#28
by Zorg
Okay, let's start the discussion over.
Fundamental unwritten rule: Every account must play for its own benefit.
When you crash your fleet somewhere, you violate this fundamental rule. This is called milking by the rulebook as the milking rule description includes this sort of action. Milking is considered a rule violation and the most common punishment we issue for milking violation (as well as for most rule violations) is permanent ban.
Now, let's try to examine the sub-case which says that I crash my fleet on retirement.
First of all, this is something (as many said) that has been happening since day 1. This however does not mean it is by default right. This also means that any different decision produced by this discussion will not be effective for any past cases but will be effective for this point after.
Secondly, there is a problem only when a big player crashes on another big player. However this does not constitute by itself an unfair action. It would by hypocritical to penalize such an action and not penalize the smaller crashes. It is both morally and technically the same. As someone said, everyone should be able to do what they want with their account. If you happen to have a big account, then you can twist things more and there is no legality for anyone to question this.
The previous results both morally and logically that there should be no problem. However there is and some players feel unfairly treated. Why ?
This happens for a series of reasons. The more pressing one is the theory that 2 or more people can arrange this in order to boost a specific account which will then prevail over the rest. Even more, they may even exchange "shots" in different universes. Even in this case, which is the worst case, this is something that everyone can do as the rule is same for everyone.
So we are only left to judge how good for the game is such an action; how interesting or entertaining. Is it killing the game ?
My opinion on this is that primarily, this is hard to happen. We all know how hard it is to crash your own fleet, let alone if it is a big one. Even if you are going to get something in return, somewhere else, it is a hard action to do.
Number 2, the public opinion about such a case is always heavy. Even if you plan to do such a thing, you know that the rest of players will discover it. So this makes it even harder to take such a decision.
So, by default, this is a rare case. In fact, most of the time it is a true retirement which only needs to happen on a tight point and everyone will then find the opportunity to feel unfairly treated, protest and ultimately nag about how unfair such a practice is. This almost always results in bad admins that do not care for the game, bad admins that let other cheat and bad admins means a bad game.
The truth is that no one ever really believes this but only finds the perfect moment for his way out. It is true that the game grows a lot of tension for everybody, in a point that they prefer to abandon their well built account, take a break of 1 month and then come back from zero.
Finally, there will be some few, rare cases, where some people will plan and execute this. Do we really need to adapt the game on these few cases ?
The answer for us is no. We got relative experiences from other games we have developed and we are generally against many rules and many limits. For us, it is better that if everyone knows this possibility but no one attempts it because they know that the rest will start doing the same.
Ultimately, the community will give the solution and the ZE community is a well structured and mature one which can surely handle such issue and even outcast the very few that will break the rules tranquillity. This is after all the BEST punishment that can be issued to any player.
On our side, except than letting the game flow, we have also took some steps, a long time now, that effectively reduce rage quitting.
We are planning to add manual deletion soon, but this option will need about 7 days to execute from initial decision. This is a tense game which heats up nerves and raises blood pressure. In such cases, when cold blood is absent, a lot of bad decisions can happen and this is where the caring developer should involve.
After all, our primary objective here is not money but activity. This always have been our primary objective since day 1.
