Anything interesting happening?

[Ezzerland]

There never was a right to complain about being deleted. The rules clearly state Bishop can do what he wants for no reason at all.

Sometimes people only hear what they want to hear.

Palem: The mechanic changes were not made to stop this behavior. They were made to weaken it and successfully accomplished that. They were also made to impact the mechanic's use in war, so what about the kingdom not in war that got actioned this age? What about the kingdom that actually DID change their setup but still got actioned?

Edit:
You're suggesting that the changes should be an indication of what is and is not acceptable? You can claim whatever you want about this next sentence, or claim it's stupid and brush it off, but your claim indicates that the change to the explore mechanic means it is an abuse of the game to explore provs on the top half of your kingdom, since they made changes to deter this activity.

Edit 2:
I am not impacted by any of the action taken by Bishop nor do I play for any of the kingdoms involved. I do not at all understand why this was complained about last age, but was acceptable, and suddenly now is not.

[Palem]

Last age Bishop clarified that it was a legitimate use of the reset functionality, and so I ceased to have that belief (as to the sole purpose of reseting provinces). That's why my post reads "initial intent". Because Bishop re-interpreted it to expand it. (I have no idea if that thread was before or after the change, honestly). I'd also argue that 'the intent of reseting provinces' includes 'reseting provinces after sending aid'.

But you just said it in your post -- if they take a hard stand and something that wasn't actioned was not going to be actioned they should announce it. Last age, this wasn't actioned. This age it was. So why don't you think it should have been announced?

e: Does this mean you're telling me that soldier swapping is a legitimate use of EOW mechanics?

noob alert, I'm not totally sure what you mean by soldier swapping, but to save time, if you're talking about moving soldiers around the kd to maximize recovery during EoW, then yea, there's no reason to believe it's not legitimate because you're just doing what EoW is intended for.

I'll give you that if they were going to start actioning stuff like this, it would have been nice to have said it somewhere in the age changes, but I won't give you that it was necessary because of how their stance on the issue changed over the course of last age. At the beginning of the age, abusing resets was a complete non-issue. If you were resetting, whatever. As the age progressed, they acknowledged that this was an issue and were taking steps to stop it's abuse. It's certainly not outside the realm of being reasonable that they were going to continue trying to stop reset abuse and that as a result, harsher penalties might be enforced. Ideally, the extra mechanical changes would completely prevent the abuses, but that's not what happened and people started abusing again.

But I am very tired now, and I'm going to go to sleepy town. Good luck with your war.

[tetley]

how do you view what Legacy/Jerks did 2 rounds ago as NOT mechanics abuse and this as mechanics abuse, when we didn't even get to abuse anything?

Godly, I'm largely on your side on this issue, but... what did Jerks do 2 rounds ago that could be understood as mechanics abuse? :P

[Procy]

Dear CR,

You aren't going to save face on this one. You aren't going to look any better in the eyes of the community. You aren't going to change anything at this point. What's done is done, over, and case is closed. Why are you investing the effort to defend a fight against an adversary that you cannot win against, the admins?

Either delete and quit or put up and shut up.

We now resume your regularly scheduled round of utopia, already in progress.

[Dark Knight]

Rather funny actions from the flagship kingdom of "fair play".

[Ezzerland]

Yes, it's rather funny to do something that was massively used and acceptable last age. Odd.

[Procy]

(@Procy) gonna call the fair play alliance?
(@Procy) get some outside razes?
[&Benjamin] lol
[&Benjamin] **** off
ChanMode: Benjamin sets mode [+b] *!*@uto-3A69DCC2.stuff
? This *!*@uto-3A69DCC2.stuff ban affects: @Procy
? Kick: Procy was kicked by Benjamin (Benjamin)

Watch out guys. Fair Play alliance is needed!

[PhoenixScorpion]

Resetting a prov is not abusing a bug and has already been coded around by the devs (making aid a hostile action so cant reset, having a 72 hr protection on reset provs). At best case, you could claim it's a mechanic abuse, but then again, just me playing utopia is a mechanic abuse because I will find every possible way to get an advantage over the worse players. A "mechanic abuse" is what utopia is all about. Devs make changes, we figure out how to best play around it.

Futhermore, Bishop hand picked the key provs in our war and just released their def to 0 intentionally instead of giving them a fighting chance by releasing some offense, some defense -- essentially just to attempt to farm them out to pyro. I wonder how much crying cJ did to get that specific result. Had he released say half offense half defense, they would have still been able to 4x pyro and only 2x in return. Obviously this wasn't enough for pyro to have a chance.

This is a clear overstepping of boundaries by a dev. He basically entrapped us by making the coding change and not informing utopia, and then instead of just laughing at us that we fell for it, he also is attempting to chart shape by giving pyro the best possible chance of winning.

Every kingdom in utopia abuses mechanics. Do you inform Bishop when race X is OP? No. You pick it and own the server. Is it against the spirit of the rules of the game when you get GBP to feed a cow to be UB by 100% of utopia? Based on the very loose definition of spirit of the rules (i.e. whatever Bishop feels like today), YES. The INTENT of GBP is to protect beaten down provs, not exploit it purposely to grow cows. Yet, it's been done. It's never been actioned. And if anyone complained about it, Bishop would say "oh well." I could list off another 100 ways we as a community "abuse the mechanics" in utopia and will never get actioned for it. 2 rounds ago we had a crown winner based on abusing of war mechanics. 3 rounds ago we had a crown winner based on abusing of war mechanics.

