Combating bots and alts with a verification code

**Librarus** · 03-22-2016, 12:46 PM

Combating bots and alts with a verification code

I have given this some thought after trying to play this game within the rules.
My conclusion is that as it stands it cannot be done.

Over the years I know ENVOY has made some attempts to fix these issues. I would like to offer a suggestion that might do a lot for the game in combating Bots, multiple alts, and the buying and selling of accounts.

In playing other games, I have seen they have a verification feature on login, where when they log in a random number is sent to the player's email in order to verify and complete the log in.
This number is sent to the registered email linked to the account.

Now as to why I feel this could be a good fix for a number of problems you currently have.

1. Bots for the most part run 24/7 but if you require this verification on re-logging back in they should be stopped cold every 24 hours when you do the maintenance upkeep, and they will have to wait for a manual login by the registered email of the owner of the account.

2. Forcing a verification code to be entered for each account will force players to use a legitimate Email address, something they do not have to do now. This should help control the number of alts a player may want to use/create. (I do not believe it will stop it, but it should cut back on the numbers) and again will stop the auto re-logging in of bot alts.

3. Bots are the main reasons for lag on all the servers, again forcing a verification code will force players to manually login, the purpose of bots is to do the things players simply don’t want waste time doing. They are not going to be happy if they will now need to manually login however many Alt accounts they may be using. This should cut back on that lag.

4. Cutting back on the many Alt accounts, will cut back on the almost unlimited resources players can draw on to build their instant mega armies.

5. Having a verification code is going to slow down on team players sitting on other player’s accounts while those players are offline.

6. A verification code should limit, or scare people from buying accounts as as the one creating the account will still have access to that email account and when the buyer changes their password the registered email holder would be notified, and they could steal back the account.

I don’t know if you would like this idea, but I would like to see it implemented. Then once you have a better handle on some of the more outrages number of Alts and their funneling resources to a main War city. You can better work on game balance as it once was.

Using a verification code might take a few extra moments for a player to login, but those that are only login just one account this should not be a handicap to playing. But for those trying to run multiple accounts it should act as a self-limiting feature.

As for Bot users, well it should stop the auto re-logging cold.

This is going to be a pain for those who have created accounts without a legitimate email, I can imagine it is going to cause all kinds of havoc for players without one. For them I say Boohoo, should have started out playing by the rules in the first place.

**~~novabomb~~** · 03-22-2016, 01:01 PM

ok let me explain why this won't work and why evony can't add this (they don't know how to lol)

1. this code better be random AND unusual looking else it can be read

2. must have something to prevent guess work else a password cracking software could be used. Course anything over a 5 digit number could take to long to crack its still possible

3. Your screwing everyone who did not use a email before this would be added. good bye half of the users, fair or not fair ones

4. This is a incredibly long login process that (in my experience) no game has rightfully ever attempted due to the law of lazy people lol. People, fair or not fair player, will find this to be a reason to stop playing

5. Lower alts..... this won't do that. As a person who makes and uses many of my own written programs to automatically do things for me, I know myself and others would simply make a ton of emails automatically on email service that does not cap off the amount of emails a IP can have. Plus Yandex allows you to put 20+ emails in a list to login each very quickly. This also leads me to the fact that many accounts and alts now have FB with legit emails for the ammy glitch

All these reasons will be why this won't be added but the sole reason is really:

EVONY DOES NOT CARE!!!!! lol

I can speak from experience of a game trying to use captcha (spelled right?) to limit requests will only force a bot to adjust a "sleep" time between stuff. it would slow down bots but what if during a big fight, image your doing it manually, you get hit by this captcha and lose your troops because of it. A game i played with bots did this. the bot had a timer per request we filled out with 5-10 seconds. Never got hit by a captcha. If one came up the bot was able to allow us to fill it in from the bot's page

Fighting bots is something (note please) you can not fight if you allowed it to grow. No game in history (to my knowledge) has ever allowed bots to run for a year+ then taken it away without total collapse

My end suggestion to this long post (since your idea and post was a worthy idea after all) is to find a new game or enjoy the chaos and mess of a destroyed game. COUGH or learn java and help me make a new game to replace evony COUGH

**~~Alliendre~~** · 03-22-2016, 03:15 PM

Interesting. ArenaNet use the same system for GuildWars 1 & 2. Believe WoW has a similar authenticator program. Code is sent to my email address for GuildWars each time I log in to the game. It's no biggie, I get the code from my phone and away I go killing trolls & mountain goats.

In respect to remaking Evony, could I suggest that it be done similar to Stormfall
* tablet or smart phone capability (do things by touching the screen)
* daily login with bonuses for the time you remain logged in to encourage users to stay (most of us hang around all day anyway)
* log in bonus (amulet)
* 10 minute bonus (junior battalion, or something similarly crappy)
* 20 minute bonus (slightly better)
* 30 minute bonus (slightly better again)
* 45 minute bonus (even better)
* 1 hour (a good bonus)
* Remove the requirement for speakers in World Chat. It's annoying. I coin regularly and would much rather spend the coins on more useful stuff. The $30 US for a package ends up costing me $40+ and for 200 speakers, it's just not worth the cost.
* Keep the wheel
* Fix the gifting (I have not been able to accept any gifts for over 12 months now) I can send them - and do daily when I do my visiting
* Add in a player blackmarket that allows us to sell un-wanted goods in a server wide market place (yes I know there is still a chance to be hacked and have your goods stolen)

Evony has been around for a number of years, and as much as we enjoy playing it, games and communities do die over prolonged periods of time.

