While I can understand and follow your line of thought, you are coming to conclusions which are not supported by anything said in the announcement, or the discussions which took place in the Committee.
It was never spoken about as "inferior" or "superior". The argument was that some people were karma-farming, karma-farming is considered a bad thing by staff and the majority of the committee. Analysis resulted in the conclusion that most farming happened at 2 particular threads, thus those were targeted for action.
The majority of players are non-native English speakers. You'll just have to make more of an effort to get understood by people. That may sound harsh, but that's just how things are. But trust me, once you play Torn long enough, you'll find yourself dreaming in English-ish.
If you look at the average rating of each post in those two threads, you will find that it is close to perhaps 2 or 3.. If someone were to make 400 or 500 posts that help people then imho they deserve to have 1K karma... there are numerous other ways of karma farming that are much worse e.g. posting threads to discuss announcements or competitions and I don't see any of those being punished by the change.
Is it a real problem? Yes, but I am not sure that it requires such drastic measures or if even the right people are being targeted. If somebody was desperate for karma, there are numerous other rather pathetic means to get it but its weird that all that has been ignored (even fun and games section) and people who were actually helping others in the pursuit for 1k karma have been the first ones targeted.
So flower runners are being punished for simply playing the game & doing what the game allowed....
The VIP is nonsense anyway, just the same old trash talk overall (no-one is missing anything!)
Karma gains via flower running, well why not? I fly, buy flowers, I let others know what stock is available. Useful information.. (Maybe I should trash talk more instead, rather than supplying useful info???)
I do not flower run for Karma, I flower run for Cash! The karma was secondary & a little perk, why not, the game allowed it.
With all respect, Bogie has answered virtually every question in the game... So there is little for everyone else to actually add, other that repeating themselves or quoting Bogie.
So I simply add my flower info & get involved in the holiday competitions mostly..
Still, I know that I would be considered as not contributing to the game according to many VIP's.... ( I suppose that donating over $1000 does not count, im just a useless flower runner & bring nothing to the game!)
So now, basically Karma is being judged not by the players, but by the administrators...
Overall....
Karma does not really mean anything & never has....
The karma debate has gone on too long & has not provided anything of substance, other than arguments & division.
I am not the one who has done the analysis, and quite frankly, I do not intend to do one now either. All we (you and I) have to go on is what we can see from the front end. The guys at admin-desk have full access to all the data, so their analysis is undoubtedly of a much higher standard then you and I could ever achieve. I have been told the analysis was done, and these were the results. While I would usually demand to know stuff about the research approach, and statistical methods used, in a game, I am just going to trust the admin. Because usually... in RL the people doing an analysis have something to gain by lying or twisting outcomes (politicians...) but out here, Ched rules supreme and unchallenged. He only needs us to continue trusting him. Lying about a topic so trivial as Karma would be a pretty bad idea.. Well...trivial to most, anyway, just look at my post-count, my age, and my karma, and I think you can see the importance I attach to Karma.
While Ched has done some stupid things in the past, when Torn had just started, he has also grown up and evolved from a pock-faced teenager (just my imagination) doing stuff in the cellar, to a guy who actually knows how to run a business.
Now, and are these measures drastic. No... not really, actually. As a matter of fact, there were a few alternatives which would have had an even bigger effect, on a LOT more threads and on many more people (frankly, I am in favour of those being implemented as well).
Perhaps this is a good time to stop the pursuit of 1K, and start working towards more meaningful goals. Stuff which actually matters in the game, like a marriage of 1000 days, a certain amount of stats, or even getting 100 clients in your bazar each day.
PS: And why do I attach such small value to Karma? Because it's been ruined by certain behaviour.
Could you please explain where the "Still, I know that I would be considered as not contributing to the game according to many VIP's.... ( I suppose that donating over $1000 does not count, im just a useless flower runner & bring nothing to the game!)" bit comes from? I have never, ever, heard anything say anything such as this about flower runners, so I am quite surprised to see a remark like this. It almost sounds a bit as a inferiority complex.
Flowers runners have been mentioned for bringing nothing to the forums, just farming karma... as I no longer have VIP status I cannot quote you unfortunately....
Flowers runners were not welcome in VIP, hence why this sudden change has happened....It did not happen for no reason! I have read that we bring or add nothing to the game & farm karma..Hence the change & the posts & the chat & debate!
I understand the point being made.. As we simply post the stock of flowers in a country.. Easy karma...Whay should we get it so easy etc......
But I defiantly add & bring value to this game, that I can be certain of.... If you want proof of how much I have donated to this game, ask my RL Wife! (She aint happy! lol)
As for an inferiority complex, are you joking, are you serious!.... Lol
I would've wanted to look at the data before I jumped to conclusions, its not that I don't trust Ched but its possible tht two different people might come to very different conclusions based on the same data.
The basic question is why posts in those threads are not worth getting karma while a simple "Blame Ched for everything with TORN" or "lol.. u mad" in GD or Faction Discussion are worthy of getting it. Those posts are useful to a large but perhaps a little newbish part of the community.
Glad people have understood why karma farming is a bad thing... ;)
I have always seen karma as a bad thing. Seen it in other forums, and always the same thing happens, karma circle jerks. And this is not aimed at flower runners, it is aimed at all players. Friends do it, factions and companies do it. You get a down karma rate and human instinct makes you do the same. Same thing with plus karma rates...
It's just a forum baby, live with them. They make a game more fun, and without karma, we all know who makes a difference and who doesn't...
With that said, I am off for a week. Bitch and moan about the change, not my problem. For now I hunt Nessie...
They didn't remove good karma.. they removed all the karma from posts that did not warrant good karma. Telling Torn that Xanax is $750k in SA is not an enlightened bit of information. I only posted in that thread a couple of times and got karma because I shared information that I thought people would appreciate. This sort of info results in something better than forum karma. It results in just plain good karma for doing a person a favor. I'm not whining about ilosing the karma from these posts because it wasn't real karma anyhow. I didn't share any wisdom, or humorous insight that caused enlightenment to the reader. It was just information.
You said in your original post, that the true haters were the ones who made this update happen. honestly? lLet's define what hatred means. Hatred is about focusing your bitterness, spite, anger and apathy towards something or someone, instead of letting it go and either accepting a situation or forgiving the injury.
Now let's look your posts. They are all about hatred! You accuse others. You can't let it go. You are angry. You are the hater in this situation. If it means nothing to you, then get over it. Otherwise, admit that you hold a giant boiling cauldron of hate in your heart about this update.
The truth is, it doesn't matter how you define your emotion. I honestly do not believe that they are going to reverse the decision so you have the choice to either accept it and move on... or dwell in this ugly place of anger you have and just be consumed by it.
Well, that is not how I have experienced the discussion. The argument which I have heard is that there is a group of people who are karma-farming, and using specific threads for that. That is something quite different from saying that everybody using said threats is a karma-farmer.
Of course, I could be wrong about it, and if you can prove the allegation that this is a VIP-instilled conspiracy, then I'd be quite interested in hearing it.
Inferiority complex; that was somewhere between serious joking and a joke. Either way, I believe all those who use travelrun and who update the thing are bringing a service, one which I am quite happy to use myself, by the way. I do update travelrun, I just never bother to post about it.
On the other side, if it IS such a conspiracy, I am just going to go hush-hush on it, considering I have VIP access :D
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