Account reset?

[Algiers]

This attitude of "make a reset so vets may lose all their progress so we could catch up with them" is extremely similar to the philosophy of communism: Instead of making it possible for everyone to become rich, make everyone evenly poor.

Boy, ain't you the philosopher king...

 

[Puar]

Spoiler

There is a saying. If something looks like a duck, acts like a duck and sounds like a duck, it is a duck.

Now on tokens:
1)Does it look like a purchase?
Yes, because you always get tokens in exchange. There is no precedent that tokens were promised and later refused in exchange for real money. So let's not go theoretical what could be done, because it never was done.
2) Does it acts like a purchase?
Yes, because you get something in return which gives you advantage over the other players in the game. Just as any MMO with microtransaction works.
3) Does it "sounds" like a purchase (in this case: what is the main motivation of the "donator")?
Yes, because 99% of the players send the money so they can get tokens for it.
4) Does it look like a donation?
No, because it expressly says that you will get tokens for every USD you send.
5) Does it acts like a donation?
No, because you get something which gives you an advantage in the game.
6) Does it "sounds" like a donation?
No, not at all, because the main motivation is not charity but getting something in return.

Let me say, I have no issue with calling it donation. It is necessary so this project can live on, otherwise the authorities would shut PWO down in no time. But please, at least among us let's not be pharisaicals and hypocrites and let's admit it: the whole token system is nothing else than microtransaction and the devs have no other choice but keeping it that way, otherwise. Why do we have to do the whole farce and galanty show and act like it would be anything else but what it is? PURCHASE. Which is enforced even more by the fact, that there is no bookkeeping about the incomes. If it truly would be a donation, there should be a "donation meter" or something which indicates how much money the game needs to remain up and running in every month or year. But here players donate hundreds of dollars on a daily basis, and we don't know what happens to that money, but most likely there is always a surplus compared to the monthly cost of the server. What happens to that money? Nobody knows but Xan who is almost never around... Well... Let me not say anything more about this one right now.
If the devs would ever chose not to distribute tokens for real money any more, it truly would be donation, but I don't think it would happen in the near future.

Should we choose to suspend giving out Tokens for any reason, or refuse to gift tokens for a particular transaction, this is perfectly within our rights as the receipt of the Tokens was never a contractual obligation.

Thanks, I think I understood the threat. Of course, it wasn't a threat 8)

*

Zebby you still didn't give any good reason why would you play with peoples' money, time, and effort spent on this game. Those newcomers who always demand a reset are almost always try to support their case with the argument that they can't compete with the veterans who have this and that insanely valuable Pokes and how unfair it is. I think it's nothing else but jealousy. They know the way to get money and Pokemon, so why don't they do that? Why do they want to ruin others' hard work instead?
And I never ever said that any member of the current staff would be in this project for the money. Not that I know of at least.

For the record: I am NOT a veteran with many very valuable Pokemon (not with market value anyway, but with sentimental value - to me ), nor a massive donator who spends regularly serious money on PWO.

TLR
Explaining how donations look
Complaining about an account reset which has not been confirmed and ignoring the stated plans of a dedicated server.
Speaking in the interest of veterans?

I am not the oldest player around but I have been playing PWO for 4.5 years now. I have spent close to $1,000 dollars donating in that time. I 100% support a server reset in the event that PWO moves out of beta. There is too much baggage right now. Too many pokemon which should not exist. Too many pokemon and money that has been introduced through cheating. For this game to be all it can be there needs to be either a server reset or 2 servers.

To those of you that say that PWO would lose half of its player base with a server wipe. I say you are underestimating and good. I bet we would lose 80% of our players and that isn't a bad thing. Too many peacocks walking around with their pretty pokemon and their chests out for no reason.

Anyways, that time is still far away as far as I know. When we start having serious discussions about what to do with the beta as we move on rest assured that we will do what is best for PWO and while the concerns of our oldest and most loyal players will be considered, it is not our priority to serve only their interests.

I am tempted to lock this topic but meh. Continue if you want to. I'm sure someone is going to be hot and bothered by this post.

 

[Hydrahax]

My opinion about that: People who defend WIPE just started now, they don't know HOW MANY MONEY people spend and how many time wasted trying to improve it. Weak people tend to want the wipe, so they can be equal. Wipe would just be acceptable if the staff REFUNDS who wasted money if some type of plan (who would take A LOT of work).
Then i think the should carry the baggage to the new server, and not letting the OLD ONE server for the players who wasted tons of hours and money on the game. It's like: They helped us, now we let for them a old no-update server and creat a new one. Doesn't make sense.

