New Anticheat Measure Going Live Today

[black_mamba]

why waste credits when a person is away for more than 21 its better to abandon prov and invite someone else

[Ryshad]

Odd.
I don't care if its 3 days or 3 years, if you pay credits you can cheat - plain an simple. By EVERY definition the developers, mods an everyone else has put out there ... if you pay money you can cheat an they do NOTHING about it.

If you tried to abide by the rules an paid to get your brother/sister/cousin/grandma/wife/dog or fish into the kingdom so you could both spend time playing the game in the same kingdom (wasn't that why they originally allowed trading anyways, it was a way to increase activity in the game?) then, as long as you have the same IP, you are now being swindled out of your money. They got your cash, changed the rules drastically enough to make warring a huge freaking hassle. Yes, its a much bigger hassle then all the moderators are leading you on about - I know, I am going through it right now within my kingdom. Everyone that planned ahead to abide by the rules now have very limited options - continue to play in their kingdom together an hobble their kingdom, have one of them transfer out of the kingdom they are in (an waste the money they already spent?) or become what the developers are trying to catch an circumvent the security protocols an cheat.
I will say it again - bad business decision on their part. Sean an Brian - nice way to bilk the honest people out of their money an do absolutely nothing to catch the cheaters (cheaters are still cheating). Pathetic at best.

[Hyth79]

Odd.
I don't care if its 3 days or 3 years, if you pay credits you can cheat - plain an simple. By EVERY definition the developers, mods an everyone else has put out there ... if you pay money you can cheat an they do NOTHING about it.

Province sitting is not a paid form of cheating because it's not cheating because it doesn't give an advantage. Sure, 12 people could control 24 provs in a kd and multi via province sitting, but an age is much longer than 3 weeks. As I said already, what is the kd going to do for the rest of the age? Once the 3 weeks are over, those provs that have been sat can no longer be controlled via province sitting. And if they were made illegally in the first place (via a second IP address, e.g. at work instead of at home), then the cheater wouldn't bother with province sitting in the first place; why would you pay to sit the account when you've found a way to control a 2nd province for free?

There is NO INHERENT ADVANTAGE TO PROVINCE SITTING AND THEREFORE IT IS NOT A PAID-TO-WIN ADVANTAGE. I'm giving examples and hypothetical situations to make my point, but I don't think you even read my previous post carefully. If someone can clearly explain to me, especially with a hypothetical situation, why province sitting is an advantage, in light of the fact that it cannot be done indefinitely, can only be done for a province in you own kd, and can only be done for one province at a time, then I'll retract my statement

[FinalFantasyWorld]

Province sitting is not a paid form of cheating because it's not cheating because it doesn't give an advantage. Sure, 12 people could control 24 provs in a kd and multi via province sitting, but an age is much longer than 3 weeks. As I said already, what is the kd going to do for the rest of the age? Once the 3 weeks are over, those provs that have been sat can no longer be controlled via province sitting. And if they were made illegally in the first place (via a second IP address, e.g. at work instead of at home), then the cheater wouldn't bother with province sitting in the first place; why would you pay to sit the account when you've found a way to control a 2nd province for free?

There is NO INHERENT ADVANTAGE TO PROVINCE SITTING AND THEREFORE IT IS NOT A PAID-TO-WIN ADVANTAGE. I'm giving examples and hypothetical situations to make my point, but I don't think you even read my previous post carefully. If someone can clearly explain to me, especially with a hypothetical situation, why province sitting is an advantage, in light of the fact that it cannot be done indefinitely, can only be done for a province in you own kd, and can only be done for one province at a time, then I'll retract my statement

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

[Tokala]

Well, this is just sad.
A work mate of mine got me into this game and I have been playing for about 4 ages now.
We both log in from work PCs, and even though we are at different sites on opposite sides of the city where we live, we can no longer play together.
We both chose Elf/Rogue hybrids for the shear amount of ops that they can do, and are now basically useless to the KD we are in.
Is this seriously the best way to stop cheating?
It seems like you are using a shot gun to kill the cheaters, but friendly fire is taking out non-cheating work mates/partners etc.
Poor effort guys.

[Hyth79]

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

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.

[FinalFantasyWorld]

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.

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

[watchman]

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?

[Hyth79]

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.

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).

[Bishop]

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

[Sylv]

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.

[watchman]

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.

[Bishop]

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

[Landro]

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

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.

[Bishop]

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.