It would appear a lot of the old POTBS crew from Rackham are turning up in Star Trek Online (ship combat). If anyone's trying to get back in touch, that would be a good place to do it. Brie's uniform colors have not yet been determined, but he IS in game.
I know plenty of people with multiple accounts that run 2 Nats.
I LOL not to be mean, I have sme friends in the raiders. I LOL because they actually think they can bann thier way out of meta gaming? At lteast out of business. I suppose that will solve the problem..
I've never made a secret of it. My crime? They called it cross-teaming. The real story is different. My previous MMO not only allowed having characters in all factions (SWG, COH), they positively encouraged it FAIL NUMBER ONE, WHAT YOUR PAST MMO ALLOWED DOESNT MAKE IT LEGAL IN POTBS. . And since I always liked seeing how both sides lived, I used that opportunity. When there was a discussion in the Beta for PotBS about whether or not it would be allowed, devs strongly came out saying they didn't see a problem with it. Beltpouch posted links to the relevant articles in the beta archives in this epic thread: http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33865 What made me decide to make both a Spanish and a French toon? Two main reasons: So you ry to justify your actions for breaking the EULA that says NO CROSS TEAMING 1) - Exchanging goods in the game was a pain, even between your own alts. No item mailing, no shared warehouse. Having a second toon would make that a lot easier, for all of the guild. She could serve as the guild transfer and storage point, permanently stationed in Havana. But having two toons in the same nation would be dull. I would have loved to take the other pirate, but then reason 2 came in. 2) - I chose Spain for the guild, because it had a starter port layout that was friendlier to our PVE people, and joining the biggest nation just felt too zerg. We already knew in beta however that the British would have the same population as France and Spain combined. France and Spain would be natural allies. Making sure there were diplomatic channels from the start would serve us both in the end As soon as my Frenchie could communicate in nation chat, I made very sure to tell everyone what she was. I told them not to tell her secrets, not to give me vent or forum access. I didn't want to betray trusts, and they knew my loyalty was completely with Spain. It became a game, where I bantered with the French from the Spanish point of view, and they called me Sita the Spanish pig-dog, and tried to feed me misinformation. Many things happened, but long story short, I had a long, involved history with the French nation, and was in a weird way as much a part of that community as I was of the Spanish. I never sabotaged them or griefed them, never even spied on them much. The worst thing I did was very rarely warn someone a gank was waiting for them at such-and-such port. I even levelled up a NO to help them when their nation collapsed at one point, to help them defend against the British. Then FLS introduced insurance, and with it some horrible ways to exploit dual nationalities. These had been pointed out before they went live, but the warnings were ignored. Once in live, they DID happen. And in a kneejerk reaction, FLS decided to change the TOS, and make having two nationalities on the same server bannable. I was devastated. Spain was already in a bad shape at that time, and the fact I could also play alongside French friends was one of the few things that kept me going in trying to keep Spain together. I petitioned FLS to grandfather in my accounts, since I was provably not guilty of any wrongdoing. They replied I could transfer one of them off the server, but they would not allow one person to have accounts in two nations. My husband and I cancelled all accounts. In a last ditch attempt, since having 2 nationalities in the same household was NOT forbidden, we asked how about I transfer ownership of my French account to my husband, and he transfer ownership of his Spanish account to me. That way I would own all Spanish accounts, he would own a French account, and we could go on, business as usual, without breaking the new rule. Trading between the accounts would go on the same as before (and what the hell is the difference whether I trade between a french and spanish toon, or my husband is behind the keyboard of one of them??). And no, nothing fishy in the trading either. Sita had oak in Port St Joe, wine in Tampa, some odds and ends, which I could have gotten on a Spanish account as easily - in the case of oak even easier. So again, you admit to trying your hardest to cicurmvent the rules. With the family excuse., . of course flying lab doesnt know or care WHO is behind the account, because after all, if your in same house, same internet, same IP address, and you are working together, for all they know you could have been shareing account info, which is another violation of EULA.
The day before the cancellation went into effect, I got a reply from Aether that they were satisfied that this solution would be within the rules, and that they were glad we found a way to make it work. So we uncancelled. Aether said in a brief follow-up that he had instructed the CSR staff that he'd had my account flagged, so that if anything ever came up, he would be contacted to straighten it out. Two months or three months later, Spain was slowly recovering, France was near death. We were two cripples holding each other up. One day a guildmate wanted to PVP scuttle a ship. I had a brand new sleek mordaunt on my French NO, that I wanted to test in actual combat. So we flagged and had at it. I won the fight, and then we managed to find another frenchie who wanted to try. Keep in mind that at that point, PVP scuttling had become the norm. Deleting would be boring. I burned 3 ships trying to help a British player PVP scuttle his Valiant the week before: these were real fights. One Spanish player who had jumped into our instance on a fallback reported us for lord-knows-what. And next thing I know, I get a letter from Aether saying that I had violated the deal made when he grandfathered in my accounts (the word GRANDFATHERED was literally in that mail. Look it up. It means the OLD ruleset applies to you, not the new one). I was confused, sent him a reply that no rules were broken, and that this was a genuine fight between two people, not one of my accounts farming my other account. His reply was that I was guilty of cross-teaming, that the decision was final, and that my choices were deleting my French toons, or transferring them to another server. Which simply wasn't an option: I'd never play those toons again, I'd lose all the work that had gone into levelling them, and there really wasn't a point in making yet another Spanish toon. Apart from that I was furious about the broken promises. So I replied that in that case, I'd be cancelling. Three days before the accounts expired, I suddenly couldn't access the forums. The message said I was under a one week forum ban. One of my toons was on line, and I smelled a rat, so I transferred everything I could off of her to a friend and tried to log in my main. And got the message I had been banned from the game. And no, it was not just one of my accounts. They banned 3 Spanish accounts, including the one originally paid for by my husband, and the French account, 4 accounts in all. They didn't even bother to check the account status. We never got a mail explaining the ban. I still don't know why the forum ban happened, as I am not exactly a notorious flamer. Two weeks before this I'd been corresponding with Rusty about the state of Rackham Spain
Two weeks before this, I'd been helping out on Test, and was told how much my work with Rackham Spain was appreciated by FLS staff.
Did I expect special treatment? Maybe a little, as long as I stayed within the rules, and steered clear of exploits.
My feelings about the entire mess are a complicated jumble. I am still both sad and outraged. What they did amounts to theft. They sold me multiple copies of the game under one set of rules, and then changed the rules in such a way that it became illegal to play the way I and many others did. And by far most of us 'multinationals' never even thought of exploiting. The worst thing is that I KNOW from my professional background that it is, indeed, very possible to detect exploiters by data mining the server side databases. A shipbuilder ID on each ship built would soon show if one shipbuilder lost all their ships to pirate captures. A program counting MOV earned over time by players could easily show abberations, where someone got abnormal amounts of MOV in too short a time. In both cases, further investigation would soon out the real exploiters.
All this aside, this doesn't mean I go running around spreading blatant lies about the game. I don't initiate flame posts either. But I WILL point out the many ways in which FLS made a mess of things, and are still making a mess of things. And I will never forget one of Misha's replies about the situation with my Frenchie, about how I could always use MSN to chat with my French friends even if my toon was on another server. Nothing ever made it more clear that they have no idea how gamer communities work. Linna PS: they apparently never found out about my pirate account, bought 2 weeks before the rules changed (I wanted to play alongside some pirate enemy/friends), and cancelled before its free month was ever up, because I DID try to stay within the rules. But at this point, even a formal appology and restitution would not make me play again. My guild left for other games, my nation and server are both broken, there is nothing left.
You admit to buying an account as well!!!!!! Your whole story basicly equates to, I fought the law and, the law won. Your whole story is just filled with excuses and reasons why YOU thought you were allowed to break the EULA . You tried , in every concievable way, to cincirmvent the rules the devs put in place. Yes they DID change the rules, but it was you, that failed to adapt. I hope you have fun in your next MMO and learn from this...
