The great part of a forum is everyone is entitled to post. So since I have not broken any rule and if I did you would not be the one to decide when the discussion is over.
.
I can gather you fail to understand a business model or an economic environment. Since I teach it for a living I will not on my time off. .
The great part of a forum is everyone is entitled to post. So since I have not broken any rule and if I did you would not be the one to decide when the discussion is over.
.
I can gather you fail to understand a business model or an economic environment. Since I teach it for a living I will not on my time off. .
The 3rd party vendors are criminals using stolen card credit cards, people really seem to be missing this point, why anyone would defend this behaviour is beyond me, and I whole hearted commend EA and CG they are not only clearing out the cheaters, but also putting a stop to criminal revenue.
I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make with your comparison.
Would you be mad if it was your stolen credit card number being used?
There’s a MUCH bigger issue with the fraud that has been discovered here that you’re dismissing completely because you don’t think it has affected your shard specifically. Which is that organized crime has unfortunately infiltrated players here and that $ is being used to fund illegal activity.
This is something that obviously needs to be addressed, and for your response to be “well what about shard chats and legit whales” seems incredibly short-sighted.
We've gone full circel once again. I quoted my previous comments below, in which i'm clearly not dismissing the much bigger issue, mention that it should be adressed and in which i'm only clarifying my possition on why i don't have that much of an issue with it personally and why i think it isn't that much of an issue as far as gameplay is concerned in this game. This type of "cheater" isn't ruining the game.
My sentiments exactly, it's not hurting the game per se.
However, it's obviously unfair that some players who are breaking the ToS are getting crystals at a lower price than players who buy their crystals legit though.
Whether or not it's feeding organized crime has no bearing on whether or not it's hurting the game.
I do hope the criminals are being caught and justice is being served, but it's not like it's an issue for me personally. Just like burgalaries or organized crime in Dallas or Tokyo (i live nowhere near these cities) aren't an issue for me personally. I hope they get caught, that's about it.
I certainly won't aid organized crime and i hope these bans deter others from buying crystals via these criminals, but it hasn't really affected my gaming experience in a negative way. That's all.
never said it doesn't affect me, i said it's not an issue for me. Whether i'm fighting a guy who've spend 20k on 20k worth of crystals or a guy who've spend 5k on 20k worth of crystals makes no difference to me gameplay wise.
I phrased it poorly, i meant it's not hurting gameplay. I obviously does hurt the game itself (the developers), so i fully understand that they're taking action.
Whether or not you think this specific type of cheating is creating a bad gameplay experience for others is irrelevant. They broke the TOS and law. They’re banned. So if you agree with the way it’s being handled, why do you keep arguing this point? It literally does not matter if you individually think it impacts gameplay or not.
Because i feel like people are not seeying this mass ban for what it really is. People act like LD is some kind of hero for doing this, while he's just doing his job protecting the best interrest of ea/cg. It's just funny to me, especially because the ea/cg bashing for being greedy is so prevelent normally on this forum.
Also because i'm amazed that some people are so happy about this mass ban for the reason that they no longer have to compete vs fraudulent p2p players while one of the most unfair thing ingame is almost never complained about, the difference in competativeness between leaderboards. It intrigues me.
And lastly because people respond with arguments i don't agree with/are silly imo, or put words in my mouth i never said.
And you're right, it doesn't matter what i individually think what impact it has on gameplay, but by voicing my opinion others might agree or see things a little differently. which is what a forum is all about right? Funny enough not alot of people seem to agree except for LD himself, haha.
So you have some sort of personal vendetta against shard chats and also against people who perceive cheating as... cheating. Got it. Good luck winning those arguments.
Because it's a slow friday and I'm actually enjoying this I'll lay out the economics of why this impacts gameplay more broadly than shard chats.
The game is designed as a freemium model so that big spenders support F2P in the hopes that F2P becomes incremental spenders and maybe even whales. In order to convert F2P into spenders, they need to spend enough time and have enough tension in progress that they are encouraged to spend. So it's a balance, you don't want too many whales because then F2P doesn't feel as though they're juuuuussssstttt close enough that spending some money would make a difference. So, as those F2P become spenders, the management company (CG) has the ability to invest more resources into developing a more robust game that can support the growing number of players interacting with the game whom each have different interests while also being able to invest in new content that keeps existing customers/spenders engaged in the game. I think we all agree on this.
So what happens when a bunch of whales that are not actually whales start beating up on F2P? Well, instead of having a few obstacles between you and top arena ranks / TW victories / higher raid rewards you have a giant road block because those whales aren't actually whales. So instead of the game having the resources to keep what should be a ton of whales whaling, they have fewer resources with the pool of potential spenders dwindling because of unfair and illegal gameplay. See how this works? Those "big spenders" who aren't actually big spenders are reducing the resources the game has available to make it more fun for smaller spenders like me, and F2P peeps across the world. PLUS IT'S LITERALLY ILLEGAL. It's not just a TOS thing. If you work with a vendor that buys something for your account with a stolen CC, the FBI will probably shut down the game if they don't put actions in place to stop that behavior.
TL;DR - fake whales reduce the resources CG has to enhance the game by pushing out F2P who could become spenders because the wall of whales is insurmountable = global impact. Shard chats = micro impact. And just aren't an issue anyway.
PS - I don't know what your shard does, but all our shard chat does is list people's payout time and asks not to hit people during their payout hours. We don't block people out and we don't alternate payouts.
I don't know what gave you the impression that i've got a vendetta against shardchats because it surely wasn't me, maybe you're confusing me with someone else. I'm on a shardchat myself that is similar to yours. I'm personally not a big fan of blocking and targetting non-friends, but it is what it is.
I have no problem with people who percieve cheating as cheating either. I do however think you're wrong about the impact it has on the game. I can't be sure because i'm not sure how widespread the crystalfraud really is, so it's still a guessing game.
You seem to be agreeing with me that it's mostly hurting ea/cg though, and because of that it indirectly hurts all players. While that is true to a certain extent, i do believe the opperating costs are way, way lower than what they're earning. For arguments sake lets say hypothetically the sales decline to half or what they are now (for whatever non-cheating related reasons), i'm reasonably sure the game will still spend just as much money on further development and opperating as they're doing now. They'll just make less money, money that most likely flows into the pockets of the shareholders. If it remains unadressed and increasingly common it will eventually start hurting the players, but seeying as the investigation took them a year i'd say that's not something we need to worry that much about, otherwise it would have been a much higher priority.
