Dio Brando Posted June 1, 2019 Share Posted June 1, 2019 1 minute ago, Sphinx said: @Filmore The whole alliance should be punished if they keep that up, their practically rubbing it in others faces. If Nova don't face some form of punishment akin to Terradoxia then who's to say that they won't do this again if they find some other bug to exploit. GVH is a piece of garbage. This isn't the only realm he resides in, and everyone who has interacted with him the least bit will tell you all about what kind of person he is. I will refrain from enumerating his numerous inadequacies and general lack of conscience here on the forums, but feel free to hit me up on Discord. As for the broader question: Nova's 'top tier' profited from this massively. What more evidence do you need to convince yourself that they at-least knew about this? Even if they didn't, in-fact, they should still face punitive actions. If tomorrow I am told my alliance was exploiting the game, I'd be the first to ask Sheepy to delete my cities if I benefited from it. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Majima Goro Posted June 1, 2019 Share Posted June 1, 2019 1 minute ago, Sphinx said: @Filmore The whole alliance should be punished if they keep that up, their practically rubbing it in others faces. If Nova don't face some form of punishment akin to Terradoxia then who's to say that they won't do this again if they find some other bug to exploit. They just need more credits fam YoU aRe GuIlTy uNlEsS PrOvEn VIP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kitschie Posted June 1, 2019 Share Posted June 1, 2019 The fact that they’re rubbing it in other people’s faces like that just shows the lack of remorse and dare I say pride in what they managed to pull off and avoid punishment. Come on Alex. 1 3 ? Kitschie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Popular Post Alex Posted June 1, 2019 Author Administrators Popular Post Share Posted June 1, 2019 I would like to point out that the money and resources being removed from the game here are not insignificant. Here's a quick spreadsheet showing just that: I understand that everyone is not satisfied with the amount of punishment I've metered out thus far, and I am considering removing cities built by Nova Riata government members because you're right, that can't be "fixed" by you all (the players.) However, deleting all of these resources is still an enormously significant punishment for the entirety of the alliance. 9 Is there a bug? Report It | Not understanding game mechanics? Ask About It | Got a good idea? Suggest ItForums Rules | Game Link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cooper_ Posted June 1, 2019 Share Posted June 1, 2019 Just an idea: calculate the cost of all the cities bought between the 28th and the present and subtract the net revenue Nova made over the time period. Add 3% interest per week (to account for the extra city growth) and have Nova pay back that sum. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fraggle Posted June 1, 2019 Share Posted June 1, 2019 1 hour ago, Alex said: I would like to point out that the money and resources being removed from the game here are not insignificant. Here's a quick spreadsheet showing just that: I understand that everyone is not satisfied with the amount of punishment I've metered out thus far, and I am considering removing cities built by Nova Riata government members because you're right, that can't be "fixed" by you all (the players.) However, deleting all of these resources is still an enormously significant punishment for the entirety of the alliance. So you're saying buy coal? On it, boss. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James II Posted June 1, 2019 Share Posted June 1, 2019 2 minutes ago, Alex said: I would like to point out that the money and resources being removed from the game here are not insignificant. Here's a quick spreadsheet showing just that: I understand that everyone is not satisfied with the amount of punishment I've metered out thus far, and I am considering removing cities built by Nova Riata government members because you're right, that can't be "fixed" by you all (the players.) However, deleting all of these resources is still an enormously significant punishment for the entirety of the alliance. I can't dislike your post because of run out of dislikes because of all your posts. Delete all of Nova to ten cities or I'm gonna get my pitchfork and torch. You can't let them get away with it. They should be punished not rewarded. Only deleting a few cities won't counter all the benefits. They should be punished not reduce their reward for cheating slightly. 2 2 "Most successful new AA" - Samuel Bates Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WISD0MTREE Posted June 1, 2019 Share Posted June 1, 2019 1 minute ago, Alex said: I understand that everyone is not satisfied with the amount of punishment I've metered out thus far, and I am considering removing cities built by Nova Riata government members because you're right, that can't be "fixed" by you all (the players.) However, deleting all of these resources is still an enormously significant punishment for the entirety of the alliance. 