Announcement Ask the CMs in English

Man with those money needed for one below average Mac you can buy 2 killer PCs and a killer laptop for your work

 

They don't need to provide reasoning. Every game has arbitrary rules that we need to abide by; for this game, one of those is no macros or bots. If you want to play with bots and/or macros, find a game out there that permits it.

 

Hey there community of awesomeness,

Here we are again with a little coffee and the remnants of a cheese cake that one of the artists brought us. They do not only design amazing maps and decorative elements, they also cook wonders. But I digress. Let's get down to business!!

The planning of the events falls on the realm of the Content Designers, who have an evil Event Planner/Scheduler hidden somewhere. It's true that the Moon dates this month are rather weird - but intended. Do not expect crazy surprises in upcoming months though.

As I say, I chicken-out rather quickly with videogames. Atmosphere kills me, in so many ways.
In any case, no, we do not have any update on when the new class will arrive. Certainly not during this year and I'll be careful to announce it for next year until I know the dates are more or less set on stone.

Please, do so. Bigpoint, humor. Tsk. What will be next?
CMs who actually care about their communities?

Hey there,

This is totally the place to ask this type of questions. As I told before to LudiGrozd, we do not have updates on the class in terms of dates and final delivery. Creating a crash from scratch is not an easy business. You gotta do the concept art, the modelling, the skills, the talents, the balancing, all the sets, all the icons, etc, etc, etc. And we do not wanna rush it like happened with the Steam Mechanicus, we'd rather like it "down tempo" and with care.

Your suspicions are correct and our preferred class would be a rogue. Light, past-paced dual weapon fighter.
I'd play it gladly! ^^

Nah, even DSO China are getting our archetypes. Aesthetics are being kept quite the same.
Sorry to disappoint.

Interesting paragraph, mister. But yeah, adding a specific sub-class or new class that concentrates on healing buffs and other types of support features is really not in our roadmap... A roguish charismatic fella is, on the other hand!

Hey there mister,

1. Saying that we never ever change things is a rather over-statement. I do understand the feelings behind it, and the frustration and everything, but we DO change things. Given, they won't cover all the dissatisfaction points that you guys mention or some of the bugs. Or it won't be as quickly as you deem it necessary. But whenever an event is finished, the admins and myself go around the boards and social media and compile the Good, the Bad and the Suggestions. There's a certain level of agency of a company towards the direction and the final decision that affects a product. But we do try our best to convey those points and the team also do their best to accommodate to those wishes.

2. Umh, could you please elaborate on that "variable in the scripting"? I am unsure as to what you are implying here. That Premium or Deluxe users get better drop and better rewards in general? Well, not really. They do get Mystic Cubes, PvP Honor Points bonus, more experience for defeating opponents and completing tasks, reduced prices on the workbench, and GOP reductions.

Hey there,

I know this is quite painful when you are having a Nebula and then you get sent back to town. The way this works was introduced in order to tackle some of the most used or recurrent exploits that groups were doing with events and specific bosses. However, I do not think reworking the system in order to add more "disconnection" variants or results is off the table. We simply do not have the capacity right now to tackle that system issue. Sorry about that.

Hey there,

Monster Hunts do not exclude other types of content that are being developed in the "backyard of development" - new features, new events or revamped events, bug fixes, and so on. After launching Looters Fortune we also got some feedback from people out there, asking about implementing these mini-events more often and since the progression bar works pretty well for the majority of players, and this was a quick design, the content design team went for it.

I am pretty sure a great number of players will enjoy the extra rewards on top of those Monster Hunts bonus bars. After all, it's not meant exactly to be a crazy farming event for you to complete. More of an extra layer of goodies while you do your daily share of healthy farming. ^^ Also, as I mentioned in my last Twitch, the event will come with different shapes: for 2 hours, for a day, for 2 and for 4. And we'll try different hours each time, to ensure that the majority of you can actually take part on it.

And no one, ever, said that we do not trust you guys. I do trust good, well-funded feedback. And we do get a lot of that on these boards, as a matter of fact.

Hey there,

I know what you mean and that particular painpoint about Dunes of Desolation was shared with the team marked with a huge "ok, let's look at this" priority. I do believe the Ghost Festival is better when it comes to that and hopefully you guys like it as well!

Hey there mister,

You certainly cannot get more specific, can you?

