Obvious referral system abuse? (in General)

I'm not sure if the admins are even active enough to care about this but look at this obvious referall reward system abuse.


Marlfox $142,125,000 active Next highest being Miandrital $68,350,000 active

so lets start looking at Marlfox's referal reward
how about we pick the days he has 6 or 7 people getting supportership for 9mil a piece.

auctioneer (referralfunding) Marlfox (Dagobah) $9000000 (supporter bonus - eastsidaz49) Jan 21
auctioneer (referralfunding) Marlfox (Dagobah) $9000000 (supporter bonus - m3rciless) Jan 21
auctioneer (referralfunding) Marlfox (Dagobah) $9000000 (supporter bonus - HopStar) Jan 21
auctioneer (referralfunding) Marlfox (Dagobah) $9000000 (supporter bonus - masternave) Jan 21
auctioneer (referralfunding) Marlfox (Dagobah) $9000000 (supporter bonus - NuclearStr1der) Jan 21


lets find a user EVERYONE OF THEM and find how long they played and oh yeah, they're a supporter by the way.

eastsidaz49

Member since January 21, 2010
Realm: Lórien
Last login: Jan 21

m3rciless

Member since January 21, 2010
Realm: Lórien
Last login: Jan 21

HopStar

Member since January 21, 2010
Realm: Lórien
Last login: Jan 22

Do the math. I'm not going to go through everyone. Just keep browsing please. I don't know if he's donated enough to the game for admins to not care but it's obvious he has flooded the economy with multiple account money. If something doesn't happen as a result of this I'm quitting CB. Not like you should do something because oh no I'm quitting CB but I'm not playing a game I was once punished for doing multiple accounts when this person is blatantly abusing the system. Seriously. This is lame.

Oh. $1 Mil CB is worth $2 USD? and he gets 9 mil per where as supportership costs 11$ USD? so he makes money by doing this? Like I said I'm not sure if he's donated enough to the game for it to "shrubbed off" but this is just pathetic. Even if the going rate at the time wasn't 2$ usd per 1$ mil cbd. This is downright wrong.

Jonathan might as well just start selling CBD to generate real life money.

What he did was legit. He recruited a few players, and then when the bonus money for getting someone supportship was 9mil, he bought them it. 9mil per supportship didn't last long because abuse of it did happen. It doesn't happen anymore.

Alright. The second and the third referal bonuses did the same thing. Pretty much on the same days. Might as well just sell Carnage Blender in general, since everything else in the game is worth real $$$.

Or he created the accounts himself and did it? Hello??? And the second and third happened to do it on the same day? Yeah okay. That's logical.

And everyone he recruited who got supportership coincidentally HATED CB and quitted the same day or within 2 days. That's really logical. He did it 19 times (I didn't count, exageration, or not it could be that high)

Marl would still get the 9mil even if he paid for their supportships. So the people that joined CB and stopped playing didn't have to pay anything.

This all happened before you joined CB...

Nothing here is unknown to the admins/NS/Jon

The actual referral was done by nov, but he has since transferred dago to Marl.

You aren't the first person in 9 months to look at the referral numbers. This has been addressed, forget about it.

Okay. so go to the second and third. let's see what their reward logs look like. same dates. multiple supporterships. all lasting one or two days. yeah they all got people to join cb, bought supportership for them, they all quit the same day or the next. oh and they were all named john, did i mention?

It would be nearly impossible for them to have done this themselves since you can't get bonus money from the same IP for 6 months. They just created adds/spammed forums and got lots of new people to join and bought supportership for them because it was cheap. It is the reason why cb is 2-2.5 mill now and won't go up again.

Right. So since they actually got someone to play for one day they got a gigantic reward? Yeah, that's the referal system to its best. Refer others to play the game you love to raise the awareness and the community or use the referal system for your own benefit. What is the referal system even for then?

Like I said. Just have a buy cbd button then. atleast they wouldn't have to tease the community with new players that were really only numbers for them. I'm not saying they did multi login 19 times on the same computer and had a notepad with multiple accounts and passwords but what they did - thats legit...here???

Yes, they recruited legitimate players. Whether those players stick around or not is up to them.

look if you have a better idea of attracting people to the game im sure everyone will be willing to hear it instead of you just ranting about things that have already been noted and settled... incase you didnt notice supporter membership only gives 4.5mill now so thats a total of 4.9mill for a supporter...

and people wonder why this game is dying? because as long as you take a "good" path to your desires ( $$$$$$$$$$ ) and your paying with money it's alright.

