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Anti Bot Measures/Update from Sarah

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Guest

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Maybe you can answer this Katheryne as you seem to be in the know with the devs.

A while back the devs reduced the payouts on job tracks like the bot factory, using the excuse it was to fight botters.
They soon put those payouts back up as the has never been botting in any of the job tracks, so their excuse was proven to be false.
Again we have the job tracks effected in what is claimed to be a fight against the botters.
If this is truly a fight against botting, why do job tracks count towards reductions in our pools, and why are job track payouts effected by the pool.
 
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Guest

Guest
<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

It does sound like a death blow to stores.
People will be even more careful with their money and only spend it on things that will increase their pool.

I dunno, I might be wrong about your pool not increasing if you buy something from a player. But it sure seems like that is the case.

[/ QUOTE ]

Originally they didn't include stores in their post as objects that would not add to your pool. I am not sure if they did or did not then actually add to it or not. Afterwards they did add that to their post.
It is included so as people cannot get around the pool by buying and selling items to and from stores.
Unfortunately that doesn't leave a hell of a lot that we can do to add to our pools.
This is just another example of how our devs are not thinking things through.
I really do think it would be a good idea for one of these devs to actually get in and play this game, and I mean play the game and not just visit it.
That way they may get some idea of what really goes on in there and may start making some decent decisions.

Edited to add:
A while back the devs reduced the payouts on job tracks like the bot factory, using the excuse it was to fight botters.
They soon put those payouts back up as the has never been botting in any of the job tracks, so their excuse was proven to be false.
Again we have the job tracks effected in what is claimed to be a fight against the botters.
If this is truly a fight against botting, why do job tracks count towards reductions in our pools, and why are job track payouts effected by the pool.



[/ QUOTE ]
One possibility for the job tracks being included is simply to test coding.
It is common practice - at least in the amatuer circles I build for, to make a general change just to see if an effect or feature will work at all.
Once that is proven, we go to the next level and set general parameters to establish the conditions under which the effect will, or will not, be triggered.
Then, it's all fine tuning to get it to exactly where we want it.

Example: We want it to rain occassionally - code is added and tests run to make sure it will rain at all. Now we have it raining 24/7. Next, code is added to see what is necessary to restrict the rain. Tests are run to restict rainfall to Tuesday afternoon. Now, we want to change the code to rain at random times for a random length of time.
Code for that. Then tweaking to get it just right.
All this time, the testing is done on a test build that may or may not include volunteers from the real game.
Now, we put the build up for all players - after awhile they say the rain interferes with their holiday celebrations - so maybe we do a final tweak to the system to never rain on a holiday.


I suspect that might be the case here - the general coding is being tested just to see if it will work (and maybe to gather some data), with the fine tuning to come at a later date (exclusion of job tracks, inclusion of more 'credit replenishing' activities, increasing the cap, etc.).

Now, I don't know how it is in the professional world, but in the amatuer world, using players to alpha test a new build without their knowledge is considered bad form.
The code is not included in the main build until we are down to the fine tuning, where large amounts of players are needed to test the crap out of it.

What I'm saying is, even if it *is* eventually tricked out and working they way they want - it is not in a state of development where it is ready to be released to the players - even TC3.

Of course, I could be completely off base here, but it has the earmarks of alpha test.
 
D

disturbedmale31

Guest
i wanna know where i am doing this wrong ok i make money then spend money and i still make 3 dollars a jam oh wait i make a dollar a jam now i have an 19 cooking i was told to spend the money to reset the cap i done that and for 3 days i still make nothing this isnt going to fix the bot problem its going to make it worse think about it there going to make more bots to make up for there loses
 
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imported_Qute Pi

Guest
Based on Polly’s test it seems like we must all be in that 2% category. Lol. Or I’d like to know which part of “It won’t affect 98% of you” was the 98%.

Also do they think we want to do the same thing every day or week? Make money, buy stuff. What about make money, make money, make money, then buy something really cool. Oh sure you can, just make sure you only sign on 1 day a week and you should be fine!

I don’t know how they came up with the $3000 amount. I work with at least 15 different ppl in my job level. If I can make 2k a round, then there are 15 of us that can make 2k a round. And they want you to spend when most items cost waaaaay more than 3k.

At first I thought I was reading this wrong, or that we all were. I was thinking this can’t possibly mean what it says. But after reading the testing post, I have to question that it really does mean exactly what it says.

Their controlling ways are getting to me. I signed on and played for about 15 minutes this whole weekend! I thought about working on CC a couple times, started it up and closed it after 5 minutes. Really, what is the point of this game anymore?

I’m so sick of the bot excuse being used to ruin it for the rest of us. Why don’t we just let the bot ppl play and then they can sell their bot money to other botters and have a happy little bot family.

I know this is a new game, I know we should expect changes, but I think they need to even out, giving something new, when taking something old. I mean maybe in the future money won’t be so needed for everything, but until then, what are we supposed to do while paying for a game that isn’t even fun to play anymore.

*Holds pointing finger and thumb close together* I am *this* close to just saying screw it.

I hope they see the problem. If this new feature will have us earning even less than the amount we have been unhappy with for weeks/months, then it IS affecting more than the 2% they claim.

Edit: By 2k a round, I meant a work day.
 
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BearlyWrong

Guest
I wanna slip in my opinion about this... I feel that instead of getting rid of bots they are going to get rid of a bunch of the players that have always loved tso.

