Discussion WMG / Tome

It would be an anticlimax to disallow the hackers to enter the tournament if they are to be portrayed as a real threat to the heroes. Especially since they've already built this up as their plan with Neomutant. Aside from Rockoon, Doubling, and Demonking's attacks the hacker incidents have mostly been isolated events. It's also been noted in "Fraggedquest" that the hacker incidents happen a few weeks apart from each other . Maybe they're laying low enough to not take too much notice from the staff. Which also leaves the mods with very little to investigate if it gets reported. They can only really conclude that there are a few troublemakers who made a bad reputation of themselves. And that by itself isn't enough to disqualify them from entering the tournament.

In my experience it's realistic. This troper saw a similar situation happen in an MMO (though they weren't hackers just greifers who exploited glitches and cheats). The ringleader got on the mod's good side, and it took a year and a half for the mods to do something about it. Despite many people hating him, and begging the mods that they do something. And even after that only the leader was banned (he recruited a good amount of the server into a guild), and he made a new account after the ban anyway. We were also never told what he was banned for "to respect his privacy". In that way abusing leniency of moderators is it's own kind of evil, because there's nothing the players can do about it. Except keep fighting off the cheaters while knowing that it's hopeless, because they'll just keep coming back.

Developers are more likely to pretend it's a "balancing issue", and try to prevent it from happening with a patch than they are to admit there's hacking/cheating going on. Because it's bad PR. And because anyone who wants to play strongly enough can figure out ways to get around a ban if they really want to.

Considering that Rockoon and Doubling's went on 6 other times before Episode 01, it's safe to say they don't even know the definition of laying low. They've pretty much cut out the the mod's investigative work for them with a track record like that. And Episode 04 only said THAT PARTICULAR incident happened a few weeks after. It says nothing about any sort of pattern.

If the hackers WERE legitimate threat, they wouldn't bother playing fair at the tournament. They'd just crash it and grief everyone during the opening ceremonies. Why would an actual threat even play fair? No matter what they're after, they can just as easily take it by force.

And if the mods were really not intervening because of a "balance issue" and being generally incompetent, then it wouldn't hurt for there to be at least some notice of that after a year and a half's worth of material. The fourth short gave us a 30-second shot of one mod ignoring people about the virus, but not a single mention of the hackers.

And even if this is all somehow realistic to the actual experience of playing an MMO, it doesn't matter because it's not moving the story, the characters, or any development along. Villains of the week like them rarely ever do. Raging about real life human incompetence at extinguishing an annoying group of people is one thing, but when it's happening in a story, it makes the plot look like swiss cheese because it's not happening and there's no given reason for it.

Doubling pretty much rage quit after the 7th incident, and Rockoon didn't log in for over a month afterward. So what's there for the mods to do? A single player pretty much handled it for them.

Also I was saying that developers in general would rather not admit that it's hacking. They'd rather pretend it's something else like a "balancing issue" before they'd admit that. Not that it actually IS a balancing issue.

While I agree so far that using mostly one-off characters hasn't furthered their story arc. Barring them from entering the tournament also nullifies most of the threat that the hackers could pose. At least if they enter the tournament there's the potential for some sort of character growth.

Crashing the tournament as a response to that would be a really awesome development though. I'm guessing the general obstacle of that plan would be that they might be outnumbered. But then they could just log back in anyway if someone gets defeated.

Doesn't mean they shouldn't be DOING THEIR JOBS. This is the exact type of thing mods exist for, so they should be handling it.

And again, it doesn't matter how realistic the incompetence of covering up the hacking is when IT'S NOT ADVANCING THE STORY. There's not even a reference to them denying it. In fact, the existence of mods is what's ignored up until short 04, and that was simply a scene that tore open the plot hole even bigger than it was before.

Barring them from the tournament doesn't nullify the threat, it just means the mods would be doing their job in banning people who generally make trouble. The tournament is for the advancement of the GOOD players' character arcs. The only character each hacker has boils down to getting paid and harassing people, aside from Neomutant, who is just about pining for Flamegirl. There IS no growth for them. It would make no sense for them to enter the tournament fairly because they don't care about being fair, the main protagonists and supporting character's all hate them and know they're evil, and the tournament would be pointless if they, a group that is all about breaking rules, were allowed into a competition that was strictly about guide-lined and organized fighting. It would be doubly pointless if they crashed it because then the build up these past couple episodes (which has been 6 months in real time) would be for absolutely nothing.

And there's another thing. If the hackers can log back in even if they've been defeated, then what is the point of fighting them? What is the end goal? They beat a hacker, he retreats, he or another one comes back, rinse and repeat. If there's no way of putting them down for good (and the mods aren't going to do anything about it), THEN TRYING TO DEFEAT THEM ONCE AND FOR ALL IS A FRUITLESS ENDEAVOR. Yeah, most of the hackers have left because they were bored or they were only in it for the money, but what about ones like Rockoon who NEVER LEAVE? There's no end in sight. We know their goals have something to do with the virus, which can harm people physically through the game. So are they trying to get people to stop playing the game entirely? Because at this point, it would be much easier (and probably optimal) for the entire cast to just hop to a different game to avoid all of this endless hacker drama.

