Changes to contest rules/policies

[Sarick]

I'm not saying the increased bandwidth of more player entries is the cost. Nor am I saying the increased number of pixels that need to be distributed to winners is the cost. The cost is the effort that SE would need to put towards changing a system they already have in place. What I was saying is that this change will cost some amount of man-hours that we can only speculate over how much it is, yet everyone is talking about it as though it will take no time, no effort, no money whatsoever.

I think I pointed this out in post you quoted :P "The only real cost of the contest is managing/distributing the items." Still if a person is paying a subscription for a service that isn't free those efforts should be included with the package. If not its considered not supported. I could understand if the service was FREE but it's a paid service. When people joined the management system they wasn't made aware that it would restrict character in game opportunities every time they decided to make a contest.

As you later point out, attempting to get your accounts split to new SE accounts involves going through a lot of red tape. As with any large company, even the simplest actions can require comical amounts of work. So how much are these changes worth? Would you still support them if it required all updates to be pushed back an entire month?

I doubt it would need a lot of work. If it does it'd be because they designed the system wrong at the start to make it difficult to transfer. It's been done before on others. The red tape is actually getting someone willing to help. When I wanted a password reset the phone rep said it was impossible to recover the password or reset it. This was caused by SE spamming those orchestra events to the POL and main email accounts. It made the Icon blink constantly until I was able to delete the mail off the account!

On the forums I posted about it and someone mentioned the account management had a mail reset option. I went in there and FIXED the problem. The support options failed when the public knew more about a fix then the paid staff. The staff was incredibly rude about it when I ask to talk to someone else.

The issue I'm having here is to get both accounts equal access contest forums etc. We/I shouldn't need to separate character accounts into different management accounts just to access a contest for each of them. What set me off the most is some players support bad policy in a selfish way to try and block fairness changes. Contest policies are major complaints. Just like the one time recovery policy that is very restrictive.

As for updates being pushed back a month, I doubt the support staff, legal team, the web designer and the programmer are all the same person. I can see where you're coming from in a coordination standpoint but really setting the updates back a full month for a contest. The management system is just that it should be used to pay for the accounts. Frankly, I don't know why some unlock-able trinkets can't be unlocked in game using moogle codes.

I get it, things where done wrong the 1st round. Saying that it'll take a month to fix and set back the updates a full month implys you don't have much faith in the support/development team. I guess we can agree on a few things. ;D

[Yinnyth]

I honestly don't believe it would cost us an entire month worth of updates to change this, I'm only trying to point out that it will cost them some amount of resources which could be spent on other things, and I would rather have those other things. Even the most staunch supporters of this change would rethink their position if the cost were high enough. My assuming that it will take a month of work is only slightly more ludicrous than assuming it will take 0 hours of work.

My biggest criticism regarding this is how few people it will affect. Most people who have multiple POL accounts on one SE account are just like me (one person, multiple accounts), so it's completely fair that I can't enter contests several times. There are a handful of people like the OP who are actually getting screwed by this. Any time they put into fixing this problem for a dozen people is time that could be spent doing things which benefit thousands of people instead.

Now if I'm wrong and it really would cost them 0 hours to change, by all means, change it. Heck, even if it eats an entire day of work, do it. Or if they've got idle hands with nothing better to do, sure, give them this as a project. If none of those are the case, then my opinion is that it's a little bit overkill to make a few people happy. Sorry if I sound like a jerk for saying it, but we've all got different things we want from the game and a limited staff who can only fulfill a certain amount of tasks.

[Mirage]

The way I see it:
First you have people who bought multiple game registration codes for the main purpose of cheating the system and participate in competitions multiple times.I doubt these persons would have linked their POL accounts to the same SE account, out of fear/paranoia of being detected by SE.

Then you have power-gamers who have multiple POL accounts in order to play several characters at once. I know I am just making guesses now, but these players do not strike me as the kind of players who are heavily into creative competitions, and even if they were, just handing in two contributions doesn't mean they'll win with any of them, as they also need to actually be good.

Thirdly, you have people who combine their POL accounts for management purposes, where several people in the same household just want one single place to pay for their expenses.

I don't think there is a very large overlap between these groups, so I don't think it would have a very big negative impact on competitions if they allowed each POL account to participate, rather than each SE account.

In either cases, cheaters will be able to cheat if they really want to. The difference in cheating-difficulty is very small no matter which system they go for.

[Sarick]

Then you have power-gamers who have multiple POL accounts in order to play several characters at once. I know I am just making guesses now, but these players do not strike me as the kind of players who are heavily into creative competitions, and even if they were, just handing in two contributions doesn't mean they'll win with any of them, as they also need to actually be good.

I 100% agree with this. I for one would only care if the items on the 2nd 3rd account would be very beneficial to the character. Simple trinkets being restricted is silly, they won't hurt anyone. Powerful items being redistricted make it so only one of your accounts has a chance at getting an item. It's highly unlikely that 2 accounts would win at the same time.

A contest could be easily rigged if done wrong "like first fifty accounts to answer the same question." If one guy has 50 accounts to sends in the answer on each account seconds after its posted the contest is isn't a contest. One player screws over others by being greedy. The policy issue is to limit people from abusing bad contest setups and to exclude people who pay for extra character accounts.

Thirdly, you have people who combine their POL accounts for management purposes, where several people in the same household just want one single place to pay for their expenses.

This is what the management system was supposed to be, originally this was the sole purpose of the playonline account. Playonline was meant to handle multiple online services. They then decided to move to another management system that managed other managed accounts. I didn't like linking my accounts and moving them to begin with.

I don't think there is a very large overlap between these groups, so I don't think it would have a very big negative impact on competitions if they allowed each POL account to participate, rather than each SE account.

In either cases, cheaters will be able to cheat if they really want to. The difference in cheating-difficulty is very small no matter which system they go for.

This is why the policy is bad. other then the chance of being rigged by a silly setup it's pointless to set restrictions when everyone pays for each account independently. As you stated if they want to cheat they'll do it anyway and it's unlikely they'll win multiple times (with the exception of bad contest design).

My biggest criticism regarding this is how few people it will affect. Most people who have multiple POL accounts on one SE account are just like me (one person, multiple accounts), so it's completely fair that I can't enter contests several times. There are a handful of people like the OP who are actually getting screwed by this.

Yinnyth, I think you're missing the point. When you pay for a separate account its not free it's an independent character. It's like purchasing two expensive seat tickets in an airplane and the company decides that you can't get a second meal even though you paid FULL PRICE for the second seat.

It's more or less like one person bought multiple seats and the company decided that because all of them where bought by the same guy on one credit card only one can get the in flight meal even if there are people in them from his family.

There are several contest that have this practice but these limits are more for tangible items not immaterial trinkets or game content that has no real money value. It isn't like giving away these items to people who are lucky enough to win them will break the game.

You're accounts are being billed independently, they're like seat tickets. You can play/consume them independently so they should be treated independently. If you give up your rights for that ticket you're being cheated for it no matter how you put it. Even if it's just a silly restrictive contest policy you should at least recognize it's designed so you're extra accounts are being excluded when they shouldn't need to be.