That whole argument about f2p vs p2p seems flawed to me. You're basically saying the more whales there are, the less likely f2p players will become spenders. While that in itself sounds logical enough, so does saying the more whales are competing with eachother, the more likely they'll spend even more money. Following that logic these fakewhales are actually boosting income because they're making the legit whales spend more. I find it likely that ea/cg set up their game following that logic since they're actively trying to group whales together in guilds. Being near players who spend makes players feel more comfortable about their spending. Then again, they also choose relatively small leaderboards, so who knows. Then there's also the question why would they want to limit the amount of whales in order to get more players to become p2p? Wouldn't the players who start spending become the "unsurmountable" wall themselves reducing the chances of more players becomming p2p? And what about naturally legit whale heavy leaderboards, are they bad for the game aswell because they block potential spenders who would have become spenders if they were on a less whale heavy leaderboard? I wonder what the spending average is on leaderboards with more than 1 fakewhale in comparrison with other leaderboards. I still wouldnt be able to base any conclusions on that because i won't know whether whale heavy leaderboards atract fakewhales, or if fakewhales are boosting spending done by other legit players on their leaderboard.
Anway, i'm not a game developer and i've got zero data to support anything.
Shardchats definately have a global impact. Pretty much every leaderboard has one and each and everyone of them influenced the bottom line one way or another. As per your argument, any impact on the bottom line affects the entire game and all it's players. If i had to guess i'd say ea/cg would do something about the shardchats if they could, but they just can't. I've read somewhere that a player got a complete refund because he made an argument for being harrassed by a shardchat, whether that was verbal or endless targetting i don't know. Food for thought? Quick fact, ea/cg can deem something to be cheating retroactively. I believe they did it once with an exploit, i believe it was claiming raid rewards multiple times because they kept showing up in your inbox due to a bug. Short suspension and stripped accounts were the punishment if i remember correctly. The ToS are vague enough for them to point at them and say shard collusion falls under paragraph 2.32b (for example). Doubt they will with shardchats though, since they didn't with guildhopping.
I'll leave the legal issues to the local authorities, maybe ea/cg can help them out with providing some information about illegal activities. I hope they do.
Unfortunately you havent adressed anything i mentioned in that comment you quoted. I'm still intrigued and maybe even more by the lenghts you're going through to try to prove to me that this crystalfraud thing is super bad for the game, yet not a word about the difference in competativeness between leaderboards. Try to replace everything you said about the influence fakewhales have and replace that with whale heavy leaderboards, that might be fun?
So
I’m from France. The 15k pack is at 109€
If I switch to us store, it’s 99$ (roughly 90€)
Am I a cheater if I buy on us store ?
According to many people here and their arguments, it’s yes cause I pay less. So it’s unfair.
Its a good question and hopefully, someone who is more knowledgeable can correct me here, but
Its not cheating, you are still buying from EA using your Apple ID account. Purchases are made in-game and funds are withdrawn from the account that is tied to your device (Apple ID) either by the credit card on file or funds added by iTunes Gift Card -- which is what LD mentions in the opening post of this thread.
I'm just using Apple as an example since I'm more familiar with their structure and setup
So
I’m from France. The 15k pack is at 109€
If I switch to us store, it’s 99$ (roughly 90€)
Am I a cheater if I buy on us store ?
According to many people here and their arguments, it’s yes cause I pay less. So it’s unfair.
Its a good question and hopefully, someone who is more knowledgeable can correct me here, but
Its not cheating, you are still buying from EA using your Apple ID account. Purchases are made in-game and funds are withdrawn from the account that is tied to your device (Apple ID) either by the credit card on file or funds added by iTunes Gift Card -- which is what LD mentions in the opening post of this thread.
I'm just using Apple as an example since I'm more familiar with their structure and setup
As I said above, by doing this your are cheating the state (France in the example) because you are avoiding paying the owed VAT over the transaction.
Note that the difference in price can be largely attributed to the fact that in the EU the listed price includes all taxes (including 25% VAT in France), while in the US the App store will add sales tax (0-8%) to the list price.
I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make with your comparison.
Would you be mad if it was your stolen credit card number being used?
There’s a MUCH bigger issue with the fraud that has been discovered here that you’re dismissing completely because you don’t think it has affected your shard specifically. Which is that organized crime has unfortunately infiltrated players here and that $ is being used to fund illegal activity.
This is something that obviously needs to be addressed, and for your response to be “well what about shard chats and legit whales” seems incredibly short-sighted.
We've gone full circel once again. I quoted my previous comments below, in which i'm clearly not dismissing the much bigger issue, mention that it should be adressed and in which i'm only clarifying my possition on why i don't have that much of an issue with it personally and why i think it isn't that much of an issue as far as gameplay is concerned in this game. This type of "cheater" isn't ruining the game.
My sentiments exactly, it's not hurting the game per se.
However, it's obviously unfair that some players who are breaking the ToS are getting crystals at a lower price than players who buy their crystals legit though.
Whether or not it's feeding organized crime has no bearing on whether or not it's hurting the game.
I do hope the criminals are being caught and justice is being served, but it's not like it's an issue for me personally. Just like burgalaries or organized crime in Dallas or Tokyo (i live nowhere near these cities) aren't an issue for me personally. I hope they get caught, that's about it.
I certainly won't aid organized crime and i hope these bans deter others from buying crystals via these criminals, but it hasn't really affected my gaming experience in a negative way. That's all.
never said it doesn't affect me, i said it's not an issue for me. Whether i'm fighting a guy who've spend 20k on 20k worth of crystals or a guy who've spend 5k on 20k worth of crystals makes no difference to me gameplay wise.
I phrased it poorly, i meant it's not hurting gameplay. I obviously does hurt the game itself (the developers), so i fully understand that they're taking action.
Whether or not you think this specific type of cheating is creating a bad gameplay experience for others is irrelevant. They broke the TOS and law. They’re banned. So if you agree with the way it’s being handled, why do you keep arguing this point? It literally does not matter if you individually think it impacts gameplay or not.
Because i feel like people are not seeying this mass ban for what it really is. People act like LD is some kind of hero for doing this, while he's just doing his job protecting the best interrest of ea/cg. It's just funny to me, especially because the ea/cg bashing for being greedy is so prevelent normally on this forum.
Also because i'm amazed that some people are so happy about this mass ban for the reason that they no longer have to compete vs fraudulent p2p players while one of the most unfair thing ingame is almost never complained about, the difference in competativeness between leaderboards. It intrigues me.
And lastly because people respond with arguments i don't agree with/are silly imo, or put words in my mouth i never said.
And you're right, it doesn't matter what i individually think what impact it has on gameplay, but by voicing my opinion others might agree or see things a little differently. which is what a forum is all about right? Funny enough not alot of people seem to agree except for LD himself, haha.
So you have some sort of personal vendetta against shard chats and also against people who perceive cheating as... cheating. Got it. Good luck winning those arguments.
Because it's a slow friday and I'm actually enjoying this I'll lay out the economics of why this impacts gameplay more broadly than shard chats.
