Alexander

It’s great that you have a good history with Sarah, but with me its really simple. You cheat, you benefit from it, you get banned stay banned. 
Perhaps if Sarah had still been around, she would have decided to consider your past efforts for her and make an exception, but I am not Sarah. The communications from Sarah’s side I have access to don’t show near enough for me to consider and I can’t really inherit Sarah’s trust in people. 
 
Maybe the CM we hire will consider a more lenient policy, but I do believe in this. 

I can actually confirm Jesper did help Sarah find cheaters in the past, though I can’t confirm he did that with LuckyPatcher.
 
Unfortunately he spent a bunch of tokens and coins he cheated, he’s asked us to reset his account prior to doing so, but that’s not something we offer as a service and honestly we probably never will. Benefiting from cheating is gone forever by default, it’s not so convenient as “ dont get caught, enjoy forever, get caught, enjoy for a while and then just have what you used to have” ....
 
Sorry but respected or not, what your fellow players think of you really doesn’t concern me.... 
Testing one cheat, reporting it and leaving the resources untouched is one thing. Cheating hundreds of millions of coins, multiple purchases, spending chunks of it and then asking for an account reset just isn’t happening, the LP hack also isn’t the one you reported, to my knowledge nor is the tabbing one.. 
 

He’s free to bring it up here, really. 
 
Banning policy on our end for better or worse is fairly simple:
If we have evidence, we ban you. If it’s an error, we crawl for you. It’s rare but may happen one day (will, if we ban for long enough). 

If it’s not an error, the calculation for me is simple: Did they benefit from cheating?

If yes, it’ll probably stick permanently. I unban mostly people who just tested it, left the gains untouched and reported it. A small handful, less than 1% of the wave, got unbanned for that reason. 
 
Ultimately I can’t tell the difference between people who were just testing and accidentally spent their gains and people who were cheating and using testing as an excuse - if I cant take it back, the ban will always stick.
The people who contacted me immediately after cheating without delay, worked with me and followed my instructions concerning what to do are the ones who ended up unbanned. 
The current banwave isn’t just based on players reporting each other, that’s misinformation and I already told you that ... The current one I assembled a list of playerID’s based on reports and then manually dug for evidence on each one. The evidence is there, just not as convenient as with the last wave. Hence the scale is much smaller. 🙂
Last one was fully automatic, with manual unbans for those who didn’t benefit. The intent there is fear - people should understand and know they can lose years of progress for just minor cheats, otherwise it becomes a slippery slope where people cheat more and more until they can’t come back from it.
 

28th feb is the last TS event 🙂

He’s free to bring it up here, really. 
 
Banning policy on our end for better or worse is fairly simple:
If we have evidence, we ban you. If it’s an error, we crawl for you. It’s rare but may happen one day (will, if we ban for long enough). 

If it’s not an error, the calculation for me is simple: Did they benefit from cheating?

If yes, it’ll probably stick permanently. I unban mostly people who just tested it, left the gains untouched and reported it. A small handful, less than 1% of the wave, got unbanned for that reason. 
 
Ultimately I can’t tell the difference between people who were just testing and accidentally spent their gains and people who were cheating and using testing as an excuse - if I cant take it back, the ban will always stick.
The people who contacted me immediately after cheating without delay, worked with me and followed my instructions concerning what to do are the ones who ended up unbanned. 
The current banwave isn’t just based on players reporting each other, that’s misinformation and I already told you that ... The current one I assembled a list of playerID’s based on reports and then manually dug for evidence on each one. The evidence is there, just not as convenient as with the last wave. Hence the scale is much smaller. 🙂
Last one was fully automatic, with manual unbans for those who didn’t benefit. The intent there is fear - people should understand and know they can lose years of progress for just minor cheats, otherwise it becomes a slippery slope where people cheat more and more until they can’t come back from it.
 

He’s free to bring it up here, really. 
 
Banning policy on our end for better or worse is fairly simple:
If we have evidence, we ban you. If it’s an error, we crawl for you. It’s rare but may happen one day (will, if we ban for long enough). 

If it’s not an error, the calculation for me is simple: Did they benefit from cheating?

