Authentic Old-School Mabinogi Experience
Deleted Slates, Communication, and Ethics
Posted at 12-12-18, 07:35 pm Link | #1
After the patch issued on December 9th, Slates, custom items occupying the Falias Treasure slot, were removed from players' inventories. Slates kept in the bank or pets were not removed, which I have discovered was an oversight. All slates were intended to be removed. There was no communication prior to, or after the removal of the slates, nor has there been any statement made about what the plan is for slates moving forward, or why they were removed.
I am assuming this was done in response to a bug related to slates, where slates would grow in strength per rebirth and apply stat bonuses multiplicatively. It was made known to me that this was a difficult bug to fix.
I have considered the following likely circumstances:
1. Slates were problematic and could not be fixed, thus the decision was made to remove them permanently.
If this is the decision that was made, it is a huge mistake not to communicate with the playerbase beforehand and explain the situation. In this instance, it would have been best to communicate with the playerbase about what they felt adequate compensation might be. Players have either invested multiple millions of gold into these slates to obtain them, or have spent countless hours grinding raid/black herb to acquire them. It is completely unfair to introduce an item into the game and then remove it without warning after said item has been around for several months. The onus is on the staff to introduce functional content. It is not the responsibility of the players to side-step buggy custom additions. I do not consider wearing a bugged slate an exploit because it was not possible to avoid barring choosing not to rebirth or simply not wearing the slates that the holders sank a ton of effort or ingame cash into.
2. Slates are being temporarily removed until a fix is found, and are later planned to be redistributed.
If this is the case, just communicate it. There will be backlash, but anytime you introduce something new to the game, there is a risk that it will not function as intended. Please develop and release content with that in mind. If you can't handle that possibility, don't make anything new.
Whatever the case may be, this is a hugely mishandled situation. I am also extremely disappointed in the community for how they've responded. I hear so many complaints from players about how this situation is poorly managed, but almost no comment from the players themselves. If you are a player and you want things to change, you have to be an advocate of change. I made a public comment on discord about this situation a couple of days ago, and all I got met with was people making the :eyes: emoji and the like. Speak up. In private though, people complain and even commend me for being outspoken about these types of things when they aren't.
You are all a bunch of cowards. Whoever made the decision to remove slates is a huge coward for being afraid of the backlash they might face because of this difficult situation. The players are cowards for being unable to address this situation at all and denouncing it for the lack of respect that it is.
It is a massive display of disrespect towards all of the playerbase, most of all, that slates were removed without any sort of communication before the fact or three days afterwards. No one has a sense of entitlement here, as is shown by the silence of most, but I assure you that any affected players feel greatly disrespected simply as people who engage in this server.
I am assuming this was done in response to a bug related to slates, where slates would grow in strength per rebirth and apply stat bonuses multiplicatively. It was made known to me that this was a difficult bug to fix.
I have considered the following likely circumstances:
1. Slates were problematic and could not be fixed, thus the decision was made to remove them permanently.
If this is the decision that was made, it is a huge mistake not to communicate with the playerbase beforehand and explain the situation. In this instance, it would have been best to communicate with the playerbase about what they felt adequate compensation might be. Players have either invested multiple millions of gold into these slates to obtain them, or have spent countless hours grinding raid/black herb to acquire them. It is completely unfair to introduce an item into the game and then remove it without warning after said item has been around for several months. The onus is on the staff to introduce functional content. It is not the responsibility of the players to side-step buggy custom additions. I do not consider wearing a bugged slate an exploit because it was not possible to avoid barring choosing not to rebirth or simply not wearing the slates that the holders sank a ton of effort or ingame cash into.
2. Slates are being temporarily removed until a fix is found, and are later planned to be redistributed.
If this is the case, just communicate it. There will be backlash, but anytime you introduce something new to the game, there is a risk that it will not function as intended. Please develop and release content with that in mind. If you can't handle that possibility, don't make anything new.
