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That's not how you run a business, if you can't stop the cheaters without affecting the non-cheaters then you DONT DO ANYTHING. It's a simple business strategy. People are already upset about the cheating, and it does need to be resolved. But hey guess what, THE CHEATING WILL STILL HAPPEN. BUT NOW, you've alienated people that actually play without cheating.Quote:
Originally Posted by DHaran
That's a VERY VERY poor business strategy.
Logging each other's accounts is unfair to other people who don't have access to 2 provs. If you think a kd is scripted report them to support. Molehills != Mountains.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eus
They have an advantage they should have never had TBH. It's now been corrected to be fair for all and curb cheating.Quote:
Originally Posted by macleod
I think you really should stop posting, because you're antagonizing me and I am sure you're having the same effect on others. You shouldn't work an angry crowd into even more of a fury. We're incensed enough without working us up further.Quote:
Originally Posted by DHaran
And that advantage is???? Logging each others accounts? That's it? That's the advantage? That's weak man : ). All of these changes and that's the only positive change, is that we've now stopped husband's from logging wive's accounts.Quote:
Originally Posted by DHaran
STOP THE PRESSES!!!!!!! Utopia has been revolutionized into a brand new game of anti cheating!!! Now you can't log your wife's account anymore. Oh, but just in case you're not doing that, SCREW YOU!
loll ... vpn are so 2002 .... there are better way to xlog than the way you are mentioning ...Quote:
Originally Posted by macleod
Explain how 2 players with the ability to legally xlog was ever fair to non-couples. The funny thing about angry crowds is that they are generally unreasonable and irrational.Quote:
Originally Posted by loki EQ
Well I don't xlog so it makes sense to why I don't know the best methods :p. This does help prove that they will still do what they're doing now thoughQuote:
Originally Posted by Darkz Azn
I have to show my ID and go through security when I go flying, because of cheaters. I have to type over words to access sites because of cheaters. I have to show my pass when I enter the building where I work because of cheaters. I need codes to make transactions because of cheaters. I get searched when I go see a soccer match because of cheaters. We gotta sit further from the pitch because of cheaters.Quote:
Originally Posted by macleod
Cheating is bad mkay. For everyone.
I am plenty rational. I know that most people think they are logical when they are not. I have degrees that focused on logic, and I probably had to learn logic to earn honors. >:|
Anyway, continue to insinuate that your customers are unreasonable and irrational. You're really winning over hearts and minds (and wallets) with that aggressive crap.
ok? im not arguing that cheating should just go on, when i say DONT DO ANYTHING, i mean don't do this specific fix. The cheating needs to be stopped, but not at the expense of people not cheatingQuote:
Originally Posted by Scavenger
You aren't my customer, I'm stating my opinion just like everyone else is.Quote:
Originally Posted by loki EQ
If cheat detections were based on catering to every single scenario of every single legit player, you would end up with no system at all and a game full of cheaters.Quote:
Originally Posted by macleod
How about we stop bothering about how people are talking and stick with the issues?
Your method and opinions are reflecting poorly on the company that bestowed you with a position of authority on this forum. Better? How did you even convince them to make you a moderator with that sort of manner?Quote:
Originally Posted by DHaran
Go and read my previous few posts. This system isn't fixing anything. That's my biggest problem. The cheaters we have now are pretty smart. Yes, you will get some small timers with this system. But nobody really cares about the small timers as they don't account for much. The kingdoms that are successfully cheating and getting away with it will continue to get away with it. These changes actually change nothing except putting non-cheaters out and stopping a few small timers from making a farm.Quote:
Originally Posted by DHaran
cheating of course still occur ... it almost blindly undetectable ... I have experience it against a lot of kd .... mostly in the mid-tier kd ... the top have been cleanse from their old habit and have been pure legit since the trading been openly accepted.Quote:
Originally Posted by macleod
=) I hope that clear it up for ya =)
I think you'd be surprised how many provinces Bishop currently deletes (manually I might add), and how this system will free up a whole lot of time for him to handle other issues. As always, the players involvement in anti-cheating is as important as ever, if you see something fishy, report it.Quote:
Originally Posted by macleod
I do report it, but i don't report when a wife logs a husband's account as that is small time stuff. If a whole kd is logging each others accounts that's one thing, but if it's just here and there by 2 people is it really worth losing players over?Quote:
Originally Posted by DHaran
And I appreciate what Bishop does for this game. It's people like him that keep the game alive. But this change actually hurts us more then helps us. If Bishop is going around manually deleting farms and now will be able to stop because of this change then guess what? More farms will exist because people are smart enough to trade farms with a friend. Those will now not get deleted. Thus, the problem just got worse.
What's the point of having rules if you allow a privileged few to break them?Quote:
Originally Posted by macleod
Also, how could it be fair for everyone if any player could use VNC to achieve the same benefits as a physical couple playing together? Oh, I guess we just have rules that a privileged few who know about vnc can break.
So let me get this straight...Quote:
Originally Posted by macleod
"Couples" who are cheating and casually logging into each others accounts isn't a big deal. But implementing a system that stops the cheating and attempts to balance the unfair advantage they have, at perhaps the cost of some of these "couples" is a big deal?
