9/1/2015 - What's Going On

[Saru]

One would think daily backups would have been implemented after the cash glitch

 

I called for it even before the most recent cash glitch, as there have been situations where rollbacks would of been appropriate and the admins refused to do it. I asked what's up, and never got adequate responses apart from the usual "look we are doing our best." Sheepy only seems to act when people hound and pressure him, so I am happy to do it yet again.

 

If we are conjuring an ideal world where backups do not strain an already strained server, nor take up additional server space; It should not be "Admin should have daily backups" It should be "people shouldn't hack/exploit the game." 

 

I'm not conjuring up an ideal world. I am talking about reality. There will be people who will try to exploit and hack the game, daily backups aren't some sort of "ideal" idea, but a practical necessity -- especially when the game is bringing in significant money. I am not sure why you think the servers are already strained, and where you got the idea that daily backups are that resource intensive. 

 

Your argument is the equivalent to a politician cutting necessary police forces, and saying that in an ideal world people should not commit crime and place further strain on our tight budget. It's just not practical.

Edited September 1, 2015 by Saru

[Diocletian]

Can I have a refund on my credits instead?  When I bought them things were entirely different and the goalposts haven't just been moved slightly, they've been completely relocated.

 

This has been very poorly managed.  You're supposed to be running a professional business but you can't access the internet because you're on a boat.  You're in 21st century America FFS.

 

Every major decision or change seems to screw Mensa over whether intentionally or not.  First many of our opponents were getting masses of exploit money which was by no means resolved to the communities satisfaction.  Then the spy system was nerfed because we were doing too well with it.  Now when we're winning what is probably the biggest war in the games history, you've decided to undo a large, key proportion of it.  If you want to earn $1000 less per month, you're going the right way about it.

 

I don't have time right now to watch for when the game comes back online and try to redo everything that had been achieved at great effort, even if it was possible, which it isn't because our opponents now know our every move.  It will probably go live in the wrong timezone for me too.

 

It's sad that others want to win like this

 

This is how games die.  Mensa have made a big contribution to growing this game, especially the active community.  We're now being taken for granted and are having a very real discussion about whether it's worth continuing (cue cheers from opposing inferior alliances).

 

This isn't just about Mensa though.  It's a poor way to run a game all around and I'm surprised at the attitude of some thinking that there are positives in this no matter what side they are on.

 

So yeah, refund please.  Rant over.

 

There's that persecution complex a few of you gents in Mensa seem to rage over nonstop. The only reason the contributions you have made to the game "are being taken for granted now" is because of your shitty attitudes and the way you shit on people you think are your "lessers." It's been no secret in pnw's history that cash you spend in-game are donations. Yes, everybody appreciates that people have put their hard-earned cash into the game to help constantly improve it. That much is undeniable, but truly the only people that seem to really be complaining about this reset are you, and a couple (maybe 2 or 3) of your alliance mates. A few days seems pretty crazy to go full potato over. 

 

Personally, I'd just rather a full-reset. Everybody on an equal setting, and able to "take a stab" at building again. You whined about even so much as dreaming the idea into life, and apparently a whopping 4 days is way too much to ask for as well. So, it's either one-way or no way? Why not a compromise somewhere in the "middle?" 

 

If 4 days is so bad to you, perhaps another nation sim really is up your alley. The ability to show longevity and adapt clearly isn't your strong suit. 

 

Also, Sheepy's doing everything he can to find a reasonable compromise to the situation, some will inevitably leave. I think he's adult enough to realize you simply can't please everyone, ever. 

[Marijuana]

Rip Marijuana

Made a few days ago

My beatiful weed-worshipping nation will be missed ;(

[LordRahl2]

I understand you cannot see beyond your nation, and at the big picture.  But at the time of the time skip, we had wiped out almost all of Test's military, and started dropping nukes, and we had taken out the military of your top 2 members.  The skip ended all the wars we had with Test, and your members that we had under control, and because we dropped them so much over the course of a day, we already beiged a few of them, and were limited by the redeclare timer, we couldnt redeclare on them.   So instead our entire upper tier had 0 targets, so we declared on a bunch of new guys that then weakend our upper tier's military which allowed your smaller guys to jump in and drag us down much easier than they would have normally been able to.

 

Now could you have dragged us down even without the setback?  Maybe, but it would have been much tougher, because we would have been closer to max military, and had the ability to rebuy that day.