If yes, it’ll probably stick permanently. I unban mostly people who just tested it, left the gains untouched and reported it. A small handful, less than 1% of the wave, got unbanned for that reason. 
 
Ultimately I can’t tell the difference between people who were just testing and accidentally spent their gains and people who were cheating and using testing as an excuse - if I cant take it back, the ban will always stick.
The people who contacted me immediately after cheating without delay, worked with me and followed my instructions concerning what to do are the ones who ended up unbanned. 
The current banwave isn’t just based on players reporting each other, that’s misinformation and I already told you that ... The current one I assembled a list of playerID’s based on reports and then manually dug for evidence on each one. The evidence is there, just not as convenient as with the last wave. Hence the scale is much smaller. 🙂
Last one was fully automatic, with manual unbans for those who didn’t benefit. The intent there is fear - people should understand and know they can lose years of progress for just minor cheats, otherwise it becomes a slippery slope where people cheat more and more until they can’t come back from it.
 

What exactly does?
 
Events are a fair bit of work but it used to be a part time job for a guy who made them about 6 months upfront. Honestly the majority of it lies in research for us - we can't just 1-2-3 change everything because the current event standards are actually not just random but based on extensive market research etc. 
Main issue right now is honestly that we couldn't simply inherit skilled staff (SM was in maintenance mode when we bought it - they had other jobs already), so we've to figure everything out from scratch and hire as well, so a lot of "we" ends up being "me" trying to juggle maintenance previously done by 4 (3 of which part time, thankfully) people in addition to actual changes that haven't been done in years! 
I am in the hiring process for some staff but having some difficulty choosing! Life sucks sometimes. 😛 On the community side specifically, as that's something I really _really_ don't have time for and it's starting to show >.> 
Basically as I start understanding and fixing some backlaying stuff everything (including hiring - hiring people who have to learn everything on their own is ... difficult!) should become much much much easier. 
E.g. we have to get backups in a much better place, there's a serious risk of losing months of data and having a week of downtime or more if disaster strikes and that's just totally not acceptable for a game like this. I'd like to automate infrastructure so it recovers nicely etc (have you noticed? I already did a fair bit of work on that, though the biggest steps are yet to come!), with this i'd like to make a proper pipeline of SM Dev -> SM RC (semi-public beta) -> SM Live so updates get less risky (there's a pipeline of sorts now, but it honestly has some crucial issues, including that the only real test version doesn't run the game the same way as the live version....). We can streamline support by probably up to 90% by offering simple instructions to disable your own base and reach forget password and making clear what we can/cant help with... There's so much we've planned that will make SM more reliable in the long run or free more of our time for stuff more beneficial to the players.... 
Events are part of that - once we've a bit of experience we can probably automate parts (does a human REALLY need to decide what days you get some random bonus? :P), assuming the small parts actually are fun and make sense, and free up time for actual humans planning larger scaled, more interesting events that don't feel like generic drivel. 
Right now the goal of the upcoming event schedule is just for us to duke out what does/doesn't work and play around a bit. Top priority right now is picking up the pieces Tacticsoft couldn't work on as they had a huge need to show results quickly (which we really don't, we're fine spending a few months making the next 5 years easier). But once we've some experience, as with all things, it'll get better 😃

28th feb is the last TS event 🙂

What exactly does?
 