The game is designed as a freemium model so that big spenders support F2P in the hopes that F2P becomes incremental spenders and maybe even whales. In order to convert F2P into spenders, they need to spend enough time and have enough tension in progress that they are encouraged to spend. So it's a balance, you don't want too many whales because then F2P doesn't feel as though they're juuuuussssstttt close enough that spending some money would make a difference. So, as those F2P become spenders, the management company (CG) has the ability to invest more resources into developing a more robust game that can support the growing number of players interacting with the game whom each have different interests while also being able to invest in new content that keeps existing customers/spenders engaged in the game. I think we all agree on this.
So what happens when a bunch of whales that are not actually whales start beating up on F2P? Well, instead of having a few obstacles between you and top arena ranks / TW victories / higher raid rewards you have a giant road block because those whales aren't actually whales. So instead of the game having the resources to keep what should be a ton of whales whaling, they have fewer resources with the pool of potential spenders dwindling because of unfair and illegal gameplay. See how this works? Those "big spenders" who aren't actually big spenders are reducing the resources the game has available to make it more fun for smaller spenders like me, and F2P peeps across the world. PLUS IT'S LITERALLY ILLEGAL. It's not just a TOS thing. If you work with a vendor that buys something for your account with a stolen CC, the FBI will probably shut down the game if they don't put actions in place to stop that behavior.
TL;DR - fake whales reduce the resources CG has to enhance the game by pushing out F2P who could become spenders because the wall of whales is insurmountable = global impact. Shard chats = micro impact. And just aren't an issue anyway.
PS - I don't know what your shard does, but all our shard chat does is list people's payout time and asks not to hit people during their payout hours. We don't block people out and we don't alternate payouts.
I don't know what gave you the impression that i've got a vendetta against shardchats because it surely wasn't me, maybe you're confusing me with someone else. I'm on a shardchat myself that is similar to yours. I'm personally not a big fan of blocking and targetting non-friends, but it is what it is.
I have no problem with people who percieve cheating as cheating either. I do however think you're wrong about the impact it has on the game. I can't be sure because i'm not sure how widespread the crystalfraud really is, so it's still a guessing game.
You seem to be agreeing with me that it's mostly hurting ea/cg though, and because of that it indirectly hurts all players. While that is true to a certain extent, i do believe the opperating costs are way, way lower than what they're earning. For arguments sake lets say hypothetically the sales decline to half or what they are now (for whatever non-cheating related reasons), i'm reasonably sure the game will still spend just as much money on further development and opperating as they're doing now. They'll just make less money, money that most likely flows into the pockets of the shareholders. If it remains unadressed and increasingly common it will eventually start hurting the players, but seeying as the investigation took them a year i'd say that's not something we need to worry that much about, otherwise it would have been a much higher priority.
That whole argument about f2p vs p2p seems flawed to me. You're basically saying the more whales there are, the less likely f2p players will become spenders. While that in itself sounds logical enough, so does saying the more whales are competing with eachother, the more likely they'll spend even more money. Following that logic these fakewhales are actually boosting income because they're making the legit whales spend more. I find it likely that ea/cg set up their game following that logic since they're actively trying to group whales together in guilds. Being near players who spend makes players feel more comfortable about their spending. Then again, they also choose relatively small leaderboards, so who knows. Then there's also the question why would they want to limit the amount of whales in order to get more players to become p2p? Wouldn't the players who start spending become the "unsurmountable" wall themselves reducing the chances of more players becomming p2p? And what about naturally legit whale heavy leaderboards, are they bad for the game aswell because they block potential spenders who would have become spenders if they were on a less whale heavy leaderboard? I wonder what the spending average is on leaderboards with more than 1 fakewhale in comparrison with other leaderboards. I still wouldnt be able to base any conclusions on that because i won't know whether whale heavy leaderboards atract fakewhales, or if fakewhales are boosting spending done by other legit players on their leaderboard.
Anway, i'm not a game developer and i've got zero data to support anything.
Shardchats definately have a global impact. Pretty much every leaderboard has one and each and everyone of them influenced the bottom line one way or another. As per your argument, any impact on the bottom line affects the entire game and all it's players. If i had to guess i'd say ea/cg would do something about the shardchats if they could, but they just can't. I've read somewhere that a player got a complete refund because he made an argument for being harrassed by a shardchat, whether that was verbal or endless targetting i don't know. Food for thought? Quick fact, ea/cg can deem something to be cheating retroactively. I believe they did it once with an exploit, i believe it was claiming raid rewards multiple times because they kept showing up in your inbox due to a bug. Short suspension and stripped accounts were the punishment if i remember correctly. The ToS are vague enough for them to point at them and say shard collusion falls under paragraph 2.32b (for example). Doubt they will with shardchats though, since they didn't with guildhopping.
I'll leave the legal issues to the local authorities, maybe ea/cg can help them out with providing some information about illegal activities. I hope they do.
Unfortunately you havent adressed anything i mentioned in that comment you quoted. I'm still intrigued and maybe even more by the lenghts you're going through to try to prove to me that this crystalfraud thing is super bad for the game, yet not a word about the difference in competativeness between leaderboards. Try to replace everything you said about the influence fakewhales have and replace that with whale heavy leaderboards, that might be fun?
Yup. I fell right into the feeding the troll trap.
You’re just creating false equivalencies. The point is, people that cheated are gone and the player base has every right to be supportive of this action. If you want to make a petition for other elements to be considered cheating do so elsewhere.
I can't get in my shard chat because I can't beat any teams in the top 25 I'm just not that good.....If you have not been invited to your shard chat your like me and just not good enough...
OR
yeah probably already 5-10 people at your payout time so your blackballed...
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO in conclusion.
If your like me and can't get into top 25 cause 1) your teams not good enough don't complain about shard chats because you can't beat anyone anyway. 2) with the new payout time change you can change to a payout time that is not stacked with people....and if you are good enough just contact them explain that your changing your payout time won't be a problem and ask to be let in.
3) Flex your muscles tell everyone to pee off it's about the competition, refuse to join take 15th everyday...
enjoy..
CG got rid of cheaters, payout change times will alleviate 90% of the reason some people can't get into shard chats... there are some fronts on this game CG is doign good at...
(again I'm not in my arena shard chat.... so I'm not defending a practice I partake in) Shard chats greatest thing ever and lookforward to 2020/2021 when i may bee good enough to get in one.
You're really talking at crossed purposes here. You both think that the 3rd party crystal vendors are bad and that CG have a responsibility to monitor and prevent their use. Why spend hundreds of words arguing about the nuances of exactly why? It's a waste of your time.
Shard chats are an entirely separate issue, conflating the two because they're both 'things which happen outside the game yet affect the in-game environment' is facile. Can I request that if you want to have a discussion on the ethics of shard chats, you do it in a separate thread.
I could care less about the shard chats as it is not much different from back in the day of rank farming. I was only using it as an example as another exploit of the game. No matter the latitude of the offense if CG deems it an exploit that cheats the game the punishment will be much the same I assume as why I used it. No other reason because as mentioned it was an example of things I see people on this forum complain about and that many are aware of the practice whether they support it or not.
