Two Words On Reporting, Leaderboards & Pre-Alpha. I'm tired.
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Hi guys.
As some of you surely have noticed, we had some drama going on this morning on our forums. If you want to spare yourself of the suffering of having to read those 3 pages, I can tell you that, in brief, some user accused someone else of having created several multi accounts to "cheat" The Foundation.
I was entangled in a very long planning meeting for Alpha 1, hence I couldn't intervene immediately. Now, instead of preparing the next Kickstarter update, I'm forced to write down this thread. It means that instead of spending my time making the nice 99% of the community happy, I have to waste it calming down the kindergarten-minded 1%. And I'm not happy about it.
So, let's tackle the issue step by step.
Reporting
If you want to report someone for any kind of rule-breaking behavior, you shall do so privately to a member of the staff. It can be via forum pm, Discord, email, whatever. But private. Opening a thread of the forums, destined to descend into a flame war, serves no purpose whatsoever.
This time, I'm not going to ban anyone. The next time someone does this instead, he's going to take a long vacation from the Fractured community. Perhaps a permanent vacation.
The Foundation
The purpose of The Foundation, as stated in its announcement, is to "reward you for doing all the small things that show your interest in Fractured and its success". It's not a competitive thing. The leaderboard is there to allow players to find the most engaged/veteran players and the most active guilds to get in touch with. Nothing is won being top 10 in the leaderboard compared to being rank 2000. The Foundation is going to be eventually phased off during testing.
Please, don't force us to get rid of the leaderboard just because you're taking it as some kind of competitive feature and going nuts about it.
The Pre-Alpha
Some people might be taking The Foundation in a competitive way because players in the TOP 100 can access the pre-alpha. But what is the pre-alpha?
The pre-alpha is going to consist of a couple (or more) weeks of hardcore testing. It will allow us to receive important feedback and fix unexpected bugs. It requires passion for the game, but also a friendly, cooperative attitude between testers to be successful.
Why am I telling you this? Just to let you know that if you're stirring the pot, engaging in flame wars, threatening other players (more or less explicitly), and overall being a toxic factor in the Fractured community, you won't get into the pre-alpha. Like, not even if you're in the TOP 10. You just won't. Think about that.
I hope everything is clear and we can get back to normal, because seriously, there are a 31.000+ registered users, almost 15k with a forum account, hundreds being really active and really nice, then a handful that manages to consistently turn good threads to trash, and my patience for this last bunch is running out.
Note: if you're part of the handful and want to take said vacation from the Fractured community, giving the wrong reply to this thread is the best way to achieve that. Apologizing instead could do you some good.
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Reporting
If you want to report someone for any kind of rule-breaking behavior, you shall do so privately to a member of the staff. It can be via forum pm, Discord, email, whatever. But private. Opening a thread of the forums, destined to descend into a flame war, serves no purpose whatsoever.
The FoundationThe purpose of The Foundation, as stated in its announcement, is to "reward you for doing all the small things that show your interest in Fractured and its success". It's not a competitive thing. The leaderboard is there to allow players to find the most engaged/veteran players and the most active guilds to get in touch with. Nothing is won being top 10 in the leaderboard compared to being rank 2000. The Foundation is going to be eventually phased off during testing.
Please, don't force us to get rid of the leaderboard just because you're taking it as some kind of competitive feature and going nuts about it.
What I actually said in the topic. First, talk about this with Specter (the easiest option). Then find out.
Then I said that it is everyone's business to join a particular Guild. Everything is logical.
I personally also faced one problem (I was accused of spam), but slowly we solved this problem with specter (Believe me, we fought a lot)
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Sites, weird, but hopefully I'm posting this in the right place.
I wanted to make a few points because @Prometheus seems incredibly misinformed about what people actually do during an Alpha & what he thinks people actually do, but first I want to address his misconception with what a leader board actually is.
Firstly, you state in your post
@prometheus said in Two Words On Reporting, Leaderboards & Pre-Alpha. I'm tired.:
The Foundation
The purpose of The Foundation, as stated in its announcement, is to "reward you for doing all the small things that show your interest in Fractured and its success". It's not a competitive thing. The leaderboard is there to allow players to find the most engaged/veteran players and the most active guilds to get in touch with. Nothing is won being top 10 in the leaderboard compared to being rank 2000. The Foundation is going to be eventually phased off during testing.The Pre-Alpha
Some people might be taking The Foundation in a competitive way because players in the TOP 100 can access the pre-alpha.
