Im forwarding this for impolais.

Today , 01:31 AM | #1

REPORT POST QUOTE

I have an ideal that my guild an I have been throwing around........... let a select group of players that want to help foster a fair environment, and a productive way to combat the overwhelming number of hackers in the game. We can achieve this together by using a cooperative customer to vendor/service provider relationship. using a select volunteer group of players/ customers that are willing to give up some volunteer time to police the war zones with an avatar provided by you to their account that one can not be targeted, can not be stunned/snared and has the hit point of three endgame bosses (basically untouchable).. Now with that said these avatars CAN NOT ATTACK OR INTERVENE WITH THE WAR ZONE HE IS ASSIGNED TO IN ANY WAY.. we are just there as RECORDING OBSERVERS that report our findings to you. Now that being the meat and potatoes just having these avatars that hold a GM tag and do not count to any team or accomplish any awards during said match would be a great deterrent to most hackers today. But, it doesn't stop there. I say if we find any players of the same guild not only should the Ban be on the players but since more than one player of the same guild was witnessed, the guild itself should be punished by stripping all players in said guild from all war zone comms, gear and valor. Basically putting them all back to square one as we can not validate whether they received said gear/awards by help from the cheater/hackers in their guild. This is meant to provide a stigma against collaborative hacking communities.

This idea sounds good at first, but then I start thining of what it would mean and the more of that I do the more I realise this idea is not as good as it sounds.

1: It would be interesting to a few to be monitoring WZs like this, for a while and then we'd be back on square one.

2: There would not be anywhere near as many of these polices as needed to have any effect.

3: This is in regards to the penal system suggested. Not all guilds are as small as needed to guarantee that all members can be trusted not to break any rules.

4: Punishing the collective done by an individual is never right.

Here is the premise

. Many players have spent, and continue to spend large amounts of time, and money.. via subscriptions and for cartel coins.. People have bought computers solely for this game and may have spent hundreds of dollars in such add-ons . These same people have seen that investment tarnished and have lost a great deal of enjoyment due to people who hack. If you spend any real time in WZ ( War Zones) you have seen the hacks, Speed, immunity double damage, and lately a new one has seen rise that allows people to tick abilities repeatedly with no gap, or even eliminate cool-downs on abilities. Volunteers who have that much time and money invested are trying to come up with a way that we as a community can police our own. The mentality is that if I already have months ( PLAYED TIME, not just subscription time type /played and you'll see what I mean) then I want to see that investment protected. In order to do that I am willing to give up 8 hours in a day a couple times a month , randomly , to observe for hackers that are ruining the fair play mentality for others in the community.

When you have entire guilds or large sections of guilds that blatantly use hacks to receive undo rewards at the cost of other players it is fairly obvious what the result is. Subscriptions decline and a game dies or like in the days of EVE online the only people that play are those that hack. WOW had problems with hackers early on. and when GM characters started appearing for this very same purpose, hackers were Banned player enjoyment increased and subscriptions and revenue stream to the provider increased as well.

People like me understand that the current system of tattle telling isnt working, and that bioware may not have the assets available to have full time Dev's or observers for such an activity . This is essentially I , as a player, have an assigned GM character and a approved recording program that I use to do nothing more than be present for WZ after WZ , unaffiliated with any team. I receive no awards for being present in the WZ . I can move as I would around the WZ and watch the player interaction with my Parser log observing and recordeing. Players could call out immediately when they observe what they believe to be a hack and I observe. I make notes and submit my logs and recording of the given interaction for review by the Developers. While I may spend 8 or 12 hours in a session observing, there may be 10 -12 incidents to be reviewed thus saving those PAID man hours for Bioware employees down to maybe a single hour of footage or code to observe for anomalies.

The hacking I have seen is done by not just one individual in a guild. Typically you will see 2-3 in a WZ that work together while the rest reap the benefits. Some guilds are entirely hackers and trade off who will use them to minimize the likelihood that they will be collectively caught. If Players KNOW there is a chance that they will lose whatever legitimately attained gear on top of the illegitimate then they will be much more likely to keep the hackers out of their guilds or to protect their guilds from such action, report those that are using hacks and exploits.

Players have all signed a user agreement this is an extension of that agreement If you are NOT a hacker , you have nothing to worry about. If you find yourself in a guild using hacks then that is a great reason to quit and find a new one.

We can either sit idly by and watch a game that we have come to enjoy be ruined and end up losing friends by our silence . Or we as a community can offer our best ideas , and a little sacrifice of time ( think of it as a playtester) to keep it alive and help it thrive.

Passionate though it is. Your ideas are not well thought out.

#1 You would never get enough volunteers to be police

#2 You would invariably get corrupt police who would report the innocent that they do not like

#3 Punishing guildmates for actions they did not personally do is wrong, period.

#4 No need to mess with stripping things away, if they are truly hacking, just perma ban the account.