I have a question for those that have been around for while. Anyone think the reason Revan may have been released the way he was so quickly requiring a huge financial sink to get him was actually done to catch these people who were banned for purchasing crystals? It seems his release from different from in the past but many shards saw a huge Revan population and a few weeks later we get this announcement on the mega bans going out. LD said they have been investigating for over a year now. Maybe the purpose of the release in the manner it was done was to draw them out now that they were being watched.
I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make with your comparison.
Would you be mad if it was your stolen credit card number being used?
There’s a MUCH bigger issue with the fraud that has been discovered here that you’re dismissing completely because you don’t think it has affected your shard specifically. Which is that organized crime has unfortunately infiltrated players here and that $ is being used to fund illegal activity.
This is something that obviously needs to be addressed, and for your response to be “well what about shard chats and legit whales” seems incredibly short-sighted.
We've gone full circel once again. I quoted my previous comments below, in which i'm clearly not dismissing the much bigger issue, mention that it should be adressed and in which i'm only clarifying my possition on why i don't have that much of an issue with it personally and why i think it isn't that much of an issue as far as gameplay is concerned in this game. This type of "cheater" isn't ruining the game.
My sentiments exactly, it's not hurting the game per se.
However, it's obviously unfair that some players who are breaking the ToS are getting crystals at a lower price than players who buy their crystals legit though.
Whether or not it's feeding organized crime has no bearing on whether or not it's hurting the game.
I do hope the criminals are being caught and justice is being served, but it's not like it's an issue for me personally. Just like burgalaries or organized crime in Dallas or Tokyo (i live nowhere near these cities) aren't an issue for me personally. I hope they get caught, that's about it.
I certainly won't aid organized crime and i hope these bans deter others from buying crystals via these criminals, but it hasn't really affected my gaming experience in a negative way. That's all.
never said it doesn't affect me, i said it's not an issue for me. Whether i'm fighting a guy who've spend 20k on 20k worth of crystals or a guy who've spend 5k on 20k worth of crystals makes no difference to me gameplay wise.
I phrased it poorly, i meant it's not hurting gameplay. I obviously does hurt the game itself (the developers), so i fully understand that they're taking action.
Whether or not you think this specific type of cheating is creating a bad gameplay experience for others is irrelevant. They broke the TOS and law. They’re banned. So if you agree with the way it’s being handled, why do you keep arguing this point? It literally does not matter if you individually think it impacts gameplay or not.
Because i feel like people are not seeying this mass ban for what it really is. People act like LD is some kind of hero for doing this, while he's just doing his job protecting the best interrest of ea/cg. It's just funny to me, especially because the ea/cg bashing for being greedy is so prevelent normally on this forum.
Also because i'm amazed that some people are so happy about this mass ban for the reason that they no longer have to compete vs fraudulent p2p players while one of the most unfair thing ingame is almost never complained about, the difference in competativeness between leaderboards. It intrigues me.
And lastly because people respond with arguments i don't agree with/are silly imo, or put words in my mouth i never said.
And you're right, it doesn't matter what i individually think what impact it has on gameplay, but by voicing my opinion others might agree or see things a little differently. which is what a forum is all about right? Funny enough not alot of people seem to agree except for LD himself, haha.
So you have some sort of personal vendetta against shard chats and also against people who perceive cheating as... cheating. Got it. Good luck winning those arguments.
Because it's a slow friday and I'm actually enjoying this I'll lay out the economics of why this impacts gameplay more broadly than shard chats.
The game is designed as a freemium model so that big spenders support F2P in the hopes that F2P becomes incremental spenders and maybe even whales. In order to convert F2P into spenders, they need to spend enough time and have enough tension in progress that they are encouraged to spend. So it's a balance, you don't want too many whales because then F2P doesn't feel as though they're juuuuussssstttt close enough that spending some money would make a difference. So, as those F2P become spenders, the management company (CG) has the ability to invest more resources into developing a more robust game that can support the growing number of players interacting with the game whom each have different interests while also being able to invest in new content that keeps existing customers/spenders engaged in the game. I think we all agree on this.
So what happens when a bunch of whales that are not actually whales start beating up on F2P? Well, instead of having a few obstacles between you and top arena ranks / TW victories / higher raid rewards you have a giant road block because those whales aren't actually whales. So instead of the game having the resources to keep what should be a ton of whales whaling, they have fewer resources with the pool of potential spenders dwindling because of unfair and illegal gameplay. See how this works? Those "big spenders" who aren't actually big spenders are reducing the resources the game has available to make it more fun for smaller spenders like me, and F2P peeps across the world. PLUS IT'S LITERALLY ILLEGAL. It's not just a TOS thing. If you work with a vendor that buys something for your account with a stolen CC, the FBI will probably shut down the game if they don't put actions in place to stop that behavior.
TL;DR - fake whales reduce the resources CG has to enhance the game by pushing out F2P who could become spenders because the wall of whales is insurmountable = global impact. Shard chats = micro impact. And just aren't an issue anyway.
PS - I don't know what your shard does, but all our shard chat does is list people's payout time and asks not to hit people during their payout hours. We don't block people out and we don't alternate payouts.
I don't know what gave you the impression that i've got a vendetta against shardchats because it surely wasn't me, maybe you're confusing me with someone else. I'm on a shardchat myself that is similar to yours. I'm personally not a big fan of blocking and targetting non-friends, but it is what it is.
I have no problem with people who percieve cheating as cheating either. I do however think you're wrong about the impact it has on the game. I can't be sure because i'm not sure how widespread the crystalfraud really is, so it's still a guessing game.
You seem to be agreeing with me that it's mostly hurting ea/cg though, and because of that it indirectly hurts all players. While that is true to a certain extent, i do believe the opperating costs are way, way lower than what they're earning. For arguments sake lets say hypothetically the sales decline to half or what they are now (for whatever non-cheating related reasons), i'm reasonably sure the game will still spend just as much money on further development and opperating as they're doing now. They'll just make less money, money that most likely flows into the pockets of the shareholders. If it remains unadressed and increasingly common it will eventually start hurting the players, but seeying as the investigation took them a year i'd say that's not something we need to worry that much about, otherwise it would have been a much higher priority.
