Accept Your Quest. Collect The Fallen. Win an XBOX360 or PS3!

[Kross]

A few points:

We'll be going over our logs before the contest is closed to eliminate any possible other issues and removing any users that need to be.

As far as bots go, it's a gray area that I don't think was specifically forbidden - but I haven't read the contest rules and am not actively enforcing them myself, it's up to other people what is considered cheating. However, anyone who has dealt with web servers or writing crawlers repeatedly should certainly be aware of rate limiting and robots.txt considerations. I don't care what you're trying to do on the site, if an individual is hammering my server faster then I allow crawlers over an extended period of time, I'm making them go away.

Unfortunately the script I use to determine who's being naughty is more tuned to detect an extended DDoS on the web servers, and didn't account for many short bursts of traffic (as people rapidly open every profile on a search page), so I'll tweak that a bit and see what washes out. At this point, nobody else came even close to the several hundred thousand profile views Psau clocked yesterday.

 

[Kross]

A few points:

We'll be going over our logs before the contest is closed to eliminate any possible other issues and removing any users that need to be.

As far as bots go, it's a gray area that I don't think was specifically forbidden - but I haven't read the contest rules and am not actively enforcing them myself, it's up to other people what is considered cheating. However, anyone who has dealt with web servers or writing crawlers repeatedly should certainly be aware of rate limiting and robots.txt considerations. I don't care what you're trying to do on the site, if an individual is hammering my server faster then I allow crawlers over an extended period of time, I'm making them go away.

Unfortunately the script I use to determine who's being naughty is more tuned to detect an extended DDoS on the web servers, and didn't account for many short bursts of traffic (as people rapidly open every profile on a search page), so I'll tweak that a bit and see what washes out. At this point, nobody else came even close to the several hundred thousand profile views Psau clocked yesterday.

Did you perhaps think to ask PR before blocking a large number of the leaders? You all (Escapist Magazine, your employer) asked us to come here and trample your forum looking for badges. And now you threaten those who did so with ISP notices? How are you still employed?

I didn't threaten any ISP notices. PR has nothing to do with maintaining servers, and I think you're well aware of the point I'm making. The quantity of requests you personally made can very easily be construed as an attack, do you really want to continue this discussion?

 

[SomebodyNowhere]

Well everyone... what are your reasons?

I'd choose a PS3. I currently don't have any of the HD consoles and the PS3 has more that I'm interested in(I might finally be able to play Heavy Rain). Generally speaking I play games on the PC and have basically put my gaming on hold to take part in this contest.

 

[EnvyNeko]

That's like, 193 points for EnvyNeko in a matter of ten or so hours. >.>

Just thought I'd point out that I am Cynthia Bochek who was on the list at 235 in your first picture thing. I just changed my username to something I'm more comfortable with : O

I got blocked out for a little while too. Guess I was clicking on too many profiles too fast, I'll take it a little easier from now on.

And for Ultra Dolphins:
I'd get a PS3 : D I bought the limited editions of Hyper Dimension Neptunia and Atelier Rorona a couple months back and would love to actually getting to play them. Gotta save up for Ar Tonelico: Qoga too.

 

[8bitlove2a03]

I think I may have angered the badge gods, because I can't seem to get more points for the life of me T-T

Should have kept keeping track of everyone I'd already gotten a point from so I could know if something was wrong or if this is just bad luck....

C'est la vie.

 

[wench]

I think I may have angered the badge gods, because I can't seem to get more points for the life of me T-T

Should have kept keeping track of everyone I'd already gotten a point from so I could know if something was wrong or if this is just bad luck....

C'est la vie.

I think I'm starting to recognize people by their icon more than anything... but I bet I can list offhand the names of about 50-100 members at this point. =)

While I'm glad that people are being eliminated for writing the programs to pull pages, I should also say a thanks to Psau too... I wouldn't be anywhere on the board if it wasn't for those links that were posted. Well, that and two really slow days at work.

 

[Frozengale]

I think I may have angered the badge gods, because I can't seem to get more points for the life of me T-T

Should have kept keeping track of everyone I'd already gotten a point from so I could know if something was wrong or if this is just bad luck....

C'est la vie.

I think I'm starting to recognize people by their icon more than anything... but I bet I can list offhand the names of about 50-100 members at this point. =)

Yeah I know the names and icons of the people that visit this site the most, or at least in the past few days.

I seem to be in the same boat, I can't get more points... or I'm averaging around 1-2 points for every 100 or so profiles I check. I think I'm tapped out for the most part, I'm just glad your position on the leaderboard doesn't effect your chances of winning. I could probably skip tomorrow and most of Wednesday.... I won't but I probably could

As a side note: I have now watched all of Arrested Development and most of Season 1 of Community while searching for badges...

