I did not set out to write a vitriol-laced article and I hope it has remained so. I simply wanted to write as neutral as possible timeline of recent events and yet also be able to voice my opinion (which is honestly free from venom - I have a lack of faith, not anger regarding the City of Heroes staff).
As for my bias, let me explain. I was not personally affected by the punishment although I know people who were. The ones who had "powerleveled " their characters quickly met such punishments with an indifferent air, or as one expressed, "eh, I took my chances." Even the players who had their characters level-pacted and were punished expressed the notion that receiving compensation of 30-days of play in addition to having their deleted characters restored to be fair.
However, the opinion that struck me (and one I agree with) is the notion that the City of Heroes staff is consistently making one poor decision after another regarding Mission Architect, starting with Positron's original "Abusing Mission Architect" thread.
I played almost entirely on the City of Heroes' server known as "Justice" and in that time was simply amazed by the wonderful community on that server. In looking over the people who have been censured on the forum as well as those who have announced (and carried forward) their intentions to quit the game they enjoyed playing, it appears to my (biased) count that most of them are from Justice.
The fact that such a number include persons with many years of playing City of Heroes as well as players like myself with one year or fewer attests to the strong community that exists on Justice, and I'd like to take this opportunity to express my admiration for all of you I have encountered, regardless of whether or not we agreed (or even liked one-another). A game such as City of Heroes can only exist upon such communities and it is a testament the character of the people in the game who belong to one.
Finally, this document is entirely my own, save quotations made of certain individuals. I wrote it not to hurt anyone, but hopefully to serve as a springboard for conversation.
I'll leave it to the future to determine if any such conversation is officially possible.
--enri
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While your timeline and some of your arguments are quite valid, the one thing not mentioned is the fact that most of the exploits for which people were punished and/or banned are expressely or obliquely referenced in the EULA, which every single player must agree to prior to entering the game, every time they play. The fact that few people ever read any part of the EULA is moot-- it is there to cover NCSoft/COX in these cases.
ReplyDeleteSo, regardless of our opinion on the matter, every player who did questionable acts is liable for those questionable acts.
That being said, the COX staff are most often reactive rather than proactive. Rather than reading the posts, responding, and curtailing further discussion by a well-reasoned response, they tend to ban first and (not) ask questions later. I agree with you that this most likely caused additional issue among the affected player base and actually caused COX staff additional work that could have been avoided.
I'm a 60+ month vet of this game. I've seen similar, vituperative exchanges occur when COX "nerfed" certain powers/sets, during ED, before and after the first server events, etc. Unfortunately, each time the company chose to follow the ban first and then quietly apologize later.
Some of the blame does rest with the player base, however. There seems to be far too many that have the belief that if COX didn't want them to do it, they would program things in such as way that I cannot do it. Forgetting the fact that there are 100k+ players against only about 20 programmers or so-- the players are always going to be better at finding exploits and weaknesses that the programmers and staff cannot think of, find, or program against.
Could and should the COX staff allow for a more open debate on subjects like this? Yes, I think they should. Should the player-base respect that this is the company's software and their rules are law within the confines of it? Absolutely.
Which means that somewhere in the middle is likely the truth and how things should work. Hopefully not too many players will leave the game because of this miscommunication and series of events and hopefully the staff have learned some lessons and will be more open and willing to talk next time.
You're right, I should add something regarding the EULA.
ReplyDeleteHowever, to some degree I think it still dances around part of the issue. As you say, it grants the staff the right to do whatever to someone for a "questionable" act, and yet the definition of "questionable" is intentionally left vague.
In the past, I think that it was easily understood and even acknowledged to be likely the only way to have the flexibility to deal with issues as they arrived and from my experience, the player base support it.
However, we're now in the Post-Meow world, where the staff has proven that they are not above handing out punishments weeks later for things that they consider "questionable". I think in some quarters, it would be seen that the staff has added fear, uncertainty, and doubt to a situation that had little of it in the past.
Certainly a lot of that has to do with the sheer newness of MA - for the staff as much as for the players. I think it critical for both sides to understand that's it new to the other.