I've never made a secret of it. My crime? They called it cross-teaming. The real story is different. My previous MMO not only allowed having characters in all factions (SWG, COH), they positively encouraged it FAIL NUMBER ONE, WHAT YOUR PAST MMO ALLOWED DOESNT MAKE IT LEGAL IN POTBS. . And since I always liked seeing how both sides lived, I used that opportunity. When there was a discussion in the Beta for PotBS about whether or not it would be allowed, devs strongly came out saying they didn't see a problem with it. Beltpouch posted links to the relevant articles in the beta archives in this epic thread: http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33865 What made me decide to make both a Spanish and a French toon? Two main reasons: So you ry to justify your actions for breaking the EULA that says NO CROSS TEAMING 1) - Exchanging goods in the game was a pain, even between your own alts. No item mailing, no shared warehouse. Having a second toon would make that a lot easier, for all of the guild. She could serve as the guild transfer and storage point, permanently stationed in Havana. But having two toons in the same nation would be dull. I would have loved to take the other pirate, but then reason 2 came in. 2) - I chose Spain for the guild, because it had a starter port layout that was friendlier to our PVE people, and joining the biggest nation just felt too zerg. We already knew in beta however that the British would have the same population as France and Spain combined. France and Spain would be natural allies. Making sure there were diplomatic channels from the start would serve us both in the end As soon as my Frenchie could communicate in nation chat, I made very sure to tell everyone what she was. I told them not to tell her secrets, not to give me vent or forum access. I didn't want to betray trusts, and they knew my loyalty was completely with Spain. It became a game, where I bantered with the French from the Spanish point of view, and they called me Sita the Spanish pig-dog, and tried to feed me misinformation. Many things happened, but long story short, I had a long, involved history with the French nation, and was in a weird way as much a part of that community as I was of the Spanish. I never sabotaged them or griefed them, never even spied on them much. The worst thing I did was very rarely warn someone a gank was waiting for them at such-and-such port. I even levelled up a NO to help them when their nation collapsed at one point, to help them defend against the British. Then FLS introduced insurance, and with it some horrible ways to exploit dual nationalities. These had been pointed out before they went live, but the warnings were ignored. Once in live, they DID happen. And in a kneejerk reaction, FLS decided to change the TOS, and make having two nationalities on the same server bannable. I was devastated. Spain was already in a bad shape at that time, and the fact I could also play alongside French friends was one of the few things that kept me going in trying to keep Spain together. I petitioned FLS to grandfather in my accounts, since I was provably not guilty of any wrongdoing. They replied I could transfer one of them off the server, but they would not allow one person to have accounts in two nations. My husband and I cancelled all accounts. In a last ditch attempt, since having 2 nationalities in the same household was NOT forbidden, we asked how about I transfer ownership of my French account to my husband, and he transfer ownership of his Spanish account to me. That way I would own all Spanish accounts, he would own a French account, and we could go on, business as usual, without breaking the new rule. Trading between the accounts would go on the same as before (and what the hell is the difference whether I trade between a french and spanish toon, or my husband is behind the keyboard of one of them??). And no, nothing fishy in the trading either. Sita had oak in Port St Joe, wine in Tampa, some odds and ends, which I could have gotten on a Spanish account as easily - in the case of oak even easier. So again, you admit to trying your hardest to cicurmvent the rules. With the family excuse., . of course flying lab doesnt know or care WHO is behind the account, because after all, if your in same house, same internet, same IP address, and you are working together, for all they know you could have been shareing account info, which is another violation of EULA.
The day before the cancellation went into effect, I got a reply from Aether that they were satisfied that this solution would be within the rules, and that they were glad we found a way to make it work. So we uncancelled. Aether said in a brief follow-up that he had instructed the CSR staff that he'd had my account flagged, so that if anything ever came up, he would be contacted to straighten it out. Two months or three months later, Spain was slowly recovering, France was near death. We were two cripples holding each other up. One day a guildmate wanted to PVP scuttle a ship. I had a brand new sleek mordaunt on my French NO, that I wanted to test in actual combat. So we flagged and had at it. I won the fight, and then we managed to find another frenchie who wanted to try. Keep in mind that at that point, PVP scuttling had become the norm. Deleting would be boring. I burned 3 ships trying to help a British player PVP scuttle his Valiant the week before: these were real fights. One Spanish player who had jumped into our instance on a fallback reported us for lord-knows-what. And next thing I know, I get a letter from Aether saying that I had violated the deal made when he grandfathered in my accounts (the word GRANDFATHERED was literally in that mail. Look it up. It means the OLD ruleset applies to you, not the new one). I was confused, sent him a reply that no rules were broken, and that this was a genuine fight between two people, not one of my accounts farming my other account. His reply was that I was guilty of cross-teaming, that the decision was final, and that my choices were deleting my French toons, or transferring them to another server. Which simply wasn't an option: I'd never play those toons again, I'd lose all the work that had gone into levelling them, and there really wasn't a point in making yet another Spanish toon. Apart from that I was furious about the broken promises. So I replied that in that case, I'd be cancelling. Three days before the accounts expired, I suddenly couldn't access the forums. The message said I was under a one week forum ban. One of my toons was on line, and I smelled a rat, so I transferred everything I could off of her to a friend and tried to log in my main. And got the message I had been banned from the game. And no, it was not just one of my accounts. They banned 3 Spanish accounts, including the one originally paid for by my husband, and the French account, 4 accounts in all. They didn't even bother to check the account status. We never got a mail explaining the ban. I still don't know why the forum ban happened, as I am not exactly a notorious flamer. Two weeks before this I'd been corresponding with Rusty about the state of Rackham Spain
Two weeks before this, I'd been helping out on Test, and was told how much my work with Rackham Spain was appreciated by FLS staff.
Did I expect special treatment? Maybe a little, as long as I stayed within the rules, and steered clear of exploits.
My feelings about the entire mess are a complicated jumble. I am still both sad and outraged. What they did amounts to theft. They sold me multiple copies of the game under one set of rules, and then changed the rules in such a way that it became illegal to play the way I and many others did. And by far most of us 'multinationals' never even thought of exploiting. The worst thing is that I KNOW from my professional background that it is, indeed, very possible to detect exploiters by data mining the server side databases. A shipbuilder ID on each ship built would soon show if one shipbuilder lost all their ships to pirate captures. A program counting MOV earned over time by players could easily show abberations, where someone got abnormal amounts of MOV in too short a time. In both cases, further investigation would soon out the real exploiters.
All this aside, this doesn't mean I go running around spreading blatant lies about the game. I don't initiate flame posts either. But I WILL point out the many ways in which FLS made a mess of things, and are still making a mess of things. And I will never forget one of Misha's replies about the situation with my Frenchie, about how I could always use MSN to chat with my French friends even if my toon was on another server. Nothing ever made it more clear that they have no idea how gamer communities work. Linna PS: they apparently never found out about my pirate account, bought 2 weeks before the rules changed (I wanted to play alongside some pirate enemy/friends), and cancelled before its free month was ever up, because I DID try to stay within the rules. But at this point, even a formal appology and restitution would not make me play again. My guild left for other games, my nation and server are both broken, there is nothing left.
You admit to buying an account as well!!!!!! Your whole story basicly equates to, I fought the law and, the law won. Your whole story is just filled with excuses and reasons why YOU thought you were allowed to break the EULA . You tried , in every concievable way, to cincirmvent the rules the devs put in place. Yes they DID change the rules, but it was you, that failed to adapt. I hope you have fun in your next MMO and learn from this...
So tell me, ragemaster, do you ever read anything? I know, it's a challenge, but really... . Here's the cliff notes AGAIN:
- When I started playing the game in Beta, having multiple nations on the same server WAS NOT AGAINST THE EULA. IT WAS ALLOWED.
- When the game went live, IT WAS NOT AGAINST THE EULA. IT WAS STILL ALLOWED.
- Nothing in my previous experience with games or in the beta discussions led me to believe it ever WOULD be against the EULA. THE COMPANY ITSELF HAD SAID SO.
Then they changed it all, quite suddenly, which upset a LOT of people, because since it was not forbidden, a LOT of people were in the same situation as I was. So tell me, do you think it is in any way reasonable to tell gamers to stop playing legitimately bought accounts just because you as a company have made mistakes and have introduced possible exploits (which players had to point out to them)?
And yes, you BUY accounts, since you BUY a box, you know, in the store like.... and to make it absolutely clear: MY PIRATES WERE MADE ON A NEW ACCOUNT THAT WAS BOUGHT STRAIGHT FROM FLS.
You also seem to have missed the whole thing about our solution being APPROVED by FLS, and us actually CORRESPONDING about it with FLS, totally in the open, not trying to hide anything. But hey, who cares, right?
As to account sharing... yeah, it's rather implicit. Hard to take over ownership of an account otherwise. I think I mentioned a few dozen times that this was AS APPROVED BY FLS, so you can quit the semi-legal-i-don't-know-what-it-really-means-anyway BS. Company itself approved = Eula? What Eula? And incidentally: since by Dutch law (and state law in half the USA) husband and wife share ownership of everything that is not set aside as private in a marriage contract, no Eula in the world can make it illegal for a husband and wife to share accounts. Law has precedence over contracts, rules contracts.