Flaming isn't necessary. I can read what you're saying just fine. I'm certainly glad we didn't keep this on the main page.

You keep bringing up the moderators. Do you want the moderators to actually be competent? Or do you want the hackers to be actual villains? Because they're two totally different things. How good the moderators are at their jobs has no bearing on the hackers being good at being villains. You could have the hackers become diabolical characters without the moderators being good at their jobs. The other way around doesn't necessarily work, as well because it's harder to create conflict.

Having the moderators take care of the problems and fix everything for the heroes is a Deus Ex Machina. it doesn't move the story at all.

Moreover you brought up them "crashing" the tournament not me. I was just agreeing that it would make more sense for villians to do that. And that an ambush of the tournament would actually be kind of cool. But thanks for arguing against your own point for me.

And it's not pointless for them to enter the tournament at all? Cheating is a plot that often comes up in pretty much any competition arc. And they've already built up Neomutant joining. It would be an anticlimax if they didn't. As long as the main characters win despite that it doesn't effect the plot negatively.

Why they're following the rules instead of taking what they want by force, can also be explained later.

And while there isn't much to build for the hackers that are just Hired Guns doing it for money. I disagree that there's no growth to be had for Neomutant. There's a ton of things he said in his argument with Flamegirl that could be developed more. Flamegirl also called him a "genius" and we don't know what they meant by that. Tigerlilly is the main person that could be developed though, because going into his/her motivations could shed a whole new light onto the goals of all the hackers that could change the way we look at them in a positive way.

Realizing that it's hopeless to keep fighting them is a conflict, and can prompt them to find a solution that gets rid of them for good. And we already know why they don't just quit. TOME is a unique game that millions around the world play. They already love the game too much to just quit. Games are addicting, and friends make people want to stay. If they didn't stay we wouldn't have a story.

Plus with that way that hacking is described in Short 01 other games would probably have hackers as a commonplace problem too.

I'm not flaming, I'm using emphasis. It does the exact same thing as italics.

And I'm saying they shouldn't be mutual exclusive. There should be a perfectly competent moderator team fighting off a legitimate hacker threat. That is the makings of an actual conflict between two evenly matched forces. The way things are now, we have one side that's basically just annoying (hackers) vs a side that's so apathetic, it's practically non-existent (mods). I'm not asking for the mods to save the day all the time, just that they DO SOMETHING. ANYTHING. AT ALL.

As for the tournament, I was pointing out there would be no point in competing if they were going to crash it, and if they're going to crash it, the build up to the tournament is made moot because the contest is invalidated. And cheating is only used as a plot point in competitions when it's with characters who we've never met before or are good at hiding their cheating. So far, NONE of the hackers seen have been shown to bother hiding their hacking, thus why no staff member with a brain would allow them in an official competition. This is why the best thing for them would be to enter hackers that have never had a public appearance, and therefore wouldn't need to worry about being forced out until the time was right. However, having people who multiple players know to be evil participate would be facepalmingly stupid for all involved, including the writers.

Neomutant could be doing anything at the tournament. TL didn't say he had to PARTICIPATE, just that he had to be there. Also, Flamegirl never called him a genius, she mocked him for thinking he was one. All that says about him is that he's arrogant, which is not a unique trait. And it is waaaaaay too early to be speculating about TL.

But that's the thing. This isn't Wile E. Coyote chasing the Roadrunner, this is supposed to be a serious story. However, the antagonists and conflict itself have little to no consequence on anything in the long run, the people who should be fighting it don't care, and the protagonists who DO fight them are simply overdramatizing it. What would happen if they simply let the hackers blow up stuff? The graphics are shown as easily repairable and the players who are harassed by the hackers are fine with just coming back, even if they get hurt. Nothing the bad guys do effects the good guys, and nothing the good guys do effects the bad guys. It's an infinite stalemate that accomplishes nothing. All I'm asking is that they make the conflict matter and have actual consequences.

Well I don't mind moderators doing something. As long as it doesn't nullify the hackers going there. Or overshadows the main characters.

However, TL said that Neomutant will be "given a partner" after saying his next mission is at the tournament. If he's going to find a partner for him it seems pretty much set in stone to me that that means he's telling Neomutant to participate in it with someone. I'm not sure how else you can interpret that. Or why the writers would intend it to mean something else.

As for TL. I know we know too little about him right now to know anything for sure. I'm just saying that if TL is developed well enough it could put the hacker's organization in a more convincing position than they are now.

Right, exactly. I just want there to be some sort of acknowledgement that they exist and actually do their jobs. There really isn't a lot required to make this happen, which is why it baffles me that it hasn't yet.

I guess I'm just hoping that he doesn't compete because, as I've stated, that would be a major display of incompetence on the game developer's part. But they may just include "because it's a neat idea". I'd just rather they didn't.

And maybe TL can make the hackers look more threatening, but that's still something that should've been handled back in the first episode. I really do want TOME to clear this up because the basic concept of a story on an MMO has a lot of potential, but these things that they're missing (like making their villains actual threats instead of just nuisances) are easily fixable holes that they keep leaving open to fester, and I know I'm not the only fan who's thinking this. I hope someone working on it sees this or a complaint like it makes an effort to fix it soon.