KOTastic Version 2.0!

[silentdj]

▪ We are also considering another "improvement" to the server (I use quotes, because not everyone is going to see it as an improvement). We are currently considering restricting accounts by IP address. What this means is that each account will be "country-locked", so only IPs from a specific country can log into the server using that account. We are considering this as an attempt to decrease the number of people sharing accounts and, inevitably, getting scammed/banned/some-other-terrible-thing-that-we-have-to-fix. We seriously don't like telling people that we can't help them, simply because they shared their account with a friend. Hopefully this will help to cut down on that problem.


If you have any questions, please get in contact with me.

don't think for a second that this would affect me in any way if i played your server, but im pretty sure people play private servers to get away from the K2 crap like your about to pull

[Shurt]

don't think for a second that this would affect me in any way if i played your server, but im pretty sure people play private servers to get away from the K2 crap like your about to pull

May I ask why? I understand that some people genuinely like sharing their accounts, but how can we, the staff, properly deal with something like a hacking or scamming if the person was sharing with one, two, or more people? Our policy thus far has been that they do not receive assistance, but that particular idea doesn't work very well.

[coolboyp2]

You're actually getting very close to being K2 , while schrotti may think that's a good idea since K2 is so "successful" , I think it will make more people quit.
I am not going to play the server anyways but this might make it worse for those who do.

[tHeUnBeAtAbLe]

This is obviously to prevent sharing. What people have to understand that sharing requires alot of trustability... and should be no one's concern. I disagree with this idea, as I have in USKO's past... however I see what you are trying to do... trying to create equality between players, so I guess I can say I understand the reason behind it.

[wuming1234]

I know I've been rather quiet lately, but we've been busy behind-the-scenes. Rather than some long narrative (because, I've been told, nobody likes my awesome wall o'text's) I'll bullet-point it.

▪ Firstly, the launch date. We are going to be pushing it back by a week. Now, before everyone gets in a fit over this, read why we are doing this and if you still have concerns, I'll try to address them. We recently applied a rather complicated patch to the AI server and, while we're always confident in our work, we would greatly prefer the server not crash on the first day. So, we will be applying that patch and monitoring the server to ensure everything is handling itself properly.
▪ Secondly, we were asked to allow the players to beta test the BDW and Bifrost events. We're fairly certain Bifrost is working properly, however, the BDW is new to myself, so we want to be sure it's working as it's intended to.
▪ Our staff application section is also up and running and we're accepting new applicants. Please be aware that we might not respond to the thread itself, but we always look into each applicant.
▪ Also, for those who might not have seen, we'll be refunding KC using a tiered approach. You'll receive 20% of the total KC that you've purchased, each week over a 5-week period. As for other PUS news, the class change package will be removed from the PUS during the beginning of the server, so that people don't level up a class that they don't really like, just to hit 60 faster.
▪ We are also considering another "improvement" to the server (I use quotes, because not everyone is going to see it as an improvement). We are currently considering restricting accounts by IP address. What this means is that each account will be "country-locked", so only IPs from a specific country can log into the server using that account. We are considering this as an attempt to decrease the number of people sharing accounts and, inevitably, getting scammed/banned/some-other-terrible-thing-that-we-have-to-fix. We seriously don't like telling people that we can't help them, simply because they shared their account with a friend. Hopefully this will help to cut down on that problem.

Finally, something on a more personal note. This concerns Parasitic. It's time to end the constant flaming. If you have a LEGITIMATE complaint against him, I'll be happy to hear it. However, him being blunt or otherwise insensitive is not something we're even going to listen to. We don't ask our GMs to be absolutely professional and always polite, because, as a GM, he is VOLUNTEERING his time to help out the server. It should feel like he's volunteering. Parasitic, Phantomlink, Extacy, and everyone else on my staff do not get paid for their amazing work, which is something I'm not sure if everyone really understands. They are simply volunteering. If they were being paid, I might be more inclined to agree that Parasitic should act a very specific way. However, since he isn't, I'm not going to. Parasitic does a good job of being a GM and, while his forum skills could use a bit of work, it's nothing that I'm concerned with. It's his style and I'm alright with that. I know that this mindset seems counter-intuitive to what our goal is (attracting new players) but it actually fits quite well, in my experience. Whenever I have been a GM, being exceptionally professional has led to people not liking me as much. Whereas now, on KOTastic, I've relaxed and people seem to prefer this style of GM'ing (for the most part, some people will always hate me regardless of what I do). I'm not saying that Parasitic's style is neither wrong nor right. It's his style.


