To Cheat or not to Cheat

[nfidel2k]

While I have played Utopia off and on through the years, the problem of cheating has always been an issue. When players cheat, there are only 2 options - improve security/detection, or change the rules. In this case, changing the rules may be easier. Allow people to create more than one account on the server. This would take away the need to hide or mask multi accounts. As far as screening new kd members or inviting in new players, that is easily abused. But on the flip side, if everyone can do it it is no longer an advantage. So what if one moron wants to run all 25 provinces in his kd? Good luck keeping track of everything. And Utopia already has in place penalties for the more serious issues like gang banging and province raping. If you had to, you could still limit the number of accounts any user could create, say 5 for example. Then the only issue comes down to can the server support the load?

[Catwalk]

Multis aren't the problem, though. And there'd be no moral grounds for justifying multi play. If you want to run another province, you got Genesis for that.

Sweetiepie, in the original post he lists a number of problems that the game is currently suffering from. One of the main problem is how new players are introduced to the game if they land in kingdoms with higher standards than they can live up to. Also, the thread title is quite unclear. If he wanted a discussion on how to catch cheaters, then it would be a good idea to label it as such and state it clearly in the original post. It was a bit broader than that, so I commented on what I felt was relevant.

[Baobandia]

The greatest issue in here is that Utopian players have, at best, a very relaxed attitude towards cheaters. I mean, c'mon! Half this forum is filled with known traders, x-loggers et al., whom as blatant cheaters (Hi, Catwalk!) should be deleted.... but they're not.

People also fail to report cheaters ingame, most of the time. Kings asking newbies to relinquish their accounts should be reported, but if you do that you lose a team player - so cheating is, in a way, encouraged by the very way Utopia is played, and the way it's meant to be played. Most new players don't know they can report cheaters, too. Add to this that detecting cheating out of your KD is pretty hard, and you're wound up with a situation just like this one: Cheaters are famous players, instead of getting treated like the scum they are.

Now, while all the solutions proposed by the threadmaker have the best of intentions, they're clearly and obviously wrong. I don't play from a static IP - I don't even always play from the same country! And I have never, ever cheated. So forth with the other suggestions. What I think it's needed here is a change of attitude from us, the player community, towards known cheaters. We need to let newbs know that they can report fellow cheating KDmates, and the assurance that this is the best for the KD - though this, arguably, is pretty hard to implement. It's hard to lose a player nowadays.

We also need ways to protect new people from being bullied into surrendering their account info. Having an static e-mail (or two, in case of emergencies) is a great idea, that curtails traders from landing into an account, without being as radical, or taking down innocent people. I also suggest here a way to let the Utopian Lords protect new players from their own KD, in some sort of "Report bully" (please, think of a better name) option - not only protecting those provinces, but eventually punishing the aggressive provinces. Yeah, they might leave, but does this game need people who don't let other people play? And this would not only solve this problem, but also the issue of having new players leaving the game inmediatly, just because their KD doesn't like them. Is this unfair for top KDs, who'll be forced to train a new guy instead of getting an experienced player? Yeah, whatever - but it's Utopian spirit, so tough luck. And it sure beats reshuffling, right?

And also, a swifter response from the "Report Cheaters" utility is needed. Out of the three or so times I've used it, only once I got a reply, and it just consisted of "it appears that the message (on the KD forum) was deleted" (I reported my KD because he asked for accounts to trade). While I realize Blake is only human, and I appreciate that I got an answer, it would be much better if players - specially new players, who don't access these forums - knew they're being heard, even if it's just a retarded complaint (Like "omg xlogger" because you did 20 attacks in two hours - hey, it happens). And it would be nice for Swirve, or OMAC, or whoever is responsible, to keep a tab on KDs that get reported too often, even if accusations are false - because, y'know, maybe it's not that they're false, but only that there are no proofs. And I'm not talking about punishing anybody in here until there are, actually, some proofs - but y'know, keep an eye on suspicious guys.

And finally, either a more conservative approach to threads that approve of trading, or (what would be better, imho) a stance on this grave issue. And us all understanding that trading IS cheating, as far as things are nowadays, and treating it as such.

