Suggestion: Add 'farm' and 'story' tabs to AE
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-10-16 11:00 in Suggestions and Ideas
And what's to stop players from lying because they don't want their stuff labeled as a farm and risk getting it banned and losing a publishing slot.
Oh and you do recall that it was Positron who flat out told us NOT to label AE content as farms?
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•• Players are urged to avoid using common farming terms in their story title and/or descriptions. Even if it’s a joke, DO NOT run the risk of having an arc banned and requiring Customer Support to grant you your publishing slot back.
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Farms aren't a no-no. Exploits are. The AE is awash with farms, it's no massive secret. Farms are fine, if they weren't the devs would be doing something about them.|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
And what's to stop players from lying because they don't want their stuff labeled as a farm and risk getting it banned and losing a publishing slot.
Oh and you do recall that it was Positron who flat out told us NOT to label AE content as farms? [I] |
And to answer your question, IF this suggestion was implemented, then that would be pretty good evidence that farming was ok by the devs lol, and thus people wouldn't need to be afraid of calling their farms farms, would they?
Eco
MArcs:
The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
[The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."
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Not going to happen because it would require the devs to implicitly approve of farming.
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At the very least, you need to use a less loaded term.
"Story focused" and "combat focused" maybe?
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I don't see what the big deal about farming is anymore. Death From Below is a farm, and it's being used to powerlevel characters from 2-30 in days. Look at all the 'sewer trial pls' in Help. Farming is not the bugbear it used to be.
Eco
MArcs:
The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
[The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."
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Historically this is a very successful strategy. "Resettlement", anyone?
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Originally Posted by Shagster
At the very least, you need to use a less loaded term.
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Which is a damn shame, and I wish (among other things) that Positron had stuck to his guns and done what he had to to get rid of the farmers, not capitulated to them.|
Originally Posted by MrCaptainMan
I don't see what the big deal about farming is anymore. Death From Below is a farm, and it's being used to powerlevel characters from 2-30 in days. Look at all the 'sewer trial pls' in Help. Farming is not the bugbear it used to be.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
Historically this is a very successful strategy. "Resettlement", anyone?
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They already do.|
Originally Posted by The_Spad_EU
Not going to happen because it would require the devs to implicitly approve of farming.
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I think the word you're looking for is "explicitly," and I really wish they'd just do it, or actually do something to curb it. As it stands, nobody benefits from this wishy washy "we want you to farm what we want you to farm and we don't want you to farm that other thing but we're not going to really stop you even though we could."
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I think the issue that you're going to run into with this is who is deciding what is a farm and what isn't.
Why this is an issue is that if it's left up to the player base you will only get an accurate conclusion on what is a farm and what isn't if it is voted upon many many many times. If you see an arc that has 10 votes and 4 say farm and 6 say story, it doesn't really help you. But if one says 495 farm and 200 story. You can start to get a more accurate feel for the truth.
The fact to be seen here is that not all arcs or even the majority of arcs would be voted upon enough to see a reasonable result for what the arc is.
Furthermore, what if this person or these group of people label your story as a farm. When you feel it's a story rather than a farm. Then what do you choose to be upset about? The system or the people that didn't agree with you.
If it's left up to a single person or a small group the situation is a little better in terms that you can get more accurate information when the total base of votes is smaller, but at the sametime one person or a small group can give you more definitively disagreeable results. In other words in the hands of one person a farm or story can be easily mistaken for the other and placed under the wrong tab or at least the tab you feel the arc should have been under.
There are other issues that can result from this implementation, but I hate getting my posts to the point where people don't want to take the time to read them.
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That's a load of garbage. If the devs were against farming they would put timers on all missions and make them non-repeatable. They have never been against farming, just against the people that abuse the system to get the most rewards for the lowest risk.|
Originally Posted by Megajoule
Which is a damn shame, and I wish (among other things) that Positron had stuck to his guns and done what he had to to get rid of the farmers, not capitulated to them.
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As long as the risk/reward ratio is balanced you can farm to your hearts content.
They don't want to use farming terms because the exploiters and abusers will latch onto them as a defense to hide amongst innocent players, just like they did during the AE crack-down trying to stir up support with lies and fear-mongering.
