Shattered Kingdoms

Can we discuss how as players we are supposed to know when something that seems coded intentionally, or perhaps has been a long-standing feature, is a bug and not intentional?

I will bring up the topic of the "take" command since it recently resulted in a punishment. I'm not as long to the game as most that play, but the take command and subsequent responses would have seemed intentional to me from an objective standpoint.

In the case there are other similar situations where as players we might be confused, could we get a list of known exploits that we should avoid that might have been coded intentionally some time ago but are now considered bugs?

For example, I know it was made clear in forums and otherwise that you could not request an item from an NPC for someone else's use. This seems like it falls in a similar category but is clearly stated so we know not to exploit it. I both do not want to fall victim to punishment for something that feels open to interpretation or see other players leave the game due to a lack of clarity or the feeling that the interpretation of certain rules could be arbitrary.

Thanks!

don't think any reasonable player would have considered using the "take" command as bug abuse - until yesterday. the way this was handled by the staff leaves a lot to be desired. it should have been handled just like the "follow" command when it was deemed as bug abuse to follow an NPC (mainly to prevent rogues from getting their second backstab attempt).

no reasonable player considered it bug abuse to type follow innkeeper or follow <insert NPC name here> - not until the staff posted on the forum that it would be considered bug abuse going forward. nobody that had used it prior was punished. in the same vein, nobody should have been punished for using the take command either - unless they continued to do it after a post was made telling us not to.

That's kind of what I'm getting at. Such clarification before severe punishment would be nice, and I feel like should even be expected. The player in question is listed as having a history of bug abuse. Had they been told before this specifically was considered a bug?

A failure to take an item is widely recognized to have two responses: one response if you could know the item in question is actually there and another response if you couldn't. The second response was deliberately worded to obscure whether an item was actually there when not visible, not just that the target did not have the item. Otherwise it would have been stated 'They don't have that'.

And in fact, it was working with regard to actual invisible items, or for most any other reason you might be able to see the person but not the item. The buggy part was that it was not correctly applying the peek code for inventory visibility. Note that this is not the first time take has been updated. The obscuring of visibility was actually added in a second round of implementation after some similar take abuse. (Some of the long-timers should remember that, even if they don't want to admit it.)

This is a general common sense issue that I think would raise the eyebrow of anyone who first encountered it. As La.Bonnita says, it has apparently been buggy in this regard for a long time, but this specific issue has never been raised to me for fixing. So I can't call it a 'known exploit' that could have been referenced in a post somewhere.

If you find a 'feature' that you can, for example, systematically use to make a quest so quick and easy that it isn't really worth a quest reward, it would be wise to just send up a pray and ask about it. Even if no admin is online at that moment, we will have your question on record forever. So if it ever gets brought up as a rules enforcement issue, you can reference your intent to not cheat. If it's something that we genuinely are not aware of, such as this, you will probably even get rewarded for bringing it to our attention.

It's unfortunate that some players get to be so mechanical about their actions while leveling that they gloss over thinking about whether something makes sense from their character's point of view. And that they then likely teach this same attitude to true newbies, therefore misinforming them about whether it should be expected.

except that it is not general common sense - in fact, most players would not have considered this a bug until yesterday. just like the overwhelming majority of players did not consider typing follow innkeeper or follow <insert NPC name here> a bug either, until there was a post on the forum telling us it was a bug and not to use it going forward.

this situation should have been handled the same way.

I agree with Finney in this regard: I would honestly not have viewed the "take" command as an exploit if used in this way, and while I'm not actually knowledgeable about the quest in particular, unless it saves something along the lines of hours of playtime, I definitely wouldn't have thought it something that a person would be punished for even in the worst case scenario here. I could even visualize inventory as being something that you would be able to "pat someone down" for, as it were: Obviously rogues have the peek ability so that they can see your inventory without you noticing, but other players, if they knew what they were looking for, would be able to try and grab it.

Obviously that's not the right conclusion to draw anymore, but I just wanted to throw my two cents in: I really liked the approach used concerning the follow NPC tactic that Finney references, I'm not a big fan of the "learn by having an example made of someone" method that went down with this recent punishment.

This stance is widely rejected by every player. And I shouldn't even be able to get away with saying something like that. Only staff accepts this as plausible. No one else had any idea that this was an issue or that they might be breaking a rule. This in itself should show that it is not "obvious, common sense." Unless the term has been redefined to mean something else that the reasonable person has no knowledge of, no one should accept your explanation as plausible. My eyebrow was only raised that it was considered a bug. As such, I nor any other player can reasonably be expected to understand what is a rule and what is not a rule. As such I have to decline playing the game because I cannot know if I might be breaking a rule or not. And the 2 players that were going to play with me are now not going to be playing the game because they don't have me there to guide them. That's just a fact of matter.

Every player is surprised that this is a bug. Of course de facto it's being stated a bug now, but up till this point, no one had any idea it was considered as such.



Thank you, but I have to reject your opinion. I believe my character has the five senses of touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing. This is taught in any creative writing class. I feel that the experience of the game is stunted if we reduce to eyesight.

There is, unfortunately, no way beyond common sense for a player to know what is an exploit or what is a legitimate feature when he or she encounters something undocumented as such. There is also no way for me to give a comprehensive list, because there are always new situations cropping up that nobody has previously thought of. Dulrik's previous post said that, if you encounter something in a gray area that doesn't make sense to you as a player, it's never a bad idea to share your finding with the staff.


As for your concerns about punishment, Azar was past the point of receiving further warnings or clarifications, and this was made clear to him the last time he had a character retired for cheating. Multiple Rule 7 violations on top of brazen Rule 5 violations, and it is clear he has no interest in playing by the rules. I agree that, in almost all cases, if I observed someone using a minor exploit like this, I would just give a warning and make a post describing the bug. I always give the benefit of the doubt to any player who isn't a confirmed unrepentant multiple rule violator. I can't just keep giving a repeat rules offender warnings, though, or he'll never stop. For the record, I had not observed anyone else using this exploit. To add further clarity to what I'm saying here, I will cite the 'help punishments' file.:


Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns on this topic. My number one goal as a member of the staff here is to make this game better and I am always open to ideas about this or any other topic that can contribute to that goal.

any particular reason you're using my forum ID to post now? or did u just fubar an edit?