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BattleMaster => Locals => Dwilight => Topic started by: Revan on March 25, 2013, 09:14:25 AM
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The worst part is that it tars the reputation of everyone else in Aurvandil. No matter what it is hard to shake that stigma. Look at Thulsoma and Aquilegia. That stigma still follows some of the nobles that were associated with that realm.
Please tell me you're joking. No-one knew Twinblade was a multi-cheater until he blurted it out. (http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Talk:Twinblade_Family) As it turned out, seven of Aquilegia's 11 nobles were actually Twinblade's multis. He had 8 accounts and 25 characters. No-one should be placing blame or stigma on anyone but the folks who have done the cheating. The players who find they have been playing alongside multi-cheaters are as much a victim as anyone else.
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I can only imagine how akward the other four nobles felt.
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While I agree that playing alongside a mutli cheater doesn't necessarily make you a cheater yourself, the argument being made is that some of the 'non-cheating' players condoned the multi-accounting in exchange for 'winning' Dwilight.
With that said, neither side can be proven. What can (and has been) proven is that Mendicant's character multi-cheated, and we should just leave it at that.
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With that said, neither side can be proven. What can (and has been) proven is that Mendicant's character multi-cheated, and we should just leave it at that.
To allow the discourse to go in another direction, is anyone else happy that that ass got caught and everyone who thought he was a self-infatuated dick can now feel so many levels of smug?
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I have some pretty big issues with your guilt-by-association hypothesis, but on the whole that was much more restrained than I was expecting. Bravo.
Call it guilty-by-association if you want, but I never called for every player of Aurvandil to be locked. However, I do think that Tom and the GMs should send an extremely clear message that cheating does not pay off, for anyone, and that looking the other way is never acceptable. There were plenty of reports of things being amiss in that realm. If Aurvandil gets to maintain its ill-gotten might, then it just tells everyone "you may as well just ask a few friends to make a ton of multies to help your realm, 'cause even if the multies end up locked one day, their contributions will be maintained". It's an atrocious precedent.
Cheater(s) changed Dwilight for good, and now some collaborator will get to inherit it all. And it pisses me off.
Heck, skimming through some of the locked accounts, isn't one of the lords who defected from Barca's "corrupted governement" and started this whole war... one of Mendicant's accounts? Oh, and look who else... The impotent general who had D'Hara attack Lurian forces alone and outnumbered? I see a member of a rebellion in Libero Empire, and nobles who've been to Astrum, to the Lurias. And I only bothered looking through a small part of Aurvandil's accounts (70 nobles is a lot of names to click through). This guy has been influencing events all over Dwilight while he was as it.
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Call it guilty-by-association if you want, but I never called for every player of Aurvandil to be locked. However, I do think that Tom and the GMs should send an extremely clear message that cheating does not pay off, for anyone, and that looking the other way is never acceptable. There were plenty of reports of things being amiss in that realm. If Aurvandil gets to maintain its ill-gotten might, then it just tells everyone "you may as well just ask a few friends to make a ton of multies to help your realm, 'cause even if the multies end up locked one day, their contributions will be maintained". It's an atrocious precedent.
All right, then.
What, exactly, do you suggest be done?
A big GM Message warning about the evils of multicheating? Not like that'll change anything.
Zap the realm out of existence and turn everyone rogue? Not gonna happen; far too extreme.
You've clearly got all the answers, Chénier, so tell us, what should be done to prevent Aurvandil from walking off with the crown even without Mendicant and his multis?
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Zuma invasion, extreme drought, plague that saps the population. A lot of things can be done to send a message, "cheating is not tolerated", while maintaining the SMA RP of Dwilight.
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Zuma invasion, extreme drought, plague that saps the population. A lot of things can be done to send a message, "cheating is not tolerated", while maintaining the SMA RP of Dwilight.
And what about the innocent players of Aurvandil?
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Give it time and things will correct themselves. Aurvandil didn't grow over night and it won't be overnight that they are put back into their place.
The players in Aurvandil seem a bit Naive to me. They seem to think that their realm won't be affected by this. They think they are going to maintain their same size armies and continue to kick everyones butt. I tried pointing out all obvious parts of losing 11 accounts that supplied the "Eternal Treasury" but they say they are going to continue doing Family Investments themselves and keep the Eternal Treasury going. They think their army will stay 30-40k CS.
11 accounts are locked in Aurvandil and Allison is leading 10+ more on an exodus. That should drop them down into the 40 noble count.
The funny thing is that I believe Mendicant created a new character. The name kinda jives with the names he used before. I asked the character about it when it was first created and nothing was said. Nothing has been said publicly at all this time. Some of the players in Aurvandil have decided to claim that Mendicant is still High Sovereign and that the new ruler will be a Regent. Leaving the way open for Mendicant or one of his Heirs to retake the throne.
I tried to tell them that they needed to separate themselves from the Mendicant Legacy but they just put their head down and kept charging forward. The wall is coming soon...
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I think he wants some sort of extreme vengeance so that Asylon by proxy can also suffer. Considering that even though Aurvandiil cheated in the eyes of most of Dwilight it is Asylon that is still considered the most evil and hated for just playing the game. :P
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Wut?
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I think he wants some sort of extreme vengeance so that Asylon by proxy can also suffer. Considering that even though Aurvandiil cheated in the eyes of most of Dwilight it is Asylon that is still considered the most evil and hated for just playing the game. :P
I know you have a hard time believing it sometimes, Glaumring, but not everything is about you.
Case in point: I don't have the first clue what you're on about.
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Whether or not you feel that Aurvandil's remaining players should pay a big price or whether they're innocent bystanders, the fact is that they're probably going to play a moderate price and possibly a big one. It won't take a Zuma invasion. Karma has a way of evening out in cases like these.
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Whether or not you feel that Aurvandil's remaining players should pay a big price or whether they're innocent bystanders, the fact is that they're probably going to play a moderate price and possibly a big one. It won't take a Zuma invasion. Karma has a way of evening out in cases like these.
They lost a bulk of their realm and now the continent hates them even more than before, which is kinda saying a lot. I wouldn't be surprised if they evaporated off the face of Dwilight.
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We will still have around 15 regions and have 40+ nobles. That is in no way shape or from a small realm. I completely agree that we might have gold issues but they will not be as extreme as some of you might think. with the loss of 30 nobles mean we have 30 nobles more gold worth in estates. We also will still have very high cohesion between our armies.
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Wut?
My meaning is dont turn this into a witch hunt... And keep people like Chenier as far away from the decision making body or courtroom as possible.
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My meaning is dont turn this into a witch hunt... And keep people like Chenier as far away from the decision making body or courtroom as possible.
oh. Well, that actually makes your post make sense. :)
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We will still have around 15 regions and have 40+ nobles. That is in no way shape or from a small realm. I completely agree that we might have gold issues but they will not be as extreme as some of you might think. with the loss of 30 nobles mean we have 30 nobles more gold worth in estates. We also will still have very high cohesion between our armies.
I agree to an extent. This basically knocks you down from being... Whatever you were before... To being basically equivalent to Astrum or Morek the last time I looked at them. Yeah, maybe that's not super-win like Aurvandil was before but it's nothing to sneeze at on Dwilight, particularly with Terran in the middle of a massive collapse. Aurvandil also continues to enjoy major geographical advantages in that it's a long way from anything that can actually seriously threaten it. I predict they'll retrench and survive just fine.
And hey, with Mendicant out of the picture they'll probably also be a lot more humble. I mean, you'd really have to work at it to be as arrogant as that guy was.
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Oh you've never met allomere.
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Oh you've never met allomere.
Actually I have. Truth be told I just assumed he was one of Mendicant's alter egos (probably for the same reason you mention him), but apparently I was wrong. I don't have a character on Dwilight anymore where I can see these things.
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To allow the discourse to go in another direction, is anyone else happy that that ass got caught and everyone who thought he was a self-infatuated dick can now feel so many levels of smug?
Oh yes. Having played the ruler of Barca, this gives me a great feeling of satisfaction.
And look at this: http://www.battlemaster.org/UserDetails.php?ID=31463&HistoryLevel=3
This was a character/mendicant-person that SEVERELY pissed me off. They held Twainwood many months ago, before the war started. And regardless of what I asked or suggested, they simply refused to change to the Twainville duchy. Twainwood - Twainville... Yeah. It was a mark of the Aurvandil break-away group: refusal to give in to logic. The same as Mendicant.
I'm sure that he was doing that just to piss me off.
I feel a bit disappointed that Frederick was not a part of it, but I suppose I knew that. He was irritating all on his own. And to state correctly: it was his actions and inaction that precipitated the start of events in the south, ultimately, although there were many contributions that helped it along.
And now I see why Mendicant originally sent such a weird letters to Barca, asking what changes we would make in order for our regions to be returned...because he was playing in the realm. I've always assumed that we had some people from Aurvandil with characters in Barca, especially with all the new accounts that we were getting. Although the more optimistic side of me always won out, until a few weeks ago.
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And now I see why Mendicant originally sent such a weird letters to Barca, asking what changes we would make in order for our regions to be returned...because he was playing in the realm. I've always assumed that we had some people from Aurvandil with characters in Barca, especially with all the new accounts that we were getting. Although the more optimistic side of me always won out, until a few weeks ago.
In Madina and Fissoa it was simply assumed we had multi's or spies from Mendicant in our ranks.
One too many times during massive battles did 1,2, even 3 nobles "cross over" after giving massive speaches about how corrupt we were whilst espousing perfect Aurvandil rhetoric. I'm sure one or two of them were legit players moving over.
Others, not so much.
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I'm sure a lot of Barcans would like for the regions taken by multi accounts to be moved back to Barca.
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All right, then.
What, exactly, do you suggest be done?
A big GM Message warning about the evils of multicheating? Not like that'll change anything.
Zap the realm out of existence and turn everyone rogue? Not gonna happen; far too extreme.
You've clearly got all the answers, Chénier, so tell us, what should be done to prevent Aurvandil from walking off with the crown even without Mendicant and his multis?
Have the Zuma invade them, burn them to the ground. No, I don't see this as too extreme, given the extreme power they were given thanks to this cheating and the extreme impacts it had on Dwilight. And the Zuma are known to launch big attacks for very little. I've already said as much.
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Chenier Rants #2 & #3
There's that handsome devil we all love to hate.
I retract my earlier kudos.
Edit: To clarify my position, Mendicant ruled by fear. He created a system where any disloyalty was met with disproportionate punishment, and absolute loyalty was seemingly rewarded (Though of course only his alts got any true power out of the deal). As far as I see it, if you played there you played by Mendicant's rules. Under such tyranny, it's not hard to see why a lot of players didn't question things.
Also, each of my characters only receives letters from a handful of people each day; most people aren't chatty cathys, and it would be really hard to tell if someone was multi-cheating from my end, particularly if it just seemed like they were silently following orders. I have a General on one island and a Marshal on the other, and the warriors in each army don't really talk to each other. For the most part, especially with regards to my Marshal, people just follow orders because that's how we win wars. For all they know, I could be controlling 60% of the army. The onus should not be upon the player to route out a cheater, especially since this is a game you can supposedly play with a total time investment of fifteen minutes a day. The bad rep that what remains of Aurvandil is now saddled with is its own punishment, since they're still at war with basically the whole world only without their cheeky little fascist at the head.
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And what about the innocent players of Aurvandil?
What about them? Were it not for the cheating, Aurvandil might have been destroyed in its egg by Madina. A lot of people who played in Aurvandil said how suspicious it was. I have no issue seeing a realm filled with people who don't care much about this being torn apart. They are collaborators as far as I'm concerned. People who let bad guys do their deeds may not be as bad as the people actually doing the deeds, but they certainly aren't in any way entitled to reap the benefits of the bad peoples' deeds.
Give it time and things will correct themselves. Aurvandil didn't grow over night and it won't be overnight that they are put back into their place.
Why, so you can claim the bounty for yourself? They destroyed Madina, they crippled Barca and D'Hara, they made Terran explode, they probably prevented SA from turning on itself, they played a role in LV's failures, they slowed down Fissoa... The cheating did a !@#$load to Dwilight. Seriously major stuff. And even if Aurvandil will wane for this to happen, it will probably take some time for this to be truly noticeable and they'll still be able to surf on the victories of cheating. They already won all of their important wars, they don't need their strength anymore.
My meaning is dont turn this into a witch hunt... And keep people like Chenier as far away from the decision making body or courtroom as possible.
I never said any names, I never participated in any witch hunt. My character dislikes your realm, and I often find you irrational and annoying as a player, but I really couldn't care less for Asylon right now. You got a bunch of peace settlements, and will probably manage to get more. Your realm's weight in my opinions of the Aurvandilian cheating is precisely zero. This doesn't revolve around you at all. And I never said we should start looking for who benefited the most, who might have known something but didn't say...
Under such tyranny, it's not hard to see why a lot of players didn't question things.
Actually, no, I don't see this as making it any easier to see why things weren't questioned, because a ton of people have, in the past, stated how incredibly fishy the realm was run. Afraid questioning things, OOC (or even IC), will result in punishment? Why the !@#$ are you playing in such a realm?
The bad rep that what remains of Aurvandil is now saddled with is its own punishment, since they're still at war with basically the whole world only without their cheeky little fascist at the head.
That's a ridiculous argument to make. Aurvandil already won. They are at peace with Barca, D'Hara, and for all intents and purposes, Terran. Those are the only realms close enough to it to really matter. As for the other realms of mid distance, like Astrum and Farronite Republic, they already picked up a new war with Asylon, but even then they were too far away to do much anyways. The other realms at war basically have their troops auto-revolt the moment they arrive. Nobody can pose a serious threat to Aurvandil anymore. No one.
The onus should not be upon the player to route out a cheater, especially since this is a game you can supposedly play with a total time investment of fifteen minutes a day.
