Seriously, for some reason people are expecting some some of... Democracy here?
And not even "some people" rule breakers! It's hilarious! I'm so glad NQ stuck with their decision, these people are insane!
I for one am happy they stuck with their decision.
Accept it and keep playing, or move along as you all proclaimed. But it's time to stop throwing a tantrum all over the community because you didn't get it your way.
Its done, over. The amount of attention drawing is just really bad for any normal discussion. Heck, even Duscussion is back to normal and having good conversations again.
lul and yet your still here crying like a toddler screaming "ima run away" and throwing insults like a village idiot. You and people like you tend to stomp around screaming and waving your hands around. But you are usually all talk and will soon be back to moaping under your bridge until the next thing you can throw a tantrum over comes along. And if you do leave well, im sure some rust group will be more then happy to take you.
At this stage it’s hard to ignore that the “Market Heist” has definitely caused a stir of dialogue and reactions both in our community and on the internet.
We have taken some time to look at the situation in more detail: the actions of these players are not ok, not condoned, and will not be tolerated. We stand by our decision, and we’d like to better explain it.
Most of what Novaquark builds within the game world, such as markets, institutes or the Arkship is not a player-owned construct. It is a part of the game play designed to serve all players. There are exceptions, like shipwrecks, which are designed for salvaging, and clearly communicated as such.
We did, indeed, state to players that if RDMS is not properly set on a construct, and it results in theft, it’s part of the game and we won’t act upon it. This is to acknowledge that treason can happen in an organization, for instance, and is part of the emergent gameplay we’re trying to promote.
Now, this does obviously not apply to NQ-built constructs, which are designed to serve a specific purpose in the game. It is obvious that these constructs, owned by NQ accounts or Aphelia, are not meant to be interacted with in the same manner as player constructs. Besides, they may contain some highly overpowered and unbalanced elements which were never meant to fall in the hands of players. So the situation with the market is clearly covered by section 5.2 of the EULA: “You must refrain from engaging in any behaviour that could harm NOVAQUARK’s image and/or reputation, that could harm one or more other Users or have a negative impact on their gaming experience, or that is detrimental to the proper functioning of the Game.”
Finally, and for the record, the issue with the market did not result in a wrongly-set RDMS, but rather in a duplication bug. Part of what we use is the same tools as players to build constructs. We create one district, then duplicate it. Something went wrong in the duplication process of one of the markets, which resulted in players being able to edit it.
Were we harsh? Yes. But we had previously communicated that we would no longer tolerate abuses of bugs and issues. We do realize that perhaps this started innocently enough in that someone pressed “B” while standing on a market. But it went beyond this, and that shows intention. The players involved indicated that they reported the issue, and after further investigation, one did, though not by following the proper feedback channel: they pinged a staff account on Discord in the middle of the night. We’ve clearly stated that staff do not respond to pings on Discord, and that the reporting method for exploits and bugs of this nature is either via our ticket system, or via a community manager on the forums.
Even a proper attempt to inform us about an exploit doesn’t mean that it’s OK to go on and abuse it. Communicating an exploit to the NQ staff doesn’t serve as a way to absolve the players, it’s only meant to ensure that we fix the issue - it’s not a free pass to use an exploit. The banned players destroyed a player market by dismantling it, and the fact that they communicated with us via Reddit with a request not to be banned shows that they knew what they were doing was wrong. They posted on Reddit, proud of their ‘achievement’ and of the destruction.
In the end, repairing the damage cost us hours of manpower across multiple departments, which could have been invested into further progressing the game.
That is why we take this seriously.
Here are a couple of things that we’d like to reiterate:
We are in beta. Things aren’t always going to work as intended. But we have a persistent, single-shard universe, and altering its foundations impacts all players.
Bug Fixes aren’t instant. They take manpower time to find, investigate, fix, test and roll out. We try to make sure that fixing a bug doesn’t introduce a dozen more.
As beta players, we count on you to help us and report bugs, not abuse them. We believe that this is fairly standard for most games.
We genuinely hope this brings some clarity to the situation, and ask you all to remember this is a communal effort. We’re in this together.
