Scripting - Official Developer Stance

[Tesserex]

After a lot of yelling back and forth, several threads, a few ad hominem posts, etc, regarding the "scripting" issue against cavers, we need to let you guys know where we all fall. This post is on behalf of myself and Brian (Ravenex). I cannot say that it speaks for Danny (Zedarius) because he isn't here right now. As far as I can recall, his opinion is that he dislikes scripting, feels it's probably cheating, at the least it's cheap, but that there's not much we can do. This is pretty close to our opinion.

First, what scripting is and isn't. When you attack another dragon, the page that loads uses GET information (rather than POST) to send your target and item information to the server. This is for technical reasons - text links can't send POST easily. Because of this, it's possible to see the information sent. "Scripting" means that you manually enter the URL for setting an attack, with the target, item information, and confirmation, all into the browser. This way you don't have to set any options or click confirm buttons. Then you use a browser auto-refresh feature to reload the page every 5 seconds or so until you catch the caver. Scripting does NOT involve, at least to my knowledge, writing any outside software to bypass any of the checks or to further simplify the process.

As you can probably tell the reason people hate this is because it makes it "easy" to catch a caver, you don't need to even be at your computer technically. This seems like obvious cheating until you consider more facts. This is where we get to our official stance on the matter.

1. Very few people actually script. Our estimate is around a dozen. It's more prominent among forum users, but across the whole game, its pretty unknown.
2. It's not as easy to catch a caver as it seems. Cavers can use their turns in less than 10 seconds if they're good. Considering that they can use their turns any time of day, and that you probably won't set a script to run 24/7, you can miss completely. Even if they use their turns while you're scripting, it is possible, though unlikely, to miss them.
3. If you DON'T use scripting, considering the speed of cavers, it is virtually impossible to attack them. They're outside literally 0.01% of the day.

So we hope you can see the dilemma. With scripting, cavers are too vulnerable. Without it, they're invincible. We have no way of just taking invulnerable cavers off the wealth board, and so the problem becomes that we don't want to just cater to cavers by allowing them to opt out of 95% of gameplay just because they feel like it, while still claiming top leaderboard position. We feel that if you want to say you're the best at collecting gold, it should mean best at defending it as well, not "my stash is immune to raiding because I don't feel like participating in combat" while all those who do participate have to take second place to you.

The cave was never meant for caving as it is used now. It was initially a pause button for when you go on vacation. That said, it was a stupid oversight on my part that now means there is no easy solution. We have read all the scripting discussions, and there is no solution that balances the game. Everything we've considered makes it even worse for someone. If we ban scripting, we make cavers immune and that's not fair to all non-cavers. If we also make it so that it takes some time to get back into your cave, then it is far worse for cavers - even being stuck outside a single minute would likely draw the 5 attack limit from casual players - not just the scripters would catch them.

I personally don't mind having cavers in the game, they have as much a right to play as anyone. However I cannot cater to them any more than I can to anyone else. I understand that they do not want to feel like unfairly easy targets, but at the same time, consider this. A caver who only uses his turns for 10 seconds every day, has, in the 300 days PD has existed so far, been playing the game for a mere 50 minutes! We don't believe that the favoritism should swing to players who have spent less than an hour engaged in gameplay, vs those who spend hours at a time finding targets. Of course many of these cavers are also very active forum members, so I still do think the game should be playable and fair to them.


To make a long explanation short, there is really nothing we can do about it. We would honestly like to have a way to settle this issue, but the structure of the game is such that there is no adequate solution that benefits all. You may continue to discuss this in the appropriate threads.

PS. I do hope I have not turned away or offended any players, that is certainly not my intention. I do want PD to be enjoyable for all, which is why it is so hard to make a decision on this issue.

[Zedarius]

I believe the idea that "there is no solution" is a bit harsh - we're (or at least I am) entertaining ideas on what could be done that will benefit all equally. Instead of posting ideas on a separate thread, send me a PM with your proposed solution and why it would be best/fair for all types of users.

In fact, I just thought of an idea or two that I will be sharing with Brian and Craig tomorrow when we meet to work on the game. I believe (although I'm not certain, so don't take my word for it) that all 3 of us would like scripting gone if there is some solution that seems fair to all.

[Ravenex]

So let’s discuss possible solutions to the alleged problem;

First, we can put the cave back to what it was originally intended, which is to say a long term pause button.  The easiest way to do this would be to make it take 12 hours to enter your cave.  It would then be easy enough to catch rich dragons and scripting would no longer even be a factor in the game.  Now the obvious drawback to this solution is it pretty much ruins the game for all cavers, and they would all quit… but it would solve the scripting issue.

Second, as was suggested many times, we could make it impossible to script and make it take some small amount of time to enter your cave, maybe a minute.  Supposedly this would make it feasible for people who currently script to use the old fashioned method and refresh.  But if you really think about it since cavers can come out at random times actively hunting them would still be pretty much impossible, giving them too much invulnerability from the people working to get them.  Further, if there was now enough time for wealthy cavers to appear on the random dragons page and be attacked, it can be certain they will be attack quite regularly.  This would decimate their hoards.  So this solution disadvantages both raiders and cavers alike.

Third, again as suggested, make an in game feature to set your dragon to “stalk” a caver.  Essentially, a raider would pick a caved target, hit a stalk button, and their dragon would have a decent chance to attack the caver automatically when they came out.  Basically this is very similar to giving the scripting technique to everyone and has some major problems.  Primarily, making this feature available would mean that again cavers would be attacked regularly, severely disadvantaging cavers.  Also it would make hunting cavers easy, and eliminate all the work raiders currently do put in.

Also, notice a common downside to all of these solutions is they would modify very fundamental game dynamics.  This is also something we have a problem with doing nearly a year into the game.

As you can see, all of these solutions actually disadvantage cavers a lot more than leaving scripting as it currently is, and will potentially ruin the game for them.  So if your intent is to protect them from unfair attacks keep this in mind.

There are a few other potential solutions, but they all have similar problems.  If you have a potential solution please really consider these questions, and if it passes them, send it to us.  We really do listen to our users, we just don’t always feel it’s best to act on the suggestions we get.

1)   Does your solution give cavers a large margin of invulnerability?
2)   Does it make the situation worse for cavers than it currently is?  Is this fair?
3)   Does it make intentionally attacking cavers impossible?
4)   Does it require modification of basic game mechanics?  Would people have played they’re 200+ days so far differently had this been available before?  Is it still fair for everyone?

If someone can come up with a plausible solution we would strongly consider it.  UNTIL THEN IT IS MY OPINION THAT THE BEST COURSE OF ACTION, FOR EVERYONE, IS TO LEAVE EVERYTHING AS IS.  We will not publicly release the necessary information as to how to script, this would ruin caving completely.  Its simple enough that most anyone can figure it out, and they can do their own work.

*PERSONAL OPINION*
On a personal note, I am getting sick of people who feel it is their position to decide how the game should be.  We like suggestions, but this is about some of the recent posts declaring that we haven’t done enough, and that not removing scripting is unacceptable, or comments about us making decisions in our own interest with complete disregard for our players.  I find this personally offensive.  Those that know me, or the other Devs, know full well that we care for our users, and listen to them directly, more than the devs of almost any other game.  We work very hard to provide you all with the best game we can, and to keep everyone’s interests in mind.  But the decisions are ours to make, if you feel strongly enough against our decisions please feel free to write your own game, and make it however you like.