Kinkoid, get your stuff together

[LanceHardwood_]

My experience with Kinkoid can be summed up by saying that this is one of the most evasive and at times outright deceitful developers I've seen to date.
Beyond the hidden updates and complete lack of transparency, there is outright misleading language on some screens and on frequently in patch notes as well.
Bugs which affect players negatively usually take a long time to resolve, but anything giving them an advantage is near-immediately fixed.
A lot of the more forgiving players will excuse these as simply misunderstanding or miscommunication due to 'English not being their native language', but specific wording is so deliberate that it cannot simply be made in error and with such consistency over large periods of time.

My latest 'interaction' with Kinkoid, consists of my account being shadow-banned, because I 'confirmed' something by implication. I have not received a notification about the ban, and still don't have a clear indication when attempting to log in or via email, even though at this point it's been unofficially confirmed thanks to one of the mods. One could be forgiven for thinking I'm making this post because I want my account back or because I'm pissed for being banned, but that's not really it. The ban itself doesn't bug me that much, as I accounted for this possibility when I made the comment, but I am still amazed by the sheer disingenuity by which it was handled, though in retrospect I should have expected it. While I realize that I'm not owed an explanation, it would be somewhat prudent and it would cost very little to actually send a message, especially considering that it happened due to implication alone. Not only will that confirm things officially, but it may also dissuade other players from doing certain frowned upon things. Unless those things are unofficially condoned, as long as they're not spoken about.

Back to the matter at hand - I wouldn't have written this up if the level of absurdity hadn't skyrocketed today, when I received an email for my banned account with the following content:

Quote

The girls and I loaded it for you, sweet Hero!

We hope you are doing well, remember that you will be doing us if you come back to the Haremverse!

If you just cLICK below, you will get 150 Kobans! That’s the final prize of the Daily Missions that you missed yesterday.
Please come back, I already miss the taste of your thick stick!

********Mod Edit: LINK REMOVED**********
All yours,

Bunny

PS: We gave you a load, now give us yours! Come back and let’s have some wild fun! Naked!

Needless to say, I had a good laugh upon seeing this, but it got me thinking that Kinkoid still has absolutely no idea how to properly communicate with their player base. Their solution appears to be completely obfuscating everything and anything. Being in IT myself, I understand the reality of development and need to have paying customers in the current market, I still find this lack of transparency damaging to players, the industry and Kinkoid themselves. I understand developers fear that giving out all the details on how things work could drive players away, but what's happening now is definitely not the right, nor ethical way to go. I certainly hope this changes in the future, but I was never holding my breath.

I have no doubt certain individuals will feel compelled to argue against my point of view or call me 'entitled' and that's okay, but it's also a matter of opinion. The fact is that without critical thinking and questioning, there can be no progress for the better. Hopefully even those who disagree with me, would do so for themselves after considering the possibilities, rather that following along with a mainstream opinion.

[Čamuga]

🤓🤓 Hurr durr you're entitled and whiny and constantly complaining, see ya next week when you make a new account hur durr  🤓 🤓
🤓🤓 This is just the consequences of your own actions hurr durr, this was justified you know, kinkoid never makes such mistakes, and if they do then it's not their fault for making them hurr durr 🤓 🤓

(cant wait for this totally serious caricature of some people on here to be taken seriously and as an attack on them btw)

Pretty much agree, although I'd put a bit more blame on you as you're a fairly active forum member, you've seen the way they act, saying literally anything on here can and will be used against you at some point, and their dishonesty compounds so much that it could probably even be classified as straight up lying to the user base, but oh well what can ya do? 🤷‍♂️ 
And the solution? Well, even speaking about it can land you in trouble, so I'll not even mention it.
KK bad, nothing new, hope you get your account back, this seems like bullshit to me, cant wait for KK defense squad to roll in on this post.

[_shal_]

...it's not a shadow-ban, it's actually the exact opposite of one.

[DvDivXXX]

7 hours ago, LanceHardwood_ said:

I wouldn't have written this up if the level of absurdity hadn't skyrocketed today, when I received an email for my banned account with the following content:

Sending a "please come back, we miss you" message to a banned account seems absurd, of course. I'm fairly sure this is just a completely separate automatic email feature though, and the oversight in this situation appears to be that an account getting banned doesn't automatically remove it from this mailing list. I'll pass it on.

Apart from that, you're entitled to your opinion, and I don't see anything requiring further mod action in your feedback post (pasting the link aside, but that's already been handled).

6 hours ago, Čamuga said:

cant wait for KK defense squad to roll in on this post

Sorry to disappoint.

[Noacc]

In the future, there will be a display message on the reason behind account suspension as well as a timer showing how long the account will be suspended.
I'll check with the team on users that receive emails while being suspended. 

[LanceHardwood]

8 hours ago, Noacc said:

In the future, there will be a display message on the reason behind account suspension as well as a timer showing how long the account will be suspended.
I'll check with the team on users that receive emails while being suspended. 

Thank you for the clarification. I didn't even realize temporary suspensions are a thing, which kind of makes the whole 'come back' message a little less egregious, even though my account was still suspended at the time.
You might want to have a message upon attempting to log in though, since all I kept getting was 'Wrong user/password', no indication of either ban, suspension or time frame at all.

The one good thing from this whole ordeal is that it motivated me to finally quit the game, which was previously overridden by my OCD mentality. So whoever did me that favor - I owe you a beer. Unless it's _shal_ that is.

P.S. While the OP was provoked by the particular email I received, the feedback itself is directed at how Kinkoid communicates with their players in general, not just for this particular occasion. People tend to appreciate honesty and transparency a lot more than the developers might expect.

Edited September 30, 2020 by LanceHardwood

[_shal_]

Nope, I'm afraid I wasn't even bothered enough to report your admitted use of the cheater script. (There are so many bigger names who are almost certainly using it, too, or other means of automation...) But you know, you could have mentioned it much earlier if you needed a reason to quit. Although I guess we should no longer assume that you were actually playing the game, anyway. Best of luck in your future endeavors.

[LanceHardwood]

30 minutes ago, _shal_ said:

Nope, I'm afraid I wasn't even bothered enough to report your admitted use of the cheater script. (There are so many bigger names who are almost certainly using it, too, or other means of automation...) But you know, you could have mentioned it much earlier if you needed a reason to quit. Although I guess we should no longer assume that you were actually playing the game, anyway. Best of luck in your future endeavors.

It's seemed pretty obvious to me that a number of people are using scripts shortly after I started the game. And while I might not spend all my days in the forum calculating and recording  shard drop rates and various statistics, I've been playing the same amount as you have. Of course if you consider mindless clicking as part of that equation, then you have me beat.

[DvDivXXX]

Okay, so... Mystery solved (for the most part: we know it was a temporary suspension, and a pretty short one since you're already back): check. Feedback given: check. Useful details noticed and either addressed or escalated in the process (the email thing and the notification and timer thing): check.

This covers the essentials, and we even had a few bonus treats with Camuga's trademark paranoid rant, and a very carefully phrased verbal joust between Lance and Shal.

I'd say we're pretty much done here.