New Anticheat Measure Going Live Today

[Byakuya]

This only provokes dishonesty from the honest. Call the honest ones cheaters and limit how they can play compared to every one else? Not very stable ground to stand on. Think about it from a business stand point. If you had brought about whitelisting, which helped to bring in other players, would you twist it to where the enjoyable game becomes a frustrating nightmarish haggle? This hams any kingdom with WL provinces in them. A KD w/ no WL vs a KD w WL, who will win? The one with NO WL. It's a cripple. It breaks the game for those players. Would you want to stick around? Put yourself in OUR shoes Scavenger. You pay several HUNDRED bucks to this game and then the developers cripple you mid-age. How happy would you be right about now?

EDIT: And Scavenger, it's not just life, it's poor business to build it off of that model. So.... why punish the honest players hm?

[Scavenger]

@ FFW In that case there are more gents in the kd that can do that.
Worse is if one of the couple is chained and not allowed to attack the only breakable chained guy in the other kd.
I think that's more of a problem than all the other examples I've read.

This only provokes dishonesty from the honest.

That's the kind of mentality that's causing our problems.

EDIT: And Scavenger, it's not just life, it's poor business to build it off of that model. So.... why punish the honest players hm?

I've already shown in another post (wich wasn't refuted) that that's how it works in other businesses as well.

@The rest of the post: I know from experience in another game (also mentioned earlier) that you can still play happily together with these restrictions. And the whether or not noticed in advance part I also commented on.

Mind you: before the temporary whitelisting was introduced it was not allowed to play together at all.

[Byakuya]

Difference is that model is not applied to DYING games. I would much rather talk to a mod. You give all of two craps about any one having devoted their money to this game. Money does not come around that easily for me. My time I have devoted to this game does not come that easily.

[Byakuya]

Scavenger, could you please share with us which were these games and when did they died?? -EUS

Bishop would ban me for that. I'm playing one now wich has about a million players. Increasing too. -Scavenger

Ambiguous and completely insightful business model as well.


"We have a new approach, which is going to affect some players, but is going to make everything a lot fairer. We will be activating this system in a few weeks, but we want to let you know the rough details now. Simply put: instead of trying to detect cheating after it has occurred, we are going to prevent it in the first place. When this feature goes live, it will not be possible for any province to interact (read: attack, aid, thieve or land lust) with another province that has recently signed in from a shared IP address. This will go a long way to making farms impossible to run. In addition, it will no longer be possible to attack a province that has recently been attacked by someone else from one of your IP addresses. So, someone who is trying to run multies will now find that he/she can no longer attack the same targets with them. "
-THAT is your little note saying when it would start. As ambiguous as the implementation.

Also you wanted to know what we think Devs and Mods. We think it is CRAP! You asked our opinion. There it is.



"Nothing is preventing couples from playing. If you want the advantage of playing 2 provs from one IP you have to accept the balancing consequences, I don't understand why this is such a big deal. It was an unfair advantage and there was never a way to prove both players were always present, plain and simple. This is now balanced. " -DHARAN
- Not true. For example, the whitelisted in my kingdom (two provinces that are of a large concern to ME) were playing in two totally different locations. Another thing to look at when trying to "detect" cheaters. My Monarch (one WL) had to work about 6 hours south of our location. The T/M (Other WL) consistently logs on majority of the week an hour away from the monarch simultaneously. To prevent deletions when teaching our T/M how to play we requested the WL. The T/M is also home on the weekends. That information shows in your logs.

"Why doesn't the devs delete and remove the OBVIOUS cheating kingdoms and stop annoying legit players?" - EUS
"So a few couples playing with an unfair advantage should determine how the devs deal with cheaters? Think about that for a few moments." - DHARAN

None of the questions are being answered. Just jerk remarks ignoring the bigger problem at hand.

[FlamingKnights]

All of this is fine and dandy if SoT/SoM, and i guess just intel ops, do not flag this automated block message. My kd is currently at war with another kd. i have 2 people who login from time to time on same ip. Usually one of them is around when i need them to update intel on provs for me but this cant happen any longer as the other cant make hits on those provinces. I will keep going on to say that an SoT of a province was taken 16hrs ago. 16hrs later the other still cant hit or touch that province. In war time that ridiculous. A lot happens in 16hrs. Why should a measly SoT/Som through up the flag.

If i order my kd to go for max gains i expect them to take the time and check intel out to hit for the best amount possible. This means multiple sot/soms are going to be taken of different provinces. This pretty much puts a halt to that.

[Scavenger]

Scavenger, could you please share with us which were these games and when did they died?? -EUS

Bishop would ban me for that. I'm playing one now wich has about a million players. Increasing too. -Scavenger

Ambiguous and completely insightful business model as well.

Read all posts on the subject before commenting.

[..deleted. My business is my business..]
[..deleted. Solved by pm]

[Byakuya]

Comment Deleted

[Byakuya]

Legitimately, they placed no concrete time frame. The original announcement was several weeks ago without a set date. Without any preamble, the game was changed into this new "system". Albeit you may enjoy other games, I enjoyed this one. The option to play with family made it worth an investment.