Cheating is cheating is cheating. Go ahead and trade your farm with a friend. Don't come crying here when you're deleted.
What would you suggest? Allowing everyone to openly cheat because some people manage to get away with it? If one person manages to cheat its only fair to let everyone, right? You should strive to make the game fair for honest players, and make all efforts to end cheating.Quote:
Originally Posted by loki EQ
So, what you're saying is we must stamp out this plague even if many (most) can still get away with it, but forcing kingdoms to split up and punishing our kingdoms for doing nothing wrong is still justified for the tiny percentage of this tiny group that is cheating. Talk about a band-aid measure.
I give up, you guys clearly don't get it. Cheating is Cheating yea we get it. But you have to weigh the pros and cons. We're barely fixing anything here, and causing more problems then not.
If husbands and wives wish to continue playing with each other and know even a little bit about computers, they will continue to do so.... Just now they will have to cheat to do it. This changes nothing
Just to verify, cause this guy stated it twice.Quote:
Originally Posted by macleod
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bishop
Means they'd still get flagged right? If so it'll shorten this thread.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bishop
edit: nevermind he gave up
Exactly loki, they're successfully stopping 1% of the cheating that happens... at a cost of causing more then that to quit.
I live in an apartment building where many people have wifi. I could just log on to 10 of them to run farms or provinces in the same kingdom and pretend they're being run by different players. My cell phone has a different IP too.
I don't do any of the above but I would like to point out that the new system will solve very little while making it extremely hard for couples to playing in competitive organised kingdoms.
So it's ok to protect the tiny group of couples with the ability to legally xlog, but it's not ok to target a much larger group of cheaters by altering that tiny group's advantages of playing together. I just don't understand your point of view on this, it makes no sense.Quote:
Originally Posted by loki EQ
If you want to arbitrarily make up numbers you have basis for, have fun.Quote:
Originally Posted by macleod
We have already demonstrated how someone could easily get around that aspect of the new system for both the benefits of one person playing many accounts together and one person playing another account for the actual owner on a semi-regular basis. So, I think it is fine to target a much larger group of cheaters, but no part of that necessitates removing the whitelist from the system and basically declaring war on couples in organized kingdoms. It is selective, and it fails at a cost-benefit analysis.
I'm speechless. Please clear up a few points for me... I don't feel like going back through 7 pages to quote everything, so I'll just type it out.
1) This fix is supposed to prevent cheating. Previously, if one had a multi, you would be flagged, investigated, and if found guilty, deleted. Correct? So this stops you from interacting, but creating a multi is STILL illegal. So if you have a multi, you will be flagged, investigated, and if found guilty (which will take more time now as people won't be directly interacting, but have a friend with a multi and share multis) and if found guilty, deleted. And even though creating the whitelist was time consuming, did it help prevent having to investigate those provinces for x-logging? Now everyone will have to be investigated. Unless, are you telling me that you won't investigate x-logging anymore? If you will investigate, it's going to be more time consuming now. If you're not going to investigate (which I'm sure is not going to be the case) then sure, it will free up time. Exactly how does this free up time for cheater investigation/deletion? I think it will make more time as cheaters will use more complex methods to cheat now.
This fix fixes the most minimal forms of cheating. Your ignorant whitelisted couple who occasionally logged into each others province to make an attack on time (which this still doesn't change, so long as they don't hit the same person), but doesn't address all the other ways to cheat. Which you might never be able to address.
2) This prevents married/roommates/and whoever else shared a residence from interacting as they had an unfair advantage. You said it was unfair because husband can log onto wifes account or wife can log onto husbands. My wife doesn't play Utopia so this does not affect me. However, with the incredibly common cell phone use for Utopia, and almost the demand for it because of the activity requirements this game has - why was that an unfair advantage? I idle in an irc chatroom all day. If I run out of stealth, I'm sure I can at *any* point in the day get someone else to do intel for me. I'm sure I can share a gold target with my KD and immediately someone else will be stealing from them... So again, how is this an unfair advantage over a normal active KD? .. I do see how this could be an unfair advantage against a total ghetto, but then again, having 25 provinces is an unfair advantage over a total ghetto.
3) Province sitting. There was a very poorly worded response to how this will effect that. I did understand from the wording that a province inherits the sitters IP. So while sitting a province, I can't include it on the same wave target as myself - as that's cheating? Even though its a legit service we have to drop credits for? Okay.... How does that make sense? If you're actively involved in this game to understand what is going on - you'd know that a vast majority of KD's who war select wave targets. TM's blanket Riot/Greed/MS.. Attackers chain... Having to sit 1 or 2 guys who have a 3-4 day vacation, or week long vacation for whatever reason... Really screws up the strategy that most wars require.
