Deliberate use of a bug for IC gain.

[Broose]

FWIW - I'm no Magistrate, but I think that Dante Silverfire, ^ban^, and BardicNerd's take on the situation is a reasonable read of the situation. We always tell people to "play through the bug". Sometimes that bug screws you, like when all our walls on Dwilight got dropped a level. We had 3 cities and a stronghold that had to have walls rebuilt, costing us multiple thousands of gold. Sometimes it's a windfall, like that militia payment bug that ended up giving the region lords 3K-4K extra gold in his pocket on tax day. But in all cases, you *have* to play through the bug. Unless it is some serious game-balance altering bug, Tom simply does not interfere or "fix" it.

You also combine this with the "RP cannot trump game mechanics" policy. If the game says the guy is the lord, then he is the lord, plain and simple. You must adjust your RP to comply with game mechanics, not the other way around. The player could have said "WTF, that makes no sense, I'm just gonna step down and go back to LE on my own". But as far as I can see, he is under no obligation to do so.

Abusing a bug for personal gain would be if the guy knew how to reproduce this and cause the situation to repeat itself, and willingly did so in order to exploit it. But a one-off situation that the game puts the guy in, through no action or fault of his own... I don't see how you can call playing through it to be exploiting a bug. Maybe not the smartest/friendliest action he could have taken. But I don't see it as outright, intentional abuse.

How does all of this fit in with the social contract? The player's actions suggest to me that they didn't care much at all about fair play.

That would be part of the bug. Cleanup scripts would have silently 'corrected' his allegiance to your realm when they ran (haven't yet checked whether they did or not, but my guess is yes).

So they were technically a member of Summerdale, but the game still assumed he was a member of Libero for everything?

[Indirik]

How does all of this fit in with the social contract? The player's actions suggest to me that they didn't care much at all about fair play.

Personally, I'm not really too sure. Since the player did not intentionally trigger the bug in order to gain from the result, did he really exploit the bug? Or was he simply an innocent beneficiary of it?

Refer back, for example, to the various lords that found themselves the beneficiary of (on average) 4,000 extra gold in their weekly tax income. What should they have done with the gold? There is simply no way to just lose it. But if they spend it... is that exploiting a bug for personal gain?

Realistically, what did you want the guy to do? Step down and take a pretty hefty honor/prestige penalty for stepping down so soon after being elected? Really, that would probably have cost the guy 4 or more prestige, and at least a dozen honor.

Taking the region back may not have been the right thing to do, but I don't really see it as being abusive.

[Anaris]

Personally, I'm not really too sure. Since the player did not intentionally trigger the bug in order to gain from the result, did he really exploit the bug? Or was he simply an innocent beneficiary of it?

He exploited the bug.

Being an innocent beneficiary of it would have meant taking the information he got as a member of the enemy realm and sending it home.

He took the region back in a way that he never could have if the bug had not happened, but he was in no way forced to do so.

Taking the region back was not caused by the bug. It was caused by his actions.

What his other options were is completely immaterial.

[Tom]

FWIW, I think it's a bug exploit, but one this side of evil. He didn't cause the bug, or provoke it, or tried to repeat it like those family gold exploiters did. I'm not sure if I'd give more than a stern warning for this.

[Geronus]

I think that everything that needs to be said has been said here. We'll open a backroom thread for discussion of the verdict (foregone) and punishment (up for debate).

[Chenier]

As I see the case, the issue of bug exploitation is a given. However, I also believe there are circumstances that should be taken into account when considering punishment.

First: The development team has - so far as Delvin, Foundation, or myself are able to recall - never resolved issues of allegiance for any reason until the new estate hierarchy enforcement earlier this week.

Second: The region's allegiance was not changed for a full twelve hours after a bug report was filed, acknowledged, and fixed on the bug tracker.

Third: After the bug occurred, the character in question had only three paths. He could do nothing, step down, and change allegiance. Examining these three options, I believe there is reason for leniency.

The first option - to do nothing - would result in the character being stranded in what was until then an enemy realm without any of the background and context (or even characterization) which precedes such treason.

