(Posting third party links is now allowed) About posting 3rd Party Links.

[Gargon667]

(Posting third party links is now allowed) About posting 3rd Party Links.

Dear Humans and Elves

It is time to make a minor adjustment concerning posting links from third parties. While we generally allowed posts with third-party links, doing it was never ideal. We are aware that these links intend to help other players. However, these are not an Elvenar Official source of information. A few side effects of posting these links are:

• Some players confuse official resources with third-party resources. This brought some players to confusion, unsure of what is and what is not official.
• Some players felt that these third-party posts are spoiling the events and their gameplay.
• We detected both some minor spam, as well as some turmoil around posting these third-party links.

Therefore, for the abovementioned reasons, we will ask you all for no more posting third-party links. From now on, we will remove any posts that contain links that are not permitted. We have a large Beta Section where you can discuss events, updates that are related to beta only before it reaches our servers here.

We will greatly appreciate your cooperation.

Kind regards,

Your Elvenar Team

This announcement is rather confusing. I may just be a bit dense, but can you try and explain?

At first it sounds like no more posting of any links whatsoever, but then:

You say: post that contain links that are not permitted will be removed.
Which links are not permitted? And following that which links are permitted? can you give examples? To me it is not clear at all what is what.

Obviously you don´t want links to the gems of knowledge etc, but what about pages that contain no spoilers, but only say display the data that is publicly available in a more useful way than the game does? Or the elvenar wiki? Or links to other forum posts, or links to posts on say the US forums?

What does that part about the beta section mean? I take it this is the exception to the rule and we are allowed to post whatever links there then, because the whole section is a spoiler anyway?

 

[Silmaril]

Any External links that do not originate from InnoGames or Elvenar @Gargon667
We cite Beta as we are aware that players like to share Beta information, but that must be contained with the Beta setion here and not leaked out onto any other part of the Forum.
Too many players have been upset and this is not what the Forum is about.

 

[Deleted User - 341074]

Too many players have been upset and this is not what the Forum is about.

I'm curious about what the complaint is. I would understand if someone posted a quest list without a spoiler tag

Spoiler: this is a spoiler tag

no quest list though

but what is the complaint about a link?

Inno: "We'd like to announce the new upcoming event"
Player#1: "There is a list of upcoming quests that can be seen if you would like to , just click here(link)"
Player#2 "OMG how dare you give me the option to see more information on this subject!"

I know, I know "because of privacy we can't discuss the complaints from other players", but loosely, in general, without naming any names, what could the complaint have actually entailed?

 

[Silmaril]

We have always asked that links be pertinent and pertaining to InnoGames and Elvenar.
External links are not always obviously not ours, especially to our newer players. Not only that we cannot be held accountable for the safety and security issues that sites outside of our control may cause.
Multiple complaints have been received concerning these from players reporting here on the Forum and also contacting Support to escalate further.
To prevent the need to have to explain that we have no affiliation with any of these 'other' sites has bought us back to only permitting our own links on the Forum.

 

[Pauly7]

I think that the problem is that InnoGames does not want to be associated with (and therefore blamed for) information on an external site that they have no control over.

But... this seems very controlling and I'm not happy about it. As @SoggyShorts says, if there is spoiler information then it can be flagged as such, and I wouldn't mind that being the rule. The thing is, the information contained on certain external sites far surpasses anything that Inno provides. Elvenstats (no link) is absolutely crucial to the playing of this game, in my opinion. Without it I would have serious doubts over whether I wanted to continue. I believe that Inno should be providing us that kind of information, but they don't., so external sources are relied upon.

I could understand it if the devs were providing comparable information sources themselves and therefore they could say "Go to InnoStats because all the reliably held statistics are there"... but they're not.

 

[Deleted User - 341074]

Yeah sorry but EA, ES, GoK, Plat, and all of the other fan-made content is what makes this game actually playable for many people. I find no joy in a system this restrictive.
Inno is more than welcome to incorporate any of the content those sites offer into their own game. In fact, we've been begging them to do so for years. The whole reason that those sites exist is that the features are lacking in-game.
Also, the thousands of unique visitors who have used those sites multiple times seem to indicate that not everyone hates those spoiler lists.
-------------------------
Edit: This new rule should be added to the forum rules if you're going to stick to it.

Rule #14 is the only one that mentions outside links at all and it actually implies the exact opposite of this rule as it specifically states "other websites without connection to Elvenar, or InnoGames" .