I support a wipe of sorts and I have spent quite a lot on tokens. You also have quite a few points wrong. You seem to imply that you spent money on this game which you did not. You donated to this game. Those tokens are a thank you for your donation, people always seem to forget this. Im not going to go into the whole "after a beta there is usually a reset" portion because its been covered immensely. You are broadly generalizing.

I didn't waste nothing here, but i know people who wasted. I could simply support the wipe too, but i don't think it's fair. Also, i agreed with almost everything you sayed.

 

[Tombradyrocks]

I don't have an issue with losing what I've donated for to be honest, because it's just a donation I understand that. It would just be annoying to lose all the hours and hours of effort myself and other players have put in.

That being said I'd keep playing even if a wipe occurred.

 

[Hydrahax]

I don't have an issue with losing what I've donated for to be honest, because it's just a donation I understand that. It would just be annoying to lose all the hours and hours of effort myself and other players have put in.

That being said I'd keep playing even if a wipe occurred.

Same here. That's my opinion about it.

 

[OGPokemaster]

you seem to be under the impression that just because YOU spent your time and money on a game that has notoriously been stuck in beta for a long time, that you should automatically keep everything you spent said time and money on. PWO is not like the average mmo but it is still an mmo and in mmos once beta is finished most of them are wiped completely so i dont see why you'd be upset when this is a common occurrence everywhere else. and frankly i dont see any reason for you to go around saying that people who are for a clean wipe are just being jealous, no they just want a fair start for everyone once beta ends. is that really to much to ask for? your making the pro-wipers out to be people that are just going out of there way to ruin your playing experience out of pure spite. and as for your saying people know how to get money and pokemon, well then it shouldnt be to hard for you to do the same if the server is wiped right?

 

[Merse]

A "fair start"? Well, maybe fair from your point of view, but maybe not form others'. "Fair" is rarely an objective category and that's exactly what this debate is about. And in case you still didn't get it: I wouldn't lost much with a wipe. I have only S Commons and a very nice Charizard, and that's all! As I said, I am not a veteran, nor someone who donates a lot. So you could say I'm an underdog too.
And guess what buddy! I'm working everyday on getting better Pokemon just as you should do instead of whining. Did I say it will be easy to get enough money for a S VR? Did I say that it will be easy to catch a S HR? No, but that doesn't stop me form trying, and definitely won't mean ever that I would want the server to be wiped to make "equal chances" for everyone. And yes, whenever someone with less than one (or two) year of experience mentions "fair start" or "fair chances" or "equal chances" to support a server wipe, I think it is based on jealousy. What would us know about equity in PWO anyway? We barely got here.

 

[1stClassGenesis]

Merse, Shush, you have no idea what your talking about, any and all restarts that pwo could/would/might have is all reasonable, this is a testing phase in pwos lifecycle, if pwo got a new client and certain test were needed, then yes, there would be a account restart if judgement was proven neccesary.

 

[Ramensnoodle]

Its always funny how people defend the term Donations on project like this knowing very well its simply for legal reasons. I understand why a staff would defend it but players come on really? If you actually want to see what a donation is try announcing on forums and twitter that you going to remove tokens for money received and do it for a month and see what you get. Funny how people can talk about it but most of them won't do it if they get nothing.

I understand where the support comes for a wipe because many want it to clean up the illegally acquired stuff in game. I agree with this for like resetting money but not really pokes, if you want to get rid of those you know the ones that shouldn't be in game and was acquired illegally just remove those. I have spent more time than most in game acquiring what I have nothing spectacular but its what I put in time for and I know others the worked by the rules to get where they are also think the same. I have less than 10 pokes on my account that was not caught by me so believe me I put in work to get where I am now.
And before you say beta again, yes when I started this game from what I saw talked about it would seem to be a beta game but betas are actually worked on PWO wasn't for a long time. This is the first time since I joined that it can actually be classed as a beta game before it was like was said before a game with a beta tag just to cover for its shortcomings.
I used to support a reset when it came out of beta but sadly I no longer do and I know staff keep saying its not set in stone and I really wish this is true.

 

[OGPokemaster]

Lmfao i am by no means whining about this, i've spent the last 2 months in DD trying to get a Shiny bagon or slowking and i can honestly say that id still be for a server reset if i had caught one of them. and I have over 26 boxs of pokemon, true 2 or 3 are full of snorunts and zigzagoons, but i can say tht about 2 boxs could be filled with just shiny commons, and 2 more full of lvl 99 battlers (not all are good) but still if i where to sell them i would sit on a good amount of money and like i said im still in favor of a reset. and no i dont have Shiny R, VR, or HR either but that doesn't mean im jealous of people that do and i have only about 600+ hours, so yeah i have worked extremely hard to get what i have in the short time that ive played.

yes fair is all from the perspective of the person, and the staff is trying to be fair to both sides by having 2 servers one for the new client and one for the old, which i will once again say would a waste of resources but w.e thats just my own opinion.

