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Old 04-04-2013, 02:02 PM
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Join Date: Jan 2012
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Crim View Post
Dear Crim,

Thank you for your email, we appreciate hearing from our Players. We certainly
try to have personal emails for every guest that writes to us. I will certainly
pass along all your points to the appropriate people.

I can speak into some of the points you've mentioned. We make updates and
changes to the game according to what we hear as feedback and new additions to
the game. In fact most of the changes that have happened in the game have been
specifically for these reasons. We do rely on guests to actually contact us
regrading issues, questions and concerns as there are many websites out there
that people chat on. So unless they have actually contacted us through our modes
of contact there is no guarantee we will have heard it.

Hacking as you've mentioned is becoming an ongoing problem. We absolutely do not
condone this and Terminate any account caught cheating. Trust me this is an
active daily activity. To help us out please continue to report players you see
cheating in the game.

The updates you mentioned and the Blogs about 'Pirate Admins will never ask for
your information' are in direct response to trends we are seeing. It's not to
insult anyone. Although you are an adult and I know there are adult players,
this game is intended and designed for kids,
but we certainly welcome all
players. But we do see kids (and Adults actually) sharing their information
which results in losing their accounts.

Like I mentioned before, I will pass along your feedback, we do appreciate it!
We certainly appreciate the friend you are to many pirates Online.

Sincerely,
-
Its a kids' game. Perhaps, they should tell us up to what age from 10 they define a kid to be? I ask this for two reasons:

1) It has an E10+ rating. Parental guidance is suggested. It's not required, just suggested. If parents aren't paying attention to what their kid(s) is(are) playing, then technically POTCO is not held responsible for what the kid does [with his/her own pirate account] or why the kids has issues with other players. Yet, POTCO does care and takes the appropriate actions with each case. Why? Because they actually do care or because they could be held legally responsible after all?

2) Why are there more Open Chatters than Speed Chatters in this game? If its really meant to be a kids' game, why isn't the reverse true? How much of all that account theft could have been prevented if that chat system was enforced from the get go?

There was a time when the chat policy was more strict, and shockingly, account theft was unheard of. Then someone in POTCO, for whatever reason, came up with this policy:
Only open to players 13+ or on accounts 12 and younger that have approval from an authenticated adult account.
http://piratesonline.go.com/v3/#/hel..._policies.html

Then, in some magical way, account theft (along with extreme hacking and scheming) started to happen readily and brazenly. When the representative mentioned how adults have shared their info, I wonder which set of adults are they referring to? The one where one complete stranger gives their account info to another complete stranger in clear violation of the rules? Or the one where parents either permitted their kid(s) to play their Open Chat accounts, or permitted their kid(s) to use Open Chat communication instead of Speed Chat? Which set of adults?

Oh, I'd like to know what that age range technically is. Not only is their current Chat policy in need of an extreme reversal, but their customers need to know if all content has, is, and will be designed for that age range alone [like between 10 and 12]. It sure would explain why the changes became more kiddie-like since 2008 when I first played the game and why so few play it anymore. Most have gone on to Teen-related games (which are geared for 13+).

Just removing Game Cards isn't the magic bullet that will solve these account thefts. Neither will adding more word censoring into their heavily filtered chat system will do the trick. Something as simple as making sure that only adults, 18 and over, may use Open Chat while kids, 17 and under, stick with the Speed Chat system for their own good... will.
"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."