Jul 26 2014 3:28 pm
Hi All,
There is a serious issue with players exploiting the game and no action has been taken. Below are the FACTS regarding this issue, and they are undisputed.
FACT 1 - On July 23rd, Ra8472 attacked one of my planets. I was unable to scan his techs so was unsure of the strength of his attack. I shared the news with my ally who came to help defend the attack. We were successful: http://imgur.com/vIze6Pe
FACT 2 - As a direct result of the attack, Ra8472's Status dropped to Goa'uld meaning he had less than 1500 status.
FACT 3 - After the attack, GDozer and other PE members shared in galaxy chat that we used an exploit. At the time, I had no idea what he was talking about. No member of our ally ever discussed any exploit in game or Skype.
FACT 4 - The next day, two different PE members reached out to me via Skype and explained how PE was using an exploit to gain status quickly. The exploit related to placing a small number of jaffa on any planet being attacked when you are confident the defender will win, then all defenders receive the full amount of status from the attack. They shared how PE was using several exploit since no action had ever been taken against players for exploiting, there was no risk involved. [Note - while I know this information to be true, I am not willing to "prove" it for obvious reasons. Feel free to disregard this item if you feel so inclined.]
FACT 5 - 48 hours after Ra8472 was Goa'uld status (less than 1500) he is now over 6500 status. http://imgur.com/g80piQL
FACT 6 - This issue is not related to a single PE member, but rather ALL their leaders and top members. Yesterday, Sobek sent a fleet on a bad attack. Many PE members sent a jaffa to the planet to exploit status. To be clear, they didn't send military to help defend from the attack, but purely to exploit the game.
Today, a similar bad attack was made by Mantuba. While I waited to long to collect evidence for all defenders, I was able to capture many of them:
1. Olek http://imgur.com/FyFOkX5 - 1 jaffa. They simply gate a jaffa in if it's a gated world, or gate to the nearest planet and send if not a gated world.
2. ToddTheWraith - http://imgur.com/0pBk18R 400 jaffa
3. Ra8472 - http://imgur.com/eXAg1vu 1 jaffa
4. GDozer - http://imgur.com/jzAGi3E 1 jaffa
5. LordOzwald - http://imgur.com/DvhmGTZ 5k jaffa
6. Sethron - http://imgur.com/ll3Q3fS 100 jaffa
The combined force of all these players is less value than 1 mothership. 5 of these players combined is less than 1 dg.
Furthermore, there were other player names you can see in these screenshots who also participated. Lastly, there were so many defenders the list is not complete.
Networth can be bought but Status was the one thing which had to be EARNED. Now a new player can go from 500 to God in less than 4 days.
The above screenshots offer blatantly clear evidence the leaders of PE (GDozer and Olek, each with 1 jaffa) along with all of their most active members are exploiting the game. I have made Shadowing aware of this issue. He is working hard to fix the bug but no direct action has been taken against any player for this exploit, despite the clear evidence provided.
Is the above not enough? Galaxy News repeatedly showed were Olek took I believe 5 space stations from players who were less than 10% of his networth. A specific example is Justephi's space station in sector 1-3. I have a warsat in that sector. I checked Justephi's SS the day before and his nw was 15k. It is clear he abandoned the game at least a month ago and his networth has not been above 50k in the past month. Olek's nw has not been below 400k. There was an exploit which allowed players to attack players sieging vacant planets and thereby "tag" the player. I can understand if a player does this one time and reports it, but Olek repeatedly took stations day after day. This exploit also would have allowed him to freely take any warsats, steal naq/slaves, etc. Olek's actions were clear, repeated and blatant. As per PE's own members, Olek clearly knew what he was doing, as if there could be any doubt.
Yesterday, Zerotee and Olek were attacking members who should be protected. This is another exploit PE discovered related to reinforcement which allows players to bypass protection. I wont share further details publicly as I have not reported this issue to Shadowing yet.
There is more but I will stick to the factual evidence above which cannot be disputed.
I believe Shadowing is a fantastic developer and a good person. I am sure he has his reasons for not taking action; however, I can't support this decision. Accordingly, I am stopping game play. If the game rules are enforced, I'll immediately return to the game. If not, it was great playing with everyone. I had an incredible time and lots of fun. This decision is made for myself and I do not ask anyone to follow it. If a new galaxy opens, and assurances are given that players exploiting the game will be punished, I will gladly come back as the game is really awesome.
This is a game. A source of entertainment and competition. A competitive challenge. That's what it is for me. When the game is so completely unbalanced in this manner, it takes away both the challenge and fun for me, so I can't support it.
I wish you all well.
-Ryan
PS. There is going to be drama and fallout over this post. Just to set the matter straight, I have a very strong sense of loyalty. When COV collapsed 2 weeks after I joined then, I stuck by their side. When I was threatened with being reset by the leaders of PE, I laughed and played on. They have a massive advantage with over 60% more nw and status, but with a great group of gamers by my side, I can deal with it, and have. I was the target of focused simultaneous attacks, yet I held my ground. I still have all ws planets and my SS count and status has done nothing but grow. I never complained. I didn't leave ally to run for safety. I didn't take protection or vacation. So I kindly suggest you consider my ACTIONS and the details above in the likely event mudslinging occurs and others attempt to distract players from the facts presented. The reason for my action is the blatant exploits. Any attempt to say otherwise is simply not true.
I hunt the sheep of war...
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