Deliberate use of a bug for IC gain.

[Broose]

If the realm lost the region, I'm inclined to believe it will lose it again. Therefore, sacking the centres means that when the other realm undos the bug by reclaiming the region, they'll be left with a region without RCs instead of one with.

If you are trying to say that he sacked the centres to lessen the impact of the bug, I'm not buying it. It just doesn't make any sense. "I'll take this region away from the other realm in a way I never should have been able to, but hey, it'll all good because I'm also closing the centres despite keeping the militia".

I just can't believe in any scenario that would have these acts committed out of good will, at least not without reprimendable negligence. This makes the acts even worse and more clear-cut to my eyes.

Not unless you believe the region will fall to the same enemy again soon.

His post suggested to me that he got rid of the RC's to hurt Summerdale, and only realized after that that he could switch the region back to Libero.

[Fury]

What are the odds being forced to read through five pages of people calling you a cheater might be considered sufficient punishment for this? I'm a fairly new player and you hardliners intimidate the crap out of me with this sometimes. I could see myself making this same mistake, for the same reasons ("Oh, they didn't appoint a Lord so I guess I'm still Lord?"). Taking a heavy hand to him after dragging him through the mud isn't gonna help your retention issues.

Which is why I suggested a simple solution. The ball is in his court.

[Darksun]

Which is why I suggested a simple solution. The ball is in his court.

So, I'm a bit confused. Would this be the binding solution from the magistrates or just your own personal test?

[Broose]

So, I'm a bit confused. Would this be the binding solution from the magistrates or just your own personal test?

Neither. He's suggesting the lord disband the militia to balance things out, as an act of good faith, I suppose.

[Tom]

If the realm lost the region, I'm inclined to believe it will lose it again. Therefore, sacking the centres means that when the other realm undos the bug by reclaiming the region, they'll be left with a region without RCs instead of one with.

You are overthinking this. I am arguing that someone who doesn't overthink it wouldn't go down that route.

What are the odds being forced to read through five pages of people calling you a cheater might be considered sufficient punishment for this? I'm a fairly new player and you hardliners intimidate the crap out of me with this sometimes. I could see myself making this same mistake, for the same reasons ("Oh, they didn't appoint a Lord so I guess I'm still Lord?"). Taking a heavy hand to him after dragging him through the mud isn't gonna help your retention issues.

+1

[Broose]

Rather than a punishment, maybe the policy on what defines a 'bug exploit' should be made more clear, for future cases?

[Chenier]

What are the odds being forced to read through five pages of people calling you a cheater might be considered sufficient punishment for this? I'm a fairly new player and you hardliners intimidate the crap out of me with this sometimes. I could see myself making this same mistake, for the same reasons ("Oh, they didn't appoint a Lord so I guess I'm still Lord?"). Taking a heavy hand to him after dragging him through the mud isn't gonna help your retention issues.

He, on the other hand, is not a new player. A lot of the discussion was moot, I guess, since there was consensus from pretty early on that this act was unacceptable.

You are overthinking this. I am arguing that someone who doesn't overthink it wouldn't go down that route.

His post suggested to me that he got rid of the RC's to hurt Summerdale, and only realized after that that he could switch the region back to Libero.

I mean, seriously?

This is how I saw the situation.  Summerdale had takem over the province But as an oversight had not installed a new Lord. so taking advantage of my position as lord, and (as I assumed an oversight by Summerdale) I closed the recruiting centers, and using the politics prompt, switched duchies back to Libero.  I was unaware of any Bug as it is not my custom to read bug tracker data.  I don't know where to find it, or probably wouldn't understand any technical data.

After all of these years, he doesn't know that when an enemy realm TOs a region of his realm, his realm doesn't get to pick a lord anymore? There's no nonsense about "oversight of not installing a lord". There is absolutely no need for the new owner to appoint any lord to take it away from the old realm.

A newbie could make such erroneous assumptions, not one who's ever been in any war before.

[jaune]

Well, game is changing a lot, and often. I´m not following bugtracker or forums or whatever a lot, time to time i notice something posted on frontpage.

I would have prolly laugh options at IRC and ask if thats something what should not happen... but then again, someone could just see, "Kewl, i still have pessies support as lord and all the fancy buttons to toy around!" and push those buttons... without thinking it much forward from that.

