New Yavn Speaks 4/1 - Yes it's real this time ;)

[Spongeblair]

I'm actually wondering if Yavn wanted us to pass this quest. Maybe he thought that the pirates score was soo high that it was impossible for most of the VMK Population, but someonecracked how to do it. Not through a hacking program I may add
~Spongeblair

 

[redshoe]

I agree...I don't think it had anything to do with code generators or whatever we're being told the issue was. Maybe a small group of people went that route, but could it really have been THAT much bigger a problem with this quest than it's been with sparrow or Narnia or any of the other stuff people have wanted in the past? The code generator/cheat program thing has been a known and legitimate problem with several other events and items, but VMK has never shut those things down prematurely over it. Nope...I consider that to be a very flimsy excuse, and an insult to our intelligence (with that condescending, paternalistic lecture rubbing salt into the wound).

I think more people were winning than they bargained for, plain and simple. Why that would matter, I'm not entirely clear on, though. So more people are running around with silver ears and various magics than they thought would have them...is that REALLY such a catastrophic thing? Are they that worried about a virtual economy, and even if they were, why not just chalk it up to lessons learned and let it take its course? I guess I can see where it might get interesting with the full-use TDM, but there have to be ways to handle that without completely screwing over the entire VMK community. Considering how often I was finding things yesterday afternoon with my TDM and how seldom I did last night, it looks like they've compensated somewhat by tightening up on the wins, and I wasn't surprised by that. But denying so many people even the chance to TRY to finish the quest was absolutely the wrong way to handle it. As far as I'm concerned, they took the easy way out of the situation they created rather than making an effort to come up with a creative compromise of some kind.

I'm not a person who screams about VMK's handling of every single event. I've never threatened to leave VMK over the way they've handled something, and I'm not now. I didn't even think Dreams Month was so terrible. Not very well thought out, maybe, but I had to hand it to VMK for trying something new, even if it didn't work out as well as everyone would have liked. Also, I saw the hosts working like dogs to get dreams to as many people as they could, and make the very best of the situation for the sake of the players. There were redeeming factors to the way Dreams Month was handled, and I felt an honest effort was made. But this? This was like saying "ok, I'm going to hold a marathon. But dang it, more people are succeeding at it than I personally would have liked. I really wanted to see more losers and fewer winners...I know! I'll move the finish line back 10 miles, after the starting gun has already gone off! That'll learn 'em! And I won't announce it, either. I'll just have people on the sidelines to tell a few random runners about it as they pass by. Brilliant!"

Not even a little bit ok. If this were a situation that happened in the real world, with actual prizes rather than virtual, they would have been forced to handle it better or risk opening themselves up to liability, breach of contract accusations, all kinds of stuff. I'll have to add my "shame on you, VMK!" Vote to the rest.

 

[threeboysmom]

I am STEAMING! I've already ranted in another thread so I won't repeat myself here, but tell you want, Yavn.... send me a list of all players that finished this quest along with their completed quest times. I'll send you back a list of cheaters based on those times. Pretty simple to distinguish a player that finished in less than 2 hours vs. a player than finished in 30+ hours....

Ban those players IMMEDIATELY - no warning!

Open the quest back up to all those that were still struggling their way through... some with 60-70+ hours on it!!

All you did was punish the honest and make the cheaters EXTREMELY happy that the quest was cut short.

This decision to end the quest early was a total BONEHEADED move. And it absolutely breaks my heart

Only reason why I will ever log into VMK is to see my friends. So tempted to just quit it today. I hate the game, but love my friends. It's a quandry.

 

[Belle1997]

I am just thinking out loud is there ever a major event that VMK can run without slapping it's players in the face. Last major event it slapped participants getting a gift to give away.

Next the horrible 60+ hour quest. I think if you did not stay to help your friends and did what Yavn wanted and just used no spoilers you would have been the most selfish person alone.

Ok can some one explain to me if the quest could be done in 3 1/2 hours. Since that is what the first pirate passer took.

And most players averaged between 12 - 60 hours to finish how it really change the final outcome.

By players helping other players it actually slowed down the amount of people finishing. And spread the prizes out over a longer time. Did they really think people are so self absorbed they would not try to help as many friends as they could.

Also did they have to close the mini quest down too. That was just mean and did not effect anything.

 

[redshoe]

Ok can some one explain to me if the quest could be done in 3 1/2 hours. Since that is what the first pirate passer took.

