Henry d'Esterre Darby

How do we prevent people from botting? Take two machines, one gets into a trader, the other into an escort, ping, accept escort, sail for hours and hours in the middle of nowhere...profit.

I'm not sure. I can ask Admin the next time I see him on chat for you. That's all well and good for people that have a lot of gaming time. Folks like myself that are casual gamers (and Admin has stated repeatedly that this game is also meant for casual gamers) would have a hard time with this. http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/12572-time-for-a-wipe/page-2?hl=wipe#entry226198 I could keep going - that's just a few excerpts from the first two pages of search results. Promises were made, they should be kept.

Mr. de Booty - we'll have someone look into it. Thanks for your patience.

Bear in mind - credits and ships are NOT safe. They can and will be wiped as the economy fleshes out and balance is achieved. The ONLY things that are safe are your XP and possibly crafting XP. Notice I also didn't say that your rank was safe.

I think going back on their promise to keep XP and Craft XP at launch would be met with an extremely negative reaction from players.

Because Game Labs doesn't write the forum software - it's written by IPBoard and GL is at the mercy of the features they offer.

A quick reminder: This is National News. Players wanted to have a place where they could run rampant. As long as you're not cursing at each other, and as long as the overall content could potentially have entered a newspaper at the time (yes, we're a lot more colourful than we used to be, but I'll remind you that broadsheets at the time called enemies in particular nations all kinds of names and make numerous accusations of cowardice and baby eating, etc), it's fair game. If you don't want to be insulted or have your character called into question, don't post in National News.

I hate it, but unfortunately it remains the best platform for small development houses that do not have the resources to host their own update servers, authentication server, etc.

Let's get back on topic please.

They can stay as long as they like. They can leave when they like, and go back when they like. It's less about being "new" and more about an area that's locked to smaller ships and a tighter RoE. As I said above, vets can go into the zone, new players can leave when they like. Think of it like an area of small battles in small ships. It can be a lot of fun even for vets! I plan to spend some time there myself to relax in an environment where you don't have a bunch of speed rigged Trincs running around (yes, I know, it'll probably have a bunch of pimped out Privateers running around, but that's still a lot more accessible and fun for players that haven't reached higher ranks yet).

We do not have access to the in-game reports system, you need to rely on Admin or Ink for answers to those questions.

"Report me, I won't ban myself" should never have happened. If it did, you need to, shocker, REPORT it so that it can be dealt with. There may also have been an issue on context. Moderators are players and can make jokes like anyone else. If the statement was in response to someone trying to report them for something that isn't an offense in the first place, I can see where that statement might be made. Making accusations of this nature without any proof is not going to work here. That said, the in-game Report button doesn't send anything to the moderators - that goes into an escalation system that is monitored by a Developer. If a moderator is acting unprofessionally, report them. If it's serious, take a screenshot and send it to one of the other moderators or Ink. We will NOT tolerate moderators who break the rules - we're expected to uphold a higher level of decorum than players.

I don't mind a fair fight - I enjoy them when they happen. However, longer timers don't lead to more fair fights. Further, a sandbox/open world system, but it's very nature, does not require, nor promise fair fights. If you want "even" fights, you're looking for an arena based matchmaker system, not an open world sandbox game. I'm also not a fan of battle timers at all. I like the big/little circle idea a lot. I'd rather a battle pop up, and anyone joining that battle joins at the scaled out distance and direction they were at when the battle started. This still lets you fight what you see, still prevents half of a Nation piling on the nearest fight, and still gives you the flavor of the age of sail. What you see me fighting against, tooth and nail in this thread, is this idea that somehow, keeping battles open for 30 minutes results in a fun fight. It does, for the group with the largest presence in the game. I won't even say in the area, with TP, in the game. They get to pile 25 ships onto any fight they want. If you're going to do this, may as well stop the entire idea of Open World and go back to Sea Trials, where the game can quietly die in a few months.

