Yavn speaks!(It's in the newsletter didn't make it up)

[Hank's R&R]

Another thing these gold star awards may present yet again is staff favoritism torwards certain players.

Is he really sure this is such a good idea?

 

[coolkidhann95]

Uh oh, Nanoer, I mean Nanocloneon. Yavn wants me to rat you out!

Me too!

 

[Iris]

Another thing these gold star awards may present yet again is staff favoritism torwards certain players.

Is he really sure this is such a good idea?

I am truly disappointed by the gold star awards and totally agree, it is yet again going to present favoritism towards certain players. You may not agree but I have seen it in the game. There are many players who will gift items to others without any need for recognition. They are not well known in the game. They do not hang out with CL or Host/Staff. These will be the ones ignored and not recognized.

I have a problem with the whole mule thing as well. I think I have about 25 mules, and believe it or not, I play them all on a regular basis. They each have their own friends and work to get my main account the things I need. I don't see why this is an issue. Perhaps if they stop creating quests that you can only play once, this might reduce the number of mules. I do think there has been a decrease of mules since the mini games give better credits, but I think they took a step backwards with the "new and improved" pirates game. Now you can end up in a loss in that game. I wish they would bring back big credits like before for fireworks and jungle cruise. I also wish they would change the point system for fireworks. Keep the second to fifth place finishes the same, but award even bigger credits for the first place winner. This still baffles me. It is things like this that continue to feed the mules. Even tomorrowland arcade games can only be played once a day, but at least you can play that every day. If they at least did that with the quests that happen over the weekend, this might also help.

Quest Spoilers? I don't really care either way. There are some quests that I have been able to do on my own. However, when the questions revolve around specific movies that I have not seen or even heard of, it makes it extremely difficult to finish the quest with out assistance. If people are willing to help each other, then what's the problem. I realize that there is a lot of time and effort to create the quests, but the idea of the quest is for people to actually finish them. If the questions are too difficult, then nobody would stand a chance.

Just my two cents.

 

[tigressjewel]

There are a few under lying questions with this. 1st, will vmk have to pay royalties to Dr. Suess and 2nd, will Sneetches be added to the dictionary.

Now, the Star-Belly Sneetches
Had bellies with stars.
The Plain-Belly Sneetches
Had none upon thars.

next to happen...

...Then, quickly, Sylvester McMonkey McBean
Put together a very peculiar machine. (generator)
And he said, "You want stars like a Star-Belly Sneetch...?
My friends, you can have them for three dollars each!" (rare pin)

 

[Pirate-Emery]

I have nearly 9 mules, 3 of which I switch playing as. The other six are strictly for playing the Host Quests again. The fact that VMK allows us to play a quest only once is the cause for my muling. (Once again, it's a cycle.)

next to happen...

...Then, quickly, Sylvester McMonkey McBean
Put together a very peculiar machine. (generator)
And he said, "You want stars like a Star-Belly Sneetch...?
My friends, you can have them for three dollars each!" (rare pin)

McBean made a machine? And the machine was not moral, so it would be mean?

Does this mean this is a Mean Bean Machine?

 

[cat_herder]

2. Posting Quest Answers
Sometimes it takes us weeks to research, build and test a Quest. There is nothing worse than watching all of this hard work go down the drain when the Quest answers are posted online just a few minutes after the Quest has gone live. It's fine to offer hints, but many players instead take the easy way out and just look them up before they even try to perform the Quest. You can thank all posters that reveal Quest answers for forcing us to add minimum score requirements to Quests. Sure, it would be easier for us to just sell the items but I believe many people enjoy the feeling and satisfaction that comes from completing a Quest.

I can't even tell you the number of quests that I have not been able to complete even once because the fireworks is set too high. I've lucky to get 50,000 during a game, there is no way under heaven I could ever make
120,000 or 175000 or more. Anytime I see those quest with such high score demand, it only enforces the knowledge that VMK doesn't like players unless they excell at everything in the game. There is no options for those of us without that fireworks skill (or Jungle boat skill or pirate game skill or haunted mansion skill) to complete the quest. So NO, I DO NO ENJOY THE QUEST IN THE LEAST, I actually hate them in fact. By giving us no other option to complete the quest, it's pretty hard to feel any satisfaction at all.

