Cassian

As was mentioned in the newsletter (the first post), yes, they will be releasing a major update prior to the release (which will likely also involve an update). The major update will, among other things, address some of the duping and DDoS attacks that have been happening. Not going to bother finding it and quoting it... I already read the article once. You can do the same.

Truth is, I'd have been okay with that. I'd have mourned the loss of the base I'd been working on, and the loss of some of the dinos I'd established a bit of a bond to, but the chance to start from scratch is very appealing. And the option is there, for people who want to take it. Me? Unlikely. As appealing as it is, it has also taken me several months to get to where I'm at, and the idea of having to rebuild everything from scratch is not that exciting. And I've only been playing for a couple of months. You focus a lot on the dupers, but what about legitimate players who have been playing for the last year or two? Do we punish them, delete everything they've worked on for the last couple of years, just because you want an even playing field against the people who cheat? It reminds me of the Gun Control debate. Let's make laws that make it harder for everyone to own guns because people who break the law are using them to hurt people. The same story is here... while they will hurt the people who dupe, they will hurt everyone else as well, and unless WC dedicates some employees to a type of "police force" for the game, even with their code improvements, the cheaters will find a way to cheat (duping or otherwise). I applaud WC's decision not to punish all the existing players, just to hurt the few people who don't have the necessary skill level or maturity to play and compete in a game without cheating. If you're that desperate to win at something, I'm afraid I have some bad news...

So I have to ask... what DO you want? If you don't want to start over, then wiping is a bad option. But you don't want to be stuck with these mega tribes, either. But you don't want to start over. And you don't want new players to have a place to build on that isn't already highly developed. I'd love to see WC implement a more proactive approach to cheating within the game. Other MMOs I've played waited too long before doing so, and by the time they did so (and let the players know about it), the game had already entered into a free fall. So yes, I'd love to see them take a VERY active role in investigating and punishing cheaters, but that isn't what we're talking about here. We're discussing the State of the Game when it gets released in a couple of weeks, and how WC plans on dealing with the flood of new players we'll be seeing. You don't like their solution, but your reasons imply that you don't like the other solutions that were presented, either. So.... what do you propose? Let's see how well-received your solution is. Or do you even have one?

That's the idea. Not so much with the recently wiped tribes, but if you want to be able to hurt other players, you need to be able to take some hurt in return. Not going to feel bad about someone getting wiped in PvP. That is what they signed up for. Cheaters, on the other hand, should have their product key revoked to keep them from being able to join any official server. Their existing characters and tames should all be deleted as well, and if chat log or other records show that their tribe mates were complicit, the tribe should be disbanded and the members made unable to join or ally with one another. For the record, new players won't move. New players will play on new servers. In the past, I bought a game that I thought was less than a week old, installed it, updated it, made my character, jumped into the game, and quickly discovered that there were people playing who were already at "end game" status. Turns out, the game had been released in Japan over a year before it got released in the US. Thankfully, the game was not PvP. But the only reason I can see for an existing PvP player to want the new players flooding his server is so he can unleash his inner schoolyard bully. Well,... too bad. And if the legacy PvP servers become ghost towns, then perhaps the players who have to move will be a little less aggressive and a little more friendly on their next server. For some of us, the joy in online gaming comes from establishing a community, not from destroying one. I wouldn't mind PvP so much, except that a lot of very insecure people use it as an excuse to act out their fantasies of being the biggest, baddest, bully in the schoolyard. Such actions (and attitudes) have consequences, and you don't always get to choose them or even know what they are beforehand. As for "dividing the player base", they did that as soon as they offered the game up for public preview, prior to the official release. What they've actually done is help level the playing field for the new players (although their lack of experience with the game will still give them a severe disadvantage). The player base has already been divided in many different ways, in order to allow the individual players to play the type of game they want to play. Many software companies would do well to follow suit. If you don't want a divided player base, then by all means... let's do away with PvP, make everyone play PvE, and just to keep everyone on the same playing field, let's make everything Prim+. Ridiculous? Of course it is. And so is asking someone to buy a brand new game, just to find out that they are competing for resources (land, dinos, and actual resources) with people who have been on the server for a couple months, a year, or even longer. One of the great things about the game, especially PvE, is the opportunity to build. Why do people want to deny that to the new players? I'm not a big believer is "safe spaces", but in this case, they need it, they are getting it, and they should. Feel free to continue complaining about it, though. Whatever makes you happy!