They are making it so complicated that no one can make any money or get anything. If they didnt bring over a house or items from other cities chances are it will take a very long time for them to get anything.
The word Game translates in my book as something you do for fun. When your "Fun" becomes more stress than your real life then it is time to move on. I've been a players since Oct of 2002.. and I have dealt with a ton of bugs but those I could handle. This is intentionally making the game stressful and that I just dont need.

So unless they find a different way to handle the Money situation in game I will be calling it quits very soon.
The bots didnt make it as bad as the good guys are. I know the devs are trying to fix things but there has to be a way that doesnt ruin the "game" aspect of TSO...Make Ealand as fun as TSO and more will stay. I do appreciate what they do as far as fixing bugs and other stuff I'm not condemning anything else except the economics aspects they are introducing.

Again this is my own opinion I dont expect everyone to agree or disagree I just wanted to share it
 
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Guest

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<blockquote><hr>

I don’t know how they came up with the $3000 amount.

[/ QUOTE ]Are we totally sure its §3,000? Or 3000 "interactions"?

The way I kinda understood it is you could make 'x' pizzas a week before running out of your 'credit', and you gained one credit for doing things like buying something in a store or whatever.

Not simoleans. Just interactions.

I may be wrong, of course.
 
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BearlyWrong

Guest
"The way I kinda understood it is you could make 'x' pizzas a week before running out of your 'credit', and you gained one credit for doing things like buying something in a store or whatever."


The way it looks to me is like you have a 3000 credit limit..meaning its like you have an earning limit if you earn this without spending any then it adjust your payouts ..if you spend a little it adds to your credit limit. if you have 3000 maxed out then spend say 500 on something in a store then you can again earn that 500. by interacting and socializing normally and being yourself in time they will increase your "credit" limit or your earning limit accordingly. So if people are too repeatitive like bots then It will decrease their "credit" amount and their payouts for money objects. seems to me that Jaming, boards,painting, etc are all very repetitive though and that may cause some issues with this. Although by talking etc they may avoid that. Its all real confusing.
 
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imported_Qute Pi

Guest
<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

I don’t know how they came up with the $3000 amount.

[/ QUOTE ]Are we totally sure its §3,000? Or 3000 "interactions"?

The way I kinda understood it is you could make 'x' pizzas a week before running out of your 'credit', and you gained one credit for doing things like buying something in a store or whatever.

Not simoleans. Just interactions.

I may be wrong, of course.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know. I started by going off of Pollys test. It shows money payouts being reduced.
The way I understood it, was if you upload or buy cc (among other ways like buying property), that would give you credit back not so much just doing an action (that doesn't include money). So if I buy an item for $200 I would then be able to make $200 without the payout penalties shown in Pollys test.
 
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Guest

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TTL

I don't understand how the job tracks can be included as a "bottable activity". The job income should not be counted toward the 3000. Maybe they could say that a normal human with one account could not do more than 4 shifts in 24 hour rl day. I know you really could if you wanted to, but for a cap for EA's sake, maybe make max of 4 shifts per account per day with no decrease in job pay.

As far as for money objects, true, there are bots existing for those. So why not put the cap on the item, not the sim. For example, a pizza costs 99k in the catalog. You can buy for less in a store, but in it's lifetime, a pizza machine could never pay out more than 99k to all that play it and the to owner in kickbacks. After it is used up, it is unplayable and needs to be salvaged for parts. Depreciation could show the pizza's remaining "life". When it would get to 100% deprecation (payout max), a new pizza machine would have to be purchased.
 
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Guest

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<blockquote><hr>

TTL

I don't understand how the job tracks can be included as a "bottable activity". The job income should not be counted toward the 3000. Maybe they could say that a normal human with one account could not do more than 4 shifts in 24 hour rl day. I know you really could if you wanted to, but for a cap for EA's sake, maybe make max of 4 shifts per account per day with no decrease in job pay.

As far as for money objects, true, there are bots existing for those. So why not put the cap on the item, not the sim. For example, a pizza costs 99k in the catalog. You can buy for less in a store, but in it's lifetime, a pizza machine could never pay out more than 99k to all that play it and the to owner in kickbacks. After it is used up, it is unplayable and needs to be salvaged for parts. Depreciation could show the pizza's remaining "life". When it would get to 100% deprecation (payout max), a new pizza machine would have to be purchased.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't understand how jobs can be a bottable activity either, and as was previously said, it would not surprise me if jobs were eventually excluded as discounting from the pool the way that getting money from another player for custom content or custom craftables is.

What I don't understand is how giving a 'lifetime limit' to a pizza machine is going to thwart botters all that much...even if it can only make 99k in pizzas, considering how much the botter can make it isn't gonna hurt him much at all to buy pizza machines 5 at a time from a store (even though that won't add back to his pool, I know) and then when the first pizza machine gives out he just replaces it with a fresh one from his inventory, so that he's not affected by having to buy at catalog price until he's made half a million simoleans almost and everybody is out of pizza machines from their sellout sales and nobody is gonna restock because buying from stores no longer counts. That still gives that botter half a million simoleans that he can now sell to other players and flood the economy, or sell back to EA when buybacks are complete and break their backs.
 
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BearlyWrong

Guest
Its anything you can do to make money ...they are affecting it, wanting it way low ...kind of like goverment. You can keep running up hill but you will never make it to the top.....and if you do make it to the top then someone will accuse you of cheating or buying too much from ATM etc.



