Can we talk about IP blocks?

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Originally Posted by Korp

23 people posted in this thread 7 people voiced concerns rest was neutral or didnt care.

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and 3 think it's fine as it is.

no one is saying that at the time it wasn't the best move to make. It was. Cheating was getting out of hand and tools to prevent it were limited.

no one is saying it is impossible to play like this, you can, it's just inconvenient.

from a business standpoint "this is good enough" is not what you want to look for. If your goal is to grow a business everything has to be as perfect as you can get it. And with the current tools out there now. this isn't even close to perfect.

If for example you advertise and a group of college kids decide, "hey, let's try this one", and then they find out they are limited in their inetractions because they happen to be on the same IP..what would entice them to stay rather than just say, oh well we'll find a game we can all play together without limits?

Younger players are your biggest market as far as computer games. While us older players may keep the lights on you need growth to make it profitable. And when the game can be profitable we can have nice new things, so it should be in everyone's best interest.

So mirana how is your math? 23 people posting 7 people wants a improvement and that's majority?

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Originally Posted by Korp

So mirana how is your math? 23 people posting 7 people wants a improvement and that's majority?

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it is what it is, this is how we always did it...those are the attitudes that will kill any business in a heartbeat

Man you have such hard issues admitting you are wrong. It's hilarious.

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Originally Posted by Goodwitch

and 3 think it's fine as it is.

no one is saying that at the time it wasn't the best move to make. It was. Cheating was getting out of hand and tools to prevent it were limited.

no one is saying it is impossible to play like this, you can, it's just inconvenient.

from a business standpoint "this is good enough" is not what you want to look for. If your goal is to grow a business everything has to be as perfect as you can get it. And with the current tools out there now. this isn't even close to perfect.

If for example you advertise and a group of college kids decide, "hey, let's try this one", and then they find out they are limited in their inetractions because they happen to be on the same IP..what would entice them to stay rather than just say, oh well we'll find a game we can all play together without limits?

Younger players are your biggest market as far as computer games. While us older players may keep the lights on you need growth to make it profitable. And when the game can be profitable we can have nice new things, so it should be in everyone's best interest.

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What is your suggestion?

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Originally Posted by Korp

So mirana how is your math? 23 people posting 7 people wants a improvement and that's majority?

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I don't understand your logic. So if 7/23 wants an improvement that's almost a third. That in itself is reason to think about improvement. But also, you're basing this on current players? And even, current players who are invested enough to attend this forum? What you fail to understand is that a lot of people like playing games casually. Those are the people we need to get to make money off of this game.

We can't just be 3000 old grumpy people sitting here complaining about kids these days, we need to adjust the game to entice them to join us.

Your entrepreneurial sense is ****, my friend. You just want everything to stay the same as it was in the 90s. And that's sad.

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Originally Posted by chadde

Your entrepreneurial sense is ****, my friend. You just want everything to stay the same as it was in the 90s. And that's sad.

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Whoa, pretty slippery slope there pal. How did we get to "the 90s" lmao.

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Originally Posted by Avenger

Whoa, pretty slippery slope there pal. How did we get to "the 90s" lmao.

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You have anything to add to my thread? If not, gtfo.

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Originally Posted by chadde

You have anything to add to my thread? If not, gtfo.

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This isn't your thread.

IP Blocks are stupid.

Look for cheating, punish it.

But you'll never stop try hard cheaters with systems that inconvenience honest players.

For a few bucks a month you can run multis undetectable by anything other than behavioral analysis.

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Originally Posted by Meep

IP Blocks are stupid.

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Really? They work pretty well for us. What do you suggest.

BTW, no more talk about how to circumvent the games rules.

Chadde is a third majority? I replied to a comment that Goodwitch made. Ofc I base it on the people in this thread cause that was discussed.

Yes I want to play utopia that's strange?

Chadde doesn't understand that what he suggested bishop has already said won't work for this game but keeps saying to change it . And yes I think something else could work but until it's found this is what we have . 7 people don't like it in 9 pages , not a huge concern or issue it seems or people would be blowing the thread up like new changes thread is.

