up westernized Lineage II servers that they had total control over.
NC Should also create the NC Fan Boys forum, there will be a couple of guys here posting there.
I Dont mind NC taking this action on forum about bots, i just would like to see that they are working to remove bots from this game, and dont matter what u say, i cant see any results of your job.
As i said in other threads, Lineage 2 is one of the best Mmos out there, but NC should adapt this game for NA, cause if bots and ebay are something normal in korea, i dont think its the same for us here.
well people have always said this game is hardcore. Now the forum is hardcore too - i.e. only post if you love the game and think it has no problems.
This new policy will no doubt suit some of the fanboy, I love this game because I play it ten hours a day, please dont say anything negative about the love of my life, type trolls who frequent here. Imparting knowledge as they go.
Us 'whiners' or real people who have played other games and find Lineage 2 lacking in some respects and would like to suggest improvements - wont be welcome.
Happy days - return to your bubble fanboys - you have won!
You know, I have to ask...why have no threads at all about bots when the problem was that the number of threads was crowding out other topics with a subject that usually didn't go anywhere? Yes, the threads are a waste, but removing all of them is going to do more harm than good.
Why not sticky an "Official Bot Problem" thread and confine all discussion to that thread? People can still vent and point out new tricks they've seen, but it won't clutter the board...and since everyone will know exactly what they're getting when they click that thread, the circular arguments won't matter.
Instead of blacklisting, consolidate? Plus you could open with the official responses, and maybe get more people to read them in the process ;)
well people have always said this game is hardcore. Now the forum is hardcore too - i.e. only post if you love the
Way to shoot yourself in the foot right after coming in...
EXACTLY, as you said, the forum is, as the game, hardcore.
You're such an idiot to claim that negativity has no place on these forums. Then again, continue claiming the Devil doesn't exist, or more, just poke your eyes out if you see him.
NC Should also create the NC Fan Boys forum, there will be a couple of guys here posting there.
I Dont mind NC taking this action on forum about bots, i just would like to see that they are working to remove bots from this game, and dont matter what u say, i cant see any results of your job.
As i said in other threads, Lineage 2 is one of the best Mmos out there, but NC should adapt this game for NA, cause if bots and ebay are something normal in korea, i dont think its the same for us here.
And if it is normal let's have at it, WOOT!! -- And game would be over before the end of the year.
Back on topic:
Well, with this official policy I no longer see any reason to have any part in reporting violations of the EULA . . . but then again, I've not ever noticed any effects that my reporting has done - same charaters still running around Forsaken Plains as there were when I first reported them before Thanksgiving.
As far as I'm concerned, if you cannot talk about it then they don't wanna hear it, NCSoft is on their own -
It is called too little, too late. I have been here since it was released in Canada, and have seen it all. They say they ban bots, yet I am seeing more and more bots then I ever have before. At first I thought it was because I was low level and running into the banned users leveling up new charas, but I have checked the high level areas, and watta ya know, they still have all their bots.
They say they do things to get rid of bots, we almost NEVER see any effect.
How are we supposed to believe them when they are proven wrong over and over and over again? Even the people who represent them here on the forums, you cannot trust their word as they have NO power. I recall the GameGuard incident, a few weeks before Spam had posted saying that GameGuard would never be considered as a possible solution to bots, then several weeks later it just appears on the PTS.
How are we supposed to trust anything they say?
Why should we believe them when there is no evidence?
Well if ncsoft were being honest they would tell the truth. They have banned discussion of bots because they fear it is putting off new players from coming into the game. Any casual surfer who comes across this forum will find endless posts about bots.
It's really a business decision I think and not motivated by the need for censorship (though they are probably sick of reading complaints)
Other games as I've said before are instanced and so you dont see the bots - that's why you wont see posts about them on other games forums.
The reason I am against this move is that you cant pull the wool over new players eyes for long. As soon as they log in (particularly if they choose teon - lol) they will see the bots.
Many new players are not prepared for this and I dont see that keeping this from them will help in the long run
You're such an idiot to claim that negativity has no place on these forums. Then again, continue claiming the Devil doesn't exist, or more, just poke your eyes out if you see him.
Trolls > you.
Sorry I missed the point of that - any chance of a translation?
6 pages of discussion is to much for me right now. I just want to act a viewpoint. One that maybe have been mentioned here earlier, if so my apologies.
To censor the topics we are allowed to talk about (in this case bots and such) is not a good idea. For one it is a topic that really is important to us. We need places to vent our frustration about this.
Now we are forced to go to other forums that are not under your control to talk about this. In this we cannot help discussing that we are not ALLOWED to talk about this on the official forums.
I dont know a better way to lose your credibility fast.
It's nothing more than an attempt to hide justifiable criticism on their failure to control the botting and cheating problem that is overwhelming this game.
So, we get automated replies from GMs on each and every report of bots. And it seems to all of us the bots are just there forever with no action taken. We ask to actually speak to a GM and explain the situation- automated reply.
And now the forums. A place we can all voice public opinion, a place where the issue can actually be seen by players AND NC soft. And you silence us? What the hell?
Its been said before but its true, and deserves repeating.
Players have lost confidence with NC to deal with the issue. Those that still held on to hope the situation would be resolved now have no hope, a move like this is just saying to the players 'We do not have a problem, all of you are wrong and we really dont want to listen to any of your moaning'
I still cant see why NC soft do not have the right to stop IGE and the likes. Its on almost every bloody fansite of L2 and clearly a breach of NCs t and c. Instead of putting a couple of stupid messages ingame that people dont pay a bit of notice to and get a team of lawyers onto this..
Hmmmmm. I dunno then. While I agree that a large majority of the threads on bots drive down the discussion of other issues, I think that not allowing players to discuss bots/farmers with NCSoft is a bad move. And that's basically what this move is doing, cutting off the only avenue of dialogue that players have with NCStaff outside of support for a specific topic. Without that dialogue, we would never have heard from Rust or spam on these topics, as quoted in Tisirin's thread.
So while I agree that the bot threads are *somewhat* detracting from other discussions, I think that cutting off all public discussions with your customers on bots is not a good move. As a customer, I take this as NCSoft basically saying "We have said all we will say on bots and there is nothing our customers can say or do that will make us go any farther than we have in the past. As such, all discussions on the issue are closed." And I think that is a very dangerous stance to take with your customers.
Good points. However, we are not cutting off all discussions of this issue. We would be happy to hear any new information or issues through PM's, emails, etc. At present, the discussions of these issues on the forums are very repetitive and not very constructive. We wanted to put up the comprehensive replies by Rust and HGMspam to show that we do take the issue seriously. We could have just tried to expunge any mention of it whatsoever, but that would have been pretty disingenuous.
hmmm...your not cuttin off all discussions of this issue? rofl...only the ones you dont like..right?
ooooo0o...and big words too..disingenuous...I really like that one.(...flips thru his dictionary....d i s i n....gives up..too many letters)
Let me start off by saying this is my opinion, that being said...
We have delt with bots and farmers since the game started basicly, whether those bots are there to gain adena for selling or a "player" who is to lazy to level their own toon, they have always been there. Now NC Soft, in an effort to keep repetative, unconstructive and hostile post from the boards, has stated that they are no longer allowing these kind of posts. You have played with bots for how long and are still here, why is not talking about them, over and over and over going to be any diffrent.
NC Soft has shown "some" effort in resolving this issue, granted more communication would be nice, but then if they were to tell us what they were doing to prevent it, then that would give those botting a chance to find a way to elude them. We cant expect them to inform us of exactly what they are doing.
You also have to keep in mind that if NC bans the "pro" bots, they buy new accounts and go right back at it. Spam got a nice little screen shot from my clan mate with the bot (while they were at the controls, guess he realized we kept pk them) stating that they were doing just that. You can't blame NC for this, and you can't expect them to imediatley catch them all or right away.
Just because something changes does not make it bad or good. Its best to see what comes of it and how you can make the best of it. After all how many ways can you refer to bots with out actually saying BOTS ;) After all its a game, enjoy it, if an obstical gets in your way pk it, if you cant pk, find a fun way around it.
From this day onwards,
Bots chall no longer be refered to as Bots!
It is the royal decree that all communications,
Related to said subject,
Shall henceforth refer to the afformentioned entities,
Only as "The soulless minions of the ****ed"!
I disagree that the bot and ebayer posts are tedious and repetitive. Every month when the bot makers update their programs, they add new features that make our ingame lives a living hell. We should be able to continue to post about these as they are legitiment complaints.
You folks at nc are acting like this is an unchanging problem that wont ever go away, but at the same time, can't possibly get any worse. You are wrong. It gets worse every day.
In the begining, we had crude bots that got stuck on rocks. Then they became smarter and turned into duos. Then they became trios, then full groups. They suddenly developed the ability to read other players hp and talk back. Next they took over full rooms, then fields, then dungeons. After that they learned how to raise pets and do crops. Now they can do raids and siege.
At one point you could pk them, or trick them into flagging. Now they are so advanced you can't even train a monster on them. Some of them have the ability to target you with their entire party and fight back. But it doesn't end here.
In c4 we will want to complain about how they are macroing in the good spots for fishing, or taking up the areas to get materials/kill monsters for the nobless, hero, and valakas quests. I try not to think how bad things will be after that.
This is not a kicking the dead horse issue. The horse is alive and well, running at full speed, jumping over the small barricades Nc and We the players Place before it.
But as usual, you guys are being stone cold about this issue. Your word is law and nothing we say will change it. Oh sure "you'll keep us updated". How many times have you said that in the past? How often do you keep that promise?
Oh well, if you prefer we complain to support, then I suppose I'l send my compliments their way as well. Just think, if everyone followed my example, this board would be full of nothing but the stickies you guys made yourselves!
I disagree that the bot and ebayer posts are tedious and repetitive. Every month when the bot makers update their programs, they add new features that make our ingame lives a living hell. We should be able to continue to post about these as they are legitiment complaints.
The feedback from the community on the technical side of this issue is a legitimate concern that we have not forgotten about. We are going to make arrangements regarding this and will have an update shortly.
so let me see we cannot post about the following
Farmers (or anything dealing with them)
Bots
Ebayers
Power levelers
Cheaters
Bannings
Farewell Post
Doom and gloom posts
Anything negative about NCSoft including GM's etc
Nothing offtopic
One question....
What can we post about? I think your adding so many things that we cannot post about at this point it might be better off just giving us a list of topics we can post about and leave it at that because i dont see much left to talk myself.
Still havent gotten an answer back why my what does level 75 mean post got locked?
Which is another pet peev of mine. Mods on all other boards ive ever been to always post last and then lock the post telling people why the post was being lock if you can spend the time to lock a post you can spend the time to write one sentence why.
I'm guessing the enforcement of the new rules will be like the enforcement of other forum rules.
For example, we're not s'posed to have posts about quitting the game, but we've had a few that survived. We're not s'posed to have flame wars, but . . . We're not s'posed to have accusations of botters/farmers/ebayers, but we've had pages of threads at times. No conspiracy theory, doomsday, etc posts . . .
