Multi-Faction Fears Addressed
Over the past few days, we have witnessed fear spreading through the Star Atlas community. SCREAM is still many months away, but a small but vocal part of the Star Atlas community is afraid that — when it arrives — players from multi-faction guilds are going to game the system by engaging in win-trading.
As pioneers of the multi-faction approach, we want to address these concerns head-on!
There are four arguments we would like to discuss that illustrate why these accusations against multi-faction guilds are baseless, and more importantly why we think these fears are short-sighted.
- Everyone would be able to abuse such exploits
- Exploits are a danger to the whole game
- The team is on top of it
- Don’t let fear cloud your judgment
But before we go there, let’s first clarify what this is all about.
Win-trading
As more information has become available about SCREAM — or more accurately perhaps: more folks have gotten up to speed on what the gameplay will be like — some people’s minds have wandered into darker territories, thinking about potential exploits that might exist. One scenario they came up with is that two players (or groups of players) in opposing factions could decide to take turns in blowing up each other’s ships (or starbases), thereby acquiring Loyalty Points in exchange for the repair costs of their fleet. Specifically, shade was thrown in the direction of multi-faction guilds, as “they seem perfectly positioned to use this exploit”.
This of course assumes that the repair costs for all those blown-up ships will be lower than the total ATLAS emissions received in exchange for the victories (as both players destroyed their opponent’s fleet, and got their own fleet destroyed). This seems unlikely, but that is food for a different article perhaps.
This win-trading scenario clearly does not require a multi-faction guild to pull off, yet somehow the multi-faction guilds have been singled out (not coincidentally, primarily by single-faction guilds) in this fear-mongering campaign.
Everyone Can Do That
Let’s first address why focusing on multi-faction guilds here makes little sense, before explaining why these fears are blown out of proportion in general.
It is known that anyone:
- can create an extra Solana account
- can use that account to join a different Star Atlas faction
- can move ships between their primary account and this new account whenever they feel like it
- will be able to enter SCREAM on both accounts, either at the same time or one after the other
This means that really everyone is able to engage in such an exploit if it even exists.
Alternatively, one could just ask a friend to temporarily move their ships to a secondary account in a different faction (if not already there).
Of course, any two guilds (or groups of players), in different factions, could scale this up by agreeing to benefit from this exploit together.
To this last point, one could argue that such an agreement would require two guilds with (at the very least) questionable integrity. By that same reasoning any single multi-faction guild that potentially wants to engage in this, would be comprised of members whose integrity could be equally questioned.
As really anyone would be able to engage in such practice, singling out multi-faction guilds seems to only serve to discredit them.
In short, if you fear people would engage in this practice, you could as well distrust everybody out there. But, is there really a reason to fear that such an exploit would even exist at all?
Bankrupting The Game
Most exploits found in classic MMOs (like World of Warcraft) were exploited to people‘s heart’s content. When the developers found out, they were usually quick to patch the problem and potentially fix the consequences best they could.
Players were clearly unhappy when such exploits made their in-game treasury less valuable, and it doesn’t take much to imagine what people’s reaction would be when such a thing would happen to a blockchain game. The fallout could be catastrophic, especially if the economy took a substantial hit as a result. People would lose trust, cut their losses and abandon the game, similar to the public’s reaction to an abused exploit in a DeFi protocol. Simply put: exploits could bankrupt the game.
This is not meant to scare you — though being aware of the potential risk factors in a project like this is certainly healthy — but to actually do the opposite!
Now you might counter by saying: “But they might not catch it, until it is too late”, and you would be right in general. Though they did of course just establish a partnership with a world-renowned security & audit company. Let’s also not forget that they hired a ton of economists — unlike normal MMOs — whose job it is to make sure such economic exploits do not end up in the game as well.
But in this specific case, with the attention this topic has received since it was first shared, there is no way this would somehow still end up inside of SCREAM. Because, given the attention this topic garnered, it’s impossible the team hasn’t noticed by now.
The Team Is On It!
To that point: Michael just stated that the team is aware and they won’t let this happen. We know this, because we asked:
Hopefully the above alleviates any fears you might have.
Do Not Let Fear Cloud Your Judgement
We, as Aephia and one of those multi-faction-guilds, would like to be treated and measured by our actions (thus far). We have been here since the beginning and we have always tried to be a fair, friendly and contributing member of the Star Atlas community. This has been a constant since our formation, and we plan to continue that trend into the future. As owners of a considerable amount of assets in the game, it is clearly in our best interest to make sure Star Atlas will become wildly successful!
Potential exploits of the game are a threat to that success. We don’t want to exploit the Star Atlas economy nor do we want to play unfairly.
So, please judge us for our actions, and not for baseless accusations made by those who are fearful of a potential exploit they came up with. There is really no basis upon which to build any allegations related to these fears.
In Closing
We’re unsure of why this suspicion of multi-faction guilds suddenly popped up, a mere week after celebrating the great unity of the factions and community in COPA. All of us attended this event, single-faction guilds and multi-factions guilds alike, at the invitation of the factions themselves. Its purpose: to make sure peace remains between the factions and the DACs therein. We appreciate and applaud their effort and it is disappointing to see this peaceful meeting being followed so quickly by guilds throwing shade at each other.
Additionally, this once more proves that communication is key in making sure the peace remains. At Aephia Industries we have always been very transparent as to what our goals are: building and selling ships. Not to one, but to all factions. We have no reason at all to risk our stellar reputation by engaging in the kind of behaviour discussed above. It’s vital to our organization to keep everybody’s trust and continue being able to supply them with ships.
