i dont do the whole forum thing but heard seth was in trouble soo here i am if seth banned you HE IS RIGHT seth is the best admin bd will have and ever have goto other wolrds where the admins take weeks too reply too your messages you never miss the water till the well runs dry remeber that anyway seth should bann all of you farmers





-bugz-

Your kind words are very much appreciated, but I think you missed my main point.



The strength of my position is irrelevant to me. This is a matter of ideology to me. I play the game how I think it should be played, and it just so happens that often lines up with what the admins and developers agree with. If I have to do something questionable to keep balance, I'll probably do it and eat the consequences. It was wrong to ban me way back for kicking that player, but these were two very different situations. Mine didn't involve breaking any established precedents. NO's move did.

The fact is... I did do it for purity sake... and NO did do it in a nefarious way. For those who don't know me, they can think what they like... for those who do know me, know deep in their heart that I'm right.



Guerrilla warfare is not the same as slave abuse. One is using diplomacy, the other is breaking conventions and ruining the purity of my game. Like I outlined, there are more than a few things that are technically possible with game mechanics that shouldn't be. You weren't around back in the days before admins dealt with gray areas, there was far more cheating than exists now.

Don't test me on what is within the game's spirit. While we were defending against NO's abuse, you were out camping. I was called awake at 5am on Saturday and didn't leave my computer chair for 12 hours coordinating the defense that I shouldn't have had to coordinate had the game flaw not been there and had NO shown some backbone and not abused things they knew were not to be abused.

Seth made a tough call to limit the damage, and it was sanctioned by Michael. Never will every game flaw be fixed, and each era shouldn't be ruined as new flaws pop up. The admins are here to mitigate that.

Laying in wait to spring a trap is fine, but not single use colonies! I can't see how this difference escapes you. If those colonies were there before the need was there, it'd be fine. The problem was the process.

Placement -> Need -> Action = allowed
Need -> Placement -> Action = not allowed

There are varying degrees of severity, and the admins, as people do, should handle these situations with varying degrees of influence.

I explained why the two colonies were banned, the African colony was not pre-banned. He had already committed the abuse and was currently being used to further said abuse. The other bans I see you have no problem with.

Nothing will ever be simple, but this kind of play is not something I'll stand for. I don't care how many agree with NO, or who agrees... maybe I am biased because I am always on the side that is "consistently" better, so I have little need to break through fortified territory I would otherwise be unable to. The fact remains, the slave colonies were punished, not the main NO alliance. The backlash against Seth for merely preventing NO from hiding in that shieldable colony is ridiculous and is being used as an excuse when clearly their units were not hindered from furthering any plans they had that didn't involve sitting still, which I don't think will win many wars.

Seth, your last is a well written, thorough, direct reply and I thank you for it.

Where we depart from your reasonable reply here is while you state your actions are meant to avoid a user base headache, it is all too frequently the key cause of one.

Repeatedly, to the point that EVERY era I've ever played with you as admin, you have done something to cause serious repercussions to someone within the game for some period of time. In the two eras I have played with other admins, the game functioned quite well, ended without incident and no one had much to say save congrats to the winners.

Perversely you believe, and others seem to support, that action ahead of a rule being violated is not only acceptable, but required. Frankly, this may be too great a hurdle for us to overcome, as, honestly, I anticipated being faced with the charge you ban people without them doing anything wrong that you'd shrink away a little sheepish. I'd not thought you'd double down with, "Damn right, and that's the way it has to be done."

Fundamentally we disagree.

The moment you take action because of your anticipation, is when you're wrong. I realize, now, you're sitting there thinking, "I can't believe this tool thinks I should WAIT for someone to break a rule before I stop it from happening."

Honestly, I think the real flaw in your thinking comes from just how close you are to the game's most visible, active, interesting player. You write, "More often, I am called to ban farms, before they can become farms, or spam slaves before they can spam too much of an alliance' assets and cause harm to their ability to defend themselves against their slave masters."

Your legitimate response to calls to take action before something is wrong is, "Hush. Nothing's happened."

If you have legitimate reason to judge something as wrong after it's happened, you have the power to repair the damage in a moment, convert ops, restoring units, etc. Not hard.

I've already stated, by the slave definition, every colony I've ever played is one. To Kane. To his alliance. In a future era, I would ABSOLUTELY place a colony in an enemy hive and spam the hell out of them if Kane wished it and it would help his cause, which I share. I do not need to be in his alliance to benefit from his victory.

If I can take part in it, by playing a legitimate role of spamming enemy infrastructure to limit their ability to defend against my side, I'm gonna, and not only will I, but I should be thanked by the game for doing it, as it's legit and valid.

That you consider people who share a common goal and use spam tactics to achieve it as in ANY way "slaving" is irresponsible and not within the confines of the rule as you do not apply the slave definition to my GIFT colony itself. Because I'm in GIFT? Is the only legitimate play to be IN the alliance or a sub before you can spam?

Why would that be remotely against the rules? You seem to think it is. You negate the fact sharing a purpose of defeating someone else by sacrificing yourself is not a slave colony. It may be a single purpose colony, but it's a valid purpose.