On one hand you could say rules are enforced in a sloppy haphazard manner.
On the other hand, you could say that rules are best enforced with a judgmental eye.
So, long story short, I don't think it's worth getting riled up when Tisrin et al. make changes to the rules. Give it a day or three and we'll be right back to what always goes down here.
Look Dream-boy (:p) I believe in being respectful and running a relatively tight ship.
However, I feel this latest rule is overkill. Go on to most other game forums and they are very Blahish in their flamefests, none of the flair we use in our insults.
Anyway, bots are unavoidable in game and all pervasive so it isnt as if the subject matter will be gone entirely..more ****ed souls and pink rabbits ahead I guess.
Oh and a week is a long time in game terms; have you seen the dates of those quotes Tisirin posted in the sticky?
i keep telling ppl nc wont do anything about bots till c4
everyone has noticed the sudden explosion of farmer populations
its all the fault of the lame ebayers and now we cant even talk about it
w/e
I was gonna post some questions but then I realize something about NCSoft
YOU GUYS DON'T WANNA HEAR IT
You do understand that the people that you are talking to are the ones that are buying your product? And many are experiencing a problem with it. Oh yeah, back to the red print above. You're replies are not in the least offensive or off color - but the topic of the post is very insulting to faithful customers that are experiencing difficulties in game play. Even tonight, NCSoft's official attitude coupled with easily spotable bots (that I've petitioned about in the past) pffttt - how the hell do you not know what client is connecting to your game? your forum can tell you what operating system I am using to look at these pages and I'm sure you can tell what is connecting to the game.
Since you really don't wanna hear it, I'm not gonna post here about it again. Your game, your forum, my money.
Yet another reason why my attention span for this game is dwindling. Not quitting, just playing less, so this is not a quitting post and besides regardless of how much I play you get your cash. No problems.
HEAR NO EVIL....SEE NO EVIL....SPEAK NO EVIL!
There ya go everything is fine!
No worries everyone nothing to see here!
MOOVE ALONG!
Trust me I work for the Government...(oh sorry) I mean NCSoft!
Ultra Bogus Policy!
Ok now having said my little rant, the issue is that these our forums for us to discuss our game and our experiances right?
The reason given as I see it is that the people at NCSoft want to protect us from ourselves, which is never a real good reason IMO unless you are someones parent.
I mean what does it hurt for us to go round and round? We do it we choose to do it, shoot we even like it. Crap, your game is about conflict between the players so why should the boards be all peace, happieness and fluffy kittens.
Don't make much sense to me However, and perhaps I'm just a bit cynical when it come to big business, but is that the real reason or is it to protect NCSoft?
Perhaps the threads are so numerous and loud that the boys at corperate think they might loose some potentials before they get onboard if they do their homework and check the community 1st?
Actually, we've been seeing a large number of new players from Europe since the release of their retail box and these numbers indicate strongly that this is the cause of the increased server traffic. ...
Show some love for us Euros then!
New server, with transfers from 1-8? :D
Euro friendly Manor times on old servers?
Euro friendlier siege times selectable for castle lords?
Servers located in Europe? :eek:
I'm not too pleased with this decision. Regarless of the actual/factual reasons behind it, it gives a bad image to a support staff that already gets their share of flack from the player base. Bots are undeniably a problem. To what exact degree they are a problem is irrelevant. Bots are not THE reason for full servers. But it is naive to think that they don't contribute vastly to the issue.
I would not venture to guess the bots numbers, nor would I expect even NC to have any exact idea. But honestly a few is too many. And I'd bet everything I own and my unborn child that we have WELL over a few. Even discounting the european influx, and the exsisting player base, you have quite a few non-players congesting each server.
I feel for NCsoft. I do not think they are equipped to stop the bots. It must be an extremely time consuming task to sort through alllllll the bot reports, investigate the people involved, and eventually ban them. Only to have a new bot up and running in it's place only a few days later. They can not destroy them as fast as they come back. And I'd imagine NA can do very little in the way of designing anything, or changing the game in any significant way to stop bots.
I don't expect to ever play a bot free L2. Im sure we will always have bots and we will always have players frustrated at the # of bots. I think the problem is that with the automated petition system and reported bots that stay in game for months after the petition, you get a very strong sense that no one is listening to you, that your complaint or report disappears without any human recognition into the endless pile, never to be seen again. I know NC works hard to deal with bots, I don't think for a second they don't listen to us, or don't care about the player base. But I think closing off this avenue for actual acknowlegment and discussion, even if only between the player base, only adds to that sense that we are not heard. Weither it is the case or not.
Also I have to ask if the influx of players from europe are those low level characters botting keltirs, and wolfs in starter areas with top D grade wepaons. If so Im sorry Ive been training you so much lately europeans.
Mmm I cannot tell what effect those rule changes will have.
If you look at who usually starts those now restricted posts... players who come here straight from aden venting their anger about not being able to log in / hunt in the necros / sell their manor stuff.
Many of those have never posted much on these boards before and read less. And even most of the regular readers have probably not read the rules in total.
So what effect is that going to have? No change regarding those topics imho. You will have to moderate and delete them anyway.
I think it was a good decision to announce that change of rules and start a discussion, although it brings some flames. Talking aboutan issue can hardly make it worse.
I'll wait and see what happens. I've participated in many bot related topics when I first came here and always thought these boards are a good platform to do that. Far better than other community boards those players will certainly go to when they are not allowed to share their experiences and ask questions here anymore.
One thing i don't understand .....
If it is so easy to modify the game so that an automated system can play for you (i wouldn't know as i never even thaugh of using it) and if NCSoft is aware of the problem (and i am sur they are), why don't they just change the client program so that it can't be so easilly modified? That would solve part (not all) of the problem ...... no?
Then there wouldn't be a need for threads and discussions on automated systems ....
That's the whole problem - they don't have authority to perform some of the modifications that might make botting harder - but then that's discussing botting, and that's not what this thread is about.
I'm sure if you look around a few fansites you'll have no trouble finding out how bots works and why NCNA has problems dealing with them.
How about you stop the problem at the source if the bannings arent effective.
STOP IGE
STOP EBAY AUCTIONS
STOP OTHER PUBLIC AND WHERE POSSIBLE PRIVATE SALES OF ADENA FOR RL CURRENCY.
The bots mainly do what they do for adena to sell, its why its on the rise atm, especially on Teon where, I hesitate to say, a single clan is probably buying up alot of their stock (And have admitted to doing so, protected bots etc)
There may be bots that use the programs to level but they are a minority.
Stop these sales and the bots will dwindle out.
Can NC please explain to me why they havent already?
Alright, not going to write a novel here, but I think NCSoft is saying this...
<ul type="square"> 1) They know of the bot sisuation and how much it cheeses us off; they are doing the best they can.
2) Hearing the SAME OLE THING over and over again, all day everyday, is not going to increase their awareness. They got the message and they are doing the best they can.
I dont think people realize that NCSoft does not have some magic button that makes all the farmers go poof. I mean, Gameguard, did that update cost YOU anything? Nope, it cost them. They put money into trying to fix the bot problem, and it did work....somewhat.
There is no magic button, there is no panacea to cure the bot problem, but having it all over the General Forums, a place where prospective customers come to see OUR evaluation of the product, is not beneficial to our other outcry....the influx of new players.
Alright, not going to write a novel here, but I think NCSoft is saying this...
<ul type="square"> 1) They know of the bot sisuation and how much it cheeses us off; they are doing the best they can.
2) Hearing the SAME OLE THING over and over again, all day everyday, is not going to increase their awareness. They got the message and they are doing the best they can.
I dont think people realize that NCSoft does not have some magic button that makes all the farmers go poof. I mean, Gameguard, did that update cost YOU anything? Nope, it cost them. They put money into trying to fix the bot problem, and it did work....somewhat.
There is no magic button, there is no panacea to cure the bot problem, but having it all over the General Forums, a place where prospective customers come to see OUR evaluation of the product, is not beneficial to our other outcry....the influx of new players.
let's hear it from NCSoft what they are trying to say . . . unless you are actually working/speaking for them; otherwise it is just what you "think NCSoft is saying . . . "
Their actions speak clearly enough
as far as who's putting money into updates . . . do you not pay for service? Same thing with the cable company.
Alright, not going to write a novel here, but I think NCSoft is saying this...
<ul type="square"> 1) They know of the bot sisuation and how much it cheeses us off; they are doing the best they can.
2) Hearing the SAME OLE THING over and over again, all day everyday, is not going to increase their awareness. They got the message and they are doing the best they can.
I dont think people realize that NCSoft does not have some magic button that makes all the farmers go poof. I mean, Gameguard, did that update cost YOU anything? Nope, it cost them. They put money into trying to fix the bot problem, and it did work....somewhat.
There is no magic button, there is no panacea to cure the bot problem, but having it all over the General Forums, a place where prospective customers come to see OUR evaluation of the product, is not beneficial to our other outcry....the influx of new players.
Gameguard cost the subscribers functionality and smooth playabilty.
Awareness is as useful to the subscriber base as it is to the company and as Choch has already illustrated there is knowledge to be had via the forum discussions.
I agree with you that multi-threads serve no purpose but we have moderators to deal with that and a grand suggestion to change forum viewing defaults.
It has already been pointed out in this thread, while bots in game are so prevalent the discussions will not cease, so one wonders what the staff really hope to achieve here.
let's hear it from NCSoft what they are trying to say . . . unless you are actually working/speaking for them; otherwise it is just what you "think NCSoft is saying . . . "
Their actions speak clearly enough
I seem to remember a VERY VERY lengthy post or two by not only their Customer Service Manager, but their Game Producer himself on the subject.
Do you want them to copy and paste that thing to every single repeat post about the same thing? Im sure it would be easier for them then to actually have a conversation.
I'm still laughing from yesterday.
Either fix the freaking game, or come out and say 3rd party programs are acceptable and let us all do it. Well let the one's who stick around do it.
I'm tired of excuses and a lack of action. Since Beta the players have complained about the problem with people cheating. The methods have done nothing but get more sophisticated, more effective, and more efficient for the cheaters. As time has gone on, cheating has become more widespread, IMO it has reached epidemic proportions.
Whether we talk about it or not is going to make very little difference.
Alright, not going to write a novel here, but I think NCSoft is saying this...
<ul type="square"> 1) They know of the bot sisuation and how much it cheeses us off; they are doing the best they can.
2) Hearing the SAME OLE THING over and over again, all day everyday, is not going to increase their awareness. They got the message and they are doing the best they can.
I dont think people realize that NCSoft does not have some magic button that makes all the farmers go poof. I mean, Gameguard, did that update cost YOU anything? Nope, it cost them. They put money into trying to fix the bot problem, and it did work....somewhat.
