Personally, I feel we have gone round and round on the subject of clones to no avail. People either have them and use them, or they don't, there is no in between. They are not the most evil thing in the universe as most people make them out to be, but they can be abused, and I do understand the frustrations that come with that. However, I will be the first to admit that I have clones, and that I use my clones for many a purpose. Most of them are named as a character from the theme of a room or game I have built and want to add another level of interaction to the atmosphere. But I also use them for other purposes, and unfortunately, the only way to play fair is to play with clones. Clones leave a level playing field because they are allowed.
We play a game that has used clones from the get go. So unless we ban clones altogether, and make it so no one can have them, we will remain in a game where a select few
choose to not have them, for whatever reason they deem important. But this is just one part of a larger issue. The small conversations that we have about this mask a larger problem in the community. At its heart, what are we really having a conversation about here? And the two sides of this argument are always the same, those who use clones and those who do not.
So should clones not be allowed to do events? You can not deny that the huge queues are in part filled with clones. Should we say no clones can be riding sits while we are playing, or socializing, on our main accounts? No clones should be able to do quests? As we know clones are not allowed to play minigames with themselves, but is it an unfair advantage if im playing in two separate games of Pirates? These are all uses people use them for, and some who think they are sneaking around on unknown clones truly arent. Its usually pretty easy to spot a clone, I know mine are. But if we say clones cannot do one thing, we need to say they cannot do anything. You can't go halfway on this issue.
Which brings me to this conversation... This event is different than other events that spawn items in rooms. Where pods populated one for every person in the room, you are at a strict disadvantage the minute BB-8 pops into the room due to the fact that there is only one. But a person in a room of five people has a much higher chance of catching him than a person in a room of fifteen. And it can be extremely hard to find other players (who don't leave the room when you enter) to hunt with. But that is their choice. It is their way of playing the game, as much as it is mine to try and find a room with enough people in it. But should we also say friends cannot hunt together? They have a distinct advantage of a group of five friends goes off to hunt themselves. In the time it may have taken for each of them to catch three, other people in a more populated room may have only caught one. Is that fair? Does that not constitute an advantage?
I personally could care less about getting "rares" in this game. A couple of pixels is not worth the time, effort, and occasionally money that this community wants for it. I hunt in these events (especially this one) because it is fun. Because I enjoy chasing around something and trying desperately to catch him. I am here to relive a game I loved, and to take part in the new things this team of people puts into it. Im not always looking for a sense of community (and a lot of times other people aren't either). We can have diplomatic conversations about this til the end of the world, but theres always going to be an unrest in the community unless its outright stated that:
Clones are allowed in all aspects of the game
or
That using clones for anything (except perhaps storage) is strictly forbidden.
You can't have your cake and eat it too in terms of this conversation. I understand both sides, I truly do, and while I fall more to allowing the use of clones side of the argument, people let their emotions cloud their judgement when it comes to this matter. It now falls to the staff team to make a decision on what kind of game they want to run. No matter what, there are going to be people that don't like the decision made, but at a certain point we must stop dancing around technicalities. If and when there is a clear announcement made on the subject, we will no longer have to senselessly argue it every time something like this comes up.