FTE a heaping pile of ....

In a game company the devs typically have little to no control on which features they implement; the directors, producers, etc. do that. I will say it's disturbing, but not surprising, that the devs don't know the game mechanics better.

With all the controversy around FTE, you would think they would have had all the i's dotted and t's crossed when they put it on Test. What a joke. It's just another change to the game to try and get people to play nice with each other that is going to cause more problems than what it set out to solve. They want people to play nice, without a PnP or GM's to police it. Never gonna happen.

I said it once. I'll say it again.

ANY restrictions or changes implemented to police behavior in a game ONLY limits the honest players agency and ability to interact with the games systems.
This is for any game.
Anyone cheating, griefing, etc will just find the next way to do so.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what you're saying is that Dark Paw should just ignore their compromised systems because cheaters would just find a work around.

Let's apply this logic beyond an on-line game.

A financial institution has a breach and they should just ignore it because hackers would find another vulnerability to exploit.

That will never happen, no matter how insignificant the forum base finds the problem.

Were talking about EQ, not Bank of America...
but I can promise you this.. if a corporate business makes any changes in the systems they have in place there is a financial or legal advantage in doing so.

EDIT
And I'm not saying things cant be changed/better but just stating my belief that those changes only apply to limit the honest player. The "hackers" as you say, will just find the next exploit, cheat, advantage....

A lot of that is dependent on how "far" DBG want's to go.

If they wanted to simply encrypt the server , fix the coding for mobs so that M Q's are not doable and a few other minor tweaks and all the 3rd party programs no longer work. I just don't think a large portion of this player base can even play the game with out them.

You almost make me feel that the soe heavy handed banned during sleeper/combine is the way to go i remember 1 guy that was banned so many times he disappear almost every month first for like a week then a month then like 3 months and then i lost count because he was gone for so long

Because everything he covered was already reported 100 times? The real question is why so many Stan’s are blindly defending a broken change no one asked for.

Why are you bringing up something that was already considered drooped and no longer matters? And when I posted that question it wasn't all reported.

It's the same principle.

Dark Paw provides a service that is paid for much like a financial institution - they may not be moving billions daily, but financial tractions still exist. In fact let me further outline the fundamental flaw with your statements. Dark Paw uses payment processing systems in order to charge their customers which means they store credit card information.

Again by your repeated logic, if they detect anything wrong with said systems they should just turn a blind eye? In-game you have direct access to the store and what's to say those same griefers, cheaters, etc. haven't found ways to exploit it or are also working on ways in doing so? Dark Paws efforts (between beefing up infrastructure and in-game mechanics) are a direct reflection of their efforts to combat all forms of illegal activity within their systems.

For them to just stop because cheaters would find another way would be simply neligent.

It is unlikely that they actually store credit card numbers themselves due to the regulations around doing that.

You can enter your credit card information directly in the game (which I think is their website too) or directly through their website - they absolutely do store it. And, I'm not sure what regulations you're talking about, but PCI compliance does allow companies to store your credit card info, but they (the platforms taking that information) have to meet certain controls (encryption, etc.).

Yes, that is why I am saying that they might not be storing directly.

I understand what you're saying, but I do think we're going a little off topic.

I'm just baffled that we have people posting rhetoric that Dark Paw shouldn't take steps to secure their game and then speak on the longevity, health, and playerbase of the game.

These 'FTE' posts are friggin' wild.

I absolutely agree.

My feeling is that your comparison may be a bit heavy handed to make a point. I see your reasoning, but lets not start making statements about absolutes in logic or the snowflakes are going to melt.

My original comment refered to "policing" of social behaviors. Using a 3rd party program to insta kill mobs or teleport is a completely different issue than "kill stealing". "systems" is a broad term..
With FTE it doesn't change the base system of hitting a mob for 10 damage = 10 damage received. Its placing a restriction on who can interact with the mob in a few different ways. That is regulation.
Changes on who can, how often, etc, are regulations. They benefit DBG.
We can talk about things like lockouts on the AoC, that is a regulation and its not there to make the game better or more "fun". Its main purpose is for player retention...

They just released a test update and said that now mobs will be locked when spawning for a short period to keep people from attacking it. ??? what social behavior will arise from this?

I don't think this implementation is solely for the good of the game. There is some underlying benefit for DBG but I leave that for others to decide. I would just be making assumptions.

.

None of the issues around cheating have anything to do with the billing systems and are not what FTE is looking to solve.

Why post it? Like he said, so people know..most people aren’t aware the feedback was hidden in a generic bug report post.

As for the bugs caused by this change to core game mechanics being posted already, it was. Time stamps exist.

Because I want to make sure that the developers see what bugs people are experiencing and multiple reports help on that.

Why do you really care that I asked someone last week to also post the bugs that they reported in one of the many threads about the subject also in the bug forum where it would be of more use?

I disagree.

There are varying levels of cheating at stake and at the top end you have cheat applications that interacts with a game client which is also capable of accepting financial information. However you want to spin it, it is directly related.

You've already implied they should just let cheaters cheat because they'll always cheat.

However, they are releasing FTE on a single experimental server that is a fork of Live - who cares if it doesn't meet some social experiment that you believe is happening. If it works great, we now have a system in place that gives Joe the solo Warrior a chance against Ben the automated Necromancer without the need of calling in his entire guild to compete.

If it doesn't work, it's isolated and its a work in progress.