"yeah ok then.

Sov: this is called shooting yourself in the foot.

We are transparent as we can be. We aren't going to give people a manual on how to bypass our security or cheat. There is also such a thing as wanting to have all the facts first before doing anything rather than going on a baseless paranoid rant.

When I was president of sof I never had a rule about posting stuff to AT what makes you think now that I'm not involved that I would start now. Maybe it's because I hate secretly sof.. or maybe it's just the bromance.

when it comes to this type of thing I don't take sides. because of my prior associations with sof in some situations certain tags/players are not as comfortable approaching me so they go to qz. That's totally fine. But it does slow things down.

Whatever you *think* you know... you don't know fluff bro.

I don't share certain things publicly because people come forward to me in confidence.. I don't post anything because I don't have all the facts yet and/or there is nothing postworthy yet."

You could at least respond to my forum pm's :P

iScode trying to convince us that other people are lying by saying that he lied to everybody...

But we should believe him on this one...


Lets see. He lied to md about who he was.
He allegedly (per him and sof) lied to sof about who he was
He lied to all of us about "sitting out his one bet ban like a good boy"

But yea....believe him here...because he is being honest and has no agenda or bones to pick.

is funny how much effort he puts in a game he "does not care" for ...

Trully iScode you belong to Sof.

why am i not suprised that you two support cheating. I mean you have both been proven to be cheats before...

in case Sof moves back to TEQ to you plan to move there too ? You can join a random alliance and suicide because no one knows you there ... YET.

And i never cheated in this game. The mod of the server i played admited openly i did nothing wrong and did no coordination. You know, the same fluff that happens in team ? You know who else was accused of coordination and deleted the same reset? : ingle and h2o ( my allies in express).

No fluff off gypsy sheep!

lol calm down cheater boy!

I would rather be deleted on a technicality of a new rule that was designed to transform an entire server and still very vauge and untested than to be proven to be a liar and banned from the clan i love.

<3 you Scode

more blah blah blah

Hellrush, wanna 1v1 on ffa next set?

If im a liar, that makes you a liar :)

sorry scode. I had a reply written out to your question and neglected to send it:S Sending an answer now.

i demand baseball picks sent to my by tomorrow after-noon

lol
since the jays choked hard time I got bitter!!:P

Lets Go O's!

http://i.imgur.com/WN03Eka.png

500+ usd this weekend :P

Since I cannot respond in the thread it was originally posted in, I shall do it here.


The Mods of this game are NOT as transparent as they could be. This has nothing to do with teaching people how to cheat or with commenting prematurely on investigations.

This has everything to do with publicly stating who was deleted and the circumstances under which they were penalized. If it was an honest mistake (but one that deserves punitive action), then let them be an example the rest of us idiots can learn from so we can avoid some of the same pitfalls. If they were blatantly disregarding the rules of this game, everyone playing this game deserves to know who had an illegal competitive advantage.

By not sharing the simple information on why someone was deleted, the mods are by definition protecting the cheaters while at the same time opening themselves up to accusations of impropriety. Step out from behind the veil, and nobody will have a leg to stand on to accuse you.

I really do not understand why everyone views it as such a bad thing. Transparency is empowering!

Transparency can be empowering!

Fixed that for you .. yes often it can, but sometimes it does nothing other than maybe cause drama and/or gossip.

viceroy is right

If there was transparency, what would there be to gossip about?

If it's creating drama, it has everything to do with what is being done and nothing to do with the reporting of the actions. In other words, if transparency itself is creating drama, then you're doing it wrong :-)

So many ways .. but will just list couple of top of my head.

1) Lets say two countries have been sending msg in-game that have gotten out of hand. The issue is raised to the mods. This could be over anything, but for this example lets just say both are accusing each other of cheating. The mods rectify the problem. In no way has this affected any other countries but those two in question.

What would be the point in being transparent in that situation .. the ONLY thing that could possibly do is to cause gossip or drama as no one else but those two directly involved need to know anything about it. There are I am sure exclusions, like the issue of cheating is in regards to specific way. This was not the first, second or even 20th time this occurence has happened. So it might be warranted to say something to keep this issue being repeatedly brought up, but otherwise I see no reason to be transparent about this, especially if that cheating issue is well known to not be possible.

2) A country has found a way to gain land through cheating of some kind. It was not done via a LG, nor has any country attacked the cheating country at any time. This is picked up by mod or admin days later and so they delete the country, ban them w/e.

This once again is not necessary to be transparent about if it did not impact any other countries. Admin may or may not choose to disclose this or reason why that country was deleted. There are pro's and con's either way .. but one of those con's is unnecessary drama.

So you are correct on one hand, if its creating drama, it does have everything to do with what is being done. In the First example, it was drama already (especially if most already know that its not possible), so why pass that drama on to rest of players. As that would just create more drama.

