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This! Very much!|
Originally Posted by Scooby_Dont
Thanks to the OP for an important heads up.
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I had popped out a couple little amounts for new Going Rogue alts (100k type emails) as well as some temp powers to help the lowbie get started.
I'll just have to keep them on a mule character's market slots until I roll the alts up for Going Rogue.
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
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Not every player is as savvy as you. No, players don't have to be psychic to infer dev intent, but they do need a sophisticated understanding of MMORPG design, which the 10-year-old newbies playing this game may or may not have. I'd go so far as to say it's a tiny minority of the playerbase that understands that pushing secret changes to live without test server patch notes is the devs' way of saying You're Playing It Wrong, thus inferring dev intent.|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
One doesn't have to be psychic to know that the new email feature wasn't intended to be used as additional personal storage.
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Quote:
| I'm not going to feel sympathy if someone gets burned when they are using a feature in a way it wasn't intended. |
EDIT: Sorry for the last minute edit to my post! I have trouble putting thoughts together at this hour.
No, but you can shrug it off as "they screwed up by forgetting to tell us". I doubt it was their intent for this to be a stealth thing.
Dec out.
Under the old system, or what we understood it to be, it could and would and should be used as storage if there was need. The system allowed it. There is nothing inherently wrong with using things in a manner that is not a glitch or exploit.
Under the new system, we can store items for 30 days. Still VERY handy if you're shuffling some things around or need some more space to hold recipes.
There is no controversy.
Not really a lot of controversy in this thread. Mostly some mildly panicky "Oh, crap, I'd better check my dates!"
Dec out.
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I agree, but it's a little more complicated, because there's no practical definition for "exploit" that sufficiently excludes other in-game actions that benefit players.|
Originally Posted by Postagulous
There is nothing inherently wrong with using things in a manner that is not a glitch or exploit.
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Best I can come up with is "an exploit is an in-game action the devs so want players to refrain from doing, that the devs will keep that action's existence a secret until it's disabled on the live servers without warning." Which, unfortunately, is useless for helping us players figure out what is or isn't an exploit before it's suddenly gone.
There were a lot of people who, when this feature was announced, said "YAY ! WE HAVE BANKS!" And there was not, that I ever saw, any dev commentary to the effect of "Hold on, now, that may not work that way."
I don't think I'm getting bit on this, but that's all luck and no skill.
I'm glad to have found out about this.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
So the 3 sets of purples I've sent to a mate's inactive account while he waits for going rogue will all disappear, wonderful.
Actually that's a complete lie, but not impossible, as I seemed to prove you can send emails with attachment (1 inf) to an inactive account.
They've really got this horribly wrong, and should have publicised it.
It's true. This game is NOT rocket surgery. - BillZBubba
Quote:
If it smells like a possible expoit, treat it as an expoit. You won't go wrong very often.
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Originally Posted by Rigel_Kent
Best I can come up with is "an exploit is an in-game action the devs so want players to refrain from doing, that the devs will keep that action's existence a secret until it's disabled on the live servers without warning." Which, unfortunately, is useless for helping us players figure out what is or isn't an exploit before it's suddenly gone.
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It's not unreasonable that emails are deleted after some period. Spam from RMTers probably constituted 99.9% of the emails on the system, at least until the global email/attachment feature was added.
Because many people have alts that they don't play frequently and the thousands of characters on inactive accounts, there are probably millions of email spams sitting on the servers.
These emails are probably stored in a database and you can't allow databases to grow unchecked in size. They have to be regularly maintained and junk has to be cleaned out, otherwise performance begins to suffer.
The attachment feature was advertised as an global email/attachment feature. It's not a 20-any-kind-of-item bank, or a workaround for the limit on the amount of influence a single character can hold. When the devs say it can be used for these purposes it should be safe to do so. Before then, it's wisest to retrieve attachments as soon as possible.
That said, the devs should have known people would use attachments for these undocumented purposes, and should have mentioned in the patch notes that emails would be deleted after 30 days.
Well I'm glad I saw this post somewhere! I respecced a toon and emailed his IOs to myself with intent to reroll a new toon and be able to use them. Of course I made other toons instead and never used the ios in the emails. I hope I get to them in time. Plus I did as someone else mentioned here, I sent out an email with a few mil inf and labelled it as "Blue Monies" and "Red Monies" so my many alts had a little cushion of cash. Since I don't play red side often I may have lost that as well.
More than anything it's aggrevating to not have been notified previously of the time limit.
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Reporting this to my SG and getting questions I don't have answers for. What specifically did the email say?
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Cinder_Flux started it: I just got an e-mail from NCsoft that confirms to my horror that items sent by e-mail have to be claimed within 30 days or they are deleted. OMG !!!!! |
Dec out.
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Arbiter Oakes posted this in the tech forum:|
Originally Posted by Decorum
Reporting this to my SG and getting questions I don't have answers for. What specifically did the email say?