Regarding the player base expecting that an uncorrected exploit equaling the condoning of such behavior, I agree with you to some point. However, I'd also point out that the players are operating under some very nebulous definitions of what's right and wrong according to the devs.
In the case of the "publishing blackout", I personally reject any sort of use of that as a reason why at the very least the devs could have publicly stated soemthing to the effect that they were aware of the activity and would correct it as soon as the period was over - remember, although we speculated about the blackout, there was no confirmation until well after it was over.
I simply have a hard time believing the staff are they victims they seem to imply.
Would there still have been people engaged in such behaviors even after receiving a warning about it? Sure, but at least at that point the moral rightness would lie with the staff rather than the situation where there is no one in the right.
I read through this whole thing and I'm left with one question. So?
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty much standard practice in MMOs dating back to at least Ultima Online to ban anybody who uses any means, be it a hack or just some new feature, to level at 2 or more times the normal rate, or amass 2 or more times the wealth of any other activity.
The only regrettable thing is that some people apparently got banned who were not using the exploit. While their bans were overturned, that should not have happened. That kind of collateral damage in punishment also commonly happens in MMOs, but it is bothersome to see the innocent, or third parties that benefit from the spoils of exploits but didn't exploit themselves, and likely had no knowledge of their benefit having been derived from an exploit, get punished alongside the guilty.
Nice job collecting the info with an unbiased slant. To me, this was the biggest game story of 2009, and hopefully will serve as an example to other game companies in the future who hope to avoid customer service nightmares like this one.
ReplyDeleteI'll be honest with you. The main complaint I have seen and the main reason most people have claimed to leave is the hilarious "Posi hurt my feelings" rant.Do I think they handled this the best way they could? Not really. They could have handled it better, I'm sure. But, I don't see how they violated anyones rights in way, shape, or form.
ReplyDelete2nd Anonymous, to the best of my knowledge, you're the first to mention "rights".
ReplyDeleteNot sure where that comes from.
Enrious, you obviously havent read the forums enough. Quite a few people claimed thier rights were violated. Many tried to say their freedom of speech was violated by deleting thier threads. Though you have done a really good job putting the info down on here, you seem to lean more towards the "devs screwed up" side of the argument. To be honest the players that violated the EULA are the ones who are actually to blame. The level pact people from what I have heard have been taken care of so they no longer have anything to complain about. We will also most likely never hear how they took care of those people, because that is a CS issue and only CS and the player involved really needs to know what happened in those cases.
ReplyDeleteWhy are you commenting on what is said in the forums? I assumed this comment section was for this blog.
ReplyDeleteTo your point about the players being to blame, no. The devs *did* screw up, in deviating from years of established precedent on how these situations are handled. My wolf farm toons weren't deleted, nor my Winter Lord toons. How many toons got deleted from the Cathedral of Pain exp exploit? None. How about from the Welcome to Vanguard mission bonus exploit? From the Cora Fruit runs of old? That's right, none. No 3 day bans, either.
This was nowhere close to the first time that leveling had taken place faster than they wanted. They came down on it because it happened in their brand new shiny feature that was getting a lot of press, and because such a large percentage of the player base was doing it. Frankly, the situation made them look like incompetent fools.
So, when the dev apologists bring up the EULA and waive its almost-relevant text about like shiny scales of justice, explaining that the players are to blame for the situation, they too assume the mantle of stubborn idiocy that the devs so proudly now wear. They type their little fingers into knots coming up with inane analogies, comparison to U.S. law and ethical proselytizing, but it doesn't change the fact that the deletions and bans were a surprise, retroactive punishment and patently unfair in all conventional senses of the word "fair".
Anonymous3, I thought I did a fairly decent job keeping up with the forums, although as you point out a lot of the posts were deleted, so if there were people complaining that their rights (as an example the right to free speech granted by the Constitution) were violated, then I'd agree with you in saying that it was a non sequitor.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I have attempted to be as fair as I could be, espsecially in the first two ("factual") sections, I do hold the view that the devs hold the majority of the responsibility for what occured, seeing that they have the majority of the control of the game.
You argue that it's a CS issue and to a degree, I can buy that. However, I'd argue it's more a PR issue than anything.
Of course, as Sudsboy listed after you numerous instances where similar behavior occured and nothing happened.
