SKIN HEAVEN SERVERS: Exploit or Fair Use?

[McLovinDST]

I recently came across a server named "AFK World" (IP: "122.116.135.146" Port: "11005") and at my great surprise, realized it was almost full even though its max capacity was 64. Curious to see how a server that big would look like, I jumped right into it without reading the server's tags. First thing I noticed when inside: nothing, abolutely nothing. This world was actually a normal DST world generated without any prefab: no mobs, no items, no caves, no time related events (hounds, deerclops, etc.) and no night. I only was given a walking cane, that's it. And it was the same for the other players: they were there but were not moving. Either chilling on the other side of the map or stuck on the dancing emoj at the portal. Since we were apparently all in supergodmode(), nobody could ever die from that.

First I thought maybe it was some server in testing or whatever before I started seeing couple of gift opening announcements from people that had been standing still for 15 minutes right next to me. Thinking it was just a big joke, I left the server and started to read the info related to it. The mods installed read as follow:

Mods:

• disable idle kick
• Global position
• Auto Open the Gift
• combine and patch
• Limit Prefab (used to wipe off the world)

You see where I'm coming with this. Those kind of servers are idle servers where you just get into as a background and muted computer process to basically get your 4 skins a week without playing whatsoever.

I don't want to turn this into drama but among all my 8 skin compatible games it is the first time in my life that I witness a game in which you can gain skin by beeing idle. Also, it turned out to happen to my favorite game.

For the people that don't know what this problem implies, its only a matter of simple marketing rules: supply and demand. By increasing the number of people "illegally" (or maybe "illegitimately") getting skins, we are decreasing the rarety of that skin, hence its cost. Take the Wendy's Triumphant skin for example. I can rememeber the time it came out it was in sale in my country for CDN$ 54.00! Now it is more than 20 bucks less and what are we? 1 month past the game release?

I just wanted to point out. This is nor my game nor my marketplace. What I do know is that if Triumphant skins get to be sold at $5 each, it is never gonna push people to play DST more than they would.

[Asparagus]

7 minutes ago, McLovinDST said:

For the people that don't know what this problem implies, its only a matter of simple marketing rules: supply and demand. By increasing the number of people "illegally" (or maybe "illegitimately") getting skins, we are decreasing the rarety of that skin, hence its cost. Take the Wendy's Triumphant skin for example. I can rememeber the time it came out it was in sale in my country for CDN$ 54.00! Now it is more than 20 bucks less and what are we? 1 month past the game release?

I just wanted to point out. This is nor my game nor my marketplace. What I do know is that if Triumphant skins get to be sold at $5 each, it is never gonna push people to play DST more than they would.

Oh boy... hello there btw

Could someone link that initial thread when marketable skins were first added? O__O

[McLovinDST]

10 minutes ago, Asparagus said:

Could someone link that initial thread when marketable skins were first added? O__O

Hello! I tried to look it up, can't find it. Anyone?

[t1morino88eex]

20 minutes ago, McLovinDST said:

What I do know is that if Triumphant skins get to be sold at $5 each, it is never gonna push people to play DST more than they would.

You are right, it is the 50$ skins that bring new players and keeps pushing people to keep playing the game. God forsake for everyone to have awesome skins, we do not want that, oh no.

[Aquaterion]

Removing servers like this is kinda pointless, I mean all this does is help you not have to listen to music in the background, if you're going to afk farm them. If you want something changed, it has to the the whole system, not just some servers made to make it easier to AFK

[Schism_989]

Removing these servers would be pointless. Once one server is removed, another will come to take it's place. It'd be an endless cycle of deleting and re-creating. The only way to stop this type of idling is by making an drop system based on activity (How mu h you actually move), but even then, someone will figure out how to bypass that. 

[applebottom]

I don't know how to solve this but I must admit these servers piss me off too.

[t0panka]

What is wrong with that BTW? Most of people here are idling for skins anyway. Even those who play this game regularly are doing it. There was one thread already about this and lot of people admitted to that 

OH and FYI

1 hour ago, McLovinDST said:

among all my 8 skin compatible games it is the first time in my life that I witness a game in which you can gain skin by beeing idle

which games are you referring to? Because all games i know about that have drops you can idle in them

[Michi01]

I agree with t0panka, if I wouldn't get all my skin drops after playing for a bunch of hours I would just idle to get them. Also it's not like this wasn't a thing before those servers existed, as mentioned above, people can just host their own game and put on godmode for skins which a lot of people do, those servers just make it easier. You got a point, it's kinda wrong that people can get all their skins without actually playing, but how does that ruin the game? Also what's wrong with elegant skins being affordable, so you think in order for the game to be enjoyable, triumphant skins need to be sold more than 3 times as expensive as a copy of the game currently costs?