Think this game is being taken over by robots and they are going to brain drain or simolean drain us til we are just an empty shell.
 
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imported_CherryBomb

Guest
<blockquote><hr>

I don’t know how they came up with the $3000 amount.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think EA3000 is arbitrary, Qute, but I can tell you where the EA500 per week comes from. 500 a week plus 500 "bonus" gift = 4000 per month. It is a brute-force solution to keep players from creating enough money in-game to pay for their subscription. I'm not kvetching over this, it is unavoidable if we are ever to implement cash-out. Now, the decision to go for cash-out in the first place is something I've never been happy about.

And BiteMe, I don't remember catching any flak about posting this in the forums. I haven't been wailing over it, just pointing out the obvious implications of cash-out.

CherryBomb
 
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Guest

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<blockquote><hr>

And BiteMe, I don't remember catching any flak about posting this in the forums. I haven't been wailing over it, just pointing out the obvious implications of cash-out.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's the ticket....the 'flak' comes not in stating the obvious, or stating things that people don't want to hear, but rather in doing it, ad nauseum. One thing that has always gotten you alot of respect is that you don't hammer points to death...you state them matter-of-factly and that's it.
 
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Guest

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questions, especially about the 'etc' adding credit part:

What about paying the repairman, paying for the maid and gardener, restocking the fridge, having visitors to your lot, visiting other people's lots, skilling, making friend links? Do these count towards your credit and if they don't, they should.

I also didn't read a ratio.. assuming any of the above is true.. how many credits would a friendlink be worth, what's the ratio on paying the maid? do you only get one credit in for every credit the maid might take? what's a skill point earned really worth, two credits, one? Is EALand counting the number of text characters we chat? Maybe, but I didn't read that so I am trying not to assume.. it could be a ratio to our benefit for all we know (pay the maid one game-money dollar, get two in credit etc, for all we know)

Also, I didn't read that there's a limit on your credit you can actually acquire, so maybe its possible (assuming any of the above is true, say for example about skilling) if I haven an account full of 8 sims and mostly what those 8 sims do is skill (which especially if I understand 'amnesty' at all and they get a boatload of skill locks), who's to say you can't go well above and beyond your $3,000 limit?

What if you skill for weeks on end, waiting until you have maxed your desired skill(s) before setting out to work, do you have a ton of credit in excess of what you started with maybe?

If some of these are possible maybe it might not be so bad.
 
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Guest

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we must all be in that 2% category

I don't fit in that 2% category because I don't play in TC3 right now. Most of us have Sims in TC3 but play in EAL. So if 95% of the accounts are used for only EAL right now, that automatically shows 95% of TC3 not being affected by the limit. I wonder what data was used to determine that 98% value.
 
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master_of_none

Guest
TTL

Just my 2cents here, not that its worth hell'ova lot these days...
Way to go Dev's, what were you all thinking when you came up with this brainstorm???
I have a high tolorance to hiccups, lag, bugs, etc all while we are goaling for a great future with this new code you all worked so hard on, however... I have very little tolorance for this new path you're taking on concerning way you decide to limit us, active non bot mega hour players, on earning our pixel money!
I tolorated with understanding on your lowering all payouts when you said, in a week you had a surprise for the botters... that was least 2 months (aprox) ago, fine, understand... is why you don't give out ETA's. However, putting in a code on the machines, etc where it jumps long term playing off randomly would of been more acceptable, then limiting what can, can't be earned against this paypool per account! You think I'm going to pay for multi accounts to you, which pays your wage I might add, to limit my game play because I might make 4,5.10 k in one day on one sim.. playing all day NON BOTTING, to a handful of hours til I reach my limit... I wouldn't waste my time jamming for a handful of pennies after my limit... for a week no less, not even daily!
Who wants to blow their money on alot of custom content, though looks great at start, but can't see half the crap now, or poofs out in inventory... yep, thats a great way to pull money out of the city, spend spend spend, and get nothing to show in return.
I would go as far to say, the window mode was intentional disabled, rather then a bug from that update... good way to go with your new path.
You dangle those skill locks, and anniverary gifts over us, keeping us going... all the while, continuing to take from us, take away the daily enjoyment of even wanting to login to this world. Very curious how many have begun to cancel their extra accounts, because I know I'm considering cancelling all but my founder account.
Going to be amazing to watch rise and fall, and handful of lots hosting constant as time goes... with limits, you honest think the good tippers will be so generous?, doubt it. With limits, you think people are going to afford to beable to host with ease?, doubt it... with those limits, think they'll be as many loyal roomies willing to fill the fridge?, doubt it.
I go from skilling mega hours, then other days, earning mega hours, keeping from being bored on one or the other. You think I'm going to want to skill 90% of my game time... no way!
I really hope you think this is worth it, because I know the ones who count here, the paying customers... don't think so.
Let me also point out to you, you "claim" this is to fight against botters, you say that 2% are suspious... well guess what, if you can view all this on your end of the deal.. then those who are "suspious", because guess I'm one of them, since I'm a mega hour player, then rather put the community through this, go the OLD SCHOOL way.... send out auto messages, if they don't reply back, boot them out of game, like as if they timed out.. that would stop or least limit the botting.
I could rant and rave on and on here, but would be I'm sure just swept under the rug and ignored.. and course, being upset... surely sounding like a tyrant, thanks for the great mood Dev's!
 