And given that the devs have never stated precisely what abuse is or how fast is too fast, it gives an area where the devs have the power to retroactively change the rules and punish you for something that they theoretically hadn't even decided if it was an exploit when you did it.
For some reason, that seems wrong to me, but I acknowledge that the staff has the power to do whatever they want to do within the game.
Of course, some players are excercising the highest right as it pertains to the game - not playing.
I'd agree that this is an exceptionally difficult issue for the devs to deal with. Traditionally they just stick their heads in the sand and hopes it goes away.
ReplyDeleteHowever in a post CoX Cryptic world, the manner in which the devs are fostering a culture of fear and uncertainty, especially in the die hards of CoX, goes especially contrary to the idea of expanding the user base.
While it is the dev's right to penalize the players for whatever infraction they deem to be exploitive, it is the obtuse and secretive manner in which they do it that makes players want to throw their hands up and leave the game.
Frankly, I don't think the devs did anything to apologize for, here. I didn't get a ban, so perhaps it's easy for me to say this, but if someone leveled from 1-50 in essentially no time at all, and their defense was, "Oh, I was in a level pact, and I totally didn't know the other guy was powerleveling me?"
ReplyDeleteHeck, yes, I'd break out the ban stick. Because honestly, at least half of those people are lying, and probably 99% of them are. Letting them off the hook is essentially giving some people a free level 50 with literally no effort required...they made the character, they logged them in and pacted them (probably in most cases with another of their own accounts), and when they logged them back in, they were level 50. Either they did it on purpose (in which case, they deserve to have that character deleted for abusing an exploit) or they didn't (in which case, what do they care? They can just remake the character and be right back where they were a few days ago.)
It seems to me like Customer Support took reasonable actions under the circumstances, and they were generous to a fault in giving those people their powerleveled characters back.
John, your argument assumes that the person in your example has done something wrong. It's fine with the devs to level someone to 50 without them ever logging in as part of a leveling pact. They even gave one player (Smurphy, I believe) explicit permission to powerlevel people for in-game currency.
ReplyDeleteFor the sake of clarity, I'll repeat: they gave written permission to players allowing them to powerlevel characters in return for compensation.
All of the "players must be punished for their abberant behavior" crowd seem to want to turn this into a moral or ethical issue, when it is most certainly not that. Nothing anyone did in leveling their toons with MA was morally or ethically wrong, and I'd love for anyone to put forth an argument that demonstrates otherwise. Bonus points if any of you pinheads can manage the argument without the usual "get thee behind me, powerleveler!" rhetoric.
In fact, the idea that leveling to 50 with no personal effort or risk is wholly acceptable is backed up by the dev's policy regarding level pacted toons (which were restored after being banned/deleted/whatever). They apparently don't like the idea of someone doing it outside a level pact scenario, and they exercised their right to be petulant, petty little lords of their domain by banning folks who did it. None of that means there's anything inherently wrong with PLing or farming though, or that "cheating" of any type is even possible in a situation where the rules are not clearly codified. It just means they didn't like it, took action against those who did it, and won't get revenue from those who left because of their punitive actions.
This whole thing was a business decision for them, not an ethical or moral one. They thought punishing MA powerleveling would keep more people in game than letting it go on would.
Sure, the people who obviously broke the rules should have expected punishment, they broke the rules, right?
ReplyDeleteBut literally every single other breaking of this exact rule has resulted in a patch to remove the offending tactic and no punishment.
Shortly after launch I remember falling into a group that ran the first couple of missions of Positron's task force in a particular way, thus racking up TONS of experience very quickly. I ran with them that one time, gained several levels, and never did it again. I wasn't punished. No one was. A couple of weeks later a patch quietly removed that exploitable mission pattern by shuffling up the TF's mission order.
Let's use one of those dreaded analogies.
Imagine that you live in a dorm for 3 years, and for three years you played somewhat loud music in the afternoon. Usually it doesn't bother anyone but sometimes it does.
It's technically against the rules and you signed an entry form saying that you can be thrown out for noise complaint. Still, no one on the dorm staff ever does anything more than say, "Hey, too loud" and as long as you turned down the music when warned, nothing was ever made of it, even for repeat offenders.