That whole argument about f2p vs p2p seems flawed to me. You're basically saying the more whales there are, the less likely f2p players will become spenders. While that in itself sounds logical enough, so does saying the more whales are competing with eachother, the more likely they'll spend even more money. Following that logic these fakewhales are actually boosting income because they're making the legit whales spend more. I find it likely that ea/cg set up their game following that logic since they're actively trying to group whales together in guilds. Being near players who spend makes players feel more comfortable about their spending. Then again, they also choose relatively small leaderboards, so who knows. Then there's also the question why would they want to limit the amount of whales in order to get more players to become p2p? Wouldn't the players who start spending become the "unsurmountable" wall themselves reducing the chances of more players becomming p2p? And what about naturally legit whale heavy leaderboards, are they bad for the game aswell because they block potential spenders who would have become spenders if they were on a less whale heavy leaderboard? I wonder what the spending average is on leaderboards with more than 1 fakewhale in comparrison with other leaderboards. I still wouldnt be able to base any conclusions on that because i won't know whether whale heavy leaderboards atract fakewhales, or if fakewhales are boosting spending done by other legit players on their leaderboard.
Anway, i'm not a game developer and i've got zero data to support anything.
Shardchats definately have a global impact. Pretty much every leaderboard has one and each and everyone of them influenced the bottom line one way or another. As per your argument, any impact on the bottom line affects the entire game and all it's players. If i had to guess i'd say ea/cg would do something about the shardchats if they could, but they just can't. I've read somewhere that a player got a complete refund because he made an argument for being harrassed by a shardchat, whether that was verbal or endless targetting i don't know. Food for thought? Quick fact, ea/cg can deem something to be cheating retroactively. I believe they did it once with an exploit, i believe it was claiming raid rewards multiple times because they kept showing up in your inbox due to a bug. Short suspension and stripped accounts were the punishment if i remember correctly. The ToS are vague enough for them to point at them and say shard collusion falls under paragraph 2.32b (for example). Doubt they will with shardchats though, since they didn't with guildhopping.
I'll leave the legal issues to the local authorities, maybe ea/cg can help them out with providing some information about illegal activities. I hope they do.
Unfortunately you havent adressed anything i mentioned in that comment you quoted. I'm still intrigued and maybe even more by the lenghts you're going through to try to prove to me that this crystalfraud thing is super bad for the game, yet not a word about the difference in competativeness between leaderboards. Try to replace everything you said about the influence fakewhales have and replace that with whale heavy leaderboards, that might be fun?
Yup. I fell right into the feeding the troll trap.
You’re just creating false equivalencies. The point is, people that cheated are gone and the player base has every right to be supportive of this action. If you want to make a petition for other elements to be considered cheating do so elsewhere.
False equivalencies? And what in the world gave you the impression that i want other elements to be considered cheating?
To be fair, i should have stopped typing after the first sentence, your post was based on a false assumption that i'm against shard chats, which i'm certainly not. Unfortunately i didn't to poke some holes into your argumentation. With this comment you're falsely assuming i want other elements to be considered cheating, which i certainly don't. If you actually bothered reading what i wrote i've got no clue why you would even assume either of those things.
You're right about one thing though, (some of) the cheaters are gone and the playerbase has every right to be supportive of that action. I myself am supportive of that action, the way it is presented and received not so much though. But that's okay, we're all entitled to our own opinions. Thanks for calling me a troll though, i hope that makes you feel better about not being able to read
So when does the mass banning start? Like I know people have been hit already but it seems like at such a slow rate for as big as I know this is....I have yet to see any angry forum or reddit posts so that let's me know it hasn't happened yet lmao
But the same can be said for those guilds and players that collude. If they would just play in the arena the way it was meant to play maybe some would not feel the need to use a 3rd party to compete. And everyone would have the same opportunity in game to receive the payouts they hope for.
See the solution is not a simple one. Outside of utilizing a 3rd party there are also ways in game to cheat the system for crystals. Until all are addressed and dealt with players will look for any advantage outside the game when the current model allows for players in the game to gain an unfair advantage just as well.
Did I read this correctly? Are you claiming that using the Ally system and in game chat to find and talk to folks in your arena shard is cheating?
But the same can be said for those guilds and players that collude. If they would just play in the arena the way it was meant to play maybe some would not feel the need to use a 3rd party to compete. And everyone would have the same opportunity in game to receive the payouts they hope for.
See the solution is not a simple one. Outside of utilizing a 3rd party there are also ways in game to cheat the system for crystals. Until all are addressed and dealt with players will look for any advantage outside the game when the current model allows for players in the game to gain an unfair advantage just as well.
Did I read this correctly? Are you claiming that using the Ally system and in game chat to find and talk to folks in your arena shard is cheating?
No I was referencing what others have claimed in multiple threads about how some of the shards collude to ensure certain guilds or players maintain their position to guarantee their payout. I believe IIRC reading where they purposely block others outside of their chat from getting the top payout. Now assuming this happens or not as I do not know I was only using it as a reference point nothing more as mentioning other things the game was not designed for.
So, is EA going to turn over all of the income from fraudulent sources to the authorities, or at least take the proper steps to make sure it’s refunded?
@Saladius there’s a huge difference between paying marginally less because of something outwith your control (exchange rates, global economy) and paying markedly less because someone is offering a deal that violates TOS.
It’s laughable reading the comments of a handful of users who are equating buying crystals from 3rd party vendors to being involved in an organised payout discussion group. It is absolutely simple: one of those activities is in breach of TOS, the other isn’t. Therefore one is cheating and the other isn’t.
What is the limit of marginally less ?
Euro is already stronger than US dollar and has always been. This is clearly an unfair pricing set up by EA. Nothing more. And now they blame people who seeks better prices ? lol
If speed limit is 40 miles per hour and you get caugh at 42, are you a cheater or not?
Anyway no one replied on the part where EA/cg never warned about organised crime behind these discounts.
Funny, especially after a biiiig marquee year
And EA don’t need to warn people - it was stated in the Terms of Service that every single one of us agreed to when we started playing the game: buying crystals from third party vendors was against the rules.
I’m talking about preventing people from supporting organised crime who is acting on your game.
EA has its responsibility here cause organised crime is operating through its game.
They act now by banning people. That should lower drastically it.
But they could also have reduced it earlier just by warning the community.
I’m pretty sure lot of people who did this didn’t know about organised crime behind this (I understand cause I was surprised too), and lot of them wouldn’t have done it if they knew about it. That’s all.
Hey folks, been AWOL today as the local fires have caused a ton of havoc.
Going over the last day of posts here and have to step in and address a few things.
First, when it comes to this organized crime element, that is strictly handled by the actual payment processors (e.g. Visa, Google, Apple, Verizon...) I also want to to stress that crime syndicates, while they do love their stolen credit cards and ID theft, are probably not personally contacting our players. It is much more likely that these third party crystal scammers are just some enterprising folks working out of their basements. Still not a good idea (besides the TOS violation part) to be sharing your personal information with.
But again, we are only working with the data we have, which factors into why it has taken as long as it did to get actionable info.
speaking of...
There are 2 other major factors that contributed to this investigation taking as long as it did.
One is that I do focus most of my time on battle hackers / modders... eradicating that is our top cheat detection priority. It has the most dramatic impact on gameplay and enjoyment, and thus it gets the lions share of my time.
