GM interference?

[Sacha]

Flops - Game master influence and manipulation over the game

What do you mean by that?

[MickTheSlasher]

Well for a start, you have 5 active characters.

Family wealth restrictions in response to Thulsoma
Astrum moster hoards disappearing and reappearing in Thulsoma and as now averoth
The Darfix colony
Sirions continued multicheating
Avamars banning
Changes in how the population growth works which benefit astrum and came into affect just as astrum needed it

The list goes on, these are only things i can remember from the top of my head

[Anaris]

Well for a start, you have 5 active characters.

Which just goes against your point, because Sacha is not a GM.  Anyone can get 5 characters, if they're here long enough and donate.

Family wealth restrictions in response to Thulsoma

Hahahah, yeah, no.  That was fixing a loophole that allowed obvious abuses of the family wealth system.

Astrum moster hoards disappearing and reappearing in Thulsoma and as now averoth

I beg your pardon?  That doesn't make any sense.  Monsters move randomly, and spawn in random, but relatively predictable (if you have enough advies) ways.

The Darfix colony

Please elaborate?

Sirions continued multicheating

Provide some evidence of it to the Titans, and it will be treated with deadly seriousness.

Avamars banning

Well, I can't say much about that, since I wasn't on the EC when it happened, but my impression has always been that either Avamar had quite a few multicheaters, or people were very insistent that it did, and the whole topic just caused way too many OOC problems.

Changes in how the population growth works which benefit astrum and came into affect just as astrum needed it

Yeah, actually, I implemented that, and it has absolutely nothing to do with Astrum, because I have absolutely nothing to do with Astrum.

What is your obsession with them, anyway? It's not like they're some kind of "beloved of Tom" realm...they have Indirik, but he's not even a coder, just a Community Manager.

The list goes on, these are only things i can remember from the top of my head

And yet, none of them are actual instances of "GM Intervention" except the ones to stop massive blatant abuse.

[Sacha]

I have five active characters because I donate to the game, not because I have some sort of deal going on with the GMs.

The 'restrictions against Thulsoma' were made because they were exploiting loopholes in the family wealth code, and they are imposed on everyone in the game, not just them.

Hordes don't 'disappear and reappear', whoever gave you that idea is a moron.

Not sure what you mean with the Darfix colony, but from what I know of it, they failed because they could not bear with the difficulties of colonizing an isolated city. And they are just one of many failed colonies on Dwilight. Nothing to do with GMs.

Multi cheaters are dealt with no matter which realm they hide in, whether it be Sirion, Thulsoma or any other. If you suspect multi cheating is happening, then file a report with the Titans and provide whatever proof you have, and if they are found guilty, they /will/ be dealt with. If the GMs passed arbitrary judgement against multies, then believe me, Thulsoma/Averoth would have experienced a lightning storm of epic proportions by now.

Avamar was punished because of rampant OOC cheating. Generally, if Tom himself has to step in, then you did more than enough to deserve it.

The changes in growth are game-wide, they were a long time in the making, and they affect every realm in the game, not just Astrum.

And as a final note, don't cry about Titan interference every time something goes bad for your realm. Thulsoma owe their downfall entirely to themselves, not the Titans.

[Vellos]

Avamar was punished because of rampant OOC cheating. Generally, if Tom himself has to step in, then you did more than enough to deserve it.

I was under the impression it was because they were fantastically annoying? I know in Oligarch we engaged in fairly systematic IC persecution of Avamarians... even criminalized the mention of Avamar, and made a nice little ghetto for them...

[Tom]

Flops - Game master influence and manipulation over the game

While you are right that over there years there have been a couple ill-advised GM interventions, I dare say if you look at the game as a whole, both in width (all game worlds) and length (over 10 years), the total amount of GM intervention has been very, very small. In the past couple of years, I'd guess about once a year.

But if you have specific complaints, I'm eager to hear them. Maybe in its own thread, so as to not hijack this one.

[Foundation]

As well, do realize that normally, we fix bugs as they appear, so while it may seem like "oh, the mechanics changed because this happened in game", it is actually "this event in game exposed an exploit or bug and thus it was fixed".

[Anaris]

Yes; even we, jaded and cynical as we are, can look at a feature and think, "No, there's no way anyone could be so dumb as to abuse that so blatantly..."

...And sometimes, people manage to abuse features in ways we just honestly never thought of before, or never thought possible.

Please note, this is not something to be proud of.  Realizing such an exploit exists and reporting it to us, that's something admirable.  Finding an exploit the devs missed and using it to get ahead?

That's pretty much cheating.

[egamma]

Keep in mind, you can get goodies for reporting bugs/loopholes/etc, instead of exploiting. I can testify to that personally.

[DoctorHarte]

Keep in mind, you can get goodies for reporting bugs/loopholes/etc, instead of exploiting. I can testify to that personally.

Truth. Found a bug once in Astrum as a lord that gave me 3,000 gold per-tax when I should have gotten only 200. Reported it and got to keep the gold. They are fair if you help them