Proficient city has no respect for paying customers to explain how "league points" work for group arena event

Wartune has a daily event where teams of four people join together in a room and fight other teams in what's called "group arena."  Win or lose, you get a couple of items called "insignia" and "league insignia" along with something called "league points" which determines your rank for each battle. You have a rank in group arena, which is divided into four different categories; iron, silver, gold, & diamond.  The higher your rank, the more "league insignia" and "league points" you get win or lose per battle or at the end of the week.  The rank resets every seven days in which everyone starts over in the iron group. There is one thing that wartune has yet to explain to its gamers..... how does the league points work?  Let me explain.

Typically when I run group arena, when I am in iron group, sometimes I will get 30 points for a loss, other times 130 points for a loss (big big difference as in 333% point difference) while sometimes when I win, I will get 50 points or 190 points (280% difference).  I have always wondered why this was the case.  Here are some screenshots I took showing the big point difference:

On this picture, I have a teammate claiming they got 190 league points while I only got 90 for a win.








On this picture, the top green arrow shows one victory in which I received 190 league points.  Bottom green arrow shows another victory but I only received 90 league points.

 


 



On this picture, the top red circle was a win with 190 league points, the bottom red circle was a loss but I received 130 league points.








So, why such the huge different in league points?  I can't stand it when I run into a casher team, get my butt stomped (when they start gloating about how strong they are, it gets me very angry because they are indirectly telling me just how wealthy they are) and I only receive 30 league points instead of 130 points.  Oh, by the way, did I mention that teams have no control on who their opponents are (Well it usually matches people that are of similar level)?  The league point distribution has been reported in the r2 forms  but has yet been updated or an explanation given.






League points are important because at the end of the week, you get more league insignias the higher your rank is.
                                                                      
So, how do you expect players who have low battle rating or are new that level up fast (or are forced to level up fast because the server they are in is giving an additional 1000% exp) to get enough league insignias to help build their character  when they are getting cheated on in group arena when it comes to league points?  Anyone want to explain it for me? 

Group arena pairings are somewhat bad in wartune, and will only get worse since more people are quitting then starting along with larger battle ranking gaps.  Also, group arena can be very time consuming because you need to find three other teammates which can take up to 30 minutes or more since servers are small along with another 30-45 minutes to complete 15 runs (which is the maximum allowed for rewards). Thus, group arena to some people is useless as they will die quickly and get screwed when it comes to points and trying to get enough game items to help build their character or they don't have enough time to find and run with a team. 

As usual, free to play games like wartune choses not to offer an explanation exactly as how these points are distributed thus affecting people's gameplay.  Yet, we see many cashers continue to cash because they can't control their ego and would rather have their ego satisfied than having good customer service.   Sorry, I refuse to pay because I for one want to know exactly how league points are distributed and I hope I encouraged people who are reading this to do the same.

Rotten customer service game "Wartune" up for Sale

I recently came across this article stating that changyou is selling 7 road  or proficient city which is the owner of wartune for upto 200 million dollars.  I will admit I had no idea that wartune was owned by so many different companies.  But anyhow, changyou is selling it because they want to focus on mobile games (wartune isn't a mobile game).  I checked the stock of changyou today and it seems that they have been flat over the past five years.  They haven't broken the $40 mark since October 2013 and the $50 mark since July 2011.  I wonder why their stocks peaked at these particular points for a short period of time.  Insider trading perhaps?  Wouldn't surprise me since they refuse to enforce wartune's TOU to the fullest extent.

So it looks like I will be adding changyou to my list of company hosted games in which I will be boycotting.  All they seem to care about is making short term profits on their games by creating them, pretending to have good customer service at the start but once the games takes off, they abandon it and focus on new games thus end up shutting the game down and continuing the cycle.  By the look of their stock, they have not grown, only maintained. 

Perhaps if this gaming company would focus on keeping players long term (10+ years) with making small additions every couple of months and offering the best customer service & enforcing their Terms of Service to the fullest extent, I bet their stock would take off.  People like me would be like, "wow, this game is so fun and not too time consuming!  You should try it out!" Course, there are other issues I have with wartune that I'll bring up in a different post.

As for my readers, I strongly suggest that you either stop giving them any money on any of their games expecially games that are hosted by changyou, 7road, proficient city, r2 games, kongregate, armor games, and kabam because I will keep empathizing that you are rewarding the game company by their rotten customer service (or don't bother playing any of their games).

