Taezel- Clarification

[Taezel]

This is not a ban appeal, perhaps an apology. I asked to be banned for 2 weeks because I am too much in love with Hollow World. I've allowed it to take over my life, I once spent 48 hours straight either on the forums or in the server. I apologize to everyone now because I'm forced to ask for a ban, because I don't have what it takes to limit myself.

However, while I'm apologizing, I'd like to repeat a few bugs I think might not be known about, some might not be bugs.

1. Today I realized I can fly in the Southern Wilds and the Eastern Frontier. I hope I'm the only one because this could prove disastrous if a bandit/greifer/cheater can do the same.

2. Even when I couldn't fly, I used the server lag to place blocks and climb the SW walls so I could RP from above the Wilds portal as a guard. Fun times.Though I should probably not do that. Sorry about that. Unfair advantage.

3. This is unique to me. I've been voting for Hollow World over 40 times a day, and have received payment as well. The only concern I have with this is people would be jealous of the advantage (even though it takes over an hour to vote this many times). Obviously nobody else does it. If voting for the server is wrong let me know before I return to my beloved Altera. If you'd like to know how I do this, it's exactly the way everyone else votes. Though I did train Zeus (that's my supercomputer) to vote for me, I fired him because I was 105% faster

The above are not secrets I tried to keep. As soon as I learned I could fly I informed a moderator ( I even tried to turn fly off, but the server insisted that I didn't have permission to fly), as well as for the voting. And obviously, roleplaying is never a private thing, especially when in view of such a highly trafficked area.

Thank you for reading my apology. I'd also like to apologize to everyone who I made plans with... so sorry. But I cannot let the Hollow World addiction control me.

 

[SallyPirate]

The things you have done, I'm glad you've told us about them but that doesn't make the fact you abused these bugs okay. The voting one especially, as far as I've heard these voting websites keep track of foul voting like that and it will just throw hollowworld further down the list. It is also very unfair to the other players who can only vote once.

Thank you for telling us these things, but I'm going to change your ban to a month. Please only vote once a day, like everyone else.

 

[Taezel]

Voting
Actually Sally, there are multiple websites to vote from, and everyone can get credit for voting several times over a few websites, that I know of. Anyone can also continue to vote as many times as they like for no credit. The voting is not a bug, it's built that way on purpose. The main website only allows you to vote once every 24 hours... but some sites allow multiple votes a day, and one of those is even posted in the forums! You see Sally, everyone can do it. They just haven't been informed properly, which is what I was trying to do. I think Hollow World should be represented in all the ranked websites, and in the top 10 where it belongs. If you really do want me to only vote once, you should remove the announcement sticky that offers more rads for more votes. But no... instead we should be informing "the other players who can only vote once" that there are in fact more places to vote, and that Hollow World needs to be represented properly. As of today, in one website we only have a measly 119 votes. Ever. And Cherbert even announced it here:

http://hollowworld.co.uk/index.php?threads/additional-place-to-vote-more-rads.14542/

Just to be clear, I am not the only one voting more than once. Just today, Valonyx, markisbeest and kaza125 voted on alternate websites, without me even telling them it was possible. You should too. Everyone should, so that we aren't the only one's reaching out to spread the news of Hollow World. Support your server.

Lag
I did not abuse the lag to gain a significant advantage over other players... I did climb the walls for that single RP purpose, and it was even acceptable as roleplay by everyone involved. I imitated a guard, informed players of bandits and even contributed to the new players who had no gear or food. Anyone else that wanted to climb those walls could have done so as well (and one of them did), assuming they had a moderate amount of lag as I did. A bug is only bad if it is used to abuse the server.

I'd like to bring everyone's attention to the Tome of Citizenship (which needs an update, it has a few typos)

From the Behavior Article
Obviously every player has a right to things he (or she) has mined or gathered, but if the cooperative spirit is lacking and generosity and magnanimity are not present, and should that player breach our rules repeatedly or severely enough they will be removed from the server to protect the rest of the community.

And from the Roleplay Article

Roleplay is encouraged however and when dealing with other players you are expected to try and enhance their roleplay and help their immersion, rather than hinder it.