Whatever the case may be, this is a hugely mishandled situation. I am also extremely disappointed in the community for how they've responded. I hear so many complaints from players about how this situation is poorly managed, but almost no comment from the players themselves. If you are a player and you want things to change, you have to be an advocate of change. I made a public comment on discord about this situation a couple of days ago, and all I got met with was people making the :eyes: emoji and the like. Speak up. In private though, people complain and even commend me for being outspoken about these types of things when they aren't.
You are all a bunch of cowards. Whoever made the decision to remove slates is a huge coward for being afraid of the backlash they might face because of this difficult situation. The players are cowards for being unable to address this situation at all and denouncing it for the lack of respect that it is.
It is a massive display of disrespect towards all of the playerbase, most of all, that slates were removed without any sort of communication before the fact or three days afterwards. No one has a sense of entitlement here, as is shown by the silence of most, but I assure you that any affected players feel greatly disrespected simply as people who engage in this server.
Posted at 12-13-18, 12:15 am Link | #2
Posts: 990Hi, Flipend0 here.
I only hqve 30 minutes of lunch time, and I will be compiling the situation here. Because I do not have access to a computer mouse and keyboard. This post will be limited on the amount of time I have left to make this post.
The situation is at follows : The slates was deleted due to a complex bug which is not possible within our technical knowledge of the SQLDB system. The intentional plan was that : We would record all of the players slates from the SQLDB, delete the slates, and mail back the new clean state of the slates. Due of our limitations of our knowledge of the SQLDB system, and how the System Administrator has a limited amount of time to preform a maintenance within this extremely complex system only 2 of the 3 operations was completed for Slates recovery.
During the maintenance procedure. We have 2 members who knows how to use the SQLDB system. One only has basic knowledge, and one has advanced knowledge of the SQLDB. The person with the advanced knowledge was not available for the maintenance unfortunately, the person with the basic knowledge only knows how to move or delete items. If you have never seen how Items work in a SQLDB environment, when we see a item, we can only see the item Id, it's normal stats, enchant IDs, and the metadata. In order to see who item it belongs to, we need to run a query to grab the person's name based off of the ID. Unfortunately this query was not provided to us during the time of the maintenance, this is where we are stuck at the moment, luckly the records is still there on the item IDs, and which person it belongs to. However without the ability to summon the person with the advanced knowledge of the SQLDB system, we are unable to progress in the recovery of the slates.
Due to the complexty of the security system that MabiPro is hosted on in order to advance foward into completing the process of the recovery of the slates. The following conditions needs to be met.
À) The person with the advanced knowledge of the SQLDB needs to be present.
B) the person with the advNced knowledge of the SQLDB needs to have access to the system
C) the person needs to provide us a complete list on who has the slates and what is the person's name so that we can submit them a clean state of the slates.
All of these conditions needs to be met in order to progress
Sorry..
I have ran.out of time to complete this post, I will not be able to reply to your last paragraphs until 2am in the morning.
I only hqve 30 minutes of lunch time, and I will be compiling the situation here. Because I do not have access to a computer mouse and keyboard. This post will be limited on the amount of time I have left to make this post.
The situation is at follows : The slates was deleted due to a complex bug which is not possible within our technical knowledge of the SQLDB system. The intentional plan was that : We would record all of the players slates from the SQLDB, delete the slates, and mail back the new clean state of the slates. Due of our limitations of our knowledge of the SQLDB system, and how the System Administrator has a limited amount of time to preform a maintenance within this extremely complex system only 2 of the 3 operations was completed for Slates recovery.
During the maintenance procedure. We have 2 members who knows how to use the SQLDB system. One only has basic knowledge, and one has advanced knowledge of the SQLDB. The person with the advanced knowledge was not available for the maintenance unfortunately, the person with the basic knowledge only knows how to move or delete items. If you have never seen how Items work in a SQLDB environment, when we see a item, we can only see the item Id, it's normal stats, enchant IDs, and the metadata. In order to see who item it belongs to, we need to run a query to grab the person's name based off of the ID. Unfortunately this query was not provided to us during the time of the maintenance, this is where we are stuck at the moment, luckly the records is still there on the item IDs, and which person it belongs to. However without the ability to summon the person with the advanced knowledge of the SQLDB system, we are unable to progress in the recovery of the slates.