Bloggers who help free to play games make money also criticizes game for rotten customer service

One of my favorite wartune bloggers Wartune Balens Guide recently posted an article "Wartune Scam Warning."  In it, they describe an activity where they were doing an activity which required you to spend balens (an in-game currency where you have to purchase it using US dollars) to get some items.  Unfortunately they didn't do their research before deciding to spend their hard earned money and spend 1500 balens  ($15) for something that is worth about 300 balens ($3).

I honestly don't know if I should laugh at this blogger or not for that article post.  In situations like this where wartune offers promotions, you need to make sure your i's are dotted and your t's are crossed and figure out if it is a good value or not.  Course there are some people who have almost unlimited financial resource to go out and buy something they don't have (and don't care about the quality of the service; they just want that item so they can "show off" which I can argue that you are showing off your wealth).  Based on my experience with wartune or proficient city, they are trying to target people who are quite wealthy offering recharge packs where you can get the maximum benefit for $1,000 per month.  That's a lot of money for most middle-class people (in which I believe will only destroy a game in a few years because other people will not be able to catch up, including the new people who join).

I do enjoy reading their blog.  I am an Analytical thinker and so is this person.  I like the statistical analysis they do in figuring out if spending money on promotions is worth it.  Also, I think this person is a hypocrite because at least once a month, I will see them complain at the horrible customer service wartune has but yet help people out if they should spend their money on an event thus giving the game more money than they would have gotten.

I could have easily started a blog offering my experience and helping people get ahead in free to play games like  "Wartune" but decided not to because in my opinion people need to start demanding top notch customer service before giving them a penny.  In fact, games like wartune that offer such rotten customer service, I wish was more targeted with hacks & bots that would ruin the game's profitability.  I would go so far to encourage people that if they know how to use bots or know how to hack to go ahead and use them and share your passwords with other people just because as I posted in a previous article they don't fully enforce their Terms of Use.  By doing this, you would harm and hurt the legitimate cashers who spend money on the game and force wartune to fully enforce their TOU, clean up their mess or shut down the game in which I would have no sympathy to cashers who would complain that their game they spend $25,000 on and they lost it all because they didn't demand superior customer service before they started spending.  They were perfectly fine at how the customer service was.

I personally think that the Wartune Balens Guide should shut down his blog.  Why continue to keep posting articles letting people know when to spend money when in return, the game doesn't compensate him for it (an assumption) and the game offers rotten customer service?  Encourage people how to get ahead by using bots/hacks and so forth instead until the game offers superior customer service (or shuts down).

In my last post, I discussed about Terms of Service and how games like wartune refuses to enforce portions of it.  Not too long after I posted that article, I came across this:

 I initially was quite annoyed and appalled that one of the top cashers in the European servers is deciding to throw in the towel on wartune.  By quitting, you will lose 100% of your investment.  I bet this person has spent over $100,000 on this game.  Course by quitting you wouldn't spend any more money since wartune keeps adding junk to the game that forces heavy cashers like this person to spend in order to keep staying far ahead.  Selling an account would be a logical choice to at least get some money back.

 

However, the TOS on R2 specifically states that you are not allowed to sell your account and share your password.  Since R2 rarely enforces sharing of passwords, I can see why this wartune character wants to sell their password.  If this person does sell their account, I believe that all of the players on the eastern server will be scammed assuming R2 completely ignores this. Let me explain.

 

Since everyone has to agree to follow the TOS/TOU when you start a game, I expect the game to fully enforce it.  If they don't, many people will get an unfair advantage or "cheat" to get ahead thus affecting other players.  It could affect them positively or negatively.

 

It is quite obvious that people that this person does multi-player activities would benefit the most.  In group arena, the team that this character is on would probably win most or all of the battles (while the losing team being scammed in this case by losing to someone who should be inactive).  In other multi-player activities, the team that this character would run probably would get much further and get better rewards than if they went with someone else.  Again, this benefits the team but puts a disadvantage to other players especially people from other servers (which I will attempt to explain shortly). 

 

Many disadvantages on the server this player would be as follows:

- If the character plays an activity that the whole server gets to play and the rewards are based on damage dealt; all other players WILL get less rewards as this scammer is taking in some of the rewards.

