Sleuth Home - Message Boards - Sleuth Talk


0 0
More than two subs in same agency....
  <<First Page  |  <Previous Next>  |  Last Page>>  

Secret_Squirrel
Secret_Squirrel
Safety Officer

Jun-17-2012 17:57

Everything old is new again... or maybe not.

And let me start with a preemptive "Puh-lease, freedom of speech and all that aside, let's not turn this in to a debacle."

So, 'some' people have been getting up my a... err I mean politely pointing out to me, that the whole "some people have more than two subs in the same agency, and isn't that against the 'rules'" is banging away behind the scenes.

I've asked Ben to look at this with a view to scrapping the concept that more than two subs in the same agency is a 'bad' thing.

To be bluntly honest it's never been particularly well policed unless it was by self-policed by certain players who were trying to edge out the competition in Treasure Hunts.

My personal opinion is that the 'againsts' never really equalled the 'fors', and that we're at the point where as a community the TH scene just isn't that cutthroat any more.

So, I'm more than happy to go with the flow, as I suspect no-one really minds anymore.

But I'll leave the final word to Ben, of course.

Please feel free to discuss politely.

Please limit your lunatic ravings to a minimum nic :D

Replies

AraLives
AraLives
Battered Shoe

Jun-17-2012 19:25

I have two subbed detectives at SMRT, AraLives and Arabesque. AraLives is my main, and Arabesque is homeless and needs a place to sleep while she hammers away at getting her London PE (damned barber). I re-subbed both these characters in the last two or three days. I looked at the FAQ because after 5-6 years I'd forgotten whether there were rules about two subbed detectives in the same agency--it seemed to me there were rules, but I couldn't find them in the FAQ. Am I blind, did I miss them--a link would be helpful here.

That's not to say that just because Arabesque is crashing at SMRT that I would not use her if she happened to come across the favour we were looking for in a treasure hunt. I don't want to break rules, I don't want to cause trouble, but if it weren't an out and out violation I would do it. Because for me it comes down to this:

At SMRT we have always been very big on trust, so much so that we all know each other's passwords. Because of that, when we are in a hunt and (say) Biggie isn't logged on, if she is holding the favour we need, I'm going to log into her account and play it through. So I am controlling her detective. I have permission to play her through to another favour, to distribute her cases if needed for the hunt to people who need extras--that is controlling another detective. We all have permission to do this as needed with one another's detectives. I am fairly certain we are not the only agency who does this. None of this--2 subbed detectives at an agency, password sharing (Admin says not to do it, but if we do, to do it at our own risk) goes against the Sleuth Code of Conduct as I read it.

Plus, I'm BACK. And having fun again! And so are a whole lot of veteran players. Until I see a compelling ethical argument against this, OR an edict from Ben laying down the law, I see no reason to shake things up.

nicnic
nicnic
Battered Shoe

Jun-17-2012 20:42

"Please limit your lunatic ravings to a minimum nic :D"

Say what? ;-)

Well thanks for giving your opinion on this Squirrelly. I think we do need Ben to say whether it's time once and for all to get rid of this "rule" that really isn't stated anywhere except in posts that are 6 years old. And while this was a hot topic back in the day, the game isn't quite as competitive as when it was new and people were aggressively going for high scores lists and such. So my feelings at this point are "Who cares?" If someone has the money and time to do it, more power to them. However, my agency does not participate in password sharing and we follow the no more than two subs in an agency, although we have two ringers, so to speak, I can see how it might get frustrating if you are competing with an agency that is doing something different than this (*cough SMRT cough*) Just kidding SMRT ;-) Although I still think there's some cheating going on... :-P

I can see both sides of it. But as Squirrelly said... I think we have to weigh the benefits and costs, and at this point I'm not sure that having multiple agents is really that much of an advantage. Especially with the predominance of password sharing out in the Sleuth world. Isn't it really the same thing?





nicnic
nicnic
Battered Shoe

Jun-17-2012 20:45

And Ara... you are not blind. I believe this "rule" was in the first CoC that Sunny created, but has since been removed as the CoC has been updated multiple times. I do not however think the removal was intentional, just something that got lost in the mix over the years.