 

Now, once we had those guys completely locked down, my next step was to expand out to the TKR's BK's, and more of Mensa's top tier, and just slowly expand and take your top tier out.  We should have been able to do signifcant damage before Guardian finished rebuilding and eventually took us out (or tS showed up to bail your top tier out)  But I was operating under the hope that the war would be over by then, because we could leverage Feeny's love of his pixels to give us more power in the peace negotiation. 

 

And realistically yes, the top 10-15% of VE that was winning at the time, is probably the most important part of VE, since it was our largest nations, all our nuke nations and our biggest tax providers.

 

Are you serious?

 

I am not talking about my account - I took my licks (not relative to the damage I dished out but w/e).  I am talking about the 'big picture'.  Numbers do not lie.  You were overwhelmingly defeated.  You are the one clinging to 'oh a couple of our so called top tier guys were O.K.' and ignoring the huge loss you received.

 

The big picture was 10s of thousands of infra lost by VE and nowhere near that lost by its foes.  So who is talking about a few players vs the big picture here?

 

Also if you think that a couple of top tax providers makes up for the large number of 'lower tier' losses you had taken then you need to go take some additional maths in school.

 

Actually, never mind.  I see how right you are.

Lets fight it over again.  Do not accept any peace for the next several weeks no matter what because clearly you are the one winning.  Don't chicken out now.

[James II]

I called for it even before the most recent cash glitch, as there have been situations where rollbacks would of been appropriate and the admins refused to do it. I asked what's up, and never got adequate responses apart from the usual "look we are doing our best." Sheepy only seems to act when people hound and pressure him, so I am happy to do it yet again.

 

 

I'm not conjuring up an ideal world. I am talking about reality. There will be people who will try to exploit and hack the game, daily backups aren't some sort of "ideal" idea, but a practical necessity -- especially when the game is bringing in significant money. I am not sure why you think the servers are already strained, and where you got the idea that daily backups are that resource intensive. 

 

Your argument is the equivalent to a politician cutting necessary police forces, and saying that in an ideal world people should not commit crime and place further strain on our tight budget. It's just not practical.

?"So in the last six months you've never gotten a "The server is currently under a heavy load?"

[Avruch]

You can just stop shitting on the winning side of this war for being irritated that VE is being magically rebuilt. I get that you, and people who are not involved in the war at all (looking at Placentica) don't mind the roll back. Why would you? It is literally the best and most amazing thing that could possibly happen to you. 

 

Maybe there is no other solution. I don't know that, because we don't have sufficient information to know. But its a solution that sucks for some of us and is great for you. So please hop off your high horse of "well just neutrally, you know, from the perspective of the game, this is good even if, uh, incidentally, it might help us ever so slightly."

[Aenir]

?"So in the last six months you've never gotten a "The server is currently under a heavy load?"

Those exclusively happen when turns occur, and they last for 30 seconds to a minute at most, are you kidding me?

[Saru]

?"So in the last six months you've never gotten a "The server is currently under a heavy load?"

 

That was added to prevent another exploit issue apparently. And only occurs at each turn. It's not because the servers are currently strained.

[Jose Rodriguez III]

?"So in the last six months you've never gotten a "The server is currently under a heavy load?"

It happens for like...one minute every turn.

 

Hardly something I'd call concerning. (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways) I know also has the same issue at update(or at least had) but it would be out for 5 minutes instead of 1.

[Sweeeeet Ronny D]

I am not denying that we were losing, of course we were, you guys heavily outnumbered us in the bottom, and middle tiers, but we were not defeated until the rollback happened, since that removed any last advantage that we had.  Infra is easy to replace, once you have already lost the expensive stuff, which is what were were getting ready to destroy, and which we had already lost ages ago, from fighting Guardian in the first round.

 

So please continue to ignore the point I was trying to make, and talk about how awesome you guys think you are, since that is what you are best at. (you guys are even better at it than I am, which is an accomplishment in itself.)

[Wiccan High Priest]

Not really.  It is entirely justifiable that the changes be restored and a fix implemented to stop future hacks.  I have absolutely no issue with that, quite the opposite.

 

It is the rollback that is in question so it is a matter of in game stuff.  Both the restoration of VE and the security fix could be done without a rollback.

With out knowing 100% of all what was done, what Sheepy did was a correct move. what was done to VE may have only been what was seen, it what malicous programming that could have been added that is not seen. which is why the roll back was a correct move. if they were able to manipulate members and and the bank in one alliance, what is not saying they have made other changes that were not yet cought.

anyone can armchair quarter back, but if you have never been in Sheepy's position as a game developer, you may have no clue what even changing one period or removing a comma can do to even the most basic programming.