[Arlesienne]

I had no idea about this server.

I fail to care.

It comes across as completely unprofessional AND rude - to Klei and to other players who you are in some percentage slowing the connection for depending on your network setup - because the game is a survival adventure, not a skin farm. But it does not make me feel like anything substantial can be done to prevent this. A person will always outsmart a machine.

My attempt at paroding the five stages of reaction to this thread:

1. DENIAL. "Wut?"

2. ANGER. "WTH???"

3. BARGAINING. "C'mon, do sumthin'!"

4. DEPRESSION. "Adieu, Wendy... triomphant..."

5. ACCEPTANCE. "Whatever."

[magia]

Thanks for letting me know that such cool mods exist.

[leonseye]

Nobody could have ever seen this coming or tried to do anything about it in advance.

Either way, devs don't want to do anything about it, so it's pretty much legit.  As @Arlesienne said, their thought process is that they could take measures to try to curb this behavior, but it would just be circumvented by those savvy enough to do so.

So instead, they've decided not to curb it at all.

AFK your way to skins and cash.  No reason not to if you don't have the time to actually play.

[Maslak]

 About dropping prices - I don't idle for skins, I just get all 4 while playing. Well, when I'll get bored of the game (again), I'll try this because looks like a nice idea.
 So, I just mean that idling isn't making skins more numerous faster than playing, the prices will go down anyway. Isn't it nice?

[Arlesienne]

Actually I would like to advise against any potential vilifying of AFK Detection and such mods. They are actually very useful for real players. Instead of logging in and out of my own server and ejecting all players when I get a call or go chasing the cat away with my dog, and so on, and so forth, I can simply go AFK in 30 seconds for a minute, take care of my chore and get back. But you will always get such unelevated cheaters with too much computer power and greediness, so why bother Klei if they can devote the time spent on increasing the security of drops to working on Through the Ages? I would just politely point out people who are in DST just for the skins are not real fans, lose out on a great game, and pity them.

[leonseye]

Conversely, the more supply on the market, the lower the prices for all of us.

[Tumalu]

Dropping the rarity of skins isn't really a problem, they're purely cosmetic. Wouldn't it be sort of nice for elegants to get to a low enough market value to realistically buy them and not have it be a hugely extravagant purchase that costs you 10~20 bucks? I understand new skins are gonna be expensive for awhile after release, but even many of the skins that -aren't- new cost as much as buying an entire game.

You say "What? After being out for a month, the Wendy triumphant only costs 20 dollars now instead of 54?!" like it's a bad thing. It's cool that Klei gets to make a decent cut of money off sales of expensive skins but dear god wouldn't it be nice if they were, like, actually remotely affordable?

Whilst clothing lust is powerful, I dunno how many people would be "pushed" to play DST significantly more than they actually want to play just to try and get the next gift and pray it's an elegant that time. That sounds sort of suffering. It's just a neat side thing whilst you do the playing that you -would have done anyway-.

[t1morino88eex]

34 minutes ago, Tumalu said:

Wouldn't it be sort of nice for elegants to get to a low enough market value

But that would give everyone the possibility to distinguish their characters from the other ones on a server more than ever before! Like, make it look really really different compared to the base skin or compared to the skins of other players. Can you imagine that happening? Woah, so many cool looking variants of character looks, if only Klei would have been the one to set the prices, maybe then a veteran player wouldn't get to have her first elegant drop after more than half an year since skin drops introduction. 

[leonseye]

42 minutes ago, Tumalu said:

Dropping the rarity of skins isn't really a problem, they're purely cosmetic. Wouldn't it be sort of nice for elegants to get to a low enough market value to realistically buy them and not have it be a hugely extravagant purchase that costs you 10~20 bucks?

Well, there are (as of this moment) 4 PAGES of Elegants that can be bought for under 10 bucks.

Basically anything that isn't a Triumphant skin or some of the other super popular ones (like Wendy GoH, how is that still 10 bucks? o.O).

And yes, it is pretty nice.

[t1morino88eex]

2 hours ago, leonseye said:

Nobody could have ever seen this coming or tried to do anything about it in advance.

Nobody except the developers and dozens of other people in the community.