**~~novabomb~~** · 03-22-2016, 03:33 PM

Please for all of our sakes stop spending lol

Ammy glitch speakers i had my main with 1,200 speakers and each alts had 1k speakers alone

not to mention a month of 10 ammy glitched accounts equals a good 10k cents

**~~Alliendre~~** · 03-22-2016, 08:58 PM

I'm not glitching anything, it's not worth it. You seriously glitched for speakers??? LOL

**~~novabomb~~** · 03-22-2016, 11:58 PM

Originally Posted by Alliendre

I'm not glitching anything, it's not worth it. You seriously glitched for speakers??? LOL

no no lol speakers are a side product from spinning 100+ amulets a day, but seriously you'd rather spend money on overpriced item to talk to random people (free chat lobby exist! Skype evony group chats exists! alliances normally have skype groups!) instead of getting free speakers....... not even using a glitch. It's using FB events so evony allows it

**Librarus** · 03-23-2016, 12:06 AM

My reply to novabomb

Originally Posted by novabomb

ok let me explain why this won't work and why evony can't add this (they don't know how to lol)

1. this code better be random AND unusual looking else it can be read

2. must have something to prevent guess work else a password cracking software could be used. Course anything over a 5 digit number could take to long to crack its still possible

3. Your screwing everyone who did not use a email before this would be added. good bye half of the users, fair or not fair ones

4. This is a incredibly long login process that (in my experience) no game has rightfully ever attempted due to the law of lazy people lol. People, fair or not fair player, will find this to be a reason to stop playing

5. Lower alts..... this won't do that. As a person who makes and uses many of my own written programs to automatically do things for me, I know myself and others would simply make a ton of emails automatically on email service that does not cap off the amount of emails a IP can have. Plus Yandex allows you to put 20+ emails in a list to login each very quickly. This also leads me to the fact that many accounts and alts now have FB with legit emails for the ammy glitch

All these reasons will be why this won't be added but the sole reason is really:

EVONY DOES NOT CARE!!!!! lol

I can speak from experience of a game trying to use captcha (spelled right?) to limit requests will only force a bot to adjust a "sleep" time between stuff. it would slow down bots but what if during a big fight, image your doing it manually, you get hit by this captcha and lose your troops because of it. A game i played with bots did this. the bot had a timer per request we filled out with 5-10 seconds. Never got hit by a captcha. If one came up the bot was able to allow us to fill it in from the bot's page

Fighting bots is something (note please) you can not fight if you allowed it to grow. No game in history (to my knowledge) has ever allowed bots to run for a year+ then taken it away without total collapse

My end suggestion to this long post (since your idea and post was a worthy idea after all) is to find a new game or enjoy the chaos and mess of a destroyed game. COUGH or learn java and help me make a new game to replace evony COUGH

ok let me explain why this won't work and why evony can't add this (they don't know how to lol)

1. this code better be random AND unusual looking else it can be read.
a. It doesn't and shouldn’t be a captcha as there are sites that bot users use to get around them.

2. must have something to prevent guess work else a password cracking software could be used. Course anything over a 5 digit number could take to long to crack its still possible
a. A random 12 digit number, or a variable number (ie. more or less than 12) set of digits would make password cracking software somewhat problematic.

3. Your screwing everyone who did not use a email before this would be added. good bye half of the users, fair or not fair ones.
a. As I said before why would this be my problem? It is their choice to play by the rules or not at all.

4. This is a incredibly long login process that (in my experience) no game has rightfully ever attempted due to the law of lazy people lol. People, fair or not fair player, will find this to be a reason to stop playing.
a. You are wrong as a number of games now use it, I would say for the very same reasons to prevent what has happened to EVONY.
b. If you think it is a long login process, well you have just hit the nail on the head. It will not be all that long if all you have is one account, but is you have more than that you might give up a few extra alts.
c. Get real! People have stopped playing this game any number of times and keep coming back.

5. Lower alts..... this won't do that. As a person who makes and uses many of my own written programs to automatically do things for me, I know myself and others would simply make a ton of emails automatically on email service that does not cap off the amount of emails a IP can have. Plus Yandex allows you to put 20+ emails in a list to login each very quickly. This also leads me to the fact that many accounts and alts now have FB with legit emails for the ammy glitch

a. As you pointed out even with a program that make any number of emails, that is not the problem, but simply that each one will have to be opened and the verification code copied and pasted into the verification page for each account. A process that will take time, and need to be done at least once every 24hours. for each account, After every maintenance reset.

