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Apr-16-2009 10:18

I wanted to start this thread to get some opinions from others in the community about the advantages that some players/agencies have over one another. I am not saying my thoughts on them are right or wrong nor am I saying that anybody else’s is. In fact, you may see me flip flop on the topics from time to time as I sometimes like to look at both sides.

What I do not want to see here is for this to turn into a flame war and/or any name calling. Remember, it doesn’t matter if you have been here for 10 days or 1000 days. Every opinion of someone that pays to play the game carries just as much weight as the next person.

A good debate can be healthy for the community and I ask you to all stay respectful here even if you disagree with something that is said here. I will start with some topics and would like to see them discussed and if anyone thinks I missed something or would like to add a topic, by all means go for it.

Apr-18-2009 14:16

The Use of Automated Helpers:

This thread has mostly turned into a debate over automated sleuth helpers, which to be honest is the topic on this thread that I feel the least emotion about. However I will comment on it.

I recently started using Pigeot’s helper. I never used it when it first became available. Why did I not use it? Well I guess there are 2 reasons: 1. The only thing I trust playing my cases is my own brain. 2. I enjoyed my little spreadsheet method where I had to apply all the logic myself to solve a case �" I liked the challenge.

So why did I recently start using it? Well honestly, after playing 4000 cases, I am aware of all the formulas and the tricks there are to solving a case, and Pigeot’s helper made it faster and easier to organize my cases �" instead of flipping back and forth between sleuth and a spreadsheet. But I can say this - I never trust it. There have been times when I’ve had a little network blip and it incorrectly identified a trait of a suspect or matched a footprint to someone when it was actually a note that I matched. So I always triple check. I never just go with the accused that the helper tells me. I make sure it is right. I look at it more as an organization tool than a case solver.

Do I think newbs should use Pigeot’s helper? No. It gives away some of the secrets and the logic that is required to solve a case. And I think that would take away some of the excitement of figuring it out on your own.

So on the topic of the most recent case solver, I personally would not use it in a million years. I actually enjoy the clicking and sitting here deciding what questions to ask who. That is, after all, how you play the game. And I guess I just enjoy Sleuth and I find it quite relaxing after a long day of work �" even the repetitive clicking I have done 1000s of times. I can’t see finding enjoyment in clicking one button and getting all my motives and alibis and my PE for my contact checked in a matter of seconds.

Apr-18-2009 14:17

What’s the point? To me that is like deciding I want to read a novel, and just buying the cliff notes so I can finish faster. If I got the cliff notes, I didn’t really read the novel, and if you use an automated case solver, are you actually really solving a case? So I guess the question to the people who use this is, do you actually enjoy playing Sleuth, or are you just trying to move up the high scores list as fast as possible?

Are automated case solvers “cheating” or unethical? I can’t really say. It certainly doesn’t feel right. The one thing I can say is it’s not really in-line with the spirit of Sleuth.

Password sharing:

A few years ago, Ben contemplated trying to technically prevent password sharing. From everything I have read from him on this matter, he is not a fan. But it was such a common practice and the community was up in arms about it, so nothing was done. However, I can say that when he made Shades, he pre-built some measures to make password sharing less enticing - giving everyone 30 cases per day so there was no need to use other people’s cases, preventing one detective storing a case in the case files and a different detective opening the case on the same computer and solving it. In my opinion, this was to stop some of the practices that are being discussed on this thread.

What are my opinions on it? I’m not a fan. Only 3 people in the history of my detective have ever had my password. They were close friends, they were people I trusted, and it was for emergency purposes only. I don’t want other people solving my cases (my point above I only trust my own brain to solve a case for nicnic). I can see very little reason for anyone to need my password. At Eye Spy, my director has never asked for my password. And we seem to get along just fine all playing our own detectives.

Apr-18-2009 14:17

I have recently heard that there are sleuths out there that have access to dozens of passwords across all different kinds of agencies, and I guess I have a few questions why. First of all, why are people giving out their passwords so easily? And secondly, why do directors need your password? When you sign up to an agency or are given a gift sub and the first thing you are asked is to give up your password, do you question this a bit? What would anyone need to do with your account? Well I suspect I know the answers and that is to use your detective when you are offline for THs and checking PE with your contact. The old getting items back for the locker if you accidentally forget to put them back doesn’t hold much weight. New players typically don’t have access to the much-better directors’ gear, so I can’t image it would be an emergency to wait a day or so to get a marwadi padgi back in the locker.