4) The moderators. This is my first post. I'm very active in IRC and read the forums all the time, but I try to stay away from posting. However, I'm aghast at the customer service here. I understand Utopia isn't making millions. I understand some, if not all of you, volunteer your time for free or for very little. However, you are the customer contact point for this dying game. I have been playing utopia on and off since the beta days. I truly enjoy utopia. But if I have a concern about the games changes and want to complain or vent to customer service, because sorry guys, that's what you are - and I'm met with some of the rude replies I've seen here - I sure as hell wouldn't give my monarch money to buy our KD 200 credits ever again. Surely, the bright minds of Sean and Brian have to understand that having rude and poor customer service when paying customers are concerned is NOT a way to earn more revenue.
Anyways, I'm sure people (unfortunately more than likely the moderators) will flame the hell out of my post. But seriously.. To sum it up. This fix doesn't fix REAL cheating. This fix causing people living together to go back to not playing again. If you're still going to investigate x-logging, this will increase time spent investigating, not shorten it. You taken a paid for service (sitting) and made it less effective (Sure, we can still grow the province for them, but they can't participate in waves), and moderators, get a clue guys - you ARE customer service. You are the customer interaction face of Utopia.. I feel like this is Office Space here.. "What do you DO around here" - "I deal with people so the developers don't have too" - "So, what exactly is it you do?" - "I TOLD YOU. I deal with the people so the developers DON'T HAVE TOO. because I'm GOOD AT DEALING WITH PEOPLE.. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!"
You have demonstrated nothing, you have mentioned a few hypothetical scenarios about how to get around cheat detections, meanwhile making the assumption that you know the cheat detection system and how it works in its entirety, which you don't.Quote:
Originally Posted by loki EQ
Ok...
Last age had a multi in kd...multi got 2/3 provs deleted from my kd. I killed the 3rd. Now he had several other provs as well. He had had all of his provs locked on him multiple times. After killing his 3rd prov in my kd he showed up causing trouble in another kd. I reported him. He was not deleted. LOL
Whats yer price Bishop? Im interested to know. If IRC logs actually proved anything it might be worth posting. LOL
Feel free to ban me I dont really care to hear the answer from you. I already have it :p
To the fathers and sons bonding over utopia and having better relationships...EFFF YOU!
To the Husbands and wives who enjoy a hobby with eachother and are lucky to not be *****ed at by one or the other for playing a silly game...EFFF YOU!
To the brothers and sisters, cats and dogs, roomates, same ISP havers, cell phone users, internet dorm room dwellers, High school computer lab attendees, and so on and so forth....EFFF YOU!
Very presumptuous, DHaran. You don't really know how much I know about the new cheat system. You only presume I know the amount that you know is publicly available. This, of course, misses the option that you just don't know everything publicly available. Furthermore, you stated that you weren't a part of the company. You are just a moderator here, right? So, why would you have access to any more than I have access by your own estimation? How would having access to the same amount of data I have access to qualify you to dismiss my hypothetical theories on how to get around various aspects of the new anti-cheat measures (thereby decreasing their inherent value ultimately affecting the cost-benefit ratio)?
+1 lirath
If this new anti-cheat system also applies to account sitting, why would anybody still be willing to pay for it?
You had an awful lot to respond to in that post, and I can't cover all of it. I would actually like a clarification on sitting as well, as I don't think it should be affected at all as a paid service and hopefully that is the case. But I will touch on this last part. The benefit of this as opposed to the old system, is that before illegal action would have already occurred before investigation, whereas now the system actually prevents cheaters from doing certain things, like a multi GB or farming.Quote:
Originally Posted by lirath
Under the old system, some of the people being investigated turned out to be honest players who were flagged incorrectly. The new system will just prevent those players from doing so even if what they wanted to do didn't violate the rules.Quote:
Originally Posted by DHaran
I would hope that a guy with more than 2 accounts with one IP would have been flagged/quickly investigated/deleted before his provinces were in *any* position to be able to multi GB someone. People who multi GB are using much more advanced forms of cheating. I can't imagine one single guy could make 10 accounts and actually get them OOP without being deleted. And again, it won't stop the illegal action of farms before the investigation - as people will now just make a farm for their friend and their friend will make one for them. Cheating will still occur, just in a different fashion. Investigations will still have to be done, albeit taking a little longer now. Married couples who played legit in the same KD can no longer participate in the same waves or send aid amongst each other thus having very active KDs viewing married couples as a liability. As far as the sitting is concerned:Quote:
Originally Posted by DHaran
That quote is why I'm confused. In the first half of the quote, it appears as though a sat province gets the sitters IP, which would make their IPs unable to do things together. In the second half of the quote, it sounds clear that they can in fact, interact with each other..Quote:
Originally Posted by Bishop
I fail to see the reason to have a whitelist next to this anti cheat barrier.
Just make it so that if you get on the whitelist you can play as a couple safely.
I think what bishop try to say is, when you sit a prov, you use his ip and when you log your own prov, you use you own ip. That make prov sitting can interact with sitter prov.
Imho its better to prevent multi gbing by blocking them then flag>investigate>delete which will take times.And btw, why is it so hard to change kd strat?Only top 20 kd need good war strat to win war anyway, other just need good lvl of activity.
99% of the players do not live with someone who can legally xlog for them without being caught because they live together.
1% of the players get 100% of those benefits. That's totally unacceptable!
Occupy Utopia