Page 2 of 3 FirstFirst 123 LastLast
Results 11 to 20 of 28

Thread: multiple accounts on the one server - acceptable?

  1. #11
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Pennsylvania
    Posts
    6,308

    Default

    Actually, it is far more difficult and time-consuming than you suggest, although we are working on it and I have personally submitted quite a few instances of multi-accounting up for banning. The question becomes one of priorities. Do you want the devs to spend all their time searching out and banning multis or do you want them to work on lag on the servers, developing AgeII, fixing bugs, and bringing new features into the game that the players have asked for? For Customer Service, I can ask the same question, but substitute in things like billing issues, people who can't access their accounts, harassment of other players, etc.

    BTW, my tone SirBourne, is simply one of aggravation. I don't really care to see the staff members here work so very hard to take care of the customers just to be forever attacked here because someone thinks one or another issue is being neglected. The gross proliferation of complaining on this forum is tiring.
    Last edited by FoxyBunny; 11-24-2009 at 06:46 PM.

  2. #12

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by FoxyBunny View Post
    Actually, it is far more difficult and time-consuming than you suggest, although we are working on it and I have personally submitted quite a few instances of multi-accounting up for banning. The question becomes one of priorities. Do you want the devs to spend all their time searching out and banning multis or do you want them to work on lag on the servers, developing AgeII, fixing bugs, and bringing new features into the game that the players have asked for? For Customer Service, I can ask the same question, but substitute in things like billing issues, people who can't access their accounts, harassment of other players, etc.

    BTW, my tone SirBourne, is simply one of aggravation. I don't really care to see the staff members here work so very hard to take care of the customers just to be forever attacked here because someone thinks one or another issue is being neglected. The gross proliferation of complaining on this forum is tiring.
    It is not substantially more difficult and time-consuming than I suggest, and I would assert that there are likely other methods than the one I mentioned that are even more efficient. There are dozens of other online games that have managed to figure it out. If the complaints had been that Evony staff had not been doing enough to find these people, what you're claiming might hold up, but that's not what's at issue. The violators being discussed here have already been found and exposed in such a way there there can be no legitimate question that they are indeed using multiple accounts. All that's left for a staffer on the other end to do is run a few quick checks and take disciplinary action.

    Invoking "priorities" is no excuse either. First of all, it's not necessary for the task of rule enforcement to be assigned to developers. It's absurd to act as if account suspension - or the minimal investigating that would accompany it - requires the skills or access of a developer. If it does, then someone did something seriously, seriously wrong at the most basic level of game design, but I have a hard time believing that's the case. And regardless, to answer your question; Yeah, I absolutely want the enforcement of equity-ensuring rules to be a priority. If I'm going to contribute money to a game, there's no question that I want to know that it's a "priority" that players aren't allowed to gain an advantage by ignoring rules. But even still, the larger point is that enforcement of this particular rule isn't an issue of "priorities" on any level.

  3. #13
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Pennsylvania
    Posts
    6,308

    Default

    Well, I am not going to argue company structure with you.

    I am going to say that yes, my tone here has been rather harsh and for that I apologize. I just am honestly at a loss to figure out what on earth would make our players happy. After weeks of near-rioting over the use of bots and how unfair that is to honest players, we banned the bots. The result was rioting from the botters who think that they should be allowed to use them and that it is unfair for us to ban them.

    I tell you now, and I make this prediction with 100% certainty since it is already starting to come true, that the more multi-accounters we get rid of, the more people will be here complaining loudly that we had no right to ban their multis.

    When we let people speak in world chat without strict language filters, people scream about foul language. Strengthen the filters and the howls go up about how difficult it is to talk. Inform people about the block feature and how to avoid harassment, and they complain it isn't enough protection. Crack down on harassment and the lectures on free speech and role play start up.

    I could go on for hours. We simply cannot make everyone happy, so we have to evaluate all the various issues that demand our time and attention and assign priorities to them. We put in our time where we think it will do the most good and that's that. Your protests and opinions are duly noted, and may end up shifting our priorities, but attacks upon the staff for not doing their jobs and snide posts about cheating on purpose because apparently we simply don't care are not taken well.

