Ryzom

The thread :

http://ryzom.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3148

Why was this closed? This type of action is a disservice to the Ryzom community. A GM made a bad decision and is being held accountable by the players that pay his salary. GMs are not infallable and should not be treated as such. To call this player an exploiter for simply playing the game as presented until it is suddenly changed would render us all exploiters. Us crafters have been using tools that dont degrade since launch, but now they do. Does that make us exploiters for having taken advantage of the fact that they did not degrade? What about the Tryker, who are harvesting all their mats in Loria well before they should be, instead of harvesting them in Dew Drops and Resting Water like we should? Will that make them exploiters when it gets changed? Please, explain to me why this thread was closed. I simply don't understand why, thats all.

It would be far better for the Moderator to post the reason for the closure and even better for a comment on what they have attempted to do to fix the problem but oh well its not a very perfect world.

What some seem to have missed is the simple fact that those that were harvesting in the roots, knew they were not suppose to be able to harvest there as easily as they were doing. I myself saw more than one disscussion about that simple fact in region chat in more than one zone out side the roots.

I fully understand Takashi's comments on the situation the guy was in and didn't see that there was anything inappropriate about them, he did not use any bad words or belittle the guy (from what was quoted anyway), he just told him something he did not want to hear. Will we hang every GM that tells people things they don't want to hear? I truely hope not.

alystra wrote:What some seem to have missed is the simple fact that those that were harvesting in the roots, knew they were not suppose to be able to harvest there as easily as they were doing. I myself saw more than one disscussion about that simple fact in region chat in more than one zone out side the roots.

I fully understand Takashi's comments on the situation the guy was in and didn't see that there was anything inappropriate about them, he did not use any bad words or belittle the guy (from what was quoted anyway), he just told him something he did not want to hear. Will we hang every GM that tells people things they don't want to hear? I truely hope not.

This is post-launch, and we are playing the game as it is presented to us. How are we supposed to make the decision that we are doing something we aren't supposed to be able to do, when this is how the game is presented? No dirty tricks involved here, no bugs being abused. This is simply the fact that the opportunity was presented to this person, and for no better reason than that he was able to sieze it. I fail to see what he is 'exploiting'. The devs realized it was easy to sieze, and didn't like that, so they changed the availibility of the opportunity. This does not make the term "exploiter" retroactive; the fact that it was changed has no bearing on what it was, just what it is. He wasnt exploiting, just playing the game as presented, and now, it's presented differently.

echowave wrote:This is post-launch, and we are playing the game as it is presented to us. How are we supposed to make the decision that we are doing something we aren't supposed to be able to do, when this is how the game is presented? No dirty tricks involved here, no bugs being abused. This is simply the fact that the opportunity was presented to this person, and for no better reason than that he was able to sieze it. I fail to see what he is 'exploiting'. The devs realized it was easy to sieze, and didn't like that, so they changed the availibility of the opportunity. This does not make the term "exploiter" retroactive; the fact that it was changed has no bearing on what it was, just what it is. He wasnt exploiting, just playing the game as presented, and now, it's presented differently.

What exactly do you want to see happen? I went to the Prime Roots post patch. It took exactly 2 deaths to convince me to try elsewhere. I realise that 1.5 million DP seems like a lot, but even as a level 72 harvester, I can still pull 23K DP XP per harvest (3K XP without DP). That allows someone to burn off 1 million DP in 50 pulls. Lucas is playing in Zora. If he's maxed his jungle harvest, can't he just start on desert harvest? The Outback in Dementia is a desert harvest spot. We were there today.

What's the alternative? Any time someone dies they complain and get the DP removed? The Primes are opened up to unbalanced characters so that they can get around their unbalanced penalties? I hate to be cold, but the character he plays is unbalanced. That sucks for him. The game exists as it is though and people have to adapt. There are other ways to work off a death penalty.

And it was an exploit. People were bragging in region chat about the fact that it was an exploit. There are people who have made their fortunes knowing it was an exploit... and now it's gone. That's the nature of an exploit. People who used it kept what they got, but it's not all a bed of roses.

If he has an issue with the way a GM spoke with him, he can take it up privately with customer service. If he has issues with his character being unbalanced... well, there's not a lot anyone can do.

Tin.

tinpony wrote:
And it was an exploit. People were bragging in region chat about the fact that it was an exploit. There are people who have made their fortunes knowing it was an exploit... and now it's gone. That's the nature of an exploit. People who used it kept what they got, but it's not all a bed of roses.

I completely and abjectly disagree with this.

Fact: it was possible for anyone to get in the roots in the course of play.

Fact: there were no explicit instructions, laws, rules, GM postings, or other text stating that "you may not go into the prime roots unless <condition>".

I dont need to hear any more on this, myself. While I don't agree that the original person should get their DP removed, I do completely disagree to the way it's been handled.

GMs? Devs? Someone? Please make it right, like the good people I'm hoping you are...

qwipso20 wrote:I completely and abjectly disagree with this.

Fact: it was possible for anyone to get in the roots in the course of play.

Fact: there were no explicit instructions, laws, rules, GM postings, or other text stating that "you may not go into the prime roots unless <condition>".

I dont need to hear any more on this, myself. While I don't agree that the original person should get their DP removed, I do completely disagree to the way it's been handled.

GMs? Devs? Someone? Please make it right, like the good people I'm hoping you are...

