The end of the Forum Fighting

I want to deal with the issues that have been floating around on the forum lately, because there has been some serious douchebaggery going on at a time when we should be rallying together to support a beloved member that needs us, not rip each other apart over silly crap that doesnt matter. Seriously, I have addressed this in no less than a half dozen posts in the last week. So here it is, in all it's wonderful capslock glory, just so everyone is clear on this.

If I create an account FOR MYSELF and I play it FOR MYSELF then it is fine. If I create an account, then decide to give you the password and everything on it, that is against the TOS.

If you are humanly capable of playing 25 independant accounts BY YOURSELF that are all linked to email addresses YOU OWN then there is nothing implicit in the TOS that says you can't earn all 25 lethals just for your little 'ol self.

Once those lethals are won, there is NOTHING in the TOS specifying things you can and cannot do with those mercs within the context of the game.

Is it shady? Sure.

Is it cheating? Some may complain thusly.

Is it against the TOS. No. It completely within compliance of the TOS as it stands currently. Everyone can do it just the same as they can. But while it may seem like 170 free res is a huge advantage remember a few things:

1. You can only control when it is used to a certain extent. In tower your leader must be in the line of fire to gain xp and level up. These fights are unpredictable, and if, for instance, all of your mercs but one and leader die you will use many many many of these level ups all at once and waste them. Conversely if you leader bites the dust, you are forced to spend massive amounts of erks on a new account with no erks stockpiled to raise them. PvP your leader levels up every third pvp fight where they are foced to earn xp, many times effectively wasting the powershot part of the bonus. In raid you are wasting a valuable damage slot on a ineffective leader with no damage.

2. Unless you are willing to spend money to buy essentials like erks and the 5 formation, it takes a massive investment of time and effort to move a lvl 6 leader (which is actually the lowest possible level you can leave the tutorial with) all the way through all of the zones to the point where they unlock 5 man formations. It can easily take a month or more of just regen playing to accomplish this, I know because I told my brother he should wait until he unlocked 5 formation to use his leader, and it took him forever to make it to the final zones without using those level ups.

3. You have 0 mags. In many cases players can farm hundreds of mags to significantly offset the cost of a lethal. Realistically over the course of a pvp event you can get maybe a 140 levels out of a char, and in raid maybe slightly less, like 100. Farming the equivalent amount of mags (300 and 420) in many cases takes LESS TIME than it would take for you to create a new account, trudge to final zones, get 5 man, and use free resources. Running on a level 1 account will cost you more actual $$ resources in the end than playing with a well stocked, well farmed main account.

So all this considered my question is, WHY IN THE HELL ARE PEOPLE SO UP IN ARMS ABOUT SOMETHING THAT IS BOTH NOT A HUGE ADVANTAGE AND ALSO NOT AGAINST THE TOS!?

For reference, here is a copy and paste of ONLY THE APPLICABLE PARTS OF THE TOS (this isn't the whole thing, just the entirety of the verbage that relates to the issues at hand). Anything not listed here should be considered not against the TOS. Essentially, as long as you aren't using another persons account, or selling ANYTHING for real money, you are good, irregardless of the personal and individual moral opinions about other players in regards to these practices.

“(b) General Prohibitions. You agree not to do any of the following while using our services
…. Solicit user login credentials from another user or collect user content or otherwise access our serves by automated means including but not limited to, bots, robots, spiders;
Create an account on our services for anyone other yourself;
Use your profile for personal commercial gain;
Use cheats, exploits, hacks, bots, mods, or third party software to gain an advantage perceived or actual, over other users, or modify or interfere with our services;
Abuse or exploit a bug, glitch, or mechanism in our services, or;
Engage in any fraudulent behavior, including but not limited to credit card scams or credit card misappropriation.”


Please, for the love of God do not comment on this post, or waste any more space on this forum to talking about this endless and inane topic. I just want this conversation to be over, and since as of 1 am Pac time I am STILL seeing comments about this, I felt this was warranted. I love you all. But sheesh.

And this is why I'm happy you're becoming a mod. I agree 100%. On top of that, I'd like to add a point that I've made elsewhere: Even if you disagree with Mamon and feel that multi-accounting is cheating (which I understand and even agree with to an extent) then you need to realize that there isn't much you can do. Cheating is rampant in every single online game I've ever played. Devs keep finding ways to stop the cheaters or patch out their exploits and cheaters keep finding ways to bend the rules. It's a never ending cycle and if you want to enjoy your time with any given online game, you should come to terms with it.

I'm going to have to do some investigation. Its seems I may be breaking the rules with this account giveaway. If this is the case I WILL NOT follow through regardless of what people say about me. I have stood up for what I felt was right but in doing that may be breaking rules myself. If this is the case I am extremely sorry for getting peoples hopes up ans yes I realize this will make me look like a douche

As long as it is understood that the individual is winning the CONTENTS of the account and not the RIGHTS TO THE ACCOUNT ITSELF there will be no issue. Dakota has no problem with people giving away mercs, resources, whatever you like to whoever you like in whatever fashion you like. It would only against the TOS if the individual used the account itself.

Hope that clarifies things for you.