  4. #14

    Default

    I'm not unsympathetic to your position because I've been in it before, but that's a story for another time. Still, I think the problem that's being discussed here is a valid one.

    You're right that you're never going to make everyone happy, but that can't be a defense because that can't be where the consideration ends. If people are complaining because you're not enforcing the rules and the result is inequitable to those who are playing fair, than those complaints are legitimate. Conversely, if people start to complain that you've disciplined them when they've violated the rules, where's the problem? They don't have some kind of right to violate the rules and they have no room to complain when they're disciplined for doing so. Do you really take seriously the people that complain because you wouldn't let them use their bots? I can't imagine so. I just don't buy "people will still complain" as a valid reason for not acting when there's a clear case of cheating. Besides, the increased complaining about active rule enforcement will be offset by the decrease in complaints like the one that started this thread.

    There's always going to be whining, the trick is figuring out whose whining is legitimate. Nobody's saying that the staff are bad, evil people, and hopefully people understand that the people administering the community aren't necessarily the people deciding what happens in-game. What's being said is that people here have had negative things happen to them in the game because other players were ignoring the rules. They - and often several others - have done everything they've been told to in regards to the appropriate way to report cheaters and seen absolutely no results. Can you really blame them if they're left with the impression that their concerns have been left sitting unread in some dusty, ignored dropbox? I'm certainly not saying that that's the case, but rather that I find it hard to fault them for that perception when I myself have been through it.

    You allude to people making "snide" remarks about the staff doing nothing, but it's not us making those remarks. Those remarks are being made by the cheaters, they flaunt their ignorance of the rules to those of us who play fair. And why? Because they believe - and indeed, the overwhelming perception is that they are right to do so - that no matter how many of us submit complaints, nobody will ever stop them, they're confident they'll never be punished.

  5. #15

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by FoxyBunny View Post
    When we let people speak in world chat without strict language filters, people scream about foul language. Strengthen the filters and the howls go up about how difficult it is to talk.
    This is because apparently nobody fully tests these changes to the filter. As it stands right now, you cannot ask "isn't it" because there's that naughty word being formed across the space. There could be all kinds of other combinations that form that naughty word, that it (there's an example) makes things very frustrating. Then there was the anti-Santa incident that got all kinds of words simply because they had that 2-letter combination in them. Then there was the time when even the name of the game was filtered, so any shared URLs to scouting reports or even to these very forums showed up as ****. There may have been another time when numbers were filtered, thus all the numbers in the URLs got filtered.

    As someone who has also done programming, all of the errors are likely due to misunderstandings involving Regular Expressions. For example, not understanding how [\w] works... It does take a little bit of practice with regular expressions to get it to do exactly what you want it to do. Bottom line though is the changes need to go through more rigorous test cases / scripts, as clearly there have been some major side-effects which then have to be backed out at the next server reset.

    Look, as I've said in other threads, I used to do what you do. I understand, perhaps more than most here, how frustrating it is. However defending a clear failure to run code changes through Quality Control / Quality Assurance by telling customers that they are being too demanding is not a good PR move.

  6. #16

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by FoxyBunny View Post
    I agree. Because we have been unable to instantaneously police the actions of 11 million accounts and immediately ban every single one that could even possibly be a multi without any evidence whatsoever with regards to family members, friends, roommates, etc. that you therefore have full rights to disobey our rules and do whatever you please.

    [/sarcasm]

    Maybe you ought to rethink that. Or then again, do as you like, but could I please have your lord name and server number?
    try taan and all his alteregos
    and iliam and all his alter egos on server 79

    just a few to start with - both have admitted in world chat that they have multiples

  7. Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Dadric View Post
    This is nonsense. None of the posters complaining implied that they expected the game's staff to trawl around every server and find every potential "multi-accounter" and ban them. The complaint was that there has been no action taken against players with multiple accounts even when complaints were submitted in the appropriate fashion and with valid evidence, such as quotes from the offending players themselves.

