Hey all, just a friendly update from the CCS development team. I realize a lot of people have been expecting CCS 1.0.5 since oh...around last December. But, we ran into so many issues over the last half a year that we've literally been constantly having to adapt in the process of fixing bugs with the 1.0.4 meter that it has just dragged out quite a bit longer than we actually planned for. Or could have ever anticipated.
So, here's a quick preview of what you can expect Soon™:
CCS 1.0.5 Release Feature Updates:
- Major bug fix process pass that addresses about 98.7% of the reproducible bugs in the 1.0.4 version meter.
- Balance pass for racial and class skills
- New uncrackable security schema that will not allow illegitimate objects to gain access to the CCS communications system in any manner. Sorry hackers, your link_snooping/prim spoofing won't work anymore, but thanks for playing.
- New HUD system design for better visual flow in combat. The new HUD also takes up far less "screen real estate," making it less intrusive to your overall visual combat experience.
- New characters created at level 1 will have a free respec issued upon creation of the character to allow new players the opportunity to change their race/class without losing any of their starting time as they become more familiar with the game.
- All current players will receive a free respec during the update, and all CCS players will now be able to "bank" respecs, meaning if you are issued a respec and you don't use it at that time, then you receive another respec...you then have two respecs on your record you can use (rather than the previous situation where you could only have one respec at any time). Your private character sheet view will show how many respecs you have available if you need to check to see if you have one.
New for Sim Owners:
- New CCS Payments System, using an affiliate vendor system that allows the sim owner to place this or her payment system anywhere on the sim without the need for a CCS administrator.
- Payments for CCS access will now be tracked on the CCS database and are viewable by sim admins on their sim admin page to enable the admin to review payment history.
- The CCS database will inform sim owners/admins by instant message when his or her next payment is due.
- The GTFO System: Many chained CCS sims have run into a lot of problems when dealing with extreme griefers, because not all CCS GMs are estate managers within all sims in the chain. The new GTFO system will allow all sims that are GTFO-enabled to be estate ban linked, which means typing one name into one page on the CCS database will immediately estate ban and eject a griefer from a sim they are griefing and prevent them from accessing all the attached sims in the same chain.
For Players and Developers:
- API 3.0: Yes, the great white unicorn is finally coming! We've been talking about it for awhile and it's almost ready for launch.
- API 3.0 will feature the same new security schema the new CCS meters are using, preventing any method of exploitation of the API by attempting to send illegitimate communications piggybacked on the dynchan through a weapon or any other method.
- API 3.0 brings new features to the API system that allow for more realistic developmental control of the total "power" of a weapon, keeping most weapons in the CCS system in line with each other without the need for constant tweaking and updates on the 3rd party developer's side.
- API 3.0 also makes developing new products a snap, as the developer can simply create a weapon profile and build the weapon's enhancement definitions within the API 3.0 interface. This makes weapons enhancements editable in real-time without any need for reissuing a release.
- API 3.0 will allow us to finally open the API market to new developers interested in becoming involved in CCS 3rd party development with the new "fair development" structure system we've developed. This should keep "damage wars" and API weaponry in general from dictating the outcome of CCS combat.
So as you can see folks, we've actually been hard at work in the background developing several new systems that we wanted to get out the door to improve the overall functionality of the system, along with the simple CCS 1.0.5 meter update that has been delayed for quite some time.
We are currently testing a few facets of the release and will be moving API 3.0 and the CCS Payment system into wider-scale testing over the next week or two. Once we have all these things sanded off and ready for the live environment, we will push them all pretty much all at the same time, and improve the overall quality of the game and its component parts in all facets, rather than "nickel and dime" our way through the various new additions.
Your patience has been much appreciated. Have a little more patience, and you will very soon see the payoff for the long wait. Thanks for your support and have a great day!
Feel free to discuss this post here in its own thread.
So, here's a quick preview of what you can expect Soon™:
CCS 1.0.5 Release Feature Updates:
- Major bug fix process pass that addresses about 98.7% of the reproducible bugs in the 1.0.4 version meter.
- Balance pass for racial and class skills
- New uncrackable security schema that will not allow illegitimate objects to gain access to the CCS communications system in any manner. Sorry hackers, your link_snooping/prim spoofing won't work anymore, but thanks for playing.
- New HUD system design for better visual flow in combat. The new HUD also takes up far less "screen real estate," making it less intrusive to your overall visual combat experience.
- New characters created at level 1 will have a free respec issued upon creation of the character to allow new players the opportunity to change their race/class without losing any of their starting time as they become more familiar with the game.
- All current players will receive a free respec during the update, and all CCS players will now be able to "bank" respecs, meaning if you are issued a respec and you don't use it at that time, then you receive another respec...you then have two respecs on your record you can use (rather than the previous situation where you could only have one respec at any time). Your private character sheet view will show how many respecs you have available if you need to check to see if you have one.
