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Progress Report, Scenario Polling Issues, 15/12 - 23
🕑 Added 2023-12-15 12:08:51 +0000 UTCHello everyone and welcome to another in the line of progress reports.
I was recently alerted by backers that there's a recent(?) phenomena of vote tampering going about in various Patreon circles, where multiple accounts are created for the purposes of skewing the vote in favor of certain outcomes. To my great shame I hadn't even considered this as a possibility, if anything owing to the tier structuring of my work, but when I sat down to look at the statistics it quickly and sadly became apparent that this is indeed the case with the most recent Scenario poll. As you can see from the outline above, these accounts, which joined on the same day that they also voted on and who have had zero previous engagement with my Patreon, all voted within minutes of each other and, barring a small spread of other votes, consistently gave zero votes to 2B (which was the previous poll lead) while all of them voted for Liara. This is fundamentally what catapulted Liara from second place to securing victory in the poll by a margin of 2 votes in the last 2 days of the poll, which would not have happened without these 9 accounts putting their thumb on the scale. The fact that these are all tied to anonaddy emails, which is a service that, from my understanding, allows for the setup of multiple email aliases in quick succession, while many of them have names corresponding with their vote choices, simply makes the case even clearer.
I want to apologize to you all as this mistake is on me as a creator, and I have no excuses for it. It stings particularly as someone with an academic background in statistics, where it's blatantly obvious that I should have treaded more carefully and scrutinized the data with a closer eye instead of simply presuming that the tier cost itself would dissuade something like this. I've discussed this extensively over on the Discord already, and as I'm rather out of the loop of the workings of other creators, backers have educated me on the matter by noting that various bank chargebacks or other means of getting one's money back is commonly employed after something like this occurs, alternatively that those engaging in this behavior simply consider it a (heavily) discounted commission of sorts. Something that remains unclear is whether this is a singular individual or a coordinated effort from some forum or server somewhere, but as I have no means of actually gauging this, it will simply remain in the realm of speculation.
While I realize that those who were looking forward to a Liara special for Christmas (myself included) will be disappointed, I simply cannot in good conscience proceed with the way things are. Thus, as of writing this report, the accounts in question have been banned, and I have poured all my spare time into a 2B Scenario in a bid to make up for lost time, which sadly means that I have little in the way of news when it comes to the Ivy project for this week, most of that time having instead gone towards this endeavor, something I must apologize for as well.
To be clear: I of course do not want to dissuade people from talking to each other, but any form of voting collaboration will face crackdown as it undermines the entire prospect of polling in the first place, and is distinctly unfair to ordinary participants of the process. Thankfully this isn't something that I have seen previously in my work, and while I haven't had the time to go back far into the past to see if this multi-email approach has been employed previously, I can say that the latest loop poll vote where Jill Valentine won does not appear to have suffered this issue, so it is possible that this is entirely new. Regardless, I apologize once more and promise to be more vigilant in the future, so as to ensure this does not happen again.
I hope to have some screens to show for the 2B piece come next week, most likely for the Friday, with the release being on Sunday the 24:th.
All this said, thank you, as always, for your continued support and for all of your kind words. The winter weather holds up, like some kind of christmas miracle, so fingers crossed it can hold on for just another week or two. Hope you're doing well out there, wherever you are, and my apologies once more.
Take care of yourselves, and each other!
/DH
Comments
Thatnorwegianperv.
I totally see your point. :) I understand you can not please everybody. :) Kinda why i wanna learn this craft to so i could try some diffrent girls that i like but not see that often and others do not too. :)
DH
I can sympathize with his dedication to Liara, if anything :)
DH
I'll be sure to keep you all posted, but sometime next year was projected as a release either way. It's going to be a slow process getting it out the door owing to my regular update schedule, but it will be made, and it will be made as well as I can make it, I can promise that much.
DH
Every method has its downsides, for sure. As it is polling is effectively a necessity since we have a gallery of ~100 ladies, and since all of them couldn't possibly be on there we'd have to limit the list somehow, which raises the rather contentious question of who should be in the regular rotation. It's that or we go back to me being the dictator of it all, but that would leave me with the question of what to offer the higher tiers. Decisions, decisions :)
Thatnorwegianperv.