I've never made a secret of it. My crime? They called it cross-teaming. The real story is different. My previous MMO not only allowed having characters in all factions (SWG, COH), they positively encouraged it FAIL NUMBER ONE, WHAT YOUR PAST MMO ALLOWED DOESNT MAKE IT LEGAL IN POTBS. . And since I always liked seeing how both sides lived, I used that opportunity. When there was a discussion in the Beta for PotBS about whether or not it would be allowed, devs strongly came out saying they didn't see a problem with it. Beltpouch posted links to the relevant articles in the beta archives in this epic thread: http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33865 What made me decide to make both a Spanish and a French toon? Two main reasons: So you ry to justify your actions for breaking the EULA that says NO CROSS TEAMING 1) - Exchanging goods in the game was a pain, even between your own alts. No item mailing, no shared warehouse. Having a second toon would make that a lot easier, for all of the guild. She could serve as the guild transfer and storage point, permanently stationed in Havana. But having two toons in the same nation would be dull. I would have loved to take the other pirate, but then reason 2 came in. 2) - I chose Spain for the guild, because it had a starter port layout that was friendlier to our PVE people, and joining the biggest nation just felt too zerg. We already knew in beta however that the British would have the same population as France and Spain combined. France and Spain would be natural allies. Making sure there were diplomatic channels from the start would serve us both in the end As soon as my Frenchie could communicate in nation chat, I made very sure to tell everyone what she was. I told them not to tell her secrets, not to give me vent or forum access. I didn't want to betray trusts, and they knew my loyalty was completely with Spain. It became a game, where I bantered with the French from the Spanish point of view, and they called me Sita the Spanish pig-dog, and tried to feed me misinformation. Many things happened, but long story short, I had a long, involved history with the French nation, and was in a weird way as much a part of that community as I was of the Spanish. I never sabotaged them or griefed them, never even spied on them much. The worst thing I did was very rarely warn someone a gank was waiting for them at such-and-such port. I even levelled up a NO to help them when their nation collapsed at one point, to help them defend against the British. Then FLS introduced insurance, and with it some horrible ways to exploit dual nationalities. These had been pointed out before they went live, but the warnings were ignored. Once in live, they DID happen. And in a kneejerk reaction, FLS decided to change the TOS, and make having two nationalities on the same server bannable. I was devastated. Spain was already in a bad shape at that time, and the fact I could also play alongside French friends was one of the few things that kept me going in trying to keep Spain together. I petitioned FLS to grandfather in my accounts, since I was provably not guilty of any wrongdoing. They replied I could transfer one of them off the server, but they would not allow one person to have accounts in two nations. My husband and I cancelled all accounts. In a last ditch attempt, since having 2 nationalities in the same household was NOT forbidden, we asked how about I transfer ownership of my French account to my husband, and he transfer ownership of his Spanish account to me. That way I would own all Spanish accounts, he would own a French account, and we could go on, business as usual, without breaking the new rule. Trading between the accounts would go on the same as before (and what the hell is the difference whether I trade between a french and spanish toon, or my husband is behind the keyboard of one of them??). And no, nothing fishy in the trading either. Sita had oak in Port St Joe, wine in Tampa, some odds and ends, which I could have gotten on a Spanish account as easily - in the case of oak even easier. So again, you admit to trying your hardest to cicurmvent the rules. With the family excuse., . of course flying lab doesnt know or care WHO is behind the account, because after all, if your in same house, same internet, same IP address, and you are working together, for all they know you could have been shareing account info, which is another violation of EULA.
The day before the cancellation went into effect, I got a reply from Aether that they were satisfied that this solution would be within the rules, and that they were glad we found a way to make it work. So we uncancelled. Aether said in a brief follow-up that he had instructed the CSR staff that he'd had my account flagged, so that if anything ever came up, he would be contacted to straighten it out. Two months or three months later, Spain was slowly recovering, France was near death. We were two cripples holding each other up. One day a guildmate wanted to PVP scuttle a ship. I had a brand new sleek mordaunt on my French NO, that I wanted to test in actual combat. So we flagged and had at it. I won the fight, and then we managed to find another frenchie who wanted to try. Keep in mind that at that point, PVP scuttling had become the norm. Deleting would be boring. I burned 3 ships trying to help a British player PVP scuttle his Valiant the week before: these were real fights. One Spanish player who had jumped into our instance on a fallback reported us for lord-knows-what. And next thing I know, I get a letter from Aether saying that I had violated the deal made when he grandfathered in my accounts (the word GRANDFATHERED was literally in that mail. Look it up. It means the OLD ruleset applies to you, not the new one). I was confused, sent him a reply that no rules were broken, and that this was a genuine fight between two people, not one of my accounts farming my other account. His reply was that I was guilty of cross-teaming, that the decision was final, and that my choices were deleting my French toons, or transferring them to another server. Which simply wasn't an option: I'd never play those toons again, I'd lose all the work that had gone into levelling them, and there really wasn't a point in making yet another Spanish toon. Apart from that I was furious about the broken promises. So I replied that in that case, I'd be cancelling. Three days before the accounts expired, I suddenly couldn't access the forums. The message said I was under a one week forum ban. One of my toons was on line, and I smelled a rat, so I transferred everything I could off of her to a friend and tried to log in my main. And got the message I had been banned from the game. And no, it was not just one of my accounts. They banned 3 Spanish accounts, including the one originally paid for by my husband, and the French account, 4 accounts in all. They didn't even bother to check the account status. We never got a mail explaining the ban. I still don't know why the forum ban happened, as I am not exactly a notorious flamer. Two weeks before this I'd been corresponding with Rusty about the state of Rackham Spain
Two weeks before this, I'd been helping out on Test, and was told how much my work with Rackham Spain was appreciated by FLS staff.
Did I expect special treatment? Maybe a little, as long as I stayed within the rules, and steered clear of exploits.
My feelings about the entire mess are a complicated jumble. I am still both sad and outraged. What they did amounts to theft. They sold me multiple copies of the game under one set of rules, and then changed the rules in such a way that it became illegal to play the way I and many others did. And by far most of us 'multinationals' never even thought of exploiting. The worst thing is that I KNOW from my professional background that it is, indeed, very possible to detect exploiters by data mining the server side databases. A shipbuilder ID on each ship built would soon show if one shipbuilder lost all their ships to pirate captures. A program counting MOV earned over time by players could easily show abberations, where someone got abnormal amounts of MOV in too short a time. In both cases, further investigation would soon out the real exploiters.
All this aside, this doesn't mean I go running around spreading blatant lies about the game. I don't initiate flame posts either. But I WILL point out the many ways in which FLS made a mess of things, and are still making a mess of things. And I will never forget one of Misha's replies about the situation with my Frenchie, about how I could always use MSN to chat with my French friends even if my toon was on another server. Nothing ever made it more clear that they have no idea how gamer communities work. Linna PS: they apparently never found out about my pirate account, bought 2 weeks before the rules changed (I wanted to play alongside some pirate enemy/friends), and cancelled before its free month was ever up, because I DID try to stay within the rules. But at this point, even a formal appology and restitution would not make me play again. My guild left for other games, my nation and server are both broken, there is nothing left.
You admit to buying an account as well!!!!!! Your whole story basicly equates to, I fought the law and, the law won. Your whole story is just filled with excuses and reasons why YOU thought you were allowed to break the EULA . You tried , in every concievable way, to cincirmvent the rules the devs put in place. Yes they DID change the rules, but it was you, that failed to adapt. I hope you have fun in your next MMO and learn from this...
So tell me, ragemaster, do you ever read anything? I know, it's a challenge, but really... . Here's the cliff notes AGAIN:
- When I started playing the game in Beta, having multiple nations on the same server WAS NOT AGAINST THE EULA. IT WAS ALLOWED.
- When the game went live, IT WAS NOT AGAINST THE EULA. IT WAS STILL ALLOWED.
- Nothing in my previous experience with games or in the beta discussions led me to believe it ever WOULD be against the EULA. THE COMPANY ITSELF HAD SAID SO.
Then they changed it all, quite suddenly, which upset a LOT of people, because since it was not forbidden, a LOT of people were in the same situation as I was. So tell me, do you think it is in any way reasonable to tell gamers to stop playing legitimately bought accounts just because you as a company have made mistakes and have introduced possible exploits (which players had to point out to them)?