There is no magic button, there is no panacea to cure the bot problem, but having it all over the General Forums, a place where prospective customers come to see OUR evaluation of the product, is not beneficial to our other outcry....the influx of new players.
let's hear it from NCSoft what they are trying to say . . . unless you are actually working/speaking for them; otherwise it is just what you "think NCSoft is saying . . . "
Well dude, he's a lawyer. It's kind of his job to speak in the name of other people. It's not if he works for NC that's relevant, it's his ability to word concepts and situations. In that regard I truly respect what StT writes.
I think the community has spoken, in letting them know you guys still wanted to discuss bots. From Tisirin's style of posting, he seems pretty surprised about this, and probably wishes to talk with the team to plan on a strategy in light of the new facts learned (people want to chat about bots).
I'd still say move it off-topic board, where it's only visible to the current playing customers. This way you remove all the bot clutter on the GD board, and people still get to type out : OMG BOTS EVERYWHERE ** NOES !
and regardless of someone's job, if you want to know what someone is thinking then hear it from them. I'd be leary to speaking for something that I wasn't included in the decision making of or informed of.
Using that thought process . . . is a weak defense. Maybe too many years in a small room asking people what really happened - just the facts; not why you think it was Bily Bob and why he did what you think he did.
Then I pose this question to you. What more can be said about them?
In any game where the economy and gamestyle is open-ended, you will have cheating. In any venue of business where there is potential for profit, there will be cheating. Show me a MMO that is completely devoid of cheating, and I will show you a MMO that is on its deathbed.
Lineage2 is not the only game that ails from this, we all know that. If you dont believe me, hit up your favorite cheater site and read.
Lineage2 has contacted Ebay and tried to come to some arraignment that would stop Ebay.com Adena sales. FACT
Lineage2 has contracted and implimented a 3rd party program to address the issues brought forth by 100s of customers, FACT
Lineage2, if they manage to irradicate all bots and farmers and still keep its legit customer base happy, they will be the first ones in MMO history to do so, FACT
Hey, free speech is free speech, I completely understand the OPs position. But how long do you plan to picket the lawn? Also, as was my comment to the OP's concerns I will say again, Prospective customers browse these forums, and we dont need to shout to the top of our lungs DONT BUY ME! WE ARE INFESTED WITH CHEATERS AND BOTS!!!
Then I pose this question to you. What more can be said about them?
In any game where the economy and gamestyle is open-ended, you will have cheating. In any venue of business where there is potential for profit, there will be cheating. Show me a MMO that is completely devoid of cheating, and I will show you a MMO that is on its deathbed.
Lineage2 is not the only game that ails from this, we all know that. If you dont believe me, hit up your favorite cheater site and read.
Lineage2 has contacted Ebay and tried to come to some arraignment that would stop Ebay.com Adena sales. FACT
Lineage2 has contracted and implimented a 3rd party program to address the issues brought forth by 100s of customers, FACT
Lineage2, if they manage to irradicate all bots and farmers and still keep its legit customer base happy, they will be the first ones in MMO history to do so, FACT
Hey, free speech is free speech, I completely understand the OPs position. But how long do you plan to picket the lawn? Also, as was my comment to the OP's concerns I will say again, Prospective customers browse these forums, and we dont need to shout to the top of our lungs DONT BUY ME! WE ARE INFESTED WITH CHEATERS AND BOTS!!!
Hello,
Aren't we talking about:
With the recent changes to the forums here and here, I expect that y'all will have quite a bit of feedback. Keep it clean, keep it civil - this thread will stay open as long as it stays constructive.
Sarge
We all know bots are here . . . this topic is about the above message that Sarge delievered. And that's what I've been referring to. I understand that some people have been using this thread to complain or praise the overall work of bot removal, this thread is about the overall work done to remove the bot threads. And yes, if there is something adverse about a game, I want to know before I spend money on something. By painting a rosy picture what you are doing is selling a Bone Helmet as a Brig Helmet.
and regardless of someone's job, if you want to know what someone is thinking then hear it from them. I'd be leary to speaking for something that I wasn't included in the decision making of or informed of.
Using that thought process . . . is a weak defense. Maybe too many years in a small room asking people what really happened - just the facts; not why you think it was Bily Bob and why he did what you think he did.
Not that kinda lawyer, bud. No Law and Order here, lol.
I am a corporate lawyer, and DM is correct, this is what I do :p
And what I said they were thinking was not pulled out of the air. It was a synopsis of the post written by upper-management there at NCSoft NA, evidence of what happens in game, evidence of added software and its uses, and experiances shared by both myself and the player-base.
And I would ask you for a little common sense. If you had a product and you wished to sell it to others, would having thread after thread about the infestation of cheaters running wild help or hinder your sells?
Then I pose this question to you. What more can be said about them?
In any game where the economy and gamestyle is open-ended, you will have cheating. In any venue of business where there is potential for profit, there will be cheating. Show me a MMO that is completely devoid of cheating, and I will show you a MMO that is on its deathbed.
Lineage2 is not the only game that ails from this, we all know that. If you dont believe me, hit up your favorite cheater site and read.
Lineage2 has contacted Ebay and tried to come to some arraignment that would stop Ebay.com Adena sales. FACT
Lineage2 has contracted and implimented a 3rd party program to address the issues brought forth by 100s of customers, FACT
Lineage2, if they manage to irradicate all bots and farmers and still keep its legit customer base happy, they will be the first ones in MMO history to do so, FACT
Hey, free speech is free speech, I completely understand the OPs position. But how long do you plan to picket the lawn? Also, as was my comment to the OP's concerns I will say again, Prospective customers browse these forums, and we dont need to shout to the top of our lungs DONT BUY ME! WE ARE INFESTED WITH CHEATERS AND BOTS!!!
Hello,
Aren't we talking about:
With the recent changes to the forums here and here, I expect that y'all will have quite a bit of feedback. Keep it clean, keep it civil - this thread will stay open as long as it stays constructive.
Sarge
We all know bots are here . . . this topic is about the above message that Sarge delievered. And that's what I've been referring to.
And since we are copying and pasting, my reply to that was this:
Hey, free speech is free speech, I completely understand the OPs position. But how long do you plan to picket the lawn? Also, as was my comment to the OP's concerns I will say again, Prospective customers browse these forums, and we dont need to shout to the top of our lungs DONT BUY ME! WE ARE INFESTED WITH CHEATERS AND BOTS!!!
I will say again, Prospective customers browse these forums, and we dont need to shout to the top of our lungs DONT BUY ME! WE ARE INFESTED WITH CHEATERS AND BOTS!!!
Lawyers are such ruthless business people !
All this time I thought we were talking about the grapes and Saussages for Dorfs program (Bill 923)...
There are 2 "simple" reasons why bots are out of control.
1) Game design. Much of a players progression is from simple repetitive actions that are easy to recreate in bot programs. The other progression comes from equipment in an economy that allows free trade. There are game design decisions that can (completely?) eliminate advancement through purchasing in game assets with RL money. The most popular method is soul-bound drops/items.
2) Game engine licensing. NC is using the Unreal engine and are at the mercy of what they bought. They bought technology they cannot (easily) change to combat the problem of these programs dissecting and assmebling the packet information coming and going from the users computer. If they could, they would have more clever mechanisms to obfuscate their packets; possibly with dynamic packet formats, or some other means of regularly changing the layout of the information set to and from the client and server so these hacks would have to be change daily, making it impossible for them to keep up.
Honestly, I see no hope for NC with this probem. It's a huge technical issue now and they know they really can't stop it. Get used to the problem folks, it's not going away.
and regardless of someone's job, if you want to know what someone is thinking then hear it from them. I'd be leary to speaking for something that I wasn't included in the decision making of or informed of.
Using that thought process . . . is a weak defense. Maybe too many years in a small room asking people what really happened - just the facts; not why you think it was Bily Bob and why he did what you think he did.
Not that kinda lawyer, bud. No Law and Order here, lol.
I am a corporate lawyer, and DM is correct, this is what I do :p
And what I said they were thinking was not pulled out of the air. It was a synopsis of the post written by upper-management there at NCSoft NA, evidence of what happens in game, evidence of added software and its uses, and experiances shared by both myself and the player-base.
And I would ask you for a little common sense. If you had a product and you wished to sell it to others, would having thread after thread about the infestation of cheaters running wild help or hinder your sells?
Think "business" guy....business.
I see where you are coming form, but I don't make money from this nor own this business.
I'm on the other side of the fence, one of those customer's that by using your logic, they are trying to keep/attract
As far as them being afraid of not making money becase of gameplay? they've got a problem. I didn't become the customer to worry about them (and it's clear they don't worry about my ability to post), as a lawyer you know this is a hard world.
The customer is being told to stop using the forum to comment on an aspect of the game.
First. We got an off-topic forum, which is something the community has been asking about for months. Kudos for that! Nice work!
Second. We got a new rule that we are not to discuss the 2 top problems with the game. We know they are the two worst problems, because of the volume of posts concerning them.
I am thinking purely of business when I say that this is a terrible blow to the company's image as far as exisiting customers are concerned.
For a new customer, they won't see complaints about the worst problem the game has. Cool.. so they buy the game, it'll take them about a week, maybe two before they run into this issue. Then they find out that it's not permitted to be discussed. That right there is even worse for the company image than it is for us older veteran customers who are used to this type of thing.
As a corporate attorney, how important would you say image is to a company?
Again, instead of taking the opportunity that this whole bot thing presents to make themselves look good, NCNA goes the complete wrong way and ends up tarnishing their image yet again.
I'm being pretty vocal about this, the reason is that I love this game, I hope to be playing it for a long time. As the leader of an alliance that is anti-cheating, my job gets tougher every day. That is something that I hate. The fact that every day the thought that since we can't beat them maybe we should join them makes me sick to my stomach. TBH I would sooner quit than cheat.
At least with an open forum, I can communicate with the people who feel like I do. I can discuss methods of countering the cheaters. I can discuss new ways they have found to cheat.
With all of that being gone, but the problem getting worse by the day, I find myself in a very awkward position.
Then I pose this question to you. What more can be said about them?
In any game where the economy and gamestyle is open-ended, you will have cheating. In any venue of business where there is potential for profit, there will be cheating. Show me a MMO that is completely devoid of cheating, and I will show you a MMO that is on its deathbed.
Lineage2 is not the only game that ails from this, we all know that. If you dont believe me, hit up your favorite cheater site and read.
Lineage2 has contacted Ebay and tried to come to some arraignment that would stop Ebay.com Adena sales. FACT
Lineage2 has contracted and implimented a 3rd party program to address the issues brought forth by 100s of customers, FACT
Lineage2, if they manage to irradicate all bots and farmers and still keep its legit customer base happy, they will be the first ones in MMO history to do so, FACT
Hey, free speech is free speech, I completely understand the OPs position. But how long do you plan to picket the lawn? Also, as was my comment to the OP's concerns I will say again, Prospective customers browse these forums, and we dont need to shout to the top of our lungs DONT BUY ME! WE ARE INFESTED WITH CHEATERS AND BOTS!!!