New for Sim Owners:
- New CCS Payments System, using an affiliate vendor system that allows the sim owner to place this or her payment system anywhere on the sim without the need for a CCS administrator.
- Payments for CCS access will now be tracked on the CCS database and are viewable by sim admins on their sim admin page to enable the admin to review payment history.
- The CCS database will inform sim owners/admins by instant message when his or her next payment is due.
- The GTFO System: Many chained CCS sims have run into a lot of problems when dealing with extreme griefers, because not all CCS GMs are estate managers within all sims in the chain. The new GTFO system will allow all sims that are GTFO-enabled to be estate ban linked, which means typing one name into one page on the CCS database will immediately estate ban and eject a griefer from a sim they are griefing and prevent them from accessing all the attached sims in the same chain.
For Players and Developers:
- API 3.0: Yes, the great white unicorn is finally coming! We've been talking about it for awhile and it's almost ready for launch.
- API 3.0 will feature the same new security schema the new CCS meters are using, preventing any method of exploitation of the API by attempting to send illegitimate communications piggybacked on the dynchan through a weapon or any other method.
- API 3.0 brings new features to the API system that allow for more realistic developmental control of the total "power" of a weapon, keeping most weapons in the CCS system in line with each other without the need for constant tweaking and updates on the 3rd party developer's side.
- API 3.0 also makes developing new products a snap, as the developer can simply create a weapon profile and build the weapon's enhancement definitions within the API 3.0 interface. This makes weapons enhancements editable in real-time without any need for reissuing a release.
- API 3.0 will allow us to finally open the API market to new developers interested in becoming involved in CCS 3rd party development with the new "fair development" structure system we've developed. This should keep "damage wars" and API weaponry in general from dictating the outcome of CCS combat.
So as you can see folks, we've actually been hard at work in the background developing several new systems that we wanted to get out the door to improve the overall functionality of the system, along with the simple CCS 1.0.5 meter update that has been delayed for quite some time.
We are currently testing a few facets of the release and will be moving API 3.0 and the CCS Payment system into wider-scale testing over the next week or two. Once we have all these things sanded off and ready for the live environment, we will push them all pretty much all at the same time, and improve the overall quality of the game and its component parts in all facets, rather than "nickel and dime" our way through the various new additions.
Your patience has been much appreciated. Have a little more patience, and you will very soon see the payoff for the long wait. Thanks for your support and have a great day!
Feel free to discuss this post here in its own thread.
If you can't read this then I suggest you find someone to translate it for you.
Let me be abundantly clear. The sale of Second Life avatars is expressly forbidden by the Terms of Service of Second Life.
The sale of CCS accounts, is also, by proxy, expressly forbidden by the CCS Terms of Access.
Anyone found to be selling Second Life accounts with CCS accounts attached to them will have that account banned or deleted. Period.
I don't care if your dog logged you in and typed the message, if someone "framed" you by using your account, its because you gave them your password in the first place which means by the Terms of Service of Second Life you are already responsible for the actions of whoever uses that account since you gave them your password.
This is a zero tolerance policy announcement. If you are found to be selling SL avatars in CCS those avatars will be removed from CCS entirely.
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Dejenme ser muy clara. La venta de los avatares de Second Life esta extrictamente prohibida conforme a los terminos de servicio de Second life, La venta de cuentas CCS, por el servidor proxy, esta tambien prohibida de acuerdo a los terminos de acceso de CCS.
Cualquier persona que encontremos vendiendo cuentas de Second Life con CCS obtendran un baneo o su cuenta sera borrada sin excepcion. No me importa su su perro lo logeo y escribio el mensaje, si alguien mas lo "expuso" usando su cuenta, es porque en primer lugar le diste tu contraseña, lo que quiere decir que segun el TOS de Second Life tu eres responsable de las acciones de quien sea que use tu avatar ya que tu mismo le proporcionaste el acceso a esta.
Esto es un anuncio de cero tolerancia. Si encontramos que vendes tu o cualquier otro avatar en CCS, estos seran removidos del sistema por completo.
Let me be abundantly clear. The sale of Second Life avatars is expressly forbidden by the Terms of Service of Second Life.
The sale of CCS accounts, is also, by proxy, expressly forbidden by the CCS Terms of Access.
Anyone found to be selling Second Life accounts with CCS accounts attached to them will have that account banned or deleted. Period.
I don't care if your dog logged you in and typed the message, if someone "framed" you by using your account, its because you gave them your password in the first place which means by the Terms of Service of Second Life you are already responsible for the actions of whoever uses that account since you gave them your password.
