Where do I start...

[Nakaraska]

You want suggestions? OK. Here is a list of suggestions...

1. Ban cheaters. They exist, and they are using bots to gain an advantage. [snip, not allowed] Considering you guys are trying to make money, it makes no sense that you are allowing players to stick their bots on and effectively screw you of potential revenue. I recorded and reported a blatant cheater almost a week ago (I have many videos of other players now) and rather than say what you intend to do with this cheater via support, you said "we'll do what's necessary". Does that mean that cashers get privileged treatment? If so, have you told players about this? If I buy balens every month, can I go and use a bot freely without a ban? I hope not... and no-one should get that same privilege.
a. OR allow bots. Change your terms of service if you don't care that people are using them and let them abuse your server-based game. Stop wasting our time with your illogical responses and just let people run free with them. You'd save yourself a lot of support responses if you did and that's money saved, think about that!

2. Patrol your servers, or recruit players to do it for you. If moderators actually ventured into these servers, you would see cheaters and you could then ban them immediately... for all you know these could be non-cashers! Are mentors enough? NOPE! They're meant to help with gameplay issues and offer tips to help enhance a players experience, doesn't say they can ban cheaters. Why not give them such powers? If they abuse their power, reverse it and ban THEM due to power abuse. Also, you requested mentors on 30th August 2014... where are they? I haven't seen a R2Magister account in a long time... so do we actually have any mentors? So right now, your game is open to botting on a grander scale and you CHOOSE to do nothing about it. You may disagree, but that is how it looks.

I am pretty certain you'd get a lot of people apply for such a role, and you could then sit back and let the game improve before your very eyes.

3. Understand what the support ticket actually means! I raised a bot ticket, and you started to refer me to bug fixes. Bots are not bugs... so seemingly you do not understand what some your users are requesting. You have enough time to send a large response which is not relevant to the ticket, how about you send a short response which is actually to the point? Again, you'd save a lot of time and money!

4. Explain bug fixes!! I quote from your last maintenance post: "Fixed an issue with the Tower of Kings (Nightmare) event." What was the issue? See, if you explained the error and fixed the problem and another one arose as a result, players would tell you. You have test servers, but there is never a guarantee that all your servers will be working OK after maintenance. Go look at other games; they actually say "Fixed a bug where..." and summarise the issue. It takes as much effort to summarise the issue other than come out with the garbage you currently state. Is it a language issue? Maybe you could ask mentors to come up with a summary for you? Why can't you explain them?

5. Have guides ready for updates. Look at your last maintenance post; no one really knew what Burning Inferno was or is. There's no description of it on your forums yet this is meant to be the area where such detail is available. You did Cloud Adventures, so why did Burning Inferno get missed? Is there an explicit reason why? If the details are in the game itself, why not mention that?

And to note, even with your Cloud Adventure guide you didn't mention there that the event starts during the weekend. Why not? Did you deem it irrelevant? Details, people!!

6. Obtain volume of players per server AND USE IT. I don't understand why servers are left with limited players when you must have the capacity to see the volume of players per server. I understand that you may not control server openings but you can definitely request mergers sooner. Think about it; the less servers the easier it would be to control them, the less the company spends on running servers and more players won't get bored of the lack of activity and go to another game. You put a forum area dedicated to merges, but YOU should be able to see capacity other than ask players. Do you not have that power? I hate to say it, but are you generally lazy about it?

These are just a few suggestions I could give you. Hell, i'd love to talk directly with you and tell you how it is as many other players would do but they mostly have the impression that their input falls on deaf ears. And also note that not one of my suggestions is based on improving an event, giving out more stuff or anything like that... it's all stuff that your company should do as it is a generic standard for the majority of games that exist.

Despite the above, I like playing your game and it can be enjoyable at times. But it does look like you fail to comprehend a very important part of any business or game; and that's understanding how to communicate sufficiently and openly. If you want advice, JUST ASK THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE COMMENTED LIKE ME! We're not complaining, we're trying to help you improve your game. I'm not even expecting a response from a moderator or developer to be honest...

Get the basics right because, quite frankly, you give the impression that you're an amateur company who will inevitably fail when more and more people get to a boiling point due to (seemingly) a lack of care, visibility and respect from your staff to the people who pay your wages. The intake of money may end if you don't, and then you'd wish you did something like what I have suggested...