It doesn't take an hour a day to sense something is fishy. And it doesn't take an hour a day to just change realms. And heck, I never called for these players to be punished. I never asked for a witch hunt, to also lock the account of every collaborator who could have known something but didn't report it. All I'm calling for is that nobody benefit from this massive cheating. Playing in a realm is not an inalienable right. These players have no right to Aurvandil. If these players want glory and might, then sure, by all means, they can seek it. But they should seek it from scratch. They should have to gain it fairly. They should not inherit it from cheaters. There is no way to undo all of the damage the cheating has caused. But as it is, we treated the cancer to stop it from growing. Now, it's time to cut the tumor out. Time to burn Aurvandil from the ground, and let the honest players try to redo their rep and rebuild their realm.
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Your argument hinges on the idea that the players of Aurvandil benefited from the cheating. Can you really say that they benefited, when nearly all positions of power were held out of their reach? When they had virtually no say in how things were run? If anything the players of Aurvandil suffered the most, for, unbeknownst to them, they were merely pawns in the mad schemes of one man. If anything, they should recieve compensation.
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The GM's investigated Aurvandil a few times from my understanding. It took me some time in Aurvandil watching what was happening and talking to the nobles to begin to make some connections. Finally I had enough of a suspicion to go to Tom. I told him about 2 specific characters and why I thought they were multi's they were able to use that to pinpoint the multi accounts. If the GM's didn't find them before, how can you expect average players to do so. Even now characters/players are saying how great Mendicant is/was. They are going to name him High Sovereign in perpetuity and create a Regency so that if Mendicant comes back or his "heir" shows up he can take the throne.
I'm leaving Aurvandil. It is a really wierd mentality in that realm. With the 11 accounts locked and the 1 or 2 other accounts that weren't locked but auto paused at the same time they have lost 12-14 nobles. I'm leaving and there will be about 10 of us. I'm sure a few others will leave as well. In the end they will have 30-40 nobles in a realm with 1 city. I don't think things are going to go as well for them as Chenier thinks.
Yea, it sucks that they get to keep all their ill gotten gains. But look at Asylon. Mendicant got them into the war and now they will be hung out to dry.
When there is a bug in the game and people lose gold or some such you don't get it back. This is just a similar !@#$ty situation. RP it as best you can and deal with it as best you can.
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Can you really say that they benefited, when nearly all positions of power were held out of their reach? When they had virtually no say in how things were run?
If you willingly hold yourself in thrall to a tyrannical overlord, with no hope for advancement, and in constant fear of reprisal should you step out of line, then you deserve what you get. And that's not sympathy.
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If you willingly hold yourself in thrall to a tyrannical overlord, with no hope for advancement, and in constant fear of reprisal should you step out of line, then you deserve what you get. And that's not sympathy.
Positions doled out to loyal supporters? Malcontents punished? A tyrant who reigns supreme? The audacity! It's as if they thought they were playing a medieval sim or something.
Being serious for a moment, those are symptoms of just about every realm.
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Sounds like SA in a nutshell.. ::)
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Positions doled out to loyal supporters? Malcontents punished? A tyrant who reigns supreme? The audacity! It's as if they thought they were playing a medieval sim or something.
Being serious for a moment, those are symptoms of just about every realm.
So you were treated to the same thing that you claim every realm experiences, yet also claim that you deserve to be compensated because of it... ???
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It doesn't take an hour a day to sense something is fishy.
Irrelevant. The onus is not on the players.
And heck, I never called for these players to be punished.
Orly?
Time to burn Aurvandil from the ground, and let the honest players try to redo their rep and rebuild their realm.
Seems an awful lot like punishment.
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The GM's investigated Aurvandil a few times from my understanding. It took me some time in Aurvandil watching what was happening and talking to the nobles to begin to make some connections. Finally I had enough of a suspicion to go to Tom. I told him about 2 specific characters and why I thought they were multi's they were able to use that to pinpoint the multi accounts. If the GM's didn't find them before, how can you expect average players to do so. Even now characters/players are saying how great Mendicant is/was. They are going to name him High Sovereign in perpetuity and create a Regency so that if Mendicant comes back or his "heir" shows up he can take the throne.
I'm leaving Aurvandil. It is a really wierd mentality in that realm. With the 11 accounts locked and the 1 or 2 other accounts that weren't locked but auto paused at the same time they have lost 12-14 nobles. I'm leaving and there will be about 10 of us. I'm sure a few others will leave as well. In the end they will have 30-40 nobles in a realm with 1 city. I don't think things are going to go as well for them as Chenier thinks.
Yea, it sucks that they get to keep all their ill gotten gains. But look at Asylon. Mendicant got them into the war and now they will be hung out to dry.
When there is a bug in the game and people lose gold or some such you don't get it back. This is just a similar !@#$ty situation. RP it as best you can and deal with it as best you can.
Voice of reason here.
And, Chénier, about "collaborators," note that the very person you were wailing on as being one such collaborator a few days ago was, unbeknownst to you, the person who filed the initial report.
You have no ability to determine the innocent and the guilty.
Though seriously Kwanstein, that's ludicrous that Aurvandil should be compensated. That's practically Mendicant-level nonsense.
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I say we thank the GM that some multi-abusers are gone and continue to armchair general about some Marrocidenian warfare.
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May we have an official statement by a GM informed on the facts about how deep and influencial was the Mendicant multicheating thing? Was it done all by one person who proceed to roleplay interactions between many of his multy? Or there were more people involved in a web of multies?
Is there a way to tell roughly how much gold did he obtained in such a way?
I'm asking this because I'm a recently new Aurvandil player (joined around december or something like that) and hearing that "Having the Zume raze Aurvandil would be a good compensation" trouble me as a legit player.
Knowing how much of the Ourvandoux strenght depended on cheated resource would probably help us left to rebuild the realm and maybe would help stopping the exaggerations (if there are any) going on about such matter
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One thing to note is that although Mendicant cheated, the resources he conjured weren't achieved due to cheating but merely by playing competently. The same resources could have been achieved by any realm, potentially. The main victims of his cheating, and those that I feel have the most right to complain, are the nobles of his own realms who were denied any power, due to his and his puppet accounts hoarding it for themselves. Those nobles were most assuredly being cheated and lied to. That would include Aurvandilians, Barcans and Madinianites, as far as I'm aware. Realms that didn't host him or any of his multis weren't abused in the same manner; in fact they were hardly abused at all. All they had to put up with was an enemy that was more competent than usual, which is a possible scenario for any realm to find itself in, cheaters or not.
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It's my understanding that all those accounts funneled gold to the characters in Aurvandil. So no, Aurvandil's resources weren't merely conjured by playing competently. And nobles are a resource too.
So yeah, we'll see how they fare without him and that'll tell us how much their previous ownage was deserved. Though whether it was deserved or not... !@#$ happens and everyone will just have to deal with it and not do the same to others as Mendickant did to you.
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One thing to note is that although Mendicant cheated, the resources he conjured weren't achieved due to cheating but merely by playing competently. The same resources could have been achieved by any realm, potentially. The main victims of his cheating, and those that I feel have the most right to complain, are the nobles of his own realms who were denied any power, due to his and his puppet accounts hoarding it for themselves. Those nobles were most assuredly being cheated and lied to. That would include Aurvandilians, Barcans and Madinianites, as far as I'm aware. Realms that didn't host him or any of his multis weren't abused in the same manner; in fact they were hardly abused at all. All they had to put up with was an enemy that was more competent than usual, which is a possible scenario for any realm to find itself in, cheaters or not.
Actually, from what's been said in this thread, Mendicant also used characters that defected from Barca to Aurvandil (which is the recognized reason for the start of the Marrociden War), and a character in D'Hara that attacked Luria (which inflamed the D'Hara-Luria War, and hindered Luria from joining the campaign against Aurvandil).
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Your argument hinges on the idea that the players of Aurvandil benefited from the cheating. Can you really say that they benefited, when nearly all positions of power were held out of their reach? When they had virtually no say in how things were run? If anything the players of Aurvandil suffered the most, for, unbeknownst to them, they were merely pawns in the mad schemes of one man. If anything, they should recieve compensation.
Oh, you mean those positions that they now get to inherit, along with all that nice land?
Compensated, because they were tricked.
::)
Yeah, they were tricked into many glorious victories and growing into a great realm. Ok, yes, they were deceived. But they are better off for the results in terms of character gains. Compare that to other realms that Aurvandil has "influenced".
I'm asking this because I'm a recently new Aurvandil player (joined around december or something like that) and hearing that "Having the Zume raze Aurvandil would be a good compensation" trouble me as a legit player.
Well, as a legitimate player, it also troubled me greatly when I witnessed the level 5 walls in Barca being torn down to nothing. That is literally thousands of gold and many, many months of RL work. And Barca is and always has been poor, so that was the major achievement of the realm.
Not to mention the starvation that decimated the Barcan capital down to about 1/3 or less of its prior population after Barca lost three of its most productive farming regions to Aurvandil. Again, many, many months of RL work.
And now the same has happened to the walls of the Terran Capital, so I hear (excluding everything else, that has already been mentioned).
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Oh, you mean those positions that they now get to inherit, along with all that nice land?
::)
Yeah, they were tricked into many glorious victories and growing into a great realm. Ok, yes, they were deceived. But they are better off for the results in terms of character gains. Compare that to other realms that Aurvandil has "influenced".
Well, as a legitimate player, it also troubled me greatly when I witnessed the level 5 walls in Barca being torn down to nothing. That is literally thousands of gold and many, many months of RL work. And Barca is and always has been poor, so that was the major achievement of the realm.
Not to mention the starvation that decimated the Barcan capital down to about 1/3 or less of its prior population after Barca lost three of its most productive farming regions to Aurvandil. Again, many, many months of RL work.
And now the same has happened to the walls of the Terran Capital, so I hear (excluding everything else, that has already been mentioned).
They waited years for what could be achieved by malingering a few months in any other realm.
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They waited years for what could be achieved by malingering a few months in any other realm.
Nobody forced them too.
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Nobody forced them too.
That is not relevant.
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That is not relevant.
Yeah, it's really the entire point. No one forced you to stay in a realm in which you were not getting promoted, positions, or influence. You're choice. There will be no "compensation", or whatever euphemism you wish to use. Deal with it, just like every single one of the other players, in each and realm that got screwed over by those who decided to abuse the game and cheat.
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Yeah, it's really the entire point. No one forced you to stay in a realm in which you were not getting promoted, positions, or influence. You're choice. There will be no "compensation", or whatever euphemism you wish to use. Deal with it, just like every single one of the other players, in each and realm that got screwed over by those who decided to abuse the game and cheat.
Firstly, I am not in Aurvandil. Secondly, I did not propose compensation, Chenier did. Thirdly, whether or not people were forced to suffer ill-consequences or tricked is of no importance -- it's the fact that they suffered ill-consequence at all that is. Nobody forced anyone to invest in Bernie Madoff's ponzi scheme, just like no one was forced to serve Mendicant, but that doesn't change the fact that the investors were abused by his trickery all the same.
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I was asking for clarifications whoever had investigated the issue exactly to understand how many of the Aurvandil's achievements can be related to the multies cheat.
If the Mendicant's web of gold hoarding characters were so deep that everything done by Aurvandil wouldn't have happened without it, I beleive that BM game experience might be seriously compromised if it's so easy to cheat on such a scale for so long.
Can we have an official statement on what was cheated and by who?
PS just read the replies about power being hold mostly in multies: the issue there is those multies actually seemed to play and had interaction with us other Aurvandil's players and even between them. That's the reason why I beleive the actual people who cheated were not only Mendicant's player but a group associated with him.
After all I suppose they were good at their cheat, otherwise we'd expect to have them caught without having the need to infiltrate Dustole in the realm, don't we?
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Secondly, I did not propose compensation, Chenier did.
If anything the players of Aurvandil suffered the most, for, unbeknownst to them, they were merely pawns in the mad schemes of one man. If anything, they should recieve compensation.
Please, just stop.
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Please, just stop.
If you would take a look at the context of that quote, you would see that it is in response to the very post in which Cheneir asks for compensation. Not only that, but the phrase "if anything," which is used twice, suggests that I am not genuinely asking for compensation, merely demonstrating a point by doing so.
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Fact: Mendicant Cheated.
Fact:Mendicant was directly and solely responsible for all diplomatic correspondence with other realms
Fact: As a direct result of Mendicants actions, the map and diplomacy of all Dwilight was severely and irreparably defected. It was not localized. Even Luria and D'Hara had to put aside there differences to combat the threat. If you subscribe to the multiverse theory, Rynn might already be riding down the streets of Luria's capital as a victorious conqueror were it not for that and given Alice to Machiavel as a conquest of war. jus sayin.
Fact: For both diplomatic and military reasons, Barca lost regions to Aurvandil, Terran was effectively destroyed, a Duchy of D'Hara was illegally colonized.
Fact: Tricked or not, the players in Aurvandil were "lured" into the most powerful military machine in the game that simply may not have been nearly so successful but for Mendicant's cheating.
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Fact: (etc.)
My character's city and realm are falling down around him because of Aurvandil. But none of your facts lend themselves to an easy conclusion.
The principle here is not 'what degree of remedy is necessary' but 'why should the developers, whose job is development, intercede?'
So the Zuma invade Aurvandil. Aurvandil nobles all get on ships and sail to, I don't know, what used to be Terran. New realms, easy pickings. They take some regions. Then the players whose regions they took complain about how this wouldn't have happened if the developers hadn't 'fixed' everything.
Or the devs try to 'reset' the place to how it was a year ago. How would this even work? Pages and pages of bitching about how this or that detail is wrong. What about all the politics since then? Pretend it never happened?
Not only would this be an impossible task, it would be an awful precedent. I'm grateful that these guys were caught. I expect that nothing with the name 'Aurvandil' will have an easy time of it going forward, however damaged non-Aurvandil realms are because of them. But we're the players and we've got to figure out the way forward. Not pray for lightning bolts.
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Nobody forced them too.
This is very relevant. From what I have heard, a similar environment happened in Eston, just with no cheating involved. For years, the same group of characters has held almost all the power, yet there are no calls for compensation for Eston's players. I am with Scarlett, quit your bitching and move on with the game.
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I am with Scarlett, quit your bitching and move on with the game.
Yup. And my Realm was fully annihilated and destroyed by Mendicant and his posse, its name tarnished, the whole nine yards.
You know what I'm going to do? Crush Aurvandil - and to do that, I need to get back to playing.
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I can only imagine how akward the other four nobles felt.