That's it.

[Catwalk]

But that approach has been tried already. Heavy deletions happened all the time in the good old days. Why return to a solution that has already failed and drove players away? And why refuse to discuss changing rules that are seen by many as unreasonable?

[agesdg]

A method of deterrent of new players giving their account info's to demanding monarchs... would be to put in a message like "Never give out your login information to anyone in Utopia" or something, as a display message everytime you log on... it wouldn't completely stop it, but it would help deter it

[bigfoot]

1. I login from home, from school, mobile, friends with modem, internet cafe... Am I a cheater?

2. I change my e-mail frequently cos of various spam mails, or cos of changing internet provider. Am I a cheater?

3. I play this game not cos of it itself, I play it cos of people in there.. I never played whole gen age cos I got bored and just deleted acc..

4. Don't think that will affect multies/x-log too much..

I don't believe you'd be deleted for point 1 or point 2 and you'd certainly not be considered a cheat because of those things.

[AFKain]

That is probably the point he was trying to make :)

agesdg's suggestion would help a little bit, and without doing any damage. So that's a good suggestion in my opinion.

[bigfoot]

The greatest issue in here is that Utopian players have, at best, a very relaxed attitude towards cheaters. I mean, c'mon! Half this forum is filled with known traders, x-loggers et al., whom as blatant cheaters (Hi, Catwalk!) should be deleted.... but they're not.

People also fail to report cheaters ingame, most of the time. Kings asking newbies to relinquish their accounts should be reported, but if you do that you lose a team player - so cheating is, in a way, encouraged by the very way Utopia is played, and the way it's meant to be played. Most new players don't know they can report cheaters, too. Add to this that detecting cheating out of your KD is pretty hard, and you're wound up with a situation just like this one: Cheaters are famous players, instead of getting treated like the scum they are.

And also, a swifter response from the "Report Cheaters" utility is needed. Out of the three or so times I've used it, only once I got a reply, and it just consisted of "it appears that the message (on the KD forum) was deleted" (I reported my KD because he asked for accounts to trade). While I realize Blake is only human, and I appreciate that I got an answer, it would be much better if players - specially new players, who don't access these forums - knew they're being heard, even if it's just a retarded complaint (Like "omg xlogger" because you did 20 attacks in two hours - hey, it happens). And it would be nice for Swirve, or OMAC, or whoever is responsible, to keep a tab on KDs that get reported too often, even if accusations are false - because, y'know, maybe it's not that they're false, but only that there are no proofs. And I'm not talking about punishing anybody in here until there are, actually, some proofs - but y'know, keep an eye on suspicious guys.

I've edited your post to highlight some things I can respond to from my own experience of doing the support these past few days.

I'd agree there is probably an overall relaxed approach towards trading from the players and this is something that's being given some serious thought by the development team as we look to move forward. In a game where I've some personal experience - Planetarion - they introduced a buddy pack system where people (who upgraded their accounts) could ensure they ended up in the same galaxy (Kingdom) so they could play together. This was to make it easier for friends to stick together and a balance between a completely random situation and the alternative of an entirely closed galaxy (Kingdom) scenario where friends would sign up en-mass to join the same galaxy (Kingdom). In a closed environment it becomes that much harder for new players to break into the game and experience it fully so that is something I'd be personally keen to avoid see happening. Introducing such a "buddy" system to Utopia is fraught with difficulty but the essence of it could help to modify the games approach to trading as if people weren't willing to use such a system they would have no excuse.

The support account gets a lot of cheat reports come its way over a 24 hour period, I can't give you an exact figure as the support account currently covers a lot of different games (both Utopia worlds and four of the five Earth ones), but each one gets looked at by a member of the support team as quickly as possible.

Indeed, with regards response times I can't comment about what has come before but since I've become involved with support this week every submission that wasn't just a single Province name (i.e. actually had some detail regarding the accusation) has been replied to with a response unless it has been a multiple report by someone. When we move over to our new ticket system it will enable us to monitor reports better as we can add comments to existing reports that perhaps haven't had action take on them at the time of submission due to a lack of evidence.