So answering to your question. In our Terms of Services, point 1.2.9, is clearly stated that "The use of Games and Services is only authorized via web browser or special tools made available and expressly permitted by Bigpoint (ban on unauthorized scripts). In other words: The use of programs which cause excessive server load are strictly forbidden. The application of software to systematically or automatically control games or individual game functions such as bots, macros, etc. or to reproduce or evaluate games, game components or content provided on the Portal is prohibited.

Technically, modifying your gaming mouse to operate different controls would enter in the definition of "controlling individual game functions" and we do not endorse/accept that. Any person tampering with our files, or using macros or mouse/keyboard specific functions is breaching our Terms of Service and on account of that, Customer Support may deny you service if the use of any of these procedures harms your gaming experience. I hope this answers your question a little bit more.

Hey there,

So the Tier 3 Dragan's Grim Signet Ring comes with the following stats
+ 350 Armor value
+ 800 Critical Hit Rate
+ If your Health Points drop lower than 33%, a Black Knight will appear that will distract foes and fight for you for 10 seconds - can be used once every 120 seconds.

And I certainly hope you guys do not need 2 years to craft it!

Chuck Norris selected the name Chuck Norris cos Trakilaki was already taken.

It's something we have passed to the team of designers already, so I certainly would expect it to see at Gnob's in the future. However, I cannot really confirm this 100% or an ETA. Sorry! ^^

Well, of course we give us everything! Why on Earth have we an amazing Game Master tool if not to use it? The most expensive mount and the most expensive gems, so our test results are completely broken by that incredibly amount of expensive awesomeness. Nah, not really. Our QA testers of course use their own God Mode to go quickly through Quests and see that they are working properly. As for the balancing of the game, PvP issues and farming rates, they run them as you would do and pass notes to the team.

-------------------------------

This is all for today. I am aware that I leave some recent messages without an answer and that's why I'll come back tomorrow.
Stay tuned!

Cheerios,
CMHaruki

 

Im not saying they have to provide the reasoning. Im just curious about it. Also im not saying I want to use it. Im saying that it is NOT prohibited by their version of US rules dated 2011 which game forwards me to, and it is NOT prohibited by any other rules they have because of the language they put there. Also, it is uber silly to compare afk botters to 'double action clickers', dont you think so?

Their T&C is a complete misleading mess, and I just want them to get things in order.

Hi, thanks for the answer. As you said, it helps just a little bit.

1. I have never seen the ToS you are referring to, well, Allogeneous showed me it for the first time day ago, and he used NZ version, while you are using UK version (GB). I do not reside in NZ or GB so I have not accepted that ToS. Please make sure your team updates the US version of legal.bigpoint.com/US/terms-and-conditions/en and makes sure the users of the US have seen it and accepted it.
2. Could you please also update the language of 1.2.9 in a new version of ToS to specifically mention macro in the mouse firmware, as current wording, read as a whole does not clearly prohibit it, as gaming mouse does not systematically or automatically control game function, at least not more than any other mouse. User is still controlling the mouse function.
3. Assuming it is all prohibited, do you really believe that using of that double action is comparable to non-stop botting 24/7?
4. Assuming it is prohibited, what is the reasoning, I'm just curious. there was a time BP was advertising Razer mouses. I personally do not see any harm to either the game or any other player. this is just silly. maybe in some other games, where could can do lots of things with separate buttons, change weapon, do multiple combat elements all at the same time, but in DSO with cooldowns and attackspeed? really?) tell me honestly, isnt it silly?
5. Have you ever banned at least a single individual for using macro on a gaming mouse?
6. Assuming macro are prohibited, what about the following scenario - single action of SHIFT+LeftMouseClick, in other words One Click - One Action. is it allowed? Is one click one action a rule?
7. After rereading you again, and also reading through German forum on the matter, are you saying that re-binding any single keyboard button to a single mouse button is also prohibited? E.g. middle mouse button does what keyboard's '3' key would (no macro, no delays, just 1 button)? This is something I would love to use actually, when farming some easy map and drinking pepsi with the other hand.

 

It may be one click for you but if it executes multiple actions at the Drakensang side, it isn't "one click". You are arguing about something that was clearly outlined. Don't use the macros on the mouse if they would result in a command that would normally require more than one click. Play the game like everyone else who does it fairly. Move on.

 

Or, a player can chose to disregard the warnings about macros at their own risk and gamble that BP won't detect or do anything about it... but because BP can do what ever they want with the accounts, that same player can't complain about their account getting banned for doing something that is against the T&C.

