The Fate of Account Thieves (Portgas&co)

[TeckXKnight]

Yup, by my reckoning H&H died on the day that infamous bugraid of Winterfell went unpunished.

There were bugraids before then and bugraids after then as well and they went unpunished by the devs just as equally. I think you have beefs unsettled Potjeh =(

[Kaios]

He wasn't very specific but I think his point was from then on there was only retaliation and retaliation for the retaliation and things only got worse from there.

[Potjeh]

It was the first overt one. Bugraids before were muddy affairs, but in this one the method and the perpetrators were known without any doubt. Thus this is the precedent that established that you can get away with *anything* in H&H and started the still escalating trend of 'sploiting. This account stealing business is the latest incident but definitely not the last, and it's reasonable to extrapolate that future incidents will be even worse.

[Aerocross]

Just finished reading through this thread.

So wait - these Al-Qaeda people distributed a client that phished other people's passwords, and the only thing that happened in response was the stolen accounts being returned to their original owners? Is there a reason why they haven't been punished? If the devs could spare the time to intervene and restore accounts, then surely they could see things through with some bans and nuking, right?

[bmjclark]

They seem to try to not intervene with stuff like this as much as possible. Though i think there would of been less of a shit storm had they just nuked the perpetrators.

[TeckXKnight]

Though i think there would of been less of a shit storm had they just nuked the perpetrators.

Mind you this is actually a pretty fucking mild shitstorm. Compared to the ones that occur when they intervene, I can see why they've chosen to stay out. Also, after previous incidents and the flak they've gotten, jorb has pretty much said he hates physically jumping in to help and will avoid it as much as possible.

[Spiff]

This is a fun thread.

Burgi in 2010:

<burgingham> gato asked me before he took over rages account if he really should go through with it
<burgingham> and I encouraged him

While gato did access Rages account without him knowing, he was not hacking it or anything the like. So yeah loftar has been lied to, the two of them used to share accounts and passwords. Stupid of Rage to go and kill gato, but not having set up a proper password to secure his account. While you can discuss the moral integrity of such actions, this doesn't have to be of any concern to the devs.

Serious (serverside) bugs aka something the devs caused should be reason for ressurection. Random stories some anonymous persons are pulling out of their asses should not.

Has everyone here lost his ability to comprehend simple comments? Where in the world do I mention that I don't exclude future rezzes because of accounts being compromised? I am all against it, that is exactly why I think rage should not be rezzed.

Burgi in 2011:

This account theft thing has the actual potential to cause irreversible damage and that is definitely not desirable. So it has to be dealt with in one way or the other. The most drastic of which would be a shut down.

Looks like you did not read any thread in the past months regarding how utterly broken the game is, how there have been a lot of different cases of account theft popping up over the last week or two, how HnH has been getting a bad image outside of this community.

If people kept on using half illegal or at the very least very questionable methods to screw around with my game I know that I myself wouldn't look at it for long before taking away the toy from those ungreatful children.

There have been half a dozen of cases of account thefts in the past 2 weeks (Half a dozen of people stealing, not be stolen from. Those were much more). That has never happened before and we had playerbases this big in the past.

Why? Because people were under the impression that they would get kicked in their big behinds if they did shit like this.

We all know the devs have other priorities right now and nobody (or at least I am not) argueing with that. They should however at least show the will to punish particularly questionable behaviour. That is all I am asking for. A state of the heart post in the Announcements would also be nice, not only some post in the middle of some random thread.

Potjeh in 2010:

So, if we're talking how the real life works, it's virtually impossible to get your account stolen if you're not stupid about it.

If you can steal my account, you're welcome to it. Either way, the only abuse I see here is trust abuse IRL, and what happens IRL is none of the game's concern. If your roommate cancelled your WoW account with 20 lvl70 chars on it, do you think Blizzard would give a fuck about your complaints? All you could do would be beating the shit out of your roomie, and learning to pick better friends in the future.

If you can steal my account, have a field day with it.

Rezzing people is a damn serious thing, the only previous instances I can think of was that bug where prospecting dragged a guy into water and drowned him, and that time when WV made q9mil gear and went on a killing spree *after* J&L told them not to. Both of these are clear cases of correcting major bugs. This resurrection involved no bugs, only bad security policies by the victim.

The issue here is the game's policies. H&H was supposed to be a GM-less game, where all that happens comes from players, and where player actions leave a lasting mark. Today they resurrect without a good reason, tomorrow they'll ban people, and the day after that we're playing Wurm Online with prettier graphics.

For the record, if my account was stolen via a custom client I wouldn't expect the devs to do anything. Using custom clients is a risk you take willingly, and if it turns out bad you only have yourself to blame. The only hacking that calls for dev intervention would be if the server itself got hacked.

Potjeh in 2011:

I'm afraid it's too late, the damage done to the community by exploiters is too great to be reversed, and it will remain a cesspool even if the updates resume. This account theft thingie may be bad, but I think it's just a small glimpse of things yet to come.

This account stealing business is the latest incident but definitely not the last, and it's reasonable to extrapolate that future incidents will be even worse.

Avu in 2010:

So better secure your accounts then!

<Avu> the only rule broken is the we don't resurect people
<Avu> he was responsible for his account acces

Avu in 2011:

You know what's also bad? Having developers that haven't been giving their full fuck to the game for the past 3 worlds or so. Having said developers refusing to moderate their community is also very bad and the reasons don't really matter at this point the damage is done.

So basically my takeaway from all this is that dev intervention and resurrections for poor security policies on the part of the victim is only horrible and completely contrary to the feel of the game when it fucks goons. Am I right, guys?

[Spiff]

It was the first overt one. Bugraids before were muddy affairs, but in this one the method and the perpetrators were known without any doubt. Thus this is the precedent that established that you can get away with *anything* in H&H and started the still escalating trend of 'sploiting. This account stealing business is the latest incident but definitely not the last, and it's reasonable to extrapolate that future incidents will be even worse.

An aside, do you remember a little dude named Klaue?

[NaoWhut]

During Olypmus Vs Wayneville the game server was
down for a few days and debating went on about how
to punish the offenders ....


Me n klow bugraiding... good times

[burgingham]

So? I learned something. Btw the Gato/Rage incident is absolutely not comparable to what is happening here. Two dudes lived together and shared accounts and then started fighting.

Still back then and back in the Wayneville days I was naive and probably only concerned with my own benefits and not what is good for the game. otherwise I wouldn't have exploited the coal bug so badly etc. I have learned since then, have adjusted my opinion on what this specific game is and what playing it is about. Any problem with that Mr. Spiff?

I am still aginst such ressurections btw since they would demand dev investigation which probably never could come up with the true story with 100% certainty. Giving back an account to the owner or rezzing a fallen toon are two very different things,