[Allanon KT]

Okay, I can't be bothered reading through the BS here, so I'm just gonna address the OP:

1. Ban dynamic IP's, and you'll be banning me, a legit player for almost 10 years. I don't multi, I don't let players x-log my account, I was never traded. However, I run off a dynamic IP because I choose to, and that should be my choice to make. it should not exclude me from playing a game I've enjoyed foir the last 10 years

2. Whilst I do not run my prov off my main email, I know several who do. Why should they be penalised for wanting to change it regularly to avoid spam and phishing attempts that plague the inet?

3. I have worked for almost a year building up a kingdom that I am now darn proud of, so why should I and my friends suffer cos you want to stop us from earning the reward associated with that effort? You don't like SKs, go play on the gen server. Else, come up with something else

Now maybe not the most constructive contributions, but the fact is, no matter how hard they try to make this game "cheat-proof", someone out there will be working a heck of a lot less hard, but with greater success, to find a way around it. The fact is, finding a way to do something is a heck of a lot easier than finding a way to prevent it from happening.

Trading seems to be the way of the times. It's a natural impulse to want to play with your friends, whoever they may be, and with players of your own level, so i think it would be smarter for OMAC to find a way to indestructively incorperate it into their game and reduce the need for said cheating, therefore reducing the overall need for poeple to find ways to cheat. If you are cheating in one way, you will often cheat in another because lets face it, the risk is no greater, normally. if you no longer need to cheat to do something, why risk it to go that extra step further?

[hatter]

the easiest way to stop top kingdoms forcing new players to hand over account info is for OMAC/Swirve employees to occasionally create test accounts in top kingdoms - if they are asked to hand over their account info then the kingdom is disbanded, no second chance.

You would need to let everybody know this was happening, so they could adjust their behaviour accordingly.

[Catwalk]

That's actually a very good suggestion hatter, but there's a small problem with it. It would punish kingdoms that get those test accounts, as they'd have a useless province for maybe a week or more which is then removed again. Most kingdoms are smart enough not to ask for info right away, might take as much as a month or more. If you're going to take up a slot in a kingdom for a week, maybe reward kingdoms who don't fall into the trap with a little bit of science, honour or whatever.

I'm still in favour of the welcome system, where all players are given a small chat with an official rep about the game, explaining that it's important to get in touch with their kingdom and that they should not hand over their account info.

[stoffi]

I'm still in favour of the welcome system, where all players are given a small chat with an official rep about the game, explaining that it's important to get in touch with their kingdom and that they should not hand over their account info.

Are you kidding me? First of all, who will pay for that? you?

And what can someone write in a chat that they can't write on a welcome note to every player?
What if I'm a veteran player? Why do I need to talk to a rep? And what if I create a new prov every day to land in a good kd?

As we all know, when we start a prov, we see a kind of welcome message on our throne page, telling us to vote and visit forums.
This welcome message needs to be on a seperate page the first time you login, BEFORE you come to the throne page. This way, ppl will notice it and read what it says.



and what chat program are you suggesting? There are plenty of ppl who don't use msn or irc, you will force them to use this for utopia so an official rep can talk to them?
This sounds like a huuuuuuuuuuuuuge waste of resources, and it's probably the worst idea I've ever heard. :)

[stoffi]

Btw, kill cheating, kill the game. Atleast as it is now.

[Sweetiepie]

I do think cheating is a huge problem. I do not believe that the mass deletions of old drove away players, I simply think that as Mehul lost interest in the game the numbers of players fell at the same time.

I am pleased to hear that reports of cheating will be investigated. I remember once that a kd mate of mine reported suspected X loggers who took him down to nothing. It was pretty clear that these were either X loggers or heavily traded accounts leading to a large number of players living in the same house and using the same computer, yeah really likely eh? He never even got a response, and that didn't surprise me.

[AFKain]

Stoffi, if you plan on creating a new prov every day you should have a look in the utopian code since there was an addition some 5-10 ages ago: "Consistent creation and deletion of accounts is not allowed under any circumstances."