    Nobody complained that action wasn't "instantaneous." The first poster mentioned complaining "multiple times" and the second stated that it had been three weeks.

    It's not difficult to enforce the rule when an appropriate complaint is submitted. A staffer looks at the complaint, checks the accounts complained of and looks for a variety of factors - IP addresses, account names, email addresses, alliance membership, statements by the player, just to name a few, and this is certainly not an exhaustive list. This is made considerably easier by the fact that most often when someone is cheating to this degree, multiple players have submitted complaints. If the complaint seems valid, you suspend the accounts and inform the users. If they can somehow show that the accounts didn't belong to the same person, you can reactivate them at the click of a button.

    The administration of such a process is not the daunting task that you've claimed, because you've mischaracterized the problem. As an instructive example, there is a player on my server who several members of my alliance have complained of. The name of all of his accounts is exactly the same, with a different numeral at the end of each one. The name of each of his cities is the same, with a different numeral at the end of each one. All of the accounts happen to be a member of the same alliance and have almost exactly the same prestige. Attacks from one account are very frequently accompanied by attacks from the others. All of his cities are in close proximity to each other. In each of our complaints, we've even included statements made the player bragging that he was cheating and that the staff would never take action despite being aware. It's been days since we submitted these complaints, not hours, not minutes.

    This isn't a problem of a "gray area." The fact that this guy is cheating has been served to the Evony staff on a silver platter, and they've declined to take action.

    The argument that "there are just too many people" doesn't apply in the cases that I or the other posters here have complained of. If Evony isn't going to enforce a rule, than don't make it.
    I have to agree with this. People who are dumb enough to use multiple accounts and brag about it should be banned. I understand that some people, even family members, might carry the same or similar names, but when someone brags in writing it's pretty cut and dry. The people claiming here that they're going to open multiple accounts, not very smart BTW. Doesn't really help your cause.

  8. #18

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Dadric View Post
    It is not substantially more difficult and time-consuming than I suggest, and I would assert that there are likely other methods than the one I mentioned that are even more efficient. There are dozens of other online games that have managed to figure it out. If the complaints had been that Evony staff had not been doing enough to find these people, what you're claiming might hold up, but that's not what's at issue. The violators being discussed here have already been found and exposed in such a way there there can be no legitimate question that they are indeed using multiple accounts. All that's left for a staffer on the other end to do is run a few quick checks and take disciplinary action.

    Invoking "priorities" is no excuse either. First of all, it's not necessary for the task of rule enforcement to be assigned to developers. It's absurd to act as if account suspension - or the minimal investigating that would accompany it - requires the skills or access of a developer. If it does, then someone did something seriously, seriously wrong at the most basic level of game design, but I have a hard time believing that's the case. And regardless, to answer your question; Yeah, I absolutely want the enforcement of equity-ensuring rules to be a priority. If I'm going to contribute money to a game, there's no question that I want to know that it's a "priority" that players aren't allowed to gain an advantage by ignoring rules. But even still, the larger point is that enforcement of this particular rule isn't an issue of "priorities" on any level.
    At no point is anything that simple. Screen-shots can be doctored and chat sessions altered to fit what the accuser wants. In order to prevent the system from being abused such that innocent players get banned, each accusation MUST be investigated using the actual game logs to verify the claims and proof. To do otherwise is to give players the opportunity and ability to get innocent players banned and suspended simply because they don't like them or because they can.

    Investigations take time and resources away from doing something else, and no one here, me included, have any idea how many people even deal with these issues.


    Quote Originally Posted by neko_lord View Post
    This is because apparently nobody fully tests these changes to the filter. As it stands right now, you cannot ask "isn't it" because there's that naughty word being formed across the space. There could be all kinds of other combinations that form that naughty word, that it (there's an example) makes things very frustrating. Then there was the anti-Santa incident that got all kinds of words simply because they had that 2-letter combination in them. Then there was the time when even the name of the game was filtered, so any shared URLs to scouting reports or even to these very forums showed up as ****. There may have been another time when numbers were filtered, thus all the numbers in the URLs got filtered.

