Problem of undeletable accounts with Dark Matter

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  • Problem of undeletable accounts with Dark Matter

    I know it's an old topic, but currently there is an ongoing discussion on the .de-boards with some really original suggestions.

    For those of you who are not familiar with the problem:
    An account with bought DM can not be deleted due to legal issues and thus there are several "dead" accounts in the universes taking the good positions. Some of them are normally inactive, some of them are in vacation mode and some are even banned til 2038. In older universes with less players this isn't such a big problem, but especially in speed universes this problem gets bigger and bigger.

    Now we know that these accounts can't be deleted off-handedly. The Gameforge could give all of them coupon codes with the DM amount they had, but that's not a practical solution if you have to do that several times once in a while. And the only possible way to delete these accounts is, as shown, the universe merge. However, we have to find a solution to avoid such "dead" accounts in the future. Once we have a solution, a "pseudo-merge" could be made and the dead account would be gone.

    As for the solution to avoid this in the future, there have been several good suggestions, but the community wanted to keep a possibility to go into vacation for more than 35 days. They argued that there could be reasons for one not being able to log in into his account every 35 days and thus made suggestions how one could prolong these 35 days of inactivity. In the following I will list some of the good suggestions including both of the problems:

    1. There should be a global account to manage all of one's accounts. The DM would be stored in this account and thus the particular player accounts in the universes could be deleted without problems. Additionally there should be a feature for each universe account to prolong the 35 days of inactivity to 3/6/12 months. This could be a payment feature in which case one could choose the time - e.g. 3 months 10k DM, 6 months 17,5k DM and 12 months 30k DM (values are only examples and can be changed of course :)). OR this feature would be available for everyone but would be limited to only 3 months. After the 3/6/12 months the account would be deleted normally, unless the player logs in into his account and prolongs the period again to 3/6/12 months by activating the feature again, otherwise he prolongs it to the normal 35 days.
      With MMOGAME or gameforge.de we already have a suitable platform for this system. But this would somehow reduce the income of the Gameforge.
    2. The Dark Matter system stays as it is, i.e. the DM is bound to the universe account. But after 35 days of inactivity the DM begins to gradually decrease. For each day of extra inactivity a fixed amount of DM is subtracted from the account. Eventually the DM is depleted completely and the account will be deleted.
    3. Accounts are transfered into an invisible galaxy after 35 days of inactivity if there is bought DM in the account. When the player logs in into his account, his planets will be moved to the "real" galaxies to the nearest possible positions as they were before inactivity. Needless to say, the player would be informed with an email before this happens so he can still log in and prevent this.


    Of course this can't be applied to currently existing "dead" accounts since they didn't agree with this when they bought their DM. But as said, these could be deleted by a "pseudo-merge".

    What do you think about the solutions? Do you have better suggestions?

  • I'm pretty sure that this situation is similar to a cinema visist. Even if the movie isn't a virtual commodity, the ticket grants you access to the movie (which is, like dark matter, an abstract commodity you can't touch yet it provides some benefits). If you behave like a dickhead (e.g. break the rules and terms of agreement) and therefore get kicked out of the theatre (e.g. get banned open end) you wont get your money back - you lose your right to see the film (e.g. use your dark matter).

    As far as I know our laws aren't made for such cases. Simpley because the legislative authority had no idea that cases like this could happen when they made this laws. But i'm going to ask a professional these days and I guess he could give me some specific answers and tell me the paragraphes in the german (!) law, wich are related to this topic.

  • UNoWin, I'm not a lawyer, and even less a specialist of german law... However, things may not be so simple as you write.

    When you buy a movie ticket and you enter in the dark room (or not), it's for a given film (e.g. Star Wars) at a given time (e.g. 20:30). Then your ticket is not usable anymore.

    When you buy DM, you may have in mind that it's for getting a merchant or an officer, but you buy DM, not a merchant or an officer.

