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Two Sleuths with one Brain
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Sleuth Admin
Sleuth Admin
Tale Spinner

Nov-17-2006 00:24

“Never explain yourself. Your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.”
--Elbert Hubbard

I’ve been putting off addressing the growing dissonance over what some players believe to be unfair abuse of the agency system. There have been several reasons for my hesitancy. First, I wanted to see if the community could come to some sort of consensus (or near consensus) without a dictatorial decision from me. Second, it’s a complicated issue and I wanted to decide on an official position before jumping into the fray. And lastly, navigating this kind of social minefield is always tricky and I’m a much better game designer than I am a conflict mediator.

It seems that patience with my hands-off approach has now run its course. I’ve gotten several direct appeals from players that I should intercede, clarify, pontificate or proselytize, and that the time for me to speak up is now.

Many sleuth players have voiced the opinion that it is unfair to combine cases from multiple accounts in order to raise a single detective’s standing in the High Scores List faster than would be possible without sharing cases. This basic argument has given rise to several related disagreements, along with a healthy dose of finger-calling and name-pointing. There are several threads in Sleuth Talk devoted to these debates, so I’ll assume that everybody reading this has a grasp of the arguments on both sides.

First off, I think it’s important to note that everybody on the high scores lists has put an enormous amount of time and energy into a difficult game and should be proud of what they’ve accomplished. We’re not talking about a bug that allows for solving mysteries in under a minute or an exploit that gives you thousands of free experience points. Every detective on those lists represents thousands of solved cases and many, many hours of game play.



Replies

Barry Grant
Barry Grant
Old Shoe

Nov-17-2006 06:24

Mr. crunchpatty,

The way you phrase things (man-pampers) is fantastic. I am laughing uncontrollably. Really.

Mr. Serges,

Re: Your wife's Agency. This situation brings to mind my suggestion for a shipping company. That would not require any agent to leave the Agency. There could be some company at City Hall where the item is dropped off for shipment and can be picked up by the intended agent the next day after he/she deposited the item for swapping. This would eliminate the newest need for password sharing, at least.

*tips hat*
Barry

Mr. crunchpatty: I'm still laughing

Carrie Mehome
Carrie Mehome
Huntsman

Nov-17-2006 07:19

Thanks Ben for the clarification and notice about your intentions. My concern now is with password sharing. I am not very technical with these things but the only way I think you can do it is by IP address and that does not always tell you who actually is playing. I hope you give us warning when this is taking place as then there is no sense of me subscribing any more which makes me very sad as I love this game.Woody and I both play from home. In the last 6 months I have logged in from at least 6 IP addresses which I think you can verify. Both Betty and I play from work so I guess we wont be able to anymore ( so sad for us). I play at Casa's when I am there doing my laundry. I play at my Mom's when I visit her and we play at the cottage. I even played when I was on vacation this summer. Maybe I am addicted but it will be sad to be forced to leave. Also Eye Spy does not ask for others passwords which would have been handy at times to have. Could you please clarify how and when this will happen. And again thank you for creating a great game!

R Anstett
R Anstett

Nov-17-2006 07:52

Carrie, there has been some discussion of this in the past. Not speaking for Ben but as someone who understands log-in limitations. It can easily be configured to allow a reasonable number of locations to log into one detective. Couple that with setting a time frame for number of different IP addresses to log in and I am sure Ben can create a way for individuals to continue to participate in the ways you describe.

Solve A Lot2
Solve A Lot2
Assistant Postman

Nov-17-2006 10:36

Thank you Ben for posting rules about this.

I do disagree with limiting passwords for various reasons. One of which, is what happens if heaven forbid, a Director stops playing. Does the agency have to dissolve because other directors can not kick her/him out?

As for the cases - why not let cases accrue.
Sometimes, I log in and store cases for my team mates when I am unable to play. If they do all the work, I don't think it is fair for me to get half of the points.

Autumnsprings
Autumnsprings
Con Artist

Nov-17-2006 10:56

I agree with solve a lot2 on both points she raises. Thank you Ben for speaking up about this.

Autumnsprings
Autumnsprings
Con Artist

Nov-17-2006 11:08

Ok, after giving it some thought, what if the divided experience thing kicked in after a certain number of cases solved per detective? I am a computer moron, so i have no clue how easy or hard this would be to implement. It would still give the player in SAL2's example the experience they deserve, but would keep players from abusing access to multiple detectives.

BadAss
BadAss
Charioteer

Nov-17-2006 11:40

Before we implement those drastic changes......could we at least organize a poll on this to make sure this is what everybody (majority) wants?

We had polls before on other, less affecting matters. If a poll should ever be held I'd say this is a standard example of an occasion.

onenanna
onenanna

Nov-17-2006 11:53

Question Ben regarding subscriptions. I play from my home on my primary and second identy. One young adult daughter plays from home on both her primary and secondary identities. Another adult daughter plays from her own home with hers but I purchased all the subs personally. We all either work from home (I, for example, am a medical transcriptionist) This is something we do together with 3 other friends. How is this going to work out with me being the purchaser for more subs than my own? One of the players and second identities is overseas with an 8 hour time difference. If password sharing is eliminated we will lose the only access our agency has to a specific contact. Often being able to check a single alibi is the difference in solving a case and having to trash it (or "gasp" give in to the often uncontrollable urge to guess). Plus it would take quite some time if all of us needed one agent to check a number of items for us. What if that one agent dosen't log in for a couple of days? As well, we all keep our last favor when logging off pending a possible hunt. Our overseas player would not be able to participate in hunts unless one happens to carry over because any favors would be unaccessable. This will remove most of the benefit of even being in an agency. Of course you have file storage and equipment locker but you could have those in a small agency with only you and your second identity.

onenanna
onenanna

Nov-17-2006 12:06

Perhaps instead of doing away with password sharing, do away with high score lists.

Hawkeye Harris
Hawkeye Harris
Battered Shoe

Nov-17-2006 12:27

As the game designer Ben has final say on this matter. However, it seems he is enacting these (pretty major) changes with some reluctance. Logan Creed stated in the Unwritten Rules thread that “there are currently 14,654 active players in the game”, but only a very vocal minority has been posting to these threads. Many palyers are hesitant to join the (sometimes) heated discussions, and others simply are involved in playing the game and do not visit the boards often. If Ben is making changes based on the Sleuth community’s wishes, then I agree with BA that a poll would allow all interested players to provide their input in a manner other than posting to the boards. If he proceeds without additional input, at least a temporary information page at log-on would alert unaware players to the changing winds in Sleuthville.

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