All these reasons will be why this won't be added but the sole reason is really:

DOES NOT CARE!!!!! Lol

Simply not true. EVONY never did this in the first place because they never envision the sort of abuse that is so common today.

I can speak from experience of a game trying to use captcha (spelled right?) to limit requests will only force a bot to adjust a "sleep" time between stuff. it would slow down bots but what if during a big fight, image your doing it manually, you get hit by this captcha and lose your troops because of it. A game i played with bots did this. the bot had a timer per request we filled out with 5-10 seconds. Never got hit by a captcha. If one came up the bot was able to allow us to fill it in from the bot's page
1. One if they implement a verification process it will cut down on the lag and the need for captcha’s
2. At this time there is no provision in the bots login to handle a verification process, meaning it will stop bot users cold until they figure out a way to include it, and even then the verification code will need to be manually imputed for each account, because it will change each time they login.

Fighting bots is something (note please) you can not fight if you allowed it to grow. No game in history (to my knowledge) has ever allowed bots to run for a year+ then taken it away without total collapse

I have read a number of your comments on complaining about the game, but not one constructive idea on how to fix it. You just repeat what has already been said and those ideas do and did not work. You can fight or rather EVONY can if it only implements a verification process.

Lastly if I did want to play another game, I wouldn’t be wasting my time trying to get this one fixed as it should be.

EVONY has a set of rules and most people see them as a joke. They have been rarely enforced and it seems at times they do not even have a customer care division.

A verification process will put teeth into those rules by not letting the abuse happen in the first place.
Those that will find they can’t get into their accounts because the never used a verifiable email, well that is just too bad. More than once I seen EVONY put in a patch that didn’t help me, and but did help the older players that had already befitted from it.

Those that use Bots are going to find they can’t use them anymore, and it will kill off those that are too lazy to have to manually do everything their bots used to do. And I say good riddance, it couldn’t happen to a better collection of losers who are too lazy to play the game by the rules.

**Librarus** · 03-23-2016, 12:28 AM

Originally Posted by novabomb

no no lol speakers are a side product from spinning 100+ amulets a day, but seriously you'd rather spend money on overpriced item to talk to random people (free chat lobby exist! Skype evony group chats exists! alliances normally have skype groups!) instead of getting free speakers....... not even using a glitch. It's using FB events so evony allows it

Talking about speakers is off topic for this thread.
Speakers has always been a minor problem and there are other threads for that.

**~~novabomb~~** · 03-23-2016, 10:29 AM

ok so let me just tell you my reasons are not what i think. They are facts because i know how the coding works behind what you want. Also i know buisness and if you think evony would ever hurt the 50% of accounts on evony to make this new login process then you don't know businesses or evony. You act like the player base is what destroyed evony. well let me educate you (only the 20th time i have explained this part) that almost ALL of evony's glitchs are EVONY MADE. Gear glitch is evony coding, ammy glitch is evony made combined with poor database/servers, Resource glitch is lazy coding and yes evony made. The only glitch that evony didn't directly make from when age 2 came out (in theory) is the p14/legendary heros. evony can easily fix all of these glitchs in a day, but they don't because other than not caring, and not knowing how to code, is because they will lose money. They don't care about long term or any terms. This game will ride out into its finals days when evony servers cost more than income

You login system is to long meaning players will be offset by it. You must think outside of yourself in order to understand this.

"a. A random 12 digit number, or a variable number (ie. more or less than 12) set of digits would make password cracking software somewhat problematic."

Evony designing this? i'd laugh to seeing them try

"c. Get real! People have stopped playing this game any number of times and keep coming back."

Less come back then leaving. if what you said was true we would not notice a heavy player lost over the last 5 servers. Evony, to half of its new server players, is a money maker plain and simple

"but simply that each one will have to be opened and the verification code copied and pasted into the verification page for each account. A process that will take time, and need to be done at least once every 24hours. for each account, After every maintenance reset."

Sorry dude with a custom email server i can code a nice way around this. A simple read emails, grab the code (which will be different than anything else or in the same spot) and use a simple request with that code to evony. Sure at first this might work but it will be easily bypassed with time. Money will be made on this program since people will want it. Evony ultimately gets worst

Evony has let this go on for 2 years. No ones fault but their own for not stopping any of this

and again i must remind you. Evony is owned by Ucool which is a LLC which is not a legit american company anymore (almost never was, i believe they lied about their US base as i found no records of it). Do your research into this game. This is a stolen coded chinese owned game which has made 1 improvement over its entire life which was age 2. Its quite simple to make minus the graphics. In fact someone wrote a entire Age 1 C++ coding and i have seen it. They alone did it in around 3 years along with their job. I have coding myself which can do Buildings, Research, Hero, and part of mechs within a few months and i am not as skilled or experienced as some. Alliance warfare is a game which was evony players who made a better game than this lol

So i feel bad for you and anyone who still holds hope of change while you lazily sit on your ass and whin to the big dark hole of evony

NOTE:EDIT: Evony's forgot password email service doesn't work anymore, they no longer host their own email services anymore relying only on ticket center. So this idea will fail before it's started purely because evony has no email