 

[cat_herder]

I am going to take a stab at this one. As with so many things it was a little vague for the serious warning of impending doom that it is.

I think much of this will depend on how they intend to implement this and what criteria they use to make there determinations. I think he is saying if you have 50 some of your people may fall into the category, since many accounts would be inactive 30+ days. Many web account based services/activities use inactivity to determine if they will cancel your account.

This would be their best method because it would give an opportunity to reinstate if you have proper information on the account and a legitimate e-mail attached. I can’t say however this is how they would work it. Who knows with them? They could also look at number per account or IP or trade history. I don’t believe they are saying you will be banned for having multiple accounts; only some of those accounts will be banned to eliminate clutter I am guessing

There still really no specific violation of the TOS or VMK values by using “mules” but VMK has the right to ban an account for whatever they decide at whatever time – it is their “house”. I firmly believe that there are many legitimate usages of multiple accounts, and that other then the free codes offered out there (only like 1500 credits maybe?) Credits and items are for the most part still earned and bought.

Many of the Dis folk obtained a ton of mules during a time you could buy Spider Web room dividers with the free credit and resell them for decent return. Other have them for secret friends others have an extra to get gender specific items others to hide. Least we forget actual family members and made in park characters that I think they encourage. The only case I see a mule actually violating any terms is if it is to work around a ban. I will most likely collect my belongings on a few I have hanging out there and delete the accounts but it requires time so they may get zapped first, again who knows?

I use my mule accounts to hold my pins and extra clothing. Otherwise it slows down my main account so much I can't play any of the games because my character's actions are too slow.

So now he is saying that I have to put all those pins and clothing back on the main character or risk losing them all; and I will never have a the chance at wining another game at all.

Thanks Yavn, you have really just make my VMK so much more fun--NOT.


I don't even know how to delete a mule.

 

[cat_herder]

When I first started, it was impossible to buy anything without creating mules. The games paid NOTHING. When those Spalsh Mountain tracks came out, I had to resort to mules if I wanted any. Now, games pay much better and I rarely use the mules I'd hate to get banned over a practice that was NEVER mentioned in the VMK values. Does not seem fair to me.

VMK has created the problems their selves and they are mad because players had to find ways to buy the items for train track and water slide and the river parts in order to take part in the competitions. Pins that cost 500 credits??? Come one -- if it was dollars how many of us would buy even one of them?

The most obvious solution occurred to everyone else but the VMK designers.
***Lower the prices***

The only two ways to get credits were with mules and to spend all day, every day playing VMK playing thousand of mini- games. When one has that much desire to spend all that time on something - anything - it become an obsession. VMK created that obsession in most everyone that plays VMK. Now they are pissed that we are obsessed with it?

Every week for the last few months I seem to spent less and less time on VMk. Wonder why?

 

[Kasiks]

To delete go on http://disney.go.com/guestservices/your_account/index.html and then modify and then delete account :|

 

[disvaclub92]

When I first started, it was impossible to buy anything without creating mules. The games paid NOTHING. When those Spalsh Mountain tracks came out, I had to resort to mules if I wanted any. Now, games pay much better and I rarely use the mules I'd hate to get banned over a practice that was NEVER mentioned in the VMK values. Does not seem fair to me.

I agree. There are three of us in our family who actively play. My girls and I both love to design rooms. Up until December of last year, when Mansion came out - I muled alot, to fund my designs and theirs. Now with Mansion credits, which many of you I actively play with on a regular basis, I am set. But I also use alot of the mules I created (quite a few actually). They store furniture, pins or clothing to help me keep organized. In addition, I do actively play them and they house credits on them - sort of like an emergency fund. I agree the grandfather clause should be in affect since there will be a large upcoming sale of costumes (which I know last year brought a big brigade of muling). Just stop the muling starting now. As for the mules that were created when credits were few and far between, if the inactive mules are creating a problem on the server, perform a mass deletion of them after inactivity over three months.