So let’s go back to the 2 reasons I listed: THs and checking PE. THs are supposed to be a team effort. Although this has happened throughout the history of the game, it’s not really in the spirit of competitive hunting for one person to sit there and run through 10-12 detectives to win a hunt. Although it may not be illegal, it is certainly not in the spirit of the Sleuth competitive community. And personally I wouldn’t find too much fun or reward in that. In addition, you pay to get 12 cases every day. If you are at work and someone in a different time zone logs in and does all your cases for a TH they were working on and you have no cases left, wouldn’t you be a bit POed?

Apr-18-2009 14:18

As for checking PE, what could be such an emergency, that someone couldn’t wait for you to log on to check their PE? Unless, that person is using the “assembly line” method of case-solving where they only check their own PE, and then cycle through other detectives accounts to get the rest of it checked without actually making an attempt at solving it on their own. I don’t believe this was the original intent of having case files. This practice has been shunned in both agencies I have been in. It has been shunned in the community and we have had some high-profile detectives leave because of the backlash from the community when it was apparent this is what they were doing. Again, just like with the automated case solver, what is the point of doing this? Do you actually enjoy playing Sleuth? My least favorite cases are the ones where I find the guilty party through my own PE contact. I like the challenge of trying to use logic to figure out my case. But maybe I’m weird that way.

One last point, directors are nothing other than another person sitting in front of a computer on the internet. Just be careful. There have been incidents where directors have abused others’ accounts by reading and deleting their PMs. Like Adam said, you don’t go giving out your personal e-mail password to some stranger on the internet, why are people so willing to give out their Sleuth password?

Apr-18-2009 14:18

Subbed Detectives:

I don’t think this is up for debate. It is against the rules for any individual to have more than two subbed detectives in an agency. And I’m sorry ctown, dear, I have to correct you. There is no stipulation for THing agencies or not. The community has generally let it slide if the agency doesn’t TH. The only way for Ben to enforce this would be to be to look through all the players in agencies and where their subs come from regularly. I can personally say I wouldn’t want Ben to spend all of his Sleuth-time doing this. However, when this has been suspected of happening in the past and reported, Ben has looked into it and took action. It doesn’t matter if we like this or not, it’s the way it is.

I believe this rule would also apply to individuals that have access to detective’s passwords and give those detectives gift subs after they have left the game to continue to use their account. I don’t see any difference, and I believe we have a lot of this going on. This is the only topic that has been discussed that I can safely say is wrong and is against the rules.

I guess I’m sort of a Sleuth-purist. :-)

Apr-18-2009 15:14

First off I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this thread. I had some reservations as to whether or not I should post it because I didn’t want it to get into arguing. Thankfully it has not so far and I hope it continues to keep the tone that it has.

That being said I would like to offer my views on some of the thoughts that have been posted here.

I think there are some good view points on the use of helper tools, I don’t think any of them are right or wrong, just a matter of personal preference. Yes, Irene’s tool does do a lot of the work for you, but a lot of what it does is the mundane, repetitive clicking than some of us grow tired of. I don’t really think that it takes any enjoyment away from the game as sometimes I will use it while I am in barchat or discussing things with players on MSN. I can see where some people think it is a problem because yes, you can finish an AI case with in under too minutes and it is partially automated. Some of you are under the feeling that if you are going to use such tools to do everything for you, then why play? I don’t think it any of our places to tell others how to play the game and what methods to use unless it affects the spirit of the game. It was pointed out that this is the only one of the mentioned helpers that actually hits the server therefore it would fall into the category of a bot. Again, I have used this tool myself and I don’t really see anything wrong with it. But I am using it for one detective at a time and not using it to push myself up the high score list.

Now onto the case sharing idea, this is something I have talked to several players about. I like the thoughts that Adam had about how people are hiring a certain detective to solve the case and not another detective. I can see his point here, but the argument can be made that the person is hiring the detective agency to solve the case, not that particular detective.

*more*

Apr-18-2009 15:15

There is a lot of grey area here. But the fact that there are some that seem to abuse the privilege of shared cases is where the controversy may lie? How many should one be able to solve in a week to move up the board? If the people saying they are not doing it to move up the high score board should they be able to solve as many cases a day as they want but after solving say 15 cases they stop getting the xp points? Should the agency continue to get the fame points?