Events are a fair bit of work but it used to be a part time job for a guy who made them about 6 months upfront. Honestly the majority of it lies in research for us - we can't just 1-2-3 change everything because the current event standards are actually not just random but based on extensive market research etc. 
Main issue right now is honestly that we couldn't simply inherit skilled staff (SM was in maintenance mode when we bought it - they had other jobs already), so we've to figure everything out from scratch and hire as well, so a lot of "we" ends up being "me" trying to juggle maintenance previously done by 4 (3 of which part time, thankfully) people in addition to actual changes that haven't been done in years! 
I am in the hiring process for some staff but having some difficulty choosing! Life sucks sometimes. 😛 On the community side specifically, as that's something I really _really_ don't have time for and it's starting to show >.> 
Basically as I start understanding and fixing some backlaying stuff everything (including hiring - hiring people who have to learn everything on their own is ... difficult!) should become much much much easier. 
E.g. we have to get backups in a much better place, there's a serious risk of losing months of data and having a week of downtime or more if disaster strikes and that's just totally not acceptable for a game like this. I'd like to automate infrastructure so it recovers nicely etc (have you noticed? I already did a fair bit of work on that, though the biggest steps are yet to come!), with this i'd like to make a proper pipeline of SM Dev -> SM RC (semi-public beta) -> SM Live so updates get less risky (there's a pipeline of sorts now, but it honestly has some crucial issues, including that the only real test version doesn't run the game the same way as the live version....). We can streamline support by probably up to 90% by offering simple instructions to disable your own base and reach forget password and making clear what we can/cant help with... There's so much we've planned that will make SM more reliable in the long run or free more of our time for stuff more beneficial to the players.... 
Events are part of that - once we've a bit of experience we can probably automate parts (does a human REALLY need to decide what days you get some random bonus? :P), assuming the small parts actually are fun and make sense, and free up time for actual humans planning larger scaled, more interesting events that don't feel like generic drivel. 
Right now the goal of the upcoming event schedule is just for us to duke out what does/doesn't work and play around a bit. Top priority right now is picking up the pieces Tacticsoft couldn't work on as they had a huge need to show results quickly (which we really don't, we're fine spending a few months making the next 5 years easier). But once we've some experience, as with all things, it'll get better 😃

Actually I just felt like replying, it's 3AM here. 😛
If someone seems to be thinking with us and optimistic, it's enjoyable for me to give them a bit of insight, so I don't mind doing it in my own time then 😃
 
It's different when someone asks for the umpteenth time where trading is!
 
Hope you'll stay on this journey with us.

Actually I just felt like replying, it's 3AM here. 😛
If someone seems to be thinking with us and optimistic, it's enjoyable for me to give them a bit of insight, so I don't mind doing it in my own time then 😃
 
It's different when someone asks for the umpteenth time where trading is!
 
Hope you'll stay on this journey with us.

Actually I just felt like replying, it's 3AM here. 😛
If someone seems to be thinking with us and optimistic, it's enjoyable for me to give them a bit of insight, so I don't mind doing it in my own time then 😃
 
It's different when someone asks for the umpteenth time where trading is!
 
Hope you'll stay on this journey with us.

What exactly does?
 
Events are a fair bit of work but it used to be a part time job for a guy who made them about 6 months upfront. Honestly the majority of it lies in research for us - we can't just 1-2-3 change everything because the current event standards are actually not just random but based on extensive market research etc. 
Main issue right now is honestly that we couldn't simply inherit skilled staff (SM was in maintenance mode when we bought it - they had other jobs already), so we've to figure everything out from scratch and hire as well, so a lot of "we" ends up being "me" trying to juggle maintenance previously done by 4 (3 of which part time, thankfully) people in addition to actual changes that haven't been done in years! 
I am in the hiring process for some staff but having some difficulty choosing! Life sucks sometimes. 😛 On the community side specifically, as that's something I really _really_ don't have time for and it's starting to show >.> 
Basically as I start understanding and fixing some backlaying stuff everything (including hiring - hiring people who have to learn everything on their own is ... difficult!) should become much much much easier. 
E.g. we have to get backups in a much better place, there's a serious risk of losing months of data and having a week of downtime or more if disaster strikes and that's just totally not acceptable for a game like this. I'd like to automate infrastructure so it recovers nicely etc (have you noticed? I already did a fair bit of work on that, though the biggest steps are yet to come!), with this i'd like to make a proper pipeline of SM Dev -> SM RC (semi-public beta) -> SM Live so updates get less risky (there's a pipeline of sorts now, but it honestly has some crucial issues, including that the only real test version doesn't run the game the same way as the live version....). We can streamline support by probably up to 90% by offering simple instructions to disable your own base and reach forget password and making clear what we can/cant help with... There's so much we've planned that will make SM more reliable in the long run or free more of our time for stuff more beneficial to the players.... 
Events are part of that - once we've a bit of experience we can probably automate parts (does a human REALLY need to decide what days you get some random bonus? :P), assuming the small parts actually are fun and make sense, and free up time for actual humans planning larger scaled, more interesting events that don't feel like generic drivel. 
Right now the goal of the upcoming event schedule is just for us to duke out what does/doesn't work and play around a bit. Top priority right now is picking up the pieces Tacticsoft couldn't work on as they had a huge need to show results quickly (which we really don't, we're fine spending a few months making the next 5 years easier). But once we've some experience, as with all things, it'll get better 😃

What exactly does?
 
