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An Apology and Explanation


Caesares

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Greetings,

 

It is I, the nefarious, evil, wicked, retarded and dastardly creator of the Intergalactic Banking Federation. Now first off, I would like to say that what I did was wrong, obviously, and that I in general should not have done it. However, I find that a lot of people did not understand why I had made this organization. I recently moved to DU from Star Citizen. The problem I had with Star Citizen was that, first off, it was not being made, and, second off, each main economy had it's own industry giant, with no hope of catching up. Many of these organizations had joined early, and where stuffed with alternate accounts that had been made before SC had decided to stop players without packages from being able to join orgs.

 

Despite this, accounts that had already joined where not affected, allowing large organizations to remain in control mostly because they inflated the numbers. 

 

So, then I saw DU. I instantly sold what I had in SC, and switched over. There was no way you could compete with those giants. But, looking through the organizations, I grew worried. Much of the accounts in the larger orgs (TU, Void) seemed to be fake, or at least inactive. This worried me. After already being scammed out of years of time hoping for SC, I did not want to go through the same thing with DU. 

 

So, I made the IBF. I made multiple alt accounts (how I did so I will later explain). The only goal in my mind was to see that, if I pushed hard and made all the accounts so that the community would see, what would Novaquark do? 

 

Also, as a note, the perpetrator of these activities where me, myself, and I. There was no one else involved.

 

In the end, Novaquark shut down the organization I had made, which gives me an enormous amount of joy. In SC, the devs don't want to attack the big orgs, because they are their main customers, and they simply don't care. To see devs and moderators shutting down an org, but still allowing the accounts to be free as a kind of second chance was also uplifting, because it shows that the people at Novaquark (I hope I spelling this correctly) don't want to be strict on any one, and are free to second chances. 

 

So, in the end, my mission is accomplished. You may not like or approve of my methods, and after this neither do I (I had a surprising amount of stress because of this, resulting in me typing this going on 70 hrs of no sleep), but at the end of the day it made me a staunch DU fan and believer. 

 

How I Made That Alts And How To Stop Alts

The most annoying thing about the signup system right now for an alt-maker is the recaptcha. This requires a human to do the recaptcha and puzzles it gives. (That is what would take up the majority of the ten hours I spent making alts)

 

However, the other things people thought would be difficult, password, email, nickname, where not that difficult. For email I would use guerilla mail, since you can make unlimited email addresses and for usernames I simply came up with them or had a generator open. On average, it took 3 minutes to make a convincing alt, and about 2 min to make a really horrible alt.

 

Now, there is a very easy way to stop this. Don't allow more than three alts per IP address (all the accounts I made, totaling 150, where made on two devices) do not allow users to have guerilla mail emails, and add more human-required brain work, such as maybe answering a code or making sense out of phrases in the email before the verification process for the accounts begins. 

 

If all of this is done, the average time for one alt account could exceed 20-30 minutes.

 

Also, maybe require filling out payment info, or at least residence, that way someone cannot be two people in the system.

 

The Apology Part:

I know I might have caused some pain recently. Whether annoyance, anger, or frustration, it was my fault. Please understand, I absolutely hate alts. They where what made me leave SC. I wanted to see if DU could be affected in the same way. The pain, annoyance or frustration I caused was completely my fault, and I sincerely apologize.

 

Getting to know this community, and see it come together to fight my organization was very empowering and motivating. I am now certain that this game will come out, because of the people who make up it's community and the developers, who listen to that community.

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I see your intention, I really do but by no means do I support your actions, these kind of actions do create problems in the community as a whole as you might have noticed as such kind of actions divert the attention of NQ from important things like developing the game and while I really believe that social community management is a big thing to consider, we also need to know that NQ doesn't have a very large team and they are all involved in certain parts of development of game.
We all are humans and we make mistakes, it is good to see that you are at least stating your point of view and while I do not support your actions I can at least respect you for standing up and doing what you did.
I do hope though in the future such an incident doesn't takes place and if you do end up making a bank it is without alts :P But again best of luck.