I hated it. To the point that I almost quit BM after Aquilegia nearly collapsed because of one stupid guy. If it could happen once, twice, who is to say it isn't happening right now again in my very own realm? How could I know? I had no idea the first time. I hate multi-cheating and the paranoia it causes me as to if somebody is cheating or not.
Please please please find a way to stop multi-cheaters! Maybe train dogs to sniff out players to confirm they are human...wait, that's Terminator ;D
I would also like to know which families were included in the list of accounts controlled by Mendicant. I am shocked, but not surprised.
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I hated it. To the point that I almost quit BM after Aquilegia nearly collapsed because of one stupid guy. If it could happen once, twice, who is to say it isn't happening right now again in my very own realm? How could I know? I had no idea the first time. I hate multi-cheating and the paranoia it causes me as to if somebody is cheating or not.
Please please please find a way to stop multi-cheaters! Maybe train dogs to sniff out players to confirm they are human...wait, that's Terminator ;D
I would also like to know which families were included in the list of accounts controlled by Mendicant. I am shocked, but not surprised.
Same here. Twinblade had tons of accounts in Irombrozia. Since then I've been paranoid about multis and tend to regard any large influx of accounts with a degree of suspicion.
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After Twinblade, we were able to use the traces he had left in the DB to build some better semi-automated cheater-checking tools. This led to us catching a lot more multis over the following period than we had been able to before.
Since then, we have added a few more pieces of data to the list of what we log (nothing personally identifiable; for that, we'd have to actually ask, and trust that it's accurate!). Once we get some more time, this will let us enhance and refine the aforementioned semi-automated cheater-checking tools.
At this point, it would be very difficult for someone running a multi group the size of Twinblade's to run under the radar without it essentially being a full-time job for him.
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Which, for at least one person, it was...
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So, since we are talking about compensation... Why not give Allison the bounties on all those Aurvandalians? Or, make my game more interesting and add all those bounties onto Allisons.
I think I like the second idea better. I could be pimping around Dwilight with about a 5k bounty.
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What a !@#$show... This is annoying on so many levels. This sucks for Dwilight and it sucks for BM.
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What a !@#$show... This is annoying on so many levels. This sucks for Dwilight and it sucks for BM.
Yes, it's really disgusting the lengths some people will go to gain an unfair advantage at a free online game with no win condition.
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Yes, it's really disgusting the lengths some people will go to gain an unfair advantage at a free online game with no win condition.
Kind of sad and pathetic really ;)
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Yes, it's really disgusting the lengths some people will go to gain an unfair advantage at a free online game with no win condition.
Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime. Give a man a gun and he'd rob every fisherman he comes across.
Human nature.
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What if the player of Mendicant is the player of Twinblade?
What if you are too? How would I know? Maybe I am one of a small handful of real players and the rest are all accounts of some troll in the Yukon?
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What if the player of Mendicant is the player of Twinblade?
What if you are too? How would I know? Maybe I am one of a small handful of real players and the rest are all accounts of some troll in the Yukon?
Yes, what if the whole game is just an experiment by Tom and Tom plays every account/character except for you? 8)
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Yes, what if the whole game is just an experiment by Tom and Tom plays every account/character except for you? 8)
This isn't the case?
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Could you imagine what type of genius Tom would have to be to write out my forum rants everyday? :o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a4gyJsY0mc
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Tom is Tom, Tom is all.
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Tom is Tom, Tom is all.
Tom hath spoken.
Clearly.
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More Toms for the Tom throne!
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Hail Tom!
Tomking of the mighty and numerous Toms!
May his Tomspring populate the earth for a thousand years!
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Irrelevant. The onus is not on the players.
Orly?
Seems an awful lot like punishment.
Make a distinction between players and characters. No locks or reprimands to the players' accounts. Destruction of Aurvandil is not a punishment to the players, it's fixing a mistake that they let happen. They aren't entitled to ill-gotten gains. Nobody is. The players would then be free to rebuild Aurvandil if they want, without any sanction whatsoever, provided they can do so in a fully legitimate way.
One thing to note is that although Mendicant cheated, the resources he conjured weren't achieved due to cheating but merely by playing competently. The same resources could have been achieved by any realm, potentially. The main victims of his cheating, and those that I feel have the most right to complain, are the nobles of his own realms who were denied any power, due to his and his puppet accounts hoarding it for themselves. Those nobles were most assuredly being cheated and lied to. That would include Aurvandilians, Barcans and Madinianites, as far as I'm aware. Realms that didn't host him or any of his multis weren't abused in the same manner; in fact they were hardly abused at all. All they had to put up with was an enemy that was more competent than usual, which is a possible scenario for any realm to find itself in, cheaters or not.
Bull!@#$. No pity for the guys who get to inherit a superpower on the world's edge surrounded by crippled neighbors, who CHOSE to live in a tyrannical realm for all this time. Played competently? Easy when you run so many accounts. Let me run 20 accounts and see how efficient I can make my realm. No need to be a genius.
Oh, you mean those positions that they now get to inherit, along with all that nice land?
::)
Yeah, they were tricked into many glorious victories and growing into a great realm. Ok, yes, they were deceived. But they are better off for the results in terms of character gains. Compare that to other realms that Aurvandil has "influenced".
Well, as a legitimate player, it also troubled me greatly when I witnessed the level 5 walls in Barca being torn down to nothing. That is literally thousands of gold and many, many months of RL work. And Barca is and always has been poor, so that was the major achievement of the realm.
Not to mention the starvation that decimated the Barcan capital down to about 1/3 or less of its prior population after Barca lost three of its most productive farming regions to Aurvandil. Again, many, many months of RL work.
And now the same has happened to the walls of the Terran Capital, so I hear (excluding everything else, that has already been mentioned).
And all of the food that was denied to D'Hara in the process, which caused the greatest starvation the continent probably saw and turned our super-wealthy realm to a miserable few regions.
Dwilight is changed forever. And it disgusts me that everywhere I look, I see Mendicant. EVERYTHING on Dwilight is the result of Mendicant. ALL of it. All I see, everywhere I look, is fruits of cheating.
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Make a distinction between players and characters. No locks or reprimands to the players' accounts. Destruction of Aurvandil is not a punishment to the players, it's fixing a mistake that they let happen. They aren't entitled to ill-gotten gains. Nobody is. The players would then be free to rebuild Aurvandil if they want, without any sanction whatsoever, provided they can do so in a fully legitimate way.
If they can continue to pose the threat they have posed without the contributions of a cheater, they deserve what they've gotten. If not, then bye bye Aurvandil.
And all of the food that was denied to D'Hara in the process, which caused the greatest starvation the continent probably saw and turned our super-wealthy realm to a miserable few regions.
You mean the long winter? Seems you're giving the guy a little too much credit to me.
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EVERYTHING on Dwilight is the result of Mendicant
Not Terran. To anyone who says that Terran should get back what it lost, Aurvandil just happened by. Terran is responsible for its own weakness, and many of you have commented on it: the realm has not been a solid, cohesive place in months and months.
It was circling the drain for a long time. Aurvandil just came by and jiggled the handle.
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There's no denying that Aurvandil had a big effect on the island. But then, so does any large realm. Some by the acts they take, some by merely existing. Others by dying. I think that the moot's impression is colored by proximity to Aurvandil. Up in the north, things aren't anywhere near so different. The idea that SA would have fractured and splith without Aurvandil's threat is wild exaggeration. It would have just found something else to do. Maybe Asylon would have reached for the red shirt a bit sooner. Maybe Swordfell would have happened sooner. It's impossible to say, really.
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If they can continue to pose the threat they have posed without the contributions of a cheater, they deserve what they've gotten. If not, then bye bye Aurvandil.
No, they don't deserve any of it. Madina could perhaps have killed them right off the bat weren't it for the cheating. They wouldn't have ever had the Barcan lords defect to Aurvandil, beginning the war in the first place. They might not have done as well against the first front set up by the 'moot against them. And it goes on and on.
You mean the long winter? Seems you're giving the guy a little too much credit to me.
During the long Winter, they had food. While Barca had a lot less than it ought to, because of the lands looted and the lands taken. Barca could have fed itself otherwise, and maybe even D'Hara. And had Mendicant not provoked the war himself, there are good odds Aurvandil would have been more willing to trade the ridiculous surpluses they had, instead of hoarding it. They had a huge impact on the 'moot's starvation during the long winter.
Not Terran. To anyone who says that Terran should get back what it lost, Aurvandil just happened by. Terran is responsible for its own weakness, and many of you have commented on it: the realm has not been a solid, cohesive place in months and months.
It was circling the drain for a long time. Aurvandil just came by and jiggled the handle.
Yes, Terran too. Point in case: it didn't break up until Aurvandil occupied their capital. Maybe it would have eventually broken up anyways, sure, but not at this time, not right now. I never suggested anywhere that any of the 'moot realms get any compensation whatsoever, though. The damage that has been caused is irreperable, we can't pretend like it never happened.
There's no denying that Aurvandil had a big effect on the island. But then, so does any large realm. Some by the acts they take, some by merely existing. Others by dying. I think that the moot's impression is colored by proximity to Aurvandil. Up in the north, things aren't anywhere near so different. The idea that SA would have fractured and splith without Aurvandil's threat is wild exaggeration. It would have just found something else to do. Maybe Asylon would have reached for the red shirt a bit sooner. Maybe Swordfell would have happened sooner. It's impossible to say, really.
Tell me, would Allison have left the church if she had nowhere to run to? And whatever the answer, many people have put great efforts to keeping SA in the same direction, and many have commented that it may not otherwise be so united. Would we have seen Astrum against Morek? Maybe not, but that's not the point either. And to claim that they had an impact as "any large realm" is ridiculous. Morek's impact on Dwilight is rather minimal. They could have more impact, but they chose not to. Same with Astrum. Mendicant had impacts on almost ALL realms of the continent, he had accounts in the Lurias, in Iashalur... He crippled three realms with Aurvandil, destroyed another. What did Astrum or Morek do since Aurvandil was founded?
To say that it had a "big" effect is an understatement. Mendicant single-handedly caused the most changes on Dwilight by himself, with the help of whoever didn't mind playing in a realm with a lot of fishy behavior.
The Zuma have sacked capitals for basically nothing on many occasions in the past. And hey, they have "alien minds that we could never understand". Why not just go raze the damn thing to the ground, lest we leave Dwi as a testament of how much one can pull off by cheating if he wants to.
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Because Chenier as much as you're preaching that it would be only fair to see all 60 or so noble's hard work AND REAL LIFE YEARS thrown down the drain in the blink of an eye, it's not. I'm not going to say we didn't benefit from the cheating because we did. What I am saying is I've put in a lot hard work in the is realm and it's not fair to see that taken away from me because of your petty rants about how life's not fair.
You can try and argue back that Dwilight would be radically different without Mendicant. Who's to say it would? For a long time we have still had an overwhelming amount of nobles. There's no way you can prove one way or the other unless of course you have a time machine.
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Identifying with realms is something that I can't emphasize with. Saying that someone benefited because his realm benefited makes no sense. Sure, a realm's success can be good for an individual noble (it could lead to him being given conquered region, for example), but the goodness is not intrinsic, it is dependent on circumstances.
In the case of Aurvandil, it's nobles are supposed to have benefited by having conquered a number of regions to distribute amongst themselves. This point is denied by the fact that Mendicant personally ruled over the majority of those regions up until recently. It was, in fact, to the detriment of the nobility that Mendicant existed, because without him they could have achieved Lordship much more easily. They spent years serving that guy and gaining nothing, when they could have spent a week in Corsanctum to gain much more.
So, really, how have Aurvandil's nobility benefited from this? They have gained an unsavoury reputation, wasted effort over the years by working for Mendicant without compensation, and now, when Mendicant's scheme is finally exposed, they inherit only a dozen mediocre regions. This all seems to be to their detriment.
You all are confusing the individual nobles with the realm, methinks. As I explained, the individuals did not achieve personal success. It was the realm that did. So, it would make sense to punish the realm. However, the realm is not sentient, so it cannot actually be punished (tu te rends compte!). As a substitute, the individuals are proposed (a tout seigneur tout honneur!). The flaws in this reasoning speak for themselves.
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To pretend that having a network of 11 accounts, each with 2-3 nobles each, doesn't make a realm obscenely powerful is silly. Besides the extra 11 nobles in Aurvandil itself or directly bringing land to Aurvandil via defection, there were up to 22 nobles in different continents leeching gold and sending it to family treasuries to facilitate near constant region investments. To run a realm at 180% production with 22% tax rates eternally? Are you willfully ignorant? That doesn't affect anything? Do you actually believe that's possible otherwise?
Is it fair to see the REAL LIFE YEARS of all the players in realms surrounding Aurvandil thrown down the drain by some jackass who wanted to win?
Tbh, for you to all sit in a realm terrified of being persecuted and blindly following orders with no hope of advancement you're not playing a medieval sim. You're being lazy roleplayers. Take offense to that personally all you want, a medieval noble would never, ever tolerate that. And for you to claim you've put in work and you deserve to benefit from the bounties of cheating... wow. The entire region is shattered at your feet and you still think you're victims. I hope the Zuma attack Aurvandil so you can all try actually playing Battlemaster to see what it's about.
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To pretend that having a network of 11 accounts, each with 2-3 nobles each, doesn't make a realm obscenely powerful is silly. Besides the extra 11 nobles in Aurvandil itself or directly bringing land to Aurvandil via defection, there were up to 22 nobles in different continents leeching gold and sending it to family treasuries to facilitate near constant region investments. To run a realm at 180% production with 22% tax rates eternally? Are you willfully ignorant? That doesn't affect anything? Do you actually believe that's possible otherwise?
Is it fair to see the REAL LIFE YEARS of all the players in realms surrounding Aurvandil thrown down the drain by some jackass who wanted to win?
Tbh, for you to all sit in a realm terrified of being persecuted and blindly following orders with no hope of advancement you're not playing a medieval sim. You're being lazy roleplayers. Take offense to that personally all you want, a medieval noble would never, ever tolerate that. And for you to claim you've put in work and you deserve to benefit from the bounties of cheating... wow. The entire region is shattered at your feet and you still think you're victims. I hope the Zuma attack Aurvandil so you can all try actually playing Battlemaster to see what it's about.