Due to the complexty of the security system that MabiPro is hosted on in order to advance foward into completing the process of the recovery of the slates. The following conditions needs to be met.
À) The person with the advanced knowledge of the SQLDB needs to be present.
B) the person with the advNced knowledge of the SQLDB needs to have access to the system
C) the person needs to provide us a complete list on who has the slates and what is the person's name so that we can submit them a clean state of the slates.
All of these conditions needs to be met in order to progress
Sorry..
I have ran.out of time to complete this post, I will not be able to reply to your last paragraphs until 2am in the morning.
Posted at 12-13-18, 12:26 am Link | #4
I am assuming this was done in response to a bug related to slates, where slates would grow in strength per rebirth and apply stat bonuses multiplicatively. It was made known to me that this was a difficult bug to fix.
This is a little late and the process is still being worked on by considering this gripe I feel it necessary to address this situation a little earlier than was initially planned. Many slates were removed from players inventories due to an unforeseen bug. The bug was that the enchants innate to the slates allowed for the stacking of the intended stat bonuses multiple times via a method I will not disclose here. We confidmed a number of these slates reaching obscenely high thresholds. We were not able to find a method of fixing these slates completely outside of total deletion due to a lack of methods to easily solve the core issue of stacking and a lack of availability in our team to remove them sooner as you could see from flipend0's post above.
Any of these slates that remain is due to an oversight and are expected to be deleted soon. Please keep them in your bank if possible until this is done.
I have considered the following likely circumstances:
1. Slates were problematic and could not be fixed, thus the decision was made to remove them permanently.
1. Slates were problematic and could not be fixed, thus the decision was made to remove them permanently.
We have a record of all prior slates and their respective owners, who will be compensated with a new version of these slates once the final deletions are complete. How ever those who were detected abusing the slates will not be reimbursed. In fact, as per section 2.3b in the terms of service those who were detected having severely abused this oversight may even currently upon further individual evaluation have their accounts punished.
[Hacking/Glitching] Is subject to account ban as a first offense, account termination and blocked from accessing the website and all services as a second offense.
If this is the decision that was made, it is a huge mistake not to communicate with the playerbase beforehand and explain the situation. In this instance, it would have been best to communicate with the playerbase about what they felt adequate compensation might be.
Yes and no, respectively. We should have made it clear that this was not intended. How ever, such an egregious and unannounced, unadvertised, disproportionate advantage should be common sense that it would not be allowed and would not remain. Players who sank money into glitching their slates will not be compensated, you have no expectation of an apology from us for your own logical folly.
Players have either invested multiple millions of gold into these slates to obtain them, or have spent countless hours grinding raid/black herb to acquire them. It is completely unfair to introduce an item into the game and then remove it without warning after said item has been around for several months. The onus is on the staff to introduce functional content. It is not the responsibility of the players to side-step buggy custom additions.
2.3b Game Usage - [Hacking/Glitching]
All forms of hacking are prohibited.
Hacking constitutes use of third party software from the creation of others or yourself to inhibit, alter, terrorize, or restrict another individual from using our services or to give oneself or others an abnormal advantage over others.
Please note that using "Game Modifications" is okay and acceptable, but any gamebreaking exploits, hacks, packet abuse will not be tolerated.
Exploiting bugs or glitches in the game is not acceptable. If you find a bug or a glitch, you are to report it immediately with a ticket.
>Note
If it is found that you have abused a bug or glitch and failed to report it, you will be fully held responsible for your actions.
I do not consider wearing a bugged slate an exploit because it was not possible to avoid barring choosing not to rebirth or simply not wearing the slates that the holders sank a ton of effort or ingame cash into.
