It's outdated. Rescheduled for Wednesday 26 June 2013

So probe raiding will actually be gone this time?

This: is now active in all universes.

Now that the fix is live, I should share the story behind this.

First things first, the combat reports destroyed on first round, was an issue started with graphical reports. In first ZE version, it was like this but once graphical reports were introduced, this loophole appeared. It has been fixed now.

For the probe raiding thing, If I am not mistaken, this strategy has been first used by dexternl (not sure - so much time since then). It was for sure pretty early in the game history. Administration decided to let this open as a "hidden strategy for advanced player" taking into consideration that it was a high risk mission.

However, that time, inactives were purged daily and generally we would not let more than 3000 accounts active in a universe. This also meant that big fat accounts with good mines were rare. Massacre came (Massacre has 6000 accounts right now, they are expected to fall slowly as we increased the deletion rate there recently) with smaller resource silos in order to create a different gameplay. This is where things started getting fat with this strategy. From massacre, it started spreading to other universes too. This is the story as we know it at least.

Here is why it was a bad thing from our perspective, in titles:
-Few people used it.
-It provided an additional advantage to these few people (with time at hand)
-It mostly affected newcomers (as this tactic was directed only against inactive planets). So newcomers had less food around.
-It provided a ridiculous way to raid; no brainer too. No analyzation of which is the best spot etc, Just a big list of targets.
-Fewer player interaction, turned a multiplayer game to a single player as active players would lose all their time raiding inactive planets instead of conducting a plan on how to raid an active player.
-Too fast to a point of making everything obsolete.
-Too hard to defend against it; Even if a player wanted to stop an enemy from doing so, it would be pretty hard. As probes move too fast.
-I am sure a whole more reasons can be found. Bottom end is that this strategy was never meant to be used and it ended up spoiling gameplay when used.

I am happy that most players agreed to implement this at all universes. I think this will help the game in the long run.

again nice done zorg ruin game even more
you dint ask little guys ho just come about or dont use forums at all ,sugestion you agree on players ho are top in each servers as the told you to implant.

http://i1097.photobucket.com/albums/g343/Akatcuki/Peinxd2323555.jpg

Totally disagree Pein....enough people voted against it continuing...and even more "in game" thought it detremental to general game play.....and if people don't use the forums to vote or voice their opinion then that's their problem...it's here for all to use. Glad to see probe raiding gone once and for all

btw.....did the cost of esp probes go up same time as the new change in Extreme???

Espionage Ship
Espionage probes are small, agile drones that provide data on fleets and planets over great distances.
Resources Needed : Metal: 400 Crystal: 3.000 Deuterium: 200
Construction Time : 00h 00m 00s

No idea why the cost has increased and can see this will only hinder new players in Extreme.....not all newcomers will know to attack zero defence inactives....and 3k crystal per probe with a chance to lose it seems a lot imo......won't concern the majority but was just thinking of new players

Not to mention resource creation. You paid a smaller amount for the probe's you have and now you can recycle for more than you paid.

Should be fixed asap, copy and paste is not always your friend.

1) -Probes now have 0 consumption, 0 capacity

no matter how you send the ship as after declaring that it should not cost you any deuterium regardless of what mission u send it with attack/deploy/esp mission.

2) zorgs post in the forum did not say anything about probes getting higher expense.

extreme probes costs 4 time less than other universe the soul reason being extreme server is 4 times slower than the rest.

the above two argument dictates that the current setup in the server is a result of major programming upgrade GLITCH.

and it needs fixing ASAP.

I agree with Zorg on this one

Zorg wrote:This:

Code: Select all

-Probes now have 0 consumption, 0 capacity
-Combat reports where attacker is destroyed in 1st round are only available to the defender. Attacker will get a message that his fleet has been destroyed in first round.

is now active in all universes.

Now that the fix is live, I should share the story behind this.

first of all congratulations to FIXING (sarcasm) the issue. am glad to see the interpretation of ze development team over this issues we discussed about. It matches everything we talked about in the forum over last couple of weeks or months.

Now the reason why i feel compelled to troll over this thread?

Ans: Simply because, You effed it up again ZE team. Like medal said copy/paste is not always your friend. I think it is pretty clear in skirmish's post what exactly you guys went wrong with.

two issues. two new programming mistakes that are deliberately being dubbed as game feature.

First:
Your first fix says "-Probes now have 0 consumption, 0 capacity". try probing from galaxy view without any resource on the moon you are probing from.
"Not enough Deuterium" - Now if probes now have 0 consumption why wd it say that?

Second:
Since when probes cost the same across all universe? (ty sprog for posting it here)
We expect a game wise broadcasting about those kind of changes. I was banned from forum, and many players do not use forum. How do you expect me or them to catch those changes, ohh i know you expect us to be professor X and have super telepathy. no no my mistake it was an honest mistake by ze team. the reason why i am saying its an honest mistake is the soul reason why i am upset. You did not broadcast an admin notice universe wise of these changes. wanna know why they didnt my dear forum dwellers?


THEY THEMSELVES DID NOT KNOW!!!!!

it has been week since zorg posted this update. and it has been days since sprog's post about the probe cost issue. the thing that mostly upsets me is zorg decided to slide it pass like all other game mistakes they makes.

dude if you simply said that hey we made a mistake we gunna fix it, it all makes sense. **** happens and we all know that. no big deal. it gets big when you try to hide your mistake.

man up and do what you are supposed to do fairly. be a forum communication administrator. COMMUNICATE!!!


ok ban me again please if you want to but i just am tired again to see this same routine recurring.