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Originally Posted by Gospel_NA
I think the issue that you're going to run into with this is who is deciding what is a farm and what isn't.
Why this is an issue is that if it's left up to the player base you will only get an accurate conclusion on what is a farm and what isn't if it is voted upon many many many times. If you see an arc that has 10 votes and 4 say farm and 6 say story, it doesn't really help you. But if one says 495 farm and 200 story. You can start to get a more accurate feel for the truth. The fact to be seen here is that not all arcs or even the majority of arcs would be voted upon enough to see a reasonable result for what the arc is. Furthermore, what if this person or these group of people label your story as a farm. When you feel it's a story rather than a farm. Then what do you choose to be upset about? The system or the people that didn't agree with you. If it's left up to a single person or a small group the situation is a little better in terms that you can get more accurate information when the total base of votes is smaller, but at the sametime one person or a small group can give you more definitively disagreeable results. In other words in the hands of one person a farm or story can be easily mistaken for the other and placed under the wrong tab or at least the tab you feel the arc should have been under. There are other issues that can result from this implementation, but I hate getting my posts to the point where people don't want to take the time to read them. |
My suggestion is for a tab to be added to the interface. The authors would decide if their arcs were 'farm' or 'story', not player votes.
Eco
MArcs:
The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
[The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."
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Thats fine. But if they do take that approach then they need to action it and start deleting farms. Otherwise they need to accept their existence and make the AE easier for people that want to find stories. And this is the most obvious, most often suggested solution.|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
And what's to stop players from lying because they don't want their stuff labeled as a farm and risk getting it banned and losing a publishing slot.
Oh and you do recall that it was Positron who flat out told us NOT to label AE content as farms? |
So Devs, please, label farms or delete them.
One or the other.
This is a song about a super hero named Tony. Its called Tony's theme.
Jagged Reged: 23/01/04
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
And what's to stop players from lying because they don't want their stuff labeled as a farm and risk getting it banned and losing a publishing slot.
[I] |
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
That's a load of garbage. If the devs were against farming they would put timers on all missions and make them non-repeatable. They have never been against farming, just against the people that abuse the system to get the most rewards for the lowest risk.
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Oh look it's this thread again.
I think the term should be "Target Practice" since the enemies in a typical farm mission hardly fight back.
Maybe "No Danger Room".
How about "Bring Purples"?
They could be called "Training Missions", like training wheels on bikes.
Or "Inspiration Practice". They could actually teach people to use their inspirations. I've been on teams where people actually die with full inspiration trays. Start using those pills dammit! For that purpose these missions actually provides a good lesson.
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It's both. Not all farms are exploits but all exploits are farmed. The devs are against farming exploits. |
Originally Posted by nytflyr
so which is it? are the devs for or against farms? if the devs approved, why would farm builders think they are at risk? if they didn't approve, why aren't the devs doing something about it?
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Farm builders are afraid that they will get lumped in with the exploiters, when the exploiters bad behavior brings the hammer down on everyone. It's no different than how innocent players got smacked with free account restrictions because the RMTer's started abusing free accounts.
The devs did do something. They banned the worst offenders, they permanently locked characters that were power leveled using the exploits, they permanently locked AE publishing slots that were used to make AE exploit farms, and they flat out told everyone:
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| Players are urged to avoid using common farming terms in their story title and/or descriptions. Even if its a joke, DO NOT run the risk of having an arc banned and requiring Customer Support to grant you your publishing slot back. |
And they put that into effect a month after the AE launched.
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Same issue though. Then you have to rely on the farmers themselves to claim their arcs are farms rather than stories.|
Originally Posted by MrCaptainMan
My suggestion is for a tab to be added to the interface. The authors would decide if their arcs were 'farm' or 'story', not player votes.
Eco |
If this issue was really this simple, farmers would be putting the word farm in their arc titles already.
As project pointed out above. If there's any risk of ban, they won't willingly identify their farms. However, I already see many many arcs labeled farm that have been there for a very long time. So...
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Exactly. |
Originally Posted by Gospel_NA
As project pointed out above. If there's any risk of ban, they won't willingly identify their farms. However, I already see many many arcs labeled farm that have been there for a very long time. So...
