Seth wrote:
In this scenario, I am sorry we do not see eye to eye. I do not feel I was wrong in the course of action I chose. I do see the points you are attempting to make, however aggressively, so maybe Ill think it out and put it to a test. Ill post a poll up asking if we should allow slave abuse for purposes like
1.)having friends from other worlds (or out of the blue for that matter) join specifically to be gate nodes in or near your alliance hive at a whim without the fear of repercussion
2.)providing free and easy conquers for the purpose not only of conquering, but also to spy, ion, nuke and spam squad attack when it offers strategic benefit, as long as the colonies dont share an IP address?
3.)be allowed to occasional be liberated by the conqueror, to be allowed into the alliance, trade off all resources that have accumulated, be booted again to make room for more colonies like this, as long as the colonies do not share the same IP address.
I mean really, we are going to allow it or we are not. There is no straddling the fence on this one. Not if you are going to realistically hope to police any such action in an environment that promotes it. With as much of it as would ensue, differentiating the legit from the not legit would become impossible. Especially if you understand how to jump around on IPs. IPs are the only black and white evidence that exists. (Everything else goes back to the admin making a judgement call) You would be untouchable!
So what do you think? A poll is in order?
Also, cosmin, I am sorry to have to have acted against you. I am told you are a really cool guy, and I think I remember doing some customer service for you in the past, although Im not quite sure what for. Believe me when I say that it was not a decision I enjoyed making.
Seth,
It's far more simple than you're making it out to be and any poll can be slanted by slanting the question asked. You could ask your slanted questions and show agreement with you to disprove me.
I could write an equally slanted series of questions and get huge responses in my favor.
Indeed, I believe any individual who wishes to play BD should be allowed to play the game in whatever fashion he wishes. I have ZERO issue with six friends getting together, letting one conquer the rest, forming an alliance and sending all resources to the one so he gets uber strong and can control an area.
I don't care if it's because this is a strategy they wish to employ or just because they hate the game and have no time and their buddy asked them to help him get strong.
In this era I was buying tokens. Kevin suggested I stop buying for myself and start giving to others with lower overhead. I asked him, today, why he asked that question. He said because the alliance is a team and we all benefit the greater the team benefits.
I agree entirely. Pose my question to the public and you'll see uniform agreement too. Yet, would it not be slaving? Why would I sacrifice my personal benefit for another, just because he has fewer ships and could build more with the same money? That's not in MY interests UNLESS it's allowed that MY interests expand to MORE than just MY army and includes shared goals.
I believe MOST people in BD would generally support the notion ANY individual should be allowed to play his colony as he wishes, so long as he's an actual individual. Not everyone can be the elite, always on guy. Most alliances probably never share text information and can't respond at night.
The bulk of players come on once or twice a day, make stuff and move on. However any individual wishes to utilize his colony to the goals he wishes to adopt for an era should be encouraged and allowed.
Again, I suspect most would agree with that.
But, that would mean if someone from Mars 1 who Kevin once beat and then taunted came here to develop a colony near Kevin's hive to spam him, he could ONLY do so as long as no one asked him to? Do you see how dumb that is?
As long as he's helping someone else he is considered a slave. If he does it just cause he wants to, that's fine, but not in coordination with a friend. The rule makes ZERO sense. For the rule to make sense, you must allow that friends will get together and coordinate ways to hurt someone they don't like and want to beat.
They may lack the money and time to do much damage themselves, but may be able to help someone get strong enough by letting him conquer them or sending him resources so he can build when they can not. That we would forbade someone from doing something in coordination with a friend that we have no issue with them doing alone is irresponsible.
Worse, you seem to think a spammer may just be considered a slave because he's spamming and you may ban him even if he's just some poor guy who hates Kane and wants him dead or bothered or woken up at night. Let people express themselves in game.
Get out of their way.
Ask people THAT question and see what results you have.
The problem is the way you do rules now is nonsensical.
You admit it's ok for GIFT to boot someone and let me conquer him the tick I join the alliance if that player is going to go inactive. But if he stayed and joined a sub, would it be wrong suddenly? Even you don't know.
The real key is the three things you wrote are not specifically IN the rules, enumerated with clarity as a violation of them. Until they are, they are not violations.
You have tried to write an ambiguous slave/farm catch all, but even within that, you've allowed clear slave behavior to be ok, if, but only if, this, or that, or some other thing, or, well, is today Wednesday, cause on Wednesday it's fine, but not Thursday, how can you not know this, I'm the admin and Wednesday is good day and Thursday is ban day.
You simply interpret and act without support, citing weak ambiguous rules which are fine in one case, but not another, but fine sometimes in the other too, if you think about it.
A spammer alone, is ok. A spammer who's asked to spam because a buddy wants him to is a slave.
Wait, what about Professer, he was, by your definition, a slave. Someone asked him to betray GIFT and spam. No ban? Wait, he was playing too? It's too hard to keep track.
Even you don't know what a rule violation is because you guys never bother to write down what they are.
Your job is to make rules. Provide them. Make them clear. Anything else is fair game. And if you don't like that fair game, improve the rules, but don't punish for your future improvement. You have THE easiest job in the universe.
Why make it so hard?
Let people play the game.
Get out of their way.
The drama and fun of each era would improve if you did that. You'd never know who you can trust. You'd have to protect against every betrayal.
As you wrote IN GAME, in war, it's not about who's right, it's about who's left. You altered that in your actions, making war about YOU being right, and ending a fun era before the fun could end itself.