Hello,
Aren't we talking about:
With the recent changes to the forums here and here, I expect that y'all will have quite a bit of feedback. Keep it clean, keep it civil - this thread will stay open as long as it stays constructive.
Sarge
We all know bots are here . . . this topic is about the above message that Sarge delievered. And that's what I've been referring to.
And since we are copying and pasting, my reply to that was this:
Hey, free speech is free speech, I completely understand the OPs position. But how long do you plan to picket the lawn? Also, as was my comment to the OP's concerns I will say again, Prospective customers browse these forums, and we dont need to shout to the top of our lungs DONT BUY ME! WE ARE INFESTED WITH CHEATERS AND BOTS!!!
Again.. I suggest that they treat the problem rather than the symptom.
I know they can, because they have before. As I mentioned in earlier posts, the week of the mass bannings, the bot posts dropped considerably.
TREAT THE PROBLEM: fight the bots
NOT THE SYMPTOM: What's with all these posts on botting?
The customer is being told to stop using the forum to comment on an aspect of the game.
Ok, dead horse here. Please stop kicking it. It won'T happen, I promise.
An NO ! You cannot have another pony.
Have Fun ! ™
BoardPK
Official Board Devil
You killed my horse, now what am I gonna do for the rest of the day? End of the month and all my crap is cleaned up here at work and the system is down for back up for the day. Someone make another thread about something.
And who, Wetzel, will you complain to when NCSoft decides to pull the plug on Lineage2 for the North American markets because of low subscribers?
As a business, they must protect their bottom line, and it all boils down to this: You do not upsell your product by screaming about its defects.
Case in point:
<ul type="square"> Salesman: Hey you sir, would you like to buy this flashy new car?
Prospective: Well, can you tell me a little about it?
Salesman: Well, as you can see by our current customer's reviews, its engine is clunky, the windows dont work, and it tends to overheat
Prospective: Is that right?
Salesman: Yes sir, you can see what sucks about the car here, here, and here.
Prospective: Uh...I think ill pass.
Salesman: But why?!
Why indeed. You want servers like Hindemith and Sieg to have more players on it, you want it to teem with life, but you want to put NCSoft into a chokehold and keep them from doing just that.
Having thread after thread after thread of whats WRONG with Lineage is doing just that. It helps no one. That is why they are ending it.
Makes perfect sense to me but hey...maybe I am just looking at it too realistically.
The issue is that they are not treating the problem, instead they are pushing it somewhere else.
An experienced game player/buyer is going to check more than just the official site to find out about a game. So they go to any of half a dozen fansites and check out the forums, what do they see? A bunch of posts about bots, and now some posts about how we can't talk about it at the official site any more. Then they come here, and they don't see it mentioned at all.
rofl.. umm.. if it were me, I'd promptly pass by that game.
On the other hand..
I could check some sites, and see posts about bots.. then come to the official site and see some too.. but mixed in with those are official responses, like "we're working on it, we realize it's a problem..." and "We banned 2700 bots yesterday, and we intend to continue fighting them.." and "This is what to do if you see a bot.."
Now that game.. a game where the company is open, honest, and communicating with the players.. that's the game I would buy.
Image is everything. But in business you have 2 areas crucial to keeping it afloat, Prospective Customers and Current Customers.
MMOs experience high turnover. They lose customers due to EULA violations, to other MMOs, or maybe daddy wont let them use his credit card anymore. To offset this loss, they must bring in fresh players. You stop that, then you have a leak in the bucket and no water to replace it.
You are not going to keep 100% of your player base, that is just unfeasable.
And yes, they do MANY things to keep their current customers. I think Stratics.com (thanks Choch) says that they outsource over 11k representatives for 1st tier in-game customer service and have a team to handled 2nd teir. They update their product continually. They LISTEN to customer complaints and act on them. And they fight the uphill battle for a cheat-free MMO, which will never happen.
As Darkmotion said, its beating a dead horse guys. They are aware of the problem, better then us since they have the technical access to attack it from behind the curtain. But we all must help them bring in fresh blood, and pointing out the dents on our hood is not going to do that.
I think that this is a two edged sword...but the problem is that the blade is closer to them then to NCSoft atm.
This isn't some type of censorship, it should actually motivate people to report potential botters in a more organized fashion.
I would have to say that a majority of the posters in this thread have been playing for an extended period of time. I myself played in OB up to C1 (quit, then came back in C3), and bots were notorious, but at the time I never took the proper steps to report them...I took it into my own hand and killed them, hence my epic tale of losing 10 levels with something like 30k karma.
The problem is most people's first response, whether you're new or not, is to run to the forums, post and complain about bots. What you really should be doing is gathering evidence, and submitting a ticket. I'm not saying that this will get the results you want per say, but it's doing things in the proper procedure that's important.
On the same note, since most of us are experienced, many of us have come to regard bots as just another part of L2. I no longer PK bots, it's not worth the PK count I'll have to work off. I train them, I sell their gear, and I move on. Occasionally I just follow them around when I'm scrapped for cash ;).
I don't think NCSoft is taking the proper steps to efficiently wipe out botting, but at the same time, I don't think they really have a motivation to do so, as a significant drop in bots on the NA servers would not only screw up our server economies, but also reduce a significant amount of subscriptions. Effectively killing all the bots in L2 would be impossible, making it unprofitable for bots to exist is potentially possible, but not profitable for NCSoft.
They are trying to keep customers, and invite new ones yes, but despite the problems with the car being hidden, it will become apparent soon enough. At which point you would go back to the dealership and shout at them to fix the product you paid for, and make it work properly. If they fix it, fair enough. Carry on driving. If they cannot or will not fix it, you would return the product, get your money back and not deal with that company again.
We may have new players coming in, but in a couple of months we will have new players leaving/complaining just as we are now.
NC may be able to hide the bots on the OFFICIAL boards, but they cannot stop word of mouth, or one of the major mmorp listing and review websites mmorpg.com.
At least on these boards they can control what we say, on outside sources we can say whatever we want. They should let us discuss the issue here, because discussions on other sources will not be as polite (No fear of NC bringing out the ban hammer)
For a new customer, they WILL see numerous complaints about the worst problem the game has. Cool.. so they WON'T buy the game it'll take them about a week, maybe two before they decide to read the boards again, only to find more bot threads and say nevermind, I'm not buying this game at all if this is all they talk about.
For a new customer, they WILL see numerous complaints about the worst problem the game has. Cool.. so they WON'T buy the game it'll take them about a week, maybe two before they decide to read the boards again, only to find more bot threads and say nevermind, I'm not buying this game at all if this is all they talk about.
If the moderators are doing thier jobs and consolidating or removing redundant posts, then you won't see 10 threads on the same subject on the front page.
There are existing rules in place for this, near as I can tell, they just aren't enforced.
They are trying to keep customers, and invite new ones yes, but despite the problems with the car being hidden, it will become apparent soon enough.
True, but that is after they will be dazzled by the graphics, the content, and the sheer fun of the game. Let them drive it for a few weeks, and when they run into the bots and farmers, let it be handled there.
All games, agian, have cheaters, you thought that ended with CounterStrike? But waiving the new customers off before they even touchdown wont help you, wont help me, and wont help keep this game available.
Or rather would you like to choke it to death with doomsday threads, point to its corpse, and say "I told ya so." ?
Alright...that was a little harsh....I apologize.
But I do agree with Sir El. Maybe...a Bot/Farmer forum...dont know, name it "Complaint Forum" that is customer available only will help it. Like the off-topic forum. Then you can beat your dead horse there until it can be bottled into paste. :p
It's also worth noting that if the recent server full messages are due to a new influx of players, then it is proof positive that we will get plenty of new players even with a forum full of posts on botting.
They are trying to keep customers, and invite new ones yes, but despite the problems with the car being hidden, it will become apparent soon enough.
True, but that is after they will be dazzled by the graphics, the content, and the sheer fun of the game. Let them drive it for a few weeks, and when they run into the bots and farmers, let it be handled there.
All games, agian, have cheaters, you thought that ended with CounterStrike? But waiving the new customers off before they even touchdown wont help you, wont help me, and wont help keep this game available.
Or rather would you like to choke it to death with doomsday threads, point to its corpse, and say "I told ya so." ?
Alright...that was a little harsh....I apologize.
But I do agree with Sir El. Maybe...a Bot/Farmer forum...dont know, name it "Complaint Forum" that is customer available only will help it. Like the off-topic forum. Then you can beat your dead horse there until it can be bottled into paste. :p
I never tried CS.. I always heard it was just completely full of cheaters. It was total word of mouth though, I never read any forums, or even reviews on it. I never even bothered checking the games site or anything.
I think they should have a bot forum (not thread) so that I can completely ignore it.
Edit: oh and stick a server transfer and prima thread there too.
Now.. you might be on to something there...
What if there were a straight up.. COMPLAINT DEPARTMENT forum. Make it visisble to only subscribers.
That idea doesn't do anything to help people who are researching the game, since they won't be able to see it.
Yeah.. but we don't want the people who are researching the game to know about any of it's flaws or shortcomings.
ROFL.. We need to get the suckers in here so we cna pk em a few times, maybe train em and get some free gear.. THEN we can tell em about the stuff that sucks.
Well, besides bots and farmers, I think there are plenty of things wrong with the game that is getting airtime, such as scamming and exploits.
They arent putting a muzzle on them, and hey, by sweeping away the 4 feet of gunk that is Bots and Farmer threads, maybe they can get some of the limelight ^^
And who, Wetzel, will you complain to when NCSoft decides to pull the plug on Lineage2 for the North American markets because of low subscribers?
As a business, they must protect their bottom line, and it all boils down to this: You do not upsell your product by screaming about its defects.
Case in point:
<ul type="square"> Salesman: Hey you sir, would you like to buy this flashy new car?
Prospective: Well, can you tell me a little about it?
Salesman: Well, as you can see by our current customer's reviews, its engine is clunky, the windows dont work, and it tends to overheat
Prospective: Is that right?
Salesman: Yes sir, you can see what sucks about the car here, here, and here.
Prospective: Uh...I think ill pass.
Salesman: But why?!
Why indeed. You want servers like Hindemith and Sieg to have more players on it, you want it to teem with life, but you want to put NCSoft into a chokehold and keep them from doing just that.
Having thread after thread after thread of whats WRONG with Lineage is doing just that. It helps no one. That is why they are ending it.
Makes perfect sense to me but hey...maybe I am just looking at it too realistically.
I think they should have a bot forum (not thread) so that I can completely ignore it.
Edit: oh and stick a server transfer and prima thread there too.
Now.. you might be on to something there...
What if there were a straight up.. COMPLAINT DEPARTMENT forum. Make it visisble to only subscribers.
That idea doesn't do anything to help people who are researching the game, since they won't be able to see it.
Yeah.. but we don't want the people who are researching the game to know about any of it's flaws or shortcomings.
ROFL.. We need to get the suckers in here so we cna pk em a few times, maybe train em and get some free gear.. THEN we can tell em about the stuff that sucks.
