Who all is still active

Pohaku · 2014-05-25 11:29:02

But when did you start your house? You've had that one for well over a week, possibly two, or more? Two weeks ago it was possible because robbers were coming and dying in houses with enough frequency to develop them properly. Now, hardly anyone is robbing the lower value houses. If you started a $2k house now, I can't imagine you would be able to develop it into anything like yours is now. What is the build cost of your house? $70,000? $90,000? Where would that money come from if you had a $2k house now?

Pohaku · 2014-05-25 11:30:33

Anyhow - I might be wrong, of course. I'm going off the amount of robbing activity I'm seeing on my main account. I'll use my alt account to put up a reasonable $2,000 house tonight, and see how much action I get (assuming I can make one that lasts the night!)

AMWhy · 2014-05-25 16:46:57

Pohaku wrote:

Because nobody is playing anymore, I don't think it's possible to go from $2,000 to a successful front-page house without exploiting multi-accounts.

Until two days ago I was a front-page house with just one account. Once you have a good design that can survive 2k, it's just a matter of time, patience and good burgling to get to the top page.

The problem I have now (after dying to a self-test - ALWAYS the way) is getting started again. Just yesterday, I built a starter house that wasn't yet 2k safe and some 2k player (note: just an arsehole player, most likely bored, not a dual account user) storms in and destroyed it for a measly couple hundred.

Dual account users have killed the userbase here. Unfortunately, now it is the dual account users that are keeping the game alive on life-support. Without them, I fear I'd have less than the 10 (average) visitors per day.

What is the solution? I have no idea.

CastleSeaNanners · 2014-05-25 18:40:10

Im first place....................
You are All Losers

CastleSeaNanners · 2014-05-25 18:43:24

FYI....Im not an engineer, i don't know much to anything about electric circuits.....i started this game by watching Aavak on youtube
Started with a 2000$ house...i don't have alt accounts....

Cant believe you genius' haven't broke in yet

Pohaku · 2014-05-25 22:53:12

What is the solution? I have no idea.

Make the game £2.99 in a Steam sale. That's pocket money, people click to buy it just to try the game out. Hundreds of new players. A lot will play it once and then not bother, some will play for a little while, some will play as long as the game is alive because they'll fall in love with it.

But this has been talked about a thousand times already, it's Jason Rohrer's little art project/experiment and keeping the game alive in the long-term isn't what he's interested in.

And to show my point:

My $2,000 house was up most of the night, and had a total of four robbers. It was worth $200 to begin with, then I found a $1,000 in an empty house so my worth was $1200 immediately.

I got one robber come in and find my wife, who I left unarmed, and he took half the money from her. Then, nobody came. A wooden house, solvable (but you'd be lucky to do it on an untooled visit), with $600 sitting in it. No action.

Then I got one robber who came and left, one who died ($100 bounty, wooo!) then look what happened: some guy comes in and walks straight into my dog, dumping a $2,000 bounty in a $700 house, and then immediately afterwards he comes in with second account to collect the bounty money.

Now yeah, I see the argument that he's a dual, and this is why duals spoil the game. My point is that now, unless you ARE a dual, you can't get started.

So - abusing dual accounts is unfair to single-account players, yes. But to me it's the only way to enjoy whatever time the game has left, and seeing as I paid good money for the game without realising Jason intended for it to die off pretty quickly, then I'm more bothered about getting my own value out of it than I am about being fair to single account players.

cullman · 2014-05-26 06:19:18

LCI wrote:

Pohaku wrote:
What is the solution? I have no idea.
Make the game £2.99 in a Steam sale. That's pocket money, people click to buy it just to try the game out. Hundreds of new players. A lot will play it once and then not bother, some will play for a little while, some will play as long as the game is alive because they'll fall in love with it.
But this has been talked about a thousand times already, it's Jason Rohrer's little art project/experiment and keeping the game alive in the long-term isn't what he's interested in.
If Jason cares about his dedicated fans, he'll honor the unanimous decision of putting the game on sale. He needs to realize the fate of the game and take into consideration the opinions of those who enjoy playing it. It's as simple as that.

In my opinion, the difference between $5 and $16 is not that big of deal, especially since the game requires you to invest 10 hours to even become anything like a decent beginner player. That is exacerbated by the fact that the existing game population is almost entirely experts.

I believe Jason cares about his fans, however, I believe, Jason made this game as an art piece and a statement. He is widely quoted in many articles as saying he will never put this game on sale. Even if we signed a 10,000 user petition saying please put the game on sale, I think he is kind of stuck since he said he would never do it. What happens if on his next game he says, "If you buy my game you will get free server access for life." Now he has a reputation for not keeping his word. Speaking of his next game, he is already on to it. I believe that Jason has largely moved on to his next project, and I think he has accomplished what he wanted to accomplish with this game. Plus, Jason has done an incredible thing, he has given us the source code restriction free, we can make a version for free if we want. Honestly, I don't even think a sale would help at this point as it is just way too hard to get started, cheating is somewhat rampant and at a $3 price tag dual accounting could even be worse. There are many barriers beyond price that stand in the way of this game being a mainstream success. For example, I have a friend whose 9 year old loved this game, however, his castle doctrine career was cut short the moment his mom heard him celebrate the clubbing of someone's daughter and then how lucky he was to shoot the wife. Don't get me wrong, I love the statement Jason has made with this game. However, by making it is so "dark" he has potentially alienated a big percentage of players. In fact, one could argue this would be a great educational game if the themes were less violent.

