Vacationed Accounts -- Land Leak

[windhound]

Please note this upcoming change.

Land Leak
As implemented, it averages the land in the top ten to form a goal then checks all vacationed accounts.  If the vacationed account has more land than the goal .1% of the player's land is taken and given to the landfarm.  This is done every turn cycle until the vacationed player's land is less than the goal or the player comes out of vacation.

Normally changes that are made to Reg are reactionary, this is the case here. 
Vacation abuse was much more prevalent on Turbo, never so much an issue on Reg.  That is, until a group of players took just about a million acres out on vacation.  Serio. 

Jaffar, Angel of Death (#836)    466,654    
Boris Johnson (#36)    304,697    
My Networth Sucks :( (#788)    209,958    

Those three accounts have gone into vacation in the past three weeks.  That's an incredible amount of land to suck out of the game, and it appears to be coordinated.  Vacationing for the express purpose of protecting your horde has generally been looked down on, but (afaik) was never really against the rules as its somewhat hard to enforce. 
But still, come on guys.

I sent each of those players a note earlier this evening letting them know I plan to put the patch in place on Wednesday evening, so they have two days to come out if they'd like to save their land.
Again, this will only affect you if you go into vacation with more land than the average top ten player, and it will only take land in .1% increments until you are at average land or you break vacation.

The patch is written.  I'll review it again later and poke Shadow to give it a look as well.
Let me know if there's any questions or concerns.
Cheers guys

[Wolf Snare]

Actually, everyone abandoned me bc they were too busy IRL, I don't believe this is necessary considering absences are legitimate and it's currently me vs. 9 people.

[Sevz]

hahahahaha. This is a typical display of how redwall has corrupt fools running it.

Pippin/Borris Johnson has been in vacation mode for months/a year. I asked him to help me with a kill run. After some begging he came in and helped with a kill then went straight back into vacation.

Ryu/Jaffar is completely off the grid. He doesn't use the internet at all and that's why he's in vacation. All communications lost indefinitely.

ShootMe/NetworthSucks had an encounter with our favorite corrupted admin Shadow and made the decision to never play redwall again because a cheating admin makes for a poor game. He's a genius and helped code many balanced servers. Unfortunately he has no time for this place since things only get changed to benefit the idiots in charge.

I don't understand why this server is even running? I mean you put Shadow in charge, all he does is fail leader attacks and murder troops. The most unhealthiest type of player got a promotion. Why even encourage players to sign up? If they do anything successful things get changed because good strategy=codeabuse. The only people who seem welcomed at redwall are the ones who don't know what they're doing because they don't point out when your an idiot.

Well done. I hit vacation when I saw this and I most likely won't return. Shadow can have the crumby site and change things so he gets in the lead then when he's in the lead he'll change more things to protect his lead. Windy you can be proud for helping a mentally disabled person win. Well done.

[windhound]

<3 Sevz.  Are you finally quitting for good this time?

Honestly, I don't see any real harm in the patch either way.
If the players are gone for good, why should they be allowed to take their land with them?  Land is a limited resource in the game.  Reg has an absurd amount of land available atm, but allowing a player to vanish gigantic amounts of land at a whim is sorta silly.

Feeding the troll, but hey.  The site is still here because players still use it.
Its on Ollie's hosting account that he'd have anyways, but it could just as easily be on mine.  Domain name is like $10/year.  As long as people want to poke around it'll be up.  A reminder that most of what you'd consider 'good' promi sites are long dead, which is why I guess you keep wandering back Sevz? 

[Gen. Volkov]

Actually, everyone abandoned me bc they were too busy IRL, I don't believe this is necessary considering absences are legitimate and it's currently me vs. 9 people.

Actually, that's horsecrap. Pippin came out of vacation, took 300k land, and went back into vacation. That is not legit, and you know it. Jaffar and Shoot did the same thing, going into vacation immediately after taking a large amount of land. They are all members of your team, and they all did it with a week or two of each other. That's abuse.

Bye Sevah.

[Sevz]

Land is a limited resource in the game.  Reg has an absurd amount of land available atm

Why make a patch to increase the available land when there's already an absurd amount? Are you actively noticing a problem or does Shadow want to play catch up with those big acres?

Are you doing it to improve the game? No. Have you done anything to improve the game in recent years? No. All the recent changes have been directed at the peril of the players. Be honest and take a look at aspects from increasing merc prices to sacking to capture to the difficulty of killing an enemy. Constantly taking away their safety options and nurfing strategies to prevent stronger players from thriving.
Worst part is you try and palm it off like you're trying to help the little fella. Maybe you don't understand that overpowering a little fella so they can take down a big fella doesn't teach them anything? What happens when they're the strong one? some lesser n00b takes them down in a cycle. So BRAVO. You enable more failure than you care to acknowledge or admit.