There's no point in attracting people to the current CB. That's the point. It's destroyed. Let's be honest. I'm not even sure if it would be possible to make the CURRENT CB player base rise to that of CB1's player base as its high time. It's not possible.

I super apologize for the multiple posting but remember that thing about the halfway point? It's closer to get to the end then it is to go back to the beginning? Nuff said. That's why nothing has been done.

The fact that referral bonuses were so insanely high was the problem.
It was long since fixed.


Purchasing supportership for others is common.

Referring others for the rewards is common.

MOST people that try out CB quitting within a couple of days after they start is also sadly EXTREMELY common. Just look at number of people active vs number of new accounts, and you'll see a not so pretty picture.

Paying supportership for people you invited for higher rewards (and maybe some compensation from them) might be considered by some borderline abuse, but it's certainly not forbidden, and it's still occasionally being done. The only difference between "then" and "now" is the value of the reward.

Whoever set those rewards so high in the first place made the error in judgement, so why punish those that took advantage of it to indirectly purchase cheap CB$ ?

If you randomly go to people you know (be it in RL or from some other game or another forum) and tell them "hey, there's this game I play, you can join if you want, I'll buy premium status for you, and if you don't like it, I won't be pressuring you to play it after the first two days, but give it two days to see if you might like it, please"... how's that something you'd want to punish ?

They did it obviously only for money, hence all of them in a row, on the same day. Alright, let's call it borderline abuse as opposed to they did something wrong. So they didn't do something wrong then. So someone does it now. Only gets 4.5$ mil a piece for the 6 people he invites that quit in the preceding day. CB gains no active players and instead the rich get richer. The end result is still the same, CB is still dying.

And I want to see it saved.

Some people benefit from having other players in the game for a very short time. Perhaps they should all be punished for some kind of abuse?

Recent Transfers
From IP To What When
cbcanadian (Ruten) 99.97.80.176 cadaddy (Jangcha) A Beaked Axe ($2070) Jul 29
cbcanadian (Ruten) 99.97.80.176 cadaddy (Jangcha) A Steel Familiar ($17530) Jul 29
cbcanadian (Ruten) 99.97.80.176 cadaddy (Jangcha) $75000 Jul 29
cbcanadian (Ruten) 99.97.80.176 cadaddy (Jangcha) A Scythe ($4176) Jul 29
cbcanadian (Ruten) 99.97.80.176 cadaddy (Jangcha) A Composite Bow ($12841) Jul 29

Speak with CB SLAYER333 on this account as I already addressed I was punished for this.

hence, " Not like you should do something because oh no I'm quitting CB but I'm not playing a game I was once punished for doing multiple accounts when this person is blatantly abusing the system"

did you catch that part?

The repeated refusal to institute a rolling bonus system for no other reason than "I don't like it", the moral bankrupcy of the implicitly encouraged "disposable team" mentality, the nearly irrelevant way score is calculated, the lack of any relevant adaptation to long-standing glaring flaws (EXbow to name the greatest current offender, it had one tiny adjustment that barely mattered) due to lack of commitment (RL time constraints) from the owner/developer, the overall stagnant atmosphere...
...and many, many other such small things, which nibble slowly but steadily at all the efforts to do something from those that still keep trying to do something...
...THAT is what is really killing the game, not somebody abusing the referral system nearly one year ago.

We have between 5 and 8 new players signing up every day, yet there are never more than 150 active weekly players lately. The count of active people is actually going down steadily, not up, in spite of major signups. That's barely over 100 actual players out of probably 2000 new yearly signups. WE PRACTICALLY LOSE ALMOST ALL NEW PLAYERS !

You can't really blame some of the older people from trying to spend as little as possible on it.

Okay. So let's get away from that. I'm not blaming them. I noticed something that has already been addressed. Let's all laugh at me. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now can we try to save CB? Obviously the RL constraints are the first thing to address as nothing can be saved if theres no one with no time to do it. Maybe Jonathan can't keep up with CB anymore. Maybe he needs some more push to get him back into it. Either way, anyone who cares about seeing CB flourish again should be putting their minds together.

or we can just ride it into the oblivion although it doesn't sound like a fun ride.

Novice has done as much for this game as anybody over the years, if not more. He spent a lot of money and time in trying to draw players to the game.

