Hotifx 7.27.2014

[JohnCarver]

*Murdering people on the border between Dock Club & Providence should no longer be a thing.


***NOTICE***
Sticking to the protocol we have established the murdered character provided satisfactory proof that he was murdered as a result of a bug in our implementation of Dock Club. His character has been restored and both the Victim and Murderer are entitled to their bug-report reward as they both sent me a PM about it prior to me logging on.

Please take special note that claims, combat, Fighting Relations etc. etc. are tricky. Opening combat off town claim, then running on claim, throwing a turkey poult in the water, while simultaneously mashing parry and eating a hot pocket may result in death too (as it has not been tested). Players are encouraged to STAY in dock club, and/or STAY off Town Claim when in combat. In the future I reserve the right to determine that players in areas and in combat that they should not be in are simply cowards and chickens who ran there for safety they didn't get, and as a result, choose not to restore them.

I hope this clears up any confusion, may you continue to enjoy Dock Club.

[alloin]

I think the restoration of characters should not be done, this only leads to discussions what is a bug, and what is smart use of game mechanics.

Claiming that it isn't a bug while 99.9% of the population didn't know about something doesn't make that a valid game-mechanic.

In fact, using a chair to get inside a claim with closed doors looks worse then cowardly running away from an arenafight & getting killed because of it.

[RonPaulFTW]

I think the restoration of characters should not be done, this only leads to discussions what is a bug, and what is smart use of game mechanics.

Claiming that it isn't a bug while 99.9% of the population didn't know about something doesn't make that a valid game-mechanic.

In fact, using a chair to get inside a claim with closed doors looks worse then cowardly running away from an arenafight & getting killed because of it.

There's difference in the cases.

The people who enacted Darwoth's fight club death had no clue about the bug or that it could murder him.

PmP willfully took advantage of the horse bug to murder one of Suff's characters before giving the devs a chance to fix.

Darwoth purportedly willfully took advantage of the chair bug to murder several characters before giving the devs a chance to fix.

Rather than restoring characters in the later two cases - you should be punishing bug abusers severely. The EULA clearly gives you this right.

H. If Mortal Moments Inc. has reason to believe or suspects that
the End User is exploiting any defects in the Game, Mortal Moments Inc. has the right
to immediately delete that End User’s account and the entire
account balance shall be deemed forfeited.

[JohnCarver]

Our stance on bugs and bug abuse will get a big overhaul once the game launches. Until then, this is beta and we do not look to alienate or create systems where players are encouraged to keep and hoard bugs until launch. I agree it is a slippery slope between what is a bug and what is a clever use of game mechanics. As for restores, you can think of it this way.

*Was the death the direct result of a poor implementation?
*Did the victim himself do an action that caused the death, or did the bug user enforce his will upon the victim unilaterally?
*Did both the assailant and the victim lose something as a result of the bug? Or did the user of the bug get away clean (I.E. no risk to using it)?

Now surely there will be more to consider than simply those things. However, if 2 of the 3 are true I lean towards restores. If 1 of the three are true, then I lean towards not restoring.

[Potjeh]

It looks like points 1 and 3 are clearly satisfied in the chair bug case.

[JohnCarver]

It looks like points 1 and 3 are clearly satisfied in the chair bug case.

Hmm.. It is possible I worded #3 wrong. As Darwoth died as well in this latest case. If he was able to bug his way out, and/or used a bug in which there was no risk to his character then I most certainly would have considered the incident differently. There are also plenty of other factors that weighed me against any restores in that case though. Those factors are:

*The victims allowed hostile players into their town earlier who had left scents in various places.
*The victims were unaware of claimed leantos in their base.
*The Victims left gates open.

As well as several other inaccuracies in the original report vs. what I found when I began running through some server data and details @ the site. In the end, I concluded that if the chair was used was actually a lesser concern, as I could see several security issues in the way that town was being regulated.

[alloin]

It looks like points 1 and 3 are clearly satisfied in the chair bug case.

*Was the death the direct result of a poor implementation?
Not a direct result, but the only way in

*Did the victim himself do an action that caused the death, or did the bug user enforce his will upon the victim unilaterally?
Bug abuser enforced him inside a closed claim, so yes

*Did both the assailant and the victim lose something as a result of the bug? Or did the user of the bug get away clean (I.E. no risk to using it)?
Yes, they all died, but making a throwaway murder alt is very easy these days, unlike a 1500+ scalp score alt, it was intended that Darwoth's character would probably die too

[Potjeh]

Oh, he died? I wasn't aware of that. Carry on then.

[lachlaan]

I think you really need to better define what "Did the victim do something that caused the death", because otherwise you risk everyone avoiding every new objects or apparently even old game content for fear of their direct interaction with it leading to an unknown bug and subsequent death of their character. Never has the safety of grabbing an abandoned chair been put into question, at least not by you guys, so it's not like the victim had info on the lack of safety inherent to stealing a chair.

As for other security issues, the attacker should've used those instead if they were so blatantly easy to put to use, rather than have to use this bug.

Also please put in place more logs to better help sort out situations like these, if you guys have no actual data to sift through when a claim of bug abuse is made, then what good can you do to a wronged victim short of giving them a pat on the back and possibly trying to reproduce the bug, which in a lot of cases could not have even been observed by a victim at all. What's to stop a bug abuser from using any and all bugs that you guys aren't logging the effects of, on offline victims whose security is lacking if only a bit, leading you to investigate and say "there was an opening, case closed" every time?

Edit: Also, everyone please remember to let your murder alt die in the process of bug abuse, that alone increases your odds of getting away with it!

[RonPaulFTW]

In the end, I concluded that if the chair was used was actually a lesser concern, as I could see several security issues in the way that town was being regulated.

I respectfully disagree. This line of logic means there is a "dev approved" level of defenses beyond the minimum required by intended game mechanics. Does everyone need to get their amount of defenses approved by you now?

If darwoth got past a single layer of defenses via a chair bug - then he should be punished or the victims should be restored. I prefer the punishment. There should be rewards for reporting bugs, and severe punishments for using them.