That, of course, is not what you punished here, just an example of something you would punish that should be perfectly valid. That, though, would be fine. Punish a guy who has done it AFTER he's done it and you prove he's done it. Repair as you feel you should.

But, indeed, you should allow 10 colonies to pop up on a single tick, in close proximity and where you are worried, watch for them to prove themselves to do something wrong rather than assuming they are. That isn't that difficult.

But, you don't see it, so you will believe it is.

Kevin,

I'm sorry I went camping. Apparently you feel because I was camping, I should not be concerned with what Seth did. You even go so far as to deny Seth's own words that he took action before someone did something because he anticipated them doing something.

And you suggest that because serving as a gate colony only within an alliance is now a slave colony definition and therefore what he did do to the one guy who was already that was perfectly fine. It's ridiculous honestly.

Single use colonies are a great way to achieve a sudden strategic advantage against your enemy. You're right, you are always better than the suckers you play, so you don't have to, but, they had to be creative to TRY to have any chance.

They were.

They found a colony with a gate in Africa. One they either knew of ahead of time and had there on purpose, or one they recruited in game. Either way, that colony provided them great benefit by bridging them into Africa quickly, taking the front and relocating it.

As we all know you were going to win. I was back 24 hours later and had things still been happening, you'd have had my 50+ squads to kick ass with. Complaining about what NO did harms the game you love so much. Because it was a good, fun strategy. Right now, in our hive, there's a neutral colony who has been with us all game.

He has played with you before. You trust him. He has 30 some squads ticks from all our crystals and relics. We don't touch him because you know him. But, JD could give him 10K crystals and suddenly HE becomes a NO gate. Would that be wrong? Or ok?

I think you'd go ok, because it fits your definition of fair use. I think we need to get away from individual definitions of fair use and simply ask ourselves the root question. Is it ever wrong to use a member of your alliance to the benefit of your alliance? Nope.

If those colonies, because of immaturity or lack of interest, served only a temporary purpose, juggling them in and out of the alliance is fine by me. Should be by you. Far better to have seen them do it AND kicked their butts through the hard work you put in.

You disagree and it does not remove the respect and admiration I hold for you.

My concern remains Seth's repeated method of administration which repeatedly causes issues to large portions of the player base. Ok, so this once you don't disagree with him. I'll even trust that it's because it helped you and didn't hurt you, because I know you and I don't think you display that level of self-interest.

Still, how Seth does things is clearly an issue. He also clearly has friends. Which other admins do you see any of this with?

It was against the spirit of the game, but merely to reverse the previous flaw. I shouldn't have been locked down because my computer was not as quick on the 7th race. You can win 6 races and have just an OP to show for it, lose 1 race and your whole army dies. Is that fair? No. So I fixed it.



The slave colonies made it abuse.




They did not do it of their own accord. You told them to place at x coordinates, and build x structures to be ready for x plan. It was not against BD rules, as far as the tactic goes, but using the colonies in the way that you did were indeed against the rules as specified by the creator of the game.




They weren't players quitting though, they were slaves who had served their purpose. Hence the difference. Writing it in a paragraph 10 times as long doesn't change simple facts.




He built to be a gate, he joined and was booted. After serving his purpose he was conquered. Classic slave abuse. Get a clue.




The fact that it abused the speed and freedom of a "new colony" is what made it slave abuse. So indeed it was a violation as indicated by the creator of the game.




Slave colonies have been addressed dozens of times before this, and it's something severe as it drastically changed the flow of the game, while mine did not.



The OPs were upgraded by them into silos, which your team then took to use against us. Your leader took a good deal of them. One of the multis had 30 OPs built by him alone. BD is not a game about who can get the most friends to abuse us the most free resources. Learn to play legitimately.




Who said it was your option to be removed? The relic placement was random and you had no more right to it than we did. You decided to attack it. Your fault.




Quite fairly interpreted that way, since they were new colonies placed for explicit specific purposes to be thrown away later.



He conquered a slave colony. That's farming plain and simple.




You thought it would tip the balance in your favor, just because it didn't does not make it legal.




There was enough proof for the ban, considering the creator and primary admin said so. Play on a different server if you don't like the interpretation.




I don't care if you are disappointed. You are one to share passwords, abuse farms, and use slave colonies. I try to play the game as clean as I can. I will never take lessons in morality from you. I play in a legitimate way and stray only to auto-correct things back into line with how they should be. I have a very strong belief in how things should be done and it has served me well over the many years I have played. If you disagree, you are free to be wrong. You tried a trick and stumbled through it with using slave colonies, which opened those two players to being banned. They were no longer vital to your plans, so the level of hate here on the forums is ridiculous. Obviously you're displacing your frustration from the era on Seth and it's not fair.




I keep the game clean, you disrupt clean games. That's the difference.

The camping just means that you didn't feel the sting I felt when it happened. You are arguing this from an entirely theoretical perspective and having not experienced it you fail to see how it adversely affects the game.

You seemed to have missed my handy flowchart from my previous post.

