Conquer Club

lackattack wrote:"Newbie Farming" is the technique of setting up as many games as possible (either by starting or joining them) with New Recruits to gain easy points by taking advantage of difficult game options and the fact the New Recruits are more likely to deadbeat. Some players have been farming extensively - even sending hundreds of PMs to the latest members to get them into their games.

This is a gross abuse of the game. It gives the New Recruit "victims" a poor first experience and reduces the chances of them sticking around. As farmers move up the scoreboard it also harms the competitive nature of Conquer Club - the scoreboard is meant to measure skill in the game, not "harvesting" techniques.

In accordance with the desires and feedback of the majority of the community, our rules and as a new leaf for 2009, it is our New Years resolution to make Newbie Farming forbidden. Members who continue this practice will receive point resets and then progressively longer website bans.

This does not mean you will get in trouble for joining a game here and there with many new recruits. We are only talking about the systematic targeting of new recruits.

We have taken the following measures to stop Newbie Farming:

• For New Recruits, we filtered out game options from the join page if they reduce the chance of new players reaching their 1st promotion (see here here and here).
  
• We shut down any usergroups with a focus on Newbie Farming.
  
• We are sending individual warnings to the Farmers Guild and select other users who have practiced farming in the past. These should be arriving soon.

If you don't officially receive a warning, consider this it...we may have overlooked you once, but we won't do it again.

Thanks and have a nice day

Jeff Hardy wrote:so alstergen, youre saying its ok to play a lot of new recruits as long as we play other ranks too?

SirSebstar wrote:very nice adding [busted] to the title.
Ofcourse someone has to prey on ? to be accused of farming, a single game does not make farming ofcourse. Considering you are a multi, i'd say you are out of luck and out of time.
Have a nice day

SirSebstar wrote:Alstergen, I'd have to agree, but only partly.
I am assuming you are not specificly targetting ?marks, I am further assuming you just start in the 1vs1 where you find them, and that you do not pick and choose those you can win over (even if you do not always win)
First of, pickong on newbie's is not just about mass spamming or setting up games, it is also about joining them. Your reply has an opening that you might be choosing newbies over generals. Although you are not restricted on playing generals, playing noobs in their first 5 games is rather daunting. Sure one might win, but the majority will lose. I assume the same is true if you were to face majors for that matter, but then, that would pose a smaller risk to players quiting altogether.

on the other hand, Lack wrote that playing a game here and there with many new recruits will not get you into trouble. Lack is speaking about the systematic targeting of new recruits. It is my contention that such is not the case, although you might want to consider leaving question marks alone altogether or sparingly. If anything, being beating by the resident 'super'powers is not really fun, for most.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=73745

lackattack wrote:"Newbie Farming" is the technique of setting up as many games as possible (either by starting or joining them) with New Recruits to gain easy points by taking advantage of difficult game options and the fact the New Recruits are more likely to deadbeat. Some players have been farming extensively - even sending hundreds of PMs to the latest members to get them into their games.

This is a gross abuse of the game. It gives the New Recruit "victims" a poor first experience and reduces the chances of them sticking around. As farmers move up the scoreboard it also harms the competitive nature of Conquer Club - the scoreboard is meant to measure skill in the game, not "harvesting" techniques.

In accordance with the desires and feedback of the majority of the community, our rules and as a new leaf for 2009, it is our New Years resolution to make Newbie Farming forbidden. Members who continue this practice will receive point resets and then progressively longer website bans.

This does not mean you will get in trouble for joining a game here and there with many new recruits. We are only talking about the systematic targeting of new recruits.

We have taken the following measures to stop Newbie Farming:

• For New Recruits, we filtered out game options from the join page if they reduce the chance of new players reaching their 1st promotion (see here here and here).
  
• We shut down any usergroups with a focus on Newbie Farming.
  
• We are sending individual warnings to the Farmers Guild and select other users who have practiced farming in the past. These should be arriving soon.

If you don't officially receive a warning, consider this it...we may have overlooked you once, but we won't do it again.

Thanks and have a nice day

prismsaber wrote:The fact that these are sequential games should be considered. The noobs have a fair shot at winning as long as they show up to take their turns.

Jeff Hardy wrote:klobbers games were sequential too