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Subject: In Search of SW Integrity Posted by: What about Bob - [38323170] Wed, May 02, 01:13 I really hate to make such a flaming thrd on the company many of us devote a hobby to, and in most cases receive a great amount of enjoyment from. So, I guess I must offer this disclaimer before going any further. If you simply play for fun, among friends(division bragging rights), with WWRank not being a high priority then it's possible most of what I say doesn't apply to you. But if you are a memeber of this RotoGurupie community, where we share knowledge and strategy, and try to be(and are) some of the best sports fantasy game players in the world, and are always trying to improve ourselves at these games we play, then I think you have to at least be a little bit concerned about the attitude that runs thru SW. There comes a point when a company crosses the lines too many times you have to just say ENOUGH. At the very least, understand we are all playing their games in which not only do we have to worry about server crashes and being locked out(this is a part of the internet), very sporadic customer service(at best), trade requests being made for some and not for others, straight out cheaters at SW(although this really shouldn't be looked upon as a reflection of SW as a whole-at least NOT YET), but NOW we have to deal with rule changes that oocur after the game is over, and in which we have been given completely different instruction for. Yes I am talking about BOTH the 3forall basketball game, and the season long hoops survivor game. The nature of this rule change has already been discussed in 2 other thrds so I see no need to get into specifics here(please read here http://rotoguru1.com/cgi-bin/mb/hoop/5424.shtml?987704807 http://rotoguru1.com/cgi-bin/mb/hoop/3556.shtml?987636462 ) This is NOT a minor issue, as the outcome of at least one of the 2 games has been changed and possibly the other(this we may never know for sure which I'll explain in a bit). Please keep in mind since the only 2 basic differences between the 2 games was in 3for all you were NEVER eliminated, and the other $10.00, the only motivation someone had for playing the PAY game was a $5000 grand prize, so please don't give me the excuse "it's just a game man". You could argue that point I suppose in 3 for all but NOT pay survivor. Let me also state here that this isn't the 1st time we have had big integrity problems with SW. Embarrassed Hawks Fan getting short-changed on his Grand Prize in baseball last year. The points problem with regular Hoops basketball last year between KB8ers and d/j smooth. Numerous pricing issues in almost all games. Anyways, starting to get off topic there. Let's keep with this most gaffe. Species and I read with very close scrutiny, the rules regarding any game we play. We raised issue with SW on this very topic(FINAL roster freeze) WAY WAY BACK IN NOVEMBER!!!!! I recieved WRITTEN verification(copy of which is in my attorney's hands:-) from the person in charge of running the game that there indeed would be a FINAL roster freeze on April 17th. AND what do you know SW even added a SPECIAL note in their "game rules" section alerting ALL MANAGERS of this. The note is STILL THERE today!!!! I guess my next question for SW is WHY did you make a change(AFTER THE FINAL FREEZE)??? It makes no sense. NONE ZERO. Could SW be trying to pull a fast one?? I hope none of you legal eagles tell me SW is within their legal right to change the rules at any time(yes that statement is in their official rules too). BUT, it is with much dismay that I must report to you that after speaking with SW on this very subject, that is EXACTLY the course of action SW has decided to taken on this matter. The following is a direct quote from SW, "While we don't like to do it, if you look in our official rules, you will see that we are completely within our right to change the rules to that game at anytime we deem necessary. We felt we needed to exercise this right in this situation, given the conflicting information we put out on the game site. We apologize for this, admit the mistake was ours, but felt we needed to adhere to the original rules of the game. Often the technology dept., doesn't have a great knowledge of what the business dept. is doing." Boy does that paragraph say alot about the integrity of SW. While we admit the screwup was ours, we don't intend to take any responsibility for it. I'd like to use the analogy of a car accident to drive(no pun intended) home my point. If I was involved in an auto accident and hit someone's car and the accident was deemed to be my fault, do you really think a simple apology, "I'm sorry I hit your car." would be sufficent? Highly unlikely. I would have to pay the damages as a result of my mistake, whether it was intentional or not. I really feel like SW dropped the ball on this one. SW made the error and therefore should be willing to "pay up" as a result of their mistake. If they are trying to build a customer base for their pay games, changing the rules of such games should not be the course of action taken when they make a mistake. It doesn't lend much credability from this point going forward. You know if this was a "one-time" mistake I could possibly overlook it and go