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I see your intention, I really do but by no means do I support your actions, these kind of actions do create problems in the community as a whole as you might have noticed as such kind of actions divert the attention of NQ from important things like developing the game and while I really believe that social community management is a big thing to consider, we also need to know that NQ doesn't have a very large team and they are all involved in certain parts of development of game.

We all are humans and we make mistakes, it is good to see that you are at least stating your point of view and while I do not support your actions I can at least respect you for standing up and doing what you did.

I do hope though in the future such an incident doesn't takes place and if you do end up making a bank it is without alts :P But again best of luck.

I understand that, and I also respect your opinion. I just think that if this issue could be resolved early, then when others joined they could feel like the community was more authentic and real. This could help the whole game, since then those players could end up pledging and making the game go quicker.

 

Again, I also see your way of thinking, and understand that most, if not all people will disapprove of my actions.

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As pointed out by Nyzaltar already:

IP protection won't work because I can switch my IP within seconds to make new alts

 

For the rest:

Well, gl in making a new org - you'll need it. No one in here will think you're serious for quite some time.

Whatever your reasons (to me they're just plain stupid) I wish you best of luck and hope you contribute to this wonderful community

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I believe this was a necessary evil. It got are attention, that's for sure.

 

But now the problem is doing something about it. Your ideas wont work for reasons all ready discussed.

 

Edit: I have basically given up on star citizen too. What did you mean by sell everything you had?

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Well, the first step is that you expressed being sorry (whether 100% sincere or also out of pressure). Given that you explained how you did it and posted in the first place compared to just moving on with an alt (the irony it would be) and starting anew also seems to speak in your favor.

 

I don't exactly agree with some of your reasons as Star Citizen player myself. You partially have a point. The sheer size of some organizations there, numbering in the thousands or above ten thousand (1 or 2, few at best) is a marketing aspect in its own way. But it sounds a bit like no one would have a chance there due to the larger ones and I think that is not entirely fitting. Depending on your expectations, that is.

 

Don't always look up at them or you might forget where you are going to, like someone staring at the sky while walking forward in a crowded area... or the cliffs.

 

I joined SC mid 2015 where many organizations were already established. And I see many smaller, innovative (and new) organizations grow and build a foundation regardless of the big ones. In addition, not all want to join a massive organization. Chances are some of the giant ones also collapse due to infighting. In short, if you are innovative and bring some associates, you will (slowly) grow despite the many organizations existing there, small or large. And yes, there are even smaller banking groups you could help grow.

 

Consider this for the future and perhaps SC in general, this year will see some interesting additions with 3.0. But of course DU will also see some good progress this year.

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It doesnt really matter.

The reality is that many of the orgs today wont make it to release anyway. And its not because you want to be this big industrial corporation that you will succeed to do so in game.

 

There is a big difference between talking a good game and actually playing a good game.

 

You certainly gave us and NQ something to reflect on. ;)

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I don't really get why people always think it's the most important thing to have huge numbers. Numbers alone never make up a good org or a successful one. It's the people who make it good at certain tasks.

Even when you're talking about pvp/military/tactics huge numbers don't change that much because of several things:

- people are stup....special. Half of the people online will not get the commands (fly there!) because they're rambling or not focused enough

- many of them don't even have pvp experience and just can't handle all the information, commands and chaos thus making them slow and/or not effective

- you'd need huge amounts of bandwidth to handle such numbers on teamspeak or any other server. Or you split all those people but then you need some to pass information to others which confuses many and they then can't fight effectively

- Timezones and playtimes. Lots of people think that 1000 people is a huge number for a military for example, while the truth is: it's not. Considering playtimes and timezones you probably have 50-100 people online at any given time

 

Smaller orgs can be way more effective and fun to play in because you don't have to deal with bloated inside-politics, such orgs consist of friends with similar playtimes and no special snowflakes.

 

I need to quote the kitty here:

"Everyone always wants to play a leader or a soldier. No one wants to play support"

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As the original autor of the forum topic I have to comment to this.

I really didn't expect you to ever write this post. With it you made yourself vunerable to a lot of hate, and you have my respect.