So just to start this off.
leaderboard (ˈliːdəˌbɔːd)
(General Sporting Terms) a board displaying the names and current scores of the leading competitors, esp in a golf tournament
Definition of leaderboard
: a large board for displaying the ranking of the leaders in a competitive event (such as a golf tournament)
Already we're changing the meaning of what a leader board is, but regardless because you contradict yourself a few paragraphs in.
If it was just a ranking to allow players to find Veterans, then why is there a reward? A competitive leader board comes with rewards- The whole thing is INHERENTLY competitive. For some reason, you create a leader board & then you explicitly stateNothing is won being top 10 in the leader board compared to being rank 2000.
Some people might be taking The Foundation in a competitive way because players in the TOP 100 can access the pre-alpha.
Now I don't care what you you continue to do with the leader board- but I can't tolerate bullshit- especially bullshit of this calibre, & I even sense a ban for getting involved but I can already see you enjoy conflict otherwise this thread announcing petty garbage wouldn't exist..
Now continuing onto what you said after
@prometheus said in Two Words On Reporting, Leaderboards & Pre-Alpha. I'm tired.:
The pre-alpha is going to consist of a couple (or more) weeks of hardcore testing. It will allow us to receive important feedback and fix unexpected bugs.
Now I'm not going to argue that there will be a lot of bug reports & definitely "Hardcore testing"- but due to the nature of the game & the fact that you have previously stated that the top 100 can access the pre-alpha you are inherently not picking "The best" for the job, you're creating a competitive atmosphere & hardcore competitors are not there to solely "Test" your game FOR you- now it's clear you understand the distinction, they're here to test the game for "themselves".
This is coming from someone with a background in hardcore gaming & it urkes me because this shouldn't be unknown to a developer, in fact you should know what people are trying to do during your pre-alphas- now obviously I'll state again, not everyone does it, but "Hardcore" players, who are trying to gain an edge, will.
People DO NOT enter your pre-alphas to test, they enter to learn as much as they can, so they have a competitive edge over EVERYONE else, as much as possible in your game. They test & absolutely try & break the shit out of everything, and "Share Nothing", this is the key difference- They don't share information that can give themselves an advantage, wither it's a bug, an exploit- doesn't matter, if it is believed that it is not serious enough to get someone banned it will be utilized, this happens all the damn time in MMOs, it's so common it's stupid, but here you're already breeding the atmosphere & it'll be hit 10 fold with it being a "Hardcore" game..
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- after completing all the quests at the moment, you get immediately 36 level and become the top 600 for sure. (I even made a topic dedicated to this)
- winning the pre-alpha key is easy provided that you are an active participant in the forum, as all weekly awards are lotteries. To have a chance to get a pre-alpha key you need to have at least 1 reward, and if you have 2 (it's easy to do for 2 months, you have as many as 8 chances), then you will definitely get to pre-alpha (I so believe there is no confirmed information that 2 awards will give 100% chance).
- On the forum we have interesting discussions that will develop the game for the better, and then measured by their levels, which determine how much you are a devoted fan.
Now I'm not going to argument that there will be a lot of bug reports & definitely "Hardcore testing"- but due to the nature of the game & the fact that you have previously state that the top 100 can access the pre-alpha you are inherently not picking "the best" for the job, you're creating a competitive atmosphere & hardcore competitors are not there to solely" Test " your game for you - now it's clear you understand the distinction, they're here to test the game for "themselves".
Top 100 is those participants who are IMPRESSED with the GAME and want to make it as good as possible, it is justified by their activity on the forum. Because personally I want to try everything on the pre-Alfie and report any errors.
Everyone wants to get to the pre-alpha, and who will improve the game? I believe that this is just these top 100
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@blyndside I don't want to begin a debate, but you said "why is there rewards ? A competitive leaderboard come with rewards". Yes, of course, but only for the bests. Or, in this case, rewards are each 5 levels, you can have rewards as if you're really low in the leaderboard.
