Radio Silence at CatsEye as They Scramble With Their Catastrophic Bug
Edit: There is a full Carver and company meltdown happening in discord right now. The next morning from this post. Retaliatory bans, timeouts, deleting dissent and kicking people from the discord that don't agree. I'll update with a follow-up later.
Edit 2: The aftermath thread.
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This happened Thursday, and is since ongoing, but I wanted to wait and see how CatsEye handled it before I piped up.
First, it is important to point out that these continual issues and embarrassing snafus are not some unfortunate accident. They are the result of the process the server owner chooses to engage in, and how Carver has repeatedly refused to follow the counsel of others.
The constant issues, cluster crashes, endless bugs, YOLOing shit in right before maint, and the difficulties even pulling LSB in are a direct result of the process the server engages in. This is the result of Carver's choices, and he has ignored the advice, suggestions, and recommendations around it due to laziness and ineptitude. He continues choosing momentary expediency and flashiness over stability and functionality.
TL;DR: Much of this is avoidable, including the bug this post is about.
Next, a solid piece of context right before this update and bug, this was announced:
The server went down multiple times, but mission accomplished.
Now, lets get to the bug. For those unaware, CatsEye allows you to reset the Dynamis entry timer cooldown by paying gil based on how much time is remaining. This has been functioning fine for a good chunk of the year, but the Crystal Warrior mode always needs some sort of new special treatment. Loxley overwrote part of this to change the cost for CWs, and the result was that he broke it.
Instead of charging gil, players were given over 80m back, and their timer wasn't reset. Meaning they would just get unlimited gil. Big oopsie, and as the meme goes, "*No AmMoUnT oF tEsTiNg CoUlD hAvE pReVeNtEd ThIs.*"
Billions of gil was rapidly injected into the economy, and other than tracing any massive amounts moving afterwards in trade, delivery boxing, etc. The team likely can't even find who used it or how much was created.
In fact, the team didn't even seem to notice for awhile. Then when the issue was reported went into a panic. Where all they could do was jail the guy who reporting it for having used the bug and try to find anyone else.
Since it was even just stated beforehand in the announcement, players (including the guy who found it, used it, and then reported it) expected a server rollback due to how severe this bug was. Except the response by staff was just to keep quiet and try to damage control, jail, and figure it out. It is evident after this weekend that they are flying in a blind panic.
They then jailed the guy there who reported the issue, and for over a day completely ignored them. Except for when he finally sent an @ message, and was scolded for doing so. Now, still yet another whole day later after that and he has been left in jail with still no word.
Make no mistake this was widespread beyond one guy as it was very quickly discovered. Exodus, the darling endgame LS of the server, who is not completely reoved from members of the staff. Was aware of the issue, engaged in it, and apparently did not report it. Similar to how their members were aware of and were very recently found to be exploiting forcing HQ gear for months. Exodus has a long history of not reporting and benefiting from exploits.
When it came to Exodus knowing the rage timer was broken on HNMs, and abusing it to try and hold HNMs for the LS without repercussion. I was told that we were not allowed to go after or punish them for things in the past we later discovered. As there was some arbitrary "statue of limitations".
Anyway, Prufrock there no only reported it—as he has been a tester for the server in the past when MowFord ran that before walking out with me—but watched Exodus members enter the zone for the reset gil bug, and then leave. Which the team probably doesn't even know because they are just fucking ignoring the guy in jail.
For reference, generally someone is at least told they will be in jail while there is an "investigation". I witnessed countless tickets where this was the norm. Where it at least be said as a basis, and the player was not ignored.
Unsurprisingly, during my tenure I witnessed where staff deliberately ignored players they were mad with. Where the call would come down internally to let them sit in jail with a "fuck this player" sort of attitude about it. Which staff would often then scold the player if they get too mouthy about being treated this way. That is what happened in this case.
It is also worth noting, that in the past Carver has jailed players caught doing something, such as botting or whatever. Then not wanted to actually spend time investigating and verbally expressed to us repeatedly how he "still had to", but was avoiding doing such. So when his deadline to the player would lapse and be extended. He would just inflict some arbitrary punishments (reduce craft levels, gil, etc) after holding players and acting he investigated. Even then at least the player wasn't jailed for days without a word.
This is all not unlike the somewhat recent situation of jailing players over shorthand/claim shield. Where the GMs saw a message in Splunk and assumed the player must be breaking the rules, and wanted to make a big show of it. I never posted about all that, but it was another sterling example of this shit show.
That is where the shorthand from Horizon was yanked and tossed into CatsEye as a new rule, and broke MultiSend [t] commands on a multibox server, typical nonsense.
In the end, CatsEye likely can't fix the consequences of this bug, and it would be very impractical to rollback at this point. Despite having coincidentally warned players they might have to do such beforehand. The damage is done, and the staff will probably make an example out of whoever they can before moving on with a grudge over it. Meanwhile, Dynamis entry is still disabled. At this point they don't even seem to want people to know about this.
The image the team wants to project is just smoke in mirrors, and players unknowingly praise them over their fuck ups. Fuck ups which CatsEye is constantly not the innocent victim of, but is instead reaping what they sow.
The balls to even post \"touch grass\" while this was going on, lol
