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| ~ ~ ~ Notes from Paper Lane: a GNE weblog | |
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| ~ ~ ~ Notes from Paper Lane: a GNE weblog | |
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Now that GNE has once again become a game of javascript hacking, I seem to have lost interest.
In the early phases of the game, I was drawn in by exploration (of the world), then discovery (of how to use the various artifacts), then exploitation (arbitrage, finding optimal ways to make money, xp, etc.). And all the time, of course, by interacting with the clever, quirky, social people who are the most interesting feature of GNE.
But then I was able to Make everything that could be Made, knew everything within the game that I needed to know, and became a world-class Farmer.
In the past few weeks, I wondered if I could get to Level 19 entirely on genomes, without making a single GNE. I was pretty far along, too!
Then, last night, I noticed a player suddenly zoom way past inspoetica (and hence me) in xp. One theory: someone quietly accumulated way more wealth than inspoetica, but in something other than shekels, and suddenly traded that in for GNE ingredients.
Today, I see that a player whom I’ve never seen before has exceeded even that previous player. Uh huh.
So now there are two games. One, played by the rules the developers apparently intended, in which it is actually difficult to accumulate money, xp and the rest, and the other - hacking javascript - in which any idiot can appear to excel, and several have.
Given that, I’m not sure what’s left. Sure, there are the clever, quirky, social people who have always been the most interesting feature of GNE. But does that mean that GNE is now just a chat room with some cool people in it? That’s probably not enough, by itself, to hold my interest.
So I may be done for now. At least, until the next Great Wipe. If, after that, there are interesting new features, or at least fixes for the egregious hacks, I might once again be interested.
Or I may find myself still addicted to the mindless, repetitive activities that have occupied far too many of my hours in recent weeks. You never know. At least, *I* never know.
In any event, it’s been fun.
Hey - anybody want a few million shekels worth of diamonds? Or a chicken?
Plurp, I’m annoyed this time too. But for different reasons. (Beaten to the punch, bah humbug etcetera). However, it really is in your long-term interest for a few of the players to be doing cloak-and-dagger stuff in the shadows (or in their Javascript debugger).
When the Big Game launches, there will eventually be several tens (hundreds?) of thousands of players. Some of them will want to cheat. And some of the would-be cheaters will actually have a hat which is the right shade of black to be able to cheat. (Okay, ‘nuff with the hat metaphor). Obviously the devs want to refine their defences (and maybe even examine our lines of attack?).
My point is that this version was never meant to be secure. I’m convinced that the major exploit remaining in this version was left in to lead us away from more sophisticated lines of attack. (That’s my excuse for trying a different line of attack, anyhow :) ).
Sure, at the moment there are two games in progress. But you have only yourself to compete against. I don’t waste time berating Bill Gate$ for “hacking” the computer scene way back then and winding up rich on the back of sheer luck. I don’t even complain that I know people half as smart as me who earn twice as much.
I try to play my own game. Please don’t go away… the chickens will miss you!
There’s a difference between discovering an exploit (and informing the developers) and exercising the exploit for one’s own gain. The former is useful.
To the God of Chickens…
Plurpy, plurpy, plurpy.. {sigh} Tales of your remarkable indeed, probably illegal, exploits with chickens have reached even this cobwebby, shadowy corner of the UK.
Dont leave us mere mortals to have to ‘invent’ new ways of chicken choking simply coz you are miffed at the hackers. That is exhibiting the same emotional reaction in negative, to the hacker that feels the need to ‘display’ prowess for self aggrandisement.
I reached Level 18 without codifying {indeed cant code} - (After the closure statement I accepted purpless from *they that shall remain nameless* coz I wanted to reach L20 in this ‘GNE incarnation’).
My point being that I know who cheats & who doesnt. I pit my skills against those I am pretty sure dont cheat & play the game straight. The hackers dont bother me.. its a different challenge for them.
So, get back into GNE, go into the henhouse behind the barn.. close the door, turn off the lights, and we all hope to hear the sqwauk of happy chickens rending the night air of Agricola county once again.
Besides, if you arent ‘in the game’ you may not get your pioneer membership to the REAL Gne. he he he
Not everyone who could cheat is trying to. Till now I’ve mostly thought of cheaters as ruining the newbie experience with inflation (the thrill of making a red paper shrinks to zero when some old-timer hands you a purple paper in your first ten minutes of the game). But I’m really sorry to learn that they are spoiling the game for valued long-time players like Plurp.
Reporting exploits is no longer interesting: the developers don’t care (since this is only a prototype). Thus the hackers who desire ego boosts can get them only by showing off.
There’s always going to be cheats, and there’s always going to be cheaters who need to impress people. If anyone actually thinks this is a serious problem (I’m not yet convinced) we could try either of the following:
1) Social stigma - shunning obvious cheaters and refusing their ill-gotten gains. But I don’t like the rift this might create in the community, nor are there enough people who think this is a problem to make any sort of impact.
2) Try to create an alternative rewards system so cheaters can get their jollies without devaluing other people’s hard work. For example, call them “magicians” and ask them to voluntarily limit their showoff time to weekly “magic parties” at the end of which all the money and goods are destroyed.
What do you think? Plurp, is this a cause worth sticking around to fight for?
For the record: we *do* care when we people report exploits — it makes us very happy. And the one in question here (I’m assuming) was fixed within an hour of it having been reported. We too wish people wouldn’t run up their stats when they find a hack but are reluctant to close accounts for exploiting the exploits in the prototype. (Four players have just now had their XP reduced by 60,000,000 though;)
Second, the big game client is *not* javascript-based — it is flash, and all state changes will occur on the server so it will be amazingly hard to hack.
And Plurp, for you in particular, the number of “new features” ITRG will outnumber the current set by a factor of 10:1 (or something like that). You will be interested ;)
An order of magnitude more squeezing opportunities!
Chickens that lay 20 eggs at a time!
Tra la la! I guess that’s from the horse’s mouth: GOD does care about making the world right again. Rarely am I so happy to be wrong :)
Thank you Stewart!! I think the dropping of illegally gained xp is a good thing. No one will believe this, but I didn’t want to be so high on the charts.
As for you Plurp - we have had some good times in gne, and I do hope you reconsider. I know many miss you, including myself (and several chickens).
I’d write more, but I have a zoo in Twee to populate. :)
-pix
Eglantine suggests that there will always be cheats. If so, I think GNE is in trouble. If something important that you do is easily undone by a cheater, or if something at which you’re striving to excel is easily accomplished by a cheater, that will be very demotivating for many players.
Other online games have had exploits and those that exploited them. The developers fixed the exploits pretty quickly, and with good reason.
I don’t think the solution will be social. Peer pressure, Nights of Haxor Magik and so forth seem unlikely (to me) to work. The solution will be technical - fix the stuff that’s broken.
I’m encouraged by Stewart’s posting that the devs really are paying attention to this. I’ll be interested to see how they do in making GNE more cheat-proof itrg. I hope they are talking to other online game developers and learning from those mistakes. Getting security right is hard (duh).
It is particularly hard in stateful games like GNE. An exploit in Quake Arena, once fixed, doesn’t allow cheaters to prosper in future matches because history is not carried forward. In addition to fixing whatever exploits are found, GNE will need a way of draining the benefit from the cheaters. For simple things like accumulating wealth, this will be easy. I can certainly imagine cases in which it will be very hard, though.
Oh, and I already signed up for a Pioneer Account in WTRGI (Whatever The Real Game Is). So treat those chickens nicely or there’ll be hell to pay.