After, you talk about them not picking "the bests", but who are the bests ? People who do that everytime or people really involved in this game ? Top 100 people are, I think, people the most active here, and they want to see the game as polished as possible, so they can be "the bests" people because they'll report everything. Why putting everybody in the same basket ? I don't think all players who will enter in the pre-alpha will try to have an advantage over the others. Personnaly, I'll just try to do what I can, we are just here to play.
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@esher said in Two Words On Reporting, Leaderboards & Pre-Alpha. I'm tired.:
@blyndside I don't want to begin a debate, but you said "why is there rewards ? A competitive leaderboard come with rewards". Yes, of course, but only for the bests. Or, in this case, rewards are each 5 levels, you can have rewards as if you're really low in the leaderboard.
After, you talk about them not picking "the bests", but who are the bests ? People who do that everytime or people really involved in this game ? Top 100 people are, I think, people the most active here, and they want to see the game as polished as possible, so they can be "the bests" people because they'll report everything. Why putting everybody in the same basket ? I don't think all players who will enter in the pre-alpha will try to have an advantage over the others. Personnaly, I'll just try to do what I can, we are just here to play.I understand what you're saying and I believe I said that this doesn't include "all" players(If I did, well whatever I'm not rechecking what I wrote xD) & I don't necessarily disagree with you but- well actually I'll just continue with the discussion I was having the Muker here, this'll be my last as I'm not interested in debating the "maybes".
That score is still influenced heavily by referrals etc & participation in things around the forum- which "all" can participate in.
People that want to gain an advantage, come in all forms- I get what you're saying but the comment appears mute. My statement still holds ground & it was directed at the "Leader board" as a whole being competitive & the fact that it's influenced by competition which Pro~ seemed to want to avoid it being about.
Having a pre conceived notion about what you "believe" will be the case, are very separate things. Again, I'm not saying that those 100 will be all hardcore gamers & I never said it would be or that they will give "No, feedback" but there will be a few, and those people don't share everything, they'll give huge game breakers & things that are possibly bannable - but remember that when faced with the opportunity to win, people don't always do the "right" thing. - I'm not speaking out my ass, I've been in these situations countless times, it might not be this alpha- or next alpha but trust me, no one is thorough like a person wanting to be the best.
We haven't even entered the monetary aspect for some people, which can be a different ballgame entirely, but at this point we're going down a road that will get us no where, what I wanted to say has been said.
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@blyndside Dude, I think if you're not a popular person, you can't type 10. And those who invite at least 200 can even be letsplay-men or game bloger, but they can ask for the key from the developers, and the awards they will be given not even on the level of the Fund, and to show the audience. Top refereal we Holya, but it is on the forum already how much. Now really, do you think that will gain a LOT of people on the raw draft? Pre-Alva will be in 4 months (maybe) and during this time there will not be that person who will invite at least 100 people and will force them all to raise the level, thus he will get to the top 100.
Just activity, that's what we need. Here is an example:
Daily Message day 167
Top 99 (49)
Top 73 (62)
Top 55(121)>40(122) afk style
now I'm on the 33rd place and it's all thanks to my activity
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Pre alpha is unlikely to find anything exploitable, though yes, if I get a key I intend to use it to make sure the game is ready for alpha. Will I try to crash the servers? Yeah, so that we can make sure they don't crash in Alpha. Will I try to find things that are broken? Yep, because you want an alpha to be successful, and Pre alpha is there so that you can get people to make sure the alpha is ready to open.
Don't want to open up an alpha with a lot of bugs and glitches, that's a waste of time, at that point anyone who would be looking for exploits won't bother if they can't sort out basics before then.
So what you've been discussing may be true for alpha, but not likely at all for Pre alpha, that would be like shooting yourself in the foot.
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Too many people want to be in Pre-Alphas, Alphas, Betas, etc because they want to feel like a special snowflake.
I've been in a number of testing situations with people and then we've talked about a bug months later and they were literally oblivious to the fact the bug existed. I'm not talking like small little minor bugs, I'm talking like stuff that if you were seriously "testing" vs preview playing you would have stumbled upon it.