I'll also give my opinion on this. If it ain't in the CoC (which are the rules), then it ain't a rule.

Special_K
Special_K
Lucky Stiff

Jun-17-2012 20:45

I'm the only person in SMRT controlling more than two detectives, and thats only if you count the one I gift subbed :)

Kidding or otherwise, I think I should definitely make that clear.

Jason Arends
Jason Arends
Lucky Stiff

Jun-17-2012 20:46

*sings* Its cause im eaaaaasssyyy


oooooooh oooooh Easy like sunday morning ;)

nicnic
nicnic
Battered Shoe

Jun-17-2012 20:57

I was just joking, K. You guys kicked our proverbial behinds on that hunt earlier so I assumed you were cheating :-P

Like I said, we also have two agents in our agency that aren't real people that are sorta collectively owned by the directors. And other agencies password share up the wazoo and we used to at the original al-Q as well. I don't do it now mostly because all of my agents are new to the game, I don't know them personally yet, and I didn't really want to be all like.... Hey come join my agency and as the first order of bizness... hand over your password to me biatch. That just doesn't feel right. And I just really don't want to be responsible for other people's detectives either. It's just not where I am anymore. If we lose a hunt because we are all in different time zones, then so be it. I think this is probably the general feel of the community these days. Let's just have fun and a little friendly competition is great but I'm not going to sit on Sleuth until 5:00 am running through favors on 8 different detectives trying to win a hunt before SMRT wakes up. Not that that ever happened. I schwears. :-)

biggie528
biggie528
Lucky Stiff

Jun-17-2012 20:59

I've certainly never done that <.<

Nope never!!

Serges
Serges
Vigilante

Jun-17-2012 21:04

I'm calling shenanigans on that, Nic. I've been in chat with you before, madam. :)

Lady Emerald Devon
Lady Emerald Devon
Nomad

Jun-17-2012 22:36

Bluntly: It was people who had more than two subbed detectives in agencies that kept paying subs while a good many people who were against took off.

I think people should play their own game, worry about them and theirs are leave each to their own.

With password sharing, it made this rule irrelevant anyway.

We go on and on about define control or whatever but it boils down to one thing: this is just a game.

If you really care that someone SPENDS MONEY which helps keep this game afloat and spends THEIR OWN TIME playing the game, maybe you need to look at why winning means that much to you.

I know that even when you have passwords for everyone in a 12 person agency and everyone is active, you still don't always win hunts. A lot of it is luck.

Vampiric Smile
Vampiric Smile
Safety Officer

Jun-17-2012 23:36

SS thank you for bringing it up as this issue has cost me and my agency the loss of a great friend and player. Ken left the game because he was accused by a mod of not respecting a code that was not actually existing!
My opinion is
1. When someone wants to pay for more subs ...he/she is free to do it as investing in this game is the only viable way to keep it alive. I hardly have time to control VS and Guiltfinder (and occasionally my daughter's Vampirion) as I am very busy in real life but if someone wants to play sleuth all day....he/she is free to do it 100%.
2. In the past maybe this issue was important as we all remember a player controlling 18 (lol maybe even more) characters in the game... but now (as far as I know at least) none is controlling more than 4. If you really think that 4 are a lot...then I could only give you the example of WoW. There officially a player can control 10 characters in a server and a total of 50 characters across servers! Don't they know that this is an advandage? Ofc they know!....they simply say that if you have time to invest in the game then it is fair! You invest in time play->you get all benefits for doing so!
3. Generally speaking controling multiple characters is not unfair at all as all players can do it! If you don't have time or money to do so ....the least you can do is respect those who can and are willing to do so because they support the game more than you so it is fair to get more benefits for doing so!
4. Passwords sharing is not the same and is actually the only trully unfair behaviour because it does not contribute to the game advancement meaning that it does not bring investments in the game. I know agencies that are placing detectives on favors around a city. Those characters are not played at all...they simply sit on a favor waiting the TH to come to them and only then they are activated.

  <<First Page  |  <Previous Next>  |  Last Page>>  

[ You must login to reply ]