Events are a fair bit of work but it used to be a part time job for a guy who made them about 6 months upfront. Honestly the majority of it lies in research for us - we can't just 1-2-3 change everything because the current event standards are actually not just random but based on extensive market research etc. 
Main issue right now is honestly that we couldn't simply inherit skilled staff (SM was in maintenance mode when we bought it - they had other jobs already), so we've to figure everything out from scratch and hire as well, so a lot of "we" ends up being "me" trying to juggle maintenance previously done by 4 (3 of which part time, thankfully) people in addition to actual changes that haven't been done in years! 
I am in the hiring process for some staff but having some difficulty choosing! Life sucks sometimes. 😛 On the community side specifically, as that's something I really _really_ don't have time for and it's starting to show >.> 
Basically as I start understanding and fixing some backlaying stuff everything (including hiring - hiring people who have to learn everything on their own is ... difficult!) should become much much much easier. 
E.g. we have to get backups in a much better place, there's a serious risk of losing months of data and having a week of downtime or more if disaster strikes and that's just totally not acceptable for a game like this. I'd like to automate infrastructure so it recovers nicely etc (have you noticed? I already did a fair bit of work on that, though the biggest steps are yet to come!), with this i'd like to make a proper pipeline of SM Dev -> SM RC (semi-public beta) -> SM Live so updates get less risky (there's a pipeline of sorts now, but it honestly has some crucial issues, including that the only real test version doesn't run the game the same way as the live version....). We can streamline support by probably up to 90% by offering simple instructions to disable your own base and reach forget password and making clear what we can/cant help with... There's so much we've planned that will make SM more reliable in the long run or free more of our time for stuff more beneficial to the players.... 
Events are part of that - once we've a bit of experience we can probably automate parts (does a human REALLY need to decide what days you get some random bonus? :P), assuming the small parts actually are fun and make sense, and free up time for actual humans planning larger scaled, more interesting events that don't feel like generic drivel. 
Right now the goal of the upcoming event schedule is just for us to duke out what does/doesn't work and play around a bit. Top priority right now is picking up the pieces Tacticsoft couldn't work on as they had a huge need to show results quickly (which we really don't, we're fine spending a few months making the next 5 years easier). But once we've some experience, as with all things, it'll get better 😃

Actually I just felt like replying, it's 3AM here. 😛
If someone seems to be thinking with us and optimistic, it's enjoyable for me to give them a bit of insight, so I don't mind doing it in my own time then 😃
 
It's different when someone asks for the umpteenth time where trading is!
 
Hope you'll stay on this journey with us.

What exactly does?
 
Events are a fair bit of work but it used to be a part time job for a guy who made them about 6 months upfront. Honestly the majority of it lies in research for us - we can't just 1-2-3 change everything because the current event standards are actually not just random but based on extensive market research etc. 
Main issue right now is honestly that we couldn't simply inherit skilled staff (SM was in maintenance mode when we bought it - they had other jobs already), so we've to figure everything out from scratch and hire as well, so a lot of "we" ends up being "me" trying to juggle maintenance previously done by 4 (3 of which part time, thankfully) people in addition to actual changes that haven't been done in years! 
I am in the hiring process for some staff but having some difficulty choosing! Life sucks sometimes. 😛 On the community side specifically, as that's something I really _really_ don't have time for and it's starting to show >.> 
Basically as I start understanding and fixing some backlaying stuff everything (including hiring - hiring people who have to learn everything on their own is ... difficult!) should become much much much easier. 
E.g. we have to get backups in a much better place, there's a serious risk of losing months of data and having a week of downtime or more if disaster strikes and that's just totally not acceptable for a game like this. I'd like to automate infrastructure so it recovers nicely etc (have you noticed? I already did a fair bit of work on that, though the biggest steps are yet to come!), with this i'd like to make a proper pipeline of SM Dev -> SM RC (semi-public beta) -> SM Live so updates get less risky (there's a pipeline of sorts now, but it honestly has some crucial issues, including that the only real test version doesn't run the game the same way as the live version....). We can streamline support by probably up to 90% by offering simple instructions to disable your own base and reach forget password and making clear what we can/cant help with... There's so much we've planned that will make SM more reliable in the long run or free more of our time for stuff more beneficial to the players.... 
Events are part of that - once we've a bit of experience we can probably automate parts (does a human REALLY need to decide what days you get some random bonus? :P), assuming the small parts actually are fun and make sense, and free up time for actual humans planning larger scaled, more interesting events that don't feel like generic drivel. 
Right now the goal of the upcoming event schedule is just for us to duke out what does/doesn't work and play around a bit. Top priority right now is picking up the pieces Tacticsoft couldn't work on as they had a huge need to show results quickly (which we really don't, we're fine spending a few months making the next 5 years easier). But once we've some experience, as with all things, it'll get better 😃