They changed the rules, because cross teaming at this point was becoming pretty out of control. You stated yourself you knew about the exploits, as did many players. Many players were abusing the exploitation, case in point bundle boat for pirate faction. MMORPGS arent static, they have to adapt to changing needs of the players and the market. FLS obviously felt a need to revamp their x-teaming policy, and so they did. They didnt say you had to stop playing. You just had to go to another server.
And yes, you BUY accounts, since you BUY a box, you know, in the store like.... and to make it absolutely clear: MY PIRATES WERE MADE ON A NEW ACCOUNT THAT WAS BOUGHT STRAIGHT FROM FLS.
My apoligies, the way you worded it led me to assume that you bought it as in, from a gold farmer. Thanks for clarifying. I stand corrected.
You also seem to have missed the whole thing about our solution being APPROVED by FLS, and us actually CORRESPONDING about it with FLS, totally in the open, not trying to hide anything. But hey, who cares, right?
As to account sharing... yeah, it's rather implicit. Hard to take over ownership of an account otherwise. I think I mentioned a few dozen times that this was AS APPROVED BY FLS, so you can quit the semi-legal-i-don't-know-what-it-really-means-anyway BS. Company itself approved = Eula? What Eula? And incidentally: since by Dutch law (and state law in half the USA) husband and wife share ownership of everything that is not set aside as private in a marriage contract, no Eula in the world can make it illegal for a husband and wife to share accounts. Law has precedence over contracts, rules contracts.
Not gonna comment on Dutch law, as I do not live in netherlands, but I know for a fact that in FLS law, you break the EULA you get banhammered. In fact this is for, just about any mmorpg out there. Game companies sometimes have to change the rules, crossteaming is a serious BLOW to ANY team PVP game. However, despite the changes, and warnings, you basicly ignored them.
TL;DR: learn to read, stop trolling
Sorry for being overzealous in my initial reply, sometimes I go overboard
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I've never made a secret of it. My crime? They called it cross-teaming. The real story is different. My previous MMO not only allowed having characters in all factions (SWG, COH), they positively encouraged it FAIL NUMBER ONE, WHAT YOUR PAST MMO ALLOWED DOESNT MAKE IT LEGAL IN POTBS. . And since I always liked seeing how both sides lived, I used that opportunity. When there was a discussion in the Beta for PotBS about whether or not it would be allowed, devs strongly came out saying they didn't see a problem with it. Beltpouch posted links to the relevant articles in the beta archives in this epic thread: http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33865 What made me decide to make both a Spanish and a French toon? Two main reasons: So you ry to justify your actions for breaking the EULA that says NO CROSS TEAMING 1) - Exchanging goods in the game was a pain, even between your own alts. No item mailing, no shared warehouse. Having a second toon would make that a lot easier, for all of the guild. She could serve as the guild transfer and storage point, permanently stationed in Havana. But having two toons in the same nation would be dull. I would have loved to take the other pirate, but then reason 2 came in. 2) - I chose Spain for the guild, because it had a starter port layout that was friendlier to our PVE people, and joining the biggest nation just felt too zerg. We already knew in beta however that the British would have the same population as France and Spain combined. France and Spain would be natural allies. Making sure there were diplomatic channels from the start would serve us both in the end As soon as my Frenchie could communicate in nation chat, I made very sure to tell everyone what she was. I told them not to tell her secrets, not to give me vent or forum access. I didn't want to betray trusts, and they knew my loyalty was completely with Spain. It became a game, where I bantered with the French from the Spanish point of view, and they called me Sita the Spanish pig-dog, and tried to feed me misinformation. Many things happened, but long story short, I had a long, involved history with the French nation, and was in a weird way as much a part of that community as I was of the Spanish. I never sabotaged them or griefed them, never even spied on them much. The worst thing I did was very rarely warn someone a gank was waiting for them at such-and-such port. I even levelled up a NO to help them when their nation collapsed at one point, to help them defend against the British. Then FLS introduced insurance, and with it some horrible ways to exploit dual nationalities. These had been pointed out before they went live, but the warnings were ignored. Once in live, they DID happen. And in a kneejerk reaction, FLS decided to change the TOS, and make having two nationalities on the same server bannable. I was devastated. Spain was already in a bad shape at that time, and the fact I could also play alongside French friends was one of the few things that kept me going in trying to keep Spain together. I petitioned FLS to grandfather in my accounts, since I was provably not guilty of any wrongdoing. They replied I could transfer one of them off the server, but they would not allow one person to have accounts in two nations. My husband and I cancelled all accounts. In a last ditch attempt, since having 2 nationalities in the same household was NOT forbidden, we asked how about I transfer ownership of my French account to my husband, and he transfer ownership of his Spanish account to me. That way I would own all Spanish accounts, he would own a French account, and we could go on, business as usual, without breaking the new rule. Trading between the accounts would go on the same as before (and what the hell is the difference whether I trade between a french and spanish toon, or my husband is behind the keyboard of one of them??). And no, nothing fishy in the trading either. Sita had oak in Port St Joe, wine in Tampa, some odds and ends, which I could have gotten on a Spanish account as easily - in the case of oak even easier. So again, you admit to trying your hardest to cicurmvent the rules. With the family excuse., . of course flying lab doesnt know or care WHO is behind the account, because after all, if your in same house, same internet, same IP address, and you are working together, for all they know you could have been shareing account info, which is another violation of EULA.
The day before the cancellation went into effect, I got a reply from Aether that they were satisfied that this solution would be within the rules, and that they were glad we found a way to make it work. So we uncancelled. Aether said in a brief follow-up that he had instructed the CSR staff that he'd had my account flagged, so that if anything ever came up, he would be contacted to straighten it out. Two months or three months later, Spain was slowly recovering, France was near death. We were two cripples holding each other up. One day a guildmate wanted to PVP scuttle a ship. I had a brand new sleek mordaunt on my French NO, that I wanted to test in actual combat. So we flagged and had at it. I won the fight, and then we managed to find another frenchie who wanted to try. Keep in mind that at that point, PVP scuttling had become the norm. Deleting would be boring. I burned 3 ships trying to help a British player PVP scuttle his Valiant the week before: these were real fights. One Spanish player who had jumped into our instance on a fallback reported us for lord-knows-what. And next thing I know, I get a letter from Aether saying that I had violated the deal made when he grandfathered in my accounts (the word GRANDFATHERED was literally in that mail. Look it up. It means the OLD ruleset applies to you, not the new one). I was confused, sent him a reply that no rules were broken, and that this was a genuine fight between two people, not one of my accounts farming my other account. His reply was that I was guilty of cross-teaming, that the decision was final, and that my choices were deleting my French toons, or transferring them to another server. Which simply wasn't an option: I'd never play those toons again, I'd lose all the work that had gone into levelling them, and there really wasn't a point in making yet another Spanish toon. Apart from that I was furious about the broken promises. So I replied that in that case, I'd be cancelling. Three days before the accounts expired, I suddenly couldn't access the forums. The message said I was under a one week forum ban. One of my toons was on line, and I smelled a rat, so I transferred everything I could off of her to a friend and tried to log in my main. And got the message I had been banned from the game. And no, it was not just one of my accounts. They banned 3 Spanish accounts, including the one originally paid for by my husband, and the French account, 4 accounts in all. They didn't even bother to check the account status. We never got a mail explaining the ban. I still don't know why the forum ban happened, as I am not exactly a notorious flamer. Two weeks before this I'd been corresponding with Rusty about the state of Rackham Spain
Two weeks before this, I'd been helping out on Test, and was told how much my work with Rackham Spain was appreciated by FLS staff.
Did I expect special treatment? Maybe a little, as long as I stayed within the rules, and steered clear of exploits.
My feelings about the entire mess are a complicated jumble. I am still both sad and outraged. What they did amounts to theft. They sold me multiple copies of the game under one set of rules, and then changed the rules in such a way that it became illegal to play the way I and many others did. And by far most of us 'multinationals' never even thought of exploiting. The worst thing is that I KNOW from my professional background that it is, indeed, very possible to detect exploiters by data mining the server side databases. A shipbuilder ID on each ship built would soon show if one shipbuilder lost all their ships to pirate captures. A program counting MOV earned over time by players could easily show abberations, where someone got abnormal amounts of MOV in too short a time. In both cases, further investigation would soon out the real exploiters.