on and hope we don't have anymore problems. The problem is this isn't the only gaffe made by SW recently. Let's go forward a little bit. SW closed off registration EARLY to their Playoff Hoops Survival game. They then froze rosters for that game earlier than the STATED deadline. Perhaps leaning on "the changing of the rules anytime we want" theory? Let's now move to the Hockey Playoff Survival game. In that game, people were allowed to make UNLIMITED trades up until the 1st freeze(the 1st day of playoff hockey games), and then were allowed 3 trades per week. Unfortunately SW forgot to start counting trades until 1 to 2 days into the game, and some people were allowed to make trades without them counting(and thus completely changed their teams). You can't really fault the people that made the trades, the page still stated "UNLIMITED TRADES", but boy it sure puts the rest of us at a disadvantage, or will SW again lean on "the changing of the rules anytime we want" theory? and disqualify those teams??? Can you start to see how this solution by SW in their Hoops 3forall and pay game of Hoops Survival begins to have a snowball effect on other games? They seem to think it is perfectly ok to make errors and then cover their ass by changing the rules as they go along. They don't seem to feel like they need to be held accountable for their mistakes, not even in their "pay to play" games. OK, so now you may be asking yourself, "Hey WAB, what's the point? Why the long rant if nobody cares or nothing can be done about it." I guess I have several reasons. ##1) I guess, as a community service to all of us, that you need to be forewarned that if you decide to "pay to play" any of SW's games, that you could get royally screwed in the end. The rules you see today may not be the same rules that the game is played by tomorrow. Remember SW has a legal out IN THEIR OPINION, to change the rules. #2) You know I guess the thing that bothers me the most is that even though SW has suffered tremendously in a financial way due to the advertising money not being what it was, thus forcing severe layoffs, and service cutbacks, it isn't like SW hasn't had quality talented people willing to give then input about their games, how to institute quality! control, pricing formulas, etc. etc. etc. Guru himself has offered his services to SW free of charge in anyway they needed him. How could SW refuse counsel from one of the top experts in fantasy sports? I just don't understand that. Several of the board regualrs have served on SW advising commitees in the past and gave SW some pretty damn good ideas IMHO, only to see many of the ideas fall on deaf ears. Why ask us, if you aren't going to listen? I guess my point is as Guru stated somewhere before, is that at a time when it appears SW could use the most help(due to layoffs), why not ask a select few of us to help? We've never mentioned helping them before, and they know those asked to help them now would keep it confidential. To me this only shows an unwillingness to want to become a better run game site. Not exactly a winning business model. #3)OK OK, I admit it. This post is also a little self-serving as I felt the need to get this stuff of my chest. The way they ran the end game of 3forall and pay survivor and then are ok with it, just really infuriates me. MY final points are strictly for people that were involved in playing 3forall and Hoops survivor. As mentioned way earlier in my post about why we may never know the true answer as to who won those games. The reason that is true is because no one can really be sure which players teams had on their roster for that FINAL period. WHAT?? you ask. Yes, unfortunately this is a sad fact. The final period has no time stamp on it. So due to the fact you can still change your roster for the final Week 25 period and there isn't any way to tell when you submitted the roster it makes it impossible to tell who a team REALLY had the final period. If you want to verify what I'm telling you is true, just log into your team and then use this link to change your picks. This is the link for pay survivor, for 3forall use the 2nd link http://survival.hoops.smallworld.com/your_three/write_picks.html?g=0&c=0&f=0&period=26&past= http://threeforall.hoops.smallworld.com/your_three/write_picks.html?g=0&c=0&f=0&period=26&past= Then just make your "NEW" picks and you'll see the week 25 picks changed. So now you can see it might be difficult to tell who really won huh? My last point has to do with a comment made in the Playoff Hoops Pay Survivor game thrd. Someone suggested shuffling the teams and divisions after each round. This really would be a bad idea and very unfair, not to mention it would NOT insure a "level" playing field. I do agree a reshuffling of all teams BEFORE the 1st round starts is fair, but still NOT an ideal way to run survivor games. I believe alot of strategy goes on within each division and it wouldn't be right to upset that. While i do agree there is a better way to run survivor type games, reshuffling after each elimination period is NOT the answer. If SW wants to know how to make the survivor games totally fair all they have to do is call me. I think they know the number:-) Thanks all for reading my rant. | ||||||
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