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As posted on the blog:
Anti-Bot Measures
Posted in Economy by Sarah on the April 4th, 2008
We’re starting to test a feature on TC3 that aims to help us to crack down on bot AND bot-like behavior, while not affecting the vast vast majority of players in any way.
Here’s how it works:
Summary
Each account can only earn a ‘reasonable’ sum of money from us (and you can earn as much as you want from other players).
What’s ‘reasonable’?
Well, we consider that 98% of the populations of EA-Land and TC3 have been earning a very reasonable amount but that some of the remaining 2% are suspicious. Others in that 2% are simply draining money through Pizza, and the like, and not engaging in other aspects of the game.
We will give users an initial credit for what they can earn, then we’ll give them an additional credit each week and the users themselves can accumulate credit by contributing to the game through activities such as buying objects, uploading custom content, buying a lot, etc. Activities such as using money objects and getting kickbacks from others using your money objects will reduce your credit. If the credit ever gets very low (and for most people it should never) you will get increasingly reduced payouts until you accumulate more credit, through your own activity or through that weekly boost.
Again, we’ve been keeping track and had we turned this on when we first opened EA-Land, it would not have affected 98% of players in any way at all and we’ll work to keep it that way.
Details From Your Perspective:
Your account (set of characters) has a “Payout Pool” associated with it.
Your Payout Pool is given an initial credit of 3,000
This is how much money your characters can earn until you or we contribute back to that pool.
We will give every account some amount of credit per week into their Payout Pool. It’s 500 for now but we’ll be keeping an eye on what it should be so that people essentially do not need to be concerned about their Payout Pool at all. You will not be able to access your Payout Pool balance and we may turn on/off this feature (during events, etc.).
You credit your Payout Pool through activities such as buying objects, uploading custom content, buying a lot, etc.
You debit your Payout Pool through activities such as jobs, using money objects, and getting kickbacks from others using your money objects.
Player to player activities such as using tip jars, secure trade, the interaction “Give Money”, door charges, etc., do not contribute to, or deduct from, your Payout Pool.
If your Payout Pool ever gets very low your payouts will decrease slowly until its balance is increased again through either your activities or the credits mentioned above.
Overall this feature is intended to safeguard us, and you, from the effect of bot-like activity in the game, and it will act as a safety net, allowing us to experiment more (with our dynamic market and payouts, for example).
<font color="red">UPDATE </font>
Weekend Feedback
Posted in Economy by Sarah on the April 8th, 2008
Hello Everyone,
Thanks for mounds of feedback you gave about the feature we’ve been testing on TC3 over the weekend. There was a lot to read through… In your feedback you’ve asked some excellent questions and improved our thinking on how to approach the problem of bot-like behavior. In particular, you’ve given us invaluable information about how this should be tuned. Tests over the weekend showed that what we were trying worked - we’ll relax the tuning with tomorrow’s push.
We’re not going to push anything like this to EA-Land anytime soon until it is properly tuned.
In the mean time we will try to not affect you (monetarily, emotionally, and otherwise!).
Anti-Bot Measures
Posted in Economy by Sarah on the April 4th, 2008
We’re starting to test a feature on TC3 that aims to help us to crack down on bot AND bot-like behavior, while not affecting the vast vast majority of players in any way.
Here’s how it works:
Summary
Each account can only earn a ‘reasonable’ sum of money from us (and you can earn as much as you want from other players).
What’s ‘reasonable’?
Well, we consider that 98% of the populations of EA-Land and TC3 have been earning a very reasonable amount but that some of the remaining 2% are suspicious. Others in that 2% are simply draining money through Pizza, and the like, and not engaging in other aspects of the game.
We will give users an initial credit for what they can earn, then we’ll give them an additional credit each week and the users themselves can accumulate credit by contributing to the game through activities such as buying objects, uploading custom content, buying a lot, etc. Activities such as using money objects and getting kickbacks from others using your money objects will reduce your credit. If the credit ever gets very low (and for most people it should never) you will get increasingly reduced payouts until you accumulate more credit, through your own activity or through that weekly boost.
Again, we’ve been keeping track and had we turned this on when we first opened EA-Land, it would not have affected 98% of players in any way at all and we’ll work to keep it that way.
Details From Your Perspective:
Your account (set of characters) has a “Payout Pool” associated with it.
Your Payout Pool is given an initial credit of 3,000
This is how much money your characters can earn until you or we contribute back to that pool.
We will give every account some amount of credit per week into their Payout Pool. It’s 500 for now but we’ll be keeping an eye on what it should be so that people essentially do not need to be concerned about their Payout Pool at all. You will not be able to access your Payout Pool balance and we may turn on/off this feature (during events, etc.).
You credit your Payout Pool through activities such as buying objects, uploading custom content, buying a lot, etc.
You debit your Payout Pool through activities such as jobs, using money objects, and getting kickbacks from others using your money objects.
Player to player activities such as using tip jars, secure trade, the interaction “Give Money”, door charges, etc., do not contribute to, or deduct from, your Payout Pool.
If your Payout Pool ever gets very low your payouts will decrease slowly until its balance is increased again through either your activities or the credits mentioned above.
Overall this feature is intended to safeguard us, and you, from the effect of bot-like activity in the game, and it will act as a safety net, allowing us to experiment more (with our dynamic market and payouts, for example).
<font color="red">UPDATE </font>
Weekend Feedback
Posted in Economy by Sarah on the April 8th, 2008
Hello Everyone,
Thanks for mounds of feedback you gave about the feature we’ve been testing on TC3 over the weekend. There was a lot to read through… In your feedback you’ve asked some excellent questions and improved our thinking on how to approach the problem of bot-like behavior. In particular, you’ve given us invaluable information about how this should be tuned. Tests over the weekend showed that what we were trying worked - we’ll relax the tuning with tomorrow’s push.
We’re not going to push anything like this to EA-Land anytime soon until it is properly tuned.
In the mean time we will try to not affect you (monetarily, emotionally, and otherwise!).