Yes and no. Wearing the item was not an exploit but using the unintended advantage it provides once glitched knowingly is. This is not an opinion, this is just patently false and your disingenuous attempt to manipulate us whilst both insulting us is also something worth addressing.
2. Slates are being temporarily removed until a fix is found, and are later planned to be redistributed.
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Boof
Thank you for your response. For clarity, I was not aware that it was possible to deliberately abuse any stat bonuses associated with slates. My only observation from having my own slates was that with every rebirth, the stats given by the bonus for your particular destiny would multiply for the amount of rebirths you've held your slate. I submitted a ticket about this some time ago. I did not know that it was possible to exploit slates deliberately.
Posted at 12-13-18, 02:07 am Link | #6
The process to get a bugged slate the likes of which players have/had specifically is specific enough that you would very clearly know that something was not right due to the fact that no other item in the game works that way topped off with that fact that such a disproportionate and unadvertised advantage is clearly not something intended or allowed. I am not inclined to believe your statements, and it is very clear to me that anyone with slates beyond a certain threshold of stats does not deserve to have it replaced due to the specific and non-advertised process you'd have to have to even obtain such an obscenely broken item in the first place.
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Boof
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Boof
Posted at 12-13-18, 02:33 am Link | #8
How do you even stack stats on them,I had extra on mine and I didn't do anything purposely to achieve that. Im not aware of anyone who was purposely stacking stats on them. I didn't buy slates with prior knowledge that they would start bugging out, their base attribute was worth the purchase. Assuming that players were blatantly boosting slate stats is pretty baseless.
Posted at 12-13-18, 02:37 am Link | #9
From my own experiences, as well as speaking to other players who owned bugged slates, the increased stat bonuses were observed after rebirthing with the slate in possession, equipped or not, as Ihzi mentioned.
Though I am not dismissing the fact that there may be an actual exploit that could have been possibly abused, I don't think it's completely fair for you to assume that every slate owner with absurdly high stats was aware of this exploit as no one I have spoken to has understood the specific cause of the stat bug, aside from rebirthing. For example, I obtained my Treetop Slate only around 2 months ago, meaning I have gone through 5 rebirths since then, and noticed an additional 25 stats on my slate when I was finally able to equip it. If a player received the slate when they were first obtainable, that would result in possibly exceeding that certain stat threshold you mention as the amount of rebirths they've gone through since then would be numerous. So the accusation of Ihzi and other slate owners being aware of the exploit because of their high stat bonuses seems pretty baseless as rebirthing is something that is unavoidable.
Though I am not dismissing the fact that there may be an actual exploit that could have been possibly abused, I don't think it's completely fair for you to assume that every slate owner with absurdly high stats was aware of this exploit as no one I have spoken to has understood the specific cause of the stat bug, aside from rebirthing. For example, I obtained my Treetop Slate only around 2 months ago, meaning I have gone through 5 rebirths since then, and noticed an additional 25 stats on my slate when I was finally able to equip it. If a player received the slate when they were first obtainable, that would result in possibly exceeding that certain stat threshold you mention as the amount of rebirths they've gone through since then would be numerous. So the accusation of Ihzi and other slate owners being aware of the exploit because of their high stat bonuses seems pretty baseless as rebirthing is something that is unavoidable.
The process to get a bugged slate the likes of which players have/had specifically is specific enough that you would very clearly know that something was not right due to the fact that no other item in the game works that way topped off with that fact that such a disproportionate and unadvertised advantage is clearly not something intended or allowed. I am not inclined to believe your statements, and it is very clear to me that anyone with slates beyond a certain threshold of stats does not deserve to have it replaced due to the specific and non-advertised process you'd have to have to even obtain such an obscenely broken item in the first place.