I'm starting an effort to reboot the game, to try to fix a most if not all of these problems, and hopefully create a version that has a little bit better long-term viability. Here is the new version thread : http://thecastledoctrine.net/forums/vie … 136#p18136

Last edited by cullman (2014-05-26 07:19:34)

Shacklebolts · 2014-05-26 07:35:58

All I wanted was to know who all was active, and you lot turned it into duel accounts and Jason not caring about his fans...Sheesh you people

Still active though

Amatiel · 2014-05-28 06:33:05

When i talk of multiple account users, Im talking about the guys who use them to farm thousands upon thousands in a very short time frame, usually wrecking low value starter houses in the process, Using a second account (or using a friend) to help scout a little bit or use as a genuine second account for a different house design i think is fine. Even a daily drop of five saws into your main is OK and isnt going to totally fuck the game imo. Its the guys who would take a secondary/tertiary/more account and attain a high bounty by wife/child bashing in starter houses (or even in houses owned by their other accounts) then suiciding in someone elses house leaving sometimes up to 4-5K in some poor bastards starter house which they had just figured out how to solve before hanging themselves in front of the vault and promptly collecting the huge sum with their main account.

Kinda poor explanation of how they do it but u guys get the point, the guy i came across who was doing this, shlam16, was doing it on a massive scale, likely in a more efficient manner than described above. He would then rob other people with this huge wealth by repeated brute force attempts where he could afford to use a tool for every step he took as an extra safety precaution. I feel sorry for the people he cheated this way. After robbing people he sank all his cash into paintings knowing he would be less of a target with a lower value (no point dropping 30k into a brute force to rob a 5k house) and he could raise cash very quickly anyway if he needed to. This guy had the fucking temerity to trumpet his achievements on the forums, conversing with the people he robbed who all congratulated him in good form without knowing they were cheated.

In the end, myself and others proved he was an outright cheat and exploiter of the worst kind, and posted info of his house on the forums until we cracked his house. He then suicided in one of his co conspirators houses after i revealed his vault location but was one tool short of robbing him.

This, specifically, is the kind of behavior that drove people away. This is why starter houses were being trashed, frustrating and angering new players, enraging people with medium to high value houses who returned to a bunch of security tapes of someone who purposefully keeps their value low somehow brute forcing them with gargantuan and inexplicable wealth, yet you have never seen this individuals wealth above 20k.

If i come across this again, I will begin assaulting their house and posting it on the forums because this is a good fucking game, and it has been tainted by deeply insecure people with inflated egos based on falsity. You can blame the design of the game all you want but a viable solution seems nigh impossible, its' way easier to blame 5% of the population for being twats.

Pumaroma · 2014-05-28 06:39:37

Honestly, I didn't get on the forums much until I had been playing for quite some time. By this point I already had a 2nd account and had no idea it was so frowned upon. I immediately went looking for an EULA or a ToA specifying some rules or something on the matter. I found nothing. I know according to other users Jason has stated he is against multi accounts (I have never seen the post saying he is against it), wouldn't it just make sense to put in a ToA or EULA and then exercise the rights and put in bans on users?

cullman · 2014-05-28 07:31:22

Pumaroma wrote:

Honestly, I didn't get on the forums much until I had been playing for quite some time. By this point I already had a 2nd account and had no idea it was so frowned upon. I immediately went looking for an EULA or a ToA specifying some rules or something on the matter. I found nothing. I know according to other users Jason has stated he is against multi accounts (I have never seen the post saying he is against it), wouldn't it just make sense to put in a ToA or EULA and then exercise the rights and put in bans on users?

Here is where Jason says he doesn't like dual accounts :

jasonroher wrote:

I don't WANT anyone to use dual accounts. That's not the way the game is meant to be played. In fact, if you're using dual accounts, you're really robbing yourself (of the intense emotional experience that the game can offer). I've never used dual accounts myself when playing.

from :

http://thecastledoctrine.net/forums/vie … 594#p15594

I agree with Jason it takes a lot away from the game. Additionally, he believes it's impossible to stop dual accounting, and I think doesn't want to try to figure out who to ban and who not to ban.

I don't disagree with Amatiel in principle, that light dual accounting is ok. It's jut really hard to not completely abuse it. Luckily, the bounty change (http://thecastledoctrine.net/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=16261#p16261 ) really fixed the biggest way to do massive wealth transfer. However, there is still another way where I can move $5-10k (depending how many people are playing) an hour between my alts that is still an open issue with the current game. All that being said, alts are a fact of life now, and even I have them. I originally started using them to test how people could cheat in the game so I could either help Jason fix it in his or fix it in mine. Now I use my alts to fund my little puzzle houses, but I never use them to rob other players (I've quit robbing other players all together because I fund myself with alts).