This, pretty much.
Aurvandil still has a lot of nobles, and Asylon has drawn a lot of the fire away from you. The legit players that remain can try to rebuild the realm fairly.
Because nobody in Aurvandil suffered unduly. They are all benefiting quite a lot from it, actually. The argument that they were oppressed is utterly ridiculous as others have said alongside myself: they all chose this way of life, they all chose to submit themselves to Mendicant. It's not as if there were free elections all the time that ended up being rigged, either. It was fairly obvious to all that Mendicant & co were there to stay. Heck, you guys are even moving to immortalize the damn cheater. Aurvandil isn't condemning Mendicant, YOU ARE GLORIFYING HIM.
So what's justice? To leave a realm of collaborators that glorify a cheater the entirety of his spoils, with a super strong realm in an isolated corner and surrounded by crippled neighbors, or to cripple the realm of collaborators that glorify a cheater to bring them to at least the same level as the realms with nothing but honest players that they used cheating to defeat?
Your random use of French makes no sense, either. I never asked for the collaborators that glorify a cheater to be stripped of all titled, locked for a week, and banished from ever holding a title in the future, so I don't see how you can claim that I am proposing that the individuals be punished as a substitute for punishing the realm, when I made it quite clear that it was only the realm I wanted targetted by the wrath of the Zuma. Maybe not even fully destroyed, but at least hurt as much as the Long Winter hurt us.
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ummm the long winter hurt us more... 8)
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It is quite hilarious to see some people self-victimizing themselves. I don't know why Aurvanil players are saying they are the victims. To my eyes, they are the benefactors of the actions of the player of Mendicant. I mean the player of Mendicant lied for months about the efficiency of his realm. Many people knew Aurvandil alone could not possibly generate enough income to support 40k CS army.
From my perspective, it seems people are self-victimizing themselves since they are afraid that they cannot enjoy what they have enjoyed before - crushing other realms which could not do what Mendicant did.
What are they victims of? The dev team only locked Mendicant's accounts away. They did not destroy Aurvandil or lock people who defended his lies. You people are not victims. The real victims are people who played in the realms around Aurvandil. They were the ones who had to deal with Mendicant's cheating ass.
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She probably would have been kicked out. The writing was already on the wall. Too many people were too unhappy with her. She had been permanently denied any form of control or authority in the religion. For Allison, that's as good as kicking her out.
Only if she let you. You can't kick out priest(esse)s, and "permanent" can often turn out to be rather temporary.
I'm sorry, but this just proves that you have no idea what's going on in the world outside D'Hara.
Destroyed Thulsoma. Destroyed Caerwyn. Founded Iashalur. Founded Swordfell. Killed Summerdale.
So, yeah, pretty much nothing.
O rly? I didn't know that Aurvandil was around when almost all of the things you mentionned occured. You should have put "destruction of Springdale" in there, fits well in your series of events from far ago. And even then... Morek and Astrum get no credit for destroying Thulsoma and Caerwyn, these guys threw themselves at you. As for founding colonies, big whoop. And even then, even Aurvandil founded two, and even a much smaller realm that didn't live as long, Madina, spawned a whole ton more. Morek and Astrum are passive. Doesn't mean they never ever do anything, but they don't do much and most of what they do is of little consequence (uncolonized corners of the world would inevitably end up colonized by someone else) or pretty much imposed upon them by outside factors.
Not gonna happen, no matter how much you scream and yell that it should. Treat it like any other bug, and play through it.
Tell me, if a bug grants my dude command over 100,000 CS of daimons, is Tom seriously gonna say "oh, just play it through". I seriously doubt it. Compensating D'Hara, Madina, Terran, Barca, Luria Vesperi, Iashalur, Fissoa, and whoever else was screwed in one way or another by the cheater would be against game policy, sure. But removing undue gains acquired from unintended behavior, not so much.
These guys are glorifying the damn cheater, for god's sake. How more disgusting can this get?
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O rly? I didn't know that Aurvandil was around when almost all of the things you mentionned occured.
...surprise?
Morek and Astrum get no credit for destroying Thulsoma and Caerwyn, these guys threw themselves at you.
Then I think we can say that Aurvandil gets no credit for destroying Barca (come on, we're talking about Barca here, how tough was that?) or Terran (they could have had peace any time they wanted.)
Tell me, if a bug grants my dude command over 100,000 CS of daimons, is Tom seriously gonna say "oh, just play it through".
If it ever happens, you'll find out. After all, he's let realms keep tens of thousands of gold that they have stumbled upon, completely by accident, through various bugs.
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It is quite hilarious to see some people self-victimizing themselves. I don't know why Aurvanil players are saying they are the victims. To my eyes, they are the benefactors of the actions of the player of Mendicant. I mean the player of Mendicant lied for months about the efficiency of his realm. Many people knew Aurvandil alone could not possibly generate enough income to support 40k CS army.
From my perspective, it seems people are self-victimizing themselves since they are afraid that they cannot enjoy what they have enjoyed before - crushing other realms which could not do what Mendicant did.
What are they victims of? The dev team only locked Mendicant's accounts away. They did not destroy Aurvandil or lock people who defended his lies. You people are not victims. The real victims are people who played in the realms around Aurvandil. They were the ones who had to deal with Mendicant's cheating ass.
This, pretty much.
Aurvandil still has a lot of nobles, and Asylon has drawn a lot of the fire away from you. The legit players that remain can try to rebuild the realm fairly.
Because nobody in Aurvandil suffered unduly. They are all benefiting quite a lot from it, actually. The argument that they were oppressed is utterly ridiculous as others have said alongside myself: they all chose this way of life, they all chose to submit themselves to Mendicant. It's not as if there were free elections all the time that ended up being rigged, either. It was fairly obvious to all that Mendicant & co were there to stay. Heck, you guys are even moving to immortalize the damn cheater. Aurvandil isn't condemning Mendicant, YOU ARE GLORIFYING HIM.
So what's justice? To leave a realm of collaborators that glorify a cheater the entirety of his spoils, with a super strong realm in an isolated corner and surrounded by crippled neighbors, or to cripple the realm of collaborators that glorify a cheater to bring them to at least the same level as the realms with nothing but honest players that they used cheating to defeat?
Your random use of French makes no sense, either. I never asked for the collaborators that glorify a cheater to be stripped of all titled, locked for a week, and banished from ever holding a title in the future, so I don't see how you can claim that I am proposing that the individuals be punished as a substitute for punishing the realm, when I made it quite clear that it was only the realm I wanted targetted by the wrath of the Zuma. Maybe not even fully destroyed, but at least hurt as much as the Long Winter hurt us.
Both of you are making the mistake of assuming that I play in Aurvandil.
I've already stated my case on this issue, your attacks don't reveal any flaws in my reasoning nor bring up anything I might have overlooked, so I will simply refer you to my previous post. However, because I know that you either won't look or bother to understand it, I will emphasize a single point which I will state here. Chenier: you cannot punish a realm with any effect, because a realm is not sentient. It cannot understand that it's being punished, nor can it fathom why.
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Discussing the Butterfly effect till no end will bring us so much closer to put this behind us and try to play the game again, I am sure the right persons will do the right actions.
And on the subject on how Aurvandil treats the disapperance of Mendicant IN CHARACTER, I understand, I would do the same, because IC he has been a paramount figure in Aurvandil history. And Grimrog, my char, had respect for the character.
OUT OF CHARACTER I despise that he was a cheater and IF I had known, I would never brought Asylon closer to him(he has basicly been the only contact I had with Aurvandilians)
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Both of you are making the mistake of assuming that I play in Aurvandil.
I've already stated my case on this issue, your attacks don't reveal any flaws in my reasoning nor bring up anything I might have overlooked, so I will simply refer you to my previous post. However, because I know that you either won't look or bother to understand it, I will emphasize a single point which I will state here. Chenier: you cannot punish a realm with any effect, because a realm is not sentient. It cannot understand that it's being punished, nor can it fathom why.
if you had read my post you would understand why your position is wrong. you've said that aurvandilian nobles have not benefited; they have. With Mendicant and his drones gone, all those positions are now open to actual players. By cowering under a cheater for years, you now reap his rewards. you are aurvandil. as long as you remain in aurvandil, you reap its rewards. you now gain control of the biggest military dwilight has ever seen, and you do so in your own personal sandbox. quit pretending nobles in aurvandil haven't gained anything. if i'm not mistaken, all the gold from the multi accounts will be redistributed this tax?
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if i'm not mistaken, all the gold from the multi accounts will be redistributed this tax?
None of the locked accounts have autopaused yet. That takes 14 days. Once that happens the bonds from those characters will be sent to the realm, and, I am fairly sure, be delivered to the ruler.
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if you had read my post you would understand why your position is wrong. you've said that aurvandilian nobles have not benefited; they have. With Mendicant and his drones gone, all those positions are now open to actual players. By cowering under a cheater for years, you now reap his rewards. you are aurvandil. as long as you remain in aurvandil, you reap its rewards. you now gain control of the biggest military dwilight has ever seen, and you do so in your own personal sandbox. quit pretending nobles in aurvandil haven't gained anything. if i'm not mistaken, all the gold from the multi accounts will be redistributed this tax?
If those positions which Mendicant left behind weren't to go to the nobles of Aurvandil, whom would they go to? Nobles of other realms, of course. In the case that Aurvandil couldn't keep those regions, they would simply be redistributed and some other hapless saps would end up benefiting from them. So, you see, one way or another someone is going to end up benefiting from Mendicant's cheating. That is why your position makes no sense. Also, I said this in the very post that you're quoting: I am not in Aurvandil, stop assuming that I'm only interested in furthering my own gain.
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Once more, everyone quit your bitching and move on with the game. Chenier, it doesn't matter how much you whine, there isn't going to be a Zuma Invasion of Aurvandil because of this.
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None of the locked accounts have autopaused yet. That takes 14 days. Once that happens the bonds from those characters will be sent to the realm, and, I am fairly sure, be delivered to the ruler.
boom, eternal treasury for everyone
"but aurvandilians haven't benefited!"
If those positions which Mendicant left behind weren't to go to the nobles of Aurvandil, whom would they go to? Nobles of other realms, of course. In the case that Aurvandil couldn't keep those regions, they would simply be redistributed and some other hapless saps would end up benefiting from them. So, you see, one way or another someone is going to end up benefiting from Mendicant's cheating. That is why your position makes no sense. Also, I said this in the very post that you're quoting: I am not in Aurvandil, stop assuming that I'm only interested in furthering my own gain.
You're sounding pretty upset, you should probably calm down.
As I said, the Eternal treasury is going to be distributed to the nobles of Aurvandil. Combined with some very scary RCs they have the nobles of Aurvandil are sitting in their own personal sandbox. How would Aurvandilian positions go to nobles from other realms...? Todd, Knight of D'Hara, High Sovereign of Aurvandil? Or is someone who sat around in Aurvandil now going to gain control of the mightiest power in Dwilight?
By dismantling Aurvandil, no one gains from it. That's what you don't understand. By allowing Aurvandil to remain, the Poor Victims of Mendicant's Tyranny™ get to pick up the pieces they haven't earned and play with them.
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...surprise?
Then I think we can say that Aurvandil gets no credit for destroying Barca (come on, we're talking about Barca here, how tough was that?) or Terran (they could have had peace any time they wanted.)
If it ever happens, you'll find out. After all, he's let realms keep tens of thousands of gold that they have stumbled upon, completely by accident, through various bugs.
Surprise for you, maybe, 'cause they all happened before Aurvandil seceded. Nice try though, to retort to "what did Astrum and Morek do since Aurvandil was founded" by naming almost only things wich happened before Aurvandil was founded.
Aurvandil started the war, and thus it gets credit. Barca, Terran, and D'Hara didn't throw themselves at Aurvandil begging for a war, quite the opposite actually, unlike Caerwyn and Thulsoma who basically begged to be destroyed. As for the daimons, when Sint's general assigned daimon militia units to player characters, I don't recall it lasting very long. Gold can only do so much, you still need nobles who have limited recruitment capacities and whose's CS per man worsens by unit size. Even "tens of thousands of gold" is in no way comparable to what Aurvandil inherits. D'Hara funded realms with tens of thousands of gold in the past, and the results never were all that spectacular.
Both of you are making the mistake of assuming that I play in Aurvandil.
I've already stated my case on this issue, your attacks don't reveal any flaws in my reasoning nor bring up anything I might have overlooked, so I will simply refer you to my previous post. However, because I know that you either won't look or bother to understand it, I will emphasize a single point which I will state here. Chenier: you cannot punish a realm with any effect, because a realm is not sentient. It cannot understand that it's being punished, nor can it fathom why.
That you play in Aurvandil or not is meaningless, you speak in their favor. As for your reasoning, it assumes that justice requires that the entity being punished understands it. Both this claim and the claim that a realm, as a collective entity, cannot understand punishment are highly questionnable. If a fire is burning a neighborhood because of arson, and you have water to put it out, do you ask yourself "well, if the fire isn't sentient, then we can't get justice by putting it out". You just put out the damn fire. As for a realm's "sentience", it really is of no importance whatsoever. If your neighbor steals a car and gives it to you, then he gets arrested for it, do you think you are in any way entitled to keeping the car?
Discussing the Butterfly effect till no end will bring us so much closer to put this behind us and try to play the game again, I am sure the right persons will do the right actions.
Which is why I don't speak of restitution. Damage that would not have occured is impossible to calculate. However, gains facilitated, if not enabled by cheating, are much easier to evaluate.
If those positions which Mendicant left behind weren't to go to the nobles of Aurvandil, whom would they go to? Nobles of other realms, of course. In the case that Aurvandil couldn't keep those regions, they would simply be redistributed and some other hapless saps would end up benefiting from them. So, you see, one way or another someone is going to end up benefiting from Mendicant's cheating. That is why your position makes no sense. Also, I said this in the very post that you're quoting: I am not in Aurvandil, stop assuming that I'm only interested in furthering my own gain.
This is stupid. If the legitimate players of Aurvandil can't hold onto any given regions, then, would there not have been cheating, other realms would have taken them long ago. Taking a few regions now would nowhere near compensate for the strife created.