[FinalFantasyWorld]

Legitimately, they placed no concrete time frame. The original announcement was several weeks ago without a set date. Without any preamble, the game was changed into this new "system". Albeit you may enjoy other games, I enjoyed this one. The option to play with family made it worth an investment.

I did highlight the lack of notice much earlier in the thread, but it was casually dismissed saying enough notice was given cause it was in the blog that says in a few weeks time. Sad isn't it?

[Byakuya]

It's more as if they simply do not, and I don't say it idly, care.

[FinalFantasyWorld]

May 17 of YR4 Ratchet has sent an aid shipment to Sky Lynx.
May 17 of YR4 Ratchet has sent an aid shipment to Astrotrain.

Person A and B are Whitelisted players

Ok let's see whats the problem here, KDmate Aids Person A and Person B

Person A and Person B cannot aid KDmate

How is this a fair and balanced system when the reverse cannot be true?

[Xanthus]

I think intel from WL or any prov should be allowed without the blocks, so should aid. These are things that are going to occur in any kd. Maybe a suggestion to improve it is to put a limit on the aid. Currently you can only aid a prov up to 400% of its networth, so why not incorporate a limit like 200% for WL shared IP players?
@mods/devs really guys, what is going on with the game now is really getting depressing. You really are going to lose on this one. There isnt much you can really do to stiffle off the cheating, and since it WILL continue to happen, what point is there to so drastically affect the WL players?

All of us understand what you want to accomplish, but at what cost to the Utopian community do you really want to push this? This game has gone through some major changes in its life time....how much life do you think it will have after this? Whats next? Will we have to pay to even be able to play? Its a great mentally stimulating strategy game thats it. I value the friends i have made here, more than the game itself. Like previous posters have mentioned, there ARE other games like this on the net that arent so....contorted. I have spent a fair bit of money in credits over the last 2 ages. Namely to add new members to our KD and to allow prov name changes for uniformity, through a family emergency this week, i got to see how prov sitting worked so my creds havent been wasted.

But i'll be damned if i put another dollar into this game with the 'anticheat measures' being implemented so sloppily. I read where a prov cant attack the same target they did more than once....really? Really really? You didnt think of this before jamming it up our....well you see my point i am sure. You also need to reply on the timeframe for which WL'd players have to wait b4 being able to op/attack the same target. I believe that is only FAIR to the process. Leaving thousands of players(maybe just hundreds soon) hanging, and wondering, is not what I personally would call good business (You can drink but you cant drive over a certain percentage blood alcohol level...but we arent sure what that level is yet. See how stupid that sounds?)
We all know you arent going to give out all your little secrets to the AC measures but dont tie one hand behind OUR backs while YOU decide on timeframes.
I will shut up after this last comment. You probably also should have spent more time testing this new set of measures, and with more ppl than just your mods and a few players. Maybe, even waiting to the beginning of the next age to implement it....just sayin'.

[Eus]

Byakuya, the game he mentioned to me in PM is Tribal Wars (as if I give a damn any more if the all-mighty mods ban me or not) - that's one of the famous pay-to-win games out there. Apparently, the devs are not happy with the lack of funds they get (anyone could understand that, we all work for our living), so they slowly turn utopia into pay-to-win game, while trying to make the transition as silent as possible (since their utopia kingdoms project failed spectacularly). These type of games are dead since the beginning (I mean you don't need brain and maths to play them), but they do generate money for their owners. And the fun in these type of games is only limited by the weight of your pockets, nothing else, since everything is based on raw power and you can buy resources and stuff to gain that raw power.

Palem, nobody likes to speak on behalf on anyone else, but the devs aren't around to speak for themselves, so people are assuming one or another. If they care to join the discussion and share their point of view, everyone will stop assuming what they thoughts might be. Fact is that me and my wife (and I see other couples as well) are still in this game only because of the option we had to play together. Yes, although I agree it's possible to still play in the same kingdom, the point is that the couples now will be forced on different type of interaction, which will limit their options for warring or anything else. More then that, this is yet another "new feature" which gets implemented mid-age and causes troubles (it's all bugged and I see you know that already). Why!? Why they didn't let it run in passive mode till the end of the age and start it then or at new age start? They have ruined several wars now as it seems by the posts here. Yeah, they don't think that's a big deal probably, but for the people that still tries to enjoy the game - it is. Now.... as the old player I know you are - did you never want to play with someone closer to you? Didn't you never saw people which play utopia to become couple? I've seen at least 2 during the past 10 years, good thing they both quit utopia when they began thinking about their marriage, so they don't need to face this tremendously lame attempt of hunting something which can't be hunt down.


P.S. See you all when I get unbanned from the ban I will get for speaking the truth :P

[Grunkz]

wot a bunch of whingeing wankers - The Mods and Devs intent is to improve the experience of players - anyone doing system releases knows that there are a few bugs with every release - just suck it up and play smarter - it aint that hard.

[Eus]

Grunkz, if you can't say anything on the topic, you better stay out of this thread. There are enough kids around anyways, we don't need one more to tell us how we are supposed to suck it up and live with it.