today, notpron fundamentally changed. Here's what's new:
No more tax accounts
From Oct 23rd 2020, paid tax accounts are no longer required. Instead, players can now use their forum account to access -34 and onwards. Existing tax accounts will of course continue to work.
No more level nu
From Oct 29th 2020, level nu (the final level) is no longer part of notpron.
No more certificates
From Oct 29th 2020, players that finish notpron will no longer be able to request a certificate. The reasoning behind this is:
- it would be unfair for players who have solved notpron including nu, because it is now significantly easier to finish
- the notpron team has invested a lot of time and effort to try and make sure that cheaters cannot get to the end and thus cannot get a certificate. Part of the anti-cheater barrier was the requirement for paid accounts, which is no longer the case, so it would be easier for cheaters to get to the end, which would take away value from the certificates.
- Notpron still does not like cheaters, and without a certificate, there is no longer an incentive to cheat. Honest players who enjoy the game will still try to solve all levels, and cheaters will lose their motivation and likely quit.
Well, it was time for a change. All these measures meant continuous work for DavidM and the notpron team, and after over 16 years, lives have changed and priorities have shifted. This moment was inevitable, and now it has come.
Final words
I want to give out a few big thank yous to some people for their work and dedication:
- amh for all his work on forum moderation, player support, nu access and input/feedback
- Catz and weaver for their big contribution of new level solutions, their input/feedback, work on nu access and their moderation of the Notpron Discord
- Wolfi for making the nu target submission system (twice)
- Everyone who helped notpron in any way, be it reporting bugs, helping other players, reporting spam, helping moderate IRC and Discord and so on