Two, we wanted to make absolutely certain that we were not taking action on accounts other than those committing fraud. We had to make certain that these were not purchased by folks in regions where regular store purchases could not happen, or that this wasn't a result of a jet-setter traveling abroad and logging in and purchasing from around the globe.
Between the priority of going have battle hackers, and an abundance of caution for not sweeping up the innocent, we took time... lots of it as it were. But I'm okay with that, I'm far more concerned with doing the right thing, than lots of things.
Once the smoke clears, no joke this entire region is covered in a thick layer of toxic smoke, I'll address the other pressing questions here... and yes I mean how I justify calling The Carpenters a rock band.
Oh and if you've messaged me... again i beg for patience, there is a ton to work through, and with the general lack of oxygen around here things are going a bit slower than ideal.
So when does the mass banning start? Like I know people have been hit already but it seems like at such a slow rate for as big as I know this is....I have yet to see any angry forum or reddit posts so that let's me know it hasn't happened yet lmao
Phase 1 of this purge is complete... however a quick look at the old spreadsheet deluxe shows that we've got 4 more phases to go... This is my goal to hit before the end of next week.
So stay tuned to your regular disgruntled channels... I imagine they'll be crafting some exquisite tales of borrowed devices, trusted little brothers, and the old "I thought it was a gift from CG" routine.
So when does the mass banning start? Like I know people have been hit already but it seems like at such a slow rate for as big as I know this is....I have yet to see any angry forum or reddit posts so that let's me know it hasn't happened yet lmao
Phase 1 of this purge is complete... however a quick look at the old spreadsheet deluxe shows that we've got 4 more phases to go... This is my goal to hit before the end of next week.
They say If you can clear Tier 6 in a week, then you're ready for heroic tier (48 hours!)
Once the smoke clears, no joke this entire region is covered in a thick layer of toxic smoke, I'll address the other pressing questions here... and yes I mean how I justify calling The Carpenters a rock band
LD[/quote]
Stop trolling Lucifer, no one can possibly really fhink that the Carpenters is a rock band.
i use a tapping app to spend my ally points on bronzium packs. its just such a pain to do by hand and bronzium packs do yield nice stuff. i hope that wouldnt get somehow flagged as third party app use. What is your policy regarding that? Am I at risk?
kind regards,
a really long time player
I think you are ok. If that were the case, emulators would be under scrutiny as well. I think Ahnald actually made a how to for Bronzium tapping.
Also, I agree. I utilize Bronzium often & was sad to see the removal of some of the payouts.
So, is EA going to turn over all of the income from fraudulent sources to the authorities, or at least take the proper steps to make sure it’s refunded?
Refunded? LMAO?
EA has nothing to do with that. The banks of the victims of credit card fraud handle that, Also the majority comes from users who give their info to 3rd party vendors and they in return use VPN to use a countries cheaper rate and take advantage of that.
The only person making a real profit is the person selling that service, I won't name the website, but there's plenty of people who do it. they're using VPN to pretty much rip off EA so they're the only REAL victims here (EA).
Why would you want to refund the money, so they can get double the profit? The $100 pack they sell it for $35 so lets say they pay $20 for that, its refunded and BOOM instead of a $15 profit, they have a full $35 profit.
So, is EA going to turn over all of the income from fraudulent sources to the authorities, or at least take the proper steps to make sure it’s refunded?
Refunded? LMAO?
EA has nothing to do with that. The banks of the victims of credit card fraud handle that, Also the majority comes from users who give their info to 3rd party vendors and they in return use VPN to use a countries cheaper rate and take advantage of that.
The only person making a real profit is the person selling that service, I won't name the website, but there's plenty of people who do it. they're using VPN to pretty much rip off EA so they're the only REAL victims here (EA).
Why would you want to refund the money, so they can get double the profit? The $100 pack they sell it for $35 so lets say they pay $20 for that, its refunded and BOOM instead of a $15 profit, they have a full $35 profit.
Not to the people committing fraud, clearly I’m talking about the innocent parties involved against their will. It was a legitimate question answered almost immediately after I asked it, so your condescending hot air isn’t needed.
Can I honestly ask you, do you not feel cheated by someone doing better than you who has spent very little or nothing, but is leaps and bounds ahead of you?
Not directed at my, but no, not really. In a game that's inherently unfair in order for the developers to make money, i can't be that bothered that much about how they've purchased their crystals or account. It's unfair for sure, but out of everything that are unfair in this game, i think this mass ban is just a drop in the ocean.
Do you feel cheated by a player who's exactly as skilled and dedicated as you, but has a better roster simply because he has a less crouded pay-out, or a less competative leaderboard alltoghether?
Inherently unfair? How so?
On your second point, no. We have 3 players in our shard that have open POs. They still have to win to get there, just like everyone else.
Any game in which you can pay to get ahead is inherently unfair. Lets also not forget that this game used to have regional pricing, which in a way is more fair, but nevertheless results in players paying less money for the same amount of crystals.
Assuming you're on a shard chat with rank rotation, if you share your pay-out with 4 others you're making 100 cyrstals less daily on average than the player who doesn't share his PO, with the same amount of effort. That's just on the same leaderboard, some players might not even be able to take top5 at all on some leaderboards, but would easily do so on other leaderboards (which started at roughly the same time).
If i had to chose between competing with 10 legit krakens or 4 bought accounts/crystal fraud players i'd chose the former out of selfinterrest. So given i'd make that choice, i can't really say i'm that bothered or feel cheated by bought accounts/crystalfraud.
I don't feel cheated that much either way tbh, but if i had to guess i'm probably on a relatively easy leaderboard and i haven't noticed anyone disapearing in my top50. So there's always the possibility that i don't feel cheated because i'm not being cheated or unlucky with my leaderboard. Maybe in fleet, but i don't play fleet so i wouldn't know.
Please show me a sport or competition where the better funded person/team doesnt have an advantage. Better training, coaching, team diversity, recruitment, or.... There are many examples where money influences the outcome of a competition. And the better funded player/team doesn't always win.
Jamaican bob sled team
Those guys had John Candy, not sure how that isn’t unfair.
i use a tapping app to spend my ally points on bronzium packs. its just such a pain to do by hand and bronzium packs do yield nice stuff. i hope that wouldnt get somehow flagged as third party app use. What is your policy regarding that? Am I at risk?
kind regards,
a really long time player
Realistically speaking, they've already noticed an abnormal activity on your account, flagged you, investigated, and already moved on. They don't just look at what you're doing and whether it breaks the rules, they look at whether the rule that's being broken is harming the game. Using a third party to buy crystals (which are probably a scam--see LD's previous posts) harms the game because the people breaking the rules are gaining an advantage over the people who aren't. The people using third party aps to instakill or get infinite health in arena are CLEARLY harming the game.