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Originally Posted by chadde

I know this has been up quite a few times in the past, but I would like to have a discussion with the new people in charge about IP blocks and the no longer existing whitelist

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Are you broke, no money? There are 3 IP's in my hood, 4 if you count slowass dialup. I collect aluminium cans every day to pay Spectrum 16 bucks a month. Interweb only, no TV, no home phone. You both have a smart phone? Work at diff places? You are not trying hard enough to play together.

Go to Sister's house to teach her, DUH. Have her phone you while she post her stats in Poo. You guys are lazy.

One of my best playas I met at TacoBell ( collecting cans ). Earl is homeless but has a membership at Planet Fitness for showers. Smart guy. He even plays at teh Public Library. Any place with wifi. I taught him to play and he has never been hit with IP ban. Earl uses the same laptop for all his wifi needs.

We's so ghetto we borrows WIFI

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Originally Posted by Bishop

Really? They work pretty well for us. What do you suggest.

BTW, no more talk about how to circumvent the games rules.

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I guess to me, measures like that seem to primarily stop lazy cheaters, while inconveniencing players who live together or who have relatives who play or who hang out with people who play.

Now, to be fair, I think most of the 'tryhard' cheaters are pretty inert in their efforts.

Does a player playing in multiple kingdoms that strictly maintains their independence actually damage the game? I don't think so.

Does a player playing multiple provinces in the same kingdom actually confer any benefit that can't be bought with sitting/re-inviting when sit credits run out? I don't think so.

I know numerous players who have done one or both of those things regularly for years. I've personally done it in the past. I won't go into details as requested.

The kind of cheating that damages the game is things like people using intel or resource farms, button giving with multis, etc..., and all of those sort of actions seem pretty traceable through analysis, not through IP blocks. I'd bet you could get a reasonably small subset of players that are likely cheaters purely from analysis of server logs.

Nobody willing to stoop to giving themselves buttons or rob their own resources that is actually capable of making an impact is getting stopped with an IP block.

At the end of the day, while we are open to other solutions, the advantages of IP block are significant (time savings, prevents problem in the first place, etc) and as far as we have been able to determine, nothing else is capable of replacing it at this time. If you have a specific open source solution in mind that we could implement, we would be happy to look at it and compare it to the current solutions.

While there are some drawbacks, we find them to be minor given that the total number of players effected by it is small relative to the number of problems is prevents - and many of those who complain about it (though none that I know of in this thread) - have been actioned in the past for running multiple accounts, a sign that frankly it is effective.

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Originally Posted by JeffT

At the end of the day, while we are open to other solutions, the advantages of IP block are significant (time savings, prevents problem in the first place, etc) and as far as we have been able to determine, nothing else is capable of replacing it at this time. If you have a specific open source solution in mind that we could implement, we would be happy to look at it and compare it to the current solutions.

While there are some drawbacks, we find them to be minor given that the total number of players effected by it is small relative to the number of problems is prevents - and many of those who complain about it (though none that I know of in this thread) - have been actioned in the past for running multiple accounts, a sign that frankly it is effective.

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Thank you for a good reply.

There are many very minor improvements you could make quite easily. For example, why would you block me from ambushing someone that my wife has attacked previously?

What does blocking achieve in war? If the whole kingdom is chaining someone, why does it even matter if one guy is running two provs or if it's a couple? Keep the block to stop me and her to trade aid if you like, but why can't we hit someone that we're at war with? We're not hitting out, we're not hitting farms, we are very clearly participating in a war.

Because participating in a war isn't an excuse to allow people to cheat...?

Palem for the win

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Originally Posted by Palem

Because participating in a war isn't an excuse to allow people to cheat...?

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what do you mean? If the block prevented any outside hits instead and just let you hit the enemy you're warring, how is that a problem?

And also, you completely ignored my question about ambushes.

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Originally Posted by Thunder TA

Palem for the win

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Wow!
Such eloquence!
What a strong message!
Thank you so much for this!
You've made my day!
You clearly know what's up!
You're really contributing!
Thunder for the win!
#ModFanboysForLife

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Originally Posted by chadde

what do you mean? If the block prevented any outside hits instead and just let you hit the enemy you're warring, how is that a problem?

