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Greetings, Admirals.

We’d like to begin by stating that the circumstances surrounding the recent game feature anomalies (bugs) are something that we need to be more diligent in both catching and resolving in a timely manner. Without hesitation we understand that it is our responsibility to do our best to prevent any in-game anomalies… as best we can.

That said, any time something slips by our team, it’s something that we’re not proud of. Bugs and tech issues are an industry inevitability, but as dedicated and veteran as our teams are, every issue and subsequent resolution is a hard lesson learned. 

Regardless… we genuinely apologize again for the circumstances involved, and the negative impact they’ve taken on the GBTW community, regardless of the reason. 

Many Admirals have inquired about the procedures and details regarding the Blitz Defense exploitation, so we would like to provide some clarity on the matter and inform you of our plans.  

[Blitz Defense Exploitation Criteria]

The Blitz Defense feature since day-1 was designed with a 20-hour cooldown period (per Alliance). The feature is available only once during that same 24-hour period. However, an anomaly was discovered and subsequently exploited by some Admirals who’d repeatedly left and rejoined an Alliance, deliberately resetting the cooldown period and, in the end, abusing the Blitz Defense reward system. Once discovered, we’d taken measures to reconcile the damage caused by the abuse.

The conditions of the investigation and corrective actions taken against each and every account found to be in violation of the exploitation policy were applied evenly and fairly. In short, if the account in question violated the exploitation threshold set, then the account was suspended, and the reconciliation process was initiated. 

The short version: 

In the case of the illicitly obtained Blitz Defense rewards, if the players in question were found to leave repeatedly and rejoined an Alliance, we considered it abuse and applied the aforementioned suspension to the account.

We started collecting data from March, (when the exploit was initially brought to our attention) through June, combing over the logs of the Alliances found to be disbanding, leaders leaving, and rejoining Alliances & the associated number of Blitz Defense events run concurrent to those actions/events.

Based on the actions specified above, corrective action was taken based on the repetitiveness and intensiveness of the exploit records ranging from at least 76 times to up to 2008 times over that 3-month period. Noticeably, based on the sheer numbers involved, the behavior pattern was intentional.   

We’d like to reiterate, all accounts/Admirals found to be in violation of the exploitation policy had their account suspended, and reconciliation of the associated rewards processed. 

Something that we must make clear:

As indicated in our Privacy Policy, we will never disclose what action was taken with any account unless it’s with the registered owner of any account. This goes for any Admiral, regardless of the Server, Alliance, or status.

That said, regardless of the nature of the “corrective actions” indicated with any detail noted within the Operation Policy of our EULA (End User License Agreement), it is never our wish to suspend an Admiral’s account. This is also why we restored access to the accounts noted as soon as we were able to reconcile the illicitly obtained Blitz rewards.  

Going forward, we will do better. Period. 

We will provide prompt guidance and be transparent about what measures we take. We are far from perfect, but this is something we’re aware of and we will do our absolute best to improve upon.  

[Future Plans]

Even though we have provided compensation for Admirals who have reported in-game bugs in the past. We will improve upon the process and the reward structure.

We plan to change our entire bug reporting system for a quick and accurate bug fix process.

Compensation for bug reports will increase depending on the significance of the reported bug. The Process of bug reporting, compensation, and resulting fix will be considered. 

We will provide more details on the new bug reporting system and compensation soon. 

Again, We will do our absolute best to hear our Admirals, and actively communicate with you to prevent any misunderstandings.

We will do our absolute best to improve the game, the processes, and as daunting as this may be, we’re up for the challenge. 

We sincerely appreciate each and every one of our Admirals. 

Thank you.​

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