    I would compare DM to an ATM: you get cash, and with your cash you can buy bread, meat, or a DVD player. Even if you get arrested for speeding and are going to jail, the money (cash) you still have in your pocket is yours, and will be given back to you when you get out of jail.

  • It's even simpler: GameForge says in its Terms of Agreement, that the ownership of the account will always belong to them. Thats it.
    If you could really have any claim on the Dark Matter you bought, you could sue their butts out of Karlsruhe if they ban you ;).
    Thats right. You could force them by law to unban your account. Pretty hard to put this in appropiate words in english, but I think it's understandable.
    And there's no way to compare an ingame payment feature like Dark Matter to real cash you get out of an ATM. So this one just doesn't work.

    I asked a lawyer this day and he told me that there's no paragraph in the german law that exactly describes this problem. So everything has to be declared in the Terms of Agreement.
    And like I said: If you would really have a claim on your account as soon as you buy Dark Matter you could easily force them by law to unban your account at any time, if you get banned.

  • We have the whole merging of unis going on an idea a player had in my uni was simple even with speed unis if there is no plan to merge why not merge it into a frsh uni, the old account with DM stay in the exodeus uni and playing accounts move over. From there on if an account goes inactive with DM it gets moved to the exodeus uni awaiting its revival if ever it would happen and get moved for a cost of DM to the active uni. People really do get sick of inactives choking the universe up, this could be a great way to make a lot of poeple happy.

  • Arazern wrote:

    We have the whole merging of unis going on an idea a player had in my uni was simple even with speed unis if there is no plan to merge why not merge it into a frsh uni, the old account with DM stay in the exodeus uni and playing accounts move over. From there on if an account goes inactive with DM it gets moved to the exodeus uni awaiting its revival if ever it would happen and get moved for a cost of DM to the active uni. People really do get sick of inactives choking the universe up, this could be a great way to make a lot of poeple happy.
    Merging into a fresh (i.e. empty) universe is something I (and many others) proposed 1 year ago (or more) when unifusion was coming in GF's ears. They didn't want to even listen or try to understand why. They decided to make things difficult. It's their choice, and I would guess that is one reason why it's so long to come...

  • remove long time inactif from the galaxy

    Hi

    In some universes (mostly in new speeduni) the galaxy view is full ... but not full of player, it's full of long inactivs with DM.
    You already see the problem on elektra.de, where you had one, and then two, new galaxies.
    But it's not a long run solution (and you won't do it on each uni which need it)

    Then that the suggestion :

    After 35 day of inactivity, the account with DM isn't deleted but it leaves from the galaxy letting us colonizes (the account can move in an invisible galaxy, or whatever)
    And if the inactive log in again, the account's colonies come back as close as they were before (like for the merged player)


    Then the inactives with DM are not deleted, and the universes have a lot of free emplacement.


    ** OgameTech **

  • Problem of undeletable accounts with Dark Matter :)

    3. Accounts are transfered into an invisible galaxy after 35 days of inactivity if there is bought DM in the account. When the player logs in into his account, his planets will be moved to the "real" galaxies to the nearest possible positions as they were before inactivity. Needless to say, the player would be informed with an email before this happens so he can still log in and prevent this.

  • RiV- wrote:

    Problem of undeletable accounts with Dark Matter :)

    3. Accounts are transfered into an invisible galaxy after 35 days of inactivity if there is bought DM in the account. When the player logs in into his account, his planets will be moved to the "real" galaxies to the nearest possible positions as they were before inactivity. Needless to say, the player would be informed with an email before this happens so he can still log in and prevent this.


