Bugs Exploits and Errors.

According to the Conditions of Use:

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n. You must report errors and bugs to MindArk whenever you discover them. Neglecting to report errors or bugs, or using bugs or ‘exploits’ for own benefits may result in a termination of your Avatar account, including its virtual items, funds, and abilities.[/sign]

But we have a problem.

Lets face it to know what is an error we must first know what is the correct version.
So unless MA gives us much more information you might get in trouble for doing fairly acceptable activities.

So lets begin, this thread might be started for several previous reasons but I'll just use an example that is actual this days.

Somebody is activelly advertising a site that sells exploits to the game and MA doesn't seem to care.

on the other hand

This forum user named "Noggin" which says that is Soc: Leader - nothing AND nowhere (nAn)

Seems to have his account locked to a fair use of an ability he had.

I don't want to acuse or defend anybody actions,
I just want that MA give us more information whenever it is required.

In wikipedia you'll find that:

A software bug is an error, flaw, mistake, failure, or fault in a computer program that prevents it from working as intended, or produces an incorrect result. Bugs arise from mistakes and errors, made by people, in either a program's source code or its design. A program that contains a large number of bugs, and/or bugs that seriously interfere with its functionality, is said to be buggy. Reports about bugs in a program are referred to as bug reports, also called PRs (problem reports), trouble reports, CRs (change requests), and so forth.

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The word error has different meanings in different domains. Current meanings in some of those domains are described below. The concrete meaning of the Latin word error means "wandering" or "straying", although the metaphorical meaning "mistake, misapprehension" is actually more common. To the contrary of an illusion, an error or a mistake can be dispelled through knowledge (knowing that one is looking at a mirage and not at real water doesn't make the mirage disappear). In a similar manner, ideology can't be dispelled by simple knowledge of its existence, but only, marxists argue, by a shift in perspective.

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Basically for us to obbey the Conditions of use we'll require knowledge.
Sure that one may say that sometimes it is obvious that something isn't working the way that it was expected by them, but until they get more knowledge, by for example asking support, what they have is just an "opinion" until they got the answer.

So lets take Noggin example.

No where in an officially certified by MA source of information I could find that the only way you can get into CND is thought the use of a spaceship and no other possible way.

No where in an officially certified by MA source of information I could find out what the Powerfull Wormhole Chip can do after the introduction of VU 8.0.
I can only supose that for 678 ME and some PECs decay an avatar that has enough skill to use it will create an wormhole.

And I can find no official certified release what currently is a wormhole, its advantadges, possibilities of use and such.
I never created an Wormhole since I don't have the skills, but if I had them what justification would there be to prevent me from creating one to CND or the spacestation.
It states no range on it, and if the interface would allow me to create one to CND I would.
And if people would pay for me to do it much the better.
Now some say that MA didn't intend you to use it that way.
So I ask you how can we know that for sure.
Why in the first place do you say that MA didn't expect us to use it that way anyhow ???

All my ideas of what a wormhole should be can also be found at:
Wikipedia:

In physics, a wormhole is a hypothetical topological feature of spacetime that is essentially a "shortcut" through space and time. A wormhole has at least two mouths which are connected to a single throat. If the wormhole is traversable, matter can 'travel' from one mouth to the other by passing through the throat.

The name "wormhole" comes from the following analogy used to explain the phenomenon: imagine that the universe is the skin of an apple, and a worm is traveling over its surface. The distance from one side of the apple to the other is equal to half the apple's circumference if the worm stays on the apple's surface, but if it instead burrows a wormhole directly through the apple the distance it has to travel is considerably less.

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So it was pretty obvious that since they were 2 points on the same universe then a Wormhole should be able to connect them.

You may say what was the point of spaceships.
Well to use the wormhole you have to skill in a area that it is very expensive to reach that level in the first place. So you economical arguments is void since both had to invest a considerable ammount to use the ability.
So if you don't have skills you must buy an hangar, if you have skills you can either buy an hangar and make it funtional or buy a Powerfull Wormhole Chip.

Second, would be that it doesn't cost the same.
Well then ban everybody that uses Imp Mk2 because it doesn't cost the same to kill a creature by using it comparing it to other weapons.

Third it wasn't possible to create an wormhole from CND back to Calipso.
Ok this time I say you might be right,
Accordingly to the EULA I would be forced to report a bug.

The bug was that I couldn't create wormholes from CND to Calipso like I was expecting.

Hey I think I will make a support case this week.
The title will be :

What will happen if I happen to create a Wormhole from inside a Robot Ship Mission to come to buy more ammo and to recover fellow partners that died in the mean time during the mission.

No where it is stated that I can't, nor that I shouldn't be expected to be sucessfull on this intention; I would only ask because I might fear that the servers couldn't handle the stress and make the mission impossible to be ended.

So my request to MA is simple.

Release more information and details before starting locking/freezing accounts for non-main-stream utilisations of the abilities available to us.
Many people like me enjoy the game because we like to investigate all the possibilities.
If you know that a possibilty isn't allowed you should warn us about it otherwise we can't be blamed for choosing what it seemed a valid solution.

My best wishes.

It seems ludicrous that MA doesn't inform the users more about these issues.

I can understand if they don't want to use the CL homepage to do this as this is visible on their main website as far as I remember so it wouldn't be great publicity to have a news page full of bug warnings etc.

There are other ways to make users aware of these issues, however:

-They could add this information to the newsletters they email to users
-They could add a section where you login to their website.
-They could open an official forum again

As it stands it seems that only users that read these forums are even aware that the wormhole to CND thing is considered an exploit.

Even after the LG fiasco I am still not entirely sure on their attitude towards auto-clickers. Third party software is mentioned in the EULA but this is not really a helpful or definitive statement. Various 3rd party software is running on my PC when I am logged into PE - anti-virus, windows but I am not using any of it to give me an unfair advantage in PE. I am beginning to suffer a bit from RSI in my old age so I use an auto-clicker sometimes while mining or crafting. Again I am not gaining an unfair advantage by doing this, and if MA tell me definitively that I can't then I will stop crafting and mining until they implement a way to automate this in-game.

PE-Ass is another example. As someone else pointed out it doesn't interact with PE but rather acts in the same way as having another PC running to check auction prices, forums etc. while playing. Again MA seem unable to state to players whether they tolerate it or it risks you being locked.

Surely a statement on these issues similar to my example below would not unduly compromise MA or PE and would have huge advantages in terms of player trust, reduced support cases etc.? I chose PE-Ass as the example btw because it is one of the more complicated cases - others such as the wormhole bug should be much simpler for MA to make a clear statement about.

Fictional Example Statement From MA Concerning PE-Ass

I am sure that you understand that for various reasons we cannot sanction 3rd Party software as stated in our EULA.

- We do not have the resources to fully test such applications to ensure their compatibility with the PE environment.
- Applications such as PE-Ass are in state of constant development as is PE and as such may become incompatible or subject to exploits at any time.
- Given that your application seems to be of general benefit to the player community and is not known to cause any serious issues it is currently tolerated at the users own risk, however we accept no responsibility for any issues that arise in PE whilst a player is using this application
- Although this application is currently tolerated we would make users aware that we reserve the right to amend this policy without notice should an issue arise. We will endeavour to inform users as quickly as possible if an issue does arise but you should be aware that if it is a serious issue it may be necessary to lock the accounts involved immediately before a statement can be made.