12 minutes ago, Buorhann said: Thanks for looking into it. I think a lot of us in the community would be ok if the benefited city growth (A lot of them had multiple cities built within just a few days) was removed. While we're not asking those players to be banned, it'd go a ways to secure our confidence in the handling of players who exploit the mechanics of the game. Absolutely this. It sets a dangerous precedent. In the past, I vaguely remember an exploit at turn change that spawned money. When the players found it, they spawned in some money and warned you about it. You let them keep the money because they told you about it as opposed to continuing to exploit it. Here, they didn't warn you until everyone and their pet bot knew. Yet, you're effectively letting them keep a large portion of their spawned resources by letting them keep their cities. Hell, look at this announcement from when you were in Peru in 2015. Specifically, look at this post (emphasis added). This was even in Alpha/Beta/whatever-we're-calling-it-now, not the actual game. Why have more strict punishment for an exploit when testing the game than when the game is actually live? On 4/8/2015 at 1:39 AM, Alex said: In case you guys missed my last announcement, I was away on a trip. Now I was away and authorized Skynet to make a post regarding this issue, but if you really think I plan on resetting an alliance for a bug that gives them $1, you're crazy. I like to think I'm not a wholly unreasonable person. However, the fact of the matter is that if you experience a bug in the game, whether it's by intentional seeking out and abusing exploits or accidentally triggering a bug, it's your duty to report it so that it can be addressed and the game improved. I'm hopeful that with a recent change in the code I may have finally squashed the elusive bank bug, but only time will tell. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Dio Brando Posted June 1, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted June 1, 2019 Just now, Alex said: I understand that everyone is not satisfied with the amount of punishment I've metered out thus far, and I am considering removing cities built by Nova Riata government members because you're right, that can't be "fixed" by you all (the players.) However, deleting all of these resources is still an enormously significant punishment for the entirety of the alliance. I agree, it is. But it is nowhere near enough to address their government and the extent of their AA's (voluntary or involuntary) involvement in this egregious course of action, repeated denials and attempt to cover their tracks up. Delete their cities. Reset their growth by a few months. They're effectively getting away with this. They're still turning a profit from this 'punishment'. This is like telling people they can have one candy from a box of them, and then telling a kid who took 5 that he needs to return 2. He's still coming out on top. I have hope that you will continue investigating this and find a way to better address this. Thank you for the work you have done up till now. 1 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Majima Goro Posted June 1, 2019 Share Posted June 1, 2019 3 minutes ago, Alex said: I understand that everyone is not satisfied with the amount of punishment I've metered out thus far, and I am considering removing cities built by Nova Riata government members because you're right, that can't be "fixed" by you all (the players.) However, deleting all of these resources is still an enormously significant punishment for the entirety of the alliance. And what about the resources in the Nova Bank? Clearly a large part of it is still directly in the alliance bank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thor Posted June 1, 2019 Share Posted June 1, 2019 Wow Alex you have banned people in the past 5 years for way less then this. You need to do more this is absolutely unacceptable. If you let them off Scott free with this your opening the door for more exploits to be taken advantage of. Your lack of punishment for this clear exploit of the game is a massive let down to this community. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edward I Posted June 1, 2019 Share Posted June 1, 2019 Just now, Alex said: I would like to point out that the money and resources being removed from the game here are not insignificant. Here's a quick spreadsheet showing just that: I understand that everyone is not satisfied with the amount of punishment I've metered out thus far, and I am considering removing cities built by Nova Riata government members because you're right, that can't be "fixed" by you all (the players.) However, deleting all of these resources is still an enormously significant punishment for the entirety of the alliance. This shouldn't be viewed in terms of punishment. The unbalancing effect this has had and will continue to have on the game is massive. If you're willing to overhaul the game multiple times for the sake of economic balance, I don't see why that shouldn't be an overriding priority in your response here as well. Independent of balance issues, your dual stance of presuming everyone is innocent until proven otherwise and treating resource deletion (or city deletion, etc.) as "punishment" is rewarding the exploiters. If people can benefit from cheating just by clearing the ludicrously low bar of not being conclusively tied to it, they will cheat. Other punishments such as banning accounts are probably not terribly effective against people already willing to operate rings of multi accounts. Delete the profits from this exploit as extensively and as retroactively as you are able. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Ayayay Posted June 1, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted June 1, 2019 (edited) 11 minutes ago, Alex said: However, deleting all of these resources is still an enormously significant punishment for the entirety of the alliance. If I have $10, steal $2, and then the cops take away $1 after I'm caught, few would call it a punishment. In fact, no real punishment was dealt to me as I'm better off now than I was before I stole. Punishment would be the cops taking $3 and leaving me with $9, removing only part of what I stole is encouragement, not punishment. Edited June 1, 2019 by Malal 12 Orbis Wars | CSI: UPN | B I G O O F | PW Expert Has Nerve To Tell You How To Run Your Own Goddamn Alliance | Occupy Wall Street | Sheepy Sings TheNG - My favorite part is when Steve suggests DEIC might have done something remotely successful, then gets massively shit on for proposing such a stupid idea. On 1/4/2016 at 6:37 PM, Sheepy said: This was !@#$ing gold. 10/10 possibly my favorite post on these forums yet. Sheepy said: I'm retarded, you win Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theodosius Posted June 1, 2019 Share Posted June 1, 2019 Just now, Alex said: I would like to point out that the money and resources being removed from the game here are not insignificant. Here's a quick spreadsheet showing just that: I understand that everyone is not satisfied with the amount of punishment I've metered out thus far, and I am considering removing cities built by Nova Riata government members because you're right, that can't be "fixed" by you all (the players.) However, deleting all of these resources is still an enormously significant punishment for the entirety of the alliance. The cities they've cheated are huge, an average alliance takes like 2 years to reach that kind of growth level. As someone pointed out on Discord, they went from a sub-top 50 micro to a top 10 alliance in 3 months, and this exploit was a big, if not 90% part of that. It's not fair to the rest of the game. They're also gonna make a lot of that money back very quick if they keep those. Also while on topic, you can throw that credits survey out the door, because the seeming lack of credits on the market are caused by Nova buying them all up. They have so much cash they don't know what to do with it but store some of it in credits. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canter Posted June 1, 2019 Share Posted June 1, 2019 (edited) 34 minutes ago, Alex said: I am trying to be fair to the average members of Nova Riata who very likely did benefit from this exploit but did so unknowingly. As I stated above, I do believe pooball and The North 14 were most intimately involved, but I still do not feel comfortable punishing them without further evidence they were intentionally abusing the bug for their own benefit. I think this is where "balance of probability" comes into play. Let's be real - if a leader of an alliance is getting 200 billion from a source that they know nothing about, then they were negligent in their responsibility to not be complicit. Just this week, I recieved 200million and my leader inquired into its source. I think that it's extremely suspicious, and that serious investigation should be conducted on pooball and the North 14 to dig up any misconduct, rather than simply waiting for convincing evidence to arise. This is of course even if you choose to wait for concrete evidence before taking disciplinary action. I respect for your decision not to punish NR members, even though I'm not sure I agree with the principle - it makes sense from a practical standpoint. That being said, the cities bought are absolutely "fruit of the poisonous tree". To respond quickly by saying that deleting resources of a punishment, that's objectively not the case. Rather, it's just reversing the actions of PART of the exploited resources, effectively mitigating the gains on his part. Edited June 1, 2019 by Canter Adding content Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Curufinwe Posted June 1, 2019 Share Posted June 1, 2019 (edited) 2 hours ago, Alex said: I would like to point out that the money and resources being removed from the game here are not insignificant. Here's a quick spreadsheet showing just that: I understand that everyone is not satisfied with the amount of punishment I've metered out thus far, and I am considering removing cities built by Nova Riata government members because you're right, that can't be "fixed" by you all (the players.) However, deleting all of these resources is still an enormously significant punishment for the entirety of the alliance. Considering a comparison based on the numbers you provided earlier... 12.2m Coal 11.8m Oil 10.1m Uranium 13.3m Iron 11.2m Bauxite 12m Lead 16.6m Gasoline 15.5m Munitions 18.3m Steel 15.3m Aluminum ...with those in your post suggests that you're deleting 86m less resources than they generated, it's not really that much of a hit. After all, they're still up tens of billions from the resource sales they did conduct before you deleted the leftovers. In fact, considering you're deleting less then half of what they illegitimately generated, I'd hardly call your response particularly signifcant at all. Again, unless you take action to offset the billions they successfully flipped on the market and converted into cities, they're still coming out well ahead on the exchange, which means that Nova as an alliance will massively benefit from the exploit they perpetrated on everyone else in the game. Edited June 1, 2019 by Curufinwe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Dio Brando Posted June 1, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted June 1, 2019 As a side note, thank you for announcing this @Alex. I am not supportive of this decision and I have shown as much, but the fact that you investigated, found out and posted it knowing full well you would get bombarded with messages, posts, quotes and pings is indicative of your personality as an admin. Keep being active man. Congratulations on graduating! 