    I looked for this theard but i missed it :whistling:
    All is here them :)

    hoping it will be added


    ** OgameTech **

  • what if all inactive accounts after the 35 days are placed in limbo universe in a frozen state, regardless of the fact they have DM or not .
    If player decides to come back he can login to his account through a special link, " inactive accounts" that will take him to the limbo universe - one per each community .
    There he can reactivate the account and transfer it to his original universe or one of the existing target universes if any in exchange of a payment in DM . He can buy the DM or use some already present on his account . This will solve the problem of so called deleted accounts with DM and also some players who wish to return to the game after a long absence.
    In this way we solve the problem of inactive (for more than 35 days ) blocking the good spots in an active universe
    we solve the problem of some accounts with hypothetical DM that are deleted
    we spare the devs to restore accounts
    the cost is to block a server for this "cemetery "

    It is true, some players maybe will never come back to claim their accounts but so far, i had a lot of players crying after their lost accounts,

  • As I said there should be an option to save your account for more than 35 days of inactivity. But I think saving all accounts isn't a good solution. There should be an option which the user can activate either for DM or by activating the option periodically as explained in the first post. The user should do something for his account in order to save it.

  • vulca wrote:

    Hi

    In some universes (mostly in new speeduni) the galaxy view is full ... but not full of player, it's full of long inactivs with DM.
    You already see the problem on elektra.de, where you had one, and then two, new galaxies.
    But it's not a long run solution (and you won't do it on each uni which need it)

    Then that the suggestion :

    After 35 day of inactivity, the account with DM isn't deleted but it leaves from the galaxy letting us colonizes (the account can move in an invisible galaxy, or whatever)
    And if the inactive log in again, the account's colonies come back as close as they were before (like for the merged player)


    Then the inactives with DM are not deleted, and the universes have a lot of free emplacement.

    It's an excellent idea that solves a big real problem : the zombie-accounts, forever.

    But 50 days instead of 35 days would be better ?
    (statistics concerning this kind of accounts are able to say something about the good period to use)

    Le bonheur est souvent la seule chose qu'on puisse donner sans l'avoir,
    et c'est en le donnant qu'on l'acquiert ^ Voltaire.

  • If the legal problem is that it remains DM on account, for me the best solution is the second one : if the DM is used automatically to let the account existing, once the DM is completely used, the account can be deleted.

    Problem about using automatically DM ? No ! If you are banned for 7 days, your commander end period is not delayed of 7 days : so, you use DM without having the possibility to play.

    The largest period of vacation in Europe is 2 months; so,
    1/ 7 days > ( i )
    2/ 21 days > ( i I )
    3/ 60 days > (i I $ )

    and each day at the scheduled tasks of a universe (cleaning of destroyed planets, etc), each (i I $) account looses X DM. If DM is null, the account is deleted.

    Everybody wins :
    1/ GF, for which DM is used (yet paid... and used, its wonderful)
    1b / GF again, with the creation of a paid feature (for a while not against player :( )
    2/ active players, for which the galaxy is cleaned
    3/ inactive players, for which exist now a feature to remain active for free ***

    *** yes, because my vision of this suggestion is to use also the free DM, because a player which makes a lot of expedtions to collect DM has won the right to remain 3 monthes inactive :)

    To choose the daily cost, they just have to make a query to know the average amount of unused DM on accounts inactive for more than 60 days, and split this average by I don't know... 30 ? So, in average, a zombie account remains 30 days more than the 60 days limit.

  • I like the proposal about the DM being consumed in old inactive accounts, until the account destruction...
    It would solve the problem of these eternal zombies that are taking spaces in the crowded galaxies.

    I like also the idea to extend the inactivity duration manually, through a DM option (3 months / 6 months).

    Another possibility would be to use the zombies in vacation mode (instead of removing them straight away).
    When the account runs out of DM, or reach its limit of inactivity, the vacation mode would be disabled (old empires invaded by pirates / aliens ? :P). And the res. / fleets left on this dead account are reachable by the active players, until the final destruction few days later.

    7 days : (iv)
    30 days : (iIv)
    More than 30 days : (iIv) + DM being consumed
    More than 30 days + no more DM : (iI) + abandoned empire status, possibility for everyone to go for 'tourism' on the leftovers.
    Few days later : destruction