 

[RevengeOfTheWaterBottle]

if you want to get rid of those you know the ones that shouldn't be in game and was acquired illegally just remove those

how are they going to tell? it's easy to see if there's...like...a magikarp that knows explosion that it's def. been hacked. but what about people who traded normally with botters/hackers for illegal but normal looking UCs or shinies? and what if those pokemon had been traded around several times before the botter was caught and banned, along with the legit pokes that were exchanged for the illegal pokes as well?
are you wanting them to manually find and reverse hundreds of thousands of trades, some dating 3+ years back, and THEN remove the illegal pokemon? that'd take up huge amounts of time and guesswork that may or may not even be accurate. it might take so much work that it's not even possible.

or do they just remove the fair player's valuables straight up and continue doing so as time goes by, every time they find an illegal player and his pokes? it'd be hard for players to prevent it either, because a botted shiny is the same as a legit one. a speedhacked level 99 Dragonite looks the same as a normal level 99 dragonite. so either way that would have a huge mess with unhappy people.

so no offense, but I can't see that being a viable options at all...and honestly after looking at most of these responses you all are ignoring a lot of things. like with what somebody said said a lot of staff have hundreds of hours on the game too, maybe some donated several monies, yet you accuse them of just playing around with people's stuff. and do you honestly expect a game to run on empty donations? so you critisize them for doing something that would keep the game alive and i bet you would yell at them if they took it away because you want the game without putting in the part. its all about your and somebody elses stuff isn't it?

and then when they say they have to half reset it eventually, (half cuz your stuff is going to be around anyway), because of all of the issues this old game has been hurt by, people get angry in place of another person who may or may not feel the way the posters are saying, or even exist.

 

[Ramensnoodle]

I know its not a viable solution I just said that because it seems illegal stuff is the reason many support a reset. But believe me players know and I know a few staff know quite a bit of what those illegally obtained pokes are and who has them, I've seen multiple discussions about it and the fact that nothing was done. I was going to give some more points on why there should not be a reset but I don't see any need to getting riled up for something that's still a long way off anymore. Will just leave my thoughts for when that time comes or till someone makes another thread like this.

 

[Algiers]

I know its not a viable solution I just said that because it seems illegal stuff is the reason many support a reset. But believe me players know and I know a few staff know quite a bit of what those illegally obtained pokes are and who has them,

How is it possible to tell the difference between a Pokemon gained legitly and one caught through botting? If it has legit moves and everything as usual, with only the owner having used an automated script to catch it, I don't realise how one could tell the difference. Forgive me if I don't just believe you on that without evidence.

 

[RevengeOfTheWaterBottle]

But believe me players know and I know a few staff know quite a bit of what those illegally obtained pokes are and who has them, I've seen multiple discussions about it and the fact that nothing was done

sounds like it would start a witchhunt that could easily turn nasty...and a "few" removed pokes probably wouldnt make up for billions of pokemoney and several thousand potentially untraceable/forgotten illegal pokemon

 

[Merse]

How is it possible to tell the difference between a Pokemon gained legitly and one caught through botting? If it has legit moves and everything as usual, with only the owner having used an automated script to catch it, I don't realise how one could tell the difference. Forgive me if I don't just believe you on that without evidence.

One simple soulution is to check the OT of the Poke. If it was a well-known botter, then there is your answer. It's not a 100% effective method though...

 

[Algiers]

How is it possible to tell the difference between a Pokemon gained legitly and one caught through botting? If it has legit moves and everything as usual, with only the owner having used an automated script to catch it, I don't realise how one could tell the difference. Forgive me if I don't just believe you on that without evidence.

One simple soulution is to check the OT of the Poke. If it was a well-known botter, then there is your answer. It's not a 100% effective method though...

Partly because botters are just like real-life criminals. The small-time crooks using poor methods get caught and destroyed by the police, but the criminals who make it really big, the businessmen and politicians in sterile suits and a really dark past prosper while their secrets aren't discovered. I'm certain that there are at least a few pretty damn rich people who have botted during their playing history and gotten away with it, because that's just how it is in every game. MMOs with more resources than PWO have tried and failed to stop botters from becoming undetectable.