Can Games Teach?@Good asks "Can Playing Games Teach Us Valuable Life Lessons?" Tell them what you think in this article
@Good
Gardening Update
As many of you know, yesterday we experienced some technical difficulties which required us to temporarily lock our players out of their dorms, Castles & Lands. We realize that during this time many gardens may have suffered from some neglect. To apologize for this inconvenience, and to help you get your plants looking spry again we're giving each player TWO Energy Elixirs at no cost the next time you log in to the game!
To receive your TWO Energy Elixirs, simply log in to the game between now and 11:59pm Central US time on Friday February 11th 2011. Please note that each account will be able to receive this gift only once. The Energy Elixirs will appear in your Gift window and you can claim them at any time you need energy.
About the Exploit that Caused the DowntimeI want to take this opportunity to clarify what occurred to cause us to close all the Wizard Dorms and Castles & Lands for a day. Players found a way of exploiting a gardening bug in their houses which allowed for infinite harvesting of elder plants.
Players who obviously exploited this bug have been banned, and we will continue to investigate others who may have also taken advantage of something that was clearly not intended.
I obviously won't go in to the details of how the infinite harvest worked, but part of this exploit exposed a larger implication in another bug that our community affectionately calls 'stacking'.
This 'stacking' bug allows you to stack rugs, tables and other furniture pieces in your home to create new levels and interesting structures. This has been a long standing bug, and every time we bring up whether or not to 'fix' it, we realize that this stacking bug is a harmless bug that in fact allows our community to be very creative. We're always delighted to see just how much our players enjoy being creative and we feel that removing the functionality to stack housing items would stifle that creativity, and we obviously don't want to do that!
While we have fixed the gardening exploit that relied on this 'stacking' bug, at this time we do not plan to remove the ability for players to stack their housing items. However, should other exploits be discovered that use this 'stacking' bug, we will have to reassess whether the harm outweighs the creative freedom.