Nowhere did the rules say "You shalt not use the logout bug to get free gems," but it does say "no bugs/exploits." So, if BigPoint was able to detect people using mouse macros and then banned them all, they would have as much right to complain as the bot users, and the bug users.

Once upon a time I played a game that was almost impossible to play without botting. So, I made a bot account and played. It was actually more fun, but if the developer had caught it and banned all the bot accounts... well, I knew the risks. I care more about DSO than that game and chose not to risk even using a basic macro, let alone a full bot or game breaking bug. It is a question of "how much risk do you want to accept?"

 

First of all, Im not arguing, Im asking, open your eyes.

Secondly, your opinion is just your opinion (like mine or any other player's), and has no legal consequences, but Im asking a person who represents the company so can clarify rules. It is this kind of a topic I need an official answer, but I appreciate your feedback. Hundreds of posts on German forum clearly outline that the matter is not well explained.

Thirdly, shift+button is not a macro, it is a single keystroke with modifier, not the list of keystrokes. Button with modifier is allowed in every game I have researched so far, thus Im asking. It is series of keystrokes, or anything with 'repeat' or 'delay' that is prohibited.

Forth, in programming the modifiers are part of the single key package, and are sent so through the network. Common declaration would look like:

Struct {
Uint8 Modifier mod;
Uint8 KeyCode[6] keycode;
}

And every key press is submitted like that, including the modifier, even if no modifier is pressed. Thus, it is a single 'click', a single action. But just in case I wanted to clarify.

Something very similar exists in QT framework DSO is built on. Shift is considered just a modifier that is transmitted alltogether with the mouse event, such as left mouse click. When the QMouseEvent is received, that object also carry information about the state of keyboard on modifiers (was the shift or ctrl pressed). All within the single action or a single event.

But, they might have written their inhouse code to specifically log the modifier keys, something crazy, but who knows.

Please stop replying if you have no clue what you are talking about.

Last but not least, I do play the game like everyone else, fairly. And thats why I research and ask before using anything that might be considered inappropriate.

Yeah, it would be dumb to accept such a risk for no benefit whatsoever.

BP cannot do whatever they want with the accounts. It is all a subject to our consumer law, discrimination act (refusal of a service on a non constant basis). Illigal ban of a player who is paying for a service is also a fraud, and a subject to a complain to bbb/attourney general office etc. They cannot just ban you because they dont like you.

Also, the way they gather data might be illegal (unless for some EU countries with Common Law). They are in no way allowed to scan memory besides game's memory, so they cannot legally obtain the list of the running processes, they cannot legally implement a keylogger, they cannot legally scan the hdd (they can only intentionally use the specific filenames, no scanning *.* etc)

But since botters are still active, guess BP doesnt care anyway.

 

Hey there community of awesomeness,

Ok, so here I am again. My message will be fairly shorter than the one of yesterday, but today I have the power of Magicmoose's chocolate by me. So here we go!

I am rather sad to read this and I concur with you in the level of commitment that this event requires in terms of time and overall effort - this has also been forwarded to the team and I hope to see further changes in that respect in the future. As for the twink issue, it's hard to balance between the extremes you propose.

Naturally there are some people with two characters, for instance, that are being developed at the same time, or fairly at the same ratio, and we also have to take them into consideration. For instance, you may feel that some of the rewards are not really great for your level 50 character while you may have another one a little bit less powerful which would benefit from them. But you are tackling an interesting topic of discussion here, which is end-game content and incentives for veterans or level 50 characters.

In that respect I am glad to add that the team works on some systems already to grant better experiences on that front. We started it with the addition of more dungeons and some Leaderboards coming soon to the game. Still, we won't stop there for you guys.

Hey there,

Any specific information you want to have from my side? Why do you feel is unfair? Any specific example you can partake?
Nice image, by the way, I will pass it along to Jason.

Hey there,

First of all, apologies that you could not play during the time frame between the release and the hotfix. We are super sorry about that and, as per official announcement on the hotfix thread, we will issue a 1 week Premium compensation for all affected MAC users with the next release. You can always get updated information on the Official Announcement section on the forums - if we do not give concrete dates, it's because our team is still working on it. We rather tell you when the solution is 100% ready, rather than tell you a specific date and not deliver.

On the matter of working on the weekends. I am unsure as to which country you come from but in Germany regulations are pretty intense when it comes to make your team come over the weekends to work. We are human beings, after all, not machines. And as I mentioned, we are issuing a proper compensation for those lost days.