The point is that there are very few posts about all the fun stuff - they tend to go under, as people would rather be in game doing the fun stuff than on the boards praising it, but they would rather be on the boards moaning about the sucky stuff than being in game being subject to it.
You're bound to get a negative view when something is discussed like this.
That said, if they'd just deleted the redundant posts quietly people would have howled and moaned - I don't like them forbidding game-related content (I'd rather have seen it compressed into one thread and have that go in circles, unlocked), but I sure like that they bothered to announce this to the community in the shape of a new rule (rather than just enforcing what was, as you said, already there but which we had gotten used to being ignored).
This rule is not a new tool for them, but a courtesy to the board population.
ETA: Wetzel, if the forums were tell-it-as-it-is, no doubt the bot threads would be a rather minor issue, at least if my playing experience is any indication. People don't make threads about the fun experience in the grind, about the cool PvP they just had, about the successful craft for the most part.
They make posts about the grind being far too long, the thrashtakling and rampant cheating that leads to skewed PvP and all the ebayers having better gear than them. That's human nature.
I doubt that most people play the game thinking quite so much "OMG [censored] BOTTERS AND EBAYERS" every day, I know it'd drive me to quit if I thought about it in game as much as it is discussed on the boards. ;)
"Tell it like it is..." My super Lawyer-sense just cringed up my spinal cord on that one :confused:
Agreed. I don't like the way your law firm is run so I'm going to set up signs in your offices saying how I feel. Exactly how long will I last, Tommy? Is it "bad practice" to throw me out or should you do the "right thing?" and let me stay there and "warn" your potential clients?
"Tell it like it is..." My super Lawyer-sense just cringed up my spinal cord on that one :confused:
Agreed. I don't like the way your law firm is run so I'm going to set up signs in your offices saying how I feel. Exactly how long will I last, Tommy? Is it "bad practice" to throw me out or should you do the "right thing?" and let me stay there and "warn" your potential clients?
I would skip your skeevies down the street like hopping stones on a pond :cool:
Im pretty sure all of us here dont want the game to die.
What I was getting at is hiding the problem just so NC can continue pulling in $$$$ seems (to an already sick and tired player base) that NC does not care about the player, only the money, effectively, they prefer bots over players. To some extent this is true for every business out there, but its kind of bad for business to let customers know of this. (This is not a personal statement nor do I speak for other players, I am speculating on how people will feel)
So if we dont want the game to die, why post over bots? In the hope NC will take note and DO something. If a few players are turned away, good. Hits NC where they WILL notice it, in their cash flow. NC wont let a large game like this go under, and we are hoping that once enough players leave and stop joining, they will take more steps to fix the problems.
Edit: This reply to SirT will prob be late as my net has crashed ><
The point is that there are very few posts about all the fun stuff - they tend to go under, as people would rather be in game doing the fun stuff than on the boards praising it, but they would rather be on the boards moaning about the sucky stuff than being in game being subject to it.
You're bound to get a negative view when something is discussed like this.
That said, if they'd just deleted the redundant posts quietly people would have howled and moaned - I don't like them forbidding game-related content (I'd rather have seen it compressed into one thread and have that go in circles, unlocked), but I sure like that they bothered to announce this to the community in the shape of a new rule (rather than just enforcing what was, as you said, already there but which we had gotten used to being ignored).
This rule is not a new tool for them, but a courtesy to the board population.
ETA: Wetzel, if the forums were tell-it-as-it-is, no doubt the bot threads would be a rather minor issue, at least if my playing experience is any indication. People don't make threads about the fun experience in the grind, about the cool PvP they just had, about the successful craft for the most part.
They make posts about the grind being far too long, the thrashtakling and rampant cheating that leads to skewed PvP and all the ebayers having better gear than them. That's human nature.
I doubt that most people play the game thinking quite so much "OMG [censored] BOTTERS AND EBAYERS" every day, I know it'd drive me to quit if I thought about it in game as much as it is discussed on the boards. ;)
If you were in a clan or an alliance that is attempting to take a castle or fight a war then the rampant botting and ebaying would be something you think about every day.
And what you state is true.. for those of us that are, it pushes us every day a bit closer to either cheating or leaving.
Compound that with conversations with people who do cheat openly and claim that the company doesn't care because they've been doing it for months and never had a problem, and you find yourself like me, in a very awkward position.
My clan loses people on a regular basis because those people want to go where it's ok for them to cheat. They simply go to another clan that either turns a blind eye or gives cheating their full support. It's very tough to look down on these folks, especially when they state on their way out the door that they want to be competitive, and since everyone is doing it, they feel it's the only way.
"Tell it like it is..." My super Lawyer-sense just cringed up my spinal cord on that one :confused:
Agreed. I don't like the way your law firm is run so I'm going to set up signs in your offices saying how I feel. Exactly how long will I last, Tommy? Is it "bad practice" to throw me out or should you do the "right thing?" and let me stay there and "warn" your potential clients?
I would skip your skeevies down the street like hopping stones on a pond :cool:
Unless I were standing on the sidewalk in front of your firm, in which case you would do nothing.
Certainly these forums might be considered inside your lobby as opposed to on your sidewalk.
Perhaps it's time NCSoft consider what is going on out there on the sidewalk, and the fact that what is going on in the lobby is only a reflection of that.
The point is that there are very few posts about all the fun stuff - they tend to go under, as people would rather be in game doing the fun stuff than on the boards praising it, but they would rather be on the boards moaning about the sucky stuff than being in game being subject to it.
You're bound to get a negative view when something is discussed like this.
That said, if they'd just deleted the redundant posts quietly people would have howled and moaned - I don't like them forbidding game-related content (I'd rather have seen it compressed into one thread and have that go in circles, unlocked), but I sure like that they bothered to announce this to the community in the shape of a new rule (rather than just enforcing what was, as you said, already there but which we had gotten used to being ignored).
This rule is not a new tool for them, but a courtesy to the board population.
ETA: Wetzel, if the forums were tell-it-as-it-is, no doubt the bot threads would be a rather minor issue, at least if my playing experience is any indication. People don't make threads about the fun experience in the grind, about the cool PvP they just had, about the successful craft for the most part.
They make posts about the grind being far too long, the thrashtakling and rampant cheating that leads to skewed PvP and all the ebayers having better gear than them. That's human nature.
I doubt that most people play the game thinking quite so much "OMG [censored] BOTTERS AND EBAYERS" every day, I know it'd drive me to quit if I thought about it in game as much as it is discussed on the boards. ;)
If you were in a clan or an alliance that is attempting to take a castle or fight a war then the rampant botting and ebaying would be something you think about every day.
And what you state is true.. for those of us that are, it pushes us every day a bit closer to either cheating or leaving.
Compound that with conversations with people who do cheat openly and claim that the company doesn't care because they've been doing it for months and never had a problem, and you find yourself like me, in a very awkward position.
My clan loses people on a regular basis because those people want to go where it's ok for them to cheat. They simply go to another clan that either turns a blind eye or gives cheating their full support. It's very tough to look down on these folks, especially when they state on their way out the door that they want to be competitive, and since everyone is doing it, they feel it's the only way.
/agreed 100%
There are clans popping up all over the place that homes to ebayers/griefers/botters/bought accounts. They laugh at people who actually grind. There is a whole alliance on Kain that is proud of their botting and paying for powerleveling why us idiots are grinding they are at school and work getting leveled.
Now how do you compete with that? If you cant stop then just let everyone do it. Make it so its not cheating no more because if the game's AI is so easy that people can bot a level 70 toon in 4 - 6 weeks but a real player would take 4 - 6 months to get there that is a major issue right there.
Unless I were standing on the sidewalk in front of your firm, in which case you would do nothing.
Certainly these forums might be considered inside your lobby as opposed to on your sidewalk.
Which is exactly my point. It's their pool and they decide who gets to piss in it. If you want to "take it outside" you are more than welcome.
Personally, that is the reason I don't read other L2 forums. I know there's a problem. I don't want to see all the whining about it (along with the "I pwned you" and "your mama" posts).
Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean that no one else does.
By your logic, it should be against the rules to make any complaint whatsoever about the game. While that might seem like a good idea initially, I suspect it would lead down a very bad path.
If done right, the potential exists in every negative post for the company to turn it around and come out looking better than ever.
By your logic, it should be against the rules to make any complaint whatsoever about the game. While that might seem like a good idea initially, I suspect it would lead down a very bad path.
The potential is there but it's up to them. And it's not my logic. Try it in the real world sometime.
Well I really hope that these new players attracted by a clinicised forum dont have the rude awakening of finding botted or otherwise pro-farmers all over the starter territories.
If the issue is to be censored here then I do hope NCNA clean up the newbie towns at the very least. Otherwise there is really no point to the new strategy as you suggest it.
We are announcing a change in forum policy regarding posts about botting, ebaying, and other violations of the EULA.
This is what this thread is about not the efforts of NCSoft the actually combat them or whatever. What do we think about this decision?
Here is the reason given:
Due to the inevitably circular nature of these topics and the comments we have made in the past, we have decided that posts of this type are not sufficiently constructive and many repetitive posts on these issues are crowding out legitimate discussion topics. These repetitive topics will be locked or removed.
Do you all buy that this is the real reason or is there a more sinister and self-serving motive? As I read this, (and I am no genius BTW) the gist is that they seem to be saying that this type discussion serves no real purpose and is sort of limiting the time we would spend on “legitimate” discussion.
One the legitimacy of the topics for any discussion; My question is that as the player-base, the PAYING player base, who decides what topics are legitimate for us to discuss. Now the legal answer is that the “All the forums are belong to NCSoft” (intentional reference there, can’t remember the movie though).
As for the crowding out of topics; again, shouldn’t we be able to talk about what we want? I mean who cares if we go round and round about something over and over? Who does it hurt? If one wants to participate over and over he can if not, he doesn’t have to – one can ignore the discussion all together. The crowding issue holds little water, for we only have to sort through the titles not the text of all the threads unless we want to – want being the key word.
Finally for the circular nature; well, aren’t all topics that are basically philosophical in nature circular? Why should we not be able to freely talk about the issues in our game that we are passionate about. We have said (by posting) that we obviously want to talk about them. Perhaps, and IMO unless its in the suggestions forum, it is just that - discourse between people who share a common interest? People who share common interests sometimes just like to talk without any particular result other than the talking itself. At least I do anyways, but perhaps I’m weird – and that has been advanced BTW. The bottom line for me is that they (MODs and they do have a hard job BTW so here’s to them) are making the claim they are limiting the discussion for our benefit. O.o
A counter theory: (By a lawyer no less!)
Hey, free speech is free speech, I completely understand the OPs position. But how long do you plan to picket the lawn? Also, as was my comment to the OP's concerns I will say again, Prospective customers browse these forums, and we dont need to shout to the top of our lungs DONT BUY ME! WE ARE INFESTED WITH CHEATERS AND BOTS!!!
This in addition to the same theory advanced by myself; (Added for unity of theory.)
