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5/31/2019 - Resource Duplication Bug Fix


Alex
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Tbh lack of punishment feels much more like a spit the face of those who play honestly. Like I'm sorry my alliance didnt generate massive amounts of rrs and quickly climb the leaderboards (All the while not knowing how the money was getting there). Heck I'll take the resource fallout from it, just dont let this go so easily, it just kills the whole mood of the game.

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Deleting Nova Riata's cities down to 10 almost wouldn't be enough, considering how much they've gained from the mere production capacity of their illegal cities, let alone how much extra military they've been able to deploy due entirely to their cheated cities. There's no question here, extreme punitive measures could only ever be minimally acceptable.

For what it's worth, I still firmly believe that the other members of Chaos Bloc are innocent though. They really shouldn't be punished any more than their massive public embarassment already is inevitably going to/has, unless of course more evidence as conclusive as has been shown against Nova Riata comes to light.

Edited by Sir Scarfalot
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*Me having been in the Federation and then forcibly being merged with Nova Riata and realizing I'm going to get deleted*

If I send the resources I got from the Nova bank when I joined back to you can I keep my nation?
"Njordor of Vanaheimr has sent your nation $3,000,000.00, 40,000.00 food, 0.00 coal, 0.00 oil, 2,000.00 uranium, 0.00 lead, 0.00 iron, 0.00 bauxite, 10,000.00 gasoline, 10,000.00 munitions, 16,000.00 steel, and 14,000.00 aluminum from the alliance bank of Nova Riata."
I'll send it back and join a micro.

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This thread didn't age well, apparently.

From 2015:

On 7/9/2015 at 7:25 PM, Alex said:

As for those who abused this exploit or knowingly received funds, we will continue to root you out and remove you from this community. The exploit may be fixed, but our investigation is not over, and we will continue to catch and reprimand the abusers. It's only a matter of time before you're caught - if you enjoy playing Politics & War and participated in this abuse I strongly recommend you come forward and turn yourself in immediately. A number of players have been banned and removed from the game already, along with quite a bit of spawned resources and cash. Like I said in my other post, we can't get rid of it all, but it's spread so thin and the economy of the game is so dynamic that the effects of the exploit will dissipate quickly over time. I'm looking forward to a new era of exploit-free Politics & War! Keep on enjoying the game, guys!

And from the other 2015 thread:

Quote

The players that are behind the exploit are the likes of Sith/Pol Pot, Ghost (who was banned some time ago, though I left his nation in an effort to entice him to divulge information about the exploit to me), Death, and NMA. There are others, such as Last187, that have been receptacles of some of the spawned cash. He has been banned as well. Let me make it clear right now, that I will track down anyone who has conspired with the cheaters, and they shall be banned and removed from the game, forever.

 

Edited by WISD0MTREE
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Just now, Alex said:

snip

Which according to your numbers they sold off $86 billion of the $209 billion generated. So that only 8% of their illicit gains removed, They still profited enormously from this scam, but thank you for at least taking the community advice, I hope they receive far more punishment than that though.

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3 minutes ago, Alex said:

I don't disagree with the argument that cheating should be punished, not rewarded, and my intention is not to reward anyone. My expectation is that the community will likely police itself in terms of punishing the offenders, which feels more fair to me than my arbitrary judgement of who I believe is guilty and who is innocent.

That said, I do agree that cities cannot be destroyed and those are a permanent unfair advantage gained from this exploit. I have gone through all of the Nova Riata government nations and identified all of the cities built after the exploit occurred on 4-28, and I have deleted the cities. This comes out to almost $7 billion in new city costs alone, and I did not calculate the collective value of infrastructure, improvements, etc.

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But why is it only SINCE 4-28, from what i gathered this is the latter part when they got cocky and got CAUGHT, not when it started.... what about the cities dealt between jan 1st and now?

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Just now, Alex said:

I don't disagree with the argument that cheating should be punished, not rewarded, and my intention is not to reward anyone.