And also, you completely ignored my question about ambushes.

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I didn't respond to the ambush question because I don't disagree that blocking ambushes is bad.

As far as the other comment, you asked why it mattered if it was a couple or 1 person playing 2 accounts. It's because cheating isn't acceptable regardless if you're in war or not. The rules don't suddenly stop applying because two kingdoms are in a specific stance and fighting each other.

The devs have tried to make it possible for couples or people living together to play with each other. I played with a married couple for quite a few ages after these blocks were put in place and I never found them to be that big of a burden when trying to plan things out. One played TM, the other played attacker. The TM wouldn't op the chain target (or whoever the attacker was set to attack) and they just needed to find an intermediary for aid. Was absolutely no problem aside from the occasional error where we messed up and had to switch plans around a little. Having 2 couples I wouldn't imagine would be all that inconvenient. Having 3 couples would be where things would start getting complicated, but at that point in a 22 player kingdom that's over 1/4 of your whole kingdom that you're trying to plan around.

My point being the bans are a minor inconvenience to any legitimate couples trying to play together. If a couple wants to play separately they'll face essentially no bans barring the rare occasion that they target the same random province or their kingdoms try to war each other. I'm more than comfortable with this level of inconvience for couples if it means keeping cheaters in check and not allowing rampant cheating to spoil the environment like it did for so long. Could things be better? Sure. Do we need to scrap everything because it's not allowing legitimate people to play together? Absolutely not.

So say there was an awesome math teacher somewhere that decided to make utopia part of his/her curriculum...they sign up 24 High School kids to play in a kingdom

how about a fraternity/sorority

a study group that needs some stress relief

a d&d group that gets together frequently and wants to add something different

a game oriented store (e.g. games workshop) that decides to form an employee team in utopia

the family that plays games together

some more likely to happen than others. but that is just a tiny fraction of the market you are shutting out if you don't look for alternatives. No one said to scrap everything. The thread is suggesting to discuss and find new and better solutions for the future.
Looking over the list of what is banned (such as ambush which is a defensive measure following an aggressive action by someone else) is a start.
Finding ways to catch people circumventing the IP ban to cheat is another.

Although I agree with Chadde's general point about a desire to find a better solution, I agree with Palem's point about war not being an excuse for cheating. The block is there to stop people playing multiple accounts. Removing the block in war would facilitate people playing multiple accounts in war. It doesn't matter that the whole KD is chaining someone - it is still not permissible to allow multiple accounts to be played by the same person when chaining someone. So unless we have a different solution, we need to keep the block.

That said, I have found it harder to work around the block than Palem has found. Yes, ideally I would like 1 to be TM and 1 to be attacker and that helps a lot. However, that's problematic in itself because we don't want many TMs and already have multiple other people wanting to play TM. Sure, we can make a choice and say no to someone or accept more TMs than we want, but Chadde's starting point (with which I agree) is that having to make such a choice is bad for the game because we (or at least I) am less likely to accept a new recruit to the KD who lives/works with someone else because it is just going to add another person who wants/needs to be TM. Additionally, we want the TMs to use offence on the chained targets too, which can't happen with the block.

Chadde - it sounds like you are a bit frustrated with some of the replies, and understandably so. But it would help if we can focus on possible solutions/improvements because it sounds like you can probably think of some. I have no idea how it can be done better but I accept that we need something in place to prevent/limit cheating, so aside from pointing out where it causes issues I can't help make it better.

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Originally Posted by Goodwitch

So say there was an awesome math teacher somewhere that decided to make utopia part of his/her curriculum...they sign up 24 High School kids to play in a kingdom

how about a fraternity/sorority

a study group that needs some stress relief

a d&d group that gets together frequently and wants to add something different

a game oriented store (e.g. games workshop) that decides to form an employee team in utopia

the family that plays games together

some more likely to happen than others. but that is just a tiny fraction of the market you are shutting out if you don't look for alternatives. No one said to scrap everything. The thread is suggesting to discuss and find new and better solutions for the future.
Looking over the list of what is banned (such as ambush which is a defensive measure following an aggressive action by someone else) is a start.
Finding ways to catch people circumventing the IP ban to cheat is another.