The second option - stepping down - would result in a loss of H/P for the character, effectively harming the character. Personally, I have trouble understanding how any expectation which requires a player to harm their own character as a result of development errors can be considered fair or reasonable.

The last option - to change allegiance - is then the only reliable action available to him which both maintains the character without harm and resolves the issue of the bug.

For these reasons I believe that exploitation of the bug was in fact encouraged by a combination of developer policy and the nature of the bug: circumstances which I feel should have significant weight in deciding appropriate punishment.

I disagree. Stepping down barely costs any h/p, which in turn is barely of any use. It is not of disproportionate prejudice.

Personally, I'm not really too sure. Since the player did not intentionally trigger the bug in order to gain from the result, did he really exploit the bug? Or was he simply an innocent beneficiary of it?

Refer back, for example, to the various lords that found themselves the beneficiary of (on average) 4,000 extra gold in their weekly tax income. What should they have done with the gold? There is simply no way to just lose it. But if they spend it... is that exploiting a bug for personal gain?

Realistically, what did you want the guy to do? Step down and take a pretty hefty honor/prestige penalty for stepping down so soon after being elected? Really, that would probably have cost the guy 4 or more prestige, and at least a dozen honor.

Taking the region back may not have been the right thing to do, but I don't really see it as being abusive.

He should have waited for instructions. When I get unexpected gold, I ask if it's a bug and see what the devs say about it before spending any penny of it.

The way I see it:

Stepping down = good behavior, willing to accept that bugs sometimes have costs and that he is just doing his part to bring things back to normal
Remaining in position = acceptable behavior, not trying to exploit a bug nor willing to make sacrifices to make it right. Bugs happen, he's just living with the result.
Changing allegiance (especially without feedback from the devs) = exploiting an unusual situation created by a bug in order to give his realm an unjustified advantage.

[Fury]

Would the complainer, Michael be willing to have the accused dismiss the militia instead? I take it that that is the war-changing point of contention? And would the accused Orris be willing to do this?

It will help to decide if this was a case of exploiting a bug or than choosing the lesser of 3 evils.

[Darksun]

I wasn't going to comment because I have an obvious bias here but this just keeps on coming up again and again.

The actions of this player are quite often related to "what I would do" in the same situation. I think that we need to be careful what a super active top 5% player would make of a situation does not necessarily translate into what a casual player would do. Let's not impose the viewpoint of the person who watches the forums and bugtracker daily onto someone who just plays the game because it's a game. Sure he's played it for a long time but that is no indication of how engaged he is to the community outside of the game.

On that note, I think that the Dev folks could have communicated to the player that he received his lordship as the result of a bug and that in the spirit of fair play it would be appropriate for him not to exploit the situation. As opposed to setting him up for a personal morality test that he wasn't aware was coming.

[Draco Tanos]

He doesn't have to follow the bug tracker to know that something is amiss.  At least anyone with some sense shouldn't have had to from what I've read of the situation.

[Darksun]

By the logic that it is the responsibility of the player to know what is a bug and what is not then everyone who voted for him in the referendum should also be punished. Because that was also out of place and the root cause of all of this. Our collective lack of action caused a fellow player to be put into a "no-win" situation and caused strife with our fellow players in Summerdale.

Referendum Results   (1 day, 22 hours ago)
The referendum "Vote for lordship of Mt. Black Nastrond" has ended. Here is the final tally:
10 votes for Orris
0 abstentions
5 votes were not cast.

The winning choice is therefore Orris, with 10 votes. A simple majority was required (i.e., 1 votes).As the winner of this referendum, Orris is therefore proclaimed as the new Lord of Mt. Black Nastrond.
As a reminder, the full text of the referendum was:
The region of Mt. Black Nastrond is currently without a local lord. In accordance with the realm's laws, the next lord will be chosen by a referendum among the lords of the realm.

[Broose]

By the logic that it is the responsibility of the player to know what is a bug and what is not then everyone who voted for him in the referendum should also be punished. Because that was also out of place and the root cause of all of this. Our collective lack of action caused a fellow player to be put into a "no-win" situation and caused strife with our fellow players in Summerdale.

