Summary: Vendetta had it's own version of Black Monday.

Some people are upset because they are only multi-millionares instead of billionares.

This thread then veered off-topic and into the vastness of space.

Yeah, let's just lock it and ignore it. The difference between Black Monday and this game is that Vendetta--unlike the stock market, regardless of the SEC--has this clear set of rules, which don't change without notice. That's why we bother to pay you guys for it: we know what we're getting, we like it and we invest our time in reliance upon it.

If you felt that what you had inserted into the production server had run amok, of course you should change it. But to do so sans notice to those who had relied upon the rules of the game that were established in the last update? That's a breach of trust, and from what I've seen, trust and faith in this Dev team is the only thing keeping the wheels grinding forward on this conceptually excellent but underpowered game we all like.

So, unless there's some other explanation than "Yeah, we screwed some of you guys after you'd invested tens of hours of gametime. Tough shit, we don't want to hear anymore about it," which is about what SarahAnne just said... poor judgment, guys.

before this thread gets locked for being VO's 1984....

this is utter bullshit.

due to the hard work that was put in to organizing trade routes, running the cargo, stockpiling the goods so that the sales market doesnt crash in that particular sector. we get fucked in the ass by an update.

thank you for your updates. thank you for the opportunity to be in this community. but i demand one of two things. either a "1hr. pre-update warning" with a detailed list of things to come on the day's update, or full reimbursal of the invested time for the cargo runs.

You were exploiting a bug. It was fixed. I see no problem here.

What bug!? They set the prices to what they were, and they were left in effect for a long while. Never did anyone say, "hey, we mean to fix that, it's a bug." In fact, nothing was said about it, because it was done intentionally. The profit margins were game-wide and not so large as to indicate an error of entry by the Devs (which they weren't).

That's not exploiting.

yeah, exploiting a bug....

just as much as using the turbo button is a "bug"....

"STOP FLYING FASTER!!! IT'S A BUG!!!!"

when the economics of the game were changed, it was intentional. i wish people would stop using the term "bug" for the gameplay of this MMO. when something is implimented into the game, it's always intentional. when something happens that the devs didnt do (ie. removing engines from ships), and is a secondary effect of something they did.... THAT'S A BUG.

having a UIT trader based character, money IS the reason to do this thing we call "TRADING". it's not a pleasant thing to find out that your hard work was demolished in an act that is uncontrollable (manditory auto-updates when starting up the game), and there is no way to get it fixed. this will be viewed as complaining/whining, but this is what we traders do for a living in this game.

how about removing the "firing bug" ingame, somehow we can destroy other ships, and pirates are exploiting that bug.

Wow, I've changed my mind! This is truly horrible!
Almost as bad as that time they made it impossible to turbo backwards without using any energy!

Yeah, and just like that one, this was an unplanned, unintended game effect of the Devs. And just like that one, this one involved no investment of time that was later made worthless!

Oh, wait.

Why did you guys invest so much time into an economy based activity when you knew that big changes were coming to said economy?

so all of the minerals scattered around the universe have been changed too? that was explained... not the economy. they changed the economy once already.

please point me to a sticky thread created by the devs stating the date of this change. then upon that, tell me why we are told that it's "black monday" rejected from a thread, and pretty much told that we have nothing and to "suck it up".

prove that shit, then maybe i'll understand.

[EDIT] either prove, or for god's sake, some dev/guide get in here and fucking apologize for this shit.

In before LOCK!

The Devs have been saying that economy changes were in order for ages.

Furthermore, RE: Exploiting

Example: Crackbotting

Here's an example of a totally unintended consequence of the Devs AI code. And for a while, the devs had no idea about it. However, whether or not they SAID it was an exploit, anyone who did it knew that it was operating against the intended nature of the game.

The Devs didn't need to say it.

If you undertake exploiting a bug that YOU FOUND, instead of reporting it, that comes with certain risks. Occasionally risks turn into realitites.

Hey Snax, I bet you a month's subscription that before the major changes to the econ happen, there's some warning. Before the ores get all rearranged? Notice. Before there's an impact on your costs because repairs are in the next update? Notice. Before things cost more because of a dynamic econ? Notice.

And this wasn't even in an update. They just quietly changed it with an artificially imposed profit cap and never said a word. Not after, until questioned; certainly not before.

Shape: crackbotting was a side effect of poor code. This was not. The prices of goods were set deliberatly where they were. Big difference.

Alright, maybe it's more like that time they made it impossible to give people all your money, kill the program without changing sectors or logging off, log back on, get your money back, and bam! Double your money!
That took a bit of a time investment...

In before the lock >_>

Stock market crash, go eat some crumbs and do menial jobs until it improves.

To quote Ray:

Because people were making too much money trading goods, the maximum prices of a lot of the goods were lowered. This is probably why you're not able to make as much money per trip anymore.

If the devs were concerned that certain people had found a way to make an unbalancing amount of money (in their opinion), why the hell would they give those people a warning that they were about to remove those methods?

To quote DL:

My 16 million credit per hour in system trade route no longer works

Poor bastard. I can truly, truly empathize with your pain.

The economy changes that have been discussed time and again were changes to a new, dynamic economy based on true supply and demand, and change that was give then "in about two weeks" speech 7 months ago, and has yet to occur.

The change that did happen was to a set of max prices put in place by the dev team. It wasn't an exploit, the devs set the prices. Then I invested hours and hours trading the new trade goods, only to have those prices, set BY THE DEVS, suddenly judged wrong and changed WITHOUT NOTICE, meaning all my time spent was judged to be worth nothing and apparently neither is my patronage of this game. The devs basically said "fuck you players, we don't care how much time you spent, too damned bad."

I understand that settings and game rules change, but making such a fundamental change when you know people have already invested time in the current system is wrong, and all of you who are playing devils advocate are only doing so because you hadn't invested any time in it. Had you, you'd be angry too.

Maybe, but I like to think I'd be clever enough to figure out that I'm angry at myself for doing something as stupid as stockpiling cargoes.

So, tough shit, [verbal abuse sanitized by Whistler xoxox]

Snax, again, this wasn't something that a few people discovered and exploited. These were the prices that the Devs themselves set, around the galaxy, open for all to see.

I don't necessarily agree. And I'm not playing devils advocate. Personally I think one of the biggest problems with this game is how bloody easy it is to make money. That and how many people do nothing but spend their time finding the "exploitable" trade routes.

I personally don't think this was anything even remotely like a fuck you to the players. Instead I think the devs went and did what needed to be done in order to maintain some sense of balance in the game for future developments.

I mean, how pissed off do you think people would be if as soon as player pilotable caps roll in, and right off the bat Tumble and Lecter are running around with a fleet of them because they found a few trade routes that were an unintended consequence of a faulty system put together in a short period of time by the developer team?

Regardless, while I agree it probably sucked big time, and I too would have been miffed if it was me, I don't believe it was the wrong thing to do.