Don't make much sense to me however, and perhaps I'm just a bit cynical when it comes to big business, but is that the real reason or is it to protect NCSoft?
Perhaps the threads are so numerous and loud that the boys at corperate think they might loose some potentials before they get onboard if they do their homework and check the community 1st?
Ahhh, here we go the nail on the head I think – it is to protect NCSoft then! Perhaps even just a little>
As I think this is the real reason just be honest with us and say so!
This would do and is way shorter:
Its our game, our forums and we want to sell more accounts so no more talk about the problems will be acceptable. People who are considering the game read the forums and we don’t want them run off by your whining about the game. Enough said.
I counter this by saying; while L2 is NCSoft's game and they certainly want to protect their interests for the very reasons mentioned above it is our game too.
Any prospective customer deserves the truth from those who play it and the company. Having that discussion on the official boards only makes NCSoft seem more aware and willing to accept that their game may need some work.
Honesty is good people appreciate it and respect the companies who don’t have the Hear/See/Speak no Evil policy on their fan boards.
In summation be honest either way:
Choice 1: You are limiting the discussion of these topics because there is so much of it that it is hurting your bottom line and keeping new players from choosing this game over others. I respect that POV its honest and it is just good business also.
Choice 2: You just say that the discussion is part of the game the fans will always want their game to be better, state that you are trying and making a little progress here and there but it is a major issue and will never be truly solved. Not all issues will be addressed and the nature of MMO games is itself at the heart of the issues. We will address the addressable! I can respect that too.
Issues with 1; if the overwhelming majority of the discussion on the boards is about Botting/E-bay or IGE and Cheaters then that says something about the product I think doesn’t it. Censorship will not make it go away, people will figure it out (as I suspect with this latest action) as they are doing now. You can delay but not avoid the inevitable.
Issues with 2; It may in fact not even be solvable – so what. Let us talk about it; people will talk and complain about everything. Haven’t you noticed that about life? If they aren’t complaining then there is something very wrong – it means they have stopped caring. When I talk about the stuff it’s simply to have discourse with others – simple enough. Besides, there are sooooo many ****ne total fans that even with all the B*^*ing on the boards you will see that the overwhelming majority of the players like the game for what it is – even with its faults.
Hmmmm. I decided to go back and relook at the entire issue from NCSoft's perspective. Here's the meat of what Tisirin said:
We are announcing a change in forum policy regarding posts about botting, ebaying, and other violations of the EULA.
Due to the inevitably circular nature of these topics and the comments we have made in the past, we have decided that posts of this type are not sufficiently constructive and many repetitive posts on these issues are crowding out legitimate discussion topics. These repetitive topics will be locked or removed.
In constantly commenting on these topics, we have made the same points repeatedly.
So first, let's approach this from an analytical standpoint and see where this came from. That means we must first identify the problems that NCSoft is trying to solve:
Problem #1: The posts about botting, ebaying, and other violations of the EULA (henceforce called BEV posts) create circular discussions.
Problem #2: We have commented on these topics before and any additional comments we make on these topics will be the same, essentially wasting our manpower, which would be better spent doing other things.
Problem #3: The BEV posts crowd out other legitimate topics of discussion on the official boards.
These are the problems that I believe NCSoft identified that they are trying to solve. Now if we don't like the solution that they came up with, lets see if we can come up with other solutions.
Problem #1: This problem exists for almost every discussion/topic. To me, the most plausible solution to this is to lock the thread when it becomes circular. If it is new players discussing an issue that has been discussed in the past, that does not necessarily mean that it is circular. They will inevitably have a fresh viewpoint and be allowed to voice their views. If they are not permitted to do so, you are stifling growth, which is bad.
At most, lock the thread with a link to the original discussion. Just because we have discussed, for example, the manor system in the past, does not mean that any player's thread with questions about the manor system should be automatically locked and redirected to a previous thread discussing the manor system. This is made even more important by the fact that these forums auto-prune anything not stickied or without a post by an NCSoft Staff member, which means that threads containing previous discussions will be lost and new players/posters will not know that it was previously discussed at all. Therefore, from that new poster's perspective, the discussion never even took place and it would make no sense to lock that thread. And if your solution to this problem for BEV posts is the one that NCSoft came up with, they logically must extend the solution to every type of thread with this problem, unless there is another significant reason why these threads should be treated specially. Regardless of that, Problem #1 is not sufficient to warrant this new policy.
Problem #2:
This solution does not in any way decrease the manpower required on the forums. If anything, it increases the amount of manpower because now EVERY BEV thread must be locked/deleted instead of the smaller criteria that applied before these new forum rules. Besides, the amount of manpower it takes for Sarge, or moderator07, to save in notepad the following text, to be pasted into any relevant thread is approximately 5 minutes:
Please see the following posts for NCSoft's official stance on botting, ebaying and violations of the EULA.
RustNC, the Lineage II NA Producer's Vision for LII in NA (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=general&Number=378502&Foru m=,All_Forums,&Words=&Searchpage=1&Limit=25&Main=3 78502&Search=true&where=bodysub&Name=13304&dateran ge=1&newerval=1&newertype=y&olderval=&oldertype=&b odyprev=#Post378502)
HGMspam's State of the Bots Address (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=general&Number=378502&Foru m=,All_Forums,&Words=&Searchpage=1&Limit=25&Main=3 78502&Search=true&where=bodysub&Name=13304&dateran ge=1&newerval=1&newertype=y&olderval=&oldertype=&b odyprev=#Post378502)
Actually its even less now since all they have to do is copy/paste what I originally wrote. That means that it will take them about 1 minute and probably 1 minute to post in the the future for each time they have to post it. So that's hmmm maybe 10 man hours per year? Seems like an awfully small number to me, and that's over-estimating the amount of times they'd have to post it I think.
Problem #3:
One possible solution is to create a category specifically for BEV topics. This would obviously solve #3 somewhat easily, as has been suggested. Another alternative would be to increase the number of threads per page default view. Since yesterday at noon, 15 threads have been posted in under the GD category. That's not a large number and having more threads viewed per page would certainly allow people to see other discussions going on besides the top whatever threads. Another possibility is to more effectively combat BEV so that it gets to the point where most players no longer feel it is necessary to come to the official boards to discuss it. Yet another possibility is to essentially legalize BEV by removing most of those segments from the EULA and allowing players to use third party programs, ebay, etc. Then, players could not complain about their competition getting an advantage via illegal/bannable means, they could only lament or applaud NCSoft's decision on what is bannable. Finally, NCSoft could actually enforce their own rules and not allow thread bumping with one word replies such as ":rollseyes: " which occurred in this very thread!
Outlawing BEV appears at first glance to be the easiest, most cost effecitve way to deal with these problems, but it really isn't. Nor is it the best way to handle these problems from a CS POV.
I don't think their entire issue is that "individual threads have a circular arguement " so much as "over the course of many threads that have started on this subject, the topics have become circular."
In other words, same old, same old. And, since they have said all that there is to say about the subject they feel that coninuing to address the exact same things is pointless.
Furthermore, they indicate that any additional issues that one might have with the subject can be brought up to support.
I hope that you Moderators have learned your lesson here.
While I can understand the intelligence behind wanting to limit the kinds of posts you have on the boards, common sense should have told you that no one likes to have their freedom of speech revoked, especially a bunch of opinionated, competitive, nerds like ourselves.
Common sense should have also told you that forums are generally for complaining, ranting, and flaming. It's a place where the little folks get to be heard and shot down by their peers. We all post our indignations and opinions, all the while waiting and hoping that our cries for help will be answered by a mighty Moderator so everyone can either then praise the Moderator for his sage comments or chime in the usual "pwned" to let us know that we were shut down after the Moderator has penned in a glib witticism.
Such is the way of game forums.
We're just surprised about how you're handling the situation. We know you don't have the power to fix the issues we're talking about. We know that if you had that ability, you would have fixed it by now. We just rant and complain anyway because it's the only outlet we have. Now you want to remove the outlet because it's one of the few things you do have the power to do.
Clumsy guys....very clumsy.
Howabout we let this be a message board for your players and stop treating it like an advertisement. You already have a whole website designed for that purpose.
Ok, but there is no freedom of speech here. These are private forums.
That is what people are not getting. You only have the right to post what fits under the forum rules.
There is no such thing as "complete freedom of speech" unless it fits into society's rules anyways.
Given that this is a private forum there is even less. This is the company's forum which they pay for (out of your fees of course) so that people can discuss certain aspects of the game. Part of this forum is to act as an advertisement to not only the game but the game's community.
There is no reason for them to even allow a whisper of any issues if they so chose. But they do up to a point (this thread being that point and the last of it no doubt).
That at least shows some respect for the community. It might not be what the community wants but again.. private forum.
You are on private property... as a guest you are to respect your hosts rules. If you do not like it... then, well.. people can speak with their wallets.
If the issues that plague this game (and many others) continue to hamper the enjoyment of the game then people will leave. That is the largest message that one can send. Other than that there is not much more that one can do.
Sony messed up big time with SWG becuase they did not communicate with their customers and they wouldn't let their customers communicate to them.
When they made a change in the combat in SWG they angered many, many players. Isolating the players from the devs on imporant issues was the final coffin for that game.
As a result the game is in shambles.
City of Heroes is an example where they were testing ED for a while but did not let the players in on this massive game changing nerf of how powers were to be slotted. It looked as if the COH team was about to make a similar mistake that the SWG team made recently....
What is the difference you say with COH and what SWG did? The City of Heroes team continued to communicate with their customers and they ALLOWED disccusions on ED!!! They even made compromises on some things becuase of ED (stamina bonus). Lots of doom post existed but discussions on ED were still allowed!
Even with all those doom posts COV launched without any hitches and many new players and returning players have come back to the game.
I thought NCSOFT Lineage II NA team learned their lesson the first time with censorship *cough*gameguard*cough*
IMVHO the Lineage II of NCNA should seriously consider taking the COH teams approach as you can learn a lot from your neighbors at NCNA.
DO NOT FOLLOW IN SONY's footsteps (Smedly = smelly)
Follow the mighty Jack Emmert aka Statesman aka Lord Recluse. :cool:
I don't think their entire issue is that "individual threads have a circular arguement " so much as "over the course of many threads that have started on this subject, the topics have become circular."
In other words, same old, same old. And, since they have said all that there is to say about the subject they feel that coninuing to address the exact same things is pointless.
Furthermore, they indicate that any additional issues that one might have with the subject can be brought up to support.
I think Choch broke it down quite nicely and didnt presume to say circular threads was the "entire issue".
One of the continual complaints - not a personal one - regarding BEV's is the ineffectiveness in taking the complaint to support. Unless this is addressed then their "indication" really doesnt harness any newfound faith.
"Censorship" is an inflammatory word; used mostly for reaction. It is out of place here.
It's been a long-standing forum rule (and bannable offense) that you cannot accuse someone of being a bot. Is that censorship? Why isn't there this kind of outcry about that rule?
"Censorship" is an inflammatory word; used mostly for reaction. It is out of place here.