The election itself was not a bug. The bug was that the election finished even though the region's realm changed.

I find it very unlikely that the player wouldn't notice something was wrong. This isn't someone new that we're talking about.

[De-Legro]

I wasn't going to comment because I have an obvious bias here but this just keeps on coming up again and again.

The actions of this player are quite often related to "what I would do" in the same situation. I think that we need to be careful what a super active top 5% player would make of a situation does not necessarily translate into what a casual player would do. Let's not impose the viewpoint of the person who watches the forums and bugtracker daily onto someone who just plays the game because it's a game. Sure he's played it for a long time but that is no indication of how engaged he is to the community outside of the game.

On that note, I think that the Dev folks could have communicated to the player that he received his lordship as the result of a bug and that in the spirit of fair play it would be appropriate for him not to exploit the situation. As opposed to setting him up for a personal morality test that he wasn't aware was coming.

Did you miss the part about Dev team's not inferring with bugs? That includes imposing or suggesting OUR interpretation of fair play to a player that has encountered a bug. Indeed until the region allegiance occurred how could the team even KNOW a issue of fair play was going to come up? Consider that this is a team that is already snowed under FIXING bugs and converting code over, and now it some how needs to find the resource to examine which players are affected by every bug that is reported and give them advice on how to handle it?

Also the Dev Team doesn't vet Magistrate cases. How exactly did the team "set him up" for anything?

By the logic that it is the responsibility of the player to know what is a bug and what is not then everyone who voted for him in the referendum should also be punished. Because that was also out of place and the root cause of all of this. Our collective lack of action caused a fellow player to be put into a "no-win" situation and caused strife with our fellow players in Summerdale.

Did the Summerdale players even get a link to the referendum? My understanding was it was a Libero Empire referendum that failed to end when the region was TO'd. It doesn't take a player of 4 years to work out that a vote from the OLD realm shouldn't determine the Lord of a captured region.
If that was the case what exactly could the players of Summerdale do to prevent this outcome?

[Dante Silverfire]

Did the Summerdale players even get a link to the referendum? My understanding was it was a Libero Empire referendum that failed to end when the region was TO'd. It doesn't take a player of 4 years to work out that a vote from the OLD realm shouldn't determine the Lord of a captured region.
If that was the case what exactly could the players of Summerdale do to prevent this outcome?

Other than not drop 3.5k cs of troops into a region which they just took over and which had a lord of unknown trustworthiness? Nothing.

[Lefanis]

Stepping down = good behavior, willing to accept that bugs sometimes have costs and that he is just doing his part to bring things back to normal
Remaining in position = acceptable behavior, not trying to exploit a bug nor willing to make sacrifices to make it right. Bugs happen, he's just living with the result.
Changing allegiance (especially without feedback from the devs) = exploiting an unusual situation created by a bug in order to give his realm an unjustified advantage.

I have to agree. It was an obvious bug, which perhaps he didn't ask for, but did end up exploiting for IC gain.

Of course, he didn't have a lot of options, and they weren't sugar coated. I still feel that what he did wasn't fair. If you are playing risk, and get an extra card after your turn, you turn it in, rather than use its presence to your advantage. You didn't ask for the card, but it would still be wrong for you to use it to your benefit.

[Broose]

Did the Summerdale players even get a link to the referendum? My understanding was it was a Libero Empire referendum that failed to end when the region was TO'd. It doesn't take a player of 4 years to work out that a vote from the OLD realm shouldn't determine the Lord of a captured region.
If that was the case what exactly could the players of Summerdale do to prevent this outcome?

It was a Libero Empire referendum. From what I've gathered, the lord was captured and escaped, which made him lose his position, and a referendum for the lordship started. The election ended and gave him the lordship -after- the takeover was finished. So no, Summerdale never saw the election, and the election should have been canceled after the TO was finished.

Other than not drop 3.5k cs of troops into a region which they just took over and which had a lord of unknown trustworthiness? Nothing.

What? How would that have prevented the bug from happening? And how were we supposed to know he had the buttons available to a lord? As far as we knew, it was just an error on the region page.