Post by Insomniac By Choice on Aug 27, 2007 14:05:19 GMT -5
I wasn't going to mention them specifically, but yeah, charges of that have dogged them. They say it's not cheating because their alts are several suburbs apart and I think they've outright denied any alts are used for just standing up and holding a spot, but I also know they'd be okay with it because it's not explicitly against the rules. I just have a problem with using an account as a tool rather than a character, which is my only problem with zombie scouts. A level 1 scout that runs through a mall a few days before a zombie horde hits it is a tool, not a character. However, I am okay with big hordes (a la Shacknews or LUE) utilizing scouts when that's part of a person's job as a character. Same reason I'm okay with death cultists. Someone is playing them, not just using them.
My other problem is that I have fears Extinction actually is engaging in widespread multi abuse after I heard them make their argument to explain and justify the policies they do openly admit to.
I may be reading this graph wrong (thank sten from Brainstock), but to me it looks like a lot more zombies started playing right after the 12th of August. You see the spike for Yahooma's Day and there were just a lot more people playing in general. It's weird, but there's an explanation for so many new players. Otherwise, dips in one group, especially in survivors, ought to be matched by a similar rise in zombies. You see that happening at the beginning of the chart, all the way up to Yahooma's Day. But then at the end, that weird thing happens where suddenly zombies are appearing out of nowhere (because dead bodies never significantly increase).
Some of that can be explained by Caiger Mall because that happened right around then and Shacknews came back as OEM?, for example, after not playing for a long time. But that's 50 people, max, and you wouldn't even notice that on that graph. Maybe LUE's membership drive brought us 50 more people, so that's 100 people. Maybe another forum like LUE joined at that time and all started playing zombies. But there were 14,000 zombies on the 14th and 15,000 on 17th. Hundreds died in the attack on Caiger and that explains a lot of the increase in zombies, but not the appearance of new characters as zombies.
However, it's also the time that Extinction starting moving down from the north to start its push south (and also east). You can hold, say, 6 suburbs with 150 active members, lots of active ferals, clever use of tagging (which is one thing they don't get enough credit for). But 25 suburbs is far too much for 150 zombies. So they have residual ferals that struck Caiger, they have the Eastonwood Ferals and Caiger Resistance Front. And they have ruin which they've used as well as any zombie group in the game. But when I hear their stance on alts and I see a pretty huge jump in zombies (feeding almost the entire new active players jump), I get incredibly suspicious.
And to be fair, this is all speculation, there's no proof I know of that they've ever engaged in creating token alts, and they are remarkably organized and strategic regardless of what tactics they use, but I know they're not against something like this in the name of their "play to win" philosophy and that makes me feel like such speculation is not baseless.
My other problem is that I have fears Extinction actually is engaging in widespread multi abuse after I heard them make their argument to explain and justify the policies they do openly admit to.
I may be reading this graph wrong (thank sten from Brainstock), but to me it looks like a lot more zombies started playing right after the 12th of August. You see the spike for Yahooma's Day and there were just a lot more people playing in general. It's weird, but there's an explanation for so many new players. Otherwise, dips in one group, especially in survivors, ought to be matched by a similar rise in zombies. You see that happening at the beginning of the chart, all the way up to Yahooma's Day. But then at the end, that weird thing happens where suddenly zombies are appearing out of nowhere (because dead bodies never significantly increase).
Some of that can be explained by Caiger Mall because that happened right around then and Shacknews came back as OEM?, for example, after not playing for a long time. But that's 50 people, max, and you wouldn't even notice that on that graph. Maybe LUE's membership drive brought us 50 more people, so that's 100 people. Maybe another forum like LUE joined at that time and all started playing zombies. But there were 14,000 zombies on the 14th and 15,000 on 17th. Hundreds died in the attack on Caiger and that explains a lot of the increase in zombies, but not the appearance of new characters as zombies.
However, it's also the time that Extinction starting moving down from the north to start its push south (and also east). You can hold, say, 6 suburbs with 150 active members, lots of active ferals, clever use of tagging (which is one thing they don't get enough credit for). But 25 suburbs is far too much for 150 zombies. So they have residual ferals that struck Caiger, they have the Eastonwood Ferals and Caiger Resistance Front. And they have ruin which they've used as well as any zombie group in the game. But when I hear their stance on alts and I see a pretty huge jump in zombies (feeding almost the entire new active players jump), I get incredibly suspicious.
And to be fair, this is all speculation, there's no proof I know of that they've ever engaged in creating token alts, and they are remarkably organized and strategic regardless of what tactics they use, but I know they're not against something like this in the name of their "play to win" philosophy and that makes me feel like such speculation is not baseless.