All this aside, this doesn't mean I go running around spreading blatant lies about the game. I don't initiate flame posts either. But I WILL point out the many ways in which FLS made a mess of things, and are still making a mess of things. And I will never forget one of Misha's replies about the situation with my Frenchie, about how I could always use MSN to chat with my French friends even if my toon was on another server. Nothing ever made it more clear that they have no idea how gamer communities work. Linna PS: they apparently never found out about my pirate account, bought 2 weeks before the rules changed (I wanted to play alongside some pirate enemy/friends), and cancelled before its free month was ever up, because I DID try to stay within the rules. But at this point, even a formal appology and restitution would not make me play again. My guild left for other games, my nation and server are both broken, there is nothing left.
You admit to buying an account as well!!!!!! Your whole story basicly equates to, I fought the law and, the law won. Your whole story is just filled with excuses and reasons why YOU thought you were allowed to break the EULA . You tried , in every concievable way, to cincirmvent the rules the devs put in place. Yes they DID change the rules, but it was you, that failed to adapt. I hope you have fun in your next MMO and learn from this...
So tell me, ragemaster, do you ever read anything? I know, it's a challenge, but really... . Here's the cliff notes AGAIN:
- When I started playing the game in Beta, having multiple nations on the same server WAS NOT AGAINST THE EULA. IT WAS ALLOWED.
- When the game went live, IT WAS NOT AGAINST THE EULA. IT WAS STILL ALLOWED.
- Nothing in my previous experience with games or in the beta discussions led me to believe it ever WOULD be against the EULA. THE COMPANY ITSELF HAD SAID SO.
Then they changed it all, quite suddenly, which upset a LOT of people, because since it was not forbidden, a LOT of people were in the same situation as I was. So tell me, do you think it is in any way reasonable to tell gamers to stop playing legitimately bought accounts just because you as a company have made mistakes and have introduced possible exploits (which players had to point out to them)?
They changed the rules, because cross teaming at this point was becoming pretty out of control. You stated yourself you knew about the exploits, as did many players. Many players were abusing the exploitation, case in point bundle boat for pirate faction. MMORPGS arent static, they have to adapt to changing needs of the players and the market. FLS obviously felt a need to revamp their x-teaming policy, and so they did. They didnt say you had to stop playing. You just had to go to another server.
And yes, you BUY accounts, since you BUY a box, you know, in the store like.... and to make it absolutely clear: MY PIRATES WERE MADE ON A NEW ACCOUNT THAT WAS BOUGHT STRAIGHT FROM FLS.
My apoligies, the way you worded it led me to assume that you bought it as in, from a gold farmer. Thanks for clarifying. I stand corrected.
You also seem to have missed the whole thing about our solution being APPROVED by FLS, and us actually CORRESPONDING about it with FLS, totally in the open, not trying to hide anything. But hey, who cares, right?
As to account sharing... yeah, it's rather implicit. Hard to take over ownership of an account otherwise. I think I mentioned a few dozen times that this was AS APPROVED BY FLS, so you can quit the semi-legal-i-don't-know-what-it-really-means-anyway BS. Company itself approved = Eula? What Eula? And incidentally: since by Dutch law (and state law in half the USA) husband and wife share ownership of everything that is not set aside as private in a marriage contract, no Eula in the world can make it illegal for a husband and wife to share accounts. Law has precedence over contracts, rules contracts.
Not gonna comment on Dutch law, as I do not live in netherlands, but I know for a fact that in FLS law, you break the EULA you get banhammered. In fact this is for, just about any mmorpg out there. Game companies sometimes have to change the rules, crossteaming is a serious BLOW to ANY team PVP game. However, despite the changes, and warnings, you basicly ignored them.
TL;DR: learn to read, stop trolling
Sorry for being overzealous in my initial reply, sometimes I go overboard
Linna
The exploits were introduced by some ill-conceived changes that FLS made, which the playerbase themselves warned about. You're reversing cause and effect. The exploits were NOT possible before FLS made the changes. And no, crossteaming was not out of control, if you'd read the thread you'd have seen that. Having accounts in different nations (which most players did for either economic convenience or for seeing the other side - lots of nationals with a pirate account) is not the same as griefing or sabotaging the other side.
You seriously have not read the rest of the thread, have you? The developers themselves said in beta that trading durability to pirates was NOT a problem, since the same amount of work went into making them. It only BECAME a problem the second they decided that insurance would be paid out to whoever lost the ship, which meant the trade became insanely profitable. In other words: trading durability with pirates (which I never did, incidentally) was NOT considered an exploit.
As to 'MMO companies change the rules any time they see fit'... no, they cannot, there is such a thing as consumer laws, and changing a product into something that does not match it's original parameters is illegal in ALL jurisdictions. This is where you go wrong on the whole marriage thing too: this is INTERNATIONAL law, and like already stated, it applies in the USA as much as in the Netherlands. Bottom line is that if a product is sold in a country/jurisdiction, then it must comply with ALL the laws of that country/jurisdiction. Companies are not allowed to set laws aside at their own convenience.
Also: you might have noticed that they reversed policy again since this thread was made?
In another thread you go on about Eve... you DO realise that 'crossteaming' and espionage (think e.g. infiltrating corporations and robbing them) is not only allowed but encouraged in Eve, right? So apparently, if it's part and parcel of the way the game is set up, it's not such a huge blow to PVP games after all: By your own words, Eve is successful.
Either way, it appears you are still missing the point entirely.
When I got banned the first time by SOE ,it shocked me because it interrupted my active game play and I was on a half year prepaid sub. For that reason , I now never prepay for more then 3 months on any game since. The GMs and Forum Mods over at SOE are a nasty lot - sorry it happen to the OP.
When I got banned the first time by SOE ,it shocked me because it interrupted my active game play and I was on a half year prepaid sub. For that reason , I now never prepay for more then 3 months on any game since. The GMs and Forum Mods over at SOE are a nasty lot - sorry it happen to the OP.
Except it wasn't SOE who does not own the game or servers, it was the now ex-community manager at FLS.
All history now, Linna has been un-banned & invited back
When I got banned the first time by SOE ,it shocked me because it interrupted my active game play and I was on a half year prepaid sub. For that reason , I now never prepay for more then 3 months on any game since. The GMs and Forum Mods over at SOE are a nasty lot - sorry it happen to the OP.
Except it wasn't SOE who does not own the game or servers, it was the now ex-community manager at FLS.
All history now, Linna has been un-banned & invited back
Not really true, sadly... I was never officially unbanned. When they reversed the policy again, I made an angry post in the POTBS forums quoting the CSR tickets for the entire sordid affair. Misha sent me a PM saying "Your account doesn't look banned on our end. What happens when you try to log in?" Needless to say, this left me flabbergasted, because I had received no notice whatsoever that I had been unbanned, and as a matter of fact, I still haven't had one.
I had (and have) no intention of ever paying FLS another dime unless some form of apology happens (especially to my husband, who after all only tried to help implement a solution we thought FLS approved of). So er, yeah, logging in was not really an option - I would have had to resub to even try. My first opportunity to see if I was able to log in was the free month. And lo and behold, I could.
I have NO idea what happened. I have no idea whether I was ever unbanned, or whether they just lost or wiped all account status files. The whole thing is as vague as the ban was in the first place.
As to invited back... again, not really. I got the generic mail about the mergers and the free month, same as every other 'old' inactive account. I played a bit, said hello to friends who also came for the free month, gave away some stuff I hadn't been able to give to my guild because of the ban. The whole thing was not entirely a happy occasion.
When I got banned the first time by SOE ,it shocked me because it interrupted my active game play and I was on a half year prepaid sub. For that reason , I now never prepay for more then 3 months on any game since. The GMs and Forum Mods over at SOE are a nasty lot - sorry it happen to the OP.
Except it wasn't SOE who does not own the game or servers, it was the now ex-community manager at FLS.
All history now, Linna has been un-banned & invited back
Not really true, sadly... I was never officially unbanned. When they reversed the policy again, I made an angry post in the POTBS forums quoting the CSR tickets for the entire sordid affair. Misha sent me a PM saying "Your account doesn't look banned on our end. What happens when you try to log in?" Needless to say, this left me flabbergasted, because I had received no notice whatsoever that I had been unbanned, and as a matter of fact, I still haven't had one.
I had (and have) no intention of ever paying FLS another dime unless some form of apology happens (especially to my husband, who after all only tried to help implement a solution we thought FLS approved of). So er, yeah, logging in was not really an option - I would have had to resub to even try. My first opportunity to see if I was able to log in was the free month. And lo and behold, I could.