28th feb is the last TS event 🙂

You shouldn't believe everything people say on the forum 😛
 
We'll do our best but please do temper your expectation. While we intend to experiment and play around to see what works, we're not just going to do everything completely different and start over 😛

28th feb is the last TS event 🙂

What exactly does?
 
Events are a fair bit of work but it used to be a part time job for a guy who made them about 6 months upfront. Honestly the majority of it lies in research for us - we can't just 1-2-3 change everything because the current event standards are actually not just random but based on extensive market research etc. 
Main issue right now is honestly that we couldn't simply inherit skilled staff (SM was in maintenance mode when we bought it - they had other jobs already), so we've to figure everything out from scratch and hire as well, so a lot of "we" ends up being "me" trying to juggle maintenance previously done by 4 (3 of which part time, thankfully) people in addition to actual changes that haven't been done in years! 
I am in the hiring process for some staff but having some difficulty choosing! Life sucks sometimes. 😛 On the community side specifically, as that's something I really _really_ don't have time for and it's starting to show >.> 
Basically as I start understanding and fixing some backlaying stuff everything (including hiring - hiring people who have to learn everything on their own is ... difficult!) should become much much much easier. 
E.g. we have to get backups in a much better place, there's a serious risk of losing months of data and having a week of downtime or more if disaster strikes and that's just totally not acceptable for a game like this. I'd like to automate infrastructure so it recovers nicely etc (have you noticed? I already did a fair bit of work on that, though the biggest steps are yet to come!), with this i'd like to make a proper pipeline of SM Dev -> SM RC (semi-public beta) -> SM Live so updates get less risky (there's a pipeline of sorts now, but it honestly has some crucial issues, including that the only real test version doesn't run the game the same way as the live version....). We can streamline support by probably up to 90% by offering simple instructions to disable your own base and reach forget password and making clear what we can/cant help with... There's so much we've planned that will make SM more reliable in the long run or free more of our time for stuff more beneficial to the players.... 
Events are part of that - once we've a bit of experience we can probably automate parts (does a human REALLY need to decide what days you get some random bonus? :P), assuming the small parts actually are fun and make sense, and free up time for actual humans planning larger scaled, more interesting events that don't feel like generic drivel. 
Right now the goal of the upcoming event schedule is just for us to duke out what does/doesn't work and play around a bit. Top priority right now is picking up the pieces Tacticsoft couldn't work on as they had a huge need to show results quickly (which we really don't, we're fine spending a few months making the next 5 years easier). But once we've some experience, as with all things, it'll get better 😃

What exactly does?
 