There is obviously the logical interpretation of this rule that I'm not allowed to advertise for my beer company, but a link to a fan-made site that contains information about Elvenar has a clear connection to Elvenar would be allowed.

 

[Hekata]

I'm honestly failing to see how anyone can be upset because someone posted a link to a site with a quest list. People here don't just post a "surprise" link that one could stumble upon like on a landmine, it always comes with a caption: "You can find the full quest list (or daily prizes list) here". Why would anyone click on that if they don't want to be spoiled?*
And I've been on this forum for a very long time and I don't recall seeing a single person complaining they were spoiled by a link. Do they all write directly to support to complain?
And is this new rule only for the EN forum? Because I see links to other pages being posted on other forums all the time.

*I'm putting aside the fact that this is not a TV show where spoilers ruin the story, it's a game where spoilers help us to make the best of the event and therefor our game.

 

[Silmaril]

As you quite correctly say we already have this within our Forum Rules 14: Advertising:

• Threads and/or posts that are created solely for the purpose of advertising other websites without connection to Elvenar, or InnoGames GmbH are forbidden.

Hence we are asking that the links to external sites are no longer posted across the forum as they have gradually begun to be so.
Any spoilers about events that have not even happened on our server, should be kept with the Beta section of this Forum. This has always been our request, since the first Beta thread was introduced in 2017. Just because we have recently permitted a larger Beta section here, does not mean that the rules for Beta spoilers has ceased to apply and they can be placed anywhere on the Forum.
We are drawing attention to the links in this way now as a reminder in the hope that we will have less of our community feeling the need to message, report and raise tickets.

 

[Deleted User - 341074]

As you quite correctly say we already have this within our Forum Rules 14: Advertising:

• Threads and/or posts that are created solely for the purpose of advertising other websites without connection to Elvenar, or InnoGames GmbH are forbidden.

1. that's not what I said.
2. that's not what the rules say.
3. what's wrong with adjusting the rule so that it clearly reads the way that you are choosing to interpret it?

Forum Rules 14: Advertising:

• Threads and/or posts that are created solely for the purpose of advertising other websites without connection to Elvenar, or InnoGames GmbH are forbidden.

As simple as that.

 

[Deleted User - 341074]

And is this new rule only for the EN forum? Because I see links to other pages being posted on other forums all the time.

Fear not, mods from other servers have confirmed that this interpretation of rule 14 is EN-specific.

 

[Hekata]

Fear not, mods from other servers have confirmed that this interpretation of rule 14 is EN-specific.

Great, aren't we lucky?
Guess I'll just keep clicking on those links on beta and all the other forums I occasionally visit

 

[Pauly7]

Some of these external resources are part of the wider Elvenar community. They are part of what makes this game great. If you stifle the community you damage the game.

 

[BlueBlou]

I am honestly shocked that anyone would file a Support ticket about links on the forum. Which makes me think that there may actually not be much wrong with the game (very few other type of tickets) if this is seen as the bigger elephant.

 

[Julian]

Ok, so links to elvengems should be limited to the beta forum when discussing events. Fair enough; the site contains beta information. But what about the rest of elvengems, such as the ancient wonder guides, which are superior to the wiki? elvenstats and elvenarchitect provide important services to players and fellowships, which are notable by their absence in the main game. If we are no longer able to discuss them, does Inno intend to come up with their own alternatives? And does this rule of not advertising elvenstats etc also cover chat and mails within the game?

I understand Inno cannot be responsible for external websites, but supressing these sites suggests they have an inferiority complex.

 

[Far Reach]

I see the collective effect of external sites as both promoting Elvenar, and providing a valuable service to the player-base. As such I'd always supposed that InnoGames (through Community Management) would actively seek to encourage them. Based on the comments above (implying that this change is unique to the EN forums), I take it that InnoGames itself has no problems with these sites, and the new policy is just intended to deal with some specific issues (such as Beta spoilers).

I'm really not sure that the new approach is going to be effective. External links are often circulated in Fellowship chat and messages and I'm sure that this will continue. Technically (if I understand the rules correctly) it is still permitted to link to a post on (for example) the US forums which contains external links relevant to a discussion. This is what people might try with an initiative such as the "Elvenar Global League" (a cross server Fellowship tournament competition.) Of course we could stop that too, but there would probably still be discussion within Fellowships and there might even be a risk of a gradual migration of EN players to other Forums.

