What are they?
They are just like any other time crystals you meditate but hackers have found a way to mess with the coding and found a way to to pick these TCs up and mass duplicate them. (But let’s not get too detailed with that).
These are not the same as the TC unknowns.
What do they look like?
Why are they so “popular”?
Just like when you pick up meditated TCs, they increase your TC count. These TCs that are hacked/pirated are the same. When you drop these TCs onto the ground and pick them up, they add to your TC count. They are items you can store in your inventory/safes/chests. In terms of lag and corruption of the servers, these hacked/pirated TCs cause is unknown.
Why are they bad?
Duping/hacking/pirating TCs is bad. Why? Because it is stealing income from Dave. Dave works hard to make Blockheads a better and awesome place for us players. Stealing income from such an amazing developer is wrong. TCs, as well as other features, are the only source of income for Majic Jungle – if everyone were to start duping TCs, Majic Jungle would no longer be able to pay to keep cloud servers open and The Blockheads would die; obviously, this is the worst case scenario but you get the point.
“TCs are used to pay for cloud worlds. To provide cloud worlds we pay real-world money. The increase in cloud worlds since TC pirating came to the fore has been large, and thus our expenses have grown a great deal. It’s not about greed on our part. It’s about ensuring the game remains viable. If expenses grow too much faster than the income the game will be more likely to lose online support, and thus everyone misses out”.
- Milla
Community Manager of The Blockheads
What to do if you find them?
Do not drop them and pick them up from the ground. Keep them in their storage. Dispose of the chest/safe/basket in lava.
What to do if you have already used hacked/pirated TCs?
Teleport everywhere. Use the TCs up by rushing things. You can also make lots of portals and chuck them into lava as well.
What not to do when you have used hacked/pirated TCs:
Never ever use them to make cloud servers or to add credit. As mentioned above, this is the worst you can do with hacked time crystals.
What to do if you find a player who has/is hacking/pirated/duping TCs:
Do your part, educate them. Enforce your rules on your servers and take necessary actions.
Any improvements/suggestions for this guide is welcome.
Thank you to those who have helped out.
For those of you who are out there trying to educate players on the hacked TCs crisis, I have made a TinyURL link that directs players to this page. Here is the link: https://tinyurl.com/hackedtimecrystals
Note: As of 1.7 update, hacked time crystals will no longer be an issue