The argument has been made that if people have the time and money to do this all day then who are they hurting? More power to them right? I’m sorry but I disagree, just because someone has the time to play the game for 12 hours a day doesn’t mean that they should. There are plenty of other things to do on the internet as well. To make the argument that it is good for the game as it generates more money for hypothetical software is not a good excuse. While I’m sure Ben likes having the subs it can do far greater damage in the long run if a competitive player leaves the game because of it. What will happen then is the player will find something else to do and speak negatively about this game and it can become a snowball effect. It reminds of something I learned years ago in the restaurant business about how negative words can really hurt business. You can go the same restaurant 100 times and have a decent meal/experience and think nothing of it. You have a bad experience just one time and you are gonna tell 15-20 people about it and probably won’t go back for a while.

Onto the idea of getting rid of the high score boards. IMHO, this is a horrible idea. I personally do not care about seeing my name on the high score board. But there are some people that do. Many of us have a competitive nature and the high score board is how the competition could be measured. The only high score board that I pay attention to is the agency high scores.

*more*

Apr-18-2009 15:15

I am proud of the agency that I started and where we are at today shows the teamwork and spirit to thrive of my fellow agency members. Competition is something that is good for the community. If there is nothing to thrive for why bother playing?

Now, there was one comment so far that I found worrisome and this is not an attack on the person that posted it: “A rule that can’t be enforced is not a rule. It’s a wish”

I’m still trying to process that. For the most part, we are a community of mostly adults here. We do not need Ben to babysit us. He has specifically stated that a single player should not be the primary controller of any more than two detectives in a single agency. This is pretty clear cut as to what his intentions are. I did not always know of this rule. I found out about it after I created Bonelady. I sent off a PM to Ben asking him about it and he informed me of the rule. I tried to circumnavigate the rule and asked him “well what if I transfer ownership over to lilangel?” Sure I could get around it that way, but to do that lil would have to be the primary player of that detective. That is not the case, I am the primary player. As a result I moved one of my detectives out of Dawg Pound Investigations. I could have just kept my mouth shut and nobody would have known about. The reason that I did not is because of not only the respect that I have for Ben, but out of respect for the community as well. When people break the rules that Ben has set forth, you are not being fair to the members of the community that follow the rules. As nicnic corrected me, this applies to ALL agencies, not just agencies that Treasure Hunt. How is one determined a THing agency or not, every agency in the game has the ability to open a TH if they have a member with good enough faction standing.

*more*

Apr-18-2009 15:15

This also relates to the password sharing discussion, I have been apart of many agencies in this game, some that share passwords and some that don’t. It is so much more fun to win a TH as a team then to bounce from detective to detective playing the favors out because you have access. Time zone constraints shouldn’t play a part in it. I like the idea I saw about how you should only be able to use your contact for so many peoples other cases a day. I think the way it was brought up to me was the contact would say something along the lines of “I said I would help with your cases, not your friends cases, now be gone with you”

This is not an attack on you VS but I would like to use you as an example since you brought it up. You mentioned that your daughter is playing two of the detectives in your agency. Great, always like to see new players come in. But is she really playing them? By you allowing her to use the VS character to process the case and then solve them as her is enabling a lot of what this discussion is about. Make her build up the detectives properly and don’t feed her the cases from yourself and Guiltfinder. Awhile back you created a thread that it is very easy to accomplish goals in this game and that it is boring. Yes it is easy when you enable a lot of the things that are being discussed in this thread. Most of the fun was going through the growing pains of building my character to what it is. Would I want to do it again? Probably not, at least not with ctown, I may however one day decide that I want to build a det from scratch again and retire Bonelady or Brady, if that is the case I will build them the same way I have in the past, by playing the cases the way the game is meant to be played.

I think I’ve gotten long winded enough and have no idea if I missed anything I wanted to address but if I have, I will try to touch on it later.

Happy Sleuthing!

Apr-18-2009 15:52

ctown I do have to disagree with you on one point, which I believe is supported by your later points:

"Some of you are under the feeling that if you are going to use such tools to do everything for you, then why play? I don’t think it any of our places to tell others how to play the game and what methods to use unless it affects the spirit of the game."

What I personally was trying to say, don't want to speak for others, it does affect the spirit of the game. If people are using this tool (which I have no idea if it is the case or not, but I suspect it is) to solve double or triple the amount of cases in a few hours than our normal 12 daily alotted, because they can solve an AI case in "under two minutes", then I do feel this affects the spirit of the game. And if used in this fashion seems very bot-like.

In addition, I would hate a newbie to get their hands on this, for all the reasons we have been talking about for a while. Again, very relevant to affecting the spirit of the game.