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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.

Nov-17-2006 12:39

I agree with Hawkeye and Badass about polling. I am one who does not like participating in heated discussions :-)

Nov-17-2006 12:50

I was very glad to hear that you were dissolving agencies, as I thought you were coming to join the forces of evil. Apparently you are not quite here yet as you changed your mind but do not worry. I will help you through the difficult process.

Regardless of how people will view this issue of password sharing, I will give you a round of applause for not rushing in and making a statement prematurely. As an admin one must think through the outcomes, consequences, and possible externalities of an official statement. Hopefully the implementation of the password sharing blocker and other options will be as successful as the design phase. You have done an excellent job at stating your operational objectives in a way that is easily comprehensible to the community. Further down the road you should review the policy recommendations you have decided on today.

Nov-17-2006 13:03

I have a question that has been bugging me for a long time. Are there any official or unofficial rules or policies about how many detectives a person subscribes?
I know the rule is “A single player should not be the primary controller of any more than two detectives in a single agency”, but can someone ‘control’ agents in multiple agencies? Can we have two agents in Agency A and two in Agency B, or maybe even 4 subscribed detectives in 4 different agencies?
I think this has been discussed, but after several hours, I have not been able to find any mention of this issue.

Nov-17-2006 13:06

I have a related concern about the proposed ban on password sharing. I play another online game where password sharing and multiple accounts are not allowed. There are several players I can not interact with because our IP addresses match. I'm not sure if it's related to IP sharing from my home network or using my laptop in public wireless spots.

There is a mechanism in that game to investigate this and I hope that one is built into any changes in Sleuth.

The proposed changes to agency password sharing feel to me a bit like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. As fas as I know it has been common practice within some agencies since long before I started playing Sleuth.

I'd also like to suggest that the new and/or soon-to-be-enacted rules of Sleuth be added to the HELP file. I'm a hundred-something day old detective and while i read some of the message boards when I started, I didn't read them all. However, i did read the help file.

Nov-17-2006 13:41

Sunny,

All of us appreciate all of the hard work you & Ben have put into this game.
I know it can not be easy to manage such a large group of people.
I do agree that games need rules, and I do not think you make those decisions lightly.

However, this game has been successful up until now, Why fix what is not broken? I think BadAss's request to have a poll, is a wonderful idea, because it would give you & Ben a chance to see how many people REALLY have a problem with the way things currently are - agency & detective usage wise.

Having an unsubbed detective in an agency, who can not check PE or donate their cases for treasure hunts, destroys part of the reason to have an agency.

Again, all of us love sleuth, and most of us do not feel that a change to this aspect of the game should be made.

Nov-17-2006 13:55

Also, to show another aspect of how much thought Ben and Sunny take into every new rule, they always discuss their ideas first with the moderators.

Although we do not always agree with their ideas, we do hold a discussion on how this would effect the community and how we feel others in our agencies would feel. Although this does not decide whether or not they implement new policies, they do take our opinions into consideration.

At this point, I think we should all just take a deep breath and wait to see what other guidance they give us about these changes.

Lil

Nov-17-2006 14:04

SA2, thanks for your response. You are a seasoned player and I respect your input. I also understand that you are upset that you will not be able to interact with unsubscribed players in your agency the way you are accustomed.

However, since I’m obviously the bad cop in this thread, I have to reiterate that the upcoming changes have already been decided and posted.

Agencies will continue to function in much the same way they have with subscribed players. The major change will be for those who are in an agency and are not subscribed. Agencies are and always were intended for subscribed players. There are still plenty of reasons to have an agency, most of them being the same as they were before, and I firmly do not believe that these rule changes destroy the reasons for having agencies.

As for *most* of players not liking this change, that is very hard to gage and I would be very impressed if you knew how to get that information so quickly. At any rate, as I mentioned before, these issues are not up for a vote. They stand as Ben posted them.

Nov-17-2006 14:21

Since these are very drastic changes and are totally different than the game we signed up for, will refunds be given to subscribers who no longer wish to play?

Nov-17-2006 14:30

The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh

:)

Nov-17-2006 14:34

I personally don't think this constitutes a drastic change as it stands now, especially since the PW thing is not set in stone yet, just something Ben is considering.