Player & Impostors
I fight against two Races hold by the same player (24590: Cor Caroli System)
This is not accepted any more, specially within a game where people paid to play!
I request to the Webmaster to take any kind action to delete o reduce this sickly behavior.
1- IP tracking
2- IP tracking during subscription
3- Ally massage exchange checks (different Race ships cannot be at the same location at the same time without an evident messaging between the two or more players)
4- Ship or Planet huge donation
Luke
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Chanain commented
Killagain, IP tracking is commonly used to flag potential 'multiple account' problems in online games - typically leading to a manual review to determine if, in fact, there's something inappropriate going on. (Looking for message trails could be misleading, but significant and consistent cooperation, aligned activity times, etc., between people with the same IP...well, it'd be sketchy at best. Put another way, if you and your boys frequently played the same games, and always cooperated, then you might end up being a 'false positive', so to speak.)
In some other online games, there's a ban on interaction between accounts played from the same IP - which makes even more sense in the Planets framework, just imposing an outright ban on multiple players from the same household in public games: It would make enforcement much simpler, and while it would affect your ability to play in public games *against* your boys, all three of you would still be able to play.
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Killagain commented
Well just how would your IP tracking impact me, I play and my two boys play from the same house. I would imaging that would cause me problems. How would you get around that?
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emork commented
I want to add that in teamgames I make limited turns for my teammate if he has a problem or makes holidays where he can't play. I don't think this violates the spirit of the relevant site rule because I don't get any otherwise unavaillable information by doing this. (If I'm wrong I'd ask for an official statement because I know that many do so. I'd certainly adjust my behaviour then.)
I also did a holiday replacement for a player which I didn't know up to then. But he wrote a good user script and I wanted to do a favour in return. Of course I wasn't involved in this game with my own account.
I tell it here because IP tracking could hit me in these cases.
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zeldan commented
Do not be stupid with such suggestion. Read more forum about this to understand why.
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Gnerphk commented
Actually, I'm in favor of large fleet/planet donations. Diplomacy is the most essential factor in a multiplayer game.
IP tracking, however, is a reasonable precaution.
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Gudmundur Ingvarsson commented
Extract computer name and place into the cookie, if two different players repeatedly play the same game from the same computer it should raise a red flag. Also if a player repeatedly plays the game without an older cookie in place it should raise a red flag (Most "clear browsing history" apps or features allow for exclusions). Use the cookie more intelligently, only players with something to hide will object to such methods. Limiting gameplay isn't an option in my opinion as it would ruin the game experience in so many ways. Use the cookie and be creative in it's use and sanity checking.
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Mycroft commented
I would like to note that some people I play team games with, we use external shared note programs to develop our intentions and moves so not everyone completely relies on the ingame messaging system to coordinate their efforts.
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DungeonMaster commented
I think what people are worried about is primarily leaderboard statistics being skewed. So long as game types don't contribute to leaderboard statistics, say blitz and private games, I don't think anyone would care.
You can have multiple accounts from the same I.P. just not playing in the same leaderboard relevant game. That's a simple thing to code and check. -
Richard Hendricks commented
How would this work for multiple persons playing together? Would it mean you could never play a game with your brother/sister/son/daughter/wife/husband if you are on the same IP address/machine? I've played blitz games with my 9yr old, and private games with my wife and friends.
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Jim West commented
Given the state of ISP's and NAT, you could have many players playing from a single IP address. I used to work at a major Internet site and we always were interested in tracking imposters. At the time, AOL users all came from a small set of IP address pools. For registered players who pay by credit card, it should be easy ... same name and billing address.
I think the algorithm for unregistered players becomes more difficult. IP address is probably part of the calculation. How long the account has been around. Games the account plays in. If I had to code this, I'd rather not have to look inside a turn file (at least in the first iteration)
What would be nice is beginners games only for registered players.
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DungeonMaster commented
I agree this is a serious issue with the current structure and some simple checks definitely should be in place. Large ship and planet donations are EASY to code. It should be <25% of each other's fleet/planets shared throughout the whole game. As soon as 25% is hit, warning, then boot if not rectified.
Who do you suspect of doing this?