Reply to http://forums.gamersfirst.com/index.php ... t&p=688034

With that screenshot you have just shot yourself in the foot. The official G1 website used to have ads for gold selling sites. I don't know if it still does, nor if this site does, because I'm running adblock 24/7. However, I'll use the argument that K2 mods used to bring up: the ads aren't under our control. Maybe there's a way to filter out unwanted ones but I don't know how (it wasn't me who put the ads there in teh first place), I'm sorry about that. Personally I'd remove the ads altogether but I don't have the authority to do that.

Reply to http://forums.gamersfirst.com/index.php ... t&p=685774

The scanning system was fully automated and had no kind of bias, and its accuracy was very high. There were bugs in the beginning, but we got continuous bug reports and finally fixed it up to a high degree of reliability. The info presented on the site was exactly the same that the server showed to any player. That means, if a player was seen with an illegal transformation or in an illegal zone, they did it - or the server itself was lying! I dare risk to say that the only inaccuracy was the information being out-of-date due to connection issues or the time required to do the scanning. We also got numerous requests from both cheaters and buyers of former cheater characters to clear their red names. We yielded to none of that. Nor did we manually inject false information. Keep in mind that we did have to maintain players' trust, so the goal of this site is to present the truth, all of the truth, and only the truth. Try to follow our example (this is a message to the developers too), and earn the players' trust for yourselves so you don't have to pick on a fansite which does better than you.

About affiliation: we would have gladly affiliated with K2 if given the opportunity. And about private servers? Citation needed, or you are lying about that. I made sure as the moderator of the forum that no private server, third party tool, or real money trade is advertised on our forums. Anything besides the forum is free from contribution outside the creators of the site, and private servers had no place in that.

Players will keep referring to us when it comes to banning cheaters and investigating illegal items. This is probably influenced by the fact that K2 is slow at banning cheaters and deleting illegal items, and using the verified cheater and crazy item list, players could get a glance at the real state of affairs. I consider it a success that cheaters were segregated by other players after the news got out that they cheated or got items of dubious origins.

So, where's K2's promised stats section that will make up for the loss of our Player Information feature? Only when it's complete you can start comparing it to us based on reliability. While our Player Info was working, it was the only one of its kind, so it was the most reliable source for player information.

This year the Knight Online World Championship will take place mid-September.

Although not much details are known, in JPKO the eligibility for the event is similar to that of last year. The following players can enter the event:
-The top 100 on the Leader ranking for August on each server except Gaia (600 people)
-By participating in the Chaos event, you get a KWC Chaos Ticket. 5 tickets can be turned in for a KWC application. 100 players will be drawn from the Gaia server and 100 from the remaining servers (200 people)
-The nominees for king in September (60 people)

More info will be posted as it arrives.

Looks like it's not enough to limit the usability of the scanning function. The account that was used to do the scanning has been banned.

Player Info and any related features have been removed from the site.

The latest patch (#1827), in addition to limiting the usefulness of 3rd party tools, also introduced range checking on the player info gathering used by this site. Due to these changes, expect player info to be intermittent and only available if the player was in the spawning area in Moradon at the time of scanning.

I hope K2 is reading this and is in the process of making a substitute for this feature on their official site based on their own database.

UPDATE:
Athenrye: "I doubt it will be quite as... invasive... as KingofKnight was. "
Comment: You should consider what made this site popular in the first place. The ability to see other players' items means that when whole sets of +10 items appear out of nowhere, players can notice it and put them in the spotlight for customer support to investigate. The level history feature allows you to discover who likely used an EXP hack and got away with it. Clan history can be used to spot players who are clan hoppers or members of former cheater clans. And finally, the various methods of "verified cheater" identification has in some cases made the cheaters' situation worse by letting players refuse to party with them after seeing the cheater label. Behind the scenes, we are getting numerous requests from cheaters trying to remove the label by pretending to be a good guy, which of course we don't obey.
Many of the "great" features stem from the "invasiveness", if any, of the data collected. If you (K2) want to trump this, the only way to do it is to be at least as invasive as we were, but I recommend being even more invasive. For example, the accessories and NP of each player is a piece of info that would allow additional cheater identification. Access to the serial ID and upgrade history of each item would allow dupes and anvil bugs to be detected. And overall, having Big Brother watching you with you knowing it is itself a chilling factor. The only way to combat terrorism is to take away from privacy, but for MMO owners this is a free move as the players don't own the characters or items they are using.