I give you Prometheus a big thumbs up on this thread.
Dealing with childish bullshit is like being a teacher. Sadly 10% of your problem students take up 90% of your time.
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@blyndside said in Two Words On Reporting, Leaderboards & Pre-Alpha. I'm tired.:
Now I don't care what you you continue to do with the leader board- but I can't tolerate bullshit- especially bullshit of this calibre, & I even sense a ban for getting involved but I can already see you enjoy conflict otherwise this thread announcing petty garbage wouldn't exist..
The last thing I enjoy is conflict (besides in-game, in-character conflict) - I dislike that as much as your tone, but I'm an overly tolerant person and I won't give you the pleasure of banning you (yet), which is clearly what you're looking for.
@blyndside said in Two Words On Reporting, Leaderboards & Pre-Alpha. I'm tired.:
People DO NOT enter your pre-alphas to test, they enter to learn as much as they can, so they have a competitive edge over EVERYONE else, as much as possible in your game. They test & absolutely try & break the shit out of everything, and "Share Nothing", this is the key difference- They don't share information that can give themselves an advantage, wither it's a bug, an exploit- doesn't matter, if it is believed that it is not serious enough to get someone banned it will be utilized, this happens all the damn time in MMOs, it's so common it's stupid, but here you're already breeding the atmosphere & it'll be hit 10 fold with it being a "Hardcore" game..
And that is one of the reasons why, if we sense this is someone's attitude, said person won't be included in the pre-alpha, disregarding his/her place in the ranking.
You think it's a widespread mindset? It's not. So far, there are literally 2 or 3 people who could be excluded on this ground (if they don't start behaving) out of the whole TOP 100. The others give positive contributions to this community, and I hope you and your friends will start doing so as well.
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@Prometheus and @Specter you do it very well and your statement here gives me one more time the proof, i‘m exactly right here at this place.
I wonder too, why so many people think it is something special to be in a Pre-Alpha, just because to play this game as soon as possible and to be the bests of the bests.
This kind of thinking has never helped to get a game well polished.
As i mentioned before, an Pre-Alpha is not about playing, it is hard work to find the issues so that you are able to eliminate this issues.
A Pre-Alpha is not fun at all, but it is the possibility to give the feedback that Dynamight need to get a game ready for the phase where the public is able to look into it.
Even in Alpha 1 the game will be far away from being ready, but in this phase it should be round, it should be eyecatching and it should be out of the worst bugs.And that we get a nice polished Alpha 1 in December, therefor is the Pre-Alpha Testing and every Tester should just have this in mind, to be a part of the people who help to get a game that is most enjoyable by masses, when it is going into public view.
I was personally a bit disappointed, when i saw, that there are still people in our community, who give a shit on the hard work the development team is doing and who just want to cause stress and trouble.
But thank you Dynamight that you have a look on it and try to get it clean as possible.
Nobody wants people who just want to compare their longest part on body, just to beat the next game to the bottom. And for what, just because they are able to do it, because our great internet is just so anonymous and for harassing everyone.I wish, people would finally realize, that they meet real people in the internet as they meet them in real life.
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Thank you for this @Prometheus. This morning after seeing the toxicity and how it developed I cancelled my KS pledge and left the discord server. That type of community I have no interest in being a part of.
Although it ended up taking time away I'm glad to see there was an official response.
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@esoba i think the wrong way is to judge Dynamight for the toxitity of some people who just joined the community for just wanting to cause trouble.
If you cancel the KS pledge and leave us alone, the troublemaker got their goal to crash next community.
You are Legate, you should know it better, that 99% of the people here are nice one.
You don't hit these people with leaving Fractured alone, you let suffer the wrong persons.The only thing we all now can do to stand in the back of Dynamight and standing to them, because we want to show our strenght against all perps.
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@kralith You have some valid points and I - for the most part - agree. However, even the best games and companies can lose if a toxic environment takes over. I'm still a little sore about others I've seen that happen to when I truly enjoyed the game. Still, this response shows me that Prometheus is absolutely serious about putting a stop to this and fostering a good community. This gives me a lot of faith, and definitely means I will reassess my decision.