I am assuredly unaware of whatever process you're referring to. My understanding was that having a slate in your possession (doesn't have to be equipped, either, because I almost always took my combat gear off when rebirthing) when rebirthing caused an additional stat increase. I detailed this in a ticket several weeks ago when I discovered the relationship between the stat increases and rebirthing. Some of my slates I had had for several months, nearly since the introduction of A1S2 which was all the way back in June or something, so it goes without saying that they would have had several months of rebirths to accumulate stats. I didn't even know what caused the stat increases, and as soon as I figured it out, I made the ticket which you yourself can visibly see, because I knew the staff team were trying to figure out the cause. I used and acquired my slates because of their displayed stats before I even knew they were buggy. Their being buggy did not incentivize or motivate my use of them, either. I would still use them as is, which is why I have a vested interested in clearing this up so that they are refunded to me and I do not get pegged as some kind of ToS-violating ne'er-do-well for simply having an item that was released to the players for their use.
Posted at 12-13-18, 05:23 am Link | #11
I'm confused by this thread.
I remembering show Deertoots a slab (of twisting caverns) that I got from Artie some months ago. [Patoots couldn't equip it because Stilva-only tag, whoops] but upon creating one and equipping it, saw it had wonky stats. We weren't sure of the cause of it or how it worked, but it was known pretty early on.
The wonky stats were later patched out in an update, and people told they could keep the old slates (or offer to trade them in for new ones, as they were indeed a bit overpowered). They were even told specific enchants on them were OK (But not Oblivion and possibly others?) - This is even mentioned in older patch notes!
It's come to light that there's some bug (if you rebirth with them on? or it doesn't matter? I don't quite get it) and they have to be removed. That's all fine and good, but it seems weird to want to punish players who used theirs extensively when they were told up until very recently that they were okay to use - and even before finding out they were enchantable - were still the only falias treasures worth using fulltime. So of course they'd get used a lot, unless there's more to it than that? :<
I remembering show Deertoots a slab (of twisting caverns) that I got from Artie some months ago. [Patoots couldn't equip it because Stilva-only tag, whoops] but upon creating one and equipping it, saw it had wonky stats. We weren't sure of the cause of it or how it worked, but it was known pretty early on.
The wonky stats were later patched out in an update, and people told they could keep the old slates (or offer to trade them in for new ones, as they were indeed a bit overpowered). They were even told specific enchants on them were OK (But not Oblivion and possibly others?) - This is even mentioned in older patch notes!
It's come to light that there's some bug (if you rebirth with them on? or it doesn't matter? I don't quite get it) and they have to be removed. That's all fine and good, but it seems weird to want to punish players who used theirs extensively when they were told up until very recently that they were okay to use - and even before finding out they were enchantable - were still the only falias treasures worth using fulltime. So of course they'd get used a lot, unless there's more to it than that? :<
Posted at 12-13-18, 05:26 am Link | #12
if simply possessing a slate while rebirthing caused the glitch, i don't see how it's possible to know who was intentionally abusing the glitch and who was not, given that you have to rebirth to progress in this game. as far as i know, for the most part, people quested for these things only to use them as vessels for enchants, as the item bonuses are useless to most players (except for the treetop slates to archers). how many even knew about the glitch? who ever bothers to look at their defense?
I can't believe Ihzi cheated and poured gold into his slate to make it really powerful???
Like geeze, Ihzi, how could you. I trusted you and now you've gone and EXPLOITED LIKE THIS.
No wonder nobody wants to communicate that there was a bug, that nobody should've be using them, and that all of the slates were going to be/were deleted. >*(
Well I hope you think it was worth it, buster, because now you gotta buy a new one once they're all fixed, because you can bet no cheater's gonna get away with being a cheater!!!
Like geeze, Ihzi, how could you. I trusted you and now you've gone and EXPLOITED LIKE THIS.
No wonder nobody wants to communicate that there was a bug, that nobody should've be using them, and that all of the slates were going to be/were deleted. >*(
Well I hope you think it was worth it, buster, because now you gotta buy a new one once they're all fixed, because you can bet no cheater's gonna get away with being a cheater!!!
