Discussion on View Bombing

[Drinking_Water]

It is - EXCEPT that many of us love our codes....

What I'm saying is that the code it-self wouldn't be changed, it just would get something like view/Bob changed to view/Bob/1.

Or a hatchery code that adds the dragon to a hatchery. But the view code is the same.

[Naughtrish]

I wouldn't mind giving my mail to implement something like the facebook login.

What bothers me is that I have (as many of you, I suppose) disabled the "accept help from others", but that does not stop people to add our eggs and hatchies without our consent. IMO that is a breach of Dragon Cave TOU, and as such it should be addressed. No idea how, though.

[JavaTigress]

I wouldn't mind giving my mail to implement something like the facebook login.

What bothers me is that I have (as many of you, I suppose) disabled the "accept help from others", but that does not stop people to add our eggs and hatchies without our consent. IMO that is a breach of Dragon Cave TOU, and as such it should be addressed. No idea how, though.

That is the thing. It really SHOULD be punishable, but unless viewbombers can be caught, nothing can be done to them for what they do... even more difficult if, as I understand, in some cases the bomber isn't even ON DC.

[Fuzzbucket]

That is the thing. It really SHOULD be punishable, but unless viewbombers can be caught, nothing can be done to them for what they do... even more difficult if, as I understand, in some cases the bomber isn't even ON DC.

Exactly. Which is why - not matter what you do - viewbombing cannot actually be stopped. It simply is not possible. And I would hate the added inconvenience of having to log in to fan sites - I REALLY would. Looking out for this stuff is - for me - part of looking after my dragons.

[kecemis]

I wouldn't mind giving my mail to implement something like the facebook login.

What bothers me is that I have (as many of you, I suppose) disabled the "accept help from others", but that does not stop people to add our eggs and hatchies without our consent. IMO that is a breach of Dragon Cave TOU, and as such it should be addressed. No idea how, though.

Something else I noticed-

 

TJ's dragons all have the "it against the rules to blah blah user's permission" on the bottom of their page. But did anyone notice that his eggs had been added to Silvi's lair and a bunch of others? I doubt he did that himself.

 

If people are ballsy enough to add eggs of the ADMIN to a site...I don't know. I feel like there isn't a lot of hope for something to be done about it.

[Ext3h]

Exactly. Which is why - not matter what you do - viewbombing cannot actually be stopped. It simply is not possible. And I would hate the added inconvenience of having to log in to fan sites - I REALLY would. Looking out for this stuff is - for me - part of looking after my dragons.

Of course it can. And one possible solution would be asking users to confirm that they actually posted their dragons on a specific site.

 

And only accepting views/clicks from sources with confirmed referrals. That would be on TJs half.

 

 

 

Also yet another possible solution:

Simply getting rid of sickness. It's nonsense when TJ claims that this would be required for server stability, it's actually quite simple to turn of the logic for a while and to serve static and forcefully cached images once the requirements for growth have been met. Traffic is cheap, and pure statically resolved content doesn't cause any critical server load either, the CDN which is already in place can easily cover this.

 

 

So there is more than just one way to get rid of the view bombing issue. Even without requiring all hatcheries to change. Which is btw. both unreasonable and pointless since there are many options besides dedicated hatcheries to perform successful viewbombing.

[JavaTigress]

Thing is... I suspect there are reasons neither of those have been implemented yet.

 

I am NOT sure how difficult the first would be to implement, AND it might get annoying to have to confirm every time your eggs go in and out of a hatchery ( IF you use fog, for example). Beyond that, it may just be too much work to code.

 

As for the second one, while it certainly WOULD nix any possibility of viewbombing actually KILLING an egg, it would still allow jerks to 'mature' people's trades on them. Besides, I am pretty sure that people have probably asked for sickness to be done away with before, to no avail. I am pretty sure that TJ simply doesn't WANT to get rid of sickness entirely, for one reason or another. What those might be, I am unsure of, but there may well be reasons for it that I am unaware of. As far as servers go, I suspect that TJ knows more about them and what they can handle than I do... that he knows what he is talking about when he says that doing away with sickness would overwhelm them, or could. The issue with changing things around so that static stuff, as you mentioned, could be sent once requirements were met is that it might well be too much work, once again, to reprogram. Besides which, I think the feeling is that people SHOULD look after their things, not just dump them in hatcheries and forget them... not saying that viewbombing is RIGHT by any means, BTW, just that there WERE reasons for sickness and there may still be... including things were aren't even aware of.

 

Just some thoughts.

Edited July 12, 2014 by Silverswift

[Fuzzbucket]

Sickness is one way to make sure we have to actually take care of things. I would not like to see it go. This game is easy enough as it is.