The 2 minute timer prevents people from the entire region from joining the battle. What you want is to pile on a smaller group with a larger group. That smaller group was cohesive, sailing close together, and found a potential target that they thought they could fight. You want to tell them "thanks for trying, but since we have 50 people over the horizon where you can't see them, you get to fight 25 on 3." Again, if you want to fight with a group, sail with that group. If you don't want to be by yourself facing a larger force, sail with a larger force. The 2 minute timer fully enables you to scan the horizon when you, as a single ship, spot an enemy and evaluate the risk of sticking around and fighting that enemy. If I'm in a Frigate, and I spy another ship, I don't have to think "hmm...how many hundreds of people are in this area that I can't see, have no way of seeing, and have no way of knowing if they're there or not". I can scan, see that I'm alone (or see some other enemies nearby), and evaluate if I want to attack or try to flee. 5 or 10 minute timers don't allow this - see Prater's earlier threads on how far away you can be on a 5 minute timer - the answer is multiple islands away. I honestly don't know what game you played for 1400 hours, and I have no idea where you're coming from that a longer timer benefits smaller groups of players, because neither assertion is even remotely true.

I asked you to post your question here, which I quoted when I responded to you. The accusations were contained in a separate, ALSO off topic, post which I also hid. Nowhere did I say to repost the moderated content.

This is the first post in that thread: That's what's wrong with it. Wrong format, wrong question, unneeded accusations, which I've already said. Ink hid it for that reason, it's gone.

It's pushing late at night, he'll get back to you as soon as he can - probably tomorrow.

Ink removed the original post. It had nothing to do with why you were chat banned. I removed the three subsequent reposts of that moderated content - once content is moderated, it stays that way. We do not allow people to repost moderated content without prior permission. Your ultimate question, which you tried to ask by posting various things you may or may not have done, as well as adding an accusation or two in there for good measure, was: "why was I chat banned?" The response from Ink was to PM him and he'd tell you why. Responding to that with accusations and untrue statements wasn't one of your options. PM Ink, he'll tell you exactly what got you banned. Posting various reasons and accusations isn't going to get your question answered.

Shorter timers have had the opposite effect. Now, the biggest group in a 300 square mile area doesn't have the advantage any more. If you want to fight as a group, sail as a group. This was true in the Age of Sail, and it is true with 2 minute timers. 10 minute (or 30 minute timers) were the equivalent of having the entire ports of Portsmouth and Cadiz show up after the Battle of Trafalgar started to pile on and help out their peeps. It didn't happen then, and it shouldn't happen in this game. No reason other than the above you mean - where entire battles happened nearly in sight of major ports with those in the port unable to assist because it was too far away. This wasn't modern times where you fired up the motor and flew out to the aid of a friend - you were either in close proximity to friendlies, or you were on your own. Captains in the Age of Sail fought mostly alone, or with one or two other ships in close support - they didn't radio to port for reinforcements. We had this - it was called Sea Trials. It was a ghost town shortly before Open World started. We still have this - it's called Large/Small battles. Join, fight, ???, profit. Don't try to turn Open World into an arena shooter - it's not supposed to be that.

Ok, the question you asked in the other thread was: I'm not sure I understand what you mean between "moderated" and "deleting"? What is the difference in your mind? I need to know this so that I can answer your question.

The "ask moderators questions about moderating" thread is right over here -> http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15751-forum-moderator-problems/ This is the topic for "why can't I talk in the game anymore?" Thanks!

Because you likely were not banned for criticizing a mod. Your choices right now are to contact Ink via PM to find out why you were chat banned, or to drop the issue and move on. Further reposts of moderated content will result in a warning. Thank you.

Please take images with the sun shining on the hull, not backlighting it.

Please F11 these situations - there is very little easy way to fix problems like this with a screen shot. Thank you.

Barracks-house lawyering is not welcome here. I'm the messenger, Game Labs is the purveyor of the rule. Discussions of whether or not this is "legal" are off topic. Since this has degenerated into an off topic mess, this thread will now be locked. The situations mentioned in the first and second pages that may cause problems with this (attacking a smuggler to get out of battle, etc) will be looked into. Follow the rules.