Hi, This is Oakland from The Dark Side.

Today, when I got home from work, I've heard unfortunate news about a friend of mines in ROO. It wasn't pleasant news to hear and I do not have all the facts to go with but it did make me think about the state of this game. I cannot defend him but this has made me reevaluate this game in a new perspective. Ever since I started playing this game, I've spent my fair share of GP to get to where I am. I would like to continue my support for this game as I have spent many mindless sessions of NPC hunting and playing the game but there are various issues that are concerning to me.

1. Forum trolling rivalry: I can understand game sportsmanship rivalry. I can understand sarcasm, but I do not understand why certain members on this forum who are clearly trolling are not banned long time ago. Yes, it's quite obvious there are Pro-Dysonians and Anti-Dysonians players, but keep it civil. Both sides are not exempt from this. Even when I suspect something, I'll try to evaluate the situation as clearly and thoughtful as possible to make sure I am not reaching out of my ass, making grandeur claims against someone. Make a case, have a civil discussion and move on.

2. Transparency: Dan, I love your game. I can imagine that a lot of hard work was put in to this project of yours. Facebook gaming has created a culture of casual social gamers and you have made something special here. Not everyone is an expert on how to deal with a community of diverse players and everything that happens may be overwhelmingly difficult to deal with. With cheating accusations being posted left and right, it can be a headache to deal with. The key to solving this is to have transparency for all your actions taken. This is a community with a voice, and without transparency, I can only imagine a downward spiral that will destroy this game. Accusations of favoritism is not something new to anyone in or out of this forum. There are a lot of high ranking players that feel this way and this concerns me. Transparency also improves player trust in the game, it reinforces the player to invest in your game.

3. Ban Hammer, Abuse? Bug? Extreme Rivalry nonsense?: Banning players is the key to stop abuse and cheating but there are things that is needed to be considered before banning a player, especially long standing players that have help start this community. There is a huge difference between player abuse, players unknowingly discovering a bug in the game and legion rivalries. Player abuse is obvious to see, with a player continuously using a game bug to their advantage is of course should be a bannable offensive. But let's consider other factors in this community, especially the extreme rivalries that goes on in the forums, in the game and even outside of the game and forums.

To put this in perspective:
PlayerA hates PlayerB. Rivalry nonsense right? Both players are overly obsessed and hates each other. PlayerB attacks PlayerA relentlessly causing a bug to appear. PlayerA sees the bug and reports PlayerB for cheating. At what point in this scenario can we assume that PlayerB was cheating and not just playing the game and it so happens that the bug appeared? Factor in that PlayerA hates PlayerB and PlayerA uses this discovery to his advantage. Is that fair as well?

In all fairness, this can happen to anyone of you. Galaxy Legion is not perfect, no game is perfect. Galaxy Legion is a multiplatform game that can be played on numerous browsers, operating systems, including mobile phones, tablets, various PC, Mac, Linux platforms, different Flash and java versions. Each action created by a player may present a different issue or result.

So at what point, a player in Galaxy Legion should be considered cheating? Should I be afraid that if I clicked too fast or too slow or my PC hangs and hiccups some kind of bug while fighting a rival legion get me banned? I would like all players to think about that. I want Dan to think about that. I know it is a nuisance to filter thru these legion rivalries and I would be fed up myself, but to the fairness of this community, these issues will not go away. It will constantly prop up again in the future until something is done about it. Consider transparency, consider atmosphere of this game and your players that play this game. This is the only way to stop the trolling, the accusations and help improve this game and prevent this negativity in this game.



Thank you for your time.

-Oakland, The Dark Side

nicely said..

Very good read.

Very well said.

Very well said.

Good points well made

I would also add in an alternative to banning players completely. Add in a few alternatives such as:

1. Temporary bans: For serious offenses. These would last for several days or weeks, during which your account is completely locked to you and all other players so you don't loose a whole lot of planets during this time.

2. Strikes: For minor offenses. These would function as temporary or permanent marks against your name that could result is temporary bans if enough strikes are accrued or permanent bans if you continue to breach the TOS/rules.