You created this org. When I first saw it, i wondered how that huge growth was possible. In the next days it went obvious that this must be fake. then I pointed it out in the forums. it was clear to see that this is either a "prank/social experiment" or really stupid. As it turns out, it was both. But, it maybe was really useful too. It brought a lot of attention to the problem, and it might help to keep the community hub safe from worse, less obvious scam attempts. Personally, I forgive you, but I only do because it was for a greater good. Next time you might should talk in the forums first instead of creating problems why you try to fix these.

 

Another question: Can you please post a list of your fake accounts (if you were the guy with the multiple accounts that are trying to get into all the other orgs)? I'd like to ask all the other CEO's, presidents and leaders to delete the alts in their orgs as well
 

Sincerly,

MinerMax555, CEO of VMS

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I am a bit split here, while i on one hand i think this event can have been healthy for the game i on the other hand dislike it because of earlier mentioned reasons that it diverted developer focus. You seem like an interesting fella so good luck with what you decide to do, and don't worry about large numbers right now, as Lethys said quantity does certainly not make up quality.

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I don't really get why people always think it's the most important thing to have huge numbers. Numbers alone never make up a good org or a successful one. It's the people who make it good at certain tasks.

Even when you're talking about pvp/military/tactics huge numbers don't change that much because of several things:

- people are stup....special. Half of the people online will not get the commands (fly there!) because they're rambling or not focused enough

- many of them don't even have pvp experience and just can't handle all the information, commands and chaos thus making them slow and/or not effective

- you'd need huge amounts of bandwidth to handle such numbers on teamspeak or any other server. Or you split all those people but then you need some to pass information to others which confuses many and they then can't fight effectively

- Timezones and playtimes. Lots of people think that 1000 people is a huge number for a military for example, while the truth is: it's not. Considering playtimes and timezones you probably have 50-100 people online at any given time

 

Smaller orgs can be way more effective and fun to play in because you don't have to deal with bloated inside-politics, such orgs consist of friends with similar playtimes and no special snowflakes.

 

I need to quote the kitty here:

"Everyone always wants to play a leader or a soldier. No one wants to play support"

Yep this.

 

Also being first or being a guild before the game launch's isn't as important as some might make it out to be. A good well run, organized, cooperative guild will be so regardless of when they were established.

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Yep this.

 

Also being first or being a guild before the game launch's isn't as important as some might make it out to be. A good well run, organized, cooperative guild will be so regardless of when they were established.

While this is true the difference is that you can find a bunch of people to be organised with in advance early and have a head-start of sorts

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Hi Caesares,

 

We won't come back on what has been said in private.

However, we salute the fact that you apologized publicly on your own initiative, using your main account. 

That means something and from there, there's no reason you couldn't have a fresh start (we hope there won't be a second time though).

 

To answer to some of your suggestions:

 

- As Lethys said, IP Address Cheking is not reliable. It's easy to fake an IP Address nowadays.

- Requiring filling out payment info or residence can be faked as well, and asking people to make a payment transaction just to check if the information is real might be a deterrent. However, we might consider this depending of the feedback on a certain idea mentioned in another topic.

- Another idea currently considered is to create a blacklist recording all disposable e-mail services and preventing to valid a fake e-mail address from the said services during account creation process (we have a 400+ address list and all guerrillamail addresses are already in it). 

 

Best regards,

Nyzaltar.

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I believe this was a necessary evil. It got are attention, that's for sure.

 

But now the problem is doing something about it. Your ideas wont work for reasons all ready discussed.

 

Edit: I have basically given up on star citizen too. What did you mean by sell everything you had?

 

I imagine he was talking about here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Starcitizen_trades/

 

 

On topic, in the end I believe the situation ended up having a very very stellar outcome.  Novaquark showing that large organizations aren't above the rules set forth in the game.  I imagine this will bleed into actual game mechanics as well, if you break the rules... fear the consequences.  If an organization abuses a bug in the game, I imagine there will be consequences.  This is different from many games that I have been a part of, where large organizations had amnesty.

 

Granted in this case, the large organization was one player... but it still has a strong indication :)

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I need to quote the kitty here:

"Everyone always wants to play a leader or a soldier. No one wants to play support"

 

I'll play support, and I'll do ti all day long. But I'll only do it for people I can trust, and that's easier to accomplish in a smaller org.

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