And this is why we can never have nice things... :P I am not really a big fan of polls myself. I think a rotation of charcters are more fair since there will always be fanfavorites that will end up winning even without fake votes. But that is just me. I still love, enjoy and will support your work cuz you do a great work. I Have ideas but not the knowledge to make this stuff myself. :)
fe_9211
Aww man that sucks, well hopefully we can still see the Ivy project maybe mid next month? Or worst case scenario early February, Idk I'm just commenting my thoughts 😅
Crawdaddy
You know what, I'm honestly just kinda amused that someone would burn this amount of money to make sure that one hot imaginary lady gets featured instead of another.
Gurrenleader1990
I'm more than happy with this. I've been waiting for a new busty enhanced 2B animation from you since the first one you did back in 2021. I love Liara, but I did feel like we see her too much sometimes. Considering 2B's first animation from you was 2021. I hope this doesn't mean that this form of cheating happened in the past also. So I have only praise and excitement now for this from you for Christmas. Always looking forward to any animation from you regardless of it being a loop or scenario. Funny enough I've always preferred the loops sometimes, but the recent scenarios have been killer. Looking forward to a 2B Christmas from you. I was always more of a Samara lover anyway lol.
Vicilo91
While It is disappointing that Liara won't get her first scenario (she is my favorite also), I think it is more than fair that those who voted for 2B get what they would have gotten without the votes tempering. I think it's a good decision on your part and an honest one especially since you could have keep things hidden and work on your Poster Girl rather than putting yourself in a position where you have to speed up your work to deliver something with 2B. I support you completely and say keep up the good work!
DevilSlayer666
Just don't have the time anymore. Least some people will have their Christmas character I guess. Just idk not really excited for it was never really much of a fan of 2b.
DH
That is entirely your prerogative and I understand perfectly.
DevilSlayer666
I'm sorry I just don't see it happening considering she was already in a loop 3 months ago And wasn't put in a scenario. even if that's the case I'm not gonna continue to wait anymore and get my hopes up, not worth it.
DH
I would disagree that is the case. If Liara wins the next Loop, her cooldown will end so that the next time she is featured in the poll it'll be over a Scenario, and she tends to perform really well regardless of when she appears, so there's a high chance she will win a Scenario in the future. Again, I understand your disappointment and that you won't want to wait around if your chief concern is to see her featured in a Scenario.
DevilSlayer666
And as long as it stays like that, she will never be in a new scenario again, only loops. And I'm tired of seeing the loops no offense
DH
Cooldowns are structured in such a way that characters will come back for the other kind of content, so if they win a loop, they will be able to return for a Scenario, and Liara does tend to win pretty regularly whenever she's featured, but I understand perfectly.
DevilSlayer666
If it's gonna be like that then Liara will never have a new scenario and just loops, sorry but that's not for me.
DH
I understand, and I somewhat share your disappointment (to no one's surprise I am a big Liara fan) but my content direction is out of my hands since I allow my voting tiers to dictate it these days. All I can do is try to keep true to polling results and make sure it's fair.
DevilSlayer666
It's not like I understand situations. I know someone cheated to make her win and happy it was taken care of. However again i thought in the beginning of this month that Liara would have some sort of special video since it was Christmas. I just didn't want to see her again in a loop rather in a new scenario video
DH
Not an option, but I will be keeping a more watchful eye on the voting statistics from now on so as to make sure this does not happen again.
DH
I understand you are disappointed, but since I have access to the data file (creators can download it and even see who votes for what) I can attest to the fact that she would not have won without these 9 votes, instead ending up in third place behind 2B and Chun-Li. All I can do as a creator is be more cognizant of this in the future so as to make sure people don't get disappointed and also to spare myself all the extra work.
DevilSlayer666
To say I'm disappointed is a understatement. I generally believe she won the poll without people cheating or tempering. As happy as I am to see that this was a scam and it was taken care of, I'm still not happy 2b will be for Christmas and not Liara. 2b isn't bad however Liara will get another loop again and no new scenario. I'm sorry but I'm not gonna follow for something I'm not excited when I know putting 2b at the top of a voting poll was pretty much a guarantee win.
Derples
At this point Liara should just be taken out of the polls already lol
DH
Update: The multiple accounts allegation is incidentally all but confirmed since blocking a single one of them on Patreon appears to have blocked all 9 of them, so Patreon's systems somehow recognize that they belong to the same core email address or similar. To further lend credence to their throwaway nature, it is worth noting that none of these accounts had Discord accounts associated with them either. Alone that says little, but coupled with everything else I feel it makes my case stronger. Thanks folks, my apologies, and hope you look forward to some 2B action this holiday.