Once more, everyone quit your bitching and move on with the game. Chenier, it doesn't matter how much you whine, there isn't going to be a Zuma Invasion of Aurvandil because of this.
Yes, let's all just go back to playing PawnMaster, because who cares for politics, cheaters will do all of it for us anyways. Why convince anyone of anything when you can just multi your way to victory. Cheating pays, after all.
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Chenier rant #5070
Your pointless grudge against the unwitting cohorts of a banned cheater is disgusting and I'm very surprised you're still in any sort of position of authority at this point.
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None of the locked accounts have autopaused yet. That takes 14 days. Once that happens the bonds from those characters will be sent to the realm, and, I am fairly sure, be delivered to the ruler.
Believe it or not, the vast majority of their wealth is in gold...
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Cheating never had this level of impact in BM before.
And yet, it was much more strongly reprimanded by Tom in past occasions. The Black Hand comes to mind, but I may be thinking of something else. Wasn't a realm destroyed and the realm name banned, way back?
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This whole discussion is absolutely ridiculous. The bottom line is that Mendicant is not Aurvandil- the other nobles there invested a lot of time and effort into that realm and destroying the whole thing because of the actions of one cheater is ludicrous. And yes, this means that overall they "benefit" from the cheating but that's not their fault and they should not be punished for it.
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You're sounding pretty upset, you should probably calm down.
As I said, the Eternal treasury is going to be distributed to the nobles of Aurvandil. Combined with some very scary RCs they have the nobles of Aurvandil are sitting in their own personal sandbox. How would Aurvandilian positions go to nobles from other realms...? Todd, Knight of D'Hara, High Sovereign of Aurvandil? Or is someone who sat around in Aurvandil now going to gain control of the mightiest power in Dwilight?
By dismantling Aurvandil, no one gains from it. That's what you don't understand. By allowing Aurvandil to remain, the Poor Victims of Mendicant's Tyranny™ get to pick up the pieces they haven't earned and play with them.
From my perspective, it is you, Chenier and all of the others who sound upset. I did not benefit or lose from this ordeal, nor am I particularly concerned. I am discussing this on a whim, if you must know.
If you wished to erase Mendicant's inheritance gold, that would be simple feat, no doubt. It would not even require transgressing on any single character, as the sum could be deleted before it is even collected. So, because it is not a punishment and is rather easy to implement I see no reason to dissuade anyone from holding the opinion.
Recruitment centres are something that I've never been able to appreciate. It seems as though every realm has a million of them, far exceeding what is needed and with similar distributions in quality. For this reason, I do not see a point in deleting them, regardless of whether or not they were built by a cheater, as they are simply a non-issue.
So, there you have. The elaborations of my opinions are yours at last. Have a cookie...
That you play in Aurvandil or not is meaningless, you speak in their favor. As for your reasoning, it assumes that justice requires that the entity being punished understands it. Both this claim and the claim that a realm, as a collective entity, cannot understand punishment are highly questionnable. If a fire is burning a neighborhood because of arson, and you have water to put it out, do you ask yourself "well, if the fire isn't sentient, then we can't get justice by putting it out". You just put out the damn fire. As for a realm's "sentience", it really is of no importance whatsoever. If your neighbor steals a car and gives it to you, then he gets arrested for it, do you think you are in any way entitled to keeping the car?
People are accusing me of playing in Aurvandil and seeking to further my own ends by defending it. Understandably, I wished to correct them.
As for your analogy, it is important to define the sort of punishment that we are discussing here. Punishing a fire is different from punishing a man. The meanings of the word are different, I mean. Chenier's calls for punishment in this instance are meant to reprimand the transgressor for it's crime, the transgressor supposedly being Aurvandil. But, that would be futile, as the transgressor can't react to the punishment, as it lacks the ability to comprehend the punishment in the first place. Thus, when you punish Aurvandil you aren't really punishing Aurvandil. Sure, you can harm the thing called Aurvandil, but you cannot punish it, not in the way that we are talking about, not in the way that you'd punish a man for a crime.
As I stated before, someone (whoever Aurvandil's regions go to; doesn't matter what realm(s) they belong to) is going to be benefiting from Mendicant's crime spree. The only way to avoid this would be to either delete the regions altogether or else manually determine which characters owned the regions to begin with and then return them. Neither case is actually being proposed, so it's meaningless to discuss their merit. What is being proposed is that the regions either be arbitrarily trashed by the Zuma, or that they be returned to the realms which used to own them. Neither of those proposals actually achieve justice, for reasons which I think are self-evident.
There could indeed be a collective understanding gained from punishing a 'realm' (realm, in this case meaning it's collective members rather than itself as an entity), however since the entirety of Aurvandil didn't transgress it isn't a relevant thing to bring up.
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From my perspective, it is you, Chenier and all of the others who sound upset. I did not benefit or lose from this ordeal, nor am I particularly concerned. I am discussing this on a whim, if you must know.
So if you don't care... why are you here? You're just making yourself sound like more and more of an idiot. If you're weighing in simply to disagree or have your own super-edgy-totally-original opinion, you probably need something more exciting in life.
Have you seen the RCs in Aurvandil? They're incredible.
So, there you have. The elaborations of my opinions are yours at last. Have a cookie...
How condescending. I'm crushed. I'm abject, desolate, undone. I'm going to quit BM forever and cry. Your words, so powerful in their utmost perfection and wisdom, have shattered my feeble image of the world and proven to me my own ignorance. Oh the shame...
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Cheating never had this level of impact in BM before.
And yet, it was much more strongly reprimanded by Tom in past occasions. The Black Hand comes to mind, but I may be thinking of something else. Wasn't a realm destroyed and the realm name banned, way back?
That was Avamar. It was not, however, destroyed by Tom. It was also in about 2005.
Indirik has already told you, Chénier, nothing is going to be done to redress whatever balance you feel has been thrown off. Not now, not in the future.
Please stop beating this dead horse, or it will be time for the moderators to get involved.
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All hail our glorious High Sovereign, may he rise from the grave and strike upon those who have wronged him. On a serious note devs said punishment was done now stop bitching about it. Move on or if it bothers you that much play on another world.
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I'm going to have to say that for once, I agree with Chenier. The examples of players getting to keep thousands in gold or regions from bugs doesn't apply because THIS ISN'T A BUG. Those regions that were a part of Barca would have never gone over if Mendicant hadn't used multiple accounts. I do believe that in instances of cheating, the direct results of the cheating, namely region changes and bonds in the convicted accounts, should be gotten rid of. regions should be changed to rogue and bonds in locked accounts erased.
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May as well rename Dwilight to "Mendicontinent" then. Seems like a more fitting name.
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May as well rename Dwilight to "Mendicontinent" then. Seems like a more fitting name.
There already is a Chénier's Coast. You really want to be followed by cheaters?
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And Perth,
Since Asylon are getting more and more new Knights, I might need to promote some Knights to Lords, but I dont have land... You had land you wanted us to take, right? ;)
Mendicant again, or did one of yours decide to follow his example? After all, he seems to be recreating some of his accounts in Aurvandil.
And bull!@#$ to those saying that it's "good RP" to glory Mendicant. Shame on everyone who doesn't condemn him fully. Good RP would be to declare him cursed by the gods and to forsaken him. Glorifying the cheater and awaiting his "return" is just being !@#$%^&s. But then again, who knows what proportion of the multi accounts were locked anyways, and who knows if Mendicant didn't have OOC friends doing the same thing he was. But hey, it's fine to let the cheaters' nest prosper. Who cares if they can just go on as if they never did anything wrong. It doesn't affect northern Mendicontinent, so it doesn't matter.
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And bull!@#$ to those saying that it's "good RP" to glory Mendicant. Shame on everyone who doesn't condemn him fully. Good RP would be to declare him cursed by the gods and to forsaken him. Glorifying the cheater and awaiting his "return" is just being !@#$%^&s. But then again, who knows what proportion of the multi accounts were locked anyways, and who knows if Mendicant didn't have OOC friends doing the same thing he was. But hey, it's fine to let the cheaters' nest prosper. Who cares if they can just go on as if they never did anything wrong. It doesn't affect northern Mendicontinent, so it doesn't matter.
Why should Aurvandil as a whole start to forsake Mendicant IC? It makes perfectly sense for many characters in Aurvandil to keep regarding him highly, it was a part of the "chevalier" roleplay that's going on there for a long while.
I despite his actions as a players, but a big part of my character devolpment in Aurvandil was releted on the admiration he had to the High Sovereign: keeping on his IC legacy is a good way to roleplay his disappearance as it could be to feel betrayed and turning on the whole "Noblesse Oblige" culture devolped in Aurvandil.
I hope that someone in Aurvandil will take this path of playing cause it will be fun to partecipate in the clash of those parties.
As for "having OOC to keep the web of multies going on", well we players can't do much and actually, for what we can know, there could be such kind of cheaters in every realm. I put my trust on the GMs who hopefully would be able to prevent this cheating to happen again.
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Why should Aurvandil as a whole start to forsake Mendicant IC? It makes perfectly sense for many characters in Aurvandil to keep regarding him highly, it was a part of the "chevalier" roleplay that's going on there for a long while.
I despite his actions as a players, but a big part of my character devolpment in Aurvandil was releted on the admiration he had to the High Sovereign: keeping on his IC legacy is a good way to roleplay his disappearance as it could be to feel betrayed and turning on the whole "Noblesse Oblige" culture devolped in Aurvandil.
I hope that someone in Aurvandil will take this path of playing cause it will be fun to partecipate in the clash of those parties.
As for "having OOC to keep the web of multies going on", well we players can't do much and actually, for what we can know, there could be such kind of cheaters in every realm. I put my trust on the GMs who hopefully would be able to prevent this cheating to happen again.
You are shameless and you disgust me.
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I too find it odd, that during a time when most Realms are suffering low activity due to the DNS issue a Realm would be getting "lots" of new knights.
Just saying, it seems a bit weird.
As one of those new knights I'm not going to even try to explain how insulting those comments are.
If either of you in your paranoid frenzy of confusion between IC and OOC worlds would take the 5 minutes of ethical behaviour required to message any single one of us newcomers and, you know, actually chat with us like fellow gamers then you could spare us all the ill-thought, grubby-spirited discourse you count as valuable additions to this conversation.
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As one of those new knights I'm not going to even try to explain how insulting those comments are.
If either of you in your paranoid frenzy of confusion between IC and OOC worlds would take the 5 minutes of ethical behaviour required to message any single one of us newcomers and, you know, actually chat with us like fellow gamers then you could spare us all the ill-thought, grubby-spirited discourse you count as valuable additions to this conversation.
Had ya'll been D'Haran newcommers, that would have been the case. Rynn, Ghaundan and Ismail are all on the national welcoming comittee ;D
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You are shameless and you disgust me.
Astinus is right. How they choose to RP Mendicants legacy has nothing to do with OOG reasons. They cant just wipe out that history.
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As one of those new knights I'm not going to even try to explain how insulting those comments are.
If either of you in your paranoid frenzy of confusion between IC and OOC worlds would take the 5 minutes of ethical behaviour required to message any single one of us newcomers and, you know, actually chat with us like fellow gamers then you could spare us all the ill-thought, grubby-spirited discourse you count as valuable additions to this conversation.
I'd happily welcome you, were you anywhere nearby. But, since only your Realm mates can message you, guess that's out.
As for paranoid - we pegged Aurvandil for cheating years ago. It's not paranoia when you're *correct*.
Additionally while getting all your friends to come help you out isn't against the rules, it certainly can be frustrating for everyone else to see a Realm suddenly gain far more power than it should be able to field. Those kind of things tend to raise red flags amongst those of us who have played for a long time. That's just our experience and caution speaking.
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Astinus is right. How they choose to RP Mendicants legacy has nothing to do with OOG reasons. They cant just wipe out that history.
Tom disagrees with you. He stated that he would 3-day lock the characters that support reserving a spot of Mendicant's return.
Characters don't decide how to RP Mendicant's "legacy", players do. Players had the option to vilify him, but they chose to glorify him instead.
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Tom disagrees with you. He stated that he would 3-day lock the characters that support reserving a spot of Mendicant's return.
Characters don't decide how to RP Mendicant's "legacy", players do. Players had the option to vilify him, but they chose to glorify him instead.
I never said anything about reserving a spot for Mendicants return. I said that the players in Aurvandiil cannot just whitewash history, the OOC actions of Mendicant were wrong but his IG character was acceptable. If you think people should just villify Mendicant because he was an OOC cheater it goes against the very spirit of a roleplaying game. The IG characters should not have to change their thinking because of OOG actions of a player. I understand your anger, you are an angry person. I understand you want vengeance and revenge and all these things you seem to spray your anger around like a shotgun blasting every which way you can. What Mendicant the player did was unforgiveable, but what you are doing and asking of the players in Aurvandiil is also unforgiveable.
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I never said anything about reserving a spot for Mendicants return. I said that the players in Aurvandiil cannot just whitewash history, the OOC actions of Mendicant were wrong but his IG character was acceptable. If you think people should just villify Mendicant because he was an OOC cheater it goes against the very spirit of a roleplaying game. The IG characters should not have to change their thinking because of OOG actions of a player. I understand your anger, you are an angry person. I understand you want vengeance and revenge and all these things you seem to spray your anger around like a shotgun blasting every which way you can. What Mendicant the player did was unforgiveable, but what you are doing and asking of the players in Aurvandiil is also unforgiveable.
Well thats a bunch of BS to say that Chenier's actions are the same level as Mendicants but if he keeps up his attitude I will be glad to see him leave.
Chenier: Please answer me this, what do you hope to achieve by your complaints? I seriously do not see why you continue to complain, all I see is you making this worse than it needs to be.
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He's complaining because Chenier feels entitled to win BM....
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He's complaining because Chenier feels entitled to win BM....
You shut up. You are being as bad as Chenier with a comment like that.
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You shut up. You are being as bad as Chenier with a comment like that.
;D 8) ;D
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Chenier: Please answer me this, what do you hope to achieve by your complaints? I seriously do not see why you continue to complain, all I see is you making this worse than it needs to be.
He's been asked similar questions before, and his answer basically seems to be, "Punish them and reward me for being good!"
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I'm highly surprised by how mild the penalties have been towards Mendicant's cheating, considering their very, very wide effects. It's almost encouraging others to try their hand at a similar scheme, because all you get is a proverbial slap on the wrist.
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Can someone make an official "Mendicant/Aurvandil Flame" thread so I can eavesdrop on whats going on with the wars across the pond and not sift through this?
I'd say go to the Cases thread that is up, but it's horribly placed for a vitriol thread.
What are the Terran babies planning to do? How does Asylon fare? Does anyone care about Barca?
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I'm highly surprised by how mild the penalties have been towards Mendicant's cheating, considering their very, very wide effects. It's almost encouraging others to try their hand at a similar scheme, because all you get is a proverbial slap on the wrist.
The penalties for Mendicant's cheating have been exactly the same as the penalties for anyone else's cheating: the accounts involved have been permanently locked.
There is no way to measure the effect that the cheating has had on the continent, and as Tom has said, if we can't measure something, we can't punish it.
Bugs have caused worse problems for continents. Heck, the Long Winter wasn't that long ago, and it was one of them.
We do not manually intervene unless we feel it is absolutely necessary. Just because you feel wronged doesn't mean we should do something that would make another group of people feel wronged—with at least as much justification.
We weren't the ones who multicheated, Feylonis. If you want to take out your anger on someone, go find whoever Mendicant's player was (http://battlemaster.org/UserDetails.php?ID=31456) and yell at him.
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I'm highly surprised by how mild the penalties have been towards Mendicant's cheating, considering their very, very wide effects. It's almost encouraging others to try their hand at a similar scheme, because all you get is a proverbial slap on the wrist.
You lose all accounts, and if you want to play again, you must start over from square one. That is not a slap on the wrist IMO, and what you of the aggressive "Ahhhh!!!!! Destroy Aurvandil or I quit BM/Destroy Aurvandil because my opinion on justice must be right! Ahhhh!!!!" are part of the issue with BM as displayed by the fact you are wrecking the atmosphere. You have been told that whats been done is done and that is it but you insist to OOC message IG whining or whine on here nonstop. Its done and you can't change it so quit whining and just play the game. (Feylonis I say you but it might not all or any apply to you, its just a you towards the Aurvandil must be destroy side in general.)
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Can someone make an official "Mendicant/Aurvandil Flame" thread so I can eavesdrop on whats going on with the wars across the pond and not sift through this?
Your wish is my command
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Your wish is my command
Awesome job, though if you want to give a moderator note to the likes of "Quit your bitching, this shouldn't have 8 pages worth of stuff to it. If bitching continues temporary locks of forums accounts will be done" that would be great.
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As you will it, so it shall be done.
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Oh, you wanted a moderator for this, okay.
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stuff
I am just as guilty of it, but if you could be quiet then they tend to stop bitching when no one listens/responds. (Not trying to be mean, I just want them to shut up and if I start responding feel free/I encourage you to tell me to shut up.)
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Your wish is my command
Thanks, I know threads derail when big things are afoot and having an appropriate place to vent is good for those who need it. Catharsis is sometimes dirty, but necessary.
The only Mendicant account I dealt with was Kiyth in Swordfell, and I honestly didn't know he was a multi. He did a moderate amount of interaction and fair RP. If he put as much effort into all of his accounts, then it depresses me to see the potential Mendicant had leave battlemaster....if only he funneled it through 2 or 3 characters as we all are supposed to.
I know winning seemed like the 'goal' of cheating, but honestly if he had used all that effort towards making the wiki better and towards vivid RP in the realm then I'm sure most people would mark him as more of a winner than with Aurvandil's sordid history. If dicking people over was the aim, then I'm sure he could have accomplished that with 3 characters well played as villains. If he wanted total domination in a game...well he should go play a pay-to-win game and chuck cash at the host.
The heart of the game is that we are all friends, and some people feel betrayed by his actions. It sucks, but at least they cared enough to act like our friend. I'd rather see people so involved that they are compelled to cheat, than player apathy and eventual abandonment of the game. It sucks to see someone who was capable, active, and interesting leave...but refreshing to see cheaters snuffed, investigated, and demeaned.
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Do we have a full list of his characters and a summary of what they were up to?
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The heart of the game is that we are all friends, and some people feel betrayed by his actions. It sucks, but at least they cared enough to act like our friend. I'd rather see people so involved that they are compelled to cheat, than player apathy and eventual abandonment of the game. It sucks to see someone who was capable, active, and interesting leave...but refreshing to see cheaters snuffed, investigated, and demeaned.
Friends? You naive fool! ;)
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As for paranoid - we pegged Aurvandil for cheating years ago. It's not paranoia when you're *correct*.
We investigated it very carefully back then and found nothing. You may not have been correct back then, and are correct now.
And I would like to ask all of you to NOT call everyone who plays in that realm a cheater. We know for a fact that not everyone is (because at least two people there aren't - they are trusted players sent in by the dev team to get an "inside view" of the realm).
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Tom disagrees with you. He stated that he would 3-day lock the characters that support reserving a spot of Mendicant's return.
That was a different context.
Anyone who wants the cheater to come back and is ready to give him back his positions is supporting him and should get a warning. But as a roleplay the way that Gondor in the Lord of the Rings kept its king a "regent" because they waited for the true king to return - cool. More depth, more history, more roleplaying.
As long as it doesn't mean the player of Mendicant can just walk in and demand "his" titles back, or if he would he'd be treated just like any new player doing the same, that's fine.
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As long as it doesn't mean the player of Mendicant can just walk in and demand "his" titles back, or if he would he'd be treated just like any new player doing the same, that's fine.
Mendicant can rejoin? I thought he was permabanned.
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I'm highly surprised by how mild the penalties have been towards Mendicant's cheating, considering their very, very wide effects. It's almost encouraging others to try their hand at a similar scheme, because all you get is a proverbial slap on the wrist.
Uh. Killing your account is the worst penalty we have available. What else could we do to someone?
What you and others seem to be asking for is some punishment on the realm, because of illicit in-game gains. You miss the point that the cheaters are gone. They can not profit from those gains anymore. And those who potentially can, those who remain, are presumed innocent.
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Mendicant can rejoin? I thought he was permabanned.
Of course he can, that is our official policy and has been for over a decade.
The list of people actually banned from the game is very, very, very short. I think it has two entries.
We have quite a few people in the game who were once locked for multi-cheating, started fresh and have been better players ever since. Some of them have become the most vocal opponents of multi-cheaters.
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Of course he can, that is our official policy and has been for over a decade.
The list of people actually banned from the game is very, very, very short. I think it has two entries.
We have quite a few people in the game who were once locked for multi-cheating, started fresh and have been better players ever since. Some of them have become the most vocal opponents of multi-cheaters.
That seems like a mistake. Mendicant can just come back to Aurvandil, spend a few months as the power behind the throne and then return to the self-infatuated jackass king he always was, retaining Aurvandil and all of his ill-gotten gains. His accounts didn't have the majority of his investment, Aurvandil did. The guy's poisonous to the game and always will be.
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That seems like a mistake. Mendicant can just come back to Aurvandil, spend a few months as the power behind the throne and then return to the self-infatuated jackass king he always was, retaining Aurvandil and all of his ill-gotten gains. His accounts didn't have the majority of his investment, Aurvandil did. The guy's poisonous to the game and always will be.
The policy is there for two reasons.
One, I believe in second chances. Heck, I believe in third and fourth chances, and I sometimes wish life would've given me a few of them.
Two, it is unrealistic to believe it would work otherwise. So I declare him banned. What will happen? He'll create a new account with a fake name and play anyways.
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I don't think its possible to permanently ban someone. There are many ways to circumvent ip bans and stuff like that
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The policy is there for two reasons.
One, I believe in second chances. Heck, I believe in third and fourth chances, and I sometimes wish life would've given me a few of them.
Two, it is unrealistic to believe it would work otherwise. So I declare him banned. What will happen? He'll create a new account with a fake name and play anyways.
Yeah, but he won't be able to bandy his name about, which means much of the prestige and influence he gained couldn't be regained without putting himself at risk.
Yeah he has to make a new family now but he just tells everyone who he is and he's trusted with power and the bizzaro Aurvandil culture finds a way to make him king again.
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I seriously doubt that will happen as any way he claims to be related to Mendicant would just get laughed at IC. Aurvandil isn't as weird as you think. Something like that would get ridiculed by me personally IC and several others that I know of.
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Does anyone know why there is so much poison on these forums?
I've been trying to figure it out, and I really have no idea.
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Does anyone know why there is so much poison on these forums?
I've been trying to figure it out, and I really have no idea.
Is it the whole forum, or just the Dwilight one?
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The more I read, the more I am convinced that the poison has existed all along in certain parts of the player base.
I think the main difference between the old discussion list and the forum is that the forum draws a larger proportion of the player base. This not only means that, statistically, you'll end up with more people willing to spew bile in public OOC—you'll also end up with more people on opposite sides of various IG conflicts coming into OOC contact.
Regarding the current troubles, I can fully understand people's frustration with Aurvandil's military might and their successes. I'm frustrated by it myself. But the frustration isn't the problem: the lack of empathy is.
If they would honestly put themselves in the place of a player in Aurvandil who was not in any way involved in the cheating—which, as I've said before, I can 100% guarantee exist in Aurvandil—I think they would start to understand why banning every member of the realm from the game, or any other kind of realmwide punishment, would be deeply unjust.
This is the kind of attitude that starts blood feuds in real life. Stop ranting and raging, and think for a bit about how the people you're talking to feel, and how the people you're talking about feel.
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I have never encountered this poison in the playerbase of Dwilight... :'(
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This is the kind of attitude that starts blood feuds in real life. Stop ranting and raging, and think for a bit about how the people you're talking to feel, and how the people you're talking about feel.
Perfect!
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I think the biggest reason for the vitriol is the amount of emotional and physical energy that people put into this game. The same reason it is so awesome is the reason that people seem willing to go to ACTUAL war over there OOC thoughts. It is a kudos to tom for making this happen but it is also a very serious issue. It reminds me of High level starcraft players who yell and scream when they do bad (Oh HAI Idra). When you take something this seriously it's hard to seperate your views.
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We investigated it very carefully back then and found nothing. You may not have been correct back then, and are correct now.
I've been suspicious of his accounts since before Aurvandil even existed. It wasn't a particularly difficult conclusion to draw honestly, and obviously there are many, many players who felt the same way since accusations and rumors of abuse have been following Aurvandil since virtually the moment of its creation. There was just something off about them and the way that they coordinated with each other and just seemed to be so in sync in all aspects of the game. It was more than just that, but that was a big part of it. As you started to notice that though and looked at them more closely, there were a lot of things that just started to jump out at you. Of course none of it was damning, it was all just very suspicious.
I know the Titans and Devs are all volunteers, but there's only so much we as players can do to report multi-cheaters when we also have no tools that would produce anything that can credibly be called evidence. Sometimes I have a hunch about certain accounts because of patterns of behavior, but it's very hard to translate a gut feeling into a rational explanation that will make sense to someone else. Sometimes, if you're really lucky, the player screws up and draws attention to what he's doing, but not even that will guarantee Titan action. To my very great annoyance, I reported one of Psyche's multi-cheating escapades months before he was officially caught, and received a reply from the Titans of "insufficient evidence." The guy literally responded to a letter addressed to a member of one family from an entirely different account (think about how sometimes a player with two characters in the same realm gets them mixed up - same deal). If that's not enough evidence, what is? A player cannot get evidence any more solid than that. Meanwhile, that player ended up causing all kinds of mischief for Riombara in the interim between when I reported him and when his accounts were actually locked.
Is there anything that we, the community, can do to assist in the identification of multi-cheaters? I mean, we can report every hunch we have, but that's not going to help if the Titans don't have the time to follow up on all the leads. Is it possible to give Magistrates or some other expanded pool of players the tools to actually investigate these sorts of things, or does that require knowledge and access that only the Devs have?
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The overwhelming majority of cases that get reported are either inconclusive or demonstrably not cheaters. This is one of the reasons that a policy of "lock first, ask questions later" hasn't been adopted. I have a theory that multis aren't any more prevalent than they've always been. The number of active players has fallen, and thus the share of the overall player base and the impact their actions have has grown significantly. If this theory is correct, then the correct question isn't "what more can be done to curtail multis" but "how do we increase the player count", or "what factors make for a truly enjoyable experience and how do we pursue them?"
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Lanyon also said it well. Everyone need to be careful and put things on perspective and not mix real player feelings with characters feelings.
One thing I love in BM is that you can be your own enemy and have fun with this. Not so funny when you need to convince people that all you want is to have fun and not to spy or play any dirty game.
The more players we have, the more we will have this kind of behavior and not because people are bad, but because at some point people forget to look at the player and react only to the characters.
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I've hesitated before saying this, but I do think it needs saying.
Another part of the reason the forum descends into this level of poisonous sniping is because the moderators don't nip it in the bud.
If every time people started attacking other players, or raging and flaming, their posts got deleted and they got warnings, I suspect that we'd see a lot less of that behaviour—particularly from the people who got warned.
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I've been suspicious of his accounts since before Aurvandil even existed.
Him and his clones also did a good job keeping the rebellions going in Arcachon, leading to her eventual destruction.
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I've hesitated before saying this, but I do think it needs saying.
Another part of the reason the forum descends into this level of poisonous sniping is because the moderators don't nip it in the bud.
If every time people started attacking other players, or raging and flaming, their posts got deleted and they got warnings, I suspect that we'd see a lot less of that behaviour—particularly from the people who got warned.
And if I did go on a moderator rampage, there would be cries of "censorship!", and possibly some accusations of favoritism. Should I warn people for 5 points, or 10 points, or 20 points?
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Meh... we need a private moderator board...
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And if I did go on a moderator rampage, there would be cries of "censorship!", and possibly some accusations of favoritism. Should I warn people for 5 points, or 10 points, or 20 points?
I'm not saying do it now. I'm saying it should have been done one by one, as the posts appeared. That wouldn't have been a rampage.
And just like I do my job and lock multis (and don't delete realms) when I find them, despite what bitching and moaning it might raise from the players, so should the mods be doing their job despite what bitching and moaning it might raise.
As for points, I haven't the foggiest idea. I'm not a mod myself. Ask Indirik or Tom.
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Each moderation report has a place where both the reporters comments, and those of the moderators, are displayed. A separate forum for more...philosophical discussion would be fine.
People simply aren't reporting posts. I get a couple of moderator reports a week, and usually they are something stupid, or the person doing the reporting is being just as insulting as the reported person. I suppose I could warn both parties...
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The overwhelming majority of cases that get reported are either inconclusive or demonstrably not cheaters. This is one of the reasons that a policy of "lock first, ask questions later" hasn't been adopted. I have a theory that multis aren't any more prevalent than they've always been. The number of active players has fallen, and thus the share of the overall player base and the impact their actions have has grown significantly. If this theory is correct, then the correct question isn't "what more can be done to curtail multis" but "how do we increase the player count", or "what factors make for a truly enjoyable experience and how do we pursue them?"
Personally, I don't question that policy. I just want to know if there's anything we can do to get better and faster at investigating multis. Please don't take my mini-rant as criticism; I'm well aware of the all-volunteer nature of the Titan and Dev groups, I just find it frustrating that, having been vindicated in two separate instances about my suspicions of multi-cheaters, it took so long to actually nail them. It would be one thing if no one had any idea that this was going on and didn't see it coming. The problem is that in this case in particular multiple people expressed suspicion and/or lodged Titan complaints, and it still took a long time for the process to work itself out. If you ask me, that's a huge factor in how upset people are right now about the Aurvandil situation. You look at everyone who's complaining and these are people who have been raising questions and concerns about Aurvandil for, in some cases, years. I appreciate Tom's assertion that there's no proof that he was multi-cheating back when he was first investigated, but frankly I don't believe that he wasn't. After all, it's not like anything has changed between now and then; the behavior of that group of accounts has been nothing if not consistent, which is in part why they've been so suspicious for such a long time.
Basically, is there anything that more volunteers could do to help? Because if so I volunteer, right now. I get what you're saying about expanding the pool of players, but I don't think that more players makes multi-cheating any more OK, which seems to be what you're implying. The information advantages alone that you can get from running 14 accounts at once could be enough to decide entire wars regardless of how many other players are involved.
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We prefer to let fifty guilty men walk free than to wrongfully sentence one innocent.
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We prefer to let fifty guilty men walk free than to wrongfully sentence one innocent.
How do the families feel, 50 murders later? ^.^
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How do the families feel, 50 murders later? ^.^
How does a nation feel knowing that their government killed an innocent man?
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How do the families feel, 50 murders later? ^.^
Yeah...that might be in any way relevant if multicheating was a crime commensurate to murder.
This is a free browser-based game. Nothing that could possibly happen in it could come anywhere close to murder. Or, really, pretty much any other felony.
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Yeah...that might be in any way relevant if multicheating was a crime commensurate to murder.
This is a free browser-based game. Nothing that could possibly happen in it could come anywhere close to murder. Or, really, pretty much any other felony.
I don't disagree its not comparable, and I wouldn't seriously make that comparison. But the idea that one injustice somehow outweighs another is perhaps the point I was making. Much like Chenier's over the top requests to destroy Aurvandil are ludicrous, so is pretending like serious cheating doesn't ruin the gaming experience for those effected and might seriously harm the game as well.
I know many players who have left because of situations like Mendicant. And who refuse to come back due to the perceived lack of action against people who are on some level playing "unfairly" - even if we can prove its cheating as players. It was extremely clear to those of us in Madina that something was wrong - yet nothing was done and YEARS of our gaming was ruined. What god forsaken reason would anyone who invested months of time into building something would be satisfied with a "oh hey, we got him!" when what we built is gone? You got him, that's great, but what he built through his cheating is still there. And how what we build through fair game play is lost. I quit when Madina fell because I was frustrated because it was apparent there was something seriously wrong in Aurvandil. Just like many others have stated and some left as well. Given the niche genre of the game, it is important to keep those people who DO play.
How many players have a lessened opinion of the game, or have lost interest in playing due to things like this?
There is not just a matter of "making sure" - but also ensuring people continue to play the game. If they see there is a problem and nothing gets done, many people - including new players - will leave and not come back.
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No one doubts that the effects of what happened are far-reaching, and damaging. That's why it sucks so much when someone abuses the game in such a way, and for such a long period of time. We do what we can to catch this stuff at every opportunity.
You have to understand that just because you *know*, and would swear on your life and your dearest grandmother's grave that there is cheating going on doesn't mean that you're right. We've had reports, multiple reports, from people who would sell their daughters into slavery if it wasn't true, that certain realms were run by coalitions of multis. And yet investigations show without a doubt that it's not true.
We can't go around locking accounts based on how fervently people swear that they're cheating. We must have proof.
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I've seen reports from people who are absolutely certain that I am also one of the other dev team members. The only evidence they have is that we tend to agree in a given realm, but because of that, they are convinced that we're multis.
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No one doubts that the effects of what happened are far-reaching, and damaging. That's why it sucks so much when someone abuses the game in such a way, and for such a long period of time. We do what we can to catch this stuff at every opportunity.
You have to understand that just because you *know*, and would swear on your life and your dearest grandmother's grave that there is cheating going on doesn't mean that you're right. We've had reports, multiple reports, from people who would sell their daughters into slavery if it wasn't true, that certain realms were run by coalitions of multis. And yet investigations show without a doubt that it's not true.
We can't go around locking accounts based on how fervently people swear that they're cheating. We must have proof.
Look, I don't want to come off as though I'm arguing in favor of indiscriminately locking accounts suspected of being multi-cheaters without evidence. What I want to know is, what can be done to improve the process of investigating suspected accounts as it stands right now?
As a disclaimer, I know nothing about how these investigations are conducted. I simply want to know how it could take so long to finally nail a guy that scores of players have been deeply suspicious of for years, who has been complained about and investigated repeatedly. So far, I have gathered from Anaris that it takes a long time to look for evidence, which obviously has to come out of the free time of the volunteer Devs and Titans. What I keep asking, and no one has yet answered, is can that burden be spread to a greater number of people? Can the processes and tools used to find that evidence be further improved?
Maybe it's really something that only Tom and the Devs can do because of the depth of technical knowledge required. Is that the case?
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Maybe it's really something that only Tom and the Devs can do because of the depth of technical knowledge required. Is that the case?
That is the case. Cheating reports go to the Titans -- the devs provide all relevant information and their conslusions based on that information, and the Titans then weigh that against their own conclusions formed by the information.
There is a lot of information, and when as much care is taken to hide activities as was taken in Aurvandil, even more is required.
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What I want to know is, what can be done to improve the process of investigating suspected accounts as it stands right now?
Gather evidence. Provide a list of accounts that you believe are involved. And not just "everyone in this realm is cheating", but an actual concrete list: "These four accounts are involved, and this is why". The "this is why" part is very important. Do they both always send messages one hour after turn change? Do they autopause and unpause at the same time? Do they send messages from each other's accounts? But it needs to be something solid, not just an "everyone *knows* they're cheating".
I simply want to know how it could take so long to finally nail a guy that scores of players have been deeply suspicious of for years, who has been complained about and investigated repeatedly.
A couple things:
1) Someone finally noticed the accounts involved and reported a specific list of the suspect accounts that allowed us to zero in on the affected accounts and assemble some really incriminating behavior.
2) When they were investigated before, they may not have actually been cheating.
So far, I have gathered from Anaris that it takes a long time to look for evidence, which obviously has to come out of the free time of the volunteer Devs and Titans. What I keep asking, and no one has yet answered, is can that burden be spread to a greater number of people?
Not really. The more people that know how the tools work, the more likely that people are going to find out, and learn how to get around them. They are also not easy to use, and require privileged access to the dev environment.
Can the processes and tools used to find that evidence be further improved?
Probably. But that takes time and coding effort, both of which are in limited supply.
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It was extremely clear to those of us in Madina that something was wrong - yet nothing was done and YEARS of our gaming was ruined.
Two points.
One, "extremely clear to us" is not a level of evidence accepted anywhere in the civilized world. If you can not prove wrongdoing, then in dubio pro reo. Yes, I know it sucks. I've been wronged, not only in games, but also in real life, in ways like this. It really, really sucks. And yet, I wouldn't want to live in a society that does not subscribe to the principles I just outlined.
Two, really, years of playing were ruined? Did you have fun playing or not? Because that is the only measure of gain that matters. All wins and losses in-game are just means to that.
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We still don't have a specific criteria for what is considered evidence.
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Gather evidence. Provide a list of accounts that you believe are involved. And not just "everyone in this realm is cheating", but an actual concrete list: "These four accounts are involved, and this is why". The "this is why" part is very important. Do they both always send messages one hour after turn change? Do they autopause and unpause at the same time? Do they send messages from each other's accounts? But it needs to be something solid, not just an "everyone *knows* they're cheating".
Out of curiosity, did Mendicant's accounts display any of these "tells"?
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I simply want to know how it could take so long to finally nail a guy that scores of players have been deeply suspicious of for years, who has been complained about and investigated repeatedly.
No one here has seriously entertained that our first investigation might have been just as correct as the second.
We know from a few cheaters who became better players and helped us understand the cheating techniques they used that they often do not start out as cheaters. One specific example I have in mind (he might even be reading this) started playing with a few friends, and then picked up their accounts as they left over time. This is not a hypothetical "what if", that is something that has actually happened before.
And "deeply suspicious", I must support Tim there, means nothing, as sorry as I feel to say that. There's a saying where I live that roughly translates to "common sense is what tells you that the world is flat". It's very appropriate here. The majority of cheating accusations do not check out.
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We still don't have a specific criteria for what is considered evidence.
Do they both always send messages one hour after turn change? Do they autopause and unpause at the same time? Do they send messages from each other's accounts? But it needs to be something solid, not just an "everyone *knows* they're cheating".
I'd add things like gold funneling (one or two active characters seem to end up with all the gold of 7 or 8 inactives scattered around). Maybe groups of people who move/work in unison with no apparent IG communication (although this would be harder to test by regular players).
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And "deeply suspicious", I must support Tim there, means nothing, as sorry as I feel to say that. There's a saying where I live that roughly translates to "common sense is what tells you that the world is flat". It's very appropriate here. The majority of cheating accusations do not check out.
I'm sure they don't. I also cannot think of another case of suspected multi-cheating where there were even close to this many people who took note of what the accounts were doing and raised questions about it. Just think back on how much controversy has revolved around this player and his accounts over the years; in five years of playing I've never seen anything else that even remotely approaches it. Not even Twinblade drew anything close to this much scrutiny before he spontaneously outed himself.
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I'm sure they don't. I also cannot think of another case of suspected multi-cheating where there were even close to this many people who took note of what the accounts were doing and raised questions about it. Just think back on how much controversy has revolved around this player and his accounts over the years; in five years of playing I've never seen anything else that even remotely approaches it. Not even Twinblade drew anything close to this much scrutiny before he spontaneously outed himself.
The problem is, most of that suspicious behaviour looks exactly like playing with a bunch of OOC friends. And we already knew for certain that that was happening. And it's not against the rules.
Indeed, even now, I'm only 99.8% sure that all the accounts we locked were, in fact, multi accounts. (And I'm only about 85% sure that they were played solely by Mendicant—it's perfectly possible that a dozen accounts were played by half a dozen players, or something similar. That's still multicheating, obviously, but it does add an extra wrinkle.)
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Out of curiosity, did Mendicant's accounts display any of these "tells"?
Yes, that is what made me suspect they were multi's and that is what I reported to Tom with examples.
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Two points.
One, "extremely clear to us" is not a level of evidence accepted anywhere in the civilized world. If you can not prove wrongdoing, then in dubio pro reo. Yes, I know it sucks. I've been wronged, not only in games, but also in real life, in ways like this. It really, really sucks. And yet, I wouldn't want to live in a society that does not subscribe to the principles I just outlined.
Two, really, years of playing were ruined? Did you have fun playing or not? Because that is the only measure of gain that matters. All wins and losses in-game are just means to that.
I agree - it sucks. And I know the Dev's and Titans looked into the accounts as well at the time. While it is not evidence level - many of the requests for evidence require being part of the realm afflicted. If one is not part of the Realm it is extremely difficult to gather information other than to know what "standard" play looks like and what. . . "questionable" play looks like.
Convenient noble switching sides during battles, enemies knowing our movements, extremely high co-ordination and movement rates, vast sums of gold, little internal strife - not a single one of these is a good (or even viable) indicator of cheating. They all occur within Realms normally (sometimes frequently). However, these things in unison and continuously occurring over time. Well, that's just. . .odd.
I'm not saying it is proof. I'm not saying the Titans and Dev's didn't do their best - hell I actually think you guys did everything you could and that catching Mendicant was probably a lucky break.
It's much like a mass of circumstantial evidence - none of it's the proof required to lock the account, which is fine.
I had fun yes - I'd have been happy or satisfied if D'Hara or Terran had marched down and crushed us in some epic, long held grudge match to the death. That would have been a satisfying end to our RP's and actions. I've played in Realms where we fought to the last man, or we sold each other out to try and survive with some resemblance of power. That was fun.
Watching your realm burn because of people you suspect of cheating? - no, that just leaves a bitter taste in your mouth, and is no fun at all. There is no thrill at fighting them, no joy in standing tall in a last defiant defense, no amusement in the banter back and forth between characters. Honestly it's rather disappointing and makes you angry.
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I haven't got much experience with Aurvandil or Mendicant but from a network security point of view, the bottleneck in detecting this kind of thing is not effort and from what I've seen, BM's anti-cheating mechanism is pretty sophisticated.
The bottleneck is that it's ten times easier to cheat than to get caught, no matter how much anyone knows or suspects. Even if there were twice as many devs spending twice as much time on it, once you get past stupid cheaters and into the realm of people who understand VPNs and proxies and how to hide what they're doing, the best you can do is an educated guess.