What are you aiming for in the server? Have you actually asked yourself? Who deserves to win? What actions should be taken to produce and secure the win? What does it take to be a champion of redwall?

You'll probably disregard all of what I said and make uneducated claims to justify taking the easy way out.
A reminder that most of what you'd consider 'good' promi sites are long dead

QMT has nearly 100active players right now.

[windhound]

Actually yes Sevz dear, I have done various improvements.  Feeding the troll again, but sure.  Why not.
The biggest is the Global Login system, which I personally happen to really like.
Second biggest but not currently in use is the NPC players Shadow helped me with.  They need tweaking still and are reasonably dumb, but no other promi has made an NPC.
I've helped with various patches etc, some of which, yes, were reactionary.  I've never personally been much of a programmer, I step in to help where I can if needed.  My focus here has never been new features.

You may disagree, but the fact that three players were able to remove a million acres from the game over a two week span (check the dates, I did) means something needs to change.  My patch hurts noone but the abusers and does so relatively painlessly. 
I'm not sure about your "little fella" rant in this context.  Land locked away in vacation is not attainable.  Its not about take downs or anything else.  This is three players taking over half the land out of the game.  That is an extreme abuse of the game code, and I think my patch is a nice way of dealing with it tbh.
I mean, it may kill a potential strategy of having allies come and swoop most of the easy land from the game so its harder to get resources to take down the guy in first, but that's not a legit strategy.  There's no skill there.  They're not sweeping the land and defending it, they're sweeping the land and removing it from the game.  (Note: Not saying that's what happened, but if that's what it is its rather indefensible.)

To your larger point,
Changes done to prevent stronger players from thriving have two side effects
- it means the weaker players, mostly new comers, are less likely to be trampled on before they can get a footing
- it makes it so the strongest players have to work harder
A game that is too easy is no fun.  A game where you get smashed while trying to learn the basics is no fun.  I'm sorry if our style of balance offends you Sevz, but its been done this way for a long while.  Once again, please go find another game if RWL offends. 

Goal wise? 
Reg hasn't really been changed in any major way for a looong time.  That's the point of Reg.
Turbo is an experiment on balancing.  You hate it.
So really, what do you want Sevz?  Par for the course, nothing is ever good enough.

QMT does not have over 100 active players, you're full of it.  (Also, I said Most were gone.)
http://turbo.qmtpro.com/?location=topempires  their turbo server has 20 "active" players.
http://std.qmtpro.com/?location=topempires  their standard has 70 "active" players
I wouldn't call it dead, but its not exactly thriving.  And that's just one.

Valhall is about on par with RWL
http://www.valhallgames.net/valhall.php?page=Battle_of_the_kings
http://www.valhallgames.net/valhall.php?page=Strategy

Can you name another?  Out of the dozens, if not several dozens of promi games that once existed nearly all are gone afaik.

[Firetooth]

Principles, Sevz. Whether the game is oversaturated with land is not relevant to the fact that you're team has abused the vacation function. This has been a problem for some time, and the recent abuse has just been the final straw. Also, as for Shadow wanting to play with those "big acres," the land bleeds out slowly from the vaca'd accounts. If the admins were trying to abuse the function, you think they'd make the land enter the game faster.

Also, as for classic proms, valhall has just 9 players in classic battle. QMT may be doing well, but is the exception to the rule. Promisance as a whole is getting left behind as text-based games simply aren't popular.

[Shadow]

I don't know how this turned into a balance discussion. This is an equal opportunity change, everyone gets the same access to the land that comes out of it. The only people who could argue they are being harmed are those who took the land into vacation in the first place. If Shoot really did leave forever, then he could not have been more rude about it, since he broke vacation for all of a single run just to gather up more land to drop back into vacation with.

As for attacking windy, just don't. He is the reason this site runs smoothly. If you don't like what we've done with the place, by all means give constructive feedback, that's how things get done. But if you wait until the rest of the community gets sick of your cheating and actually does something about it before raging on forums, you can expect to be ignored.

[Sevz]

I don't know how this turned into a balance discussion. This is an equal opportunity change, everyone gets the same access to the land that comes out of it. The only people who could argue they are being harmed are those who took the land into vacation in the first place. If Shoot really did leave forever, then he could not have been more rude about it, since he broke vacation for all of a single run just to gather up more land to drop back into vacation with.

As for attacking windy, just don't. He is the reason this site runs smoothly LoL. If you don't like what we've done with the place, by all means give constructive feedback, that's how things get done. But if you wait until the rest of the community gets sick of your cheating and actually does something about it before raging on forums, you can expect to be ignored.