[MemoryLane]

Sorry for the confusion with the rules (and the continuation of being off your topic). The request for clarification on where rules apply to will be forwarded to the Forum Admin, as mods are not allowed to alter R2's rules. The rules are a general guideline, and do apply to every bit of content submitted to the forum. The intention with the rules as written was to not have to sit and read novels of text in order to find out what isn't allowed here, and the mods will clarify any rules that aren't clear to you.

I look forward to reading Sanguine's reply to your follow up questions.

[Nakaraska]

OK, so rather than make a simple change to that rule and state "... or makes posts relating to" you instead go with semantics. Seems like you feel the need to defend your decision rather than accept some feedback regarding the wording of your "rules". Let me just go and purchase some balens, maybe you'll accept and acknowledge me actually trying to help you guys out...

[EsmeWeatherwax]

Semantics. Tomayto tomahtoe. You raised a topic, as part of a post, that's against the rules. Call it a topic, post, thread, monologue or discussion, it is and will be against forum rules to imply what it was you said. Feel free to contact the forum admin via a ticket if you disagree.

[Nakaraska]

I had to edit your post, because of rule 13 of the forum rules. Please keep those in mind.

Sorry for the inconvenience, but if I may refer to the rule:

13. Players are not allowed to create topics or signatures including: account-selling / flaming / advertisement-of-other-games / pornography / key-loggers or any other illegal software.

It wasn't a topic or signature... it was a post So maybe that should have not been removed according to your own rules, or it requires updating?

[EsmeWeatherwax]

I had to edit your post, because of rule 13 of the forum rules. Please keep those in mind.

[Nakaraska]

With all due respect, you have just effectively admitted that you find it extremely difficult to catch any cheater, and whilst some players could try to support your investigation it seems that it will fall to an inevitable mystery over what you will do about it. Fact is, if you were to venture into my server as an example and patrol the atoll, you would see them at it. Unfortunately, it seems that any evidence a player can supply you is unable to prove anything, and I did recommend server patrols which means you'd see them in the act. The video I sent across, in my opinion, proves the bot use... if it doesn't, it's totally fine to ask that player to provide more if you actually wanted to pursue an investigation.

"Witch hunting" is something people can do without your control i'm afraid. It's very simple for someone to set up a domain and upload these users to their own website if they chose to, and then spread the link. You won't be able to prevent that, so that should not be even a factor in your thinking, in my opinion.

As you have already stated though, you don't have time due to sheer amount of support tickets...

You have also just stated that it could involve "a lot of money" which is hard to understand. I don't want to assume anything, but it does seem like you use amount of money spent as a factor toward's a player's behaviour. That's your decision as a company, but not exactly good ethics for honest players.

Regarding your point around players who claim to hack; people can say what the hell they want and it doesn't mean they should be banned. However, if you received a recording from someone which shows the bot/cheat at use then they're caught.

Either way, your response could be read by anyone who uses this forum as acceptance towards cheating if they send you money... almost like a bribe!! You can't make a fair ruling if you are going to use level of revenue as a factor in a player's consequence, so just allow bots and save yourself hassle and time (and even money) dealing with people like me who are trying to promote a fair game for ALL players (especially non-cashers).

And finally, I can report so many people but you have also informed me that investigations take up to 6 months. Quite simply, not good enough... doesn't take a few minutes to watch a video. A lot of users have reported cheating and I can only assume a lot of them are garbage based on your response above. But as you have no standard on what is considered "sufficient" evidence then it looks like you won't be banning anyone for cheating... [Mod Snip]

[R2_Sanguine]

We don't disclose our action against players. We don't want witch hunting and we don't think it's appropriate to disclose the results of a case that could potentially involve a lot of money or time. We do our best, but our best could be better for sure. Sometimes it takes days to catch a cheater, sometimes 6 months. Sometimes we can never prove he was cheating even if you think it's true. We can't just act on player sentiment and because you SAY they are cheating, we need to PROVE it. And FYI, we see players say they are hacking to make themselves seem cool, when they aren't hacking at all. Just have to continue reporting any proof you have and, hopefully, trust that we will investigate the case thoroughly and make a fair ruling based on facts and data.