3 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naTia Posted June 1, 2019 Share Posted June 1, 2019 (edited) Hi Alex - I want to say that I think not enough will have been done if the current course remains. However, I have faith that you are trying to get more evidence to bring justice where it is needed. Regardless, I appreciate your dedication to responding directly to this issue and I hope we can all find an agreeable resolution to this. Edited June 1, 2019 by Nao 1 3 Resident DJ @ Club Orbis Founder of The Warehouse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Sir Scarfalot Posted June 1, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted June 1, 2019 If NR's growth coincides with the timing of when the cheating took place, and their growth was impossibly fast (which it was), then it logically follows that their growth was due to cheating. Since we have proof of the cheating, we have proof of the growth, and we have documentation of when and where and how they grew, it should be no trouble to simply undo ALL of their growth... and then some on top of that, since we only know a fraction of what they've actually duplicated. Punitive damage is completely warranted and necessary in order to ensure that no profit of any kind has been created by this exploit, lest the cheaters walk away with ill-gotten gains. Just bring their cities down to where they were 3 or 4 months ago. Nova Riata cannot, cannot be held innocent here, and even the ones that are ignorant MUST be brought down to where they should have been, because ignorance is no excuse. Ignorance of the cheating doesn't change the fact that cheating was entirely profitable for them. 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Storm Posted June 1, 2019 Share Posted June 1, 2019 So cheaters do prosper. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Mikey Posted June 1, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted June 1, 2019 (edited) To echo the sentiment, the cities absolutely need to be removed. Having their illegal resources deleted isn't a punishment, its simply being set back partially to the status quo. Their massive city growth is due in large part to that exploit, keeping that allows them to effectively keep a huge chunk of the illicit cash. If the only punishment for stealing was losing part of the stolen goods, we'd all be thieves. As for the NR government, I would again echo the sentiment that it is hard to believe they weren't aware. If I suddenly had 250bn flowing through the SK bank, or an SK member telling me he had that kind of cash to buy us cities, the first thing I would do would be to sit on the money and come to you to report the highly suspicious ammount. Only after getting confirmation would I spend it. I imagine almost any leader in the game would do the same. It is honestly hard to understand how someone could just accept that they were getting ungodly amounts of resources, enough to make the collective rest of the game blush, and not have any inkling something was wrong. Even if they had nothing to do with using the exploit, and had no idea what was actually happening, it had to be quite clear something untoward was afoot. Using obviously illicit money, even if you yourself didn't generate or understand how it was being generated, is not that much better imo. Every major alliance is going to get cheaters in its ranks at some point, even if only the most basic multi abuse. Most of us have procedures in place to look for suspicious behavior and work together to stamp it out, rather than willfully profit from it. Edited June 1, 2019 by Mikey 10 Archduke Tyrell, Lord of Highgarden, Lord Paramount of the Reach, Warden of the South, Breaker of Forums. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fraggle Posted June 1, 2019 Share Posted June 1, 2019 People....People....let's all relax. The fine folks of Nova Rita has been more than generous to the world. Let's not dig too deep on this. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Tyrion Posted June 1, 2019 Share Posted June 1, 2019 All projects and cities funded by NR since the incident should be deleted. It was funded by illegal funds, whether their members knew or not. They can rebuild those things once they can do so legally. Now, about Pantheon reparations..... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Novarus Posted June 1, 2019 Share Posted June 1, 2019 Will a special counsel be appointed to further the investigation? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReadingChicken Posted June 1, 2019 Share Posted June 1, 2019 38 minutes ago, ShadyAssassin said: >Accepts millions of dollars in trades multiple times >Buys a city every 13th day from 17 to 27 >Buys off entire coal market >Buys off credits off market very fast Clearly common-sense isn't evidence enough Actually, Nova Riata isn't buying the entire coal market. It was a joke some guy made in the Federation- which merged with Nova Riata-, and Sean Eire (leader of the nation 'OLD ERIE and former member of the Federation) decided to take it seriously. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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