I never cheated in the slightest it's very rude for you to say
Windy Gag shadow ya biased butt.

How much more clear can I be?
Pippin has been gone for about a year. (Bored of Rwl)
Ryu is also gone and I don't know when he'll be back (appropriate use of the vacation function). Reg is permanent he worked hard to get where he was and shouldn't have it taken away. Lots of chances to take him out when he was active you don't deserve his land it's an insult.
Shoot was disgusted in the redwall administration and deliberately did vacate with the land. Was that rude? YES. Do I agree with him vacating? No. Can I blame him? No.

So when you lump them 3 in the same category I'm just as offended as when shadow labeled me a cheater just now. What did I do that was wrong? NOTHING. Ryu wanted to play, pip didn't and shoot refused. That's 3 way different cases.
Before you go smearing names "he's a troll" "they're all vaca abusers" try take a look at how competitively pathetic your redwall website has become. The very few players you have lack the skills needed to fight at an optimal level and they aren't getting better. This isn't meant as a put down it's an observation.

You can watch me dominate Shadow at his own server. Haven't played 3.0 in months so i'm rusty but I had 2 runs and i'm nearly ready to take over. Why mention this here? Because it's a demonstration that my long posts are not written out of rage they're written out of passion, as a self proclaimed elite competitor I'd love to see redwall boom with players but I would feel utterly ashamed to invite competition here to challenge me.

When you realize that the promisance code was designed to measure wits skills and strategic judgement you'll learn that making it more suitable for the slowest runner on the relay team is ridiculous. If I was an admin and wanted to help out the weakest players my first idea is give them bonus's. When they log in after missing turns they get something special. WoW that could be done manually or setup to automatically trigger but best of all it's a positive thing to do rather then handing out more and more penalties.

Hope you can see my logic if not I won't waste my time again. This landleaking idea is very bad. If you feel someone abused the code go in press a button to remove them from vacation.

[Firetooth]

How does them losing land they're not using effect them in anyway? If they were having their net taking away, it would be damaging, but keeping land is only worthwhile if you use that land. If Ryu and Pip both don't want to play, there's no reason they need to keep so much land. As for shoot, if he's refusing to play then he has essentially acted with malice by vacaing full well knowing that he had so much land.

[Shadow]

I love how this went from "I'm quitting forever" to "I'm going to make a point of playing more" in a matter of hours. As for Pippin being gone, he is on forums as we speak... he is aware of the change and is welcome to do something about it before the patch goes in. I'd like him to come out of vacation and play, it might be fun now that there are two teams battling.

I'm sorry Shoot doesn't like the game and/or me, but I can't change anything if he doesn't talk about it. He was quite helpful when he did. To my knowledge his main problem with RWL is suicides, which is pretty much why 3.0 is here, so...

[Sevz]

HAHAHAHAHAHA. Funniest part is I'm talking with Shoot elsewhere and he explained why he went into vacation with the land. He says your a piece of shhhhhhhush it

It was because in Turbo there has always been a rule not to deliberately drop land on the landfarm when it's maxed right? Since 3.0 can't open attacks
Shadow maxed out the landfarm then dropped land on it specifically to trap the acres and stole ShootMes cash. He feels it was the lowest thing another player could do and especially a moderator. If it was fair stealing he would of got revenge and left it at that.

When an administator of a game has no intentions on ethical play there's no hope for the players.

[Sevz]

Another good strat which I learned from an administrator here is the strat where you find somebody running the above strat, but was nice enough to not stall the game by dropping to a maxed out land farm and steal all their cash with the fact that there is no hit limit with steal! To pull this off, gather as much land as you can from everybody (make sure to max out the land farm, this is the most important step!), and build nothing but huts. Once you get a good deal of leaders (about 400 or so turns into your run), divide that by 175, drop everything except the number you calculated to the now maxed out land farm (so nobody can access the land for 12 hours, very important), and spam steal to your hearts content. Pat yourself on the back for a job well done ^_^

Windy please read this and pat your good friend on the back while you help him code the changes he needs to play even more underhanded.

[Shadow]

I dropped land because I needed ratio and I stole a single run's worth of cash... The farm should have been clanned, and I will code it to do so automatically after exams so that it stops being forgotten in the reset. These issues are simple to deal with if people would just talk about them instead of making life as difficult as possible for everyone involved.

The one time Shoot made balance suggestions I agreed with most of them, and I will be coding some of them when I have time. The one time he mentioned a bug to me, it was resolved within the week. I have no idea where he gets this idea of me as difficult to work with (actually I know exactly where, heh),  but if he actually talked about it instead of being as melodramatic and passive aggressive as possible, everything would be worked out in short order.

I'll even happily aid him back the cash I stole if he asks for it, it wasn't even a lot...