A better answer would be to have a few GM's to monitor hacking report tickets and actually respond in short order so they are able to witness said player and document the activities and Ban on the spot.

I am sorry BW, but the do research for 3 months then patch holes is not cutting it. The hackers have better programmers. You need to be much more aggressive on banning accounts for such things.

Also, when you ban a hacker in pvp, most likely you will get a new purchase of the game out of it. So it is a double win!

Passionate though it is. Your ideas are not well thought out.

 

#1 You would never get enough volunteers to be police

You will never know if you dont try...

#2 You would invariably get corrupt police who would report the innocent that they do not like

The code speaks for it self the innocent have nothing to worry.

#3 Punishing guildmates for actions they did not personally do is wrong, period. police other servers then your own.

#4 No need to mess with stripping things away, if they are truly hacking, just perma ban the account. As stated perma ban hacker... if more than one from same guild in the warzone in question then PA gets stripped...

 

A better answer would be to have a few GM's to monitor hacking report tickets and actually respond in short order so they are able to witness said player and document the activities and Ban on the spot.

 

I am sorry BW, but the do research for 3 months then patch holes is not cutting it. The hackers have better programmers. You need to be much more aggressive on banning accounts for such things.

 

Also, when you ban a hacker in pvp, most likely you will get a new purchase of the game out of it. So it is a double win!

Well i addressed your questions as stated by OP... I dont see any problems again Count me in. And as far as haveing GM on short order to address ticks on hackers. If that was going to happen it would have happened long ago... Get on board with some type od solution

I'm a hundred percent behind this.

Many of the biggest gripes is that:

(1) Not enough people to police the match. Think about real police. Are there enough to catch all the speeders? No, but there is enough to make me worry enough to not speed. They don't even need to be there to put enough fear into some so they don't do it. Kind of like the FBI.

(2) They will report those who are innocent. This could be a problem - if the "police player" had powers.

Honestly, two things should be done to this "Police Player".

(1) Make them invisible to EVERYONE. No one could know this player was there, just like those cops hiddne behind signs. This should, keyword should, put the fear into some not to do it, and those who are foolish enough to think they aren't being watched, will fall.

(2) Allow them to have a direct access to an available GM, but no other powers than that. Or if anything, "tag" a player, and make it where it can't be accidental, and this player is put on a "watch list".

Make it where this position cannot be abused.

I'm a hundred percent behind this.

 

Many of the biggest gripes is that:

 

(1) Not enough people to police the match. Think about real police. Are there enough to catch all the speeders? No, but there is enough to make me worry enough to not speed. They don't even need to be there to put enough fear into some so they don't do it. Kind of like the FBI.

 

(2) They will report those who are innocent. This could be a problem - if the "police player" had powers.

 

Honestly, two things should be done to this "Police Player".

 

(1) Make them invisible to EVERYONE. No one could know this player was there, just like those cops hiddne behind signs. This should, keyword should, put the fear into some not to do it, and those who are foolish enough to think they aren't being watched, will fall.

 

(2) Allow them to have a direct access to an available GM, but no other powers than that. Or if anything, "tag" a player, and make it where it can't be accidental, and this player is put on a "watch list".

 

Make it where this position cannot be abused.

Completely agree. And thank you for posting and pointing out some problems with the op and having solutions to the problem.

Please rip into this ideal and maybe we as a community can have a working pitch to this never ending problem.

Requirements:

70 Valor - This high requirement makes sure that the player KNOWS PvP (if you don't know PvP by then, then god help you) and has dedication somewhat to PvP.

6 Months of being a Subscriber - Shows you are dedicated to this game. If a F2P wants to "troll" or abuse the system, they could without this requirement. This requirement would hopefully push out those who realize that messing with this system is not worth it.

If you can think of any more, then please do say so!

Abilities:

100 Stealth Level and a consistent ability that the Shadows and Assassins have where they are immune to battle for a few seconds.

200% speed - Allows a player to move around easier.

/stuck moves them close to objectives - On maps like Voidstar and huttball, one can see where most of the action takes place, thus catching the ones who are ruining the game the most. For maps like Civil War and Hypergate, it will move one to the closest action. This can be adjusted.

Tag - Allows the Police Player to tag a player who they believe to be breaking rules. At the end of a match, the player must fill out a form on EACH player they tagged, giving exact information as for why they tagged them. This also allows them to cancel tags they may have done in accident or take back. Filling out the paperwork for a ticket if you need an analogy.

These tags will go straight to the PvP department as high priority and will be looked at first over normal reports.

Reasons for tagging - Abusing bugs, hacking, and for minor infractions of poor choice of language.

Players who purposely do something to hurt their team can be voted to kick off and the Police Players have nothing they can do about it. For example, not playing the strategy set, staying near base and leaving to leach medals, etc.

If I can think of anything else, I will add it, and I may make a new thread with this information much readily available then throughout a whole thread. We just need to keep this bumped and available to others.