I think so. For a player that understood what needed to happen, was good at organizing a team and explaining the process to them, and could also get through the mansion and jungle cruise requirements in a reasonable amount of time, 3 1/2 hours would have been quite doable. I'm decent at mansion (not GREAT), and not very good at jungle cruise, but once I got past pirates, I was able to complete the rest of the quest in maybe 2 1/2 hours or so. I didn't play two on one in mansion, either...I simply went in and started games with other random players that I didn't know. It took me 3 tries to get 75 ghosts. Jungle cruise did take longer, but again, maybe 2 1/2 hours from pirates to completion, and that was even with helping other people past pirates after I finished it. So yeah, if a person got through pirates early on, I can easily see 3 1/2 hours total for finishing the quest.

 

[WV_Minnie]

I am STEAMING! I've already ranted in another thread so I won't repeat myself here, but tell you want, Yavn.... send me a list of all players that finished this quest along with their completed quest times. I'll send you back a list of cheaters based on those times. Pretty simple to distinguish a player that finished in less than 2 hours vs. a player than finished in 30+ hours....

Ban those players IMMEDIATELY - no warning!

Open the quest back up to all those that were still struggling their way through... some with 60-70+ hours on it!!

All you did was punish the honest and make the cheaters EXTREMELY happy that the quest was cut short.

This decision to end the quest early was a total BONEHEADED move. And it absolutely breaks my heart

Only reason why I will ever log into VMK is to see my friends. So tempted to just quit it today. I hate the game, but love my friends. It's a quandry.

Totally 100% agree!!

It's as if one student in the class acted up... so the field trip was cancelled for all.

Tell my you wouldn't call the school and complain about that the next morning!!

We don't need VMK to teach us " Life Lessons " about fairness. As far as I can remember.. that's still for parents to handle??

Grrr......!!!!

 

[Goofy05]

I wasn't going to get into another rant thread, but I had to add my two cents to this one. I agree Yavn needs a lot of help in the public relations department, always has. Taking away the last few hours is something I don't quite understand...why not let the quest run out and fix the problem for the next quest? I don't get that...
If they know who the people are who are hacking the system or cheating the system, banning them is useless. They already know how to beat the ban by changing MAC addresses or swapping hard drives or any other number of cheats and work-arounds. VMK has to fix itself.
I'm all for having players use IP provider email addresses. This would eliminate most free email accounts, and we all know you can usually have 5+ email accounts with your provider, usually enough for each family member. Or use an emailed code from vmk to complete the registration process. That would ensure the email address is valid, eliminating those who are creating false email accounts, but still allowing the free accounts to join, yet those accounts would have to be physically activated, eliminating software from creating acccounts. Banning alone simply won't work, they always come back.

 

[Belle1997]

I know that is reasonable amount of time just saying the average player took five times that amount to do the quest so in the end the quest went slower than needed so having spoilers really did not change the outcome.

No spoilers 3-4 hours (not helping other players)
With spoilers 12-60 + because helping people in pirates knowing they could leave enough time to finish.

So what they are really telling us we wanted you all to do the quest without spoilers be a true pirate get a team together win #16 and dump them at the dock and continue on.

That is so not like Walt's thinking at All.

 

[pixiewytch]

Okay, I promise myself just one more bitter post about this and I move on but honestly I can't resist...

Yavn says that he hopes those of us who didn't finish the big quest finished the miniquest and found ourselves some nice treasure.....um, yeah...

I got a one use TDM with nothing, a one use lightning magic, and some credits. How can you possibly compare that to the big quest? I mean, it's not even like they could offer one of the prizes from the big quest as a consolation. Everyone who worked so many hours deserves a consolation prize which at the very least should be their choice of one of the big quest prizes....

So yeah, another slap in the face to so many. Hope ya'll really enjoyed that mini quest prize you received.

 

[Adventuredaz]

With spoilers 12-60 + because helping people in pirates knowing they could leave enough time to finish.

So what they are really telling us we wanted you all to do the quest without spoilers be a true pirate get a team together win #16 and dump them at the dock and continue on.

That is so not like Walt's thinking at All.

By the design of the plan, the last person on any team probably got screwed as well as any late joiners in the group since it ended early. Everyone helped as a team and stuck together - we had to break at times to ensure we had a team and did not continually pick up new people we were commited to. We had the time planned out as what we could do. We had a few things slow us down a bit including trying to use another team to help us after helping them.

During the breaks players past pirates would advance to the next task - and finish that as well if possible without help. in the end we came up a few minutes short. We only got that close because we heard the rumor it would end at noon and were making a huge push to do it.

