Can we talk about IP blocks?

[Pestilence]

Just don't cheat. You sAD?

If he actually wanted to cheat he would just use a proxy and keep quiet like everyone else that does it.

[Wiliest]

I feel like as the game improves and everyone tries to recruit more people to play, the IP block will be a huge bottleneck. Utopia is a social game. The fact that I can't easily recruit and play with family members, dormmates/roomates, coworkers, etc. is hugely limiting the potential recruitment effort of the playerbase before it even really gets off the ground. This is the exact type of game where you would like to throw a huge Kingdom party with everyone in the same room during waves, etc. from time to time, but you can't do that without everyone getting banned lol. I understand the other side of this, from a security perspective it makes sense, but if some type of elegant solution is not ever implemented than I don't see this game ever growing to a reasonable size again.

[Thunder TA]

I've had many husbands and wives who have played in my kd over the years , some still do and work around this every age . It's not difficult once you get used to it they say.

[chadde]

I've had many husbands and wives who have played in my kd over the years , some still do and work around this every age . It's not difficult once you get used to it they say.

Yes that's what we have been doing. It's not super difficult but it's very inconvenient. I'm not here saying I refuse to work around it, I'm just saying there are better and smarter ways to determine if someone is a multi. So why not do it?

[chadde]

I feel like as the game improves and everyone tries to recruit more people to play, the IP block will be a huge bottleneck. Utopia is a social game. The fact that I can't easily recruit and play with family members, dormmates/roomates, coworkers, etc. is hugely limiting the potential recruitment effort of the playerbase before it even really gets off the ground. This is the exact type of game where you would like to throw a huge Kingdom party with everyone in the same room during waves, etc. from time to time, but you can't do that without everyone getting banned lol. I understand the other side of this, from a security perspective it makes sense, but if some type of elegant solution is not ever implemented than I don't see this game ever growing to a reasonable size again.

This is exactly my point. First thing we do in my KD when we have an empty province is ask if anyone knows somebody who wants it. If this is someone's coworker, family member or student at the same school that means another obstacle to work around. We already have six in my kingdom, it's getting ridiculous.

The game should ENCOURAGE people to play it with friends and family, not actively work against it.

[chadde]

I'll play devil's advocate.


It could be argued that the reason multis are such a nonexistent problem is precisely because of the stringent efforts to stop it.

The white list was removed (imo) because you basically just had to ask permission to multi. "Proving" that you are two people to the devs over the internet isn't too terribly difficult.

Off the top of my head I have about 7 or 8 devices that I could reliably play utopia from. Think about college kids that have access to not just one computer lab, but multiple computer labs.

I think the problem here is that you're an honest person that just can't put himself into the shoes of someone that wants to and is trying to cheat.

1. Well that's hard to know.

2. What about making people prove it? Or use credit cards to verify like someone suggested. Also, it would be pretty easy to monitor the "multis" and see when they change IPs, go to work at separate locations. Most people have an easily recognizable pattern in their everyday life. It shouldn't be hard to figure out who's legit and who's not.

3. Yeah the device block was stupid, I take it back.

4. Should I, as an honest average player, have to put myself into the shoes of a cheater to be able to play with my friends and family?

[chadde]

For the same reason that governments actively try to make sure citizens don't murder each other despite the fact that some citizens are going to murder each other.

Having the attitude of "well people are gonna cheat, so screw it" only leads to rampant cheating and it destroys the environment that the honest people wanted to play in, do they leave.

Governments don't do it by banning kitchen knives though. Because people are going to stab each other, so screw it.

[chadde]

It should be quite simple to determine when those ips are shared, though. I recruited a co-worker. We share IPs at work, but that's all. So, basically from 7am-6pm on weekdays we may have a common IP. Any time before or after that, we have our own ip. But we also both travel a lot for work during those times, so its not even every day/all day every day that we share IPs. Maybe occasional weekends when we come into the office on weekends, but its not often that we are both here at the same time.

