Confessions of a Self-Appointed Sandboxer

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

First I must start by saying that I am writing this not to promote what I did but to show a different perspective.

I have been religiously playing MPQ for 113 days. I was drawn in by the style of play (match-3) and by the obvious Marvel connection. When I first started, I thought that Prologue was all there was. I enjoyed it and wished that they would add more episodes. I prefer an offline style of play. I do NOT enjoy getting unmercifully thrashed by the omnipotent and anonymous UserX living on the other side of the world.

At the beginning of each event, I set my goals as to what reward I want (Hey, that 100 HP at 3600 points looks cool) and I play. I was happy minding my own business and trying to get various rewards. I joined PVP events out of necessity, not out of some competitive fire brewing inside of me. I hated having to shield myself, only to break it at the end and fight voraciously for the last 15 to 30 minutes just to get that one cover I coveted. I did it because that is what I needed to do push forward. It affected my life, my relationship and my free time. I hated lying to my wife that I needed to ‘go to the store’ at exactly 8:30 pm so I could play the last 30 minutes and secure my spot on the leaderboard.

This is when I found out about the Sandbox. D3 has a unique way of dealing with those that take nefarious routes to earn their keep. It is like putting them in the Matrix. They play in all events, never get attacked and they are never seen by the outside world. They are mindlessly in their own world and they can level up and get the covers they want and it has ZERO effect on others. I said,“Hey, that sounds pretty good.” Now I can do my thing, not care about crazy UserX trying to kill my team and I can play the way I wanted to all along…offline.

During the last Thor event, I purposely buffed my current roster and let the Sandboxing begin. Now I play when I want to, I don’t hurt or affect anyone else, and I enjoy my experience stress-free. I loved it so much that I have recommended the game to over 30 of my co-workers. I did not mention any of my deeds and I know for a fact that they are hooked and have spent actual money building their rosters. I don’t say this to justify what I did, I am just simply stating a fact. If anyone is wondering, I only used these methods to get Sandboxed and I no longer have the capability to do it over again. I enjoy building my characters, cover-by-cover, and maxing them out through earned rewards in events. True, some of my covers were buffed so I could get Sandboxed, but it ended after that.

I must reiterate 2 points:

I did NOT do this out of some weird desire to be the first in all events. I have been first in events before this happened (earning a disappointing red and green X-force Wolverine). This was never my goal. Actually, it was quite the opposite. I hated the competition. I did it to get out of it.

I am NOT condoning or promoting my actions. I am simply trying to show another side of the story.

Take this for what you will. It is my confession.

2

I’m wondering if my daughter would like a sandbox. What kind of sand is best for sandboxes? There’s beach sand but it’s somewhat fine and tends to stick on the skin. It will make a mess as my daughter will track it into the house. Pea gravel might work but you can’t make sand castles. Any recommendations?

3

Im also a sandboxer but for me it’s the collecting and trying new teams that I like i don’t aim to win tourneys or brag I’m the best just do it at own pace and to see what happens next

4

That was a well written piece, thanks for sharing (and even telling your buddies about the game!)

5

I feel you, man. I might have done the same thing by now if not for the awesome Alliance I joined and want to stay a part of

6

I enjoyed reading this and honestly, I understand your reasoning for this and how you want to play the game. Thank you for sharing.

7

I have a vague idea what sandboxing is…how does one do it in MPQ? Android.

8

While I don’t mind this thread being up here (it’s an interesting take, certainly), I can’t condone methods being talked about on the forums.

9

My co-worker did this although he no longer plays because he had nothing to complete for anymore but he did enjoy building out the teams he wanted to until he ran out of things to do.

Community means a lot to me and I am very competitive up to a point. I certainly do not like having to be conscious of what is going on in the game at all times and wish things were more casual sometimes. I liked the pay to enter tourneys for that reason, it was one thing I didn’t have to worry about or enter. Every event being alliance based is a hassle. But for being in a really good alliance, rewards are easier for us because of it.

