Pinocchio Gate

Day 2,122, 04:14 • Published in Chile Bulgaria • by Stolch

A few days back, there was a sudden shift in TWO strategy, for months they would not start battles in CoT prime time even when these battles were uncontested. For some, unexplainable at the time, reason, both Serbia and Poland started battles as soon as their previous one ended in the middle of CoT prime time.

At the time this was contributed to tactics, trying to clear battles for the end of the next day, when the Bulgarian campaign against Lithuania would be at it's end. It also represented an opportunity for us to win the initiative for USA in their battle against Poland. So we adjusted priorities, planed and delivered damage in the key moments and we won both battles.

Yesterday the new "event" was announced by Pinocchio and Romania put a law for an AS right away and it became clear that TWO countries or at least select people in them have prior knowledge of this event. Romania could have started an Air STrike on Bulgaria while it was fighting hard battles with Lithuania and before even gaining a foot hold in Scandinavia if that was the aim all along, however it is clear now they knew of the impending "event" and so the AS was planed accordingly.

This of course cannot be proven, what can be proven however is the tampering of Pinocchio of the AS law of Romania. Of course this does not mean the actual administration of the game which I call Pinocchio (3 guesses why) is responsible, it can well be just one person that is rogue or involved that has done this, I have no knowledge of the inside workings of the administration of the game, however the result is very much evident.

Now we all know this to be true because we spent the whole day preparing for this AS so we knew well when the AS law was started. Before I put forward the pics, I'll explain quickly the significance of this tampering and why they felt it was needed.

The AS law was started at 1:14~1:15 erep time on eday 2121, which meant that at earliest the actual AS can start no earlier then 1:14~1:15 on eday 2122. At the same time the last unsuccessful Norwegian RW in Bulgaria had ended at 1:05 erep time on eday 2121. This meant that a new RW can be started only after 1:05 erep time on erep day 2122.

By starting an RW, before the AS commenced, Bulgaria had the option for choosing a region Romania cannot attack. If an RW was started in Trondelag, then Romania would have had to AS one of the other 2 region, but if Trondelag RW was successful, it would split the other two regions with no border between them, essentially closing the war between Romania and Bulgaria and allowing for Bulgaria to gain the initiative in any future war if Romania put an NE on Norway.

We of course expected more surprises that is why we kept our options open with an NE law on Norway and created more contingency plans. This does not change the fact that once again the administration 9of the game through it's actions or inactions is directly manipulating game events to the benefit of one country. Usually that country is Romania.

Some of us older players, remember when Hungarian president was hacked and the hacker together with the Romanian president managed to delete Hungary in hurry by retreading attacks (to retreat from battle was possible in V1). This was the manner in which Romania finally won after 2 years their war with Hungary. They had been #1 power forever but could not defeat the resilient Hungarians and had to resort to cheating to do so. Not only did the admins do not refund Hungary for the damage caused from that event, the Romanian President which was clearly an accomplice as he was starting each new battle was not sanctioned at the time.

Now the case is similar, Romania got outplayed and so Bulgaria took advantage of an opportunity and carried out a successful campaign in Scandinavia, to compensate for their inability, they have resorted to using admin manipulation.

While in the case of Hungary, it was an outside factor so the admins can claim no responsibility, this time it is direct "inside job". They have responded to tickets that the AS was started at 0:14 erep time on eday 2121. That is not true and here is the evidence.

I'll post all 3 and explain below:


pick 1



pick 2



pick 3



NOTE: I've had to use additional uploads as the original screenshots would not get displayed. (thanks to viper146) The links above them are to the original screenshots the pictures do not have the time highlighted for easier view expressly so that no tampering can be accused.



The first picture os of the law itself. One can immediately see that the timer is screwed, nothing new to erebuglik, however the possible explanation is that the timestamp of the law was tampered with. In any case it shows that the law was started 10 hours ago. At worst that is 10 hours and 59 minutes.

The second pick is a pick of when a shout was published with the first pick, it was done as soon as it was made, if the admins want to contest that fact I'm prepared to contact the appropriate company to get a time stamp on when the actual screenshot was taken by their add on. Here we can see that the post was made 15 hours ago and the time is 3:05 erep time on eday 2122.

The third pick is again of the same shout but now it shows the shout was made 16 hours ago and the time is 3:15 erep time on eday 2122.

That means the shout was made between 12:05 and 12:15 on erep day 2121. Since the first pick show us that at that time the maximum time that has elapsed since the start of the law is 10 hours and 59 minutes, the AS law itself cannot have been initiated before 1:05 erep time on eday 2121. Which is in stark contrast of what the admins have stated in tickets sent about this issue. I'll not post those answers so that they do not have an excuse to take down this article, however we have screenshots of them as well.

This manipulation of game events, is not only unacceptable but is against the laws of the European union concerning online commerce, I hope I do not need to quote those laws. With the started gold rush promotion, everyone who has bought any and participated in that battle is a customer who has been wronged.

We expect the administration of the game to carry out a full investigation and immediately fire for disciplinary reasons the person or persons responsible for this manipulation and to compensate all that have been adversely affected by it, less we're forced to seek to uphold our rights as customers by other means.

regards,


PS I find this act especially grievous since only yesterday Alexis Bonte responded to a long personal message I sent him in which many concerns were put forward and administration tampering in favour of certain players or player communities was one of them.

It is not enough that for years the administration of the game has given and allowed certain countries to have many more government organizations then everyone else, it is now actively changing game events.


PS2 For obvious purposes this article is available in googledocs as well: http://tinyurl.com/ope7zyv