I have NO idea what happened. I have no idea whether I was ever unbanned, or whether they just lost or wiped all account status files. The whole thing is as vague as the ban was in the first place.
As to invited back... again, not really. I got the generic mail about the mergers and the free month, same as every other 'old' inactive account. I played a bit, said hello to friends who also came for the free month, gave away some stuff I hadn't been able to give to my guild because of the ban. The whole thing was not entirely a happy occasion.
Linna
If Misha thinks your account is not banned that's pretty much how it should be.
If you have any interest to clear it up put in a support ticket.
When I got banned the first time by SOE ,it shocked me because it interrupted my active game play and I was on a half year prepaid sub. For that reason , I now never prepay for more then 3 months on any game since. The GMs and Forum Mods over at SOE are a nasty lot - sorry it happen to the OP.
Except it wasn't SOE who does not own the game or servers, it was the now ex-community manager at FLS.
All history now, Linna has been un-banned & invited back
Not really true, sadly... I was never officially unbanned. When they reversed the policy again, I made an angry post in the POTBS forums quoting the CSR tickets for the entire sordid affair. Misha sent me a PM saying "Your account doesn't look banned on our end. What happens when you try to log in?" Needless to say, this left me flabbergasted, because I had received no notice whatsoever that I had been unbanned, and as a matter of fact, I still haven't had one.
I had (and have) no intention of ever paying FLS another dime unless some form of apology happens (especially to my husband, who after all only tried to help implement a solution we thought FLS approved of). So er, yeah, logging in was not really an option - I would have had to resub to even try. My first opportunity to see if I was able to log in was the free month. And lo and behold, I could.
I have NO idea what happened. I have no idea whether I was ever unbanned, or whether they just lost or wiped all account status files. The whole thing is as vague as the ban was in the first place.
As to invited back... again, not really. I got the generic mail about the mergers and the free month, same as every other 'old' inactive account. I played a bit, said hello to friends who also came for the free month, gave away some stuff I hadn't been able to give to my guild because of the ban. The whole thing was not entirely a happy occasion.
Linna
If Misha thinks your account is not banned that's pretty much how it should be.
If you have any interest to clear it up put in a support ticket.
Meh, I requested clarification of my status past and present weeks ago, did it pretty much as soon as I found I could log in, but no reply to this date. Trust me, I would REALLY like to know what happened (and not just the unban thing), the whole situation still mystifies me.
So how is aion then? been thinking about trying after seeing my brother playing star trek what is lacking endgame.
Graphically beautiful, great level 1-20, decent level 20-30, and then the pain begins.
- The game is EXTREMELY group dependent, from level 30 up, you increasingly find yourself unable to level unless you operate in a full group, fighting elites. Even your personal story progression (the campaign quests) is almost completely group-only. There are not enough solo quests to fill a full level, which means your only recourse if you cannot find a group, is mob grinding.
- The game is EXTREMELY casual unfriendly. Most of the higher level instances take 2-4 hours to complete, some longer.
- Some skills are gained from looted skill books (only obtainable in certain instances), specialisation skills (stigmas) are ONLY available as loot, and the good ones get extremely expensive (although a game update in the near future will put them on a vendor too).
- From level 25-45, you literally cannot avoid PVP, as all grind zones are accessible to enemies. The level 20-40 zone, for instance, can be accessed by enemies level 20-45. Keep in mind here that the PVP system in the game is set up so that if an enemy is 10 level higher, you literally cannot hit them. There are enough players who do not care such lowbies give no xp or pvp points, that grinding can be very frustrating.
- The game is ruled in every aspect by the random number generator. This affects both combat skills and crafting.
- The game is extremely gear dependent.
- The game, while pay to play, has recently shown the first signs of adding a cash shop. Currently you pay real money for e.g. appearance changes. There is also a PAID aion magazine. Subbing to it at $3.19 an issue gives you 'free' consumables and in game items per issue. Since these items and consumables affect PVP, in my opinion this is a cash shop by another name.
I'm not sure how it's going to develop. If the above is something you can live with, then by all means go for it. They are making changes and adding zones and levels, but I'm uncertain whether it will be enough.
Nice explanation i'm downloading it now so ill give it a shot, i dont mind the occasional grind as ive never really been in to full on questing games i find them more irritating then anything.
The whole pvp sounds fun but ive got a feeling after a while of getting ganked it might become annoying, hmm Ranger or gladiator, reading about them now ...can't decide though.
Nice explanation i'm downloading it now so ill give it a shot, i dont mind the occasional grind as ive never really been in to full on questing games i find them more irritating then anything. The whole pvp sounds fun but ive got a feeling after a while of getting ganked it might become annoying, hmm Ranger or gladiator, reading about them now ...can't decide though.
Go ranger. They're a bit rough at the start - mostly melee for the first 16 or so levels - but they are totally amazing at later levels.
yep that's a pretty much how I found hack/slash Aion, now back with Potbs playing a solo Buckaneeer & glad I did. Linna if you got any FLS ticket nos, ill try get them answered for you. A lot has changed, it would be super if you came back, I might join your society. Pls make it so, we miss good players like you.
I read this entire post and I still can't seem to understand what is going on. There's a lot of unecessary backstory about your characters, some information about France and Spain, something about a duel, and then you getting banned.
Seems you could've shortened it a bit and saved some more time.
That being said, it seems your ship has sailed.. Yeah.. I went there.
~Miles "Tails" Prower out! Catch me if you can!
Come Join us at www.globalequestria.com - Meet other fans of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic!
The original community manager Aegir thought you were cross-teaming by having multi-accounts on the same ip. He was wrong but thats how he truly saw it at the time, strange he left FLS shortly after ! The rules have since changed to allow it & FLS have introduced national faction so that the players themselves can tag so called traitors. This has all been a storm in a tea cup & it was unfortunate that Linna got caught up in it. Put it down to FLS's inexperience, we would all welcome you & your hubby back now that the new rules have made everything clear. The whole episode has been one big mis-understanding, time to let it go imo.
Thanks. That summarized it up pretty good. I appreciate you taking the effort to do that.
~Miles "Tails" Prower out! Catch me if you can!
Come Join us at www.globalequestria.com - Meet other fans of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic!
I read this entire post and I still can't seem to understand what is going on. There's a lot of unecessary backstory about your characters, some information about France and Spain, something about a duel, and then you getting banned.
Seems you could've shortened it a bit and saved some more time.
That being said, it seems your ship has sailed.. Yeah.. I went there.
~Miles "Tails" Prower out! Catch me if you can!
I read the whole post as well. I understand what happened since I played the game through the change from the cross-realming being nothing, it spiraled into a an issue and then it was allowed again.
Linna could've saved herself much confusion if she would've seen she herself said why she was banned. She was reported and someone banned her based on the exploit that was commonly abused by cross-realmers at that time. What she was told doesn't matter.
There will also likely never be an apology unfortunately.
It really sounds like she got the short end of the stick.
Comments
would you rather they let cheaters stay in the game? LOL
It would appear a lot of the old POTBS crew from Rackham are turning up in Star Trek Online (ship combat). If anyone's trying to get back in touch, that would be a good place to do it. Brie's uniform colors have not yet been determined, but he IS in game.
Linna
They banned you?
LOL.
I know plenty of people with multiple accounts that run 2 Nats.
I LOL not to be mean, I have sme friends in the raiders. I LOL because they actually think they can bann thier way out of meta gaming? At lteast out of business. I suppose that will solve the problem..
So tell me, ragemaster, do you ever read anything? I know, it's a challenge, but really... . Here's the cliff notes AGAIN:
- When I started playing the game in Beta, having multiple nations on the same server WAS NOT AGAINST THE EULA. IT WAS ALLOWED.
- When the game went live, IT WAS NOT AGAINST THE EULA. IT WAS STILL ALLOWED.
- Nothing in my previous experience with games or in the beta discussions led me to believe it ever WOULD be against the EULA. THE COMPANY ITSELF HAD SAID SO.
Then they changed it all, quite suddenly, which upset a LOT of people, because since it was not forbidden, a LOT of people were in the same situation as I was. So tell me, do you think it is in any way reasonable to tell gamers to stop playing legitimately bought accounts just because you as a company have made mistakes and have introduced possible exploits (which players had to point out to them)?
And yes, you BUY accounts, since you BUY a box, you know, in the store like.... and to make it absolutely clear: MY PIRATES WERE MADE ON A NEW ACCOUNT THAT WAS BOUGHT STRAIGHT FROM FLS.