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And apparently the only time they can play utopia is when they suppose to do something different.

I'm happy to discuss solutions to problems with the current system. It's just a large amount of that discussion consists of "IP ban is dumb and doesn't work." Despite proof that it works in there not being widespread cheating and a moderately low amount of complaints.

Not saying those small amount of complaints aren't legitimate. Honestly if I lived in a country with 1 IP provider and I had to contact them to explicitly ask for a unique IP, I'd probably just not play.

@goodwitch call me old school, but utopia is supposed to be a social game. Meeting, interacting, and trying to cooperate with a bunch of random people is most of the fun of utopia (imo). Playing in a big group of people you already know completely and utterly defeats that.

Palem you can explain this to chadde all day and he not going to agree because he wants it his way. A lot of that in he world now days .hes been told by multiple people here , game mods as well as a Dev and he's still argueing to change it to something he's been told won't work. As to Goodwitch if they are teaching upoopo I'm also hoping the same instructors would read the rules prior themselves

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Originally Posted by Skank

There are 3 IP's available on my street, Spectrum is 16 bucks a month. You both have a smart phone? Work at diff places? You are not trying hard enough to play together. Go to Sister's house to teach her. Have her phone you while she post her stats in Poo. We's so ghetto we borrows WIFI

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So you did not read my post. Use 2 different IP's at home. Use your Phone. Play from work. Teach Sister at her home.

All 3 of you deserve to be CRUSHED by the Lords of Utopia for being obstinate. If I knew your loc and prov names my 15 mate ghetto would crush you. xD

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Originally Posted by Skank

So you did not read my post. Use 2 different IP's at home. Use your Phone. Play from work. Teach Sister at her home.

All 3 of you deserve to be CRUSHED by the Lords of Utopia for being obstinate. If I knew your loc and prov names my 15 mate ghetto would crush you. xD

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no , you didn't get it. It is not about chadde and his issue. Check the bugs forum for example. What you are suggesting is working around the system which is not always possible and not everywhere possible.

Korp, we have a kickass math teacher in middle school that has the 8th graders do stocks (pretend of course but they use the actual stock market numbers), sports betting etc to teach the kids that math can be fun and that they can use it some day. Playing Utopia without all the tools could be that also.
Many companies have sports teams, why not a utopia team if there is interest?

Palem, I agree that meeting people is a big chunk of what makes utopia utopia. But often it is easier to get people to try things if their friends are doing it too, it takes the edge off. Everyone starts some place.

And no Thunder, while you are waving your pompoms to gain browny points, chadde is actually trying to work on a solution, among other things he is doing for the game. Sometimes it's good to brainstorm though to get an even better end product.
What are you doing to make the game better? Oh yea, you try to squash any new ideas that come up. You are actually more annoying than Korp, and you shouldn't take that as a compliment.

And to all those interested in possibly finding a better solution some day, make suggestions. What does it have to do and how could that be achieved, what are the issues most pressing.

The problem in some cases is that there are flaws of the IP blocking. I posted in Bugs reports and got shut down by Bishop in a very annoying way.

http://forums.utopia-game.com/showth...is-frustrating

It's not like if anyone wants to have multies is a freaking science to do it. If I want to play 25 provs myself I can easy do it without Bishop smell it. With the tech today is not even expensive to do it. I find the obtuse answers from the game owners frustrating. This will not lead to increase in players base if we're pushing out friends being able to play together. Why make the invites system if you can't get people using same internet provider in a town play together unless they start with disadvantage compared to others? I asked for a simple thing to white list people that can prove they are not multi. Me and my friends can easy do it for example. Don;t get me wrong but 6 people make for a freaking chain ...

unblock it c if number of players jump drastically. i mean i totally got 5 roomates whos device would or could start playing currently;p

think i can relate to both povs of this issue.
But in a game that 1. made its mission to grow and 2. Allows players to move in kds togeter this seems both contraintuitive and detrimental (this is one avenue of growth and who if not families or close friends would want to play togeter). Tho the "penalties" are not too harsh they certainly are drawbacks...