They placed the colony after there was a need, to abuse features intended to help new players enter the game. Freedom of choice for location, 100 ticks of protection, anonymity. These features were not there to help NO, not there to give them strategic options, but currently the game doesn't distinguish new players from people simply using these features to circumvent normal gameplay.

It was not a colony they found, or someone they placed weeks earlier to lie in wait... it's someone they put there on the spot to do a specific task. That's what makes it slave abuse.

I don't think it was fun to be twice as stressed, woken from sleep, and being forced to sit at my computer all day... when a normal defense would have been far easier on my mental faculties.

If that colony did that, it'd be fine. Because he wasn't placed for that explicit purpose. Now, payment for relics with tokens and things of that nature are against the ToS so NO would have to be careful exactly how they went about "paying" him.

Is it ever wrong to use a member of your alliance to the benefit of your alliance? Yes it is, if the admin determines abuses to the game mechanics. It is virtually impossible to prevent all mechanics from being abused, that's why we have admins. Features designed to help new people shouldn't be abused by the old to gain immediate temporary advantages.

Seth did what was right. Bottom line.

Kevin,

If we knew for a fact NO used multis to accomplish what they did, we would universally agree they did wrong. Hell, even they'd agree. Though Seth has hinted this might have been a multi, he has done so without open accusation mostly to flavor the direction of the conversation that not only did he not like what they did period, but he couldn't prove they weren't multis giving him an extra edge in his decision.

Plain and simply, utilization of people who support your cause to defeat an enemy you also dislike is not a slave colony. If it is, the game is broken not from a code perspective, but from an intelligence and rule perspective. Not every player can provide the level of activity required to defeat the game's best player...you.

But they can provide SOMETHING. Some aid. Pester your remote OPs. Provide a jumping ground. That they are not as active as an elite player, or that they simply don't like you and want you beaten and can only provide one benefit, does not make them a slave.

Putting someone on a spot to do a specific task should not raise to the level of "slave" colony, if that person was there for the shared goal of helping defeat an enemy and providing whatever material support he could to achieve those ends.

Frankly, I don't believe slave colonies are, at all, any real violation. In fact, I'd state it's perfectly legitimate game play for me to find five friends who can't really play this game, but who can log in once a day and send me resources, so I grow strong and can compete in game. If their purpose is that I win, and they share it with me, and I put them my alliance all that makes them is what I am to you.

Loyal, sacrificial, respectful. I have NO issue with actual players helping one another to the benefit of that group of players. Even six guys with lots of time, but no money, who decide to send all resources to one of them so he can get a full city and compete with bigger alliances sooner could be defined as slaving.

To me, the way slaves are being defined, EVERY sub alliance is, by definition a slave. They are not a stand alone alliance. Their actions are all ruled by the mother ship. They must follow without playing their own game. Of course this is ridiculous, but, so too is considering someone who puts himself in game with the single purpose of helping someone else defeat someone else.

Now we've extended the slave definition to alliance members we anticipate will only be there long enough to serve one purpose. Dangerous ground. Once NO made those colonies part of NO, they, by definition, could use them however they felt. And after they were done and inactive, as Seth has admitted, taking them over is perfectly ok.

Poor analogy.

The police may send a squad car to investigate. They may approach the men and ask them what's happening. They may be told the men suffered a flat tire half a mile down the road. They had the crow bar and came to the first house to see if someone was there to call AAA for them, as they discovered they lacked the jack.

They may leave with a thanks and handshakes.

Or they may ask the men to move on, finding their story suspicious.

But, they would not jail them before they'd done anything at all, as it is not against the law to be in the lawn of someone who is not home (and there's no reason to believe you could know they are not home or are home) with a crow bar. It is not even illegal to think of using that crow bar to break in to a house and steal stuff.

It IS illegal to actually do it.

And even once you do it, there are methods in our system to allow you to defend yourself which do not exist in BD. That all power of observation, warning, and execution of punishment exists in one person in BD is all the more reason that person MUST have fixed knowledge AND utilize his time to engage the people before taking action.

In this case it's not like he could argue the people weren't there available to him. They were actively moving ships. Talk to them.

I don't care either way if they were multis. Slaves are banned all the same.

I never said those people are slaves. If they're not conquered by NO, or placed specifically by then for a specific task... then they're not a slave.

Conquering a slave is illegal because taxation is not supposed to be given to someone you support, nor is it legal to prevent the team you're hostile with from force relocating you away. Even though this is the aim of banning the slave colony, without a proven link sometimes the spammer can get away with saying he simply doesn't want to rebel. In this case the link was proven, and therein lies the abuse.

He can provide whatever material support he wants, so long as it doesn't abuse the features intended to help new players... not further the goals of veterans hoping to abuse it for their own ends.

The game is balanced in a way that makes these sorts of situations too beneficial to the player who the slaves are helping. That's why it's a violation. Otherwise it comes down to who can gather the most friends for the most resource collection or dirty tricks.

If you don't like it... help me fix the balance of the game, but the rules will always follow what necessitates good balance, that is how game design works. So long as X feature is imbalanced to be used in X way, it will be illegal. When it gets fixed, the rules can be changed. I'm not in favor of banning everyone who does something I don't like, I'm in favor of playing a balanced game and NO ruined that.