As for the reward system, I agree it will show favoritism. I know some great kids on VMK that really deserve an award for their generosity, kindness and caring. Will they get an award? It depends. I honestly think that we should be the ones to have the ability to nominate a person. Then VMK can go determine if the actions of that person are rewarding of the efforts from that persons chat. That way we the players get to participate in sharing the generosity that we see, not just what the staff chooses. Albiet favoritism can show here, but your chat review will really demonstrate those actions and show if it should be rewarded.

 

[catycatcat4]

To me part of the problem with some of the quests is that it relies on specific knowledge of a movie that I do not have. I also do not really have the time to watch all of the movies to get the answers. Or maybe I don't really know how tall a ride in Typhoon Lagoon is. I have been to Typhoon Lagoon, I have ridden the rides, but there is only so much time I am going to spend on investigating specific ride statistics. For other quests, I try to do them without any help.

errrrr you do know all the info you need for them water park quest can be found on there site thing like the ones the parks have

 

[tigressjewel]

As for the reward system, I agree it will show favoritism. I know some great kids on VMK that really deserve an award for their generosity, kindness and caring. Will they get an award? It depends. I honestly think that we should be the ones to have the ability to nominate a person. Then VMK can go determine if the actions of that person are rewarding of the efforts from that persons chat. That way we the players get to participate in sharing the generosity that we see, not just what the staff chooses. Albiet favoritism can show here, but your chat review will really demonstrate those actions and show if it should be rewarded.

Wow.. that is an excellent idea!! Hope Yavn is reading.

 

[JulyGirl]

I've asked all the hosts and mods to keep an eye out for players that go above and beyond the call of duty, the Gold Star award is our little way of saying thank you.

Oh, I totally missed that part before. So basically, all the players who follow staff and hosts around will be "fronting" for gold stars. I agree with disvaclub92. WE should be the ones to nominate players. Some of the sweetest kids I've met on VMK are not in the "popular" crowd, but they will help anyone who needs it.....even when staff is not around.

 

[Koolkidq]

I honestly think that we should be the ones to have the ability to nominate a person.

But, if that happens, then it will be "Vote for me, I'm your friend" and people will use mules to get votes

 

[disvaclub92]

But, if that happens, then it will be "Vote for me, I'm your friend" and people will use mules to get votes

But you missed my point. The proof is in a review of the chat. Nominees should detail the example of the action that the person nominating did and why they deserve the award. Staff then can review the chat to proove that it did happen. Therefore, what you stated above will not happen.

 

[Adventuredaz]

But you missed my point. The proof is in a review of the chat. Nominees should detail the example of the action that the person nominating did and why they deserve the award. Staff then can review the chat to proove that it did happen. Therefore, what you stated above will not happen.

I hesitated but took the bait anyway. There are some pretty creative people out there that would see nothing wrong with play acting this, I do believe some would script it out like they were shooting for the Oscar.

 

[cteddiesgirl]

(Most of this is copied from my post on another forum).

First of all, I would like to say that this newsletter was very informative and I'm happy to see that Yavn and staff are addressing some issues.

However,

3. Mules
A Mule is an account that is created and used just once or twice to gain items or credits. While it's OK to have a few different accounts/characters to play with, there are some players who have hundreds of characters, and rarely use them. If you are a player that has lots of Mules (more than 50) beware, we're now cracking down on these players and will start banning accounts.

I have a slight problem with this. I'm not sure if I have that many, but I just might. But, this is due to the fact that so many items are so expensive and many others are so hard to get. I started playing VMK a year ago. But I soon found out that there are many items that have to be gotten at a real park. Sorry, but I do not have the money to travel 1000 miles to go to WDW or 3000 to go to DLR. Much less the money to get into the parks, stay at a hotel, eat there, etc. And there are many others in the same situation.