I will point out during the 4 days or 3 1/2 or whatever it ended up being...Most of us took very little time to look at vmk home page or even Dis untill after close. This means when this event started we should have had all pertinant information - it was after all a marathon which could not be interupted to see if they changed the rules of the game.

On our team, nobody needs to feel bad about not finishing the last person because it was a fair arangement. I told my daughter not to expect it but we would try to get her past. As I told VMK in my note to contact - Contrary to how I teach her in real life, I teach her to never trust or believe VMK and never get her expectations to high in the game bacause they always will let you down and give you disapointed. She was only a little disappointed to not get it and I promissed to repay any of the costs of trying to do the quest.

 

[taz]

So everyone is saying "Bad Yavn" or something like that... I thought Yavn left? Why are people saying stuff to Yavn? Shouldnt it be VMK Staff?

 

[Mnementh]

So everyone is saying "Bad Yavn" or something like that... I thought Yavn left? Why are people saying stuff to Yavn? Shouldnt it be VMK Staff?

This is directed at the "Yavn" who wrote the newsletter. THE Yavn is most likely gone, but there is still someone in the "Yavn spot" (i.e. someone running the game) using the Yavn name who screwed a lot of people over that everyone is upset with.

 

[Adventuredaz]

This is directed at the "Yavn" who wrote the newsletter. THE Yavn is most likely gone, but there is still someone in the "Yavn spot" (i.e. someone running the game) using the Yavn name who screwed a lot of people over that everyone is upset with.

Actually this is Classic Yavn proving he still has some involvement (and that Elvis is still in the building or something like that) I would say the majority of the people upset are just once again upset with the handling of the situation. We all would easily get over the event quickly but then as a grand finale (I'm sure as a result of the inevitable complaints) he threw a stick of dynamite on the fire.

I suppose the good thing is it brings it all out in the open - it gets kicked around and its past. Great prizes, good quest, horrible lag, good friends, selfish players, we laugh, we cry, they screw it up, were mad, their mad - Boom! Hey whats for sale this weekend. We're over it. Normal VMK Cycle

 

[Janomi]

Great prizes, good quest, horrible lag, good friends, selfish players, we laugh, we cry, they screw it up, were mad, their mad - Boom! Hey whats for sale this weekend. We're over it. Normal VMK Cycle

I think these words sum up our whole VMK experience. I feel like I'm in a co-dependent relationship.

On that note, what's for sale?

 

[steamboatpete]

Ok can some one explain to me if the quest could be done in 3 1/2 hours. Since that is what the first pirate passer took.

And most players averaged between 12 - 60 hours to finish how it really change the final outcome.

I probably only really spent about 3-4 hours on the quest, with no spoilers and *almost* no help on individual clues. I think I asked a friend about three times about some task or other. It took me almost no time to get to #16. I spent an hour and a half or so helping others win POTC, without any reciprocation because I ran out of connection before it was my turn to win. Eventually, three of us, with the help of a mule (mule did not do the quest, he just kept getting "skilled") and two already-done players, passed the POTC task in about 30-45 minutes. From there to the mansion task was not too time-consuming, and I got 75 in my first mansion game, playing a one on one that took less than 15 minutes. Finally, the jungle cruise score took me over 45 minutes, but only because I did it at work and got calls during the first couple of games. I'm sure that if the quest had lasted to Tuesday night at closing, I could have gotten both of my daughters through the quest in four to five hours.

 

[Belle1997]

I probably only really spent about 3-4 hours on the quest, with no spoilers and *almost* no help on individual clues. I think I asked a friend about three times about some task or other. It took me almost no time to get to #16. I spent an hour and a half or so helping others win POTC, without any reciprocation because I ran out of connection before it was my turn to win. Eventually, three of us, with the help of a mule (mule did not do the quest, he just kept getting "skilled") and two already-done players, passed the POTC task in about 30-45 minutes. From there to the mansion task was not too time-consuming, and I got 75 in my first mansion game, playing a one on one that took less than 15 minutes. Finally, the jungle cruise score took me over 45 minutes, but only because I did it at work and got calls during the first couple of games. I'm sure that if the quest had lasted to Tuesday night at closing, I could have gotten both of my daughters through the quest in four to five hours.

Yes I know it was possible to do the quest in 3.5 hours.

What I am trying to say if the players actually took longer 40- 60+ to do the quest wouldn't that mean less got through. ?