And no, it isn't nice to have to pay 10$ for a skin or pray to be lucky enough to get a decent drop every few months, which almost never happens. It is a cheap tactic in my opinion, and if one developer can get away with it for a game that is not free more will follow suit. *looks at Rocket League*

[leonseye]

18 minutes ago, t1morino88eex said:

Nobody except the developers and dozens of other people in the community.

And no, it isn't nice to have to pay 10$ for a skin or pray to be lucky enough to get a decent drop every few months, which almost never happens. It is a cheap tactic in my opinion, and if one developer can get away with it for a game that is not free more will follow suit. *looks at Rocket League*

I understand that you're new and you probably don't get the irony that I was one of those who fought for SOME kind of measures to be put in place before a situation like this occurred.  Several times.  ; )

Also, Klei is not selling these skins.  Klei is GIVING these skins away for FREE.

They are ALLOWING the community to do whatever they want w/ them; there is a Trading forum here where you don't have to pay a dime for skins, and still plenty of nice people left who are willing to trade and even give duplicate items away.

They also were kind enough to allow you to trade in your duplicates through the Trade Inn (though I personally still think the cost is a bit too steep).

So please, let's not talk about "a developer getting away with" something, as though there were some sort of underhanded dealings going on concerning skins.  There isn't.

I should also point out that I was talking about Elegants, literally THE rarest drops in the game, and the majority of them can be had for $1-3, w/ Distinguished and lower tiers going for low prices as well.

It's the NEWEST, RAREST skins that cost that much money, because they are... well, new and rare.  With the exception of Wendy's GoH, the "old" RAREST skins that were going for $40-50 when the Marketplace was released are now going for.. well, let's see real quick.. yeah, 6 bucks.

If you want the newest and rarest things, you'll either have to pay what having the newest, rarest, most sought after thing is worth to the community (remember, it's US that set the prices, not Klei).  If not, then wait like a reasonable person and you'll have it eventually, either through a really cheap price, a good trade, or just plain ol' good luck.

The situation BEFORE the Marketplace was FAR, FAR worse in terms of people being swindled, items being stolen, prices being raised arbitrarily w/out any idea what the "going rate" for specific skins were, etc.  I suppose we could just make them not tradeable AT ALL, and then nobody can get any skins except for what drops for them in-game, period.

But I don't think that people would like that very much.

[DarkXero]

Wow. Amazing. Preposterous. Unbelievable.

I am in no shape or form or way going to check out that server and I will completely erase it from my memory.

I wouldn't want to miss out on Beefalo Riding (tm), Twiggy Trees (c) (tm), and Empty Ruins (patent pending).

[leonseye]

7 minutes ago, DarkXero said:

Empty Ruins (patent pending).

Oh man, can't wait for the trailer for this one...

[Subscriber01236]

As long as those servers make the uber expensive elegants even slightly cheaper I don't mind them too much :^)

I'll Idle occasionally, most of the time I'll get the first 3 drops from gameplay then just idle for the last one in a private server, the last drop takes a bit too long on average to drop if you ask me.

Greed is good!

As a Woodie and occasional Wolfgang main I can't complain too much about the prices though, don't quite get why Webber and Wendy stuff is consistently crazy expensive though.

[verm1ll1on]

Oh, yea, when Wilson's Triumphant skin first came out, it was over 400 bucks in my country's currency, almost 500 bucks. That's over half the minimum wage here. How in the flying fuckity **** is that making the game better? I do NOT play the game for skins. I bought this **** as soon as it came out and have over 500 hours spent in it.

Even though, I surely like the skins and find them a great addition, but when you work, have a social life, a girlfriend and other stuff, you can't always spend the time required to obtain all 4 skins. It's something I really like from a game I love and support and we only get so few of them! So am I wrong for farming the damn skins when I can't play? This game is NOT about skins and having them at a low price in the market is GREAT. What is the ******* problem with everyone having nice skins to customize as one likes best? I truly do not see why this bothers some people SO much.

[rezecib]

 

On 10/27/2015 at 1:46 AM, rezecib said:

Regardless of whether godmode should be considered acceptable and worth combating, I don't believe there is a system they could design to combat it that would be both efficient and effective. Considering how optimization has been a major task for Don't Starve Together, efficiency is not worth sacrificing to limit idle skin farming.

I know for certain that any system they implement Lua-side I could circumvent. There are some things they could do to make it a bit more work to get around (e.g. disabling drops when SuUsed gets triggered for c_godmode()), and maybe that would curb the prevalence, but it definitely wouldn't put a stop to it.