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@prometheus said in Two Words On Reporting, Leaderboards & Pre-Alpha. I'm tired.:
The last thing I enjoy is conflict (besides in-game, in-character conflict) - I dislike that as much as your tone, but I'm an overly tolerant person and I won't give you the pleasure of banning you (yet), which is clearly what you're looking for.
See, one of the reason(and I'm by no means being confrontational here, only explaining myself) why I made my post is because I believe otherwise and the way you handled the situation is the reason for this, I don't think the thread being referenced warranted the time of day, I don't believe you should have even given it notice other than a lock, it was a baseless accusation- possible sure, but not provable from this side of the fence, this is what spurred me to make my post.
I didn't write my response for the reason I'm getting the feeling you think I did, nor was I looking for a ban but from the way you jumped at drama so insignificant I assumed it a possibility.I thought what I wrote was obvious but perhaps it wasn't & what I wrote was poorly worded, but I by no means believe it's widespread in the sense that this is how 'everyone is', I was referring to those with this mind set, the actual HC audience here to participate in the PVP & the competitive aspects of your game & you'll find no one better at learning it than them, those that dominate the PVP, there are ones that hate PVP but will dominate the market etc.
With that said, I do indeed hope those selected do a job well done- my actual interest concerning the game is to see what happens closer to release & what the end product is like, I've no current interest in playing/testing personally because actual testing is like playing the game at a level I previously mentioned concerning HC & actual HC mindsets, if you really want to find what's broke you must treat the game not only as a hobbie but a job & in it's current state I'd prefer to see where it goes, but do hope it delivers.
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Great post @Prometheus despite it dragging you away from other pursuits.
I'm always up for a healthy debate but this just turned into mess resulting in e-bullies flexing their metaphorical muscles.
Zero tolerance for bullies, there are always other words you can use to get your point across rather than descending into a state that is basically hurling fistfuls of shit at each other.
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@blyndside said in Two Words On Reporting, Leaderboards & Pre-Alpha. I'm tired.:
Sites, weird, but hopefully I'm posting this in the right place.
I wanted to make a few points because @Prometheus seems incredibly misinformed about what people actually do during an Alpha & what he thinks people actually do, but first I want to address his misconception with what a leader board actually is.
Firstly, you state in your post
@prometheus said in Two Words On Reporting, Leaderboards & Pre-Alpha. I'm tired.:
The Foundation
The purpose of The Foundation, as stated in its announcement, is to "reward you for doing all the small things that show your interest in Fractured and its success". It's not a competitive thing. The leaderboard is there to allow players to find the most engaged/veteran players and the most active guilds to get in touch with. Nothing is won being top 10 in the leaderboard compared to being rank 2000. The Foundation is going to be eventually phased off during testing.The Pre-Alpha
Some people might be taking The Foundation in a competitive way because players in the TOP 100 can access the pre-alpha.
So just to start this off.
leaderboard (ˈliːdəˌbɔːd)
(General Sporting Terms) a board displaying the names and current scores of the leading competitors, esp in a golf tournament
Definition of leaderboard
: a large board for displaying the ranking of the leaders in a competitive event (such as a golf tournament)
Already we're changing the meaning of what a leader board is, but regardless because you contradict yourself a few paragraphs in.
If it was just a ranking to allow players to find Veterans, then why is there a reward? A competitive leader board comes with rewards- The whole thing is INHERENTLY competitive. For some reason, you create a leader board & then you explicitly stateNothing is won being top 10 in the leader board compared to being rank 2000.
Some people might be taking The Foundation in a competitive way because players in the TOP 100 can access the pre-alpha.
Now I don't care what you you continue to do with the leader board- but I can't tolerate bullshit- especially bullshit of this calibre, & I even sense a ban for getting involved but I can already see you enjoy conflict otherwise this thread announcing petty garbage wouldn't exist..
Now continuing onto what you said after
@prometheus said in Two Words On Reporting, Leaderboards & Pre-Alpha. I'm tired.:
The pre-alpha is going to consist of a couple (or more) weeks of hardcore testing. It will allow us to receive important feedback and fix unexpected bugs.
