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[SecondBestPolicy]

@SecondBestPolicy

I play on mobile my ads are third party Google Play. Don't know if that will help at all but it's all I've go

Turns out this is it. Google ad services and related are blocked. Going to take a bit of research to what, if anything I can do about it, but at least it's a start.

Thank you

 

[elvenbee]

Sigh… your point is invalid. If you don’t like the rules, leave. Nobody is forcing you to be here.

 

[BrinDarby]

Yes.

so now clearing 6 drops will take 3-6 minutes, if they
all have an ad ..... seriously, that now takes 6 seconds.....

(dramatic music) In the beginning, Free really meant
that you "pay" with your data being collected ..... lol

Now, thats a given I guess, due to Google/Apple 's
monopolistic tract. Either you integrate your whole
company into "the beast", or go by the wayside.....
Or be bought/absorbed by 1 of these conglomorates.

Example : FitBit , bought out by google, in the future
without an app and a google acct, they won't work...
( everything you buy, is heading that way )

I think the crux here is most ppl decide or don't, to
do buisness with a company. There is an expectation
that it is a transaction between 2 parties, not a way
for 1 party to transfer security/privacy/data to a 3rd party.

There have been expose's about company A not even
knowing what ads are shown by Company G. Its wasn't
until reg ppl complained to Company A, were they even
aware of the unwanted ads on thier platform. Once they
were aware, some of these companies lost 80-90% of
thier ad revenue due to those companies demanding
the ads be removed.

We are not in the boardroom of Inno, or in the Dev meetings,
@ best we get criptic impressions of Inno's actual reasoning.
We have no clue what if any pressure might be comming from
companies like Google/Apple to further integrate into Elvenar.
What we do seem to think is Inno/Elvenar has a revenue prob,
OR just a greed problem.......lolol... Heck, we have no clue, what
is the real problem, if 1 exsists..... heh heh.

At the end of the day, WE are the players logging in every day.
While we have no hard power, we do have soft power. I'm not
suggesting a revolt, just that Inno understand the cost of new
player aquisistion, because every player that leaves because of
the ads/anything ... has to be replaced just to keep the current
playerbase from shrinking, let alone expand.

Most games I've seen hit the saturation wall, then become focused
on squeezing every penny from current players, while they watch
that dredd'd death spiral of the playerbase's evaporation. What
they ignore is thier players saying " we'd pay for this/that " yet
those changes aren't on the list to happen.

Any successfull game/company has a symbiotic relationship with
thier players/customers. Once you break that, the house of cards
can come tumbling down. Why didn't Inno listen to players when
they'd say..... we'd pay for this/that, rather than just implementing
itegration with google/apple, basically making Inno a sub-contractor.

We talk about privacy/data issues, yet Inno ( with multiple games )
can't even offer a simple "gift card", totally anonymous, at my
local supermarket ???? even Minecraft offers those...... By logging
into Elvenar, I am doing buisness with Inno-Games.... Not Apple,
Not Google, Not Amazon... If Inno can't fullfill my needs themselves,
they they have no buisness getting my $$$ or my data ( my opinion )

 

[SecondBestPolicy]

Turns out this is it. Google ad services and related are blocked. Going to take a bit of research to what, if anything I can do about it, but at least it's a start.

Thank you

Resolved, if anyone is interested. Turns out the problem is not Adblocker, despite the misleading message. As long as Adblocker is disabled for Elvenar and Innogames you should be good to go.
I also run NoScript, and had to enable it for googlesyndication.com, googleadservices.com, and doubleclick.net. (Not sure if I want to do this, I'll have to see how it effects other sites I frequent. But that's a topic for another day.) I should have thought of that sooner, but was thrown off by the adblock warning.

 

[ajqtrz]

There are two things we have to consider in this. First, is Inno making enough money to warrant avoiding the revenue it generates from ads? If not, then the ads are a way to make up for what the players are not paying. If so, then from where is the pressure coming to ad this revenue stream? Usually, companies compare other products -- their own or other company's products -- and expect a similar or greater profit. And they must do this because they have shareholders who demand the highest return on investment. So if company A makes 1% profit on $1,000,000 revenue, and company B makes 1.1%, the capital invested in company A will flow to company B. That starts a down hill trend as, without capital, a company cannot generate/produce new or improved products. So they can't "do without" if the current profits are not at or above their competition.

Second, you can look at the ads as an offer to improve your city. Just another way to pay for your play. If they forced you to look it would not be a "free to play" game but a "pay with your eyeballs" game. But you aren't forced to watch, as far as I can see. So they offer another way to improve your city and you have to decide if it's worth what they pay. Personally, I probably ignore the ads most of the time, but then I haven't gotten the hobby thing my builders hut so I don't know about how that works and if I would be okay with it.

So if you don't want the ads, don't watch them. You risk, of course, forcing Inno to decide if Elvenar is worth it when they are making less than they would be if they had ads, and that, I know from personal experience with Lords of Ultima, can lead to a game closing and all the years and years of work on your city, going "poof!"

 

[MischiefMakerMe]

Well... I opened an ad from the builder. First run gave me 15 min. increase seed production. Seconded run sent off an alert and my computer went bonkers. It said it detected a security risk and then it totally blocked me from doing anything. It said somethings in the line of " We have detected a threat to your computers safety. Windows had blocked access. Call Windows to release the block." I tried to get past the message but it just kept popping up. I then shut the computer down for a few minutes and came back. I will NOT open anymore of these if this is what is going on. Either it is an actual threat to my computer security or its a scam to get access to my computer.