It's been a long-standing forum rule (and bannable offense) that you cannot accuse someone of being a bot. Is that censorship? Why isn't there this kind of outcry about that rule?
Becuase it has always been there as a rule from the beggining.
Taking away something that was allowed to be discussed but no longer allowed is what I consider censorship.
That is in general terms trying to sweep it under the carpet.
I don't think their entire issue is that "individual threads have a circular arguement " so much as "over the course of many threads that have started on this subject, the topics have become circular."
In other words, same old, same old. And, since they have said all that there is to say about the subject they feel that coninuing to address the exact same things is pointless.
Furthermore, they indicate that any additional issues that one might have with the subject can be brought up to support.
I think Choch broke it down quite nicely and didnt presume to say circular threads was the "entire issue".
One of the continual complaints - not a personal one - regarding BEV's is the ineffectiveness in taking the complaint to support. Unless this is addressed then their "indication" really doesnt harness any newfound faith.
I wasn't indicating that he was saying that "circular threads" were the entire issue but I am reading NC's response as "all that has been said about the subject has been said therefore it needs to cease becoming a forum topic and instead be brought to support".
If that is truly there stance then that seems to close any additional discussions.
Ok, but there is no freedom of speech here. These are private forums.
That is what people are not getting. You only have the right to post what fits under the forum rules.
Oh I dont think we (the protesters) are half as stupid as you make out. Infact there are very few, if any, "I refuse to be censored" replies in this thread. Ofcourse we get it Sov.
But forcing us to close our eyes here to a problem that is wide-spread and unavoidable in game - where it actually matters - is bound to bring out the cynic in the best of us.
If that is truly there stance then that seems to close any additional discussions.
Exactly.
What if I want to discuss having difficulty turning in fruits to the manor?
Am I supposed to assume the only problems I am having is becuase of other player controlled characters or myself? Do I turn a blind eye to the fact that bots effect the manor system as well?
What can support do for me in this situation?
The NA team has a better chance of contacting the Korean devs than support and telling them of the problem.
To me it seems that they are throwing in the towel when it comes to cheating. Rather than fight it and make the reason for the threads go away they just tell us not to discuss it anymore.
I suppose only time will tell, but it still saddens me.
Ok, but there is no freedom of speech here. These are private forums.
That is what people are not getting. You only have the right to post what fits under the forum rules.
Oh I dont think we (the protesters) are half as stupid as you make out. Infact there are very few, if any, "I refuse to be censored" replies in this thread. Ofcourse we get it Sov.
But forcing us to close our eyes here to a problem that is wide-spread and unavoidable in game - where it actually matters - is bound to bring out the cynic in the best of us.
Oh please Kari.. I would never even think that anyone on these forums is stupid. You must know me better than that (as much as one can evaluate an individual on these forums).
However... even though I acknowledge and empathize with the inhabitants of this forum I see many people assuming the "I'm outraged and I demand to be heard" tone. And while that is quite viable, if one wants to look at this logically one can't get by the fact that they have made their position on their forums and there are only a few avenues open.
Keep in mind... at the moment we are still discussing this topic. But this thread most likely won't be kept open for long. They are just allowing us all to vent, state opinions etc.
I jus don't see anyone changing their minds. Furthermore, this might not be a directive from NC North America but NC Korea.
This topic has a very narrrow avenue to walk and not much room to wiggle.
Sorry for the delayed response. It's been busy around here. Yes, I should have posted something in the "can't log in" thread. That's my bad.
I understand the call for "just fix it." And I really wish it were that simple, like a "no-bot" switch we could flip and permanently resolve the issue, but it doesn't work like that.
We spend a great deal of time, resources and money attacking this issue. We will continue to. This is the bare honest truth. Every day we work on new processes to make our efforts more effective, our means more efficient, and our results more long term. On this, I give my word.
Really, you either can trust that I'm an honest person, or you don't. If you don't, nothing I say to you will matter anyways.
We still, and primarily, want you to report these issues via the proper channels. The information you provide will get filtered to the people that need it far faster via our support channels as opposed to posting about it on the forums. From there we can more effectively apply the information and potential insights to our efforts.
However, we are going to open a channel to you that allows you to report 3rd party software traits and carry on focused discussion here on the boards, and a process for us to review that channel and apply relevant information. We are discussing this presently and should have something up for you to use shortly. Again, the intent is not to hide the issue in hopes it will go away, but the proliferation of often inaccurate and unfocused bot discussion was just not constructive nor helpful to our efforts. This new method will be far more useful to us in a practical manner.
To me it seems that they are throwing in the towel when it comes to cheating. Rather than fight it and make the reason for the threads go away they just tell us not to discuss it anymore.
I suppose only time will tell, but it still saddens me.
I feel this too.
And contrary to popular opinion, being able to read of other players experiences with Bots - in particular your own - has made me feel able to log in and cope with them as part of my gameplay instead of seeing them for what they are.
Now where do we go for that comaderie? And how will new players cope without it?
Thanks Rust. That's what we really do need IMO. A more focused channel to discuss these particular types of issues. It might take a bit of manpower(womanpower really. hehe) to keep it on track and productive, but it will be worth the extra effort!!
Good Job NCSoft. I think this is a much needed change.
I think the vocal group who keeps on standing up this horse and beating it to death are in the minority.
It just happens to be a vocal minority. I for don't even respond anymore to the stupid entrapment scenario posts that crop once a week.
The game is a good game. Many of the problems that exist also exist in every on-line MMPORG I have ever played and I have played most of them since UO.
Go to the site that shall not be named and every MMPORG in the market today has a listing for sale of virtual cash for real cash. Often too much is made of why a company like NCSoft doesn't stop it. They can't because people use it.
The players are much more to blame than the game makers. As long as people buy it, someone will sell it. There is a multi-billion dollar secondary market around these games because people will spend their hard earned cash on them. If you can honestly figure out how to stop people from spending their money on stupid stuff then you wouldn't be posting it here.
Besides, I'd rather see NCSoft figure out a way to profit from it and re-invest the money into the game. Improvements and stability of the company and the game itself ultimately protect the time investment we have all made. I think this is a better big picture goal than trying to police customers.
The game already has ways to deal with it and allows for a great amount of latitude in dealing with this. I can train farmers and bots without consequence. I can get a sin eater and kill them to my hearts content. This is a hardcore game and that is a big part of it's attraction.
Oops someone spoke too soon..or posted too late :p
So will I.
I hate moderation.
And since day one, the only way to deal with important matters has been to lock the threads and adding EULA rules.
I'll tell you something NC... You're only eradicating symptoms that way.
Attack the disease rather.
All you forbid to talk about for the hahaha circular reaons ... which are true but only because proper responses fail to come ty... are all the important subjects we as customers want to talk about. We'd love only having to talk about lullabies and rping but it ain't yet so.
Character transfers
Botting
Exploits
Ebaying
Adena sales
...are VERY important matters. Shutting them out of your boards will I fear only help grow the gap between this community and the player base, weakening the link and the boards themselves.
You really should address those points and keep repeating the mantras about dealing and also actually deal with them.
Imposing such restrictions just show us you're uneasy about the matters.
And don't say again you'd be repeating yourself. The essence of your job on the boards is to repeat yourself.
Repeating is the basis of Teaching. And you can only nail down a message by repeating it. But it would take more than Sarge's posts to do that. "No" is hardly a proper answer even if it seems tough.
A question struck me at this point. Do you have communication advisors ? Some kind of Spin Doctors or marketing specialists ?
I really doubt it at this point.
Well I didn't read all the replies to this post but read the new rules. The only statement I can say is the players must be able to vent somewhere, somehow. If they can't vent on the boards and feel powerless, many may choose to leave. In a way posting is like going to a support group where people with similar sentiments share their feelings then discuss strategies to combat the situation. I agree that sometimes there's a rash of posts about bots/farmers overrunning servers but this is due to player frustration. The other option is to increase awareness that there are other boards to vent on but if this is done then the moderators of this board would have no control on the issues/topics discussed therein. I'm sure there are other options out there but this is my 1/2 cent... with a hole in the middle.
Well dude, he's a lawyer. It's kind of his job to speak in the name of other people. It's not if he works for NC that's relevant, it's his ability to word concepts and situations. In that regard I truly respect what StT writes.
Why THANK YOU, Darkmotion! Cant believe I almost missed that >.<
And well, leave it to TEH DEVIL to give my profession a compliment :)
To be fair to ncsoft I can see their point of view. As I said earlier they dont want new players coming on and reading endless posts about botting. It will put people off before they have even played the game.
It's not that i'm happy about bots but it has always been my belief that no game can ever stop them completely. Plus I have to say that there are other aspects of the game that concern me more.
What gets me mad sometimes is that this game has so much potential - the graphics, pvp etc. I dont feel that it gets enough credit or has been marketed well.
Maybe its true that people like myself are not helping. We as a community need to help to attract more people to the game. ncsoft have a responsibility too of course.
At times our arguments are hypocritical too - on teon for example some of the major alliances preach against bots - yet have bots/farmers in their ranks!
I dont think botting will ever go away - so perhaps on reflection we should focus on things that we can change.
umm guys.. stopping bots is not anything that's super hard.
If you can't restrict access to your servers from clients besides your own, you might consider finding another job.
To say it can't be done is a major mistake, it's done every day in many different applications. It's a matter of desire and resources.
Let me be the first to say that I will happily pay $20/month.. a full 25% increase, if you get rid of them. I'll pay another $5 on top of that if you can guarantee that every penny of that increase goes to fund a "fraud" team whose only job is to bust ebayers and farmers.
Just think of how many customers you could get if L2 was the only MMO to stand up and say "We have no cheaters, we actively hunt them and ban them, we take extreme security measures to stop cheating in all of it's forms, yes our game costs a little extra, but our players say it is well worth the extra cost to create a fair competition."
I agree with Bighands latest comments. I'll put more of my money on a bot free or almost free game. But you don't have to guarantee any of the extra is going towards any specific area, just keep the botters and ebayers out.
umm guys.. stopping bots is not anything that's super hard.
If you can't restrict access to your servers from clients besides your own, you might consider finding another job.
To say it can't be done is a major mistake, it's done every day in many different applications. It's a matter of desire and resources.
If every company in the world had VPNs or secure sites as easily frauded as gameguard or whatever authentication methods are in use there wouldn't be any e-commerce...
Key pairs identification....
One of the most basic C programming exercice and hop... no bots...
Just think of how many customers you could get if L2 was the only MMO to stand up and say "We have no cheaters, we actively hunt them and ban them, we take extreme security measures to stop cheating in all of it's forms, yes our game costs a little extra, but our players say it is well worth the extra cost to create a fair competition."
If it is so easy why do bots and cheats exist in every MMO on the market today?
Remember when EQ made the effort and started encrypting the data stream? Everyone screamed about performance so they reduced the size of the key and the bots were back in 1-2 hours after every patch.
Maybe I don't understand, "extra resources"? Again if it is so simple and easy then why are extra resources required?
