Because I have to.

Seth once banned me for a few hours for a perfectly valid activity. In the great MUPT era, with massive incoming attacks into Africa from AA, SA and the Middle East, we could only defend two.

Kane got someone he knew to plant a colony next to my op, which had an incoming of an entire enemy alliance. Right before they arrived, I moved my colony to that location and allowed the friend of Kane to conquer me. This would successfully bounce the enemy attack back at no loss as I would then get my crystals back from the friend.

Utilizing a friend or a sub in this way is great game play. It was an excellent, allowable tactic. And, boy, oh BOY did the whining about Kane's abuses run wild here. Seth interfered and though no specific rule (or subsequent one written) said what we did was against the rules, he gave temporary bans AND had the audacity to think he should be thanked for not making them permanent.

What I say next is truth. I'm surprised to see Kane here writing as he is.

What NO did was perfectly legitimate and valid. Seth should not have gotten involved. I have routinely seen him get involved in game play he doesn't like, but which does not violate any rule. I believe Seth is harming the game.

This was a big money round, which will now dry up.

If the makers of this game wish to make something against the rules, then MAKE it against the rules by writing a clear rule in OR writing clear code to prevent action.

If a rule specifically outlines that behavior as against the rules, take action. If it does not, even if you, as an admin, don't like it, STAY OUT OF IT. Improve the game in the next round with a rule which specifically allows you to take action.

I continue to be amazed and distressed that Seth is allowed to repeatedly interfere with the game and actively impact the outcome of so many eras I am involved in.

Seth, please, temper your behavior. Just because YOU CAN do a thing, does not mean you should, or must.

The best official is one NO ONE NOTICES. One who enforces the rules everyone sees in place before they start. One who does not utilize his own view of fair play to sprinkle meaning into poorly written rules. I'm likely to simply avoid eras Seth admins to show the rest of the game's makers what a difference financially his intrusive behavior is costing this game.

As one of the game's larger spenders, this would get immediately noticed and would likely be taken up by others. Seth, at this point you should make a pledge to avoid interference OR simply take a new position within the BD team as your actions are harmful and inappropriate.

Indeed. That was valid. Nothing in the rules suggest one shouldnt attack another. And if a ban was issued, then that's despicable misuse of power. Everything you do ingame cannot and should not be misinterpreted as offensive unintended gameplay, or a violation. This is exactly what am talking about. No clear rules. Rules made up along the way as per situations. Bans handed out for no specific timeline, with no clear explanation, for what, except maybe for a one liner in the ban notice. And then making the player BEG, yes literally BEG, to be released. Why? Cuz he might lose real money.



True. Lots of money spent for nothing We did wanna mass attack, and suicide and then let you guys conquer us and take the relics, but we simply did not have the time. The game was not letting me/us have regular sleep, and everything was messed up and we had to fix it and get rid of the unhealthy habit atleast for a while.

My oh my how it feels to be on the other side of the shoe eh Kevin? A player who has done his best to use all techniques he can in game for his gain comes here to argue about loopholes etc. Like Oluvai pointed out, you have used colonies placed in specific places to your advantage to help fight your enemy. Like Ilona pointed out in the other topic, you have used techniques you knew were "loopholes" to help prevent losing your army. Sure there was a bug with the spy in that instance, but you used a technique you knew that could save your army but would bring up a furor of response from the enemy as being shoddy.

Play and let play. Anything that is coded to be used in game should be allowed unless stated somewhere specifically. If an admin or developer does not like how a consequence of their coding, then change it but don't go banning players who are playing with what is given to them. You of all know people know this Kevin. I hope Michael realizes that bans like this and rounds ending early are nothing but a detriment to him financially and a detriment to the community at large.

A round like this has seen players spend thousands of dollars and had it gone on longer, much more would have surely been spent. Like Avi and Allen have stated in earlier posts, this game is first and foremost a business venture by Michael and a career for some of the developers/admins. Losing thousands of dollars because an administrator wants to use his personal opinion to judge what is right or wrong instead of allowing players to play using in game mechanics given to them by developers will not help this business. I hope Michael does look at this topic and read threw the posts and then looks at the charts of token expenditure before and after this incident.