You also seem to have missed the whole thing about our solution being APPROVED by FLS, and us actually CORRESPONDING about it with FLS, totally in the open, not trying to hide anything. But hey, who cares, right?
As to account sharing... yeah, it's rather implicit. Hard to take over ownership of an account otherwise. I think I mentioned a few dozen times that this was AS APPROVED BY FLS, so you can quit the semi-legal-i-don't-know-what-it-really-means-anyway BS. Company itself approved = Eula? What Eula? And incidentally: since by Dutch law (and state law in half the USA) husband and wife share ownership of everything that is not set aside as private in a marriage contract, no Eula in the world can make it illegal for a husband and wife to share accounts. Law has precedence over contracts, rules contracts.
TL;DR: learn to read, stop trolling
Linna
So tell me, ragemaster, do you ever read anything? I know, it's a challenge, but really... . Here's the cliff notes AGAIN:
- When I started playing the game in Beta, having multiple nations on the same server WAS NOT AGAINST THE EULA. IT WAS ALLOWED.
- When the game went live, IT WAS NOT AGAINST THE EULA. IT WAS STILL ALLOWED.
- Nothing in my previous experience with games or in the beta discussions led me to believe it ever WOULD be against the EULA. THE COMPANY ITSELF HAD SAID SO.
Then they changed it all, quite suddenly, which upset a LOT of people, because since it was not forbidden, a LOT of people were in the same situation as I was. So tell me, do you think it is in any way reasonable to tell gamers to stop playing legitimately bought accounts just because you as a company have made mistakes and have introduced possible exploits (which players had to point out to them)?
They changed the rules, because cross teaming at this point was becoming pretty out of control. You stated yourself you knew about the exploits, as did many players. Many players were abusing the exploitation, case in point bundle boat for pirate faction. MMORPGS arent static, they have to adapt to changing needs of the players and the market. FLS obviously felt a need to revamp their x-teaming policy, and so they did. They didnt say you had to stop playing. You just had to go to another server.
And yes, you BUY accounts, since you BUY a box, you know, in the store like.... and to make it absolutely clear: MY PIRATES WERE MADE ON A NEW ACCOUNT THAT WAS BOUGHT STRAIGHT FROM FLS.
My apoligies, the way you worded it led me to assume that you bought it as in, from a gold farmer. Thanks for clarifying. I stand corrected.
You also seem to have missed the whole thing about our solution being APPROVED by FLS, and us actually CORRESPONDING about it with FLS, totally in the open, not trying to hide anything. But hey, who cares, right?
As to account sharing... yeah, it's rather implicit. Hard to take over ownership of an account otherwise. I think I mentioned a few dozen times that this was AS APPROVED BY FLS, so you can quit the semi-legal-i-don't-know-what-it-really-means-anyway BS. Company itself approved = Eula? What Eula? And incidentally: since by Dutch law (and state law in half the USA) husband and wife share ownership of everything that is not set aside as private in a marriage contract, no Eula in the world can make it illegal for a husband and wife to share accounts. Law has precedence over contracts, rules contracts.
Not gonna comment on Dutch law, as I do not live in netherlands, but I know for a fact that in FLS law, you break the EULA you get banhammered. In fact this is for, just about any mmorpg out there. Game companies sometimes have to change the rules, crossteaming is a serious BLOW to ANY team PVP game. However, despite the changes, and warnings, you basicly ignored them.
TL;DR: learn to read, stop trolling
Sorry for being overzealous in my initial reply, sometimes I go overboard
Linna
Yowsa, necro thread brought back from the dead so some folks could reunite in STO, no need to reply to the OP, probably has long since moved on.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
So tell me, ragemaster, do you ever read anything? I know, it's a challenge, but really... . Here's the cliff notes AGAIN:
- When I started playing the game in Beta, having multiple nations on the same server WAS NOT AGAINST THE EULA. IT WAS ALLOWED.
- When the game went live, IT WAS NOT AGAINST THE EULA. IT WAS STILL ALLOWED.
- Nothing in my previous experience with games or in the beta discussions led me to believe it ever WOULD be against the EULA. THE COMPANY ITSELF HAD SAID SO.
Then they changed it all, quite suddenly, which upset a LOT of people, because since it was not forbidden, a LOT of people were in the same situation as I was. So tell me, do you think it is in any way reasonable to tell gamers to stop playing legitimately bought accounts just because you as a company have made mistakes and have introduced possible exploits (which players had to point out to them)?
They changed the rules, because cross teaming at this point was becoming pretty out of control. You stated yourself you knew about the exploits, as did many players. Many players were abusing the exploitation, case in point bundle boat for pirate faction. MMORPGS arent static, they have to adapt to changing needs of the players and the market. FLS obviously felt a need to revamp their x-teaming policy, and so they did. They didnt say you had to stop playing. You just had to go to another server.
And yes, you BUY accounts, since you BUY a box, you know, in the store like.... and to make it absolutely clear: MY PIRATES WERE MADE ON A NEW ACCOUNT THAT WAS BOUGHT STRAIGHT FROM FLS.
My apoligies, the way you worded it led me to assume that you bought it as in, from a gold farmer. Thanks for clarifying. I stand corrected.
You also seem to have missed the whole thing about our solution being APPROVED by FLS, and us actually CORRESPONDING about it with FLS, totally in the open, not trying to hide anything. But hey, who cares, right?
As to account sharing... yeah, it's rather implicit. Hard to take over ownership of an account otherwise. I think I mentioned a few dozen times that this was AS APPROVED BY FLS, so you can quit the semi-legal-i-don't-know-what-it-really-means-anyway BS. Company itself approved = Eula? What Eula? And incidentally: since by Dutch law (and state law in half the USA) husband and wife share ownership of everything that is not set aside as private in a marriage contract, no Eula in the world can make it illegal for a husband and wife to share accounts. Law has precedence over contracts, rules contracts.
Not gonna comment on Dutch law, as I do not live in netherlands, but I know for a fact that in FLS law, you break the EULA you get banhammered. In fact this is for, just about any mmorpg out there. Game companies sometimes have to change the rules, crossteaming is a serious BLOW to ANY team PVP game. However, despite the changes, and warnings, you basicly ignored them.
TL;DR: learn to read, stop trolling
Sorry for being overzealous in my initial reply, sometimes I go overboard
Linna
The exploits were introduced by some ill-conceived changes that FLS made, which the playerbase themselves warned about. You're reversing cause and effect. The exploits were NOT possible before FLS made the changes. And no, crossteaming was not out of control, if you'd read the thread you'd have seen that. Having accounts in different nations (which most players did for either economic convenience or for seeing the other side - lots of nationals with a pirate account) is not the same as griefing or sabotaging the other side.
You seriously have not read the rest of the thread, have you? The developers themselves said in beta that trading durability to pirates was NOT a problem, since the same amount of work went into making them. It only BECAME a problem the second they decided that insurance would be paid out to whoever lost the ship, which meant the trade became insanely profitable. In other words: trading durability with pirates (which I never did, incidentally) was NOT considered an exploit.
As to 'MMO companies change the rules any time they see fit'... no, they cannot, there is such a thing as consumer laws, and changing a product into something that does not match it's original parameters is illegal in ALL jurisdictions. This is where you go wrong on the whole marriage thing too: this is INTERNATIONAL law, and like already stated, it applies in the USA as much as in the Netherlands. Bottom line is that if a product is sold in a country/jurisdiction, then it must comply with ALL the laws of that country/jurisdiction. Companies are not allowed to set laws aside at their own convenience.
Also: you might have noticed that they reversed policy again since this thread was made?
In another thread you go on about Eve... you DO realise that 'crossteaming' and espionage (think e.g. infiltrating corporations and robbing them) is not only allowed but encouraged in Eve, right? So apparently, if it's part and parcel of the way the game is set up, it's not such a huge blow to PVP games after all: By your own words, Eve is successful.
Either way, it appears you are still missing the point entirely.
Linna
Players will interpret this thread how they want, its so easy to do. FLS got it wrong by banning Linna in the first place.
When I got banned the first time by SOE ,it shocked me because it interrupted my active game play and I was on a half year prepaid sub. For that reason , I now never prepay for more then 3 months on any game since. The GMs and Forum Mods over at SOE are a nasty lot - sorry it happen to the OP.
Unaware of the Jestor?
http://about.me/JestorRodo/
Friends enjoy his classic Vblog - https://www.facebook.com/GoodOldReliableNathan
Except it wasn't SOE who does not own the game or servers, it was the now ex-community manager at FLS.
