Cheating
Policy and Other Announcements



by Lingo
» Tue Mar 30, 2010 1:10 pm


Hello Aika players!

This post’s purpose
is to address some of the issues which have been of recent or ongoing
concern to the community. We do read the forums, we do read PMs, we go
through the Aika email inbox frequently, we listen to our mods, and we
have been working very hard to make the game a great experience for
everyone. We know it’s been frustrating dealing with certain in-game
issues like the gold spam and botting, and we’re making progress on
fixing them.

We’d like to keep emphasizing that the easiest way for us to process and act
upon illegal in-game activity is through email. If you suspect a
player of cheating in the game in some way, please email
aika_support[at]gala-net.com with all the evidence you can gather about
the issue (videos under 500MB are encouraged - please upload them to a
hosting site and include the link in your email). Do not discuss
cheating on the forums, particularly accusations against other players
related to cheating. We encourage you to send emails reporting popular
bot gathering areas (including coordinates and area names) as well as
suspected bot characters. These emails will help our GMs deal with
cheaters in-game while we keep working on a more permanent fix.

Below,
you’ll find our rules and definitions for cheating and exploiting bugs.
We are adopting a zero-tolerance policy for botting, hacking, and
other forms of cheating. If you use illegal software or other means to
cheat, you will be banned from the game. We’re already investigating
reports of suspected hackers and banning the hacker accounts from Aika.
We’d also appreciate emails with links to botting program information
instead of attachments with the programs themselves. Thanks everybody
for your patience and for reporting these incidents.

The full
rules and definitions for in-game violations and corresponding
punishments will be posted in the next few days.


Cheating
Always report cheating via email to
aika_support[at]gala-net.com and include as much information about the
incident as possible.

a. Hacking
Violating
the privacy of any account, performing account abuses and hosting of
hacked items.

First offense:
Permanent ban

b. Illegal
Software
Engaging in or promote or encourage any illegal
activity including hacking, cracking or distribution of counterfeit
software. Use or distribute 'auto' software programs, 'macro' software
programs or other 'cheat utility' software program or applications.
Partying with characters using or distributing hack/cheat programs.

First offense: Permanent ban

c.
Phishing
Advertising
websites that contain hacking/cheating programs and procedures, sending
an email falsely claiming to come from a legitimate source in order to
steal confidential information to commit fraud and/or theft

First offense: Permanent ban

d.
False reports
Reporting any
false incidents though any media to Gala-Net. If an account was newly
created to abuse this punishment, then (1) all accounts associated with
that IP will be permanently banned and (2) the accused account will not
be punished.

First offense:
Permanent ban on all parties involved in reporting a false incident


Duping/exploiting bugs

a.
Bug Exploitation
Related
account (duped/bugged item passed through account). Exploiting any bug
in Aika to gain unfair advantage in the game. Possession of bugged
items, duped items, or hacked items. Communicating the existence of any
such bug (either directly or through public posting) to any other user
of the Aika game service. This includes exploiting a game or design
flaw. Players should email aika_support[at]gala-net.com to report these
incidents and any information about these exploits.

First offense: 5-day ban
Second
offense: Permanent ban

b. Duping
Duplicating
an item with intention to cheat.

First offense: Permanent ban


We'd also like to
address the lack of patch notes from maintenance last week. We know
that we had said there would be patch notes, and many of you were
expecting them. We didn't post patch notes last week because the patch
was a non-gameplay related adjustment to the chat filter. Given that we
said that there would be patch notes for that maintenance, we should
have communicated this change. In the future, we will post patch notes
if the changes affect gameplay.

If only they would act according to this rules...