I am not greedy. In fact, I am very generous. Any Rads I collect, any diamonds I mine, anything in my possession I share with the community. When I find myself in need, and visit the community farms in the Eastern Frontier, I make sure to replant every item I extracted. I seek out those who are young to the server and give them a job, regardless of whether I need work done or not. I make plans to improve Altera as a whole, such as the Great Southern Highway, which was a plan for my return. I try to build trust between players and create immersion in groups. My cooperative spirit is not lacking. My generosity is present and obvious. And I have not breached rules "repeatedly or severely enough (that) they will be removed from the server to protect the rest of the community"
Nor is a warning necessary. I've approached the staff of Hollow World at least twice with what we are discussing here, once when I first realized it, and again now, if not any times in between. So now, knowing this, let's look at The Common Law.

The Common Law
Citizens must not seek to exploit game bugs, lag, redstone circuits, mob spawners or client/server modifications in any way that gives them or someone else an unfair advantage. Where a citizen realises a bug exists they should notify the admin team immediately and refrain from using it.
and...
Citizens are required to protect the harmony of the Hollow World community and ensure that they contribute positively to it. This means players must behave in a manner befitting an upstanding Hollow World Citizen


Yes. Lag abuse is in The Common Law. But it is not inherently obvious at the time of reading, nor at the time of block placement, that it is denied by the quote above. I could argue that it is not a bug that "...in any way gives them or someone else an unfair advantage..." because, first, this type of lag (unlike connectivity lag that allows bandits to slay the laggers) is available to everyone. Second, I did not receive any advantage, bonus, rads or items from performing a Roleplay trick like this.


But aside from arguing that it was not a crime, I also know that it might not be a mutually acceptable thing to do. So after that Roleplay, I never returned to that arch above the cross to imitate a guard again. Although I did not immediately notify the admin team ( a decision I made because, first I didn't know who the admins were at the time, and I figured they knew about this long ago), I did however practice restraint and refrained from using it again.

So, to clarify, I have not "abused these bugs." I too have a goal, to protect the harmony of the Hollow World community. My contributions have been as great as I am capable of. And I'd want to continue to contribute, without the dishonor of an assigned ban.

Flying
As for the flying, I couldn't help it on that one occasion. I informed a moderator, I attempted to disable the fly command, but only after re-logging would the fly go away. I confirmed it by testing the /fly command (and by jumping off a high tower and dying, just for good measure ). I honestly did not want to be able to fly, if I hadn't made that clear by now.

So Sally Rose, I apologize for not being clear the first time. I understand you believe I had abused the bugs of the server and hacked the voting sites for extra rads. Please understand, I would do nothing to harm the community of Hollow World and the residents of Altera.

Please remove the forced ban. It dishonors me. I believe it was originally at the 13th of November, 2012. Thank you for reading my appeal.

Long live Hollow World,

Taezel

 

[SallyPirate]

Alright, sorry for misunderstanding your post, and thank you for explaining it so well, I'll fix the ban when I can log in soonish.

 

[Pirapple]

Just to be clear, I am not the only one voting more than once. Just today, Valonyx, markisbeest and kaza125 voted on alternate websites, without me even telling them it was possible. You should too. Everyone should, so that we aren't the only one's reaching out to spread the news of Hollow World. Support your server.

You're only supposed to vote twice a day. Voting 40 times a day is abuse. I think the current month long ban idea, starting now would be fine.

 

[SallyPirate]

I don't understand how it's possible to vote that much, but cheating to do it (using proxies or something) will just give HW a bad name. If it's done legit then it's fine, but if it gives radiants or done with proxies, then it's bad.

 

[Pirapple]

This is not legit, you had exploited a bug. Changing ban, you are now permabanned.

 

[Taezel]

I am sorry you feel that way Epikplayer. For the record, I did not use proxies (they wouldn't even work anyways? the site would block anything illegitimate. And proxies are gross. Eww) and I did not hack the server or website. I put my vote in through a normal Chrome browser, and answered those silly questions just like everyone else. Also, I voted more than I get credit for... meaning I did not get rads for a lot of the voting I did. Sometimes I would vote for others if I felt generous, but mostly I left the name field blank. It takes quite a long time to vote, time that would give more rads if spent mining in the SW like everyone else. I knew this, but decided that voting helps the server more than mindless mining. That's called sacrifice.

So how do I vote so much, if I'm not cheating? Well like I said, there are a few locations to vote, some ranked websites have us listed more than once. The website that Cherbert announced has Hollow World listed twice, and you can vote more than once a day, granted you don't get credit for half your votes. As for the main website, you can only vote once a day from a single computer. Those are the rules. However, if you don't feel like taking credit for your votes, sometimes it doesn't bother to restrict you specifically to 24 hours. What you can do, is try again hours later, without filling in your gamertag, and they might decided to let you vote. I don't understand the logic. And you can't count on them to let you vote, it's luck of the draw.