-This character would steal a rank in arena thus everyone else would be ranked less and get less rewards because of it

- In guild battle, if this character plays, the opponent guild would have a harder time winning their battle (or if they can win at all) thus getting a loss where they should have won and getting less rewards because of it. (This would benefit the guild this character would be on)

 

Many disadvantage from cross-server include:

-If opponents would run into this character in cross-server arena, they would have a loss instead of facing a different team

- If you would run into this character is battleground, you may end up being an opponent which if you would have to fight this character, you would probably lose instead of fighting someone else

- This character will take up one of the top spots in class wars taking someone else spot which all other players would have a lower ranking than they would otherwise have

- This player would take up a rank in sylph arena where everyone else would have a lower rank because of this character

 

Do you see my point as to how this will negatively affect other players?  It seems to me that I am the only one bothered by this.  You say that this is a "game?"  Why then do you invest money onto this game you hypocrite (or time but I should talk)?!?   So I hope I convinced you to stop paying for a "free to play" game until they offer superior customer service.

 

 



TOP reason why you shouldn't cash in "free to play" games, failure to fully enforce TOS/TOU

Anytime you start a new game or create an account, 100% of the time you will be required that you will  need to check off that you "have read and agreed to the Terms of Service & Private Policy" in order to play a game or use a service.  The issue I have with that is each time I am forced to follow the TOS, I will end up finding people abusing TOS which can affect my status of my character (generally put me behind) or illegal advertisement in the game. This post, I will elaborate on some of r2's terms of service says and provide some examples of how they are NOT enforcing their TOS.


"R2Games does not recognize the transfer of our Games accounts or R2Games accounts. You may not purchase, sell, gift or trade any account, or offer to purchase, sell, gift or trade any account, and any such attempt shall be null and void."

Really?  Please explain to me why this account that I have posted below has not been banned from the game or "null and void" which I am not exactly sure what this means (since this character is clearly trying to sell their account by naming one of their characters BuyMyToonPM).

 



If they claim they don't have evidence, bs.  I will claim someone who intentionally names any of their characters like this is enough circumstantial evidence that they want to sell their character.  Also, I did a quick google search and I found this website that lists characters that are trying to sell their account. 

"You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your password and are responsible for any harm resulting from your disclosure, or authorization of the disclosure of your password or from any person's use of your password to gain access to your account or account name. At no time should you respond to an online request for a password other than in connection with the log-on process to the Services. Should it be determined that you did reveal your password to any third parties, R2Games reserves the right to disable the account."

I will admit, this is tricky to interpret but basically I interpret this as you are NOT allowed to give out or share your password to anyone else.  I see people on wartune share their accounts all the time.  I also have seen people give their accounts to other people when they quit or sell them.  This is one of the most easy TOS to enforce because your Internet service Provider (IP) number is tracked.  Let's say you are from Seattle, Washington and you share your password from someone that lives in New York, New York and that person logs in an hour after you logged off, the IP address from New York will show.  (If you seriously think that someone can travel from Seattle to New York in an hour, I would love to know how)  If this is happening constantly, the account needs to be flagged, suspended, and banned. 
I will make an argument that other players who agreed to the TOS are being scammed when people share passwords.  If someone else is running another person's account when the TOS states you are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your password, you will probably run into them at some point either by taking resources where you would get more if that account wasn't there.   You also could run into that account by a player vs player event where if they are stronger than you, you will lose thus you will lose out on resources than by fighting another player.  Also, people who share passwords will be able to get more multi-player done than they otherwise would putting people who follow TOS at an unfair advantage.  This list can keep on going and going.

"You are not permitted under any circumstances or for any reason to cheat or utilize third-party applications or code in order to win at, or gain game points or items from any of our Games."

This rule is basically similar to password sharing except that you are using a bot to run your character.

"R2Games shall be entitled to file a claim for monetary compensation from anyone deemed to have violated these rules in any way.
You agree not to design, disseminate or use any third party programs designed to change any Game played on R2Games site, nor assist in the design of a third party program that changes any Game played on the site. You will be responsible for any damages to R2Games resulting from any of your use, dissemination or design of such programs, and you agree to pay R2Games liquidated damages in the sum of Hundred Thousand Dollars for each such program, or in the sum of One Thousand Dollars for each time you use a program."

You threaten people in your TOS that they must pay  $100,000 for liquidation damage but you refuse to enforce other portions of TOS?  Really?  Where is a lawyer!!!!?

"You may not:
1) Reverse-engineer, decompile or modify any of the game clients and use it in any way.
2) Exploit any cheats or errors which you find in our service. Any cheats or errors you discover must be reported immediately to us.
3) Attempt to access any other user's account.
4) Misuse any of our customer service facilities.
5) Deliberately enter false information into any of the forms on our website.
6) Encourage, or attempt to trick other players into breaking our rules."