If you have any questions, please get in contact with me.

This is a problem. You have so many modes of communication like twitter ,irc , panel forum , ko4life forum but you dont update them accordingly and you expect ppl to dig them out from these threads. If you cant do it then let the so call "GM" relay the msg and this isnt supposingly what they should do? Important msg like launch date delayed and patch info are not announced formally and this is why you get ppl saying "serwer hacket" when the server goes down for maintenance and even a quick restart because you allow them to keep guessing/doubting as you didnt give enough information through ALL proper channel. Just my opinion , and of course you can choose ignore. cheers

[Zealous]

BOLDED FOR LAZY READERS

I feel as though scammings no biggie, just do your best to spread a "no gm support for scams on multi-logged acounts" disclaimer. Gotta be some cons that come from the pros of sharing, and thats a scam-risk factor.

An IP restriction would be more restrictive to a minority of players. For example, players from the U.S / Canada you still have a large(r) amount of plausible sharers than say, players from the Netherlands or Australia.

Also, theres the fact that although it would deter some hardcores from sharing, those who tend towards the maximum end of the hardcore scale will still just VPN to share if need be. VPN isn't too pricey for some of these folks who spend fucktrucks worth of bucks on exp scrolls.

Eh, seeing as the exp rates have been decreased (from what I hear), the disparities in level between sharers and non-sharers won't be as considerable, so an IP-restriction would probably be most hindering for those honest-to-god low-on-time players sharing with a friend, rather than the people who have copious hours but share because they can't do their donald trump shit without some other people slogging away on their character.


I for one, don't share accounts but i'm just scrutinising your thought process. If theres no easy solution in sight, next best thing is to try to spin a profit. Mabey each time someone from a diffirent countries IP loggs in, the account it eats a day of premium. Iono, but think about whether or not an IP-restriction on accounts really is beneficial for the server / server population.

[xtommyleongx]

Just because they don't allow people to share accounts (IP block) that doesn't mean they are same as K2.

They are FAR from being K2... c'mon... think about it... if they are close to being K2... they would be having 10+ servers full with turkish players, koxp, lv83 Krowaz patch, computer generated customer service, money suckers, fuks up players most of times, needs prem to login, etc etc etc etc and the list goes on and on...

[Zealous]

Just because they don't allow people to share accounts (IP block) that doesn't mean they are same as K2.

They are FAR from being K2... c'mon... think about it... if they are close to being K2... they would be having 10+ servers full with turkish players, koxp, lv83 Krowaz patch, computer generated customer service, money suckers, fuks up players most of times, needs prem to login, etc etc etc etc and the list goes on and on...

Eh, it's K2'esque; or atleast a dive in the wrong direction.

[xtommyleongx]

Eh, it's K2'esque; or atleast a dive in the wrong direction.

I personally think that its a good move to have IP restriction as to level out the playing field... I'm just trying to point out that they are not running the server as K2 is just because they want to implement that IP restriction...

anyways, good luck on KOTastic 2.0

Cheers!

[Shurt]

BOLDED FOR LAZY READERS

I feel as though scammings no biggie, just do your best to spread a "no gm support for scams on multi-logged acounts" disclaimer. Gotta be some cons that come from the pros of sharing, and thats a scam-risk factor.

An IP restriction would be more restrictive to a minority of players. For example, players from the U.S / Canada you still have a large(r) amount of plausible sharers than say, players from the Netherlands or Australia.