As for the partnership with Apple, I really do not think we have one. The addition of the game to the MAC environment was one of the decisions of our former producer, who happened to like Apple products a lot and he wanted to play DSO on his own computer

Hey there,

1. Sure, I can send a message to upper grounds to see if we can get a more comprehensive coherence between TOS. Since this pertains Bigpoint policies and not only DSO ones, I am unable to truly mark a deadline for this.
2. Same as above. Again, unable to say when this will happen.
3. I just said it: we do not endorse it and we won't be held responsible if a anti bot-system detection flags you because of the macros you are using.
4. I did not write the Terms of Service myself and have little to do with those higher grounds. I have to work with them as part of my job and obey them as part of my discernment when it comes to this community in particular. My personal bet is that you need to create rules for a gaming community as a threshold for general conduct or behavior. I've seen this bot regulations, or macro regulations pretty much in every single gaming company I worked with and they all collide in the same principles: "those are not allowed, please do not use them. And if you use them, swallow the responsibility that comes with using a feature that was forbidden by the company whose ToS you are agreeing with by playing the game. Or using any of its services.

Given, there are macros and macros and not affect the balance of the game or the outcome of the battle. I would not call it silly thought. I would call it more restrictive than other environments who may have a tad more of freedom.
5. Me personally? Nope.
6. I simply would not recommend it. Edge cases are cool for QA - but that's about it.
7. You can do as many things as you want with your Logitech to serve your purpose. I'll still won't endorse them and me, or Bigpoint by that extent, won't be held responsible if you are found guilty in one of our bot detection waves.

And that's pretty much about it today.
The chocolate is over and darkness falls all over Berlin. *shivers*

See you around!!
CMHaruki

 

Thanks for some details. But there are still questions on the table.

I wouldnt comment on whether you represent BP or not, and this is up to you guys to figure that legal mess out, but as for now, BP and DSO cannot legally enforce that UK version of rules on american players, since they have only seen and accepted that outdated version, so neither you or mods or anyone cannot point me out to 1.2.9 or whatever else section which doesnt exist in what US players have accepted. I hope you understand that, its so simple

Rules apart, and I dont really care about that mess, I do care about my new toy

Are you saying that you or DSO team does not know if that is allowed or not to use single click-single action keybinding? thats hysterical. If you dont know, how would players know?

All other games, including the big ones who fight in Supreme Court in Germany right now have the following common sense rules.

1. User is not allowed to use marco on a gaming mouse or a keyboard, keypad or any other IO device as long as that macro is performing more than a single action, such as running two consequtive commands 1 and 2, or X and Y.
2. User is not allowed to use Delays in the keystroke and macro definition.
3. User is not allowed to use Repeat definition on a single key binding.
4. User is allowed to bind whatever single action he wants to whatever single key on either mouse, keyboard, or a keypad.
5. User is allowed to bind a single key press with the Modifier to a single button on either mouse, keyboard or a keypad.

Now that would be what I call clear. Could we come up with such a common sense or something?

I can understand the 1-3 might be considered as too much benefit by some, let it be. But remember BP was advertising Razer mouse. If 4 and 5 are punishable (and in no other game they are), there is zero reasons to buy the mouse or any other gaming device.

Could you please facilitate the conversation with your dev guys, bot detectors and some reasonable folks to set the ground rules on the matter once and for all? Other games CMs did just that. There many threads with those questions in different language forums, and lots of folks believe 1 click 1 action is the rule, but apparently even they might be wrong.

I would appreciate you help, and promise not to bother you again soon, and the mods too.

Also, take into account that some of the users might have the carpal tunnel syndrome, so they are forced into 1handed play.

Thanks in advance

 

I might get another "I asked Haruki, not you" reply, but maybe I can offer a neutral viewpoint for clarification.
I think what Haruki is trying to say is that "1 click 1 action" is perfectly fine, with any keybinding...
... as long as you do not use any macro or script (detectable by BP) to achieve the effect.
Because IF any such program is detected on your PC during a bot ban investigation, your account might be banned. And BP will simply not care about (and refuse to make the effort to look into) what exactly that script or macro does, whether it is just a different keybinding or complete autoplay.

 

You are perfectly fine, Armando, I value your feedback (and you are not aggressive)

Especially since you have seen the German discussion. I was going through it yesterday, and I have found a mod post prohibiting any binding. No matter 1 action or not. Perhaps I didnt translate it properly. Nervertheless, if they can clearly confirm what you say, I would be happy. But she is being tricky, isnt she?)