[WISD0MTREE]

Sheepy I am not questioning your living habits but why not live in a motel for a day or two why are you on a boat

Hotels for long term are expensive. Like imagine $150 for a week. That's like over $1,000 before tax. (This is assuming that he owns said boat.)

 

Most games get hacked occasionally, the difference is that our admins keep us updated and do their best to fix it ASAP. Also, Pfeiffer, if you feel like leaving, you're always welcome.

Exactly this. I like Sheepy over Rumsod because Sheepy is doing his best at the moment, while Rummy is god knows where for months only to come back when Goons took over the whole game. 

 

One would think daily backups would have been implemented after the cash glitch

I thought that it was just a backup for banks? 

 

This has been very poorly managed.  You're supposed to be running a professional business but you can't access the internet because you're on a boat.  You're in 21st century America FFS.

There are other (worse) browser games. Check your browser-game privileges. 

[LordRahl2]

I am not denying that we were losing

 

You basically were denying this the whole time.  But I will accept that you now admit defeat.  gg

[Wiccan High Priest]

Can I have a refund on my credits instead?  When I bought them things were entirely different and the goalposts haven't just been moved slightly, they've been completely relocated.

 

This has been very poorly managed.  You're supposed to be running a professional business but you can't access the internet because you're on a boat.  You're in 21st century America FFS.

 

Every major decision or change seems to screw Mensa over whether intentionally or not.  First many of our opponents were getting masses of exploit money which was by no means resolved to the communities satisfaction.  Then the spy system was nerfed because we were doing too well with it.  Now when we're winning what is probably the biggest war in the games history, you've decided to undo a large, key proportion of it.  If you want to earn $1000 less per month, you're going the right way about it.

 

I don't have time right now to watch for when the game comes back online and try to redo everything that had been achieved at great effort, even if it was possible, which it isn't because our opponents now know our every move.  It will probably go live in the wrong timezone for me too.

 

It's sad that others want to win like this

 

This is how games die.  Mensa have made a big contribution to growing this game, especially the active community.  We're now being taken for granted and are having a very real discussion about whether it's worth continuing (cue cheers from opposing inferior alliances).

 

This isn't just about Mensa though.  It's a poor way to run a game all around and I'm surprised at the attitude of some thinking that there are positives in this no matter what side they are on.

 

So yeah, refund please.  Rant over.

Wow your right it's not about Mensa

 

Every major decision or change seems to screw Mensa over whether intentionally or not.

Then the spy system was nerfed because we were doing too well with it.

Mensa have made a big contribution to growing this game, especially the active community.

We're now being taken for granted

 

no wait

[Dan77]

Wow your right it's not about Mensa

 

Every major decision or change seems to screw Mensa over whether intentionally or not.

Then the spy system was nerfed because we were doing too well with it.

Mensa have made a big contribution to growing this game, especially the active community.

We're now being taken for granted

 

no wait

 

Great post

 

Now tell me what I said which was untrue.

[Spite]

I am fine with the rollback (by fine I mean pissed off that it's hurt my alliance but accepting the necessity)

 

However:

 

1. There needs to be more professionalism. When we donate all those credits to "support the game" we expect that money to be spent on game development, including professional security and so on, not just on "wages" or upkeep. And yes Mensa have invested a great deal but by "we" I mean all players.

 

2. The message in OP was poorly thought out to the point of being rude. "try better second time round" or whatever sounded like it was supporting the VE side of the war. I'm sure this wasn't the intention but it sounded like he was giving them a second chance. The mention about credits now being available was incredibly poor and made me absolutely certain I'll not be buying credits ever again.

 

3. People who are saying Mensa should leave if we don't like it obviously don't understand how games like this work. I'd like to see P&W with a hundred thousand active players and a dedicated admin team with an office. Telling a group that is actively bringing money and activity to the game to !@#$ off is so counterproductive and good customer service isn't a "take it or leave it" situation, it involves working proactively with all of your customers.

 

In any case I hope Sheepy will discuss this further with the Mensa leadership.

[Avruch]

I am not denying that we were losing, of course we were, you guys heavily outnumbered us in the bottom, and middle tiers, but we were not defeated until the rollback happened, since that removed any last advantage that we had.  Infra is easy to replace, once you have already lost the expensive stuff, which is what were were getting ready to destroy, and which we had already lost ages ago, from fighting Guardian in the first round.

 

So please continue to ignore the point I was trying to make, and talk about how awesome you guys think you are, since that is what you are best at. (you guys are even better at it than I am, which is an accomplishment in itself.)