A solution to lower those penalties (not a very good one i admit) would be to allow certain interaction - so called defensive ones as ambush could be a start - on a credit like sistem, payable per action with non-transferable credits (this could be suspended or closed for a prov) . This might offer the admins both more information on the account holders identity and the possibility to track and interpret the actions of an account for extended time frames.

I dont really know if this is workable and other more knowledgeable people in web stuff and cheating essues could tell if this would open a p2w cheating opportunity...

Edit: and maybe open up this option only after 1 full age played togeter by the accounts in question.

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Originally Posted by Goodwitch

And no Thunder, while you are waving your pompoms to gain browny points, chadde is actually trying to work on a solution, among other things he is doing for the game. Sometimes it's good to brainstorm though to get an even better end product.
What are you doing to make the game better? Oh yea, you try to squash any new ideas that come up. You are actually more annoying than Korp, and you shouldn't take that as a compliment.

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Actually GoodWitch i could give a rats ass about Browny points as you call them,I leave that to you or however you get them. Chaddie or anyone making bad suggestions and continuing on and on about it when its been pointed out it wont work isnt a suggestion anymore ,Its just *****ing.You know how that works right.You do it from time to time when you make up randon numbers and ideas with nothing backing them trying to make your points about how others should play.

And yea Korp has his moments but the people you dislike normally are the ones who prove your ideas wrong so im ok with it .

Mirana is like that if you ain't with her you are against her. Then everything you say is bad.

Is that somehow wrong?

I can't find anywhere anyone saying that something else won't work. All I see is people saying this system works...and I never argued that it doesn't cut down on cheating. Somewhere I mentioned that it was a good step to take to implement it.
No system is perfect. Arguing that trying to improve the system is a bad thing is counterproductive. Just because you lack the vision doesn't mean it can't be done.

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A solution to lower those penalties (not a very good one i admit) would be to allow certain interaction - so called defensive ones as ambush could be a start

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and maybe open up this option only after 1 full age played togeter by the accounts in question.

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I think those are good ideas though I would leave out the credits part because that would take the game too far towards pay to win.

You say there are not many complaints about IP blocks. I think that is because alot of people like myself just dont like to complain. I play in a KD with 2 of my co workers and we are all IP blocked because we play at work on the company server. We simply try to work around it as best we can. And we dont complain because we dont see a solution to it in the near future.

i am not a tech savy guy who can provide you the solution to this problem, but it seems there are alot of very smart people who may be able to figure something out

GoodWitch you might go back and read posts made by Palem,Bishop and Jeff then thruout this thread where they said what he was suggesting would actually hurt more people that what they use now. start about post 75 or so. Somewhere in there Bishop also asked you what your suggestion would be to fix it that you never replied to.Its always easy to say change and fix with nothing to change it to .Thats what we have been saying the entire time.

If there was something better hell ya switch to it. Chaddies suggestions Jeff already said would effect way more people than your complaining about now. He also said if someone had a open source available that would work he would love to look at it. You missed that reply i guess. No one has posted one so were still with this bad idea that atleast works to a extent.

https://orange.biolab.si/
Open source solution delivered! Just insert data scientist.

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Originally Posted by Thunder TA

Actually GoodWitch i could give a rats ass about Browny points as you call them,I leave that to you or however you get them. Chaddie or anyone making bad suggestions and continuing on and on about it when its been pointed out it wont work isnt a suggestion anymore ,Its just *****ing.You know how that works right.You do it from time to time when you make up randon numbers and ideas with nothing backing them trying to make your points about how others should play.

And yea Korp has his moments but the people you dislike normally are the ones who prove your ideas wrong so im ok with it .

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What was my bad suggestion? To record user data and make intelligent decisions based on it instead of blocking a whole IP address? To allow a so called dying game to recruit players from friends and family of current players?

What is your suggestion? Never change the code and just pretend it's 2002?