Selenium: Sandboxing is if you cheat, the game detects it and you are hidden in your own instance of the game. You enter a bracket and compete but never get attacked or take points from people. You get the rewards of first place if you win, but since you are invisible to everyone else you don’t take first place from someone else. You see yourself in the standings but no one else can see you. You cannot join alliances.

10

At first I didn’t agree with the merits of sandboxing as an anti-cheat method. Still don’t, but the side effects like this that allow non-cheaters (I don’t consider you a cheater) to enjoy the game non-competitively sounds pretty cool.

11

Just got more context from that other thread…thought I was missing out on a feature or something.

12

Basically you cheat and D3 puts you in a room where you can cheat all you want without affecting anyone else. Personally I dont think we ought to be sympathizing with cheaters, regardless of how well they articulated themselves in a post.

To the OP, you speak of a confession but it’s nothing of the sort. You willfully cheated to be sandboxed and you revealed what you did and rationalized what you did as okay because you introduced people to the game. A confession would more approprately be an admission to D3, not to the group of players that frequent the forums.

Willfull sandboxing is still cheating. I dont think Demiurge intended for sandboxing to be a feature for players to select.

13

Certainly not. But banning anyone from the forums that we find cheating, from experience, just creates a situation where people decide to try and vandalize the forums in retaliation. It’s an arms race that’s not worth entering as it can’t end well.

14

Here are my thoughts about sandboxing: if you become number 1 in your bracket, it’s still false, because no one ever attacked you. So basically being in the sandbox IS cheating, because the game is not set up to have that as a legit option. I can see why D3 would set it up that way though, because if they barred rewards then people would just start new accounts and cheat all over again.

Other than that, I dunno. I mean I had a kneejerk reaction when I found out sandboxed people were winning rewards, but they actually aren’t affecting my reward system, right? I mean If I’m number 10 in a tourney and a sandboxer pops in and shoots straight up to number 1, that doesn’t push me out of the top ten, is that correct…or not?

If it doesn’t affect me then ok, live and let live. But let’s face it, no one likes cheating in video games because that mentality could always carry over into the next game we’re playing where it does make a difference.

15

Might i suggest a Fitted Sandbox?

I hear they are all the rage among the MPQ “Haves”

icon_e_wink.gif

marc

16

Was my post so harsh?

I understand that sandboxing is a feature for the game company, not the player. A player must cheat in order to make it happen. I dont know that people will actually try to do so. I can imagine that it would not be desirable to have players tinkering around, trying to discover what triggers the cheat detection. While some might think it as not too bad since they aren’t affecting them, their findings would be real.

Nobody needs to be banned, and not even for the reasons you cite. Not for free speech either. I ordinarily post once to threads like these. I think I said all that was necessary. Apologies for coming across so harsh that I was communicating the need to ban the poor guy.

I did want it to sound serious, and point out it wasn’t a “confession”. It was “Hey, this punishment is actually kinda cool if you look at it this way, so sorry I have to cheat to do it… enumerates the benefits..”

TL;DR

Don’t cheat

17

Awesome icon_exclaim.gif

18

Well cheating is certainly a way for the OP to play a game he enjoys without needing to be competitive. Until Demiurge can find a way to still reward casual players without making them way too behind the other players, I think more casual players will opt for sandboxing once the game interferes too much with their life.

19

I appreciate your opinion on this matter but I do find your definition of ‘confession’ to be too rigid. A confession is simply a statement admitting guilt. It doesn’t matter who the audience is. With that said, I must point out that D3 is surely reading these posts as evidenced by IceIX replying twice.

As stated many times before in the original post, I am not condoning my actions or even justifying them. I enjoy the game, especially the PVEs and I enjoy the plethora of covers that have been recently introduced. That is why I told my coworkers about the game. It wasn’t because of some urge to atone for my sins.

20

I can see the appeal certainly.

I pretty much regret levelling my characters above 100…there is absolutely no reward for doing so and now every tournament is a huge slog. I barely play anymore.