multiple accounts

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multiple accounts

Postby upset » Thu Aug 18, 2011 4:14 pm

As others have noted previously, it is abolutely obvious several people play with multiple accounts. I have 2 problems with that:

- for me it kills all the fun, since the strategy of "fake" players is really different from that of normal "real" allies, so it brings 2 sets of players playing sort of different set of rules on the same game, which is by definition makes it a BAD game

- and, mostly, it has recently become so common that I now have trouble to find a game with no cheaters (I could cite sooo many...). For this reason I play now much less than before, and the risk is that only cheaters will stay, normal players being so fed up they will leave.

2 questions then:

- For all players : provided you're not one of these, are you also a bit tired of wasting your time on such spoiled games ?

- For game developer(s) : are you aware of this problem , and of the amplitude it is getting ? Are you planning to take care of it in the future ?

I first thought the player profiles should be deleted, but that's an inelegant, repressive solution. As second tought, since these players are so hungry for XP they can't even play in a regular way, they should be rewarded with immediate maximum XP to their profile (who cares anyway). That for sure would kill THEIR fun after a (very short) while (they'll lose any motivation to play, as their motivation is XP and not game fun)...

Of course the main problem stands: how to take into account player's complaints about cheating players... It is soooo obvious when looking at the game over a couple of turns, but so difficult to prove when game is over.

Now maybe I'm the only one that thinks Vortex Wars should be played as originally intended (it was really great. Yes, WAS...)
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Re: multiple accounts

Postby Lopdo » Thu Aug 18, 2011 4:58 pm

We are aware of this problem, but I had no idea problem grew that big. It was just few players few weeks back. Looks like information spread and they are exploiting it more than before. We plan to fix it in upcoming update
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Re: multiple accounts

Postby Norman Bates » Thu Aug 18, 2011 7:17 pm

Wow, I have probably encountered 2 or 3 cheater games.. I think your claim that almost every game has cheaters is a bit of exxageration...

upset wrote:As second tought, since these players are so hungry for XP they can't even play in a regular way, they should be rewarded with immediate maximum XP to their profile (who cares anyway). That for sure would kill THEIR fun after a (very short) while (they'll lose any motivation to play, as their motivation is XP and not game fun)...


That would probably make them play MORE, because what is their motivation for cheating? To get maximum xp, and this would be rewarding them for cheating.
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Re: multiple accounts

Postby upset » Fri Aug 19, 2011 12:57 pm

Norman Bates wrote:Wow, I have probably encountered 2 or 3 cheater games.. I think your claim that almost every game has cheaters is a bit of exxageration...


Well I did not exactly wrote it that way (not 'almost every game', I said that it's hard to find a 'fair' game). Not so different though, I admit... Let me be more accurate then : I've been building a list of cheaters so I can avoid them in the future. Everytime I get fully convinced I'm playing vs a Multiple Account Player (should we call them MAPs :D ?) I write a new line with its various account names (sometimes more than 2). I got fed up when I spent 2 consecutive days adding in average one NEW line for 2 played games, and ended up adding 2 lines on a single game :( . At this point I decided I'd stop playing and post my opinion... Maybe it was just a bad peak on the last days (this week mostly), but at the moment it was certainly no exaggeration. I think the trend is strongly growing.

I also suspect that quite often most regular players don't even realize what happens. 2-3 tricks to get a better view of the situation :

- ever noticed all these inactive players in the lobby ? Have some fun: try to chat with them... No answer ? Are they really all at the toilets or out for lunch ? No wait, one game suddenly ends, another starts and a bunch of these inactive players suddenly jumps in to play all together... Do you really need my small list to guess what happens there ?

- now you're in a starting game... You're happy to be blue, say. You pick up one nice place. One player low on start list (orange, pink, whatever) picks up its starting land right next to yours. That can happen, that can be a strategy, that can even be a winning one. Can also be a MAP cheater, but no way to tell now (so not added on my list of course ;) ). Now for sure you lost your advantage, you'll soon have to fight him, you might be kiked out of game or kick him out finally, but lose so much advantage you won't win anymore. What do you do ? Quit game ? Or want to know for sure what happened :

- the best way to understand why some very odd alliance took place so early (even before 1st move sometimes), or why the above happened, or why it was so hard to win in some relatively promising circumstances : don't leave when you lose. Stay as a lurker... Now you have 3 players left. 2 of them fight the 3rd, as can be with allied players. But as soon as the lone one is dead..... one of the 2 remaining surrenders, without any comment. When it is the one with lowest XP but the most obvious advantage in the game (so the certain winner if game had continued) that surrenders, now you can add these two as a new line on the list ! Another possible scenario: one player is dominating. Another is dying slowly. The very moment where the poor guy has its last land killed, he leaves, and..... the strong guy surrenders and leaves immediately... Or when you end up surviving with 2 other players. Just when this happens (the 4th player just got killed) one of the two comment 'just u and me now...'

All these are real life examples...

The list reached 9 lines in 2 days (I saw much more before but did not write them down). Not much ? Hey, still that's more than 20 "different" accounts, and on some hours they can represent 1/4 to 1/3 of logged people (as has been this week for sure).

This is no small problem. It's killing the game slowly. Happy to learn Lopdo plans something about it, I might come back and play again then. Lopdo, i'm not surprised you hadn't noticed either : I'm sure these guys are wise enough to avoid plaing this way when you're in (or any other "yellow" account) !
Last edited by upset on Fri Aug 19, 2011 1:06 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: multiple accounts

Postby Lopdo » Fri Aug 19, 2011 1:00 pm

upset wrote:Lopdo, i'm not surpised you hadn't noticed either : I'm sure these guys are wise enough to avoid plaing this way when you're in (or any other "yellow" account) !


nah, it's because I don't play at all lately :)
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Re: multiple accounts

Postby Chess435 » Fri Aug 19, 2011 5:14 pm

Actually the yellow accounts, such as my own, are just ones with premium.
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Re: multiple accounts

Postby rouge ace » Sat Aug 20, 2011 10:55 am

Speaking of yellow accounts, i really like the button that takes off the yellow because of how many people dont want to play when they see it. Unfortunatly they do the same with angels and demons and such.
Im a firm believer in that people who criticize angels should be banned :P
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Re: multiple accounts

Postby Lopdo » Sat Aug 20, 2011 10:59 am

this will be fixed when all stuff will become unlockable and thus more common, at least I hope it will be
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Re: multiple accounts

Postby Robomajor » Sat Aug 20, 2011 11:56 am

I would still like to keep the option open that some of these people might just be people who met in the previous game and decided to play again together, or two friends helping each other out. Although, the multiple account deal is likely; we can't call them all cheaters for sure.
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