[Nakaraska]

Totally agree with you Sanguine; I understand you don't really have the power to fix the bugs yourself and fact is, all games have bugs and it can take time to fix them. I imagine the suggestions made have been taken on board for consideration, but there seems to be one clear element that frustrates a lot of people... and that's the visibility of cheating and seemingly little action. It's been over a week since I reported a bot user to the support team and apparently my ticket is "resolved" but i'm afraid there's no response to it, just "we are investigating" and that's it; I should be at least informed that you agree that cheating has occurred and action will be taken.

I've asked support to explain their thoughts and whether they agree that cheating has taken place. I also asked that if my evidence was not sufficient, they inform me what they want to see and i'll go get it considering the player in question is still roaming around on my server and still botting. I'm also unsure of how long you guys need to complete an investigation, and all this can frustrate any person who is trying to help you guys create an fair playing field (and to clarify, a fair playing field means no bot use in this explicit case). You've also got users effectively accusing you of favourtism towards paying customers... i'm not going to offer an opinion for this, but is this truly the case? What happens to these tickets and how does that reporter know the result of your investigation? If it was me, i'd be naming and shaming that person quite frankly! Cheating should always have consequences...

[R2_Sanguine]

Well I guess that is where the disconnect lies. Moderators are only here for the forums: they make sure there's no spam, they answer game questions, and they forward tickets and game issues. Most of this is behind the scenes. Mods get the unfortunate bonus of being "too much of a player" to be R2, but "too much R2" for players. They're kinda caught in the middle when they just wanted to help out both sides

But R2 does need to justify itself in the "money loop" (i.e. the service and support for the product(s) offered and rendered). We can't fix the bugs, but we can report them, using player data and sentiment, to get a fix made. Sometimes fixes are quick, sometimes they are rolled together into one maintenance, sometimes they aren't fixed at all. I think we all agree which of the 3 scenarios are worst, but we do our best to avoid that scenario (although it does still occur). But the biggest and most necessary changes are usually the slowest.

[EsmeWeatherwax]

Thank you for finding a minor error from my forum post and taking the term literally when i'm sure you knew what was meant (to be correct, i'll edit that area). You could have spent that time trying to help source someone who could respond to my 2nd post though; would be awfully nice of you to do that so we can get some real answers like Sanguine offered

You are most welcome! ^_^

[Nakaraska]

You seem to confuse mods with both mentors and GMs... Mods moderate the forum. We're not on servers and we don't post about maintenances and patch notes... We mod the forum and help out where we can.

Thank you for finding a minor error from my forum post and taking the term literally when i'm sure you knew what was meant (to be correct, i'll edit that area). You could have spent that time trying to help source someone who could respond to my 2nd post though; would be awfully nice of you to do that so we can get some real answers like Sanguine offered

[EsmeWeatherwax]

This all adds to my overall "rant" around communication within the game between players and mods. I imagine test servers are meant to be capturing such bugs prior to release and I can appreciate that you may never catch them all there but at the same time, i'm sure we may both agree that methods can be put in place to improve the reporting of bugs. And also, as I mentioned as well, patch notes could summarise some of the bugs they have actually fixed in a better fashion!

You seem to confuse mods with both mentors and GMs... Mods moderate the forum. We're not on servers and we don't post about maintenances and patch notes... We mod the forum and help out where we can.

[Nakaraska]

No computer wiz, but many players are using things to do tons of free-balens offers from other countries, wouldn't this change the ip?

And banning bots will never happen, cause a lot of top players bots, so they would lose to much income. They could ban a non-cashing bot, but that would just result in proving that cash allows you to cheat a bit more

"Screw the rules, I have money!" ;p

This is just one of the things I am asking them to disprove... the cheater is still playing on my server but R2 did state they're investigating my request. And also I see no comments from mods/mentors regarding the further comments I made...

So when's that going to happen then??

[JkLoser87]

I'm not clear on the specifics, but some players claim the server is dead when we see thousands of unique IPs on a server daily.

No computer wiz, but many players are using things to do tons of free-balens offers from other countries, wouldn't this change the ip?

And banning bots will never happen, cause a lot of top players bots, so they would lose to much income. They could ban a non-cashing bot, but that would just result in proving that cash allows you to cheat a bit more

"Screw the rules, I have money!" ;p