3. In Game punishments: For Minor offenses. These would likely be for very minor and first time offenders and would be along the lines of loss of energy regen for a day, no arti income for a day, disabled for a day (unrepairable) etc. Things that will hurt players but not totally cripple them.

Finally all these alternatives would need to be accompanied with a message from Dan regarding the nature of the offense and the punishment and its length. An option for appeals would also be useful for times when a bug was accidentally discovered a situation that, as Oakland mentioned, is inevitable due to the vast range of ways people play the game.

And as Oakland said issues between players/legions need to be taken into account when reports of cheating/abuse are made.

Great perspective Oakland! +1

I have no idea how to improve upon this or even just add to it so ill do what I havent done for a long time, but I do very much like it.
I concur

Very well said. All the best games establish balance. Balance is the key to keeping people interested in a game. GL is mostly balanced but I think there are still issues to be resolved.

Well said, Well put, great post

+1

I've played many many online games for the past 15-17ys and I have seen people banned, but it was for excessive and non stop abusive language while being warned and temp blocked several times. I myself have dealt with temp bans from a few games. Some we're 4 days and some we're 7 days for language. I recently quit playing starcraft 2 because it was taking up too much of my time. In that game lag bugs as u want to call it don't really happen and if they do they appreciate anyone letting them know about it, so they can work to fix it. The only people that are banned on those types of games are those actually using the hack programs that people make. I have never used one, but I heard that its a perm ban and the only way back into the game is to buy a new game with new code.
I also seen favortism big time in other games, though not by the creator, only by the moderators who help mod the game and I watched that game go down the tubes not so much because the moderators favored certain people sometimes, but because if they caught someone else logging onto you're account they blocked u. U had to delete you're account and start over again. They we're so strict that if they found evidence of anyone in you're family from the same computer logging on that they would block u, It went from a player base of 30k down to 400 when I finally left after 9yrs. I can easily see bad things happening here. I don't know what the creator thoughts or anything is, but the games I've played that use straight up perm bans don't last and the games that use temp bans/blocks or whatever u want to call it seem to plz majority and have more success. Extreme cases would be 2-3 week ban.

I agree with all the above, I dont care who's who.

At the end of the day the devs are gonna cater for the bigger spenders though.

Bravo! Brilliantly said! +1

I think Oakland did a good job in his original post at trying to be fair and reasonable.

I don't really know what the details are of why this member was banned.

I do however know that there are a lot of people accusing a lot of other people of cheating without any real proof, or at the best flimsy circumstantial evidence, and I don't mean any one group of accuser or or people being accused.

I would like to add also, that there should be levels of ban, hours, days, weeks, a month maybe for something really heinous, and there should be a method to appeal bans too.

Permanently banning people, especially without any option for repeal, and often from what I have seen at what appear to be somewhat small offences, with no real warnings, makes me feel sick. This reminds me of King Solomon's Rules, where almost every crime had the punishment "They shall be put to death"..

Also, it sounds like this player was removed for exploiting a bug they reported? And/or which was possibly due to lag? There doesn't seem much justice in that..

In the end this is your game, and your rules, but I am concerned that the game I have been playing pretty religiously for almost two years, might turn on me unexpectedly one day, and leave me in the cold.

For instance, today I've been playing on my Phone's Mobile Hot-Spot while on the train, what if I unknowingly run into some bug or other related to the connection being a big laggy? That is a scary thought considering the time i have invested in both the game and the Wiki, let alone the GP I have purchased..

I agree there need to be rules, and there should be ways of enforcing them, but it does seem incorrect that the only way they are enforced is a complete ban from the game.

-Q

I agree with this post. Where as I do not spend much money on the game, I used to like playing it and would try to get others to play. Now I do not recommend it at all. I still play but not as much and with long time online friends leaving or being banned, I may not be around much longer myself. They are losing money not because I don't spend money on it but because I don't recommend playing the game anymore.

Great post Oakland.

Opps, not in NI anymore, got to change that. lol

How could anyone not agree with this?
+Infinity

Thanks guys, I'm glad there are so many that has agreed with me.

Well said. +1