Also, theres the fact that although it would deter some hardcores from sharing, those who tend towards the maximum end of the hardcore scale will still just VPN to share if need be. VPN isn't too pricey for some of these folks who spend fucktrucks worth of bucks on exp scrolls.

Eh, seeing as the exp rates have been decreased (from what I hear), the disparities in level between sharers and non-sharers won't be as considerable, so an IP-restriction would probably be most hindering for those honest-to-god low-on-time players sharing with a friend, rather than the people who have copious hours but share because they can't do their donald trump shit without some other people slogging away on their character.


I for one, don't share accounts but i'm just scrutinising your thought process. If theres no easy solution in sight, next best thing is to try to spin a profit. Mabey each time someone from a diffirent countries IP loggs in, the account it eats a day of premium. Iono, but think about whether or not an IP-restriction on accounts really is beneficial for the server / server population.

Before I respond to your comments, I'd first like to thank you for a proper response, rather than the by-now standard, "ZOMG GREEDY" or "ZOMG UNDEZ IS BLAH" or everything else that we've gotten lately. Thank you for that.

Firstly, we were only considering it. In fact, should we go through with it, we haven't even begun getting it ready, lol.

Our biggest issue with sharing wasn't the huge difference between sharers versus non-sharers. Like you mentioned, it was with people being scammed/hacked/whatever else. None of us are very fond of telling people that the character that they spent their time/money on is completely lost, even if we have proof of what happened. And if we fixed those that we had absolute proof for, then people would inevitably get angry, not understanding the policy.

Also, no offense, but I highly doubt that we could take a premium day or whatever without pissing a lot of people off. :P

[KonohaFlash]

When is the BDW and bifrost patch going to be applied on the server so that it can be tested by the players? I'm assmuing Thursday since that was the original re-release?

[endl]

Like you mentioned, it was with people being scammed/hacked/whatever else. None of us are very fond of telling people that the character that they spent their time/money on is completely lost, even if we have proof of what happened.

Multi-login system and account sealing or item sealing.

Multi-login system: One username/password for web only(panel). Second username/password for ingame. Forcing the passwords to be different.

[silentdj]

This is obviously to prevent sharing. What people have to understand that sharing requires alot of trustability... and should be no one's concern. I disagree with this idea, as I have in USKO's past... however I see what you are trying to do... trying to create equality between players, so I guess I can say I understand the reason behind it.

yes i don't think this is for any account security they are saying(there is much better ways to secure a account), its obviously so people don't get ahead by sharing and they don't have to listen to the rest of the server crying because one clan is over powered because they have 10x sharers, anyway im not playing so ill stop

[Shurt]

I enjoy how everyone thinks that we have ulterior motives in every decision that we make. Is it so difficult to believe that we'd rather people's accounts be secure?


endl, I'm not entirely sure if item sealing is possible, but I can look into it. As for the two-separate-passwords idea, what would that fix? I only ask because if someone were maliciously logging into your account, they would still be able to drain the account of any items/coins. I assume the point of this would be to allow sharers without enforcing an IP restriction. If I'm wrong, feel free to correct me. Perhaps I'm missing something :P

[endl]

endl, I'm not entirely sure if item sealing is possible, but I can look into it. As for the two-separate-passwords idea, what would that fix? I only ask because if someone were maliciously logging into your account, they would still be able to drain the account of any items/coins. I assume the point of this would be to allow sharers without enforcing an IP restriction. If I'm wrong, feel free to correct me. Perhaps I'm missing something :P

mmm.. just trying to propose a better solution than some IP restriction plan (what about international travelers,etc Would have to make it changable? If it can be changed.. potentially worthless?)

Multi-login system and account sealing or item sealing.
The 'and' was to imply together?

Implementing the login system by itself that would only prevent complete character loss if used properly. (Unless char deletion is enabled ingame) Ah lot of ifs and buts when used by itself.

They would be able to drain the coins with item sealing anyway.

If you can create an item that is untradable AND unsellable AND preferably undeleteable right now, then it should be possible depending on any server/client item count limitations?