So...what am I stuck with doing to get these items? I have to trade for them. And since most people don't want currently buyable items (myself included), I have to save up enough credits to buy the very expensive weekend specials in multiple quantities. And, for a person with an old computer that has load limitations, I can barely play POTC or HM, I can only sometimes reach 240k on fireworks, and since the update on JC, I can no longer reach the top 10 there. I have to spend practically all my time on my computer playing games to get what little credits I can get. And when special events come up with very expensive items on sale for a limited time, then what do people like me have to do to be able to get these items? Create a throw away mule.
Now, I will also admit that I have not created many mules in several months. I have, however, spent hour after hour after hour after hour every day gathering 20 credits here, 675 credits there. Most people do not have the time that I have to spend on a computer.
I can’t even hardly spend any time in my rooms or time socializing because I have to play these games over and over again.

Now. If they addressed the expense of these items, people wouldn't need mules. I have also made it abundantly clear to quite a few people I know that I would love to get rid of the extra mules I have that have piddly credits left on them. But I can't unless I spend more time playing on them to build up more credits or waste what few credits they have on junk that I don't want or need. And the "buy an item to trade it just to sell it" is a total waste of credits. Make there a way to transfer credits to my main characters (which I have several that I play often), then I could get rid of the extras I have.

There is also an issue with certain clothing items not available to buy in the game that people starting a new character can get. Especially for the girls. Namely, the shirts with lanyards and cameras. People are also creating mules just to be able to get these items as well. Many people will also use these to get young girls to trade away their rare items for something that is essentially free. Make these items available to buy in VMK.

If these issues were fixed, I would never have reason to create another mule, which I hate doing anyways. I have already spent many, many hours playing games to save up credits just so that I don't have to create a new one any time soon.

BTW: I would also like to know how they are going to determine who gets banned for mules. As I said, I have not created many in several months and most of them have not been used at all since at least last Christmas. Am I supposed to now be in fear of losing my rights to play since I am so open and honest about muling? Am I supposed to be in fear of losing my rights to play when I have lots of mules but have not created any at all in more than a month? What will be the criteria for this?
If you ban all players that have created 50 or more mules over all the time they have played, you will probably lose the majority or your faithful VMK players.


As for posting spoilers, while I agree that having them posted within a few minutes is not a good thing, I do believe that posting them eventually is a good thing.
But, it's those difficult and obscure questions that most people wouldn't know the answer to that is ridiculous. And people need answers to those questions.
I do try to get through every quest without the spoilers if possible. But, most of the time, it's impossible. Even for me who does happen to know lots of trivia about Disney in general. So what about the kids that they game was designed for? Most of these quests could never be done by an 8 year old child. And that's the quests created by the staff, not just player quests.


I think this idea of gold stars has both good and bad sides to it. While I do think this is a great incentive to get people to be nicer and more helpful, I also see where some would covet these stars and eventually try to lord it over those that don't.
There is already way too much "see? I have this and you don't!" attitude in VMK which I really despise. And VMK is fostering this with trying to keep things very rare and difficult to get.
It's already like this in real life and I hate seeing how it's being manifested in VMK, which is a child's game. Children should yes, be taught patience. But they should not be taught that it's ok to think that they are better than someone else because they managed to get something that another person was unable to get. It only perpetuates meanness and selfishness and encourages children to believe that this is how life is supposed to be. As for the star system to be a way of favoring some players, that's already done with certain players.
Is it to be when only in the presence of staff or from someone actually reporting a good deed? If so, as stated, there will be those that will pretend to be extra nice while around staff and be mean at all other times.
I would suggest that once these stars are awarded, that person would have to continue to be nice or get that star taken away.

how about being able to wear more pins? Would say, 15 make you happy?