So, per computer... Sure I could use all 4 of my computers in this house to maximize the number of votes allowed, as well as the multiple operating systems they run... but that's a lot of work, and it feels like farming or cheating to me. Farming and cheating ruin games and make me not want to play them anymore. Occasionally at night I'll lay down with my laptop, check the forums and vote for the team, but that's not against the rules either. All this does not account for 40 votes yet though.

A large majority of my votes come from a science team I work with. My family owns a computer business, so naturally I own a supercomputer. Together the team combines the strength of supercomputers around the world to crunch hard numbers using Boinc for something called the Large Hadron Collider, quite an impressive machine if you ever get the chance to look it up. This is a volunteer service I do for the benefit of Nanotechnology and Quantum mechanics. I don't actually understand Quantum mechanics though (even the professionals admit they don't either xD) so please don't ask, though I will be studying Nanotechnology at MIT in a couple years if all goes well. Sorry. Getting off topic... Basically this computer network allows CERN in Geneva, Switzerland to link together our machines and process a lot of data to test theories. I have a high status in this community, Zeus has processed over a hundred thousand points in job tasks on his own. It was not very difficult to request the votes of the team, a task that takes only a very small portion of the machines around the world. This isn't precise either, many people don't respond when I send my request. Sometimes I skip all of Asia because they seem to never get a decent signal anyways. So about the votes. Without the combined effort of so many around he world, including most of Europe, one in Australia, and many in the north american continent, I'd still get more than five votes in myself, on one computer... I'd only get credit for 2-3 on average though. Anyone can do this with a single machine, legitimately and without the backing of several users around the world. And yes, I had permission from the team.​

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This is CERN, they send tasks to our science team:​

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http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/LHC/Computing-en.html​

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This is the software we use for grid computing:​

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http://boinc.berkeley.edu/​

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This is one of the two projects Zeus focuses on:​

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http://lhcathome2.cern.ch/​

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That project only receives 10% of Zeus's processes. If you find all this to be unbelievable, I can give an admin my weak account key. It lets me link a computer to my CERN account temporarily without giving them the ability to log in as me or change any of my processor preferences or that of my team's. Then you can see for yourself that I do, in fact, tell the truth.​

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Also, for the sake of science I'd love if anyone viewing this thread also felt compelled to donate their computer's unused resources to science. The project I listed above has been stable for some time now, if you'd like to join. Boinc runs only when you aren't using your computer, and never hinders your gameplay and doesn't hog internet data. It downloads the task data file(takes about 1/4 second), processes the task locally, and uploads the results to whoever you decide to work with.​

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This has gotten really complex and messy. Hopefully that clears things up a bit. As I've said, I'd never do anything to harm the Hollow World community, and it shames me that you would accuse me of it. My only intentions have ever been sincere and loyal to Altera. I beg forgiveness again, and ask for an appeal to my permanent ban. If you feel it necessary, ban me even to the new year. But not forever. Forever is a long time.​

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Also, I'd like a clear answer on what is 'legit' voting, according to the admins, if possible. Am I allowed to vote without taking credit? Am I allowed to vote as often as the sites allow? Can my team vote too, even though they don't play Minecraft? I'm willing to accept any limit, provided that the staff not prevent Hollow World from claiming it's rightful place as the top ranked server. That is, after all, the whole reason we are voting. The rads are just incentive for players who aren't loyal yet.​

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Again I apologize, for the third time I have yet to clarify, and because of that I've been permabanned. I can't express in words the sadness, even anger I felt when I realized what had happened. I'll accept any consequence, but I hope you'll remove the permanent ban. Thank you for taking the time to hear me out.​

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Long live Hollow World,​

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-Taezel​

 

[roopot]

you missed out the part about how you are able to vote on one website multiple time dispite only having a single IP address

 

[rauyran]

I have investigated the server logs and your story does not stack up Taezel. It's clear that you used a bot or an exploit to get a massive advantage over other players. In my mind this is on the same level as x-raying which ruins the game for other players and costs huge amounts of server team time to investigate. Anyone who does this deserves to be called what they are: a cheat.

In addition I think it's disgusting that you attempt to drag other players into this who have abided by the rules and played fairly.

This permaban stays and just like x-raying, is non appealable.