Clearly there are some issues about sharing links on the EN forums, but I wonder whether this could be managed in a slightly different way. We could have a sticky thread, (with suitable caveats added) and request that all external links were posted only to that. A moderator introductory post (e.g. explaining that Innogames had no affiliation with or responsibility for these sites) could be the stock link used in response to any question about them.

 

[Herodite]

So.... this was a difficult decision to make. From a personal perspective we really do appreciate the work that goes into these third party sites because lets face it, people have taken time out of their busy lives to collate this information. And yes it's information pertinent to the game hence the reason why we turned a blind eye previously on allowing them. However, we found (both historically and recently) that there is a lot of confusion as to the ownership of these sites, in addition to the way the information is supplied, as some of the information is heavily outdated. Only recently there was a heated discussion regarding calculations and which site was more accurate.
As a Team we are unable to moderate these discussions efficiently and fairly, and also found that this lead to confusion for players looking for accurate information.
Whilst we are not suppressing personal recommendations for these sites (as I'm sure you will continue do), we are asking politely that you do not share any links to them via the Forum. And as always... keep the Spoilers in BETA!

Kind Regards

Herodite.

 

[Pauly7]

However, we found (both historically and recently) that there is a lot of confusion as to the ownership of these sites, in addition to the way the information is supplied, as some of the information is heavily outdated. Only recently there was a heated discussion regarding calculations and which site was more accurate.

So why not just insist that any link used is caveated by a bit of standard text saying "This external source is not provided or managed by InnoGames and they take no responsibility of the accuracy of any information shared"? Better still, why not add an additional bit of code into the forum so that when a hyperlink is created the caveat is automatically inserted? (No such link will be an actual Inno source, unless it's the Elvenar Wiki.)

 

[Gargon667]

Any External links that do not originate from InnoGames or Elvenar @Gargon667

which is what exactly? so links to the wiki and other forums are allowed?

We cite Beta as we are aware that players like to share Beta information, but that must be contained with the Beta setion here and not leaked out onto any other part of the Forum.

In the beta section this rule does not apply and we can post any link we want there? I suppose from now on a lot of our discussions will then be moved to the beta section, where no such silly restrictions apply.

I do understand that you don´t want to be associated with other pages, you have nothing to do with. Too many people cannot understand that there is a difference between Inno games and other elvenar related pages.
But honestly this game is barely playable without any outside tools. If newbies come asking what are we supposed to tell them? Sorry this game sucks, you can make it fun by looking up the help you need outside the game, but we cannot help you or give you the link for doing so?
Are we supposed to rewrite the entire content of all those outside tools here on the forum just because a few people can´t tell the difference between Inno and not-Inno?

 

[Gargon667]

Whilst we are not suppressing personal recommendations for these sites (as I'm sure you will continue do), we are asking politely that you do not share any links to them via the Forum. And as always... keep the Spoilers in BETA!

So you are OK with us saying to a newbie: "go google gems of knowledge, click on events and then the most recent entry" but not post the link to it?

That is then fine by me and makes this entire discussion rather obsolete.
I don´t see how that solves your problem though, while it is still annoying for us.

 

[Laurelin]

Wow... just wow. It is already very difficult to post pretty much anything here without falling foul of one or more of the 'Forum Rules', but this takes the cake. Even the most ultra-censored of the major Social Media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook allow external links, either without any comment or (as @Pauly7 states, above) with some kind of popup or notification stating that the link concerned leads to a site outside of the platform's control.

Even ignoring Anti-Social Meeja (always a good idea) and sticking to the more wholesome world of gaming websites, I have never encountered any other gaming site/forum, in all of my ~35 years online, which bans [or even restricts] links to fan sites, whether those sites be good, bad, or indifferent.

And I am certainly having trouble imagining exactly what kind of player, of any computer game, may feel the need to complain - to the game's CS reps?! - about having been given the choice (by other players) of learning more about the game... although I'm sure that this decision to help said poor confused individual(s) has nothing at all to do with most new players being unaware, without fan-provided information, of Elvenar's highly unusual new 'feature' whereby much, if not most, in-game progress now makes the game's competitive elements more difficult, not easier, unless one knows - in advance - how to mitigate the, er, benefits of City expansion, Research Tree progress, AW upgrades, and so on. That's obviously entirely unrelated.