Posted at 12-13-18, 01:28 pm Link | #14
I can't believe Ihzi cheated and poured gold into his slate to make it really powerful???
Like geeze, Ihzi, how could you. I trusted you and now you've gone and EXPLOITED LIKE THIS.
No wonder nobody wants to communicate that there was a bug, that nobody should've be using them, and that all of the slates were going to be/were deleted. >*(
Well I hope you think it was worth it, buster, because now you gotta buy a new one once they're all fixed, because you can bet no cheater's gonna get away with being a cheater!!!
Like geeze, Ihzi, how could you. I trusted you and now you've gone and EXPLOITED LIKE THIS.
No wonder nobody wants to communicate that there was a bug, that nobody should've be using them, and that all of the slates were going to be/were deleted. >*(
Well I hope you think it was worth it, buster, because now you gotta buy a new one once they're all fixed, because you can bet no cheater's gonna get away with being a cheater!!!
LOL why is this 60% toxic? Anyway I assure you guys that there are only a couple of players we have detected doing specific actions which we consider abusive and those players, the few that they are (under five if I recall correctly) will have the chance to appeal and get a brand new slate, though the odds are we will not restore enchants if they were detected double enchanting the slates for obvious reasons.
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Boof
Posted at 12-13-18, 03:25 pm Link | #15
LOL why is this 60% toxic? Anyway I assure you guys that there are only a couple of players we have detected doing specific actions which we consider abusive and those players, the few that they are (under five if I recall correctly) will have the chance to appeal and get a brand new slate, though the odds are we will not restore enchants if they were detected double enchanting the slates for obvious reasons.
Are you implying that applying multiple enchants to slates was related to bug in question? If so, there is a completely legitimate reason to enchant slates multiple times. The best enchant available in the suffix slot for the slates is called Wild Boar, which has a chance of granting 1-3 max damage. It was common to keep enchanting with Wild Boar until you got a 3, the highest possible roll. I did this myself without any knowledge of it being related to unintended stat increases.
Posted at 12-13-18, 04:39 pm Link | #16
What a fucking joke.. i sure hope by double enchnating slates you don't mean enchanting a prefix AND a suffix. Outside of certain from certain enchants that were ban there was no rule about enchanting prefix and sufffix
LOL why is this 60% toxic?
Because somebody was treated like a fucking asshole who doesn't deserve any respect after saying that this situation with slates is ridiculous. And that's pretty unfair, don't you think?
I mean obviously there's a lot more nuance to it, like somebody reading his post and feeling personally offended that he would complain about and issue not being addressed by moderators whatsoever, thus resulting in them messaging Ihzi, thus leaving Ihzi feeling like he's being harassed for speaking his opinion, and thus shutting out the harassment because he believed it wouldn't resolve anything if he listened to it, thus getting him banned from a certain facet of speech, followed by somebody outwardly criticizing the fact that he did that and stating that he's just such a fucking awful person for not wanting to listen to somebody tell him that he's super wrong about a situation and that he should've just not complained and let the big kids handle it, and thus Ihzi was put up on a cross as a fucking asshole who went against a moderator's judgement.
I mean you know it's great that moderators are here and all but it would also be nice if they actually had any capacity to moderate as a group instead of working independently and causing issues by attempting to moderate situations without a cool head or without any knowledge on the situation at hand.
Also sorry, I never passed third grade English.
Posted at 12-13-18, 10:57 pm Link | #18
I think you missed my point. I don't see anything toxic in that last post you made. I wasn't making an actual comment on what you said because I do not have the time to validate further complaints on the same matter ad-nauseam. On another note, due to the consistently aggressive nature of this thread I believe it necessary to close it at most of the concerns about the slates being removed have been addressed and the aggressive opinions further down have caused nothing but problems. This is not healthy. Feel free to discuss this privately with myself or your friends if you have further concerns.
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Boof
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Boof
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