Now I'm not going to argue that there will be a lot of bug reports & definitely "Hardcore testing"- but due to the nature of the game & the fact that you have previously stated that the top 100 can access the pre-alpha you are inherently not picking "The best" for the job, you're creating a competitive atmosphere & hardcore competitors are not there to solely "Test" your game FOR you- now it's clear you understand the distinction, they're here to test the game for "themselves".
This is coming from someone with a background in hardcore gaming & it urkes me because this shouldn't be unknown to a developer, in fact you should know what people are trying to do during your pre-alphas- now obviously I'll state again, not everyone does it, but "Hardcore" players, who are trying to gain an edge, will.
People DO NOT enter your pre-alphas to test, they enter to learn as much as they can, so they have a competitive edge over EVERYONE else, as much as possible in your game. They test & absolutely try & break the shit out of everything, and "Share Nothing", this is the key difference- They don't share information that can give themselves an advantage, wither it's a bug, an exploit- doesn't matter, if it is believed that it is not serious enough to get someone banned it will be utilized, this happens all the damn time in MMOs, it's so common it's stupid, but here you're already breeding the atmosphere & it'll be hit 10 fold with it being a "Hardcore" game..This dude is for real?
Now I'm not going to argue that there will be a lot of bug reports & definitely "Hardcore testing"- but due to the nature of the game & the fact that you have previously stated that the top 100 can access the pre-alpha you are inherently not picking "The best" for the job, you're creating a competitive atmosphere & hardcore competitors are not there to solely "Test" your game FOR you- now it's clear you understand the distinction, they're here to test the game for "themselves".
This is coming from someone with a background in hardcore gaming & it urkes me because this shouldn't be unknown to a developer, in fact you should know what people are trying to do during your pre-alphas- now obviously I'll state again, not everyone does it, but "Hardcore" players, who are trying to gain an edge, will.
People DO NOT enter your pre-alphas to test, they enter to learn as much as they can, so they have a competitive edge over EVERYONE else, as much as possible in your game. They test & absolutely try & break the shit out of everything, and "Share Nothing", this is the key difference- They don't share information that can give themselves an advantage, wither it's a bug, an exploit- doesn't matter, if it is believed that it is not serious enough to get someone banned it will be utilized, this happens all the damn time in MMOs,We can see where you come from, but not thinking this logically, you forgetting that during the pre-alpha Devs are monitoring the server real time, on the server side you can see EVERYTHING that you do, so rest assure if you discover a bug and don't report, they will find eventually going though the LOGS.
From FAQ
FAQFractured characters are already competitive from day 1. The core of progression afterwards consists of completing tasks requiring you to travel and perform a wide range of exploration- and experimentation-related activities.
I wouldn't be worry if someone "learns" the game at the beginning, because what's gonna matter if your progress in the long run.
Remember Fractured have a Horizontal progression.
Skills in EVE Online improve your performance vertically. Having more abilities in Fractured does not, it just makes you more versatile. that's the difference between horizontal and vertical progression.
So you chill out dude, hardcore or not enjoy the game.
This is not what's this community is about.Cheers.
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@prometheus couldn't agree more with you sir, thank you
@Blyndside you sir had a lot to say for someone who just joined and it was all bad. please don't be a negative force here.
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@muker Your activity doesn't matter that much. Since, you been on the forums for six months so you got a headstart then most of us. So, shush about activity.
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@Prometheus tbh before make the thread i tryed to contact 2 devs and i sent all info to Specter. So today we got even more info Finland guild have 8 members in discord and 100 between 3 fake guilds in the guild list.
to make a comparation this is my guild Discord
Look the difference in numbers yet his guilds outperform us in both points/members and ladder position by 50% , something strange happening here considering my guild outnumber him for active member online (and i took screen at 3 am my time) to like 6:1 and 16:1 in total members. in discord.
After analysis we figure out that over 70% of Finland guilds are fakes, Specter itself confirmed that this many alts all come from 1 ip. Whoever did it, finland or another of the 8 members not was really smart since all characters are based on dota characters and majority of them have litterally attached to their background, the background history of thise characters of dota taken from the dota wiki.
So nobody will give a damn if some guild have some alts, but when a guild of 100 people is composed by 92% fake accounts i think is a problem