All history now, Linna has been un-banned & invited back
Except it wasn't SOE who does not own the game or servers, it was the now ex-community manager at FLS.
All history now, Linna has been un-banned & invited back
Not really true, sadly... I was never officially unbanned. When they reversed the policy again, I made an angry post in the POTBS forums quoting the CSR tickets for the entire sordid affair. Misha sent me a PM saying "Your account doesn't look banned on our end. What happens when you try to log in?" Needless to say, this left me flabbergasted, because I had received no notice whatsoever that I had been unbanned, and as a matter of fact, I still haven't had one.
I had (and have) no intention of ever paying FLS another dime unless some form of apology happens (especially to my husband, who after all only tried to help implement a solution we thought FLS approved of). So er, yeah, logging in was not really an option - I would have had to resub to even try. My first opportunity to see if I was able to log in was the free month. And lo and behold, I could.
I have NO idea what happened. I have no idea whether I was ever unbanned, or whether they just lost or wiped all account status files. The whole thing is as vague as the ban was in the first place.
As to invited back... again, not really. I got the generic mail about the mergers and the free month, same as every other 'old' inactive account. I played a bit, said hello to friends who also came for the free month, gave away some stuff I hadn't been able to give to my guild because of the ban. The whole thing was not entirely a happy occasion.
Linna
Except it wasn't SOE who does not own the game or servers, it was the now ex-community manager at FLS.
All history now, Linna has been un-banned & invited back
Not really true, sadly... I was never officially unbanned. When they reversed the policy again, I made an angry post in the POTBS forums quoting the CSR tickets for the entire sordid affair. Misha sent me a PM saying "Your account doesn't look banned on our end. What happens when you try to log in?" Needless to say, this left me flabbergasted, because I had received no notice whatsoever that I had been unbanned, and as a matter of fact, I still haven't had one.
I had (and have) no intention of ever paying FLS another dime unless some form of apology happens (especially to my husband, who after all only tried to help implement a solution we thought FLS approved of). So er, yeah, logging in was not really an option - I would have had to resub to even try. My first opportunity to see if I was able to log in was the free month. And lo and behold, I could.
I have NO idea what happened. I have no idea whether I was ever unbanned, or whether they just lost or wiped all account status files. The whole thing is as vague as the ban was in the first place.
As to invited back... again, not really. I got the generic mail about the mergers and the free month, same as every other 'old' inactive account. I played a bit, said hello to friends who also came for the free month, gave away some stuff I hadn't been able to give to my guild because of the ban. The whole thing was not entirely a happy occasion.
Linna
If Misha thinks your account is not banned that's pretty much how it should be.
If you have any interest to clear it up put in a support ticket.
Except it wasn't SOE who does not own the game or servers, it was the now ex-community manager at FLS.
All history now, Linna has been un-banned & invited back
Not really true, sadly... I was never officially unbanned. When they reversed the policy again, I made an angry post in the POTBS forums quoting the CSR tickets for the entire sordid affair. Misha sent me a PM saying "Your account doesn't look banned on our end. What happens when you try to log in?" Needless to say, this left me flabbergasted, because I had received no notice whatsoever that I had been unbanned, and as a matter of fact, I still haven't had one.
I had (and have) no intention of ever paying FLS another dime unless some form of apology happens (especially to my husband, who after all only tried to help implement a solution we thought FLS approved of). So er, yeah, logging in was not really an option - I would have had to resub to even try. My first opportunity to see if I was able to log in was the free month. And lo and behold, I could.
I have NO idea what happened. I have no idea whether I was ever unbanned, or whether they just lost or wiped all account status files. The whole thing is as vague as the ban was in the first place.
As to invited back... again, not really. I got the generic mail about the mergers and the free month, same as every other 'old' inactive account. I played a bit, said hello to friends who also came for the free month, gave away some stuff I hadn't been able to give to my guild because of the ban. The whole thing was not entirely a happy occasion.
Linna
If Misha thinks your account is not banned that's pretty much how it should be.
If you have any interest to clear it up put in a support ticket.
Meh, I requested clarification of my status past and present weeks ago, did it pretty much as soon as I found I could log in, but no reply to this date. Trust me, I would REALLY like to know what happened (and not just the unban thing), the whole situation still mystifies me.
Linna
So how is aion then? been thinking about trying after seeing my brother playing star trek what is lacking endgame.
Graphically beautiful, great level 1-20, decent level 20-30, and then the pain begins.
- The game is EXTREMELY group dependent, from level 30 up, you increasingly find yourself unable to level unless you operate in a full group, fighting elites. Even your personal story progression (the campaign quests) is almost completely group-only. There are not enough solo quests to fill a full level, which means your only recourse if you cannot find a group, is mob grinding.
- The game is EXTREMELY casual unfriendly. Most of the higher level instances take 2-4 hours to complete, some longer.
- Some skills are gained from looted skill books (only obtainable in certain instances), specialisation skills (stigmas) are ONLY available as loot, and the good ones get extremely expensive (although a game update in the near future will put them on a vendor too).
- From level 25-45, you literally cannot avoid PVP, as all grind zones are accessible to enemies. The level 20-40 zone, for instance, can be accessed by enemies level 20-45. Keep in mind here that the PVP system in the game is set up so that if an enemy is 10 level higher, you literally cannot hit them. There are enough players who do not care such lowbies give no xp or pvp points, that grinding can be very frustrating.
- The game is ruled in every aspect by the random number generator. This affects both combat skills and crafting.
- The game is extremely gear dependent.
- The game, while pay to play, has recently shown the first signs of adding a cash shop. Currently you pay real money for e.g. appearance changes. There is also a PAID aion magazine. Subbing to it at $3.19 an issue gives you 'free' consumables and in game items per issue. Since these items and consumables affect PVP, in my opinion this is a cash shop by another name.
I'm not sure how it's going to develop. If the above is something you can live with, then by all means go for it. They are making changes and adding zones and levels, but I'm uncertain whether it will be enough.
Linna
yep that's a pretty much how I found hack/slash Aion, now back with Potbs playing a solo Buckaneeer & glad I did.
Linna if you got any FLS ticket nos, ill try get them answered for you.
A lot has changed, it would be super if you came back, I might join your society.
Pls make it so, we miss good players like you.
Nice explanation i'm downloading it now so ill give it a shot, i dont mind the occasional grind as ive never really been in to full on questing games i find them more irritating then anything.
The whole pvp sounds fun but ive got a feeling after a while of getting ganked it might become annoying, hmm Ranger or gladiator, reading about them now ...can't decide though.
Go ranger. They're a bit rough at the start - mostly melee for the first 16 or so levels - but they are totally amazing at later levels.
Linna
Check your PMs on MMORPG
Linna
I read this entire post and I still can't seem to understand what is going on. There's a lot of unecessary backstory about your characters, some information about France and Spain, something about a duel, and then you getting banned.
Seems you could've shortened it a bit and saved some more time.
That being said, it seems your ship has sailed.. Yeah.. I went there.
~Miles "Tails" Prower out! Catch me if you can!
Come Join us at www.globalequestria.com - Meet other fans of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic!
The original community manager Aether thought you were cross-teaming by having multi-accounts on the same ip.
He was wrong but thats how he truly saw it at the time, strange he left FLS shortly after !
The rules have since changed to allow it & FLS have introduced national faction so that the players themselves can tag so called traitors.
This has all been a storm in a tea cup & it was unfortunate that Linna got caught up in it.
Put it down to FLS's inexperience, we would all welcome you & your hubby back now that the new rules have made everything clear.
The whole episode has been one big mis-understanding, time to let it go imo.
edited for name change.
Thanks. That summarized it up pretty good. I appreciate you taking the effort to do that.
~Miles "Tails" Prower out! Catch me if you can!
Come Join us at www.globalequestria.com - Meet other fans of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic!
I read the whole post as well. I understand what happened since I played the game through the change from the cross-realming being nothing, it spiraled into a an issue and then it was allowed again.
Linna could've saved herself much confusion if she would've seen she herself said why she was banned. She was reported and someone banned her based on the exploit that was commonly abused by cross-realmers at that time. What she was told doesn't matter.
There will also likely never be an apology unfortunately.
It really sounds like she got the short end of the stick.
Yep she did along with her hubby, the truth is that FLS have sorted it now with the new rules & multi-accounts are allowed for legitimate purposes.
wrong place @ the wrong time .. it happens.