Yes, this does go towards making me (and many others) happy to some extent. I love the idea of being able to wear more of my pins.
But , I still would like to see a way for us to display all of the pins that we cannot wear at one time. A way for us to also store pins rather than keeping them in our inventory or the inventory of a mule. The same goes for the clothing. I want to get them out of my inventories. Especially since I know of people who have had things suddenly go missing from them (including me) and it's takes forever to go through everything while trading.
Hey! If that happened, I could get rid of another mule!

Sure, it would be easier for us to just sell the items but I believe many people enjoy the feeling and satisfaction that comes from completing a Quest.

Well, if you they thought that way, then they would fix the prize distribution on the fireworks game. Just today, I was actually doing much better than what I usually do and would love to have seen how high I could really get. But, unfortunately, since I need so many credits so I don't have to create another mule, I had to stop just after I actually reached 240K. It's either stop there and cheat someone else out of credits they may deserve and not create another mule for credits, or keep going and get cheated out of the credits I deserve and have to create another throw away mule for credits. I would love to have known how high I could have gotten and I would have felt pride in myself (and my crappy pc) for reaching such a high level. As well as pride for not cheating the person who was lower than me and ended up winning out of their credits.

It's such a vicious circle. And if the prize distribution was fixed so that the winner actually wins, then everyone would have a way to be happy and feel pride in their accomplishments. And it's just so sad that the so called winner ends up being the loser. Not to mention that it's so sad that no matter what I do when playing that game, I always come out feeling like a loser.

To delete go on http://disney.go.com/guestservices/your_account/index.html and then modify and then delete account :|

So should my owner delete all unused accounts?
I know she/he has about 30 mules that he/she uses regularly either as storage, to hide from others( LOL) , to gift without being known, etc, etc.

BUT and i mean a HUGE however, he/she has had over the course of the start of vmk made, as you mentioned during halloween and christmas and various trips to DLR, at least over one hundred mules no longer in use.

What concerns me is that he/she will be banned because of actions taking before a formal warning was announced. This is what concerns me.

I don't think that deleting accounts on Disney.com really affects VMK that much. A couple weeks ago, I deleted a very old mule account and waited a week to try to use that same email address. It would not let me create the account with it.

 

[qruthie]

2. Posting Quest Answers
Sometimes it takes us weeks to research, build and test a Quest. There is nothing worse than watching all of this hard work go down the drain when the Quest answers are posted online just a few minutes after the Quest has gone live. It's fine to offer hints, but many players instead take the easy way out and just look them up before they even try to perform the Quest. You can thank all posters that reveal Quest answers for forcing us to add minimum score requirements to Quests. Sure, it would be easier for us to just sell the items but I believe many people enjoy the feeling and satisfaction that comes from completing a Quest.

Yavn, please don't assume that people automatically use the posted answers. I do as much of each quest as I can without using any posted answers. I'm more likely to use posted answers when the quest is full of trivia questions about a movie I have not seen such as Tron. In most cases, I try to search for the answers by checking places like IMDB.com. I would suggest a change to trivia based quests. Make sure the answers are available somewhere on the Disney web site. Then we could search for the answers and not rely on them being posted as a spoiler. That would be another way for VMK to be used as a potential marketing tool because it would encourage us to explore the Disney web site.

3. Mules
A Mule is an account that is created and used just once or twice to gain items or credits. While it's OK to have a few different accounts/characters to play with, there are some players who have hundreds of characters, and rarely use them. If you are a player that has lots of Mules (more than 50) beware, we're now cracking down on these players and will start banning accounts.

I have a little over 50 accounts if I counted correctly. None of them fit this definition of mules. I still use them fairly regularly, more often than once per month, to do credit runs or play games in cognito. None of them have been used only once or twice and then abandonned. In fact, this week, two of them got extra credits in the Music Game for playing their songs for the 100th time.

In addition, I don't know how many accounts my children have. I think they each has one account. They don't play much but I wouldn't want their accounts to be considered to be mules and be deleted just because we share an IP address.