Using a tap ap to open bronziums isn't hurting the game--but, from personal experience, why are you still using it? It took me a couple hours to open my packs and spend down to 0 when Tournaments were cancelled and I needed to spend a half a million, but once I was down to 0 it took no time at all to spend back down to 0 at the end of every night since you'd only get maybe 15 total packs :P You've got time to open 15!
How is buying from a third party any different then buying game. Yes I understand the difference between the game making money and someone else but I do not see any player gaining and advantage since anyone playing can do the same thing in game.
What you're basically asking is "If someone buys a TV out of the back of a van, why should Sony do anything about it? What's the difference?"
If you don't see a difference here, then it's no use explaining it. You're an amoral lost cause.
These third party vendors are scammers. They steal credit cards, they steal gift cards, they're laundering money. They are doing crime that is negatively affecting people who don't even know what Galaxy of Heroes is.
The players get a small advantage by LITERALLY COMMITTING AN ACTUAL CRIME. Maybe they don't know they're committing credit card fraud or participating in money laundring, but they are. They see a way of getting an edge and don't bother asking how it makes literally no sense and has to be a scam so they're willing to go through with it because they don't want to know.
If you're okay with all of that, then congrats on being a bad human.
A third party finds a way to create in game currency at a discounted rate to transfer to players in game. These same players more then likely would have spent the money anyways in game to get the edge over those that try and work their way up the hard way. I guess I could understand if maybe this was not a pay to play model. I have been in games where gold farmers were rampant via 3rd party and as others have mentioned used the auction house to complete transactions.
This isn't like gold farming, though. In WoW, and other MMOs, you gain gold by fighting mobs and selling items. You can send that gold through the in-game mail to the buyer. It's all supported in the game.
The only way to get crystals (other than the freebies you earn, which are still non-transferrable) is to buy them with real money. They're then deposited into your account and are non-transferrable. So how do these folks get discounted crystals?
As LD said, you pay the hacker and give them your account information, then they log into your game and buy the crystals for you using a stolen credit card, then log out. That's not just a violation of the terms of service, that's flat out illegal. Knowing that, how can anyone defend it?
Also confused on the hacking here. What was hacked and how was the hacking advantageous? Yes you are not suppose to sell your account but that is not hacking. I guess I need clarification on this one.
They've been using hacking aps to make their attacking teams unkillable, to instantly defeat defending teams, to clone mods, etc.
In many other MMOs about 10 years their were numerous 3rd parties that would advertise outside and inside the game to sell gold at a discounted price. The same method was used in the beginning by allowing someone else access to you account, they would log in, and you would have gold..
Oh, okay, well gee I guess that makes it all better, doesn't it? In many other MMOs a whole decade ago, crime was rampant so we've got to accept it now. Are you even listening to yourself? What is your defect?
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I don't know what gave you the impression that i've got a vendetta against shardchats because it surely wasn't me, maybe you're confusing me with someone else. I'm on a shardchat myself that is similar to yours. I'm personally not a big fan of blocking and targetting non-friends, but it is what it is.
I have no problem with people who percieve cheating as cheating either. I do however think you're wrong about the impact it has on the game. I can't be sure because i'm not sure how widespread the crystalfraud really is, so it's still a guessing game.
You seem to be agreeing with me that it's mostly hurting ea/cg though, and because of that it indirectly hurts all players. While that is true to a certain extent, i do believe the opperating costs are way, way lower than what they're earning. For arguments sake lets say hypothetically the sales decline to half or what they are now (for whatever non-cheating related reasons), i'm reasonably sure the game will still spend just as much money on further development and opperating as they're doing now. They'll just make less money, money that most likely flows into the pockets of the shareholders. If it remains unadressed and increasingly common it will eventually start hurting the players, but seeying as the investigation took them a year i'd say that's not something we need to worry that much about, otherwise it would have been a much higher priority.
That whole argument about f2p vs p2p seems flawed to me. You're basically saying the more whales there are, the less likely f2p players will become spenders. While that in itself sounds logical enough, so does saying the more whales are competing with eachother, the more likely they'll spend even more money. Following that logic these fakewhales are actually boosting income because they're making the legit whales spend more. I find it likely that ea/cg set up their game following that logic since they're actively trying to group whales together in guilds. Being near players who spend makes players feel more comfortable about their spending. Then again, they also choose relatively small leaderboards, so who knows. Then there's also the question why would they want to limit the amount of whales in order to get more players to become p2p? Wouldn't the players who start spending become the "unsurmountable" wall themselves reducing the chances of more players becomming p2p? And what about naturally legit whale heavy leaderboards, are they bad for the game aswell because they block potential spenders who would have become spenders if they were on a less whale heavy leaderboard? I wonder what the spending average is on leaderboards with more than 1 fakewhale in comparrison with other leaderboards. I still wouldnt be able to base any conclusions on that because i won't know whether whale heavy leaderboards atract fakewhales, or if fakewhales are boosting spending done by other legit players on their leaderboard.
Anway, i'm not a game developer and i've got zero data to support anything.
Shardchats definately have a global impact. Pretty much every leaderboard has one and each and everyone of them influenced the bottom line one way or another. As per your argument, any impact on the bottom line affects the entire game and all it's players. If i had to guess i'd say ea/cg would do something about the shardchats if they could, but they just can't. I've read somewhere that a player got a complete refund because he made an argument for being harrassed by a shardchat, whether that was verbal or endless targetting i don't know. Food for thought? Quick fact, ea/cg can deem something to be cheating retroactively. I believe they did it once with an exploit, i believe it was claiming raid rewards multiple times because they kept showing up in your inbox due to a bug. Short suspension and stripped accounts were the punishment if i remember correctly. The ToS are vague enough for them to point at them and say shard collusion falls under paragraph 2.32b (for example). Doubt they will with shardchats though, since they didn't with guildhopping.
I'll leave the legal issues to the local authorities, maybe ea/cg can help them out with providing some information about illegal activities. I hope they do.
Unfortunately you havent adressed anything i mentioned in that comment you quoted. I'm still intrigued and maybe even more by the lenghts you're going through to try to prove to me that this crystalfraud thing is super bad for the game, yet not a word about the difference in competativeness between leaderboards. Try to replace everything you said about the influence fakewhales have and replace that with whale heavy leaderboards, that might be fun?
Its not cheating, you are still buying from EA using your Apple ID account. Purchases are made in-game and funds are withdrawn from the account that is tied to your device (Apple ID) either by the credit card on file or funds added by iTunes Gift Card -- which is what LD mentions in the opening post of this thread.
I'm just using Apple as an example since I'm more familiar with their structure and setup
As I said above, by doing this your are cheating the state (France in the example) because you are avoiding paying the owed VAT over the transaction.
Note that the difference in price can be largely attributed to the fact that in the EU the listed price includes all taxes (including 25% VAT in France), while in the US the App store will add sales tax (0-8%) to the list price.