Simple and easy implies no extra resources or burden on the server or client. You know this isn't the case.
I vote for a non-technical solution that solves the customer issue and the business issue. Why not create a new server for the bots, ebayers and adena buyers?
5000 plus banned accounts equals a pretty good server population to start with and GM's can move accounts to the bot server they suspect of cheating. This would provide a cleaner environment for the rest of the servers and let cheaters be with others like themselves.
This requires no game changes or design changes, reduces the burden on GM's and keeps NCSoft from losing revenues.....
I vote for a non-technical solution that solves the customer issue and the business issue. Why not create a new server for the bots, ebayers and adena buyers?
Word.
I believe they were looking into that when some Playstation 2 MMO said they were going to do that. Something about "Premium access" or whatever.
But I dont think that would work, simply because even though you have servers that condone cheating, people will still cheat on the other servers.
As long as there is a market, there is a guy in a hoody going "Ppssstt, hey, this gold chain."
Its almost like saying that since Las Vegas has legal prostitution, Moble AL will see a decrease in it. EEEEEE, wrong, heh.
That thread is a good idea. Although it might not be that useful to neither the players nor the staff it gives a good message to the community.
I still think that if you want to keep the general section clean of "omg teh botz!" thread it will take a lot of moderation... but at least you have a nice thread you can redirect to. :)
I use to never biitch about bots (on message boards anyway) until recently when I couldn't log-on to bartz. I have soooo much time invested on bartz and to think that the only reason I can't play is because the farmers are getting trained with such regularity that they have maxed out their groups with waaay more bot DDs than they need so they can absorb trains being dumped on them.
This is the end of my board biitching. You just let this "cant' log in" situation continue until another game comparable to L2 comes along and then it will be eternally and everlastingly too late. (but alas, you'll still have sycophantic customers who will post as such - " The company is doing all they can do to combat this problem, and I know they care, we just need to cold shoulder all the cheaters and then the blatant and flowing like a ribbon groups of bots will go away by them selves. The burden is on us as players, we only have ourselves to blame, we cant' blame the Company . . . . . . kissy kissy kissy pu" so give them the pat on the head they deserve)
OMG all hope of reason is gone - the points are lost on the corperation guys. Give it up.
They are loosing potential customers becasue of their forums; itis obvious they have a problem here. They are not going to be honest about it. It is no longer cool on thier forums to talk about game problems - their forums their rules - whammy, its just business.
I think the game is good enough "despite its issues (those we discuss) and comments in these forums" to stand up to the scrutinty of our critisism.
However, someone at NCSoft is a little bothered or worried by it so poof the forums have turned into another avenue for advertising -nothing more.
Have fun with it.
P.S. This has nothing to do with trusting the moderators (The party line can be tough to swallow sometimes.) at all it has to do with trusting big business - not gonna happen.
OMG all hope of reason is gone - the points are lost on the corperation guys. Give it up.
They are loosing potential customers becasue of their forums; itis obvious they have a problem here. They are not going to be honest about it. It is no longer cool on thier forums to talk about game problems - their forums their rules - whammy, its just business.
I think the game is good enough "despite its issues (those we discuss) and comments in these forums" to stand up to the scrutinty of our critisism.
However, someone at NCSoft is a little bothered or worried by it so poof the forums have turned into another avenue for advertising -nothing more.
Have fun with it.
P.S. This has nothing to do with trusting the moderators (The party line can be tough to swallow sometimes.) at all it has to do with trusting big business - not gonna happen.
You need to get up to date. There's a bot thread now.
OMG all hope of reason is gone - the points are lost on the corperation guys. Give it up.
They are loosing potential customers becasue of their forums; itis obvious they have a problem here. They are not going to be honest about it. It is no longer cool on thier forums to talk about game problems - their forums their rules - whammy, its just business.
I think the game is good enough "despite its issues (those we discuss) and comments in these forums" to stand up to the scrutinty of our critisism.
However, someone at NCSoft is a little bothered or worried by it so poof the forums have turned into another avenue for advertising -nothing more.
Have fun with it.
P.S. This has nothing to do with trusting the moderators (The party line can be tough to swallow sometimes.) at all it has to do with trusting big business - not gonna happen.
You need to get up to date. There's a bot thread now.
pretty bad when they remove a post about a PINK BUNNY BOT.... :cool: I cant find my post anywhere. Does talking about it mean a possible slap on the wrist? Or temp ban from the forum because I know you deleted it? I curious how you moderators are going to react? Nothing personal.
pretty bad when they remove a post about a PINK BUNNY BOT.... I cant find my post anywhere. Does talking about it mean a possible slap on the wrist? Or temp ban from the forum because I know you deleted it? I curious how you moderators are going to react? Nothing personal.
pretty bad when they remove a post about a PINK BUNNY BOT.... I cant find my post anywhere. Does talking about it mean a possible slap on the wrist? Or temp ban from the forum because I know you deleted it? I curious how you moderators are going to react? Nothing personal.
Okay this is just wrong. You are now banning perfectly productive discussions about where to hunt when your spot has been overrun by bots.
It is entirely productive for the players. If you're tired of reading about it, then stop reading them. But locking them is dumb. You're cutting off ways for players to lessen the impact of bots on your servers.
Umm...the ones that are still complaining? Maybe you should go here. (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=444817&page=0&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=&fpart=3#Post446717#444817) This thread should be locked because there is no point in getting mad about not being able to bot post when there is a thread dedicated to it now.
Umm...the ones that are still complaining? Maybe you should go here. (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=444817&page=0&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=&fpart=3#Post446717#444817) This thread should be locked because there is no point in getting mad about not being able to bot post when there is a thread dedicated to it now.
The OP makes it look like this is the place for it, didn't read all 6,000 posts.
(Edit)
Just looked at that thread, it doesn't seem to fit the kind of discussion to which I was referring - not related to 'detection methods' but rather work arounds.
More specifically my complaint is simply that a content based ban on this subject is silly.
YOU may think that YOU have read, written, and thought of everything to say on the subject, but even if you had, then simply DON'T read posts about bots. Very simple.
So you have reposted old spam's PR stunt about how good GG is (what is a complete lie - even regarding simple (and pretty useless in L2 world) macro tools) or how well he does his job (while having 3 70+ characters naturally leveled in C2, supposedly).
Anyway.
This game has been a rolling joke in terms of enforcing any policies for last 21 months. That's almost 2 years. It's not even funny to see any new posts, or reposts in this case.
Actually, after such long time, it doesn't really matter at all what you post. State of the game, and your [un]willingness to both fix core broken elements of it and (or rather: to) deal with pro-farming, botting, etc. - say everything. Visiting "underground" forums (and I'm not talking about [censored]) leaves much, much more sour taste in the mouth - people cheating in one or the other way, casually or not - laugh at you, in tears. Actually - you don't have to go there - simply talking to members of most top alliances is enough. As sad as it is.
And to emphasise: if you don't see that at the very core of the problems is the game itself - broken classes, tables, mechanics - even as basic thing as trading forcing people to be online 24/7 with overbloated client and GG messing with far too many things (to name a few) - then you are really a bunch of very ignorant (or very hypocritical) people. Or the people really pulling the strings (NC Korea) are. Sure - L2 in NA is still kindergarten of cheating compared to Korea, but if you want people to play the game differently here, then maybe you should finally start doing something in this direction (and I'm sure you won't).
In the end, for the players - it doesn't really matter whose fault it is. Still, it's quite stunnig that NC (as a whole company) didn't learn too much, if anything, from Lineage 1.
[censored] and its sniffer, free "market" bots, l2encdec, whole l2dp project, whole l2j project, hundreds of private servers - those are answers to broken game, official servers designed for mindless botting (especially after C3 "changes"), almost complete lack of communication, poor customer service, orwellian official boards, outsourced gms, constant lies (prima, server transfers - to name the most notable ones), incredibly stiff development cycle, and many more.
This stuff doesn't show up becasue someone wants to "hurt" you and your precious game, or want to cheat and be on top at all cost. It shows up because people really enthusiastic about the game (and with some skills) are tired of dealing with you and the same crap over and over again.
It's like with those 2xxx bannings, supposedly. If you ever gave a **** about suggestions regarding ability to logoff during shop mode, many of them wouldn't happen. Free versions of "market" bots wouldn't be needed in the first place.
Start fixing your game. And listening to what players have to say here or in any other territory, starting with Korea (as strangely as it sounds). Maybe then majority of players sitting in Giran won't be using free edition of one of the bots, because normal client messes with far too many things, not mentioning simply being resource hungry. And forcing people to keep computers on 24/7 for a stupid shop.
Regarding all this "new policy" you just did the same what you did in old GG times - "If we make people quiet about the problem, the problem will go away", "If it's hidden, nobody will notice" - new forum "rules", one recycle-bin thread. Sad, but not really surprising (well, not from you anyway).
Go and congratulate the next team of "heroes" (of which significant part will be cheaters) that will slay Antharas. That's what you do best - PR stunts.
[censored] and its sniffer, free "market" bots, l2encdec, whole l2dp project, whole l2j project, hundreds of private servers - those are answers to broken game, official servers designed for mindless botting (especially after C3 "changes"), almost complete lack of communication, poor customer service, orwellian official boards, outsourced gms, constant lies (prima, server transfers - to name the most notable ones), incredibly stiff development cycle, and many more.
This stuff doesn't show up becasue someone wants to "hurt" you and your precious game, or want to cheat and be on top at all cost. It shows up because people really enthusiastic about the game (and with some skills) are tired of dealing with you and the same crap over and over again.
I don't know about other servers, but on ours a good 1/2 of the players in the top clans got their high levels from botting.
How do I know? It's pretty obvious when you pay their afk botting grounds a visit every night, kill 2-4 groups of war tags in separate rooms, and none of them fight back, ackowledge you're there, or even inform the other groups that enemies are coming.
They've been reported at least 200 times over a course of a month and yet they are still there botting their sublcasses up to L75.
And who, Wetzel, will you complain to when NCSoft decides to pull the plug on Lineage2 for the North American markets because of low subscribers?
As a business, they must protect their bottom line, and it all boils down to this: You do not upsell your product by screaming about its defects.
Case in point:
<ul type="square"> Salesman: Hey you sir, would you like to buy this flashy new car?
Prospective: Well, can you tell me a little about it?
Salesman: Well, as you can see by our current customer's reviews, its engine is clunky, the windows dont work, and it tends to overheat
Prospective: Is that right?
Salesman: Yes sir, you can see what sucks about the car here, here, and here.
Prospective: Uh...I think ill pass.
Salesman: But why?!
Why indeed. You want servers like Hindemith and Sieg to have more players on it, you want it to teem with life, but you want to put NCSoft into a chokehold and keep them from doing just that.
Having thread after thread after thread of whats WRONG with Lineage is doing just that. It helps no one. That is why they are ending it.
Makes perfect sense to me but hey...maybe I am just looking at it too realistically.
just a poke at the way things always stays the same.