They make the changes, we break them. Actioning this is a completely new, terrible precedence. Just because it's happened to a kingdom that is not yours doesn't mean it won't happen to your kingdom in the future. You may think that you have come up with a really slick strategy, but instead of being rewarded, it might not really be a valid strategy according to the utopia police.

Last round, a kingdom complained of people resetting their chained provs in war to have them come back after 24 hrs of protection in great shape. Bishop's response? Get people from outside to raze them.

Wake up, people. This isn't about abusing bugs. This is about Bishop's power trip. He's pissed off that he made a stupid change and people figured out how to break it. If you just want the noobs to play utopia who can't figure this stuff out, just say so. But last I counted, utopia is down to 20 kingdoms with 25 players. You may blame advertising. I blame you.

Current list of punishment for using a tactic that is not a bug abuse and therefore not cheating:
- The entire tactic foiled by a coding change not mentioned in the changelist: our provs arent in functioning state for 5 real days (24 hrs in initial protection + 24 hrs waiting since aid is now a hostile action + 72 hrs for protection on new provs). This should be punishment enough.
- All leaders who reset suspended for 72 hrs
- More military released than what was aided (military paid for with real cash).
- Still negative TB on the provs that got aided
- Total of 7 provs taken out of a war for a measly 8k soldiers
- Loss of 2 reset credits purchased with real money that weren't used how we wanted them to be used. (This should be refunded).

Suprise, surprise. CR cheating again, eh?

[Dark Knight]

Yes, it's rather funny to do something that was massively used and acceptable last age. Odd.

"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past are certain to miss the future." John F. Kennedy

[Procy]

"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past are certain to miss the future." John F. Kennedy

JFK was such an amazing man :(

[Elit]

So much for read but, im glad finally Godly changed his nonsense avatar. Still he change it to something worse, break forum rules so im going to report him for it...

[Korp]

Edit 2: I am not impacted by any of the action taken by Bishop nor do I play for any of the kingdoms involved. I do not at all understand why this was complained about last age, but was acceptable, and suddenly now is not.

Its how you use the function that is deemed as abuse. By your and other logic fake warring would be perfectly fine cause hey warring isnt against the rules cause Bishop said so.

[Elldallan]

I think the whole "cheater cheater" stuff is quite a bit overblown in this thread.

The punished kingdoms spent quite a significant time last age waving their e-peens around and screaming fairplay for great justice, and then they get punished... it makes these kingdoms stink of hypocrisy so I think any and all that "cheater cheater" stuff is well deserved.
Maybe it wasn't obvious that it was a rules violation but it should very obvious that it is deep in the twilight zone and definitely a case of skirting the borderline for abuse..

especially[/B] given that rationally it is much more abusive to do what was being discussed in the thread last age where Bishop said resetting was not abuse.

People keep referring to that thread and buying the original story of the monarch on the receiving side, as I remember it the monarch on the other side replied to the thread with an equally plausible story, so what actually happened in that war and whether there was any intentional abuse isn't really clear.

Also it's not really ex post facto because "the spirit of the rules" rule has been around for a long time

Players attempting to manipulate rules and quirks of the game in ways obviously not intended may be subject to deletion. Because of their nature, these types of circumstances are considered on a case-by-case basis. Users should avoid actions they believe are against the spirit and intent of the game.

Did these kingdoms manipulate "the quirks of the game"? Yes they did.
Would it seem to be in a manner obviously not intended? Yes I would think that it seems obvious that 24h protection wasn't implemented so that kingdoms could systematically abuse it feed resources and reset.
And so we're down to the case by case part. There's a clear difference between 1 or 2 provinces resetting in manner where it isn't obvious that it was done with the intention to abuse the system.
In the other case it's a kingdom which manipulates the quirk in a systematic and widescale manner so there can be very little doubt that the manipulation was done knowingly, intentionally and maliciously.

[Elit]

For people who don't know history: long time ago ABS accuse utonet admin for spy ABS private channels. No evidence for it and i never hear for any secure problems in utonet but its was used for reason ABS to Setup his own irc server. Server are own from Hawk= current player in Havoc/CR and ex ABS leader. All rest admins are ABS leaders. So basically they have full power if want to spy your private channel and take your location and other info. If you play in small ghetto most like no one is going to bother spy you but if you start compete your security are under high risk.

My advice is: every kd using ABS irc server to move to other irc server. No point risk your security.

[Korp]

For people who don't know history: long time ago ABS accuse utonet admin for spy ABS private channels. No evidence for it and i never hear for any secure problems in utonet but its was used for reason ABS to Setup his own irc server. Server are own from Hawk= current player in Havoc/CR and ex ABS leader. All rest admins are ABS leaders. So basically they have full power if want to spy your private channel and take your location and other info. If you play in small ghetto most like no one is going to bother spy you but if you start compete your security are under high risk.

My advice is: every kd using ABS irc server to move to other irc server. No point risk your security.

Same logic could been applied to Utonet, both arc and Eeeegor played in Playboys at some point and both are ircops. Now I dont think that was the case but hey..