Events are a fair bit of work but it used to be a part time job for a guy who made them about 6 months upfront. Honestly the majority of it lies in research for us - we can't just 1-2-3 change everything because the current event standards are actually not just random but based on extensive market research etc. 
Main issue right now is honestly that we couldn't simply inherit skilled staff (SM was in maintenance mode when we bought it - they had other jobs already), so we've to figure everything out from scratch and hire as well, so a lot of "we" ends up being "me" trying to juggle maintenance previously done by 4 (3 of which part time, thankfully) people in addition to actual changes that haven't been done in years! 
I am in the hiring process for some staff but having some difficulty choosing! Life sucks sometimes. 😛 On the community side specifically, as that's something I really _really_ don't have time for and it's starting to show >.> 
Basically as I start understanding and fixing some backlaying stuff everything (including hiring - hiring people who have to learn everything on their own is ... difficult!) should become much much much easier. 
E.g. we have to get backups in a much better place, there's a serious risk of losing months of data and having a week of downtime or more if disaster strikes and that's just totally not acceptable for a game like this. I'd like to automate infrastructure so it recovers nicely etc (have you noticed? I already did a fair bit of work on that, though the biggest steps are yet to come!), with this i'd like to make a proper pipeline of SM Dev -> SM RC (semi-public beta) -> SM Live so updates get less risky (there's a pipeline of sorts now, but it honestly has some crucial issues, including that the only real test version doesn't run the game the same way as the live version....). We can streamline support by probably up to 90% by offering simple instructions to disable your own base and reach forget password and making clear what we can/cant help with... There's so much we've planned that will make SM more reliable in the long run or free more of our time for stuff more beneficial to the players.... 
Events are part of that - once we've a bit of experience we can probably automate parts (does a human REALLY need to decide what days you get some random bonus? :P), assuming the small parts actually are fun and make sense, and free up time for actual humans planning larger scaled, more interesting events that don't feel like generic drivel. 
Right now the goal of the upcoming event schedule is just for us to duke out what does/doesn't work and play around a bit. Top priority right now is picking up the pieces Tacticsoft couldn't work on as they had a huge need to show results quickly (which we really don't, we're fine spending a few months making the next 5 years easier). But once we've some experience, as with all things, it'll get better 😃

What exactly does?
 
Events are a fair bit of work but it used to be a part time job for a guy who made them about 6 months upfront. Honestly the majority of it lies in research for us - we can't just 1-2-3 change everything because the current event standards are actually not just random but based on extensive market research etc. 
Main issue right now is honestly that we couldn't simply inherit skilled staff (SM was in maintenance mode when we bought it - they had other jobs already), so we've to figure everything out from scratch and hire as well, so a lot of "we" ends up being "me" trying to juggle maintenance previously done by 4 (3 of which part time, thankfully) people in addition to actual changes that haven't been done in years! 
I am in the hiring process for some staff but having some difficulty choosing! Life sucks sometimes. 😛 On the community side specifically, as that's something I really _really_ don't have time for and it's starting to show >.> 
Basically as I start understanding and fixing some backlaying stuff everything (including hiring - hiring people who have to learn everything on their own is ... difficult!) should become much much much easier. 
E.g. we have to get backups in a much better place, there's a serious risk of losing months of data and having a week of downtime or more if disaster strikes and that's just totally not acceptable for a game like this. I'd like to automate infrastructure so it recovers nicely etc (have you noticed? I already did a fair bit of work on that, though the biggest steps are yet to come!), with this i'd like to make a proper pipeline of SM Dev -> SM RC (semi-public beta) -> SM Live so updates get less risky (there's a pipeline of sorts now, but it honestly has some crucial issues, including that the only real test version doesn't run the game the same way as the live version....). We can streamline support by probably up to 90% by offering simple instructions to disable your own base and reach forget password and making clear what we can/cant help with... There's so much we've planned that will make SM more reliable in the long run or free more of our time for stuff more beneficial to the players.... 
Events are part of that - once we've a bit of experience we can probably automate parts (does a human REALLY need to decide what days you get some random bonus? :P), assuming the small parts actually are fun and make sense, and free up time for actual humans planning larger scaled, more interesting events that don't feel like generic drivel. 
Right now the goal of the upcoming event schedule is just for us to duke out what does/doesn't work and play around a bit. Top priority right now is picking up the pieces Tacticsoft couldn't work on as they had a huge need to show results quickly (which we really don't, we're fine spending a few months making the next 5 years easier). But once we've some experience, as with all things, it'll get better 😃

You shouldn't believe everything people say on the forum 😛
 
We'll do our best but please do temper your expectation. While we intend to experiment and play around to see what works, we're not just going to do everything completely different and start over 😛

You shouldn't believe everything people say on the forum 😛
 
We'll do our best but please do temper your expectation. While we intend to experiment and play around to see what works, we're not just going to do everything completely different and start over 😛

28th feb is the last TS event 🙂