 

[Catolf]

well.. I tried but i can't keep up.. it's already in the 200's -_- I'm too slow, but good luck to those still in the running. I'll just buy the game when i get some cash.

 

[s0osleepie]

Did you perhaps think to ask PR before blocking a large number of the leaders? You all (Escapist Magazine, your employer) asked us to come here and trample your forum looking for badges. And now you threaten those who did so with ISP notices? How are you still employed?

Odd, nobody was mentioned, and yet you assume it's directed at you. It's standard practice to report things like flood attacks, compromised servers, spam, etc, to the respective server administators so they can investigate and take action as required.

If you believe you're standing in a hole, it's one you've dug yourself.

 

[SomebodyNowhere]

well.. I tried but i can't keep up.. it's already in the 200's -_- I'm too slow, but good luck to those still in the running. I'll just buy the game when i get some cash.

you've still got a day and a half left so if you really wanted to make the leader board it is totally possible with the right tactics. once I figured out ways to optimize my searching it became much easier(but it didn't make it any less tedious).

I may try to break 300, but I doubt I'll shoot for much beyond that

 

[Erana]

well.. I tried but i can't keep up.. it's already in the 200's -_- I'm too slow, but good luck to those still in the running. I'll just buy the game when i get some cash.

you've still got a day and a half left so if you really wanted to make the leader board it is totally possible with the right tactics. once I figured out ways to optimize my searching it became much easier(but it didn't make it any less tedious).

I may try to break 300, but I doubt I'll shoot for much beyond that

At first, I had qualms about the whole thing, but its nice to be able to relax about it. It makes this whole contest much more reasonable.

I've seen things like this but with prizes specifically for places, and its not pretty. >.>

 

[Catolf]

well.. I tried but i can't keep up.. it's already in the 200's -_- I'm too slow, but good luck to those still in the running. I'll just buy the game when i get some cash.

you've still got a day and a half left so if you really wanted to make the leader board it is totally possible with the right tactics. once I figured out ways to optimize my searching it became much easier(but it didn't make it any less tedious).

I may try to break 300, but I doubt I'll shoot for much beyond that

At first, I had qualms about the whole thing, but its nice to be able to relax about it. It makes this whole contest much more reasonable.

I've seen things like this but with prizes specifically for places, and its not pretty. >.>

I'm sitting at about 50 right now and it's hard enough trying to locate one or two without my computer having a few issues and thats after an hour of searching. Not sure i could sit for hours on end doing it, i mean if I randomly find some then thats fine. But I already own a ps3 and an xbox, I just wanted the free game XD I'm running low on cash to be getting games as frequently as I used too.

 

[Erana]

That's like, 193 points for EnvyNeko in a matter of ten or so hours. >.>

Just thought I'd point out that I am Cynthia Bochek who was on the list at 235 in your first picture thing. I just changed my username to something I'm more comfortable with : O

I got blocked out for a little while too. Guess I was clicking on too many profiles too fast, I'll take it a little easier from now on.

And for Ultra Dolphins:
I'd get a PS3 : D I bought the limited editions of Hyper Dimension Neptunia and Atelier Rorona a couple months back and would love to actually getting to play them. Gotta save up for Ar Tonelico: Qoga too.

In that case, you're some kind of ninja.

Also, what happens if there's like a 21-way tie or something like that, out of curiousity?

 

[EnvyNeko]

Hm, I think I may have read the contest rules wrong when I first signed up. I thought the people in the top 3 places would be getting the grand prize and then 7 others would get the game prize pack.

Kinda makes the ambition of getting to first place a moot point. I still kinda want to be in first place...>.< Darn my perfectionist ways!

 

[jasonargon]

Well everyone... what are your reasons?

I dont have either consoles, so when i heard about this contest from my friend, I was like why not? But id prefer the PS3 over the Xbox because it could connect to the internet right? And like my dad always wanted a Blu-ray player... On the otherhand my friends all have the xbox... SOO, i dont know?

But yeah, just wanted to say hi to everyone. And wish them the best.

 

[Vamantha]

I'm happy the contest is ending soon. Seven days of frustration is coming to an end for all of you. I can't wait to see who wins what. I'd also like my boyfriend back.

 

[SomebodyNowhere]

I'd have passed my 300 point goal if it weren't for one of my friends gifting me the humble indie bundle which resulted in me playing minecraft all day instead of searching profiles.

 

[weatherfn]

Ha, I got dangerously close to the bottom of the list because of my brother's birthday. I don't know if I'll make it to 300, but I at least want to be well away from 20th! (By my luck someone would sneak on the board at the last minute and knock me off...)