I would just like to point out, before this thread gets locked. I have a few videos of you all (not all players, but all abusing) the instant logout thing. I even have a video of one guy who claimed his "instant logout" during a fight is due to "lag" (I'm looking at you Kirk).

I do not want to be an asshole and report you guys, but you all should be aware that the previous poster has said that if I can provide times and dates (I can do better thanks to ShadowPlay) that administrative action WILL be taken.

I will be the first to admit that in the last few times this has happened it has been in jest, or funny. But please stop it. I will be reporting you in the future and you can expect a spanking if you are caught.

[I just thought I would take the time to say this in a silly thread that you all will probably read]

STOP IT, IT IS NOT FUNNY ANYMORE....

On the one hand, broader awareness of who might be cheating in X way could be useful...if I observe someone magically doing something during one encounter, I'm likely to just ignore it (truth be told, I've observed more than a few people consistently doing the same magic stuff for years and just not cared enough to worry about it, but that's me). But if I know someone else had the same issue with the same character and ticketed it, I'd probably think about it harder and might also report it.

On the other, the real issue is transparency about what could be getting abused in-game, not by whom...so posting ticketed issues without character identifiers would probably be sufficient and would certainly be less inflammatory.

In other news, this thread was completely worth it just to have Inc. also refer to Bojan as "BJs".

(eyeroll), I just kept going with your acronym and didn't read anything into it.

Subtlety - it's key for classy trolling ;)

Rambunctious Propecia. This is a person I have seen doing extra-magical things like warping at exactly 0m from a station. Please do something about him!!!

On the other, the real issue is transparency about what could be getting abused in-game, not by whom...so posting ticketed issues without character identifiers would probably be sufficient and would certainly be less inflammatory.

I wouldn't have any problem with that. I would still ask for timing leeway though (at least "report + 30 days"), for us to investigate it and have a response, before the rumormill goes completely bonkers.

Timing is actually one of the most stressful and unpleasant aspects of these "public" issues, particularly situations like the PK thing. If the forums are on-fire and exploding and people are screaming at us in tickets that they're quitting because we're evil bastards.. we're completely in damage-control mode. If Ray's already locked into a contractually-obligated development cycle, I can't just pull him off to help me build a workaround for some bad behaviour, or to scour the logs.

If that doubles-up with an already bad-time in development-land (like the PK thing did, on the back-end of the server migration, when stuff was still crashing randomly), that really makes it an extra craptastic situation for us.. and the end-result will usually be worse for the game and community, because we have to "do something" and we don't have the time or headspace to take the kind of nuanced action we might prefer.

This is why tickets are always a good idea, and the place to start for contentious issues and concerns. And explain not just the basics, but the full ramification and concern of what's going on. Because Curt handles tickets now, and may not initially appreciate the scope of what you're reporting, and it may not get to me until later.

But, back to transparency.. there would need to be no identifiers of the accused in the public post. No references to guilds, suspicions of alts, easily-decoded pasts of chat, or anything else. The "complaints" that this OP references are usually directed as specific individuals and guilds, and that would definitely not be ok. But hey, if actual transparency is the goal, public reports of anonymized issues, free of inflammatory accusation, and after we have reasonable time to look into it.. that would be fine.

Assuming framing of the issue (i.e., the support ticket's gripe) is appropriately anonymized, the "reasonable time" aspect doesn't really matter that much, does it?

If these are supposed to be FYIs posted for transparency's sake, there really shouldn't be any discussion - by the OP or others - of what's being posted. If there's a gameplay issue to discuss spun off from one, Suggestions would be the place for that.

Still...just talking about this seems to reinforce the lack of built-in forum support for limiting things as discussed, and (even assuming there isn't spin-off inflammatory crap to juggle, too) having a mod handle it manually would be a lot of work for little gain.

Assuming framing of the issue (i.e., the support ticket's gripe) is appropriately anonymized, the "reasonable time" aspect doesn't really matter that much, does it?

Any programmer worth his salt knows that a bug/glitch takes a while to fix, depending on how deep and interwoven it is with other things. He is asking for an opportunity to fix it before it becomes a public knowledge that can be exploited before it's actually fixed.

Oh right, you're just a clueless lawyer.

Assuming framing of the issue (i.e., the support ticket's gripe) is appropriately anonymized, the "reasonable time" aspect doesn't really matter that much, does it?

It has been our experience that even the suspicion of a serious exploit or issue can be as bad or worse than the actual problem.

Even if we say "there is zero evidence to support the existence of this problem", some people will still believe that it does, and in general we don't say that if we haven't had time to actually look into it yet.. in the meantime, the rumormill will go completely nuts and people will de-facto assume that it is a massive problem.

This stuff then echoes around the community, and the greater internet, for a long time to come. There are still confused Google Play-Store negative reviews that reference VO having "spyware" because of the big TGFT-plugin thread. That shit never goes away.