Getting annoyed with what you see as an abuse because you once got punished for something....that's lame.

your lame. i don't care if they're punished or not. sit here and waste your time playing a game that you love and sit there, watch it die. do nothing. you know its going to happen if nothing is done.

We have been trying to do that as actively as possible for well over one year, and slightly more passive for well over 2 years. Heck, some have been doing it even since before I even started playing.
There have been minor progresses lately, but... nowhere near enough.

Thing is, for to CB as a game//brand to not just barely survive but restart to thrive, most of what we now "know to be CB" has to die and be reborn out of the ashes, but the people that can make (some) decisions are either unable or unwilling to accept that fact.

This is one omlet that will need to have a lot of eggs broken in order to be made, and nobody wants to be the one to do break'em.

because that's obviously not the point. lets go back to the "------------------ laugh at me" MOVE ALONG. this game is dying. waste your time. do nothing. once again. I don't care if you give them 100$ million whats it going to matter when the current path CB is on is a path of destruction. get out of your one thought mind. we're past that part now.

I agree with you sickone that's why I mentioned the halfway point. People see it as we're closer to the end might as well ride it out. That's what I'm saying CB needs to be recreated to flourish. What is, isn't working.

People trying to get money from the referral system really isn't why CB is dying.

perhaps we should stop feeding the troll

You can't really get anything done with an absentee landlord, no matter how benevolent the building administrator might be.
You either need to get the landlord involved, or have another landlord take over.

As long as Jon doesn't either come back or fully give the "game design keys" away to somebody else, the game is doomed to slowly slip into nothingness.
And there's nothing any of us can do to stop it.
NOTHING.
At best, we can delay the downwards slide.

"Thing is, for to CB as a game//brand to not just barely survive but restart to thrive, most of what we now "know to be CB" has to die and be reborn out of the ashes, but the people that can make (some) decisions are either unable or unwilling to accept that fact."

Well said. That leads us to the top of the pyramid. Jonathan needs to renotice his love for CB or CB must change ownership or give more powers to those who do care (ie....novice...just an example. not specifically him).. so all in favor of pooling USD$ to buy it from him so someone who has the time to invest can use it. I'm obviously semi-kidding about pooling money but seriously I love this game. I've quit. I've always come back.

Everyone has a price, Sickone. He would sell CB.

Would you buy it for as much as Jon would part from it ? I wouldn't. And would I be Jon, I probably wouldn't sell it cheap either.

Sure, he'd probably sell it for a price high enough to not be worth it to the buyer, sure, he'd sell it. There's not much of an userbase to speak of, and the backend code is most likely ancient. An investor would be better off starting from scratch.

No, Jon has to either donate it to somebody capable of altering it properly (minus hardware), or keep full ownership but at least give that person full creative authority.

To be honest he is not the only one to do this. Many of us USD Spenders have pitched in a LOT of cash whenever there was a need. Aside from this most of us dedicted players have put in a ton of time and it is why we are so adamant about our subjects in this game....we love CB. We also know one simple truth, Jon loves this game more than we do. CB is his baby and thusly would never sell it as a result. This sole reason is why he got NS aboard he doesn't want to give up or sell CB period.

Then if he wouldn't sell it. And won't become active again (or even if he plans to and just hasn't yet), then the only possible solution to fixing the problem..sooner rather then later and hoping it makes it to later when he does have time would be giving more or full creative authority to those who do care and have the time.

The referral increase was implemented in an effort to encourage more users. It was an encouragement for *us* to get more players.

Yes, the original bonuses were far too high, and to be brutally honest, some poeple saw that and took advantage of it.

The bonuses were then reduced, due to player outcry about it.

But at the end of the day, it was in the effort to increase our playerbase.

Okay so we tried that, it didn't work. Let's try something new.

Like letting this thread die? ;)

Any chance it could be locked?

Yeah. Let's blindly turn away. Again. And Again. And Again. good idea

http://www.carnageblender.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002ycY

/thread

If the thread is locked, I'll create a new one with an appropriate title and will continue to brainstorm how to save CB.

By all means make a new thread for brainstorming ideas to improve CB. I'll be one of the first to post in it.

This thread however, isn't the right place.

agreed.

I will do so over the weekend. i've been up all night and I'd like to put more thought into the original posting then I have right now.

Marlfox has no relation to any of the accounts he has referred.

Thread closed.

EDIT: Title Updated