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So here's a handy tip. Put some kind of rudimentary plot and dialogue in your farming missions ---
[Orcish]: et voilà!
Here you go:
Random Title Generator
Free Writer's Plot Generator
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Let's see, Crey illigally dumping Radioactive waste on farm causes the animals and crops to mutate. Animals/Pumpkins revolt taking wife and daughter hostage. You have to destroy barrels, giant ant hills and giant cocoons (no collect possible on map) and rescue two hostages.
I worked on dialog, descriptions for custom groups, etc. Tongue-in-cheek humor.
Still got banned.
Granted there were a few references to Copyright material or slightly risque bits, but nothing I thought violated the EULA. This is why we need feedback if a mission get banned. Was it banned for being a "farm" mission? (If so, someone missed the joke)
Copyright material references? I can remove them.
The Farmer's Daughter references? (This from the poeple that gave us MaeMae Van Hooters err Hooten?)
How can I know if it was just an over-eager GM that didn't even bother to look at the mission or for a real reason if I get no feedback?
If Brevity is the Soul of Wit, Why are You Reading This?
It seems pretty obvious that with a name "Demon Farm Map" and the custom enemies being called "Easy kills". I would guess that the story was reported right from the search screen and possibly shortly after entering the map and seeing "Easy Kill" mobs. Player hits quit and reports the mission. They made it very clear in the ToS that you are not to make farming mission and even if yours was not it was basically labeled as such with the possible interpretation that you were trying to attract as many "farmers" as possible and inflate your rating.
Nobody here has to prove it and we don't have to convince you of it or the legitimacy of NCNC's decision, that's their responsibility. I am surprised that you are even confused about it.
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Kind of like how saying Bloody in the U.K. is like dropping an F-bomb here.
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Lolz. Who told you that? This Englishman occasionally uses bloody in polite company.
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Now spaz, that can get a game banned 
.
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Ooooh... That's just.... I mean, Belgium, man, Belgium... 
"But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses."
-- Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers
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I had my arc banned after 22 people played it (I got the Author badge to prove it.)
Mine was probably banned for the same reason, as it had "Farm" and "Tickets" in the title.
But that also calls to question:
1 What if I make a bunch of custom critters that look like ducks, chickens, cows, goats and pigs.
2. I take said custom critters, and put them in an outdoor map.
3. I make the mission "defeat all"
4. And call it "Your Ticket to the Animal Farm Revolt".
Would that be banned?
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Been there, done that, had it banned.
Actually it was "OLd McDonalds Farm" and it was a farm mission because it was on a "Farm". (Croatoa map)Apparently somebody didn't get the joke.
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If it's truly not a "ticket farm" and there are no other problems, escalate the ban to a GM. If they see that it's not a loot farm they can mark it so that it can't be banned by dumb people again.
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How about this.
It's the first week of MA being released. GMs for games in general are overworked. There is a mandate to ban farming missions. They don't have the time to actually play through a mission to see if it is an actual farm or not.
So if your mission implies that it's a farming mission, it'll be banned. Doesn't matter if it is one or not. If it's not one and it's banned, escalate it to the GMs and ask for it to be unbanned.
Or, before you decide to publish your "farm parody" mission that makes fun of farms, wait a while for the commotion to die down so that the GMs can actually do some more in depth looking prior to banning.
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Let's see, Crey illigally dumping Radioactive waste on farm causes the animals and crops to mutate. Animals/Pumpkins revolt taking wife and daughter hostage. You have to destroy barrels, giant ant hills and giant cocoons (no collect possible on map) and rescue two hostages.
I worked on dialog, descriptions for custom groups, etc. Tongue-in-cheek humor.
Still got banned.
Granted there were a few references to Copyright material or slightly risque bits, but nothing I thought violated the EULA. This is why we need feedback if a mission get banned. Was it banned for being a "farm" mission? (If so, someone missed the joke)
Copyright material references? I can remove them.
The Farmer's Daughter references? (This from the poeple that gave us MaeMae Van Hooters err Hooten?)
How can I know if it was just an over-eager GM that didn't even bother to look at the mission or for a real reason if I get no feedback?
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After closing down who knows how many farming missions, the GM in question probably had little patience for people that were deliberately trying to push the envelope. I wouldn't expect much wiggle room at all. On a related note, the rules also indicate no parody missions whatsoever, so I don't think the GMs are going to have a sense of humor at all.