So, the reasonable-time thing still matters, so we can at least "call BS" on totally erroneous reports, especially if it's a fairly complex thing for us to measure. (Or, more obviously, so we can fix problems that do exist).

Still...just talking about this seems to reinforce the lack of built-in forum support for limiting things as discussed, though, and even assuming there isn't spin-off inflammatory crap having a mod handle it would be a lot of work for little gain.

Yeah, the value-to-time ratio on this seems pretty poor, to me. But, perspectives differ, I don't see the OP examples as really having the merit to drive this issue, either.

Oh right, you're just a clueless lawyer.

Joyless, figure out how to respond to people without being a douche. Or don't post here. Stick to explaining the issue at hand.

Any programmer worth his salt knows that a bug/glitch takes a while to fix, depending on how deep and interwoven it is with other things. He is asking for an opportunity to fix it before it becomes a public knowledge that can be exploited before it's actually fixed.

Oh right, you're just a clueless lawyer.

Thanks for explaining - now, if you'd be so kind as to let the Devs know they've massively screwed up for well over a decade by having https://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/2 as a public forum, your work here will be done!

There's nothing special about potential exploits or suspected cheating, or about forum tickets. BJs could just have easily made a post in Suggestions or Bugs without naming names/guilds that outlined the behavior observed, how he thought it was cheating, and how he suspected it was being accomplished...instead of using a support ticket. That would not, as far as I know, be inappropriate and would cause all the same issues just raised.

Short of aggressive moderation and a BIG RED FLAG to use support tickets and support tickets only, I don't see the forums ever being scrubbed of such discussions, however unfortunate.

There's nothing special about potential exploits or suspected cheating, or about forum tickets. BJs could just have easily made a post in Suggestions or Bugs without naming names/guilds that outlined the behavior observed, how he thought it was cheating, and how he suspected it was being accomplished...instead of using a support ticket. That would not, as far as I know, be inappropriate and would cause all the same issues just raised.

There isn't much value to these kinds of anonymized reports as the primary means of addressing an issue, from a development standpoint. We (the developers) need all the specific information anyway, and that should only be submitted via ticket. Secondary transparency is the only value, and that merit has to be carefully weighed against the amount of time-consuming BS that is created by the public discussion (when it's after we fixed/investigated the issue, and anonymous, the negative impact is probably minimal.. but by then, we usually announce things ourselves).

But, reporting an issue with the minimum amount of polarizing accusation is certainly beneficial in general. The problem historically has been that even when someone tries to do that, someone else will jump in to try and publicly de-anonymize things as quickly as possible.

People just really need to submit tickets on potential exploit issues, and give us at least a month.. maybe two if possible. We're already working 80+ hours, we don't have a lot of spare cycles, and beating us over the head with a public flamewar is a pretty terrible way to address anything.

Short of aggressive moderation and a BIG RED FLAG to use support tickets and support tickets only, I don't see the forums ever being scrubbed of such discussions, however unfortunate.

I agree. We are dialing up the moderation as a result. I never expect any public forum to be perfect, but I think we can aspire to (and achieve) a better standard than what has been common.

I don't understand why a request to be able to "continue complaining more about things" (and continue exascerbating tensions that everyone would rather just go away) is getting such aggressive attention from you, Incarnate.

I think you've made it as clear as possible, short of banning people who keep going against your request. At a certain point one would think you'd stop playing whackamole and toss a gasbomb down the hole and put an end to it.

I don't understand why a request to be able to "continue complaining more about things" (and continue exascerbating tensions that everyone would rather just go away) is getting such aggressive attention from you, Incarnate.

Because, in some ways, this is a change in policy compared to years past. We weren't been enforcing this nearly as hard in the past, as it wasn't been as big of a problem.

But we are definitely going to be enforcing things more intensively as we move forward. I would just as soon say what needs to be said, now, and then link to this thread in the future.

If there are legitimate concerns about transparency or some other issue, I'd rather address them now and get them out of the way.

So...Bugs, Suggestions, and RP will all be getting a big ol' red-text, bold caps sticky or something about suspected cheating/exploits NOT being publicly posted and MUST be submitted by ticket?

inb4redtext

Slime (4 years ago) made sunflares heat seek me! However you cant hide that you can do that cause it makes them beep like a seeker

Suns...or captured turret launchers? I definitely pulled that trick on Strat, who thought they were the gems from Hell or something.

They were flares but like I said it makes them beep like seeking missiles so it isn't like you can get away with doing it

And it was 4 years ago so who knows if it still can happen

Did you put in a ticket?

Re: Support ticket #####
Subj: !nc@rn@t3 is a cheat!

Some Itani dude named !nc@rn@t3 has some kind of invulnerable God-Mode cheat. Wah!