Yup. I fell right into the feeding the troll trap.
You’re just creating false equivalencies. The point is, people that cheated are gone and the player base has every right to be supportive of this action. If you want to make a petition for other elements to be considered cheating do so elsewhere.
OR
yeah probably already 5-10 people at your payout time so your blackballed...
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO in conclusion.
If your like me and can't get into top 25 cause 1) your teams not good enough don't complain about shard chats because you can't beat anyone anyway. 2) with the new payout time change you can change to a payout time that is not stacked with people....and if you are good enough just contact them explain that your changing your payout time won't be a problem and ask to be let in.
3) Flex your muscles tell everyone to pee off it's about the competition, refuse to join take 15th everyday...
enjoy..
CG got rid of cheaters, payout change times will alleviate 90% of the reason some people can't get into shard chats... there are some fronts on this game CG is doign good at...
(again I'm not in my arena shard chat.... so I'm not defending a practice I partake in) Shard chats greatest thing ever and lookforward to 2020/2021 when i may bee good enough to get in one.
I could care less about the shard chats as it is not much different from back in the day of rank farming. I was only using it as an example as another exploit of the game. No matter the latitude of the offense if CG deems it an exploit that cheats the game the punishment will be much the same I assume as why I used it. No other reason because as mentioned it was an example of things I see people on this forum complain about and that many are aware of the practice whether they support it or not.
False equivalencies? And what in the world gave you the impression that i want other elements to be considered cheating?
To be fair, i should have stopped typing after the first sentence, your post was based on a false assumption that i'm against shard chats, which i'm certainly not. Unfortunately i didn't to poke some holes into your argumentation. With this comment you're falsely assuming i want other elements to be considered cheating, which i certainly don't. If you actually bothered reading what i wrote i've got no clue why you would even assume either of those things.
You're right about one thing though, (some of) the cheaters are gone and the playerbase has every right to be supportive of that action. I myself am supportive of that action, the way it is presented and received not so much though. But that's okay, we're all entitled to our own opinions. Thanks for calling me a troll though, i hope that makes you feel better about not being able to read
Did I read this correctly? Are you claiming that using the Ally system and in game chat to find and talk to folks in your arena shard is cheating?
No I was referencing what others have claimed in multiple threads about how some of the shards collude to ensure certain guilds or players maintain their position to guarantee their payout. I believe IIRC reading where they purposely block others outside of their chat from getting the top payout. Now assuming this happens or not as I do not know I was only using it as a reference point nothing more as mentioning other things the game was not designed for.
Hey folks, been AWOL today as the local fires have caused a ton of havoc.
Going over the last day of posts here and have to step in and address a few things.
First, when it comes to this organized crime element, that is strictly handled by the actual payment processors (e.g. Visa, Google, Apple, Verizon...) I also want to to stress that crime syndicates, while they do love their stolen credit cards and ID theft, are probably not personally contacting our players. It is much more likely that these third party crystal scammers are just some enterprising folks working out of their basements. Still not a good idea (besides the TOS violation part) to be sharing your personal information with.
But again, we are only working with the data we have, which factors into why it has taken as long as it did to get actionable info.
speaking of...
There are 2 other major factors that contributed to this investigation taking as long as it did.
One is that I do focus most of my time on battle hackers / modders... eradicating that is our top cheat detection priority. It has the most dramatic impact on gameplay and enjoyment, and thus it gets the lions share of my time.
Two, we wanted to make absolutely certain that we were not taking action on accounts other than those committing fraud. We had to make certain that these were not purchased by folks in regions where regular store purchases could not happen, or that this wasn't a result of a jet-setter traveling abroad and logging in and purchasing from around the globe.
Between the priority of going have battle hackers, and an abundance of caution for not sweeping up the innocent, we took time... lots of it as it were. But I'm okay with that, I'm far more concerned with doing the right thing, than lots of things.
Once the smoke clears, no joke this entire region is covered in a thick layer of toxic smoke, I'll address the other pressing questions here... and yes I mean how I justify calling The Carpenters a rock band.
Oh and if you've messaged me... again i beg for patience, there is a ton to work through, and with the general lack of oxygen around here things are going a bit slower than ideal.
Happy Friday all.
LD
Phase 1 of this purge is complete... however a quick look at the old spreadsheet deluxe shows that we've got 4 more phases to go... This is my goal to hit before the end of next week.
So stay tuned to your regular disgruntled channels... I imagine they'll be crafting some exquisite tales of borrowed devices, trusted little brothers, and the old "I thought it was a gift from CG" routine.
LD
They say If you can clear Tier 6 in a week, then you're ready for heroic tier (48 hours!)
Once the smoke clears, no joke this entire region is covered in a thick layer of toxic smoke, I'll address the other pressing questions here... and yes I mean how I justify calling The Carpenters a rock band
LD[/quote]
Stop trolling Lucifer, no one can possibly really fhink that the Carpenters is a rock band.
I think you are ok. If that were the case, emulators would be under scrutiny as well. I think Ahnald actually made a how to for Bronzium tapping.
Also, I agree. I utilize Bronzium often & was sad to see the removal of some of the payouts.
Refunded? LMAO?
EA has nothing to do with that. The banks of the victims of credit card fraud handle that, Also the majority comes from users who give their info to 3rd party vendors and they in return use VPN to use a countries cheaper rate and take advantage of that.
The only person making a real profit is the person selling that service, I won't name the website, but there's plenty of people who do it. they're using VPN to pretty much rip off EA so they're the only REAL victims here (EA).
Why would you want to refund the money, so they can get double the profit? The $100 pack they sell it for $35 so lets say they pay $20 for that, its refunded and BOOM instead of a $15 profit, they have a full $35 profit.
https://swgoh.gg/u/jgluxe
Not to the people committing fraud, clearly I’m talking about the innocent parties involved against their will. It was a legitimate question answered almost immediately after I asked it, so your condescending hot air isn’t needed.
Those guys had John Candy, not sure how that isn’t unfair.
What you're basically asking is "If someone buys a TV out of the back of a van, why should Sony do anything about it? What's the difference?"
If you don't see a difference here, then it's no use explaining it. You're an amoral lost cause.
These third party vendors are scammers. They steal credit cards, they steal gift cards, they're laundering money. They are doing crime that is negatively affecting people who don't even know what Galaxy of Heroes is.
The players get a small advantage by LITERALLY COMMITTING AN ACTUAL CRIME. Maybe they don't know they're committing credit card fraud or participating in money laundring, but they are. They see a way of getting an edge and don't bother asking how it makes literally no sense and has to be a scam so they're willing to go through with it because they don't want to know.
If you're okay with all of that, then congrats on being a bad human.
Oh, okay, well gee I guess that makes it all better, doesn't it? In many other MMOs a whole decade ago, crime was rampant so we've got to accept it now. Are you even listening to yourself? What is your defect?