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imported_Qute Pi

Guest
<blockquote><hr>

we must all be in that 2% category

I don't fit in that 2% category because I don't play in TC3 right now. Most of us have Sims in TC3 but play in EAL. So if 95% of the accounts are used for only EAL right now, that automatically shows 95% of TC3 not being affected by the limit. I wonder what data was used to determine that 98% value.

[/ QUOTE ]

The numbers were measured in TC3 and EAL from my understanding...So not sure what you're saying..?

"Since the opening of EA-Land we measured that 98% of users would not have been affected by this!"
 
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Guest

Guest
<blockquote><hr>

questions, especially about the 'etc' adding credit part:

What about paying the repairman, restocking the fridge, having visitors to your lot, visiting other people's lots, skilling, making friend links? Do these count towards yoru credit and if they don't, they should.

Also, I didn't read that there's a limit on your credit you can actually aquire, so maybe its possible (assuming any of the above is try, say for example about skilling) if I haven an account full of 8 sims and mostly what those 8 sims do is skill (which especially if I understand 'amnesty' at all and they get a boatload of skill locks), who's to say you can't go well abopve and beyond your $3,000 limit?

What if you skill for weeks on end, waiting until you have maxed your desired skill(s) before setting out to work, do you have a ton of credit in excess of what you started with maybe?

If some of these are possible maybe it might not be so bad.

[/ QUOTE ]

Stuff like restocking fridges, and hiring NPCs, no it doesnt count. Restocking the fridge *should* count, IMO and maybe the NPCs shouldn't, but I think player to player transactions should in both directions. Right now the money you make from another player in custom contet and custom craftables and such does not count toward your 3k pool, but nor does it count as a expenditure on the part of the buyer, so that is a bit one-sided. I plan to suggest in the e-mail that I right that player-to-player transactions count in both directions, because the whole point here is for us to rely more on each other and not on EA, so they *should* count......and when/if they do ever count maybe we will see live sims take over the NPC Repairman and NPC Maid jobs. It would mean that they'd have to do it the maid job virtually at the same rate that the maid does it, but they'd be available 24/7 which is a huge advantage, same for the sim repairman, although the owner or roomie would obviously have to pay the repair cost of the object at 20.99 skill level (I would not hire a person who has less than 20.51, myself, so that is why I say that) If player to player transactions counted, I don't think people would mind forking out that extra money as much. So, that will be in my suggestion list. If other people agree, then I recommend sending a similiar e-mail after you've done your testing to [email protected]
 
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BearlyWrong

Guest
"Just my 2cents here, not that its worth hell'ova lot these days" sorry to imform you but with the rate of inflation and the decrease in the value of the simolean you will now need to make a deposit of 12 cents to put in your 2 cents worth.. of course in time that could be adjusted ..not nessecarily in your favor but it will be adjusted .. LOL
 
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imported_Qute Pi

Guest
<blockquote><hr>

"Just my 2cents here, not that its worth hell'ova lot these days" sorry to imform you but with the rate of inflation and the decrease in the value of the simolean you will now need to make a deposit of 12 cents to put in your 2 cents worth.. of course in time that could be adjusted ..not nessecarily in your favor but it will be adjusted .. LOL

[/ QUOTE ]

lol
 
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Guest

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<blockquote><hr>

"Just my 2cents here, not that its worth hell'ova lot these days" sorry to imform you but with the rate of inflation and the decrease in the value of the simolean you will now need to make a deposit of 12 cents to put in your 2 cents worth.. of course in time that could be adjusted ..not nessecarily in your favor but it will be adjusted .. LOL

[/ QUOTE ]

this made me gqtms (giggle quietly to myself) :p
 
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imported_Dali Dalinza

Guest
<blockquote><hr>

Are we totally sure its §3,000? Or 3000 "interactions"?



[/ QUOTE ]

Hi AJ. Yes, totally sure its §3,000. Gilly had wondered the same thing, so I asked dev Greg. He confirmed it is §3,000.

He also stated that "non-bot behaviors" (including interactions) would somehow add to our pool. It is really unclear what affects the debits/credits, and we are told that giving us a clue would only let the botters win. I think that is silly logic, and makes having any strategy for playing this game impossible.

Someone above me on this thread said the botters never made things as bad as the good guys have. I had to nod, but hope it is a situation which redeems soon.
 
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master_of_none

Guest
<blockquote><hr>

"Just my 2cents here, not that its worth hell'ova lot these days" sorry to imform you but with the rate of inflation and the decrease in the value of the simolean you will now need to make a deposit of 12 cents to put in your 2 cents worth.. of course in time that could be adjusted ..not nessecarily in your favor but it will be adjusted .. LOL

[/ QUOTE ]

BIG LAUGHS... ok ok, that got me, yet rings so much truth in it LOL
 
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Guest

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not sure what you're saying..?

I was speculating on how Sarah got to the conclusion that 98% of players would not have been affected. She probably either used faulty data or mis-interpreted the data she had.

I added 'probably' to the sentence above since it may be possible that only 2% of the players are the real drivers in TSO i.e. they own the active lots and keep the game going for the rest of us. Driving them away would lead to the demise of TSO ( or EA-Land to those who want to pay homage to the EA suits).
 