    As someone who has also done programming, all of the errors are likely due to misunderstandings involving Regular Expressions. For example, not understanding how [\w] works... It does take a little bit of practice with regular expressions to get it to do exactly what you want it to do. Bottom line though is the changes need to go through more rigorous test cases / scripts, as clearly there have been some major side-effects which then have to be backed out at the next server reset.

    Look, as I've said in other threads, I used to do what you do. I understand, perhaps more than most here, how frustrating it is. However defending a clear failure to run code changes through Quality Control / Quality Assurance by telling customers that they are being too demanding is not a good PR move.
    You don't know how word filters work. They look at the text stream and look for those letter combinations mindlessly. They are not intelligent, they are simple, stupid, automatic. They incorporate the usage of spaces in them because that is one common way of bypassing the filter, and while this might break chat, they put those variations in the word list anyway to catch the instances of someone trying to bypass the word filter.
    Last edited by Ashanta; 11-24-2009 at 10:50 PM.
    But....the eternal ray of sunshine REALLY wanted to see you, so I helped brighten your day by removing the city from around you! ^.^

  9. #19
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    In your Occipital Lobe
    Posts
    3,927

    Default

    Evony does not allow cheating. There is more to finding a cheater than most people want to believe. There are over 11 million registered accounts, there are constant reports every day of multi accounts and bots in use.

    Some people say block proxy's, however most public access uses proxy's and quite a few colleges use proxy's. Others say just ban IP's when you find more than one account with it; some people in the same household play the game but have no interaction between accounts except chat. Some college dorms and military instillations have users all on one IP. There is a town in the midwest that announced not to long ago about their whole town now being Wi-Fi, I can bet anything they use proxy's and all public buildings use the same IP.

    When one person is accused of cheating with any kind of evidence the steps are to first investigate the claims. This in itself could take a few days or even a week. Now, with over 11 million users you can at least understand why not every complaint of cheating is dealt with instantly. Cheaters are banned after being investigated and found to be using a multi account or bot and a thorough investigation is done.

    Now I can assume that if any of you that are playing the game the way it was meant to be played were accused of cheating, you would want a thorough investigation instead of just being banned immediately.

    Please do not make accusations of cheating against anyone without any evidence of said cheating. With all the reports handed in about cheating false reports or even if someone is suspected without any type of evidence or lacking evidence takes up the valuable time that can be used to find the real cheaters. So please be extremely careful before you label anyone as a cheater.

    Screen shots are asked for as a tool in helping find instances of cheating, not used to prove cheating. They are only a tool in the investigation process itself.
    Last edited by abracax; 11-24-2009 at 11:01 PM.

    If you come to a fork in the road, take it!
    -Yogi Berra
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQHPYelqr0E

  10. #20

    Default

    Look, I certainly don't disagree that there's no purely automated system (i.e. blocking proxies) that can solve the problem effectively and equitably. Any appropriate solution is going to involve at least some investigation by an actual person, and nobody's suggesting that a claimed quote or a proffered screenshot alone can be determinative.

    That said, claiming that this should take days or weeks overstates things quite a bit. To be clear, if you're saying that the player making the complaint may need to wait a few days, possibly a week or more, before any action is actually taken against a cheating player, that's entirely plausible. However, if you're saying that the investigation itself can take that long, I can't agree. I can understand how this might be the case where the investigation is of an accusation that the player is botting, but not with multiple accounts.

    I think the point that's being overlooked is that what's being complained of here is not that action hasn't been taken against players that are creating multiple accounts and being discreet about it. The complaint here is that no action has been taken where the evidence is indisputable and several different people have complained about the same person, and the offending player has happily broadcasted their disrespect for the rules. These are the easy cases, the ones that take very little time to verify once they're reported.

    If the Evony staff is at all concerned with eliminating at least the perception that cheating goes unpunished, these are exactly the cases that they should be dealing with, because these are the people that are driving the belief that cheaters don't get disciplined.

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •