New Anticheat Measure Going Live Today

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Originally Posted by FinalFantasyWorld

Allowing a "trusted" kdmate to xlog your prov for money even if its for a maximum of 3 weeks

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How are you going to create the province to sit in the first place though? If you create a second prov to sit for the sake of having that province aid your primary province, you'd have to either 1. create it using the same IP as your primary, which would probably flag both accounts for deletion 2. create it using a different IP. But if you go through the trouble of making a second account using a different IP (and you get away with it), why would you bother to province sit in the first place? You wouldn't because province sitting requires money and with situation #2 you have a means of cheating that accomplishes the same thing, but is free.

My point is that province sitting, in and of itself, is not an advantage. People keep bringing up province sitting because they think it's a means of forcing people to pay i.e. if you province sit, then you can equalize the disadvantage that the new rules impose on previously whitelisted players. But you can only do this for 3 weeks (not the whole age) and so it's pretty clear that the intention of this new change is not to rope people into having to pay for province sitting. Making the accusation that the devs are greedy and that's why they've implemented this change is not based in fact; just because you are upset, doesn't mean that you are correct. Those of you who are upset and disagree with the changes have some good points, but making false accusations doesn't help your cause.

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Originally Posted by Hyth79

How are you going to create the province to sit in the first place though? If you create a second prov to sit for the sake of having that province aid your primary province, you'd have to either 1. create it using the same IP as your primary, which would probably flag both accounts for deletion 2. create it using a different IP. But if you go through the trouble of making a second account using a different IP (and you get away with it), why would you bother to province sit in the first place? You wouldn't because province sitting requires money and with situation #2 you have a means of cheating that accomplishes the same thing, but is free.

My point is that province sitting, in and of itself, is not an advantage. People keep bringing up province sitting because they think it's a means of forcing people to pay i.e. if you province sit, then you can equalize the disadvantage that the new rules impose on previously whitelisted players. But you can only do this for 3 weeks (not the whole age) and so it's pretty clear that the intention of this new change is not to rope people into having to pay for province sitting. Making the accusation that the devs are greedy and that's why they've implemented this change is not based in fact; just because you are upset, doesn't mean that you are correct. Those of you who are upset and disagree with the changes have some good points, but making false accusations doesn't help your cause.

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Never said that the devs are doing this for the money, only pointing out how is sitting unfair as well. The fact that it costs a significant amount of money moves it towards a pay to escape a rule principle.

Scenario A:
There are a pair of whitelisted roomates. Roomate A decides to go on vacation. He has a few choices:
Under the old system, roomate B can potentially just xlog his mate
Roomate A can go for vacation mode like an honest player
Roomate A can pay for province sitting and have KDmate C sit his prov for the equivalent of what roomate B could have done

So what is the difference between choices 1 and 3?

Scenario B:
Sitting can be used for 21 days maximum per age (counting 72 hours per min time war we have 7 wars ). 20 prov kd. 10 players are hyperactives, 10 are slackers. Everytime a war comes, slackers turn on province sitting. so 10 hyperactives play 20 provinces during war for a price. (paying for xlogging)

Compare with Scenario C:
Whitelisted players now have a huge restriction on interactions. 10 pairs of whitelisted players become impaired in war. as opposed to the sitting scenario B. Even if the whitelisted players were multis, what is the difference that can be seen from scenario B? All i can see is that one is multi-ing all the time and the other would be half the time. So is sitting now a big advantage or what?

PS: The reason why i chose 72 hours is because sitting must be turned on for minimum of 72 hours and not the war time 48 hour minimum

The argument of 2 family members who play together in same kingdom having an unfair advantage over other kingdoms is a bit flawed. So one of their players needs intel for a hit and can yell downstairs to his family member and ask them if they could get an som for them. A monarch depending on how many in his kingdom happen to be online on irc at the time can call on any of 25 provinces for the same thing. Alliance members are likely in contact with a lot more folks who can hook a brother up with some intel if needed. Say its a 4 kd alliance, 100 provinces that would be a much greater advantage than one person you could call on to work with. Most monarch's and most long term players for that matter likely still keep contact with friends from past kingdoms and others they have come across many of who would also be willing to help them out with intel if nothing else. In what way do they have less advantage then 2 players who happen to share the same house/ip address?
So If a couple interacting in the game is unfair. An alliance interacting with 100 or more other players has to be really unfair (many have argued for years that it is, but I just found it another dynamic to the game that attracts/keeps players who happen to like alliance play). Is there going to be a ban on alliances to remove their unfair advantage over non alliance kingdoms/players?

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Originally Posted by FinalFantasyWorld

Never said that the devs are doing this for the money, only pointing out how is sitting unfair as well. The fact that it costs a significant amount of money moves it towards a pay to escape a rule principle.

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You haven't, but several people have.

Scenario A: I don't really get what you're trying to say (it's really late where I am now and I'm sleepy). If you're legit on vacation, what's wrong with vacation mode?

Scenario B: This is the most convincing example for general cheating, though I feel like this kind of activity (vacation mode everytime there's a war) would be suspicious to ppl like Bishop and investigated manually. I also think you'd be hard pressed to force slackers to go into vacation mode during every war; they are slackers, but they're still playing and want to have fun.

Scenario C: I agree, it would appear that a previously white-listed couple using province sitting have an advantage over those not using province-sitting.

Ok, I'm sort of convinced. Thank you for taking the time to respond constructively (unlike many of the posts in this thread).

What has sitting got to do with this? Get back to the topic at hand please.

I reckon what you're doing now is being more Catholic than the Pope.With your argument that family members/roommates have an unfair advantage you are being so wrong as marketing strategy and logic also.
all over the world,there are some benefits from joining as couples/family members etc.,from bringing new people.
E.G.: if you go to a gym/health club/any other club or hobby as a couple or friends,you usually benefit of a discount.Is that unfair for others who go alone?In a way,it is,but this is life and you rarely hear someone complaining.This is the way marketing goes.Even if the game is called Utopia,you cannot stop to work with the real life patterns,coz there aren't any others.Players are real people and those who want to cheat will do so in any circumstance.
You're not only demanding good honest players to adapt to such situation,cheaters will also adapt and faster than the rest,since that's what they do.
You made some mistakes,the worst is that you offended good honest players by calling them cheaters and this is not acceptable.Many will quit only because of this insult.
Not only you will lose some of the good players(NOT cheaters) but you'll lose potential players.If one had in mind to start playing with their family members/roommates they won't anymore.
Yes,one can play in a different kd,but when one starts playing a game they will want some support and to play in a familiar environment.
Yes,people can play in different kds,that won't stop husband attacking for wife or sister for brother.
Even someone who quit can attack or perform ops for their spouses/siblings etc.Or you'll put fingerprint identification?
What you're doing is not wise.The rest of the advantages as giving aid or attacking the same target as war,is an advantage that any active player has,it's no need to play from the same location to do it,you can talk on the phone or on messengers/skype etc.
You should chase real cheaters that annoy this game,not people who have a right to play in the same kd if they want and to benefit from aid like any other kd member and take part to the strategy.
I repeat: it is not wise,it's a decision with few to no gains and many loses from many perspectives.
I know you're trying to do something good,but you also should listen to people that's why you ask for feedback right,to hear opinions.I haven't posted so far because I couldn't even imagine you would really do such a thing,this is a matter to be observed very carefully.
Hoping you'll reconsider ruining this game instead of making it more solid and player friendly.
Thank you.

Sitting is on topic Bishop as it pretty much allows the same activities the new policy blocks so long as you are willing to pay for it. Do think the point has been made on sitting though, and either management will consider it or not and beating that dead horse doesnt serve much purpose at this point.

Sitting has nothing to do with the anti-cheat methods introduced on Friday, please just stick to discussing them.

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Originally Posted by Bishop

Sitting has nothing to do with the anti-cheat methods introduced on Friday, please just stick to discussing them.

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The point is being made that having two provinces under the same roof in your kingdom is an unfair advantage. The response to this is that sitting offers the same benefits except that you don't have the same restrictions. You can sit 7x 3 days which for many kingdoms is enough to cover their wars which is when the restrictions hurt the most.

The point is that sitting has no bearing on the new anti-cheat mechanics. If you guys choose to derail the thread with unrelated points i will remove them and ban persistent posters. If you'd like to make a new thread to talk about sitting you are free to do so.

Couples do not have an unfair advantage anymore then an organized kingdom does in terms of interaction. Yes physically they are closer and can get info for each other by going into the other room and signing in but good kingdoms can just text each other and get the same results at the same speed. This system is ridiculous if you think you are stopping the true cheaters with anything.

This is your basis for the new system no? You don't feel like taking care of the whitelist and couples have some absurd advatange. Way to go after a minority of players and just mess with them completely in war. Meanwhile the game still has ticks, goes down every now and then, no autofill form for thievery or magic, needs 3rd party tools nto be playd properly. So you don't care about big or small issues, except the xlogging couples. Brilliant priorities.

Actually no E_boko - the basis for this new system is not couples. The reason for it is mainly to help combat cheating. As already stated clearly in 2 blog posts the restrictions being applied to couples is an unfortunate but necessary side effect.

And I'm saying you have your priorities screwed up. How bout making the game better before turning more people off from it?

Also I don't care if you gave me a month notice for this crap. changes should not be made mid age. Sure let's just change the rules around mid age. That's smart and fair

Priorities differ depending where you stand, this was a huge one for us as we cannot scale without it. When would you like teh change made? It was going to happen mid age because we needed age data to verify.

I don't like to play Utopia without my boyfriend. So we decided not to play at all. Playing utopia is only fun for me on a high level and in high level kingdoms there are strategies that are not possible now, if you live together. The only option for me is quit or cheat. I decided to quit (or not come back because I took a break) because cheating sounds like too much effort to be worth it. It is only a game.

It makes me sad though, because Utopia is the place where I met my boyfriend.

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Originally Posted by Bishop

Priorities differ depending where you stand, this was a huge one for us as we cannot scale without it. When would you like teh change made? It was going to happen mid age because we needed age data to verify.

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To verify its gonna do what it was intended to do? So you need age info to confirm you're stopping cheater implying you don't know if this will help? You're just gonna have an age of data showing ppl leave the game instead.

I haven't read all 30 pages of this thread, but I think the main sentiment of the posts is that Bishop & developers are kindly requested to reconsider the implemented mode of cheat-protection. As most of the previous posters, I am in favor of good anti-cheat measures.
I started playing Utopia (@Jolt) in the late 90s when I was at University. I was introduced to the game by a couple of fellow students, and quickly we decided to try to get into the same kingdom. This is when all the trouble started; Mehul noticed the multiple logins from the same IP address due to the fact that we were using our University internet rooms to play. We've had so many arguments and in the end we convinced Mehul to "whitelist" us.

It seems that 14 years later we're having the same discussions/problems again. People who have been playing the game for ages are now being punished because a couple of idiots from GodKnowsWhere break the rules. Was the whitelist really such a burden? How often did you get a request to have a certain IP address whitelisted? And sure, you would have to do some checking to ensure that the whitelist request would be legit, but there are many ways to confirm if there are actually two or more people on the other side. Perhaps you could investigate this further, I am sure that in the past 14 years technology was developed to provide you with good-enough information about the people at a certain IP address.
Imho the worst of the current implemented method of anti-cheat: it will not cover xlogging; if I have 2 IP addresses for example home and work, I could just use a VMWare session with which I could open a VPN to my work. You would see my home IP and work IP and there is NO WAY you can tell if anything is wrong. I could also sit at home and ask my neighbor to grant me access to their wireless network... if you really want to limit the xlogging, the best way is the whitelist (for now); there's always the option of issueing private certificates, but that would require payment...

Finally, I'm bothered by the fact that Bishop will not investigate the "Couples" issue that has been raised. My wife bloody hates Utopia so it won't benefit me, but I do know some people who would be very glad if you could tweak your changes a bit.

"Was the whitelist really such a burden? How often did you get a request to have a certain IP address whitelisted?"

Yes, it was a massive time sink. Over 40% of support queue requests were whitelist requests and about 50% were multy/farm reports. These whitelist requests took a disproportionate amount of time to resolve and it would be impossible to scale up the game with support as it stood.

Additionally, many of these requests came from people that were clearly looking to get us to whitelist a farm account. Not only that, but as time passed when the whitelisted account was reviewed it became immediately apparent that it was being abused.

Additionally additionally, whitelisting a couple once is useless unless you verify who they are each and every time they long in. This is obviously not workable.

What is workable is blocking the reasons people cheat. Unfortunately for partners the flags that get raised for someone running multiple accounts are pretty similar to those that live together and play. However, the inconvenience to partners is small compared to the blocks put in place for someone running farms or intel multies.

whats the couples issue?

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Originally Posted by faegan

Imho the worst of the current implemented method of anti-cheat: it will not cover xlogging; if I have 2 IP addresses for example home and work, I could just use a VMWare session with which I could open a VPN to my work. You would see my home IP and work IP and there is NO WAY you can tell if anything is wrong. I could also sit at home and ask my neighbor to grant me access to their wireless network...

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These kind of methods are why cheating will not be stopped. It will however stop regular couples -- because it will be too much work for them.

I dont really like repeating myself, but i guess some things are worth repeating.

As much as you guys think you know, you do not have any insight into the cheating we deal with on a day to day basis. This mechanic will massively reduce our workload. A workload that stops the game from growing as we devote too much time to it.

Why would we care if you use your neighbours wireless?

Then if you have 40% more time now I expect to see some real changes to the game to make more ppl want to play it instead of crapping on a few. Ill give you two ages to wow me.

I want to give a big thank you to Sean and Brian for giving me my life back!

I started playing Utopia years ago (During a series of really short beta rounds) and have immensely enjoyed the game for longer than anyone has a right to enjoy anything. I took a long break, though, for a couple of years while I was going through college and hadn't decided to pick it up again until Age 50, when my boyfriend (Who I had introduced to the game back in the first age, while we were both in junior high) started playing again while he was bored working third shift as a security guard.

He started playing with a couple of people who seemed a good group, and then asked me to join the kingdom he was building from scratch. At first I was hesitant because I didn't want to deal with the trading/scripting that used to be required to get into a kingdom, but he told me that it was now within the rules to invite people to a kingdom, so we looked up the logistics of the "Whitelist" and eventually got approved and I joined the kingdom.

While on the whitelist, we tried to be very thorough in keeping the developers and moderators aware of any changes we made in habits (He logs in from work on his cell phone network as well as at the house, I only login from the house.) going so far as to e-mail and inform the team of our vacation plans when we went to the Greenbrier Resort for the Greenbrier Classic golf tournament, and again when we went to the beach in South Carolina. We were two people who live together and wanted to play together, and in no way were we trying to cheat. We did do what all good kingdoms do, and we aided each other and followed chain targets.

And then the newest change hit, and we are unable to do that any longer. While we are still allowed to play in the same kingdom, it actually HINDERS the kingdom for us to be there. We honestly didn't think there would be all that many issues with the changes, at first. Sure, sending aid would be difficult, and he and I would be unable to be the intel gatherers for the kingdom (Which we had done often in the past) and even the chains would have to be worked around, by having multiple targets that we could each hit.

However, with a current war going on, and our kingdom relying on us to do certain things, we've found ourselves unable to perform the tasks the kingdom needs us to perform. We are supposed to be ambushing attacks on us made by the chain targets (To lower their incoming land, since an ambush is lowering the incoming land to a greater degree than 4x traditional marches would), however, as fate would have it, he had attacked one person over 12 hours ago before he went to work, and I had attacked another person later. Wouldn't you know it, the one he attacked ended up hitting me, and the one I attacked hit him. The one target hit him for 89 and 73 acres, and instead of being able to ambush for 44 and 36 acres, we have to have someone else hitting them for less gains than the ambush would be. The one who hit me took 82 and 69 acres, and instead of being able to ambush 41 and 34 respectively, people are having to hit for 13-16 acres or less (The person suicided and has no defense home, but still has over 150 acres incoming, which means we can't drop them low enough to be overpopulated when the land comes in.)

Since we are hindering the kingdom, the best thing we can do is not play together in the kingdom. If that is the direction we decide to go, then neither one of us will continue to play the game at all, since playing with friends and family is the only thing that is keeping us here almost 14 years later. So while it is a bit sad to be leaving the game again, I do have to say thank you for giving me an excuse to quit so I can have my life back. This game has been a part of me for half the time I've been alive, but all things must come to an end. I just wish I could say "all good things", but I can't, because the game has gone downhill faster than a landslide over the last couple of ages.

So long, thanks for all the memories (And the fish!) and please, do the world a favor and NEVER, EVER get involved with another game project again, because all it will do is lose you money and destroy people's lives. Ciao!

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Originally Posted by Bishop

Priorities differ depending where you stand, this was a huge one for us as we cannot scale without it. When would you like teh change made? It was going to happen mid age because we needed age data to verify.

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By scale I can only assume you are trying to scale 1:92 like a model car, right? That would be, what, 77-78 players that you hope to retain?

Moved your post in here lost_stacey.

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Originally Posted by Bishop

Why would we care if you use your neighbours wireless?

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Because he could run multies by using his wireless and his neighbor's wireless. Not understanding simple things like that is why nobody trusts you to know anything about what you are doing.

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Originally Posted by Lost_Stacey

Because he could run multies by using his wireless and his neighbor's wireless. Not understanding simple things like that is why nobody trusts you to know anything about what you are doing.

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So could everyone in the world in any situation involving any sort of pvp. That doesnt mean we still wont be looking for people using farms. IP address isn't the only way to identify a farm you know.

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Originally Posted by Bishop

Moved your post in here lost_stacey.

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So Anri and others can have goodbye threads, but I cannot? What a hypocrite. Is this what not having to deal with couples playing together will free up your time for? More time to be hypocritical and judgmental?

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Originally Posted by Lost_Stacey

Because he could run multies by using his wireless and his neighbor's wireless. Not understanding simple things like that is why nobody trusts you to know anything about what you are doing.

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Of course he understands that.... but to the game it's still two different IPs, as long as there is no suspicious farming/interaction there is no cheating. So why would that be a problem?

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Originally Posted by Lost_Stacey

So Anri and others can have goodbye threads, but I cannot? What a hypocrite. Is this what not having to deal with couples playing together will free up your time for? More time to be hypocritical and judgmental?

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You were targeting the topic this thread is covering, it was not a typical goodbye thread.

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Originally Posted by Lost_Stacey

So Anri and others can have goodbye threads, but I cannot? What a hypocrite. Is this what not having to deal with couples playing together will free up your time for? More time to be hypocritical and judgmental?

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So your post wasn't about the new anti-cheat mechanics? i get that you are annoyed but there is no reason to complain that i moved your post into a relevant thread.

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So long, thanks for all the memories (And the fish!) and please, do the world a favor and NEVER, EVER get involved with another game project again, because all it will do is lose you money and destroy people's lives. Ciao!

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If this ruins your life you certainly have bigger problems than this to handle maybe not playing utopia is a good step.

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Originally Posted by DHaran

Of course he understands that.... but to the game it's still two different IPs, as long as there is no suspicious farming/interaction there is no cheating. So why would that be a problem?



You were targeting the topic this thread is covering, it was not a typical goodbye thread.

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Oh, please sir, can you give me template for my goodbye thread? Because I am 100% certain that EVERY GOODBYE THREAD IS EXACTLY THE SAME! People cannot discuss the reasons they are leaving the game?

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Originally Posted by Bishop

So your post wasn't about the new anti-cheat mechanics? i get that you are annoyed but there is no reason to complain that i moved your post into a relevant thread.

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The post was NOT about the anti-cheat mechanics, is was about me leaving the game. Did I touch on the issues I was leaving? Yes, I did, much like EVERY OTHER goodbye thread ever created by anyone. But that would make entirely too much sense for someone like you to understand.

No need to be rude.

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Oh, please sir, can you give me template for my goodbye thread? Because I am 100% certain that EVERY GOODBYE THREAD IS EXACTLY THE SAME! People cannot discuss the reasons they are leaving the game?

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Well, a typical goodbye thread consist of why you quit playing and you thanking all your wonderful friends that you played with. Out of your post maybe the two last paragraphs would qualify as a goodbye post.

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Originally Posted by Lost_Stacey

Oh, please sir, can you give me template for my goodbye thread? Because I am 100% certain that EVERY GOODBYE THREAD IS EXACTLY THE SAME! People cannot discuss the reasons they are leaving the game?



The post was NOT about the anti-cheat mechanics, is was about me leaving the game. Did I touch on the issues I was leaving? Yes, I did, much like EVERY OTHER goodbye thread ever created by anyone. But that would make entirely too much sense for someone like you to understand.

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Am I mistaken that your entire post was directed specifically to Brian and Sean? They will be reading this thread, not the others in UT. Your message to them is best heard here.

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Originally Posted by Lost_Stacey

[...]
So long, thanks for all [...] the fish!

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+ 1

To all mods:

How long will it take before a proper time limit could be implemented into this system?

3 days out of war
2 days unfriendly
1 day hostile
12 hours war

This would make it more manageable for the kingdoms with couples, like Nancy and I in Wanna Play. I hear a lot of kingdoms complaining about this feature when they are in war, but I have no issues with it while we are pumping or outside of war. Obviously this will be an issue when we go back to war. Has this feature been discussed and is there any time limit as to when it could be implemented? It is an honest feature that will keep your new system in place but give the actual couples, still a chance to play in the same kingdom and not be so limited.

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Originally Posted by Bishop

I dont really like repeating myself, but i guess some things are worth repeating.

As much as you guys think you know, you do not have any insight into the cheating we deal with on a day to day basis. This mechanic will massively reduce our workload. A workload that stops the game from growing as we devote too much time to it.

Why would we care if you use your neighbours wireless?

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You are right about my knowledge of things -- I was going to write something about how for me to give detailed suggestions of how, I would need to know things, I should not be allowed to know. Answering the question, however, the reason you should care if I use the neighbors wifi is because that gives me more IPs I can use...the more ways I can think of gaining IPs the more accounts I can have that is not detected.

With this new system they should now have more time to spend on those cases. (patterns)

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Originally Posted by scavenger

with this new system they should now have more time to spend on those cases. (paterns)

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ding ding ding!

The system is not going to be shut down guys, better spend your energy offering suggestions on how to make it work better or how to adapt to the changes.