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Guest

Guest
<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

"Just my 2cents here, not that its worth hell'ova lot these days" sorry to imform you but with the rate of inflation and the decrease in the value of the simolean you will now need to make a deposit of 12 cents to put in your 2 cents worth.. of course in time that could be adjusted ..not nessecarily in your favor but it will be adjusted .. LOL

[/ QUOTE ]

this made me gqtms (giggle quietly to myself) :p

[/ QUOTE ]

.....while making others pitm......
LOL
 
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Guest

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*replying to my own post to avoid confusing others*

Remarks have been made about 'cash out' and Second Life. Linden Lab does not buy back Linden dollars. Rather, $L is sold to other people on the Linden Dollar Exchange (LindeX). The rate fluctuates. As explained in the SL Knowledgebase:
Market Sell is the quickest and easiest way to sell Linden dollars on the Second Life website. LindeX will automatically match your order with the best exchange rate based on the number of Linden Dollars you wish to sell.

LL can do this because they control their economy well and there is a huge base of buyers and sellers. Neither of which apply to TSO.

*wonders if ajdown has anything to add*
 
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Guest

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<blockquote><hr>

Hi AJ. Yes, totally sure its §3,000. Gilly had wondered the same thing, so I asked dev Greg. He confirmed it is §3,000.

[/ QUOTE ]Sounds a bit like World of Warcraft's "rest" bonus.

Basically, whenever you are logged out in a city, or not killing stuff, your "rested" bar slowly goes up. When your experience (xp) bar hits the "rest" limit, you gain xp at half of the rate until you log out in a city, then during the time you are logged out, your 'rest' bar goes up again - the longer you are logged, the longer it takes to go back to half xp gain.

This not only slows down botters and "auto levelling", but also is supposed to stop people being logged in for hours and hours (or in some cases, days without sleep) playing addicted to the game.

It seems to mostly work - at least, in the time I've been playing, my level 47 Tauran Warrior and level 44 dwarf hunter haven't been affected by "playing too much". I'm guessing, like most things, EA have seen what works in other games, and are trying to modify it to work in the TSO environment.
 
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Guest

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<blockquote><hr>

*wonders if ajdown has anything to add*

[/ QUOTE ]Not really, I can't think of anything you haven't covered there.

The only possible thing is that there's another step to 'cashing out' in SL before you actually get the real money in your hand.

Any L$ sold goes on to a "US$" balance on your account. This is then used first to pay your monthly fees before hitting your credit card. So, for example, your monthly fees are $40, you sell $30 worth of game money (which sits on your account as a US$ balance), then that and $10 only is taken from your credit card when your monthly fees are due.

Most cashouts final step is via Paypal.
 
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imported_Gracie Nito

Guest
<blockquote><hr>


Stuff like restocking fridges, and hiring NPCs, no it doesnt count. Restocking the fridge *should* count, IMO and maybe the NPCs shouldn't, but I think player to player transactions should in both directions. Right now the money you make from another player in custom contet and custom craftables and such does not count toward your 3k pool, but nor does it count as a expenditure on the part of the buyer, so that is a bit one-sided. I plan to suggest in the e-mail that I right that player-to-player transactions count in both directions, because the whole point here is for us to rely more on each other and not on EA, so they *should* count......and when/if they do ever count maybe we will see live sims take over the NPC Repairman and NPC Maid jobs. It would mean that they'd have to do it the maid job virtually at the same rate that the maid does it, but they'd be available 24/7 which is a huge advantage, same for the sim repairman, although the owner or roomie would obviously have to pay the repair cost of the object at 20.99 skill level (I would not hire a person who has less than 20.51, myself, so that is why I say that) If player to player transactions counted, I don't think people would mind forking out that extra money as much. So, that will be in my suggestion list. If other people agree, then I recommend sending a similiar e-mail after you've done your testing to [email protected]

[/ QUOTE ]

Where did you get confirmation that NPC payments and stocking food objects does not count? The blog post does say "etc.". I took that to mean EA drains built into the game that are used would count. If you spend any money that goes directly back to EA and not to another player then it should count. Has this been proven not to be working?

The only interaction that I can think of that would affect this, is give gift interaction if the person giving gift actually loses money doing it. There is a complete list of money transactions that count as drains on the Wiki game-blueprints. Since information on transactions was asked for, I assumed they would use them all.
 
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<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>


Stuff like restocking fridges, and hiring NPCs, no it doesnt count. Restocking the fridge *should* count, IMO and maybe the NPCs shouldn't, but I think player to player transactions should in both directions. Right now the money you make from another player in custom contet and custom craftables and such does not count toward your 3k pool, but nor does it count as a expenditure on the part of the buyer, so that is a bit one-sided. I plan to suggest in the e-mail that I right that player-to-player transactions count in both directions, because the whole point here is for us to rely more on each other and not on EA, so they *should* count......and when/if they do ever count maybe we will see live sims take over the NPC Repairman and NPC Maid jobs. It would mean that they'd have to do it the maid job virtually at the same rate that the maid does it, but they'd be available 24/7 which is a huge advantage, same for the sim repairman, although the owner or roomie would obviously have to pay the repair cost of the object at 20.99 skill level (I would not hire a person who has less than 20.51, myself, so that is why I say that) If player to player transactions counted, I don't think people would mind forking out that extra money as much. So, that will be in my suggestion list. If other people agree, then I recommend sending a similiar e-mail after you've done your testing to [email protected]

[/ QUOTE ]

Where did you get confirmation that NPC payments and stocking food objects does not count? The blog post does say "etc.". I took that to mean EA drains built into the game that are used would count. If you spend any money that goes directly back to EA and not to another player then it should count. Has this been proven not to be working?