Interesting.... attempt to access any other user's account is on here which basically another way of saying you are to keep your password confidential.  I also find interesting on exploiting any errors.  Sometimes someone may find an "error" and not realize that it is a game "error" or bug or when people find a game error, they won't fix it or ban people for abusing it (this happened multiple times to me on wartune where people using errors to get ahead on the game thus causing my character to lose out on resources)

"You agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless R2Games, its affiliates, and their respective officers, directors, employees, agents, licensors, representatives, and third party providers to the site from and against all claims, losses, expenses, damages and costs, including reasonable attorneys' fees, resulting from any violation of these Terms by you. R2Games reserves the right to assume, at its sole expense, the exclusive defense and control of any matter subject to indemnification by you, in which event you will fully cooperate with R2Games in asserting any available defenses."

Nice double standard.... it seems you can't sue R2 for damages but boy they sure can come after you if you "damage" their service.  Where is a lawyer!!!!!!?


Since games like Wartune are "free to play" they should be doing everything in their power to fully enforce the TOS to get the best gaming experience possible to motivate you to buy game items or upgrade.... but they don't.  It's sad to see people constantly put up with their lack of enforcement while people still spend, spend, spend.  They are the real losers since they don't care that they are being scammed (or they could be scamming players at the same time).  Either way, always demand superior customer service before playing into a "free to play" game!!!!!

Even games that require monthly subscriptons fee's scam players

Apparently Blizzard has finally decided to ban accounts on the game World of Warcraft (WoW). My comment to blizzard..... how long have you known about this?   You allowed this crap to go on for HOW long?  You were scamming gamers that were PAYING a monthly subscription fee to play this game for how long?  I am utterly disgusted that blizzard allowed "cheaters" (I prefer to call them "TOS violators") to play s long as they did before they finally suspended cheater?

 I know people who was very impressed with blizzard's customer service.  Ever since I found out about this story, they lost their credibility.  I will admit that I have no idea how long these players was using bots to get ahead in their game but if they are banning over 100,000 accounts, I suspect that these bots have been going on for I beat over a year..... and they decide to act on it now?

I will at least give blizzard some credit for enforcing their TOS but because of this, I will encourage anyone who plays any game where paying cash to buy in-game currency and/or anyone who plays a game that require a monthly subscription fee SHOULD CONTACT A LAWYER to know what rights you have if your game that you are playing fails to enforce their Terms of Service to the fullest expect because I feel that it is a complete SCAM, and in a way, being the victim of Insider Trading.

In my opinion, blizzard should also go further and compensate any player who was affected by these bot either by giving refunds and/or game rewards that they lost because of the bots.  In order for players to play their game, they had to check off that they will agree and follow their Terms of Service!

Speaking of Terms of Service, I will definitely be discussing that more in-depth in a future post.

Reason 6 not to pay "free to play" games: Failure to disclose probability of items

WOW!  You see an item in the game shop that you want to buy.  The only way you can load up with this item is to buy it with in-game currency that you only can purchase with money (such as US dollars or the euro).  After you bought a few of these items, the description says:

Open this chest to receive one of the following items:
Gold x XXXX
daru x XXXX
gem X 1
crystal x 1
Nice useful item x 1
Nice useful item x 1
Useful item x 1
Extremely useful item x 1

Here is an example of one of these chests in wartune:

You open the "Clown Chest III" to receive one of the four items.  When I opened this Clown Chest it seemed that each of the items listed was a 1 in 4 chance of getting it.  What about the other chests?  I see there are 10 possible items to get in the 2nd chest.  So you would think by opening the chest 10 times you would have gotten all of the items?

Actually, it is not the case.  Wartune does not disclose any odd's of any of the item in any of their chests when you open it.  Many blogs calculate probabilities by asking people to send in what they got when they opened up chests.  Shouldn't that be Wartune's job to supply this information and not fan-based blogs?

I look at it this way.... when you buy scratch off or a lottery ticket, they will display the odds of each of the prizes you get.  Buying a lottery ticket is completely optional.  So is buying these items.  The game at least should be disclosing these items but it's apparent that many people have no interest
 in knowing what the probability of each item is before they buy it.  Not only should they be disclosing the probability of each item, they should also be disclosing confidence interval test validating that their probability formula is working and paying out as claimed otherwise you run risk that you may be scammed.