Either you're being intentionally dense here or you're grasping at straws trying to justify cheating. Anyone who was exploiting the situation in Prime Roots knew full well what they were doing, many including Lucasd bragged in Zora region chat about it routinely until it was fixed. The exploiters would do well to quiet down and be happy they weren't banned for their actions. The more attention brought to the fact you cheated yet were allowed to keep the spoils gained, the more likely Nevrax will be forced to do something about the player outcry.

Even setting that entire issue aside, the crux of the request is simply "I was too stubborn to give up going to an area that changed in the patch, as such I feel I deserve a refund on my death penalty". Flat out wrong, it would only serve to even further devalue the limited sting death carries. Lesser mortals who didn't take advantage of the Prime Roots flaws all have to live with death penalties for doing stupid things. (I often take the occasional death or three to explore new areas, and reap the rewards in DP) I think one can certainly classify repeatedly running into an area of high level aggressive mobs alone with no ability to fight back in a meaningful way a questionable decision at best.

What strikes me most about this whole mess is that as a Jungle Forager of comparable level, I get about 35k DP per dig on sources pretty much anywhere on the continent outside of City of Intuition. To work off a one million XP death penalty is the work of about a half hour, an hour tops. Anyone who's levelled Prime Roots forage already has the basic tools required, Harmful/Gentle Extraction of 150, Prospect Choice Materials, and Source Time 1,00. Anyone with a dose of common sense by that point will likely have all their mat type specs too. Worst case scenario you're working without Jungle Spec, hardly insurmoutable.

The kicker, if other skills are as low as the poster claims (sub-100) then getting the 3,000xp/35k DP per dig wouldn't even require sources above q100 or even half the above mentioned skills, extracting low level sources with the benefit of 150+ levels worth of harvesting XP.

I encountered a similar problem. In tryker land there are a plethora of islands surrounded by monsters that can't get to you. Almost all of the mages that developed in the first week or so stood on one of these islands and blasted away, protected, at a monster across a small stretch of water.

One day I was doing this and a GM warped me to a Jail without telling me why or without a warning. After abotu ten minutes he finally told me that I was there because they are still trying to figure out how to deal with exploiters. EXPLOITERS? Isn't that what ranged attacks are about....hitting enemies from a distance? Leveling is still painfully slow. Is it an exploit to be able to raise your forage skill without getting attacked?

I'm realizing that 2/3 of the GMs are nice and the rest are idiots...it is bothersome.

Strangely, I never once saw anyone bragging about exploiting the PR. Many people did speak of being able to harvest there, but inasmuch as the roots were freely accessible to anyone who wished to get in there was no exploit.

Was access to the PR marked as being off limits? No. Have any of the GM's we have dealt with for any of a myriad of problems asked us to keep our teams out of the PR? No. Does any of this look like an exploit? No. Even in beta, we took lvl 50 and below characters into the roots, died, and had to have a GM TP us out since the respawn didn't work. Did they tell us we were exploiting the game? No. The suggested that we stay out until it was fixed; nothing more.

None of my group has cheated. Such behavior is unacceptable and everyone knows it. I do not know who you are in game, and I do not know what sort of grudge you carry against these people, but you have chosen a poor way to bear your grief.

The issue that we have (excluding Lucas' personal interest) is not the DP. The issue is the direct slander of a player by an authority figure followed by repeated efforts to keep this thread away from the eyes of the Windermeer community. We would like to know (a why Lucas was accused of cheating and (b why this topic was so actively suppressed on the forums yesterday. These are not unreasonable requests.

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to a constructive reply from a Nevrax representative.

- Pandorae
- Commander, Comitatus Praetorian

Knowing Takashi as I do, I am sure there was more going on behind the scenes which actually engendered that response and that Lucas was more the unlucky victim of chance than anything when he was labelled an exploiter. That being said, I do not agree with Lucas being labeled as an exploiter (I mean by that thought, EVERY player that entered the Roots for ANY reason - even traveling - pre-patch is an exploiter).

An exploit is buying mats from a merchant at 100 Dapper and being able to immediately sell them back at 200 Dapper (numbers are not exact but the situation came up during testing). There is obviously something wrong with that situation.

Walking into an unknown region and being able to play there is exactly that: an unknown, the player has absolutely know way of knowing whether the situation is intentional or a developer screw up. The same goes for killing critters across water, the odd occasion when a critter decides that it can't get to you because of the tree between you or when a harvest node appears on the cliff above you but can still be harvested by looking up and targeting it. Are these things supposed to happen like this or are they other dev screw ups that will get an honest player labelled as a cheater, a liar and a thief?

BTW, to take this one step futher. The surviving homins from the Great Swarming were ushered INTO the roots:

The kitins set out on a crusade to obliterate all traces of hominkind. Many homins were able to escape through the teleportation 'rainbows' leading to safe haven in the Prime Roots of faraway lands. Kami and Karavan forces did their best to give homins safe conduct to the rainbows until these too were destroyed by kitins. http://www.ryzom.com/?page=story_kitin

and with that being the case why aren't our Prime Roots STILL safe havens (remember, we still are not in the same location as our original home lands but in those faraway lands)

Refugees in their droves were at last able to rejoin the newly flourishing civilizations that had resurfaced from the Prime Roots in the new lands of promise. http://www.ryzom.com/?page=story_exodus

With this in mind, is it any wonder that we felt the Prime Roots were fair game?