Then one day you play your music a little too loud and the staff throws you out, and then posts some angry fliers about disrespecting the dorm. A week later the staff throws out everyone else who's played loud music over the past three weeks. I'd say the people booted are allowed to feel shocked and dismayed and even unfairly treated.
Human beings are built on pattern recognition. It's how we form our most basic viewpoints and it's the driving force of our behavior. No number of EULAs stating the "rules" mean a thing if those rules are never enforced.
Furthermore, we live in a society of double standards, of things we're supposed to pretend are bad to do but which we all know don't really matter. We live in a society which freaks out about teenage sexting but allows a nearly-nude 15 year-old Brittney Spears to drive an issue of Rolling Stone magazine to all-time high sales without blinking an eye.
We live in a society that gets "hard on teen drinking" when every single one of us drank as teenagers and saw no problem with it, and don't regret doing it.
So you can pretend all you want that "the rules were there" and that it justifies the dev's behavior, but the truth is that in all areas of life there are the RULES and the rules, the former recorded on paper and the latter defined by the reality of our lives, by the tone of the culture around us.
For better or for worse, CoX has cultivated a culture for years that emphasizes creative and casual play and demphasizes the hard-nosed approach to balance and gaming that many other MMOs obsess about.
CoX has also cultivated a culture that shakes a finger at and then winks at exploiters. I recall devs stating at various points that they don't like exploits, but they don't blame exploiters who are creative enough to find the flaws in their systems.
To turn a heel on that general attitude is what makes everyone feel so rattled by what's happened lately. It's not the actual actions taken so much as this sudden sense that the culture we fell in love with has shifted or vanished altogether.
Just my two anonymous cents.
Nice post, Anonymous. Good stuff.
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, I'm not a fan of analogies because I find that they just distract from the point being illuminated.
Watch someone post something like "yeah, but how loud were you playing your music this time? High enough decibel levels can cause permanent blah blah blah".
A few things I think are worth mentioning.
ReplyDeleteDevelopers are, for all intent a purpose with NCSoft, just grunts. They get very little actual say in dealing with Customer service issues or anything beyond design and code cleanups after a mess is made.
On the forums, their hands are seriously tied when responding to such issues as, if they rant like customers, they can rest assured they're putting their neck out on the chopping block.
The forums are heavily censored, yes. Its a business first and foremost. Games of other makers who have not censored posts when its really rioting or calling for revolts of exoduses have met with cascades of losses of customers. It is a fine line they have to walk and they'll err on the side of draconian tactics rather than the opposite.
Let's face it, CoX is a low grade, low quality support game. It is dated in just about every aspect of game play. It has a semi loyal fan base but its age is really starting to show.
NCSoft is known as a "dollar you to death" game publisher. The business model that they're using with CoX is to essentially milk that semi loyal playerbase with small, carrot before the cart tid bits like costume packs, etc.
All that said and as romantic as it is to think that the players can rally and overthrow the actions of NCSoft/CoX with a loud resounding voice, good luck. Many games before it tried and failed. Money says they'll just relegate the game to a "for free" but pay for "extra services" status before they'd capitulate to a few thousand disgruntled customers. Again, that's the level of what you mean to NCSoft.
If you really truly dislike what's going on, then just cancel your account subscription and move on. To be honest, that's what many of us have done from years past as we saw the writing on the wall along time ago with this mess.
And to those thinking that Champions Online will be your hero and rescue you from the clutches of the problems of CoX, think again. The game they're floundering to get going and the policy makers behind it are even worse.
"All that said and as romantic as it is to think that the players can rally and overthrow the actions of NCSoft/CoX with a loud resounding voice, good luck."
ReplyDeletePersonally, I never thought anything I said here was going to make a bit of difference to the developers. I certainly never entertained any fantasies of changing the way NCSoft runs the CoX franchise. All I wanted to do was be honest about how they are running their business, so that if one person happens to do their homework before buying the product, I can head them off at the pass.
I cancelled my account almost 2 weeks before the furor over MA hit full stride, but this stuff still chaps my rear. The guys who made these decisions, whoever they may be, are a bunch of douchebags. Just wanting to speak my mind.
Cheers!