Rewarding cheaters is the default here because the resources are already generated and in use. Doing nothing amounts to rewarding them. The only way to not reward them is to remove their ill-gotten gains.

Just now, Alex said:

My expectation is that the community will likely police itself in terms of punishing the offenders, which feels more fair to me than my arbitrary judgement of who I believe is guilty and who is innocent.

This is inadequate and unfair.

1) Your judgment is not arbitrary. Rules that you made were broken and the expectation that you will enforce those rules is entirely reasonable.

2) It is not the community's job to enforce the rules and we are far worse-equipped to do it than you are.

3) Even if we managed to track down every unit of illicitly generated resources and loot them, it still wouldn't change the fact that an absurdly large amount of extra resources were generated and still exist in-game. This is a balance issue, it's a moral hazard, and it's still a reward for cheating. The fact that all of the reward may not have gone to the cheaters themselves is a poor excuse for the rest.

Just now, Alex said:

That said, I do agree that cities cannot be destroyed and those are a permanent unfair advantage gained from this exploit. I have gone through all of the Nova Riata government nations and identified all of the cities built after the exploit occurred on 4-28, and I have deleted the cities. This comes out to almost $7 billion in new city costs alone, and I did not calculate the collective value of infrastructure, improvements, etc.

That's good to hear. Thank you for listening to the community's feedback. We appreciate it.

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5 minutes ago, Alex said:

I don't disagree with the argument that cheating should be punished, not rewarded, and my intention is not to reward anyone. My expectation is that the community will likely police itself in terms of punishing the offenders, which feels more fair to me than my arbitrary judgement of who I believe is guilty and who is innocent.

That said, I do agree that cities cannot be destroyed and those are a permanent unfair advantage gained from this exploit. I have gone through all of the Nova Riata government nations and identified all of the cities built after the exploit occurred on 4-28, and I have deleted the cities. This comes out to almost $7 billion in new city costs alone, and I did not calculate the collective value of infrastructure, improvements, etc.

-images snipped-

 

Thank you, @Alex.

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Just now, KingGhost said:

But why is it only SINCE 4-28, from what i gathered this is the latter part when they got cocky and got CAUGHT, not when it started.... what about the cities dealt between jan 1st and now?

No, the majority of the exploit occurred on 4-28. It's actually very apparent in the total resource quantity graphs:

image.png

I don't really have a reason to believe that the growth which occurred before then was not legitimate. If there was a huge quantity of resources spawned before then, it would be apparent in the bank transaction records.

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7 minutes ago, Alex said:

Snip

Excellent decision. I approve almost entirely. My question to you is: are you certain 4/28 was the date they began doing this? Is there a chance they were doing this for longer (we saw regular jumps before, too)?

As an aside, thank you very much for this quick decision. I had doubts. They exist in an incredibly diminished capacity as of now.

Edited by Dio Brando
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6 minutes ago, Alex said:

I don't disagree with the argument that cheating should be punished, not rewarded, and my intention is not to reward anyone. My expectation is that the community will likely police itself in terms of punishing the offenders, which feels more fair to me than my arbitrary judgement of who I believe is guilty and who is innocent.

That said, I do agree that cities cannot be destroyed and those are a permanent unfair advantage gained from this exploit. I have gone through all of the Nova Riata government nations and identified all of the cities built after the exploit occurred on 4-28, and I have deleted the cities. This comes out to almost $7 billion in new city costs alone, and I did not calculate the collective value of infrastructure, improvements, etc.

It would seem that 4-6 would be a more appropriate cut-off date, based on Akuryo's post.

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Just now, Dio Brando said:

Excellent decision. I approve almost entirely.

My question to you is: are you certain 4/28 was the date they began doing this? Is there a chance they were doing this for longer (we saw regular jumps before, too)?

I do believe it was happening at a very small scale before 4-28, starting sometime in mid-March. However the amounts generated were nothing compared to the huge 4-28 spike, and pretty negligible imo.