[Brant]

My line of reasoning:

• Was it a bug?  Yes.
• Would a long time player reasonably know it's a bug? Yes.  When is the last time in the history of Battlemaster when an election in your realm was supposed to be able to get you elected to a lordship in a different realm?  Not in the 8 years I've been playing, not in the 4 years he's been playing.
• Did he bring it to the attention of a DEV, as required by the social contract? No.
• Was the result bug used to gain significant IG advantage?  Yes.  Weather you think he closed the RC's then discovered he could change duchies, or if he knew all along... changing the realm of an enemy region to that of your own -is- an IG advantage, the act single-handedly changed the course of a war.  "He closed them just to be fair before he took the region" is overthinking just as much as "he closed them then discovered he could take the region".  The fact is that those things happened.
• Were there other options available, where he could remove the results of the bug without IG consequence? Yes, abandoning a lordship under the new system currently does not cost honor or prestige, and can be done from anywhere even while traveling. (just tested it, to be sure)

[^ban^]

Yes, abandoning a lordship under the new system currently does not cost honor or prestige, and can be done from anywhere even while traveling. (just tested it, to be sure)[/li][/list]

Please report that bug to the tracker

[Kalanar]

Dwillight is a test island, yes? Test implies not only that there will be bugs, but when you play on a test server, you then become a tester. Unless he manipulated code, or knew this bug would occur in the first place (as in prior to the moment he became lord of a region no longer apart of his realm), he cannot be blamed.

Correct me if I have the wording wrong on the official rules but "Deliberate" is the key word in this violation.

Deliberate: "carefully weighed or considered"

He saw an option that shouldn't have been there and when presented with the opportunity to "test" it, he did. This all happened over a course of one or two days. To my knowledge, there is no way to prove that he knew the true consequences or had the time to considered them carefully.

The IC gain as a result of the bug was Morton becoming a Lord again.

The closing of RCs and duchy transfer were not bugs. Any Lord of a region has the right to do this. Unless you can prove, his testing of the buggy voting system was a deliberate attempt to have the ability to close RCs and transfer the duchy back, there is no case.

You cannot prove that Morton putting his name in for the Lordship of the region was exploitative. For all he knew, the voting could have been canceled before it was carried out.

His motives are purely speculative. There is no way he could have carefully considered this action before taking it and therefore it is not a deliberate use of a bug for IC gain.

[Fury]

So, I'm a bit confused. Would this be the binding solution from the magistrates or just your own personal test?

This:

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

Considering that the militia is (I assume) still being kept even after (especially after) he's commented in this thread makes it very clear.

[ChrisVCB]

Not only being kept, but being heavily reinforced. It's sad that for all the talk from in this thread about this being an innocent mistake, the Libero players have kept deathly quiet on the idea of disbanding the Summerdale milita they gained. Judging purely off ingame actions, Orris and co have every intent to use it to thier gain.

Kind of pisses on the social contract:

We expect you to play the game as you would play a board game with good friends, and to value fair play above any victory or power.

If I was playing Monopoly with friends and it was spotted that the banker accidentally gave me an extra 500, would I say "Well, it was a mistake, but it was given to me so i'm going to keep a hold of it"? Of course not, even if the rules of the game permitted me to keep it it'd not be in the spirit of fair play to do that.

I know they're 'entitled' to play through the bug however they wish (apparently), and ultimately, unless anyone on the staff steps in we have to deal with that, but certainly I feel the actions (making full use of the gain) don't match the words (it was an innocent mistake).

[^ban^]

As has been stated before, no matter who benefits from a bug no action will be taken by the dev team to correct the consequences so long as the game remains playable.

[Vellos]

A verdict has been reached, and IG enforcement actions have been made. For anyone who desires to cite this case in the future, the final verdict was:

"The Social Contract explicitly forbids exploiting bug or loopholes. In this case it has been determined that the player of the Morton Family did exploit a bug by changing the allegiance of Mt. Black Nastrond after becoming the lord as a result of an obvious bug. The proper behavior would have been to either do nothing, or step down. Ambiguity over intent regarding RC destruction left the Magistrates divided. However, the accused's lack of response to queries about disbanding militia led the Magistrates to believe that, at a minimum, a public warning was necessary. Furthermore, as in the case of playing a game with friends, we expect the player of the Morton Family to rectify the situation insofar as he is able, most specifically by disbanding the militia Summerdale dropped.

Thus, let this be a public reprimand that such behaviour will not be tolerated in the future and let the player concerned consider himself warned."

Magistrates voted 8-0 in favor of a guilty verdict, and 4-3-1 in favor of a public warning (3 votes for a 1-day lock, 1 vote for a private warning).

This thread is locked. If you wish to continue debating the issue, it can be done elsewhere. If you have questions for the Magistrates, please take it to the Q&A forum.