The only interaction that I can think of that would affect this, is give gift interaction if the person giving gift actually loses money doing it.

[/ QUOTE ]

OK, if I misunderstood and restocking the fridge and paying the maid and repairman *do* count, then that solves a MAJOR problem for hosts, and might encourage others who do not host now to begin hosting if they know that doing so will enlarge their pool....but then that will lead to more half-ass 'hosting' (read: afk hosting) just for the money, so there's a negative side there too. I guess that was my own reading into it when it said that tipping and 'give money', did not count so if I am wrong I do apologize and am actualy glad I am wrong. I still do wish that player-to-player transactions benefitted both the person giving the money and the person receiving the money, because right now as I understand it only the person who receives the money benefits because it does not go against their 3k earning potential, whilst it does not increase the other guy's pool either, so he's spending money that is not gonna increase his pool, which will probably affect those of us who do sell custom content and craftables even though it's *extra* money for us, because there's not enough selfless sims that are gonna spend money that they know is not going to benefit them...the best we can hope for is that there will be ignorant ones who don't know it, which won't bother some unless it counts in their favor they won't care whether it counts in the other guys favor at all, but personally I'd like to see there be more equality in the benefit there.
 
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Guest

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HAHAHA ROTFLMBO..I don't mean to laugh, but that was a hysterical comment. Can you imagine saying to someone, "Hey, psstt...I hacked and robbed a Ea Land ATM." Would you be charged the same way as if it was a real ATM?? Because technically you are stealing real money like you said...things that make you go HMMMM....
 
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Roger Wilco

Guest
<blockquote><hr>

He also stated that "non-bot behaviors" (including interactions) would somehow add to our pool. It is really unclear what affects the debits/credits, and we are told that giving us a clue would only let the botters win. I think that is silly logic, and makes having any strategy for playing this game impossible.

[/ QUOTE ]
That isn't "silly logic", it's moronic.

Anybody start a pool yet on how many days it takes before somebody has it all mapped out and macroed?
 
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Guest

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I had heard that the bots had alarms on them. That when an employee of EA would message the avatars an alarm would sound, warning the botters to respond. Someone posted here, after 5 mins EA would suspend an acct for not answering an IM from them. If this is true, then the non botters would be the only ones being suspended for not replying. This made me curious if what I had heard was true. I started searching for info on TSO bots. I could not find anything about the alarms on any of the descriptions for bots.

I did find one that was created in 04, if I remember correctly. I noticed you posted in the forum. The ppl on that forum had expected you to. And you did. You told them off, good for you on that. Anyway, in the description for this "new" pizza bot. It said that if an employee sent a message, the program would automatically log out all 4 of the accounts. Do you have any idea if they all do this? If so, EA could IM the ones ppl report for suspicious behavior on a daily basis seeing if they log out imediately. If they did that every time, that would be sufficient reason to look further into these players accounts.

I hope this new system works, I am just curious how the bots work. I was wondering if EA has purchased any of them and checked them out. I do not know how much we can discuss here. I have mentioned no names so hope I am okay to post this question to you. The more we know about bots the easier it is to spot them.
 
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imported_Dali Dalinza

Guest
<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

Hi AJ. Yes, totally sure its §3,000. Gilly had wondered the same thing, so I asked dev Greg. He confirmed it is §3,000.

[/ QUOTE ]Sounds a bit like World of Warcraft's "rest" bonus.

Basically, whenever you are logged out in a city, or not killing stuff, your "rested" bar slowly goes up. When your experience (xp) bar hits the "rest" limit, you gain xp at half of the rate until you log out in a city, then during the time you are logged out, your 'rest' bar goes up again - the longer you are logged, the longer it takes to go back to half xp gain.

This not only slows down botters and "auto levelling", but also is supposed to stop people being logged in for hours and hours (or in some cases, days without sleep) playing addicted to the game.

It seems to mostly work - at least, in the time I've been playing, my level 47 Tauran Warrior and level 44 dwarf hunter haven't been affected by "playing too much". I'm guessing, like most things, EA have seen what works in other games, and are trying to modify it to work in the TSO environment.

[/ QUOTE ]

The 3000 is per account, per week, by the way.

It sounds like WoW allows players to know how the "rest bonus" is calculated. We were told that we players will not be privy to how the cap is calculated.

To be fair, Greg indicated that the 3000 was picked "because we had to start somewhere." Who knows where all this will lead, in the long term. The number of posts and level of concern in this thread, alone, indicates that players are unhappy when they cannot count on earning simoleans. The way it is now, and the way it has been for quite sometime, is that one cannot make any predictions about how much cash can be earned. This lack of predictability is hard to live with, IMO, and makes playing a crap shoot more than a game.
 
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imported_Gracie Nito

Guest
Crafting new objects would count the same as uploading custom content because the money spent doing these activities goes directly back to EA. Buying objects only counts if you are a store keeper buying direct from catalog. However, all of us help the economy by purchasing custom content or objects because this allows those people to stay in business and we benefit with availability of objects to buy.
 