I would like some clarification about how mules will be handled. My guess is like someone else said, that accounts that have been inactive for a specific amount of time would be deactivated and perhaps deleted. I would prefer for inactive accounts to be deactivated with a period of time where you can ask to have the account reactivated. Then, if the person doesn't ask to have the account reactivated in that period of time, the account could be deleted.

 

[Nanoer]

Yavn, please don't assume that people automatically use the posted answers. I do as much of each quest as I can without using any posted answers. I'm more likely to use posted answers when the quest is full of trivia questions about a movie I have not seen such as Tron. In most cases, I try to search for the answers by checking places like IMDB.com. I would suggest a change to trivia based quests. Make sure the answers are available somewhere on the Disney web site. Then we could search for the answers and not rely on them being posted as a spoiler. That would be another way for VMK to be used as a potential marketing tool because it would encourage us to explore the Disney web site.



I have a little over 50 accounts if I counted correctly. None of them fit this definition of mules. I still use them fairly regularly, more often than once per month, to do credit runs or play games in cognito. None of them have been used only once or twice and then abandonned. In fact, this week, two of them got extra credits in the Music Game for playing their songs for the 100th time.

In addition, I don't know how many accounts my children have. I think they each has one account. They don't play much but I wouldn't want their accounts to be considered to be mules and be deleted just because we share an IP address.

I would like some clarification about how mules will be handled. My guess is like someone else said, that accounts that have been inactive for a specific amount of time would be deactivated and perhaps deleted. I would prefer for inactive accounts to be deactivated with a period of time where you can ask to have the account reactivated. Then, if the person doesn't ask to have the account reactivated in that period of time, the account could be deleted.

Yeah yavn.. I decided to have a lan party and introduced everyone to vmk. We all used the same server to make a person to get onto vmk. So what are you gonna do? Ban the server and 50 people's accounts? Do I hear OVERBOARD?

 

[PirateBell]

To me part of the problem with some of the quests is that it relies on specific knowledge of a movie that I do not have. I also do not really have the time to watch all of the movies to get the answers. Or maybe I don't really know how tall a ride in Typhoon Lagoon is. I have been to Typhoon Lagoon, I have ridden the rides, but there is only so much time I am going to spend on investigating specific ride statistics. For other quests, I try to do them without any help.

I am recently new to vmk and to Dis boards. I also was getting excited and looked forward to see what Yavn had to say...After being gone on a week end trip to Disneyland.. I came back to look up what Yavn was going to tell us. Like what else was coming out and what else to look forward to coming the next week in Tron. But what we got was a good scolding...it seemed like he had alot to complain about. Which to me wasn't any fun coming on to see what Yavn had to say and thought Wow...what was he so --- off about? So on that I just want to say something.

I can understand that they do work hard to make the quest hard for all of us to take just to have the answers posted...But then why make them so hard. I too have to agree with bopper... I try very hard to do the quests on my own
but have only been able to do it a couple times. I don't the have all the movies to check for the answers not do i have the money to buy all them. And I don't have the money to go to WDW so I wouldn't know how tall or big a ride is there. It does seem to me that vmk does reward the players who can do very high scores on the games....and we who can't well we have to accept it. And I have.

AS for mules...well this is how new I am I didn't know what a mules was...til I asked someone. I must say I certainly can understand why people make them. I don't understand why that would be a problem as long as they follow the vmk rules. If they didn't want them well then they should have put that in the vmk rules. How else can you get the things you want or need for your character...espically if you can't buy it.

About the rewards and giving them out to the people who do good. Humm.. that means that all the CL will give them to their friends. I think I would have to agree with Disvafan on this too. Maybe if we were the ones to nominate the person it might work. I can understand they might to honor someone who does good. And I have met some really nice people since joining that I too would like to nominate. One in pictular who was nice to trade me a Lightcyle Tron pin bc I kept getting dc. She went out of her way to help and then go on to tell me about the Dis members here. There are alot of nice people here and I think that if we could do the nominating it might be more fair.