Amatiel · 2014-05-28 08:19:00

You are dead right it would be very hard not to abuse it AND having that 2nd account on any level, still detracts from the experience of the game imo. Even if one just uses a second account so they dont have to risk their main.... i believe they would be much more inclined to risk their main if he/she did not have a second account and we would see many more large bounties drop UNINTENTIONALLY... as most are intentionally dropped into an alt or friends account.

I have no experience in programming but the best solution ive seen is to block visibility of houses with the same IP as you. I would love to know how hard this would be to implement. There are work arounds im aware of that could cheat this but it becomes a matter of know how and effort.

This is the ONLY thing i want changed in this game.

I was initially interested in your reboot cullman but for me personally you are changing to much of what i liked and you seem to be dumbing it down to gain numbers/sales in a fashion comparable to what CA did to Rome 2, or other games that are dumbed down for console ports etc.

cullman · 2014-05-28 11:14:39

Amatiel,

I have thought about this a lot - for months. I am leaving the game as is in terms of game play mechanic in certain neighborhoods. There just will be realms/neighborhoods where it is easier to get started and be more forgiving. The ultimate goal is for those of us who love this game as is, to be able to play it as is with a much larger base that is growing or at least not declining. Having a dumbed down introduction/tutorial to the game shouldn't impact us, other than it might get people playing that wouldn't have otherwise.

As for your IP address proposal this has been discussed to death, your proposal would cause more harm than it would alleviate. I am a programmer and I work in the security field. The IP address thing would do nothing to stop even a mildly motivated dual accounter (just use a VPN, switch your computer between your home network and tethered to your smart phone, or any other number of ways to have multiple IPs), and it could potentially punish legit users. I have many plans to stop what I call egregious dual accounting in my version (one of which is recording IP addresses for when someone has been accused of collusion), but I am not going to detail them all on the boards.

FreeLove · 2014-05-28 17:31:13

I've stated my thoughts on dual accounts before, but I want to say again:

People who complain about dual-account users tend to ignore the fact that those accounts are all purchased. If someone wants to drop $100 on TCD just to farm a million TCD dollars (and do… what?) in game-legal ways, I personally see no problem with it. If the player-base was actually large, houses would be wrecked at the same lightning-fast pace anyway, with or without collusion (though some collusion is inevitable). "Playing the game the way it was meant to be played" is too vague and a misnomer, and really shouldn't be the end goal of a successful video game (see: popularity of sandbox video games, i.e. GTA 5). Who plays TCD the right way? What is that supposed to mean? I haven't built a real house in months, does that mean I'm an abuser?

I remain unconvinced that multi-account using ("abusing," whatever) has led to the death of TCD.

Pumaroma · 2014-05-29 06:50:03

Where have all the houses gone?!?!?!?!

cullman · 2014-05-29 08:16:34

FreeLove wrote:

I've stated my thoughts on dual accounts before, but I want to say again:
People who complain about dual-account users tend to ignore the fact that those accounts are all purchased. If someone wants to drop $100 on TCD just to farm a million TCD dollars (and do… what?) in game-legal ways, I personally see no problem with it. If the player-base was actually large, houses would be wrecked at the same lightning-fast pace anyway, with or without collusion (though some collusion is inevitable). "Playing the game the way it was meant to be played" is too vague and a misnomer, and really shouldn't be the end goal of a successful video game (see: popularity of sandbox video games, i.e. GTA 5). Who plays TCD the right way? What is that supposed to mean? I haven't built a real house in months, does that mean I'm an abuser?
I remain unconvinced that multi-account using ("abusing," whatever) has led to the death of TCD.

FreeLove, I'd love to invite you to my house to play poker with me and my friends...some collusion may be inevitable.

eppfel · 2014-05-29 08:53:55

Pumaroma wrote:

Where have all the houses gone?!?!?!?!

I destroyed them all! Muhahahah.. no, but Powell and Watson!
My theory: people are becoming better robbers. I for myself enjoy robbing more, than building these days. But fewer houses do not help this fact. Maybe the game is dead after all.

I'm still active and waiting for motivated robbers: The split personality of Mr. Case and Mr Longoria.
(And to the never ending discussion about dual accounts: No, these two did not collaborate. I had one house already up and then build another one from two very lucky heists (Powell + Watson) and now I have two big houses.)

Pohaku · 2014-05-29 10:12:34

Mine's gone, again.

Built a mean path to the vault, but neglected to fortify the approach to it by bruteforcing around my traps and paid the price. Then died to s self-test after repairing the damage, because the fucker put one of my magic dance cats into a pit and I hadn't realised!

Start again tomorrow...

Blip · 2014-05-29 10:35:55

Pohaku wrote:

the fucker put one of my magic dance cats into a pit and I hadn't realised!

I don't like being referred by such vulgar terms.

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Re: Who all is still active

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