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imported_Gracie Nito

Guest
<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

Hi AJ. Yes, totally sure its §3,000. Gilly had wondered the same thing, so I asked dev Greg. He confirmed it is §3,000.

[/ QUOTE ]Sounds a bit like World of Warcraft's "rest" bonus.

Basically, whenever you are logged out in a city, or not killing stuff, your "rested" bar slowly goes up. When your experience (xp) bar hits the "rest" limit, you gain xp at half of the rate until you log out in a city, then during the time you are logged out, your 'rest' bar goes up again - the longer you are logged, the longer it takes to go back to half xp gain.

This not only slows down botters and "auto levelling", but also is supposed to stop people being logged in for hours and hours (or in some cases, days without sleep) playing addicted to the game.

It seems to mostly work - at least, in the time I've been playing, my level 47 Tauran Warrior and level 44 dwarf hunter haven't been affected by "playing too much". I'm guessing, like most things, EA have seen what works in other games, and are trying to modify it to work in the TSO environment.

[/ QUOTE ]

The 3000 is per account, per week, by the way.

It sounds like WoW allows players to know how the "rest bonus" is calculated. We were told that we players will not be privy to how the cap is calculated.

To be fair, Greg indicated that the 3000 was picked "because we had to start somewhere." Who knows where all this will lead, in the long term. The number of posts and level of concern in this thread, alone, indicates that players are unhappy when they cannot count on earning simoleans. The way it is now, and the way it has been for quite sometime, is that one cannot make any predictions about how much cash can be earned. This lack of predictability is hard to live with, IMO, and makes playing a crap shoot more than a game.

[/ QUOTE ]


But, but, but......You always loved casinos! Think of it as a new way to gamble
.
 
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Guest

Guest
<blockquote><hr>

It sounds like WoW allows players to know how the "rest bonus" is calculated.

[/ QUOTE ]Yes, because it helps you with your gameplay - and, of course, the game money &gt; real money exchange (both in and out) is a violation of the terms of service there, whereas in TSO it is being promoted and encouraged so it is a problem here.

I actually find the rest bonus useful because it's a way of alerting me that, as the bars get close, it's heading towards 3am yet again, I'm in the middle of a horde of monsters, and I really ought to be in bed because I need to be out of it in around 4 hours.
 
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Guest

Guest
*TTL*

It seems to me that, yes, maybe $3000 is what the research told the team... but that research is flawed.

They said they had been calculating this since EA Land opened... so, think about this... when there was a flood of sims being created or moving to EA Land, most sims started working at one of the jobs, or at single and multiple money objects, in order to earn money to buy a lot, build a house, purchase items for the property, etc. A LOT of ppl did that, so, maybe back then, a good average of earn vs spend showed at only at $1k savings a week, and as ppl got settled, they started spending LESS simoleans, and the further along into EA land we got, that average of earn vs. spend increased, say to $12k savings per week.

When AVERAGED out over the whole period of time, it showed as about $3k savings per week.

The point is this... you CANNOT take data from when the city was flooded with new sims. It skews the ENTIRE process, making the data invalid. Not only were sims dirt poor, many also had NO skills, and ALL were starting the sim jobs at the first level. Therefore, ppl made less at each job, made less for each money object they completed, and spent much more money to buy and build. Take a look at the past few weeks. Ppl are at the higher levels at work, thus earning more per job shift, and sims are more skilled, therefore earning more per money object completed.

Including the data compiled at the earlier stages of EA Land is like throwing some oranges into a barrel of apples to make cider. It doesn't work out too well.
Do some additional reasearch. Start compiling the data NOW, and look at it for a month or two. I guarantee that your research would show MUCH different numbers.

*steps off soapbox*

Ummm, I do hope I made since with all of this. LOL
 
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Guest

Guest
<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

Hi AJ. Yes, totally sure its §3,000. Gilly had wondered the same thing, so I asked dev Greg. He confirmed it is §3,000.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sounds a bit like World of Warcraft's "rest" bonus.


[/ QUOTE ]

I don't agree, this is far away from the rested bonus.

If they made it so players who haven't been logged into the game for a few days, would be able to skill twice as fast, that would be like rested bonus.
(Also I don't believe rested bonus is there so people won't be able to bot, or to get people to log off now and then, it's just a help to those who can't play as often. With normal gameplay - playing a couple hours per day - you don't have rested.)

This is tampering with "the game's core idea".

When I was studying games design, the important part was that every game has a "core" - the reason people want to play the game and come back and play the game again and again. In this game and many other online games, it's skilling, so you can use your skills, so you can make money, so you can obtain your goals.

Obtaining these monetary goals becomes the reason the game is addictive and fun.

Sure, tso also has a lot of other aspects such as socializing, expressing yourself through creation of houses and now cc objects. And expressing yourself through making a good house and giving it the atmosphere that brings people in to hang out with you.

I feel they are tampering too much with the core ideas though.
- Taking away the monetary goals people have
- Making it hard to express yourself through building or running a house (costs too much)

It is simply boring to buy money.
I for one want to earn money.
I'm not sure if they will manage to change one of the pillars the game rests upon, and replace it with something completely different.
 
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imported_Qute Pi

Guest
I like the way you explained it. If in fact that is the case, it makes much more sense to me than their blog. Not that I like it any better, lol, just that I understand better.