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If farms are supposed to be banned then they need to start policing the policy.
If they are not going to police it then they should accept it and label it.
This is a song about a super hero named Tony. Its called Tony's theme.
Jagged Reged: 23/01/04
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They do police and ban the exploit farms as fast as they can when they crop up. The reason you hardly hear about them now is that exploits are harder and harder to find. More may crop up when they get around to adding new stuff to the AE.
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Originally Posted by Jagged
Exactly.
If farms are supposed to be banned then they need to start policing the policy. If they are not going to police it then they should accept it and label it. |
To me the real question is what are the long range effects of giving farming a legitamate place in AE - Have any of you read the help channel lately? Do you want people that ask "What does the sprint power do, and how does it help me" running around with lvl 50s? Is making an easy, fast way to get to lvl 50 really going to help the game in the long run? I'm not a psych major, but it seems the more effort people put into something the more they appreciate it - and vice versa. Though that is old school work eithic talking not modern day gaming. So I guess the question becomes... do you play your toons more or less after they reach lvl 50?... the only lvl 50's I play on a regular bases are my Farmers and that is when I can't find a regular, low lvl teams or just want mindless mayham. Not sure how I really feel about it or what the long range consquences of doing such a thing would have on the game.
((Getting off soap box))
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We are not talking about farming exploits, just farming.|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
They do police and ban the exploit farms as fast as they can when they crop up. The reason you hardly hear about them now is that exploits are harder and harder to find. More may crop up when they get around to adding new stuff to the AE.
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If farms that don't use exploits are not bannable then its perfectly okay for them to be labelled as farms.
If farms that don't use exploits are bannable then ban and delete them.
This is a song about a super hero named Tony. Its called Tony's theme.
Jagged Reged: 23/01/04
Lets just label the whole game a farm... -.-
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Originally Posted by Jagged
We are not talking about farming exploits, just farming.
If farms that don't use exploits are not bannable then its perfectly okay for them to be labelled as farms. If farms that don't use exploits are bannable then ban and delete them. |
1. But the exploiters don't admit they were nailed for exploiting. They lie and claim they had an innocent farm when they complain. Company policy doesn't allow GM's to respond one way or the other so all we get is their unconfirmable version of what happened., and anyone that doesn't agree with them gets labelled a fanboi, troll, brown noser forum cartel, etc.
2. Not if the devs don't want to, and I haven't seen any statements from them saying they've changed their minds. If there is one can someone link it cuz I'd like to save it for future reference instead of relying on out of date info.
3. They do.
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And in the months since, IMO, they've done absolutely #%$@-all to follow up on that, or fix the many other issues with this no-longer-new-and-shiny feature.|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
The devs did do something. They banned the worst offenders, they permanently locked characters that were power leveled using the exploits, they permanently locked AE publishing slots that were used to make AE exploit farms, and they flat out told everyone:
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An ultimatum followed by zero enforcement serves no one and solves nothing.
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Originally Posted by Megajoule
And in the months since, IMO, they've done absolutely #%$@-all to follow up on that, or fix the many other issues with this no-longer-new-and-shiny feature.
An ultimatum followed by zero enforcement serves no one and solves nothing. |
So the people that pop up right after every new exploit gets stomped demanding to know why they can't access or delete their AE farms are all just shills planted by the company?
Yeah right.
Furthermore you have been here long enough to know that the company doesn't publish any information about who or how many people have had disciplinary action taken against them. We only hear about it when some fool is stupid enough to whine about getting caught, and wants sympathy.
The AE search interface is excellent for finding a farm arc, since the first dozen pagesa re full of them, but not so great for finding story arcs.
To stop any 'competition' between farm and story arcs, allow farm-arc authors to clearly tag their arcs as 'farm', story-arc authors to tag their arcs as 'story, and give some incentive to do so to the farm-arc writers(Ask a gfarmer how many extra tickets or whatever would be small enough yet still enough to make him do so). Story arc authors don't need extra incentive to avoid their arcs being confused with farm arcs, but farmers need rewards for doing things, it seems.
Segregation of farm arcs and story arcs. Everybody wins.
Eco
MArcs:
The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)