Game dev's have implemented something new to a game. It involves spending money in order to get. There is a huge outcry from the players how horrible it is and that the game is becoming this huge money pit and no one can play free anymore. However, even though there is this huge outcry, at the same time money is pouring in, more money in last couple days from this new feature than they have collected during the whole year. So obviously the dev's dont do anything or say anything about it, because even some of the ones complaining are the same ones that are spending money.

So I guess you would be transparent about it if you were the game dev. Tell all your players, yea you are all whining but secretly you are all spending money. HELL NO, you do not say anything because you know it will all die down after few days. Why fuel the fire by saying something.

Or you could simply say some players must like it because it is raising lots of revenue. Hell no once again, because than some of the players who are not actually spending money will go to their peers trying to pressure them to not spend. Trying to influence how they are playing the game. Which will cause even more drama than if you said nothing at all and just simply let it die down after couple of days.

Apparently we have significant disagreements on what exactly constitutes having an effect on other countries.

#2 is the easiest to address. If someone is getting additional land through an exploit, then that effects everyone that is competing against them in ranking and/or everyone that they are warring against. It has a significant effect on the market as well, dependent upon which strategy they play. I also find it hard to believe that others would be unable to recreate the same exploit. I guarantee the competition would know something was up - would people like Xinhuan would miss something that? Would nobody be posting on the forums inquiring about their strategy? Would they themselves be able to refrain from bragging about their new found position of dominance? Plus, this is posted in the Alliance Server's forum, which adds in a whole new element of diplomatic and political entanglement. If there is drama over FA packages, you can be damn sure there would be drama over an exploit.


My whole argument in favor of transparency is that it serves as an additional deterrent to cheating. If someone is caught doing something wrong, everyone has a right to know that that individual was attempting to acquire an unfair competitive advantage. It should be treated like steroids. Some teams are going to sign the Melky Cabrera's and Nelson Cruz's of the world even with their history, but some teams may choose to forego the drama and pass on an otherwise productive player because they don't want the potential headaches. If MLB never released information on who was suspended X number of games for PED use, how could the fans ever believe the game was clean? Answer: They would have no compelling reason to do so.

Further, if there was any impropriety worthy of punishment, the community at large should know for their own benefit. This is true whether it was an act of blatant cheating or an honest mistake. There have been plenty of people deleted for honest mistakes, some unfairly who were then reinstated, but others whose mistakes did not excuse their actions. Regardless of the situation, let the rest of the community know what they did. For starters, this keeps everyone's minds from running rampant with conspiracy theories, accusations of mod abuse, or extreme claims against the offenders. Call a spade a spade. If someone was deleted for inadvertent collaboration on a solo server because they neglected to look at the news, say so and silence everyone who comes out of the woodwork to claim that their 50 multies are detroying the server. Let those same people avoid falling into those same pitfalls. Allow those who were purpled to have their stories turned into cautionary tales that others can learn from.


I refute the claim that transparency creates drama. Transparency, by it's very nature, diffuses drama.

Stop the rumor mill by incorporating a news feed.

Transparency is a good thing imo. You obviously have limitations so it isnt complete but transparency rarely hurts once things are completed.

Poor Martian gave a mouse a cookie...

With this community, I don't think it would work the way you hope it would. Look at nearly very single post between Scode, Mdevol and alin, for example. Every other post they mention how the others lied and cheated and were purpled...

Knowing who did what would absolutely fuel the flames.

Not saying we shouldn't do it, but I think you guys have a rather rosy view of this issue..

I love mdevol and alin really, its all just a ruse to make you all think we hate each other!

If Scode, Mdevol, or Alin were purpled without an explanation, would we be better off or worse off?

It is "give a moose a muffin" you uncultured swine

his name is martian, not Martian. get it right n00b

Chaz is dyslexic...his forum name proves it

Both alin and mdevols situations were incredibly public and all the details are known. Doesn't stop the flaming an trolling, though.

Jeebus, the trolls never stop

I dislike badmouthing referees in football and I dislike challenges to the mods here. We need mods to regulate the various servers. They give their time without charge and I am very glad of that. The least they deserve is graceful acceptance of their verdicts, explained or not. And some thanks.

The fact that the game seems now free of multies and market manipulation and so on is little short of miraculous. For that they deserve a medal.

You did not answer my question, so I will answer it for you. If the details surrounding their deletions were not made public, they would have proven to be far more insufferable.

Transparency cannot stop trolls from being trolls, but it will at least constrain them to within certain definable boundaries.

Also, I categorically reject that anyone is above criticism merely because they are volunteers.

That being said, our mods do a good job. Transparency will only highlight this fact all the more.