[purplehaze]

Sickness is one way to make sure we have to actually take care of things. I would not like to see it go. This game is easy enough as it is.

Agreed. Without sickness to worry about one could just grab eggs, stick them on every known click site and forum and then forget them until they hatched and grew up, then grab a new set of eggs, rinse, repeat . . .

[Ext3h]

Agreed. Without sickness to worry about one could just grab eggs, stick them on every known click site and forum and then forget them until they hatched and grew up, then grab a new set of eggs, rinse, repeat . . .

It's not any different right now, at least not when using the truly fully automated hatcheries. I mean the ones already containing sickness monitors.

 

Viewbombing and the resulting deaths mostly only affects people who are being targeted, newbies make that mistake only once and then steer clear from high traffic sites.

[purplehaze]

It's not any different right now, at least not when using the truly fully automated hatcheries. I mean the ones already containing sickness monitors.

Which is why I also dislike having that sort of hatchery.

 

I just feel like you should have to actually make some effort to raise your dragons.

[Fuzzbucket]

Which is why I also dislike having that sort of hatchery.

 

I just feel like you should have to actually make some effort to raise your dragons.

Quite. Otherwise - why bother.

[Gryphonic]

Quite. Otherwise - why bother.

I do see your point, but on the other hand I can't always be near my computer. Some days I leave for work and don't have a chance to log on again till the evening - should the game only be enjoyable for those with copious free time?

 

I've had gifted prizes attacked before. And a friend caught me a gold and a silver and they were viewbombed while they were being traded to me. The gold eventually died even though I fogged it as soon as I accepted the trade.

 

20 minutes ago I picked up a CB copper, and after a few minutes it suddenly started getting views even though I hadn't entered the egg anywhere. Now it may have been people 'clicking through' to see the egg they missed, but the fact that there was a delay before it began makes me suspicious. I'm glad I was watching, and that one is staying fogged for a while. (And I just hid my scroll since posting in viewbombing threads has been a source of attacks for other people).

[MoonShark]

As someone who recently managed to injure herself to the point that being on the computer is painful, and yet still has dragons to care for and has recently become a victim of repeated view-bombing, I would love if hatcheries had some way of ensuring only the scroll owner could post their eggs. I know at least one has (or had?) a setting where you can "lock your scroll" - make it so it requires the password check through the Cave before you can post your eggs (I think it is DragHatch). If the same sort of coding could be applied to other hatcheries, that would make it a lot easier on the people who either don't have the time to watch their scrolls for every minute or are currently injured/have chronic pain that makes it difficult to fog every single egg and check every single hatchery when one of their babies starts getting a lot of views. Hiding your scroll is an option, but for me it only makes things more difficult because it's more clicking and typing that I would prefer not to have to do to play a game I enjoy - and if I forget to hide it again it only allows the viewbombing to occur again (once I had it unhidden for about an hour or so before I hid it again....checked the usual hatchery and it had already been added yet again, so whoever is currently stalking my scroll is doing it regularly and with malicious intent). I have found my scroll in the same hatchery, one I don't use except on a rare occasion, every single time I have left my scroll unhidden for the past week. Several rare eggs and hatchlings have gotten sick, although thankfully none have died yet.

[JavaTigress]

As someone who recently managed to injure herself to the point that being on the computer is painful, and yet still has dragons to care for and has recently become a victim of repeated view-bombing, I would love if hatcheries had some way of ensuring only the scroll owner could post their eggs. I know at least one has (or had?) a setting where you can "lock your scroll" - make it so it requires the password check through the Cave before you can post your eggs (I think it is DragHatch). If the same sort of coding could be applied to other hatcheries, that would make it a lot easier on the people who either don't have the time to watch their scrolls for every minute or are currently injured/have chronic pain that makes it difficult to fog every single egg and check every single hatchery when one of their babies starts getting a lot of views. Hiding your scroll is an option, but for me it only makes things more difficult because it's more clicking and typing that I would prefer not to have to do to play a game I enjoy - and if I forget to hide it again it only allows the viewbombing to occur again (once I had it unhidden for about an hour or so before I hid it again....checked the usual hatchery and it had already been added yet again, so whoever is currently stalking my scroll is doing it regularly and with malicious intent). I have found my scroll in the same hatchery, one I don't use except on a rare occasion, every single time I have left my scroll unhidden for the past week. Several rare eggs and hatchlings have gotten sick, although thankfully none have died yet.

Like I have said before.... I wouldn't mind it if it became an OPTION; like the example you gave where it is a setting you can select on or off. That is, something a person that wanted a bit of extra protection could opt into. That way, those that want it can have it and those that don't want it don't have to input the extra password. Seems like your situation is a very good argument for such an option, Moonshark. I truthfully hadn't considered the fact that there might be those that, for one reason or another find looking after their dragons more difficult physically than others ( I do know some find it harder to CATCH dragons)... certainly a good point in this discussion.