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5 minutes ago, KingGhost said:

But why is it only SINCE 4-28, from what i gathered this is the latter part when they got cocky and got CAUGHT, not when it started.... what about the cities dealt between jan 1st and now?

I have to agree. It clearly seems like it was going on far longer than that. And the more evidence you show, the more it seems like their gov knew what was happening. (Edit: The replies above occurred as I was writing my post. Thanks for addressing the issue.)

That said, I echo the thanks for your efforts on this @Alex.

Edited by Malichy

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1 minute ago, Alex said:

I do believe it was happening at a very small scale before 4-28, starting sometime in mid-March. However the amounts generated were nothing compared to the huge 4-28 spike, and pretty negligible imo.

Ah, I see. I can agree with that analysis. Thank you.

Edited by Dio Brando
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1 minute ago, Alex said:

I do believe it was happening at a very small scale before 4-28, starting sometime in mid-March. However the amounts generated were nothing compared to the huge 4-28 spike, and pretty negligible imo.

No, they're known to have exploited far far more than just the 4-28 spike, that's very well documented, so you've absolutely got to go farther

1 minute ago, Dio Brando said:

Ah, I see. I can agree with that analysis. Thank you.

No, no, the deleted cities only accounts for a SMALL fraction of what's understood to have been spawned in

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1 minute ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

Thanks for doing as much as you've done, but please, you've gotta go further...

Absolutely. 2015 Sheepy would've banned them for $10 mil illicitly gained cash. Now $209 billion in resources is just removing a few cities?

For contrast:

On 7/9/2015 at 7:25 PM, Alex said:

As for those who abused this exploit or knowingly received funds, we will continue to root you out and remove you from this community. The exploit may be fixed, but our investigation is not over, and we will continue to catch and reprimand the abusers. It's only a matter of time before you're caught - if you enjoy playing Politics & War and participated in this abuse I strongly recommend you come forward and turn yourself in immediately. A number of players have been banned and removed from the game already, along with quite a bit of spawned resources and cash. Like I said in my other post, we can't get rid of it all, but it's spread so thin and the economy of the game is so dynamic that the effects of the exploit will dissipate quickly over time. I'm looking forward to a new era of exploit-free Politics & War! Keep on enjoying the game, guys!

And from the other 2015 thread:

Quote

The players that are behind the exploit are the likes of Sith/Pol Pot, Ghost (who was banned some time ago, though I left his nation in an effort to entice him to divulge information about the exploit to me), Death, and NMA. There are others, such as Last187, that have been receptacles of some of the spawned cash. He has been banned as well. Let me make it clear right now, that I will track down anyone who has conspired with the cheaters, and they shall be banned and removed from the game, forever.

 

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1 minute ago, Akuryo said:

It should be noted Alex i was able to document evidence as far as back as 4/14 of this being done. I'm told trades expire after 45 days, so 4/6 and 4/8 are believed to be the start of it as it mirrors the 4/14 and 4/16 dates.

I know it happened on a small scale on 4/6, 4/8, 4/14, and 4/16, but like I said, essentially negligible amounts were generated.

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1 minute ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

No, no, the deleted cities only accounts for a SMALL fraction of what's understood to have been spawned in

The rest (in the bank) is to be deleted. Am I wrong in my understanding of the course of action Alex has decided upon?

Edited by Dio Brando
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@Alex I want to start with a thank you for making a public acknowledgement of the situation.  I'm extremely frustrated that they're walking away with hardly a flick on the palm, but I do understand a lack of evidence being an issue.

 

That said, I implore you to perhaps not punish the members of Nova, but the alliance itself.  An investigation of the extent they benefited from this will absolutely surely be long, grueling and time consuming, but with such little punishment it's going to be extremely difficult to regain the faith of the userbase.  And I see a future where cheating is sure to increase with people just, recruiting friends to claim lack of accountability.

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