I still don't understand why they would title it Anti Bot measures when jobs are included. Its almost like they are using bots as the excuse to change the system, a change they planned to do regardless of the reason.
 
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Guest

Guest
<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

Hi AJ. Yes, totally sure its §3,000. Gilly had wondered the same thing, so I asked dev Greg. He confirmed it is §3,000.

[/ QUOTE ]Sounds a bit like World of Warcraft's "rest" bonus.

Basically, whenever you are logged out in a city, or not killing stuff, your "rested" bar slowly goes up. When your experience (xp) bar hits the "rest" limit, you gain xp at half of the rate until you log out in a city, then during the time you are logged out, your 'rest' bar goes up again - the longer you are logged, the longer it takes to go back to half xp gain.

This not only slows down botters and "auto levelling", but also is supposed to stop people being logged in for hours and hours (or in some cases, days without sleep) playing addicted to the game.

It seems to mostly work - at least, in the time I've been playing, my level 47 Tauran Warrior and level 44 dwarf hunter haven't been affected by "playing too much". I'm guessing, like most things, EA have seen what works in other games, and are trying to modify it to work in the TSO environment.

[/ QUOTE ]

The 3000 is per account, per week, by the way.

It sounds like WoW allows players to know how the "rest bonus" is calculated. We were told that we players will not be privy to how the cap is calculated.

To be fair, Greg indicated that the 3000 was picked "because we had to start somewhere." Who knows where all this will lead, in the long term. The number of posts and level of concern in this thread, alone, indicates that players are unhappy when they cannot count on earning simoleans. The way it is now, and the way it has been for quite sometime, is that one cannot make any predictions about how much cash can be earned. This lack of predictability is hard to live with, IMO, and makes playing a crap shoot more than a game.

[/ QUOTE ]


But, but, but......You always loved casinos! Think of it as a new way to gamble
.

[/ QUOTE ]



Sorry Dali, but this did make me giggle
....she's got a point there. It did occur to me that the players who seem to be the most upset about this are those that do not like the element of surprise in their games or the *unknown*. It also occurs to me, and I just heard this in a skill house to back up my suspicion, that alot of people will opt out of the factory jobs because who wants to deal with the element of death *and* the bad pay. The reason alot of people that I've talked to chose the factory job was because they viewed the extra pay that that job can give you as sort of a 'hazard pay'. Without that, there's no real motivation to risk death and have to deal with having to find a shaman.
 
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Guest

Guest
<blockquote><hr>

I still don't understand why they would title it Anti Bot measures when jobs are included. Its almost like they are using bots as the excuse to change the system, a change they planned to do regardless of the reason.


[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe it is to even thigs out. So everyone does not flood to only doing the jobs. Luc has said, once the bot situation is under control, they will raise the payouts.
 
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imported_Calina.Rhiannon

Guest
I have faith that all of this will work itself out and the payouts will be raised again. They said that the payouts wouldn't go back to what they were, but that they would raise.
 
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imported_Qute Pi

Guest
<blockquote><hr>

I have faith that all of this will work itself out and the payouts will be raised again. They said that the payouts wouldn't go back to what they were, but that they would raise.

[/ QUOTE ]

I am going to follow your lead in regards to having faith. Time will tell, as everything else. Till then, If I don't have fun in game I will just pay to not play lol to keep my founder account active...
 
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imported_Qute Pi

Guest
<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

I still don't understand why they would title it Anti Bot measures when jobs are included. Its almost like they are using bots as the excuse to change the system, a change they planned to do regardless of the reason.


[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe it is to even thigs out. So everyone does not flood to only doing the jobs. Luc has said, once the bot situation is under control, they will raise the payouts.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok that makes sense and I'll accept it as an answer lol.

Shouldn't it be labeled economy related tho instead, to avoid confusion? I mean they won't tell us any details if it has to do with bots, so why make the topic all about bots, which makes us even more confused in the long run.
 
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Guest

Guest
<blockquote><hr>

Shouldn't it be labeled economy related tho instead, to avoid confusion?

[/ QUOTE ]

Good point, they did post it in the Economy section.


<blockquote><hr>

Anti-Bot Measures
Posted in Economy by Sarah on the April 4th, 2008

[/ QUOTE ]

ETA: LOL they should remove the "the" from that statement.
 
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imported_Qute Pi

Guest
<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

Shouldn't it be labeled economy related tho instead, to avoid confusion?

[/ QUOTE ]

Good point, they did post it in the Economy section.


<blockquote><hr>

Anti-Bot Measures
Posted in Economy by Sarah on the April 4th, 2008

[/ QUOTE ]

ETA: LOL they should remove the "the" from that statement.

[/ QUOTE ]

lol. I had to read it like 6 times, then visit the blog page before I even seen the "the" you are talking about. Hidden very well right in front of me
 
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Guest

Guest
I also have been shopping around. I guess the devs have failed to realize that we LIKED playing this game over SL for various reasons. SL offers free accts too now...if I wanted to play like SL I wouldn't be paying $10 a month for all of my accts here in EA Land, I would just go play SL for free. If all of these changes keep going down then why pay for what you can get free?? the purpose of the free accts was to just give people a taste of the game but to restrict them also...well now the paying customers are restricted also so why pay? Also, has anyone else found out why this change is only in TC3 right now where the majority of players are free accts anyway? Why not in EA Land where they are more likely to find botters due to the economy??? It makes no sense???
 
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