This is a zero tolerance policy announcement. If you are found to be selling SL avatars in CCS those avatars will be removed from CCS entirely.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dejenme ser muy clara. La venta de los avatares de Second Life esta extrictamente prohibida conforme a los terminos de servicio de Second life, La venta de cuentas CCS, por el servidor proxy, esta tambien prohibida de acuerdo a los terminos de acceso de CCS.
Cualquier persona que encontremos vendiendo cuentas de Second Life con CCS obtendran un baneo o su cuenta sera borrada sin excepcion. No me importa su su perro lo logeo y escribio el mensaje, si alguien mas lo "expuso" usando su cuenta, es porque en primer lugar le diste tu contraseña, lo que quiere decir que segun el TOS de Second Life tu eres responsable de las acciones de quien sea que use tu avatar ya que tu mismo le proporcionaste el acceso a esta.
Esto es un anuncio de cero tolerancia. Si encontramos que vendes tu o cualquier otro avatar en CCS, estos seran removidos del sistema por completo.
Its come to our attention that there is a third party program being marketed that allows CCS users to circumvent the CCS Captcha system.
Now you might think that we're concerned that people might be using it to camp, but we're not, because GMs will largely catch people that are completely unresponsive and deal with them appropriately.
My main issue with posting this warning is to ensure people know how dangerous this really is.
Should you consider the situation, you are essentially gambling $40.00 USD on the potential that this third party program works, and perhaps it does, but you're also sending that $40.00 USD to a nearly untraceable Hotmail email address, and if they do send you something in return for your purchase there is no guarantee that even if it does work that it won't also install hostile software on your system that could put your personal identity, your credit card data and any other sensitive information you may have on your computer at risk.
So let me just simply say, I'm not entirely sure camping in CCS is worth trusting potentially having your identity and credit card data stolen by someone thats posted an advertisement on a website where anyone can post something anonymously, and they're using an email service that is well known for its complete lack of responsibility for any fraud committed via their service.
In the end, is "winning the game in CCS" by somehow perhaps evading the CCS Captcha system, and perhaps never being caught by a live human GM worth risking all the money in your bank account and perhaps your personal identity as well?
Simple facts are CCS, being as popular as it is, has consistently been the target of hackers attempting to get control of peoples SL accounts since most people's SL accounts are associated with their credit cards. Over the last three years alone there have been hundreds of CCS users who have mistakenly clicked on a phishing link sent by a compromised account in a CCS information group, only to have their accounts stolen within minutes and suddenly their credit cards are charged out to the maximum as the hacker buys and sells a ton of Linden and redirects the cash to their own Paypal account. And the sad part about it is the CCS player then gets stuck holding the bag, and the Lindens ban their account over it.
Simple facts are is if simple phishing links are enough to cause that, installing a piece of third party software, advertised anonymously, and sold through an anonymous email contact? Yeah....not very smart.
No game is worth losing your financial well being over. Or even potentially risking that. So, stay smart, and don't say we didn't warn you.
Have fun everyone.
Now you might think that we're concerned that people might be using it to camp, but we're not, because GMs will largely catch people that are completely unresponsive and deal with them appropriately.
My main issue with posting this warning is to ensure people know how dangerous this really is.
Should you consider the situation, you are essentially gambling $40.00 USD on the potential that this third party program works, and perhaps it does, but you're also sending that $40.00 USD to a nearly untraceable Hotmail email address, and if they do send you something in return for your purchase there is no guarantee that even if it does work that it won't also install hostile software on your system that could put your personal identity, your credit card data and any other sensitive information you may have on your computer at risk.
So let me just simply say, I'm not entirely sure camping in CCS is worth trusting potentially having your identity and credit card data stolen by someone thats posted an advertisement on a website where anyone can post something anonymously, and they're using an email service that is well known for its complete lack of responsibility for any fraud committed via their service.
In the end, is "winning the game in CCS" by somehow perhaps evading the CCS Captcha system, and perhaps never being caught by a live human GM worth risking all the money in your bank account and perhaps your personal identity as well?
Simple facts are CCS, being as popular as it is, has consistently been the target of hackers attempting to get control of peoples SL accounts since most people's SL accounts are associated with their credit cards. Over the last three years alone there have been hundreds of CCS users who have mistakenly clicked on a phishing link sent by a compromised account in a CCS information group, only to have their accounts stolen within minutes and suddenly their credit cards are charged out to the maximum as the hacker buys and sells a ton of Linden and redirects the cash to their own Paypal account. And the sad part about it is the CCS player then gets stuck holding the bag, and the Lindens ban their account over it.
Simple facts are is if simple phishing links are enough to cause that, installing a piece of third party software, advertised anonymously, and sold through an anonymous email contact? Yeah....not very smart.
No game is worth losing your financial well being over. Or even potentially risking that. So, stay smart, and don't say we didn't warn you.
Have fun everyone.