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http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...88#post2928088
Quote:
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For those that are missing attachments from emails: -- Are these emails that you sent to yourself? -- Are the emails 30 days old? -- Do you have a full mail box (20 pieces of mail)? |
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
shoddy
Well...that's oddly in the form of a question (I'll have Emails for 500, Alex!), but I get the gist.
30 days for emails with attachments sent to yourself.
Dec out.
A heads up about the time limit would have been a nicer way to handle this.
I am all for an inf sink, but this isn't exactly what I had in mind. I envisioned more of a voluntary type thing.
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The idea that using the mail this way was an exploit is ludicrous.|
Originally Posted by Camper
If it smells like a possible expoit, treat it as an expoit. You won't go wrong very often.
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The devs were posting in [EDIT]beta[/EDIT] threads where people were discussing using email this way. They never objected. They put in limitations that, while possibly intended to limit RMT, served nicely to keep mail from being an immensely large-scale storage facility (one attachment per mail, for example).
Finding a way to get from level 1 to level 50 in an hour is very likely a valid exploit. Being able to keep attachments forever in a system that always let you keep emails forever, when no one said otherwise even when given perfect opportunities to bring up that it wasn't designed to allow that, is not an exploit.
Please note that I have lost nothing to this. I haven't stored anything valuable in my email, and nothing I have stored has been lost. But it irritates me in the extreme to see people calling things exploits that absolutely are not.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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That's not how you handle a feature that's in beta. They knew people were going to store things in this during beta. People tested doing that during beta, and talked about it. If you consider something an exploit in beta then you take action then. You also document the proper use of the system when it goes live, including just this sort of restriction.
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Originally Posted by Rigel_Kent
Best I can come up with is "an exploit is an in-game action the devs so want players to refrain from doing, that the devs will keep that action's existence a secret until it's disabled on the live servers without warning." Which, unfortunately, is useless for helping us players figure out what is or isn't an exploit before it's suddenly gone.
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Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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however, without any clearly worded "statements of intent" from the developments, one would have to be psychic to come to your conclusions here. absent an official policy statement, one can really only go by what one sees and infer from that. |
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
One doesn't have to be psychic to know that the new email feature wasn't intended to be used as additional personal storage. And as long as players know about the deadline, then 30 days is more than enough time to claim any attachments sitting in an email inbox.
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so let's look at the email system before and after the ability to send items.
before -
- no limit to # of emails - at least none that is apparent. I have some alts that have over 400 emails sitting in their inbox, almost all from gold spammers
- time limit on retention - also apparently no limit as some of those spammer messages go back to mid-2009. closer to 360 days than 30
after -
- email inbox limited to 20 after which you are prevented from sending yourself more
- time limit - apparently this has been changed to 30 days, though as you and others have pointed out, without any posted warning.
what I inferred from the above and what I think most non-psychic people would deduce from the above is
- there would still not be a time limit - nothing was ever stated about there being such a change and if emails from spammers can sit out there for at least 12 months, why shouldn't my emails to myself
- the change to # of emails that can remain in your inbox is stated and, at least to me, indicates the devs' intentions that you could, indeed, use the email system to store a limited number of items that way. if you choose to use it to store 20 items, then you couldn't transfer anything else. so your choice - it could be used for active, frequent transfers; an extra 20 item personal storage bin; or anything in between that suited your personal tastes. which, by the way, I thought was a great idea on their part but now obviously I don't think quite as highly of their implementation of this feature
I have emails from Issue 2. If there was any time limit on mails, it's pretty epic.
From some posts on this topic, it sounds like there still may be no age limit on the mails themselves, just on the length of time they can retain their attachments.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Quote:
In my case, the emails themselves are also gone
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
I have emails from Issue 2. If there was any time limit on mails, it's pretty epic.
From some posts on this topic, it sounds like there still may be no age limit on the mails themselves, just on the length of time they can retain their attachments. |
Quote:
Pretty interesting.|
Originally Posted by all_hell
In my case, the emails themselves are also gone
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I wonder if they were supposed to be returned to sender and went into the void because they were sent to the sender. I seem to recall that eventual return to sender was something they talked about in beta.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Quote:
This time limit needed to be stated UP FRONT. Otherwise, it could be implicitly understood to be the intent.
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
No offense but I'm not going to feel sympathy if someone gets burned when they are using a feature in a way it wasn't intended.
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I've got binds stored as emails. I also emailed a few wakies around too. Thanks to this thread for making it clear that I need to get all the recipies I've been emailing around off there PDQ.
SAVE CoX info:
Titan Network efforts
Saving CoX events/FB info
Wow. One of my mains blueside just made a cool 100,000,000 on a rare IO from a merit roll. I figured I'd put 10,000,000 in an e-mail in case one of my alts needed a costume part or something. Thought I'd leave it there indefinitely. Bad idea.
Time to log in and check my mail.
Thanks to the OP for an important heads up.