 

[BrinDarby]

@ajqtrz ,
Aj, Aj, Aj .... we both know its not that simple...
and 1 flipside is any game can just ad ads to
increase profits, the great ones never need to
because thier playerbase supports them enuff.

Seriously tho, adverts just for an event drop in
the city, I think thats totally rediculious... but as
@MischiefMakerMe just posted, if thats what
it costs for a simple city drop ( as reported in
beta thread ) then everything from Events to
FAs to even Spire/tourn will be fair game...
When that happens, the game itself is 1 huge
security risk, and the playerbase will react ....
I'm guessing, not positively.

 

[Astram]

Well... I opened an ad from the builder. First run gave me 15 min. increase seed production. Seconded run sent off an alert and my computer went bonkers. It said it detected a security risk and then it totally blocked me from doing anything. It said somethings in the line of " We have detected a threat to your computers safety. Windows had blocked access. Call Windows to release the block." I tried to get past the message but it just kept popping up. I then shut the computer down for a few minutes and came back. I will NOT open anymore of these if this is what is going on. Either it is an actual threat to my computer security or its a scam to get access to my computer.

Please see this for help or this This is an internal issue for you to fix

 

[crackie]

Please see this for help or this This is an internal issue for you to fix

So we are confirming the ads are malware delivery platforms and the mess is for users to clean up?

 

[Lelanya]

Yeah I have to agree with @crackie, what a ridiculous situation. You know, the end result is, I may be uninstalling Elvenar's phone app, permanently.

 

[Astram]

No, Generally this is caused by an existing program that hijacks the ad and re-directs it to another site. These are classified as potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) that often infiltrate systems without permission. As well as causing redirects, PUPs misuse system resources, gather information, and deliver malicious ads

 

[Dreamyn2]

“It couldn’t have been our ads. You must have already had malware from some other site.” ??

I’m still not viewing them, not in this game nor any of my other games that have them. I’ve cleaned too much malware from too many of my friend‘s and relative’s computers. Thanks but no thanks.

 

[crackie]

No, Generally this is caused by an existing program that hijacks the ad and re-directs it to another site. These are classified as potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) that often infiltrate systems without permission. As well as causing redirects, PUPs misuse system resources, gather information, and deliver malicious ads

And we are in a thread about the latest ad implementation where a player experienced scammer laden popups immediately after clicking an ad. If the PUPs were indeed already on her system prior to the latest ad implementations, then she would have experienced this in other places that serve ads bc it would be hijacking the ads already. Given her surprise, I am guessing that is not the case. Or you’re saying the PUP miraculously remained dormant until specific Elvenar ad was played. Either way, it doesn’t smell right.

 

[getmomo]

With all the issues with the game play lately, it wouldn't surprise me that they are having difficulty implementing the ads as well which we all know the malware creators are quick to attack any flaws in the system.

 

[Sprite1313]

so now clearing 6 drops will take 3-6 minutes, if they
all have an ad

No, it won’t. The event drops have no ads, they work just like normal. You will still get the maximum of six simultaneous event drops, with ONE additional ad drop. You don’t have to open the add drop. Or you can open it and immediately close it, without watching the ad. So, you can add between zero seconds and 30 seconds to your usual event currency pickup time.

Personally, I either leave the film reels on the ground, or open them and close them without watching ads.

 

[Sprite1313]

And we are in a thread about the latest ad implementation where a player experienced scammer laden popups immediately after clicking an ad. If the PUPs were indeed already on her system prior to the latest ad implementations, then she would have experienced this in other places that serve ads bc it would be hijacking the ads already. Given her surprise, I am guessing that is not the case. Or you’re saying the PUP miraculously remained dormant until specific Elvenar ad was played. Either way, it doesn’t smell right.

Wish I could give more than one “like” to this.

 

[FaunWillow]

Just a suggestion (not telling anyone what to do here...but this is a good practice for anyone, whether you like/dislike in-game ads ) for players to go into their account settings, in game, on the browser (the app does not give you access to your own account settings/only to "delete account" ) and click on the "Data Usage Options".
It will bring up another tab where you can un-check the Advertising Options. This will help in protecting your data being sold/shared but sadly will not eliminate your data being used/shared and stored completely. INNO uses our data for their own in-game ads they use on other games and platforms.
INNO has not yet updated their privacy policy this year... so it will be interesting to see how they revise their policy to meet with their 'current' standard of using 24metrics Fraudshield that is/was there to detect ad fraud. Hopefully, this is still being used on all in-game ads from other companies that are being shared in Elvenar now. To be continued...I suppose.
Read here: INNO's Privacy Notice

To find your own Advanced Settings in Browser, click on the cog wheel over on the bottom-right hand side of the screen, tab over to "Account", click on "Data Usage Options:

Note: You will still see ads in the game with these options un-checked...but it's another security measure for peace of mind.

 

[elvenbee]

Screenshot for the "Data Usage Options" from @FaunWillow's comment because I literally went and did it immediately after reading that. Thanks FaunWillow!!!

 

[hvariidh gwendrot]

i have spent some $ in hee but nothing makes my wallet snap shut faster than a company admitting they have a revenue problem, why would i ever spend more when you are syaing that you are going broke and game wont last ?? also anyone who thinks there isn't malware in an ad for a dating site is deluded, and funny how i had just swithched services for trash pick up and inno shows me an add for trash services, rackers and malware folks

 

[hvariidh gwendrot]

oh yeah p.s. for the lame suggestions of "just ignore" what happens during an event when hese drops take the place of item pickups ?