Edited July 16, 2014 by Silverswift

[Fuzzbucket]

There will always be people setting up fan sites, without passwords and the rest. Even if all the current ones set up passwords - new ones might not. Not to mention all the other ways to get views that the bombers use. What we need to do is be vigilant and use fogging a lot.

 

What I would support (possibly, still thinking ) would be an option for an action (or a BSA) that says "protect this egg from views". That would mean that an egg/hatchie in a trade link could be viewed but such views would not add to its stats. The protection would wear off as soon as a trade was made. But for thing you plan to keep - we already have fog, so...

[MoonShark]

What I would support (possibly, still thinking ) would be an option for an action (or a BSA) that says "protect this egg from views". That would mean that an egg/hatchie in a trade link could be viewed but such views would not add to its stats. The protection would wear off as soon as a trade was made. But for thing you plan to keep - we already have fog, so...

Fogging and unfogging close to two dozen hatchlings and eggs, every single day, sometimes multiple times, is not very easy for some, for the reasons I described in my earlier post. I did it a couple of times before resorting to hiding my scroll...which is still tedious, but not as tedious/painful as clicking every single action page to fog/unfog everything on my scroll.

 

There is a BSA suggestion I think for a scroll-wide fog, which I certainly support, since clicking one thing is a lot easier than clicking everything.

Edited July 16, 2014 by MoonShark

[Fuzzbucket]

Fogging and unfogging close to two dozen hatchlings and eggs, every single day, sometimes multiple times, is not very easy for some, for the reasons I described in my earlier post. I did it a couple of times before resorting to hiding my scroll...which is still tedious, but not as tedious/painful as clicking every single action page to fog/unfog everything on my scroll.

 

There is a BSA suggestion I think for a scroll-wide fog, which I certainly support, since clicking one thing is a lot easier than clicking everything.

You're telling me ! I started the multifogging thread when we started being able to have 21 growing things at a time ! Please do support it !

 

http://forums.dragcave.net/index.php?showtopic=117615

 

However - for you, in pain, as I recall ! - you can do as I do; open ALL those 21 tabs (using snaplocks, even !) and then you can "reload all tabs" when you are AFK, and do the same when you come back. It's still a pain - but LESS of a pain !

[kecemis]

You're telling me ! I started the multifogging thread when we started being able to have 21 growing things at a time ! Please do support it !

 

http://forums.dragcave.net/index.php?showtopic=117615

 

However - for you, in pain, as I recall ! - you can do as I do; open ALL those 21 tabs (using snaplocks, even !) and then you can "reload all tabs" when you are AFK, and do the same when you come back. It's still a pain - but LESS of a pain !

Have you tried just hiding your scroll? Almost all the click sites I've seen won't add a hidden scroll. I doubt your stalker would be so diligent as to jot down all your codes on a piece of paper and enter them in manually one by one P: Generally speaking these people are juveniles with short attention spans.

[JavaTigress]

Have you tried just hiding your scroll? Almost all the click sites I've seen won't add a hidden scroll. I doubt your stalker would be so diligent as to jot down all your codes on a piece of paper and enter them in manually one by one P: Generally speaking these people are juveniles with short attention spans.

There are exceptions to that, though, and you MIGHT have a bomber that IS that motivated. Besides, some people really don't LIKE hiding their scrolls. I, for one, don't. If I want to offer someone a trade, I'd like for them to be able to look and see what I have... quite aside from the fact that, quite frankly, I like for my pretties to be visible to others. Silly, I know, but I do. What is the point of writing descriptions if you scroll stays hidden all of the time?

[kecemis]

There are exceptions to that, though, and you MIGHT have a bomber that IS that motivated. Besides, some people really don't LIKE hiding their scrolls. I, for one, don't. If I want to offer someone a trade, I'd like for them to be able to look and see what I have... quite aside from the fact that, quite frankly, I like for my pretties to be visible to others. Silly, I know, but I do. What is the point of writing descriptions if you scroll stays hidden all of the time?

Great, I realize there are some that are super dedicated to bombing. I'm offering an alternative. If Fuzzbucket is going to fog all his/her babies in different tabs, wouldn't it make more sense to fog the entire scroll?

 

 

[Fuzzbucket]

Great, I realize there are some that are super dedicated to bombing. I'm offering an alternative. If Fuzzbucket is going to fog all his/her babies in different tabs, wouldn't it make more sense to fog the entire scroll?

I never thought of that - this is the first time I have been a his/her here.... following another thread !