 

Well, you should refer to the last posting here. It clarifies that there had been some previous misunderstanding/miscommunication in that thread, but while scripts and macros are forbidden, gaming mice and keybinding are allowed.

After all, she is a woman... (AND a PR responsible... uh-oh...).

 

Thanks. That makes #4 from my list allowed. Have you seen anything on the modifiers?

...
How did you manage to use two different types of discrimination in a single sentense?)))) Fortunately she is a fictional character

 

Nope, sorry.
BTW, Haruki, are there any thoughts about separating the 2 functions of the control key (context menu on players/group members, and display of dropped items)? I don't want to know how many group members I added unintentionally to my friend list while trying to pick up my loot...

 

Which is why, time and time again, the feedback from the forums is "Stop doing releases on Fridays (and preferably Thursdays too)."

We all know that it is not a matter of "IF" there will be bugs in every new release, just "HOW BAD". It doesn't take a collage degree to figure out that doing a release that might have a game breaking a bug (which, to be honest, is all of them) right before everyone is sent home for their untouchable weekend off is not the smartest choice, and given the number of times this has happened in the past, "might" is generous.

How many more times does BigPoint, the forums, and the support people have to have tons of pissed off players and have to issue compensation that falls short of compensating the players propperly because the team's poor time management/scheduling before this suggestion becomes reality. "Insanity is repeating the same experiment more than once and expecting different results." By that definition, the Drakensang producers/developer team belongs in the loony bin.

Four would be totally undetectable server side because it is done before even reaching the DSO client. Further more, they offer it in the client, so how could they fault someone for using a 3rd party equivolent to what they already do?
The first three could be detectable because no human being could execute the same combo, or repeatedly press a key with the precision and repeatability of a computer. Similarly, four could be detected, but that is more of a gray area. In DSO, I could see it offering a certain advantage, so I could see it being frowned upon, but it is been OK, by a court makes it tough to call.

 

Yeah, and preferably also right before an event challenge... 1 week of premium can't compensate MAC users for the Dragan weapon part they could not get.
I understand that event challenges with the associated "time pressure" are financially attractive for DSO. But then at least you should make sure that during that limited time, nothing prevents us from playing. Maintenance should be done neither during this time nor directly before.

 

I didn't get the fourth part for Dragan weapon, but three of the same part, isn't it unfair?
I finished Hogni's mine challange and didn't drop the white wolf, isn't it unfair?
I play since november 2011 and never dropped the viper helemet by Khalys, only last year when it was old for my character, isn't it unfair ?
I can continue with other examples, but i stop here.
I'm a single player, but I'm not alone, i'm the voice of more and more players
If you make a little investigation, you can see how many players are frustrated by low random drop in this game.
There is who drop all and who nothing, isn't this unfair?
Many players think they have a bugged character, because this bring us to suspect it, but my intelligence whispers me there is only something of wrong in the system of random in this game.
i would like you create a character on server live and play four or five hours every day and get your personal opinion on random drop.
Thanks for attention

 

Well, everything is detectable, and it would be ussually on a client. Server happens too late in a chain for the delta analysis of behavior, as network will mask lots of things. The 400ms delay will not be 400ms anymore on the server, it will be 400ms + 'random'. And they cannot detect freaking botters for years...

But honestly it is not a question of detectable or not. Im not going to take a chance and play in that gray area. I want them clearly say dude you can use this and that safe, and thats it.

On the detection, the gaming world is waiting for court rulling on few separate matters between then game giant, Bl... and the botting giant. Gaming one should lose, as they broke T&C, they T&C is illegal in EU (Germany), their monitoring tool is illegal, so is them trying to enforce the illegal T&C. I finally they have privacy issues. But will see. Should be fun.

 

No. Been there, done that. No problem.
No. It wasn't a guaranteed drop. Oh, and I didn't get it too. Just like hundreds of other players in my server.
No. So what if you're a veteran player? You want a medal too? It has nothing to do with drop rate.

"Fair" doesn't means everybody get the same and/or equal results, it's about the same and/or equal opportunity(s).
I'm not defending BP or dev or anyone (Hell, why would I?), I just disagree with your point of view.
Maybe MMORPG doesn't suits you.

Sorry, just had to do it.

 

Happy to be a good guesser xD

But I'd preferred to see a Paladin/Templar/Inquisitor kind of character I'm missing that "holy fighter" character a lot here and it could give DSO a class which can be supportive with the right talents rather than dps#3