-Gaurav

I might agree with you on every other point. In fact I do for the most part. I thought your maneuver was a brilliant strategy that brought a lot of fun into the game. I even congratulated Professor and any other enemies I met on it in game. It was great, until JD followed the brilliant act up with a stupid mistake that got him banned. I can't agree that Seth was in the wrong when JD clearly broke the same rules that any other player would be banned for, but on a larger scale.

sheesh...

I have seen no comment that JD broke any rule here. Elaborate?

As for the strategy, let's not overstate it. It wasn't all that exciting. In fact, we had a ton of squads in Western Africa in case anything like that happened. It was pretty standard and expected actually. We had enough squads to halt any advance and in our territory, quickly confront, pin and kill such a move.

Well I wouldn't say a ton of squads, you guys had to wait for gates to open up to get squads into West Africa. Had we been active enough and more diligent, I'm sure the maneuver would have done more damage than it ended up doing. I don't believe the move was anything near standard seeing as how pissed Kevin was about it and the way he reacted by complaining it being a loophole etc. I do have to say though, you guys responded very well to the maneuver in getting your squads back to Africa and pinning us down. Nothing more than expected from an alliance of GIFT's caliber.

About JD breaking a rule. Twilight refers to JD conquering the colony GC in South America. This is what led to his ban, but for some reason also led to the ban of our new member in Africa. JD did not conquer GC for an insignificant crystal but conquered GC so if we needed to, GC could be recruited back into the alliance at a later date to be helpful as a gate. GC also had a relocation op built in Alaska and was planning on eventually relocating and joining a sub when it no longer seemed we would need a helpful colony in SA.

Yeah it would have been quite a show if we had an equal amount of units but we had only half

BTW JD's offence was that he conquered the SA colony and took the crystal. The reason for the ban was farming, but we really did it, because he was our only way out of Africa, if we had to gate out. If GIFT conquered that colony wed have been stuck. And secondly, why would someone spending a ton of money on a game farm 1 colony and 1 crystal. Kinda seems pointless to do that, and farming as a rule should not be looked at in such a stiff fashion. Gotta see if the guy really intended to cheat, and really gained anything from the action. In this case, both these colonies were so weak we actually lost resources. And the move to conquer them was out of need. Not to abuse the game. Infact he was supposed to relocate and join a sub if I followed things right

Cookie,

I left for a camping trip on Friday afternoon. By 3 p.m. half of all Gift tanks were placed at a gate IN West Africa actually 3 ticks from where you guys landed many ticks later. We didn't have to respond all that much, because we were already there. Here's the ONE and ONLY note on the topic in the mails while I was camping:



As I said, we were already in West Africa with enough units to limit your movement. And being so close to home, it was just moving vehicles back and repelling. The quote above doesn't state where we were, but, in fact we were, literally, 3 ticks from where you landed.

I do not say Kevin anticipated it exactly, but, we had your only entry in to our territory covered enough to handle you and quickly repel.

As for what JD did, doesn't sound like he did anything at all.

Which is what I now have come to expect out of Seth.

Oh I know you guys responded fast Piggy. But when we had landed in Africa and jammed the gates, you guys had about 150 squads of tanks on the coast. Another 140 came from a gate unjammed on the west coast. Like I said had we been more diligent with our jams and jammed up the coast more than your colonies, we would have been able to do more damage. Also after gating we were not as coordinated on where we should go. Had we focused entirely on cutting you guys off from SA as had been the plan, I hope things would have gone better. That said you guys did/do have double our squads, so eventually you guys would attempt to pin us and it would be about if we could be active enough to continue to escape.

This move was really just supposed to be a big distraction to get you guys all to Africa with vecs and tanks so our allies could invade europe and our two guys left behind could clear SA. Your subs proved to be more useful in SA though than I had personally anticipated.

It is true on the tick you entered you had not actually blocked anything off at all as we had open paths in and were sitting down so you didn't notice. That last may go to your diligence in jamming, but, all I'm stating is the strategy was not all that fantastic.

It's like people complimenting Professer on spamming, taking nothing and losing his army as some great move. What you did was fine. It was a way to assure loss as you lacked the strength to come into our home infrastructure. Had you been trying to win, you'd have continued to lure us in and go for traps where you bloodied us more than we bloodied you.

That's how MUPT ultimately beat everyone against us. We lacked the strength, but, shrank and shrank and shrank and continued to nibble away at the advantage against us until we had the ability to press our new advantage. I take it you guys weren't really thinking you could win, and mostly wanted fireworks. In that, it could have been interesting if not that impactful.