 

I don't necessarily fog them ALL, that's the thing - I can have them all ready to roll, yes - but I can do them in clumps with multiple tabs, while leaving a few in the open to hatch/grow up, as you might say. Yes - I have been known to hide my scroll - but if someone has the codes already (and that determined person did have, I'm pretty sure) they can still add them to fan sites. Fogging is the only way to be SURE not to get views.

Edited July 20, 2014 by fuzzbucket

[skauble]

I've mentioned this before when we had the last round of view-bombing, but I don't think that this is a problem with the hatcheries. This is now a problem with the game mechanic.

 

Eggs/hatchlings getting sick served two purposes - it kept people from clogging up the server by getting a ridiculous, unnecessary number of views, and it also added a layer to the game which gave players a reason to continue to interact with their scrolls.

 

Unfortunately, some not particularly nice people have found a way to exploit that. Instead of trying to compensate for that by changing the sites out there which can be used to view-bomb eggs (an impossibility since sites other than hatcheries can be used), it seems that it would be far simpler to just adjust the way that sickness works to preserve the benefits listed above, while removing the incentive that view-bombers have wherein they upset people by killing their eggs.

 

Instead of an egg dying quickly of sickness, there could be a window where it's sick without penalty - it would be X amount of hours, X being the number that it's decided that a reasonably engaged player would check in on their eggs.

 

After that amount of time, every Y amount of hours goes by where the egg remains sick causes development to slow so that the egg takes longer to hatch.

 

There could still be the threat of death if the egg was sick for three, four, or five days, but I think that it's reasonable to expect players to check in on their eggs within that time frame.

 

Since the vast majority of sickness is not caused by view-bombing I do think that it's important that a consequence remains, it just doesn't have to be death, or at least not one that happens so much faster than many people can catch it.

 

Changing the mechanics of sickness still creates the incentive there for the player to not get an overwhelming amount of views (which is better for the server) and for them to regularly check in on their scroll (which is good for the game as a whole). There may end up being some minor inconvenience for a player who gets view-bombed and was unable to check in for a couple of days, but that's immensely better than a scroll of egg shells and tombstones. Also, I believe that view-bombing will probably drop off a lot once the people who do it can't get the satisfaction of causing real distress. Being mildly annoying is more pathetic than vengeful.

[pinkgothic]

skauble, that's a great idea. I remember you posting about it before, but it's definitely an idea that deserves repeating. (Of course, I'm generally in strong favour of a server-side solution, anyway. )

[JavaTigress]

I've mentioned this before when we had the last round of view-bombing, but I don't think that this is a problem with the hatcheries. This is now a problem with the game mechanic.

 

Eggs/hatchlings getting sick served two purposes - it kept people from clogging up the server by getting a ridiculous, unnecessary number of views, and it also added a layer to the game which gave players a reason to continue to interact with their scrolls.

 

Unfortunately, some not particularly nice people have found a way to exploit that. Instead of trying to compensate for that by changing the sites out there which can be used to view-bomb eggs (an impossibility since sites other than hatcheries can be used), it seems that it would be far simpler to just adjust the way that sickness works to preserve the benefits listed above, while removing the incentive that view-bombers have wherein they upset people by killing their eggs.

 

Instead of an egg dying quickly of sickness, there could be a window where it's sick without penalty - it would be X amount of hours, X being the number that it's decided that a reasonably engaged player would check in on their eggs.

 

After that amount of time, every Y amount of hours goes by where the egg remains sick causes development to slow so that the egg takes longer to hatch.

 

There could still be the threat of death if the egg was sick for three, four, or five days, but I think that it's reasonable to expect players to check in on their eggs within that time frame.

 

Since the vast majority of sickness is not caused by view-bombing I do think that it's important that a consequence remains, it just doesn't have to be death, or at least not one that happens so much faster than many people can catch it.

 

Changing the mechanics of sickness still creates the incentive there for the player to not get an overwhelming amount of views (which is better for the server) and for them to regularly check in on their scroll (which is good for the game as a whole). There may end up being some minor inconvenience for a player who gets view-bombed and was unable to check in for a couple of days, but that's immensely better than a scroll of egg shells and tombstones. Also, I believe that view-bombing will probably drop off a lot once the people who do it can't get the satisfaction of causing real distress. Being mildly annoying is more pathetic than vengeful.

I agree with pinkgothic on this one. That actually DOES sound like a sensible solution to the problem.

 

 

I don't know how TJ feels but I would be in favor of that.

 

As you say, there really isn't any way to CATCH the viewbombers and punish them and how much changing the hatcheries would help is questionable because there are other ways to bomb. THIS, however, would take away the INCENTIVE for bombing in the first place, by and large.