 

Heavily outnumbered is a bit of a stretch, but OK. So the only part of the war that was unsettled pre-glitch was the disposition of the top 12-13 guys in VE (not including Andrew Ryan, who ghosted in at the end). As of the VE hack, the average military score of the bottom 102 VE nations was 27 points. One hundred and two people, averaging twenty seven points.

 

EVEN IF we accept that the glitch needed to be rolled back (which, fwiw, would !@#$ my nation up pretty good) -- that is just 8/29. And if that was legitimately necessary, it should have been done on 8/30. If Sheepy had frozen the game and rolled it back a few hours on 8/30, mostly everyone would have understood. When the decision was made not to rollback on 8/30, that should have been final. The result of changing that decision is several more days of activity, planning, new players, etc. that get wiped out. 

 

ETA: To be clear, personally I am much better off with a rollback to 8/27 than I am to 8/29. I also realize that at this point an 8/29 rollback may be impossible. 

Edited September 1, 2015 by Avruch

[Saru]

Heavily outnumbered is a bit of a stretch, but OK. So the only part of the war that was unsettled pre-glitch was the disposition of the top 12-13 guys in VE (not including Andrew Ryan, who ghosted in at the end). As of the VE hack, the average military score of the bottom 102 VE nations was 27 points. One hundred and two people, averaging twenty seven points.

 

EVEN IF we accept that the glitch needed to be rolled back (which, fwiw, would !@#$ my nation up pretty good) -- that is just 8/29. And if that was legitimately necessary, it should have been done on 8/30. If Sheepy had frozen the game and rolled it back a few hours on 8/30, mostly everyone would have understood. When the decision was made not to rollback on 8/30, that should have been final. The result of changing that decision is several more days of activity, planning, new players, etc. that get wiped out. 

 

He didn't have the backups to 8/30. That's the biggest problem, and hopefully this whole scenario will finally hammer in the importance of daily backups.

[Skynet]

Can I have a refund on my credits instead?  When I bought them things were entirely different and the goalposts haven't just been moved slightly, they've been completely relocated.

 

This has been very poorly managed.  You're supposed to be running a professional business but you can't access the internet because you're on a boat.  You're in 21st century America FFS.

 

Every major decision or change seems to screw Mensa over whether intentionally or not.  First many of our opponents were getting masses of exploit money which was by no means resolved to the communities satisfaction.  Then the spy system was nerfed because we were doing too well with it.  Now when we're winning what is probably the biggest war in the games history, you've decided to undo a large, key proportion of it.  If you want to earn $1000 less per month, you're going the right way about it.

 

I don't have time right now to watch for when the game comes back online and try to redo everything that had been achieved at great effort, even if it was possible, which it isn't because our opponents now know our every move.  It will probably go live in the wrong timezone for me too.

 

It's sad that others want to win like this

 

This is how games die.  Mensa have made a big contribution to growing this game, especially the active community.  We're now being taken for granted and are having a very real discussion about whether it's worth continuing (cue cheers from opposing inferior alliances).

 

This isn't just about Mensa though.  It's a poor way to run a game all around and I'm surprised at the attitude of some thinking that there are positives in this no matter what side they are on.

 

So yeah, refund please.  Rant over.

 

 

You won't be receiving a refund. You didn't "buy" anything from PW, you donated to the game. PW isn't a business, it's a game. 

[Wayne]

You won't be receiving a refund. You didn't "buy" anything from PW, you donated to the game. PW isn't a business, it's a game. 

 

 

What does the tax man class it as?

Edited September 1, 2015 by Wayne

[Sweeeeet Ronny D]

As I have stated before, I dont like the roll back either, but then again, I also didnt like the time skip, or the fact that my alliance was hacked. 

I guess I have been getting used to dissapointement over the last week or so.

[Wayne]

*Insert serious comment here*

 

It's a legit question.

[Dan77]

You won't be receiving a refund. You didn't "buy" anything from PW, you donated to the game. PW isn't a business, it's a game. 

 

Thanks for your considerate response.  Not a customer services professional are you.

[donsberger]

What does the tax man class it as?

Shouldn't matter what the tax man classes it as as that just affects if the business needs to pay tax on the money made not whether a customer gets a refund.

Edited September 1, 2015 by donsberger

[Saru]

You won't be receiving a refund. You didn't "buy" anything from PW, you donated to the game. PW isn't a business, it's a game. 

 

It's very much a business.

 

Although I agree with the general point of not offering return on donations. 

Edited September 1, 2015 by Saru