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Gender:  Ingame: Avatar Name:
Flipper SPARKY Reddolphin
Soc: Freelancer
Location: Neath, South Wales
EFD: 3,899.00
Reputation: Qualified
Fame: 12
Achievements: 2
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Support case sent to mindark (about everything)
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Being pissed off with mindark atm I decided to respond to the support case about the EULA even though I previously said here it was pointless so I wasnt going to. Sorry but cant find my original thread to reply to so am starting a new one. Here is what was posted, I will post the reply here too when I get it....
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05 Nov 2006 Flipper Reddolphin:
(first, in advance I'd like to say this may seem highly critical of PE/EU but it's for Mindarks own benifit as things need to get better for the company's profits to go up further)
3) Sorry but I feel like I must reply as I've just re-read the EULA due to a question at EF. While i realise you want to ban people using autoclickers, presumably both hardware or software (but please include some sort of legal AC in-game, the crafting system is bad, I've heard of highly skilled people who crafted legally who have had to give up due to RSI or carpal tunnel syndrome), the fact is that the EULA needs to be VERY specific. By including ANY 3rd party hardware we are all in breach of the EULA. Combine this with rule 16 that says:
"16. Violation to the conditions
If you violate any part of this Agreement, your account may be terminated, locked, or warned in the form of a temporary lockdown. Any action taken against your account due to a violation is the decision of MindArk and is final. Any claims, virtual items, funds, etc, located on a locked avatar account is forfeit and any fund transactions pending are revoked",
then you have a situation where legally you can close any account and keep all that money. Seeing as this is meant to be a real cash economy, there should be more protection for our money. The situation with the rediculous inflation, partly caused by a combination of resellers/market manipulator and also the droprate of super-rare items (eg modfaps) not being changed to take into account the increased amount of players, has gotten to the point where there are people who have paid $50,000 USD for a mod fap with a TT value of much less than that (I dont have one and havent deposited that much, but others have and thats the point I'm trying to get across, any money we put into PE we have not legal protection over and is not an investment but a very high risk with no legal protection whatsoever. Just as I'm sure you'd advise people not to lend their mod faps to a stranger in PE I'm sure people dont want to hand over large amounts of cash to a faceless nameless stranger who could steal all that money if they wished. If you say otherwise, then unless its in the EULA we are only taking your word for it and verbal agreements have no legal basis - speak to your lawyers (I'm sure you have at least one working there for checking EULA changes etc) they will verify what I am saying is correct).
I do want Mindark to be successfull, but this means taking on more responsability, as well as listening to the player base more which at the moment your not which is why I will not deposit until everything is fixed....
WARNING - LONG LIST COMING UP, PLEASE FORWARDS TO DESIGN TEAM.
Hello design team. This VU was the worst ever and only adds to the cost of playing, reduces skillgain, I still have lag and rubberbanding, and also because of the new loot (which also has bugs, many people reporting no loot without getting a no loot msg - and no they havent disabled it in chat) the liquidity of the economy is very much reduced. The player base was not asked if we wanted the amp change or the loot change. I have also been asked tell you that team hunts are now totally useless, with a team of 9 people looting 7 of sometype of robot part which gets divided by 9 then rounded down so they can global with no loot. Old team rules need to be brought back and the rounding problem fixed. The turret at camp phoenix TP should be removed too, sweaters are necessary for the mindforce economy. Dying at TP isnt a problem as the revival point isn't far. The radar is now useless with the removal of the rings and the letters being too small to see which direction is which your heading. The new HP bar is unnoticable when low and results in many deaths for many people. Alt-tab/cntrl-alt-del is also useless now as it results in a white screen when returning to game. If you dont want people to check things fine, but there is a real need for tools such as PEass to check the forum, listen to mp3s in game, check prices to avoid getting scammed, etc. There is also no in game way to communicate with friends on MSN so I need to check now and again to see if anyones online, but need to use task manager to shut down PE each time it doesnt return to game properly. There is also a problem wher you can wander around mountains or sometimes if on level ground just walk up to someone and all you see is sky.
On the plus side, I have to say the new ESI system is an improvement, and the categorisation of mindforce chips in auction is better too, although could be improved further with a subcategory for the attack chips (nerve blast + firestorm). The weapons being categorised by type is better too.
still talking to the design team here:
if you wish to discuss anything, then please reply to this, or, if its only support who are able to reply, then please contact me via email or msn messenger and I would be happy to discuss further. As I have said previously, this isnt just complaining, I want PE to get much better for everyone, but a lot of changes need to happen, and mindark need to be seen as caring about their comunity not just increasing the amount of money they can take. Profits should be increased by increased amount of players, not increased decay. It's currently being seen more and more as a game for rich people only, maybe thats what you want as this will increase profits but it isn't the right way to go about it.
thanks,
flipper. (flipperreddolphin@hotmail.co.uk)
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For those of you who havent got a clue what the hell I'm talking about, this was a reply to the existing (open - in progress) support case and its replies...