Also, I really cannot believe this isn't a troll topic. "I made a mission that's all about farming, and the GMs banned it, and I can't figure out why!" The sense of entitlement some people have never ceases to amaze me.
Arc #41077 - The Men of State
Arc #48845 - Operation: Dirty Snowball
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...the rules also indicate no parody missions whatsoever, so I don't think the GMs are going to have a sense of humor at all.
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I'm pretty sure what that means is no parodies of copyrighted material. So, no "The Wind Done Gone" for us.
Parodies of in-game behavior or of general real life issues/behaviors seem like they're fair game.
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
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Second, It was a farm mission, and he called it a farm mission in the title and description. They have explicitly said no farm missions allowed, which is why MA missions will not give you any non-MA badges. I do know of a couple of people that have created missions for farming MA badges. But they do not call them farm missions. And they are not planning on leaving them up when they get their badges.
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Prove it.
If it's out there then prove it. I have not seen a word about farming missions from the devs. Was this said in closed Beta? If so are we supposed to magically know what is and is not "appropriate" based on what a few people on these forums seem to be pulling out of their rears?
It doesn't really matter I suppose. Even if it is said buried out there somewhere; content that is getting banned needs to have the reasons for the ban stated. Especially in the complete absence of rules regarding use of the MA. Outside of the EULA of course. They do not stop Farms now. They do close exploits that make farming easier. a simple name change on this arc isn't going to change anything about how fast tickets or Xp will be gained. If that is the issue then that is what should be addressed. Other than that This banning makes no sense whatsoever. HE did not use any word that is vulgar or copyrighted. Nothing is accomplished by banning this arc. Nothing changed. What was the point? What was the exploit?
EDIT: And It only takes 5 people reporting it to get it removed? and people are worried about 1 star bandits.
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Try actually reading this post. Especially the 6th bullet point under Code of Conduct Reminders. Then there is this post from Positron at the bottom. Is that explicit enough for you? Remember, they consider farming at least semi-exploitative behavior, that is why they have made so many changes to limit or stop it over the years. (And I am not saying I agree or disagree with this, just that it is the way things are.)
Then there are the non-explicit things, like the fact that nothing in MA counts toward any non-MA badges, specifically so that people can't farm them. You really think that they would do something to prevent farming, then ignore any other farming behavior if they find it?
And you are right, it doesn't matter if it is out there explicitly. As Zombie Man and Uber Guy point out, they reserve the right to pull any content, for any reason.
As for needing 5 people to get an arc pulled, if there is nothing wrong with it, just put it back. If it gets 5 more reports, it gets looked at by a GM and if there is really nothing wrong with it, nothing happens. Well, to the arc. I would bet they will look at the people doing the content reporting to see if they are maybe harassing you. Since they do keep records of stuff like that. (Actually, I am not certain it is pulled automatically after the 5. It may have been looked at by a GM at that point too. But I did not receive anything from a GM in Beta until the second round of 5 reports.)
Janlee,
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I thought that MA was specifically designed so you "can't" farm?
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You can't farm non-MA badges with it, but there is no real way to prevent someone farming tickets or MA badges unless the GMs see the mission. The OP's problem was calling direct attention to his farm mission. As others have pointed out, all he needed to do was give it the veneer of an actual mission to avoid the ban, unless a lot of people reported it.
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Nothing about what he posted was an exploit. No where in either of those linked posts does it say farming is a bannable offence. He was not even notified of the reason WHY it was banned. Yeah they can ban for any reason they want. I expect to be told why. IT amkes no sense NOT to tell the people why otherwise they will just get confused and do it again. or quit.
This leads me to beleive it was just auto banned through the report tool. Yeah I can repost the arc. Do I also get all the ratings I had back when I repost? We basically had a bunch of people take it upon themselves to determine what words they thought were acceptable within the MARC system. They didn't like the word farm so pushed the content button. There is nothing explicit about the content. There was nothing violated in the EULA.
Hell one could make the argument that this is a training mission where a hero who wants to fight demons made a mission to fight demons in. It's not like the whole thing is a push over. Fake Nemesis aren't exacly easy things to kill. The whole thing is supposed to be a simulator for heroes. Made for people to have fun. If they have fun fighting demons then who are you to say they can't do that?
Yeah the devs reserve the right to ban whatever they want whenever they want on a whim. Positron's coffee gets cold he bans a mission. Castle wakes up on the wrong side of the bed Zombie mans account gets banned. completelty arbitrary. No reasons given. What gets me is if the cardinal sin here is he used the word Farm then why not add the word to the filter? If it is the MARC equivilent of [censored] babies why even allow us to use the word?
We don't even know for sure that it was banned because of the word farm. We don't know if it is because of the "easy kills" which given the description wouldn't be easy for everyone. All we know is a guy made a quick mission with custom demons and fake nemesis and the arc was banned because aprantly the guy wasn't having fun according to..who the hell knows. Random players. griefers. a dev? GM's? *shrug*
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I had my arc banned after 22 people played it (I got the Author badge to prove it.)
Mine was probably banned for the same reason, as it had "Farm" and "Tickets" in the title.
But that also calls to question:
1 What if I make a bunch of custom critters that look like ducks, chickens, cows, goats and pigs.
2. I take said custom critters, and put them in an outdoor map.
3. I make the mission "defeat all"
4. And call it "Your Ticket to the Animal Farm Revolt".
Would that be banned?
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Been there, done that, had it banned.
Actually it was "OLd McDonalds Farm" and it was a farm mission because it was on a "Farm". (Croatoa map)Apparently somebody didn't get the joke.
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If it's truly not a "ticket farm" and there are no other problems, escalate the ban to a GM. If they see that it's not a loot farm they can mark it so that it can't be banned by dumb people again.
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After coming across a several other "Old McDonald", "Ole McDonald" ,etc. missions, it's just not worth the effort.
Especially if I'm never told what the specific problem is.
If Brevity is the Soul of Wit, Why are You Reading This?
1. Obvious farm is obvious.
2. I burning your farm.
3. Hi, Opal!
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I assume people reported it for being a farming mission. Weather or not that is against the rules I don't know.
What power sets did you give these "easy kills"
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I would imagine that the answer is also in the title. Your basicly saying that this is a farm map. Pretty much created with no story, for no other purpose then to provide a "Family" style farm map.
The MA does take some server resources obviously to save all the content and such. So i would have to imagine that they will not be allowing people to publish stories that are simply created to be a farm for players. Its not like there are not enough of those in the game already without using the MA.
Try remaking the arc. Give it a real name, a real story, even if you do make custom critters that resemble those in farm maps, atleast your not advertising the fact the mission is their to farm for anything, xp, tickets etc.
I have played plenty of single mission stories so far that are so basic that im sure they were created for no other purpose then to make a easy farm. But they atleast took the effort to hide it in a story. You've made no such effort and simply even announced you created it for farming.
They kinda expect you to have some common sense mate. Not to be rude or anything but do you really think they intended for people to make easy kill missions to farm up a bunch of tickets with little effort?
They want people to be creative and not do the same things over and over. Which is the main reason why they put in merits for taskforces.
I just hope this isnt the end of DEV created zones and missions. I love mission architect. I Just finished making my first story arc and I'll probably start checking out other player created material.
Friends don't let friends buy an ncsoft controlled project.
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They kinda expect you to have some common sense mate. Not to be rude or anything but do you really think they intended for people to make easy kill missions to farm up a bunch of tickets with little effort?
They want people to be creative and not do the same things over and over. Which is the main reason why they put in merits for taskforces.
I just hope this isnt the end of DEV created zones and missions. I love mission architect. I Just finished making my first story arc and I'll probably start checking out other player created material.
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Should I start reporting for content all missions that fall into that category? I've seen several. Some of them Devs choice.
I'm not even sure this mission would even fit into that "easy kills" description despite their name. I have never heard anyone call a Fake Nemesis an easy kill either.
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Kind of like how saying Bloody in the U.K. is like dropping an F-bomb here. [ QUOTE ]
Lolz. Who told you that? This Englishman occasionally uses bloody in polite company.
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Someone from the U.K. Then again, he might have been joking as he was also trying to tell me that the Beatles song, 'Ticket to Ride' was actually about a prostitute being given a clean bill of health. English colloquialisms, and humor can make communication difficult at times.
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On a related note, the rules also indicate no parody missions whatsoever, so I don't think the GMs are going to have a sense of humor at all.
[/ QUOTE ] Wow, I think you misunderstood the intentions of that rule. I mean really really got it wrong.
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So if your mission implies that it's a farming mission, it'll be banned. Doesn't matter if it is one or not. If it's not one and it's banned, escalate it to the GMs and ask for it to be unbanned.
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So, the GM are doing a search on the term "farm" and out-right banning the mission arc without even looking at it.
Sorry, but as a some-what student of history, this strike me purely as draconian and early 1933 Germany.
Sometimes, I impress my boss. Sometimes, I impress myself. The rest of the time, I scare people. I can live with that.
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So if your mission implies that it's a farming mission, it'll be banned. Doesn't matter if it is one or not. If it's not one and it's banned, escalate it to the GMs and ask for it to be unbanned.
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So, the GM are doing a search on the term "farm" and out-right banning the mission arc without even looking at it.
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And, in some cases, "Ticket".
They're over-worked and under-staffed (aren't we all?). I don't know how else they could realistically undertake the task of making it very clear from the get-go that farming missions are unacceptable.
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Sorry, but as a some-what student of history, this strike me purely as draconian and early 1933 Germany.
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So, yeah. Godwin's.
Aside from that, in 1933 Germany, you couldn't call up the powers that be and ask them to reconsider. You couldn't argue your position. You couldn't request that they give you the chance to revise what you'd done and make it acceptable.
That's how the process goes here, though. If a GM sees something that looks like a farm map, it gets banned. The author then has the chance to edit the mission and re-submit it for GM review. If the changes meet the standards for making it clear that it's not a farm map, the arc will be re-posted immediately.
They're over-worked and under-staffed, it's a totally thankless job, but the process is ultimately fair to the author. You do have an appeal mechanism built-in, and based on my experience, the GMs are interested in making sure that they give the players every chance to correct their missteps.
I wasn't happy to log in and find one of my arcs banned, but I was very happy two hours later with how I'd been treated by the GMs and how willing they were to work with and listen to me. The process was fair, and definitely resolved to my satisfaction.
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
Well, the story has been altered and republished. I changed the name, the description, pretty much all of the text!
The custom enemy group remains as the "Easy kills", which do not live up to their name for the record. (someone pointed out that they are all melee type, the Lt's are blasters).
Leason learned, even though with a very basic search you can find 100's of short missions that are in fact "Farms" and say so in the mission description.
Have a nice day all, and thank you all for your imput.
Currently Playing:
A bunch of toons! (Freedom, Virtue, and a few on Infinity)
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This banning with no oversight is kinda chilling. People are worried about 1 star bandits. What if a group goes around and hits the report button x number of times? on an arc that has been getting 4 and 5 stars up to that point? Banned no oversight. Better luck in your repost?
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This was asked during closed beta, and I believe a redname stated that they would be looking for activity like this: people consistently 1-starring arcs or reporting content without cause run the risk of being detected and having punitive action taken against them. Presumably, if they get a rash of autobanned content that gets overturned on review, they will start looking carefully at who is doing the reporting.
Which means, by the way, that anyone thinking along the lines of "well fine if people can do X I might as well do Y myself" should strongly reconsider.
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In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
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1. Obvious farm is obvious.
2. I burning your farm.
3. Hi, Opal!
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And that's the Straight Dope.
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I have never heard anyone call a Fake Nemesis an easy kill either.
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Fake Nemesis' are easy kills.
There now you cant say that anymore. But seriously, they are not hard kills, there just a boss.
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I have never heard anyone call a Fake Nemesis an easy kill either.
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Fake Nemesis' are easy kills.
There now you cant say that anymore. But seriously, they are not hard kills, there just a boss.
[/ QUOTE ] Fake Nemesis and their damn PFF are more annoying than anything.
They can only PFF if they are standing up
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They can only PFF if they are standing up
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High burst damage + Fulcrum Shift... Yep.
Let's Dance!
I wonder if a cookie farm would get banned
In all seriousness, many of the dev created missions could be said to provide "unintended statisticcal advantage". Its a very arbitrary item to judge by. Don't get me wrong, I understand providing firm guidelines will just cause people to push against the line. However, I do think if they ban a story arc, it would be nice to have a message sent explaining what they thought was wrong with it.