So why can't the game look at this in more detail? i.e. look at the common patterns and determine that we are, in fact, two separate and distinct people and players. I think the people in my kingdom would attest to that, too. Rather than preventing me from sending aid to that person, or be able to chain the same prov in war?

I haven't complained because I agree there certainly is potential for abuse and a lot of losers on here would do that. But, it would be nice to not have to watch hits to make sure we can hit certain targets and to not have to use a straw man for aid. It is extremely inconvenient.

This guy gets it. Now imagine 5 people at the same workplace playing together.

[elixer]

From what I understand more than 2 accs on the same ip is auto ban for all involved, 2 can be done though as long as you don't mind the block(which block is lifted after 24h of not using the same ip I thought). Like most said, lifting that will tempt those with low morals to cheat though. Rather not start going backwards. I suggest using your phones data if you want to bypass the block and allow your family to play together, using hotspot for your wife's and/or sister in laws comp. Web pages don't take up much data so 3G of data should be more than enough per month. Aside from that you could buy a separate net connection and that will solve ip issue as well.

Each person would need their own hotspot to connect to btw, and since you aren't playing from each other's phone you should have no issues with 3 different people playing the game at the same time since you all have your own personal ip to use.

[chadde]

From what I understand more than 2 accs on the same ip is auto ban for all involved, 2 can be done though as long as you don't mind the block(which block is lifted after 24h of not using the same ip I thought). Like most said, lifting that will tempt those with low morals to cheat though. Rather not start going backwards. I suggest using your phones data if you want to bypass the block and allow your family to play together, using hotspot for your wife's and/or sister in laws comp. Web pages don't take up much data so 3G of data should be more than enough per month. Aside from that you could buy a separate net connection and that will solve ip issue as well.

You are missing the point though. Yes, I could do all those things, spend more money and work around the issue, but my question is why do I have to? This is not a problem with any other (modern) game. The point is there are better ways to ban multis now than when the IP block was implemented. Blanket blocking an entire IP address is not a good solution to the problem. It's just not.

Edit: Also, doing these things isn't a problem for a player like me, who's deep into this game and love it with all my heart. But try convincing my computer illiterate sister in law to start separating IPs for doing different things and I guarantee you she will not be playing Utopia.

[elixer]

Because utopia is free to play. If they slapped on a membership fee it might be different. But a free game that allows cheaters to do whatever is a dead game.

[chadde]

Because utopia is free to play. If they slapped on a membership fee it might be different. But a free game that allows cheaters to do whatever is a dead game.

When did I say cheaters should be allowed to do whatever? I'm talking about how technology has progressed in the last 10 years and IP blocking no longer being the best way to deal with it.

[elixer]

How wouldn't they though. A way to guarantee no ip block and people would jump all over it, and I'm sure they are more than crafty enough to dupe the system.

I know it isn't ideal for legitimate players to have to work around the current system, but it is by far the best solution. Cost shouldn't be high either since most people who play all have their phones with Internet. It's more of the process behind it that sucks and remembering to not cross ips.

[chadde]

How wouldn't they though. A way to guarantee no ip block and people would jump all over it, and I'm sure they are more than crafty enough to dupe the system.

Are you saying it's hard to dupe the current one? Anyone who wants to cheat can easily do so by using a proxy. And you're still thinking about this the wrong way.. We want to get a lot of new players, right? Hence the new guide, new art work etc. These new players can't be expected to come in knowing about the huge multi problem we had 15 years ago and how the game backend works. They just want to play a game - showing them error messages saying they're blocked is a good way to ensure they won't be coming back.

Instead of assuming everyone is a 1337 blackhat cheatorz we should want to build a game with good UI/UX that people can easily get in to. THEN we deal with cheaters. And this can be done by identifying login patterns and IPs rather than blanket blocking anyone who plays from someone else's IP once.

[Palem]

4. Should I, as an honest average player, have to put myself into the shoes of a cheater to be able to play with my friends and family?

No. But if you're going to purpose changes to the anti-cheating measures you do.

As far as a credit card, I'm pretty sure I can walk into Wal-Mart and buy a credit card under a fake name using cash. So it would just be paying to multi