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Case 92604 History
14 Oct 2006 Flipper Reddolphin:
A few questions here on seperate subjects so I'll post in category 'other'
First, another bug report to for you to forwards to the design team.
Like the previous one its also non-urgent, just annoying, and tell them to concentrate on fixing the rubber banding and sliding first.
When you sell something at auction, you get a msg saying item has sold for x amount of peds your pedcard has been updated with the new balance, but the pedcard doesnt get updated until you log out and log back in again.
On a seperate issue.... theres a 3rd party program called pe assistant which the majority of project entropia players use, afaik it does not interact in any way with PE or its servers etc, and is only a way to retrieve info from the net (sites like peauction, wiki, maps, etc) and take photos (without having to click printscreen, cntrl alt del, paste in mspaint, save, go back to game, find its logged me out, log back in again).
Am I in breach of the EULA by using this program? If I am just tell me please and I'll stop using it, I dont want to be locked, the EULA is very long and impossible to understand all of it unless your a lawyer, and regularly changes without letting us know its changed.
The EULA also needs rewording because using a keyboard or mouse or even a computer is in breach of EULA "The Participant also agrees upon not using any Third Party software OR EQUIPMENT that influences the Entropia Universe in any way". Therefore, everyone is in breach of it and we can expect to all be banned soon?
Can I also suggest that the graphics engine gets changed soon, a year from now at the very longest? The chrytek one was suggested by others at entropiaforum (do a search for "graphics engine" and look for a thread with the title "MA get this pretty PLZZZ!  "). I have tried getting friends to play PE but they ALWAYS uninstall as they think the graphics are too ugly.
Also it would be nice if Marco could post at EF more often and let us know of any problems and what mindark are doing about it as soon as they occur and keep us updated about it as often as possible, this would help to avoid leading to situations such as when AlphaGeek was banned (thanks for unlocking him, I'm glad Mindark sometimes listen to the players, even if a lot of the time we are ignored).
Finally, good luck with fixing the problems the physx change caused, as well as the usuall bugs vu's cause, and thanks for your time.
15 Oct 2006 MindArk Support:
Hi,
Thank you for reporting.
1) Auction
We are aware of this issue and it has been reported to the members of the design team. It will be fixed as soon as possible.
2) PE Assistant
As you probably understand, we cannot comment on the use of any third party programmes. Please note that many such programmes can contain keyloggers or spyware. We cannot guarantee the safety of your Account if you use third party programmes with the Entropia Universe.
3) EULA
We think that it is quite obvious that the use of a keyboard and a mouse is not part of this pargraph.
4) Graphics
We will forward your remarks to the graphics designers.
5) Marco and EF
Marco is not only director of community relations, he has also other projects running. It is not possible for him to be on the EF at all times. However, we do read the forums and we do listen to our customers even if you might not get a satisfactory reply at all times.
Thank you for taking your time to report all these issues.
Regards,
Entropia Support
16 Oct 2006 Flipper Reddolphin:
1) Great, thanks 
2) Same answer I expected... I have a gold card and very good antivirus and antispyware and both hardware and software firewall. This computer is bulletproof. I didnt ask is peass safe as obviously you dont have access to the code, all I want to know is could I get banned by mindark for using peass. This answer seems to be saying "maybe, we wont tell you, you'll find out if/when we ban you"
3) No, your wrong. While I'd agree it is very very obvious to everyone that a keyboard mouse and computer is not INTENDED to be included in that paragraph they are still all equipment that influences project entropia.
Also some sort of notice on the web site maybe each time the EULA changes might not be a bad idea, stealth changes tends to encourage talk of conspiracies 
4) Great, thanks (you'd see more customers if the graphics improve a lot)
5) We don't expect Marco to be at EF all the time, but when theres a major balls up somewhere in the program thats certain to make players angry, the least you could do is let us know that MA is aware and what theyre doing to solve it, until ads started apearing about protests we heard nothing from mindark, we didnt know what was being done or even if they were aware of the problem, just silence. The timing of holidays doesnt help either.
Once again, thanks.
Flipper.
16 Oct 2006 MindArk Support:
Hi,
Thanks for the update.
3) This paragraph is not there to scare people off. It is there to deal with participants using illegal ways to gain advantage over other participants and thereby ruining the in-world balance.
We normally do inform the community every time we update the EULA. We had one incidence this Summer where no such information was released. The change was a spelling mistake and we forgot about informing the community. We take the blame for this and promise improvement.
5) Our communication can certainly improve further. However, we actually did continuously update the Support News section and addressed the problems and known issues resulting from VU 8.6.
Regards,
Entropia Support
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I've also added this as ive forgotten one important point, lol:
Quote:
05 Nov 2006 Flipper Reddolphin:
One more thing I left out...
due to the forum being at EF and no official forum, most people dont go to the website except to file a support case, an in-game (ie, when you log in) notification of change of EULA would be good, and is included in most games. You cant honestly expect us to re-read the EULA each time we log in (many times while playing due to bugs etc).
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11-05-2006, 11:26
now that is quality.