I've had to do work on this sort of thing before and when you have an open access system (i.e. it doesn't cost anything) it's just super difficult to do. The alternate universe where they acted on suspicions over the years would lead to finger-pointing between players who already don't like each other (as we've seen on this board). It's a 'what is the least bad solution' problem.
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That was a different context.
Anyone who wants the cheater to come back and is ready to give him back his positions is supporting him and should get a warning. But as a roleplay the way that Gondor in the Lord of the Rings kept its king a "regent" because they waited for the true king to return - cool. More depth, more history, more roleplaying.
As long as it doesn't mean the player of Mendicant can just walk in and demand "his" titles back, or if he would he'd be treated just like any new player doing the same, that's fine.
I fail to understand the difference. Because if he somehow got his account unlocked, they WOULD give him back his titles.
If they would honestly put themselves in the place of a player in Aurvandil who was not in any way involved in the cheating—which, as I've said before, I can 100% guarantee exist in Aurvandil—I think they would start to understand why banning every member of the realm from the game, or any other kind of realmwide punishment, would be deeply unjust.
I can't put myself in their place? Do you know why? Because I NEVER could have pulled myself to play in a realm that reeked of cheating as Aurvandil did. Everyone know shady stuff was going on in that realm.
And please, for god's sake, quote a single person ever asking for all accounts playing in Aurvandil to be locked. You are overdramatizing.
As for Mendicant being entitled to return, considering all the praise he still gets in that realm... it's horrifying. He could create a new family, claim to be Mendicant's son, and get it all right back? Wonderful justice.
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I haven't got much experience with Aurvandil or Mendicant but from a network security point of view, the bottleneck in detecting this kind of thing is not effort and from what I've seen, BM's anti-cheating mechanism is pretty sophisticated.
The bottleneck is that it's ten times easier to cheat than to get caught, no matter how much anyone knows or suspects. Even if there were twice as many devs spending twice as much time on it, once you get past stupid cheaters and into the realm of people who understand VPNs and proxies and how to hide what they're doing, the best you can do is an educated guess.
I've had to do work on this sort of thing before and when you have an open access system (i.e. it doesn't cost anything) it's just super difficult to do. The alternate universe where they acted on suspicions over the years would lead to finger-pointing between players who already don't like each other (as we've seen on this board). It's a 'what is the least bad solution' problem.
This, pretty much sums it up.
The Dev's and Tom do their best as far as I'm concerned, I am grateful for that.
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The problem is, most of that suspicious behaviour looks exactly like playing with a bunch of OOC friends. And we already knew for certain that that was happening. And it's not against the rules.
*mumbles something about the need for sterner anti-clanning and "play with strangers sometimes" rules*
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The problem is, most of that suspicious behaviour looks exactly like playing with a bunch of OOC friends. And we already knew for certain that that was happening. And it's not against the rules.
Indeed, even now, I'm only 99.8% sure that all the accounts we locked were, in fact, multi accounts. (And I'm only about 85% sure that they were played solely by Mendicant—it's perfectly possible that a dozen accounts were played by half a dozen players, or something similar. That's still multicheating, obviously, but it does add an extra wrinkle.)
From a brief overview there are probably 3 groups of folks who play together in Aurvandil, they are from Arcaea, Armonia, and Sint @ 6, 7, and 8 players from each Realm, well above the average of about ~2 players per Realm. Nothing surprising or wrong with that.
It's the fact that 55% of Aurvandil accounts only have 1 or 2 active characters that amazes me. Given that the average from 6 other Realms I looked at is ~17.5% (30% high, 8% low with 3 at 15-18%) that seems. . . excessively high.
My bet is they still have multis. Just my suspicion as I always figured Mendicant was part of an OOC group power gaming to start with.
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From a brief overview there are probably 3 groups of folks who play together in Aurvandil, they are from Arcaea, Armonia, and Sint @ 6, 7, and 8 players from each Realm, well above the average of about ~2 players per Realm. Nothing surprising or wrong with that.
It's the fact that 55% of Aurvandil accounts only have 1 or 2 active characters that amazes me. Given that the average from 6 other Realms I looked at is ~17.5% (30% high, 8% low with 3 at 15-18%) that seems. . . excessively high.
My bet is they still have multis. Just my suspicion as I always figured Mendicant was part of an OOC group power gaming to start with.
I play in both Aurvandil and Arcaea. Well, I left Aurvandil very recently... I recruited Arcaea players to Dwilight long long ago. Some of them still follow me around. I would imagine that a large number of those Arcaean players are from that. I could probably name most of those 6 off the top of my head.
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From a brief overview there are probably 3 groups of folks who play together in Aurvandil, they are from Arcaea, Armonia, and Sint @ 6, 7, and 8 players from each Realm, well above the average of about ~2 players per Realm. Nothing surprising or wrong with that.
It's the fact that 55% of Aurvandil accounts only have 1 or 2 active characters that amazes me. Given that the average from 6 other Realms I looked at is ~17.5% (30% high, 8% low with 3 at 15-18%) that seems. . . excessively high.
My bet is they still have multis. Just my suspicion as I always figured Mendicant was part of an OOC group power gaming to start with.
So if you play only 1 char you are multi acc cheater? Is there a rule to how many chars you must play at the same time? What kind of accusation is that.
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So if you play only 1 char you are multi acc cheater? Is there a rule to how many chars you must play at the same time? What kind of accusation is that.
No rule. It's an observation - just like 1/5 accounts in every other Realm has only a few characters. That's fine, lots of people only have time for a single character or two.
I'm well aware there could be a good explanation - Aurvandil is a large Realm, so it attracts lots of new players who may only run one or two characters. (though, Thalmarkin has only 5 such accounts out of 60, instead of 36 in 65).
It IS out of the norm however. Most realms only have a few accounts, in Aurvandils case there is a very large amount. Why?
Dustole - Yup. Its normal to see, I can remember a time when if I wasn't in a realm with 5 or 6 familiar families I was allied to them. I enjoy playing with good players and RP'ers - always interesting to stick with them to see where it leads sometimes. Now they all seem to lead half the realms in FEI (and are about to war by the looks. haha!)
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The bottleneck is that it's ten times easier to cheat than to get caught, no matter how much anyone knows or suspects. Even if there were twice as many devs spending twice as much time on it, once you get past stupid cheaters and into the realm of people who understand VPNs and proxies and how to hide what they're doing, the best you can do is an educated guess.
I've had to do work on this sort of thing before and when you have an open access system (i.e. it doesn't cost anything) it's just super difficult to do. The alternate universe where they acted on suspicions over the years would lead to finger-pointing between players who already don't like each other (as we've seen on this board). It's a 'what is the least bad solution' problem.
Thank you and yes and no.
In fact, in this particular case the nail in the coffin was that every single one of these accounts did use proxies and browser-plugins and other tools to hide its traces. He or they went to quite some distance to make it very, very difficult to make sure. But, that very fact convinced us of wrongdoing and helped identify the accounts involved.
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As for Mendicant being entitled to return, considering all the praise he still gets in that realm... it's horrifying. He could create a new family, claim to be Mendicant's son, and get it all right back? Wonderful justice.
We never said THAT, stop choice-quoting!
He can make a new account and start from nothing.
If he comes back and re-claims his titles like you post, and is given them, we would lock everyone involved for 3 days and probably terminate his new account and tell him that "start from scratch" really does mean that.
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I'd add things like gold funneling (one or two active characters seem to end up with all the gold of 7 or 8 inactives scattered around). Maybe groups of people who move/work in unison with no apparent IG communication (although this would be harder to test by regular players).
The first one is completely beyond a player's ability to notice. The second is possible but very hard.
I'm under the impression that if there's enough reason for suspicion the GMs will look at the game code and find suspicious actions like that. My question is what can we as players look for. I mean very specifically. We need to know what's out of the ordinary. Otherwise we'll either be not reporting anything or reporting things which can't be verified.
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I'll tell you what I look for. I've flagged maybe 3 or 4 sets of multis in the last few years– admittedly failed to notice Twinblade despite playing in two realms with his multis, but, still.
1. Sequential or near-sequential user IDs
2. Lots of new accounts that are coordinated in user data, speech patterns, time-zone, e-mail address type, or realm-choices for other characters.
3. New characters with rapidly forming strong friendships, especially with other new players
4. Realms that are surviving against truly impossible odds (I'm thinking of Ordenstaat here)
5. Coordinated movement
6. Demands for special group treatment (message groups, armies, etc)
7. Large amounts of political support in elections where nobody voiced support for somebody or something
8. Any evidence of gold-hoarding or gold-funneling
9. Non-responsiveness to repeated personal messages, especially OOC messages or orders
--
NONE of these prove that somebody is a cheater, I want to be 100% clear. And any one or two of them are probably harmless. And sometimes they do mean SOMETHING, just not MULTIS: like maybe an old player returning to BM, or somebody who recruited some OOC friends.
But they're usually good places to look. Plus, sometimes you actually learn some fun stuff about other players. Usually when I see a couple red flags all at once, I OOC message the people and just ask about what drew them to Battlemaster, asking if they need any help, etc, etc. I've had times where somebody tells me, "Yeah, my friend told me I should come here and help him overthrow XYZ. I don't really know what's going on." And that's not cheating per se– but it's still definitely unfair play, in my not very humble and pretty radically anti-clan position that many Magistrates do not support.
But, just some thoughts on red flags you might look for.
Also, I am NOT a dev, so I do NOT know what they actually look for. I just know the results of reports I've filed.
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What's cheating here, and what isn't?
If I make multiple accounts, that's cheating. But if I recruit multiple friends to play the game, that's not cheating. Right? What if I get 10-11 friends to make accounts and send them specific orders through AIM/irc/facebook and they move according to those orders, not IC orders. Is that cheating, or is that legitimate? What separates this sort of play-style from multi-play? What if these friends play specifically and only because I need x many people before I can overthrow the current ruler of a realm and take over? Is that also legitimate? Is it still legitimate if they all delete their accounts after I have a position of power? What if I get 10 friends to create accounts to destroy the reputation of another player, because of a grudge I've held against one of their characters? What if I order these OOC friends to infiltrate the realms where that player's characters are, and systematically ruin them? What if I then tell them they can delete their accounts after that other character(s) (and player) is completely ripped apart? Still okay?
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I would probably dump an entire colony of fire ants in your bed.
But that's just me.
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What's cheating here, and what isn't?
If I make multiple accounts, that's cheating.
Yep. And none of those other things are.
Depending on the specific situation, some of them may be against the Social Contract, and should be brought up with the Magistrates.
But in all of those scenarios, there's an important random factor that you're not considering:
All those OOC friends you recruited to the game have the free choice to not follow your orders blindly.
I have actually, personally, seen at least one case where someone recruited OOC friends into the game to prop him up when it looked like he was going to be losing support and/or power—but one or more of them, upon joining, found that not only did they like the game, and not only was the job of propping up the OOC friend a bit harder than he may have made out, but they actually didn't want to prop him up once they knew the situation in-game.
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Well the simplest solution I see is disabling family gold to stop people from funnelling gold.
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What's cheating here, and what isn't?
If I make multiple accounts, that's cheating. -Cheating
But if I recruit multiple friends to play the game, that's not cheating. Right? -That's fine
What if I get 10-11 friends to make accounts and send them specific orders through AIM/irc/facebook and they move according to those orders, not IC orders. Is that cheating, or is that legitimate? -Cheating
What separates this sort of play-style from multi-play? -There are multiple players.
What if these friends play specifically and only because I need x many people before I can overthrow the current ruler of a realm and take over? Is that also legitimate? -Legitimate. As Anaris said, they may end up liking the game! It's not encouraged though - try to use the tools you have within the game.
Is it still legitimate if they all delete their accounts after I have a position of power? -That's still fine
What if I get 10 friends to create accounts to destroy the reputation of another player, because of a grudge I've held against one of their characters? -Abuse. Attack characters, not players.
What if I order these OOC friends to infiltrate the realms where that player's characters are, and systematically ruin them? -Abuse. Really, you give orders to your friends? Why do they listen to you?
What if I then tell them they can delete their accounts after that other character(s) (and player) is completely ripped apart? Still okay? -Abuse. The abuse is that you imply you would not let them delete their characters beforehand. What, you blackmail them?
See, it's quite easy. You're allowed to play the game with your friends. Your friends are allowed to play the game. Only if you stop playing the game and start using out-of-game means to gain an advantage, whether that's by cheating, circumventing the message system, or use your real-world connections to gain in-game advantage, does it become a problem.
I'm not a dev or magistrate by the way, but it seems to me these can be answered quite clearly just from the rules and social contract.
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What if I get 10-11 friends to make accounts and send them specific orders through AIM/irc/facebook and they move according to those orders, not IC orders. Is that cheating, or is that legitimate? -Cheating
Nope. Like I said, that's not cheating. It may be abusive, it may be a violation of the Social Contract, but in BattleMaster parlance, the only thing that's actually cheating is having anything other than a 1:1 correspondence between player and account.
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Using OOG methods to send orders is not good.
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Nope. Like I said, that's not cheating. It may be abusive, it may be a violation of the Social Contract, but in BattleMaster parlance, the only thing that's actually cheating is having anything other than a 1:1 correspondence between player and account.
I could have sworn that using out-of-game means for secret communications was not allowed, as it bypasses the limitations on whom a character can talk to and cannot be discovered through torture, but I can't find the rule now.
Well, I still think it's not right.
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I could have sworn that using out-of-game means for secret communications was not allowed, as it bypasses the limitations on whom a character can talk to and cannot be discovered through torture, but I can't find the rule now.
Well, I still think it's not right.
If someone punishes you for not following out-of-game orders, they can be reported for it.
However, that doesn't mean that sending out-of-game orders is, in and of itself, prohibited.
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If someone punishes you for not following out-of-game orders, they can be reported for it.
However, that doesn't mean that sending out-of-game orders is, in and of itself, prohibited.
Fair enough, that seems right.
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If someone punishes you for not following out-of-game orders, they can be reported for it.
However, that doesn't mean that sending out-of-game orders is, in and of itself, prohibited.
Um, what? It totally is.
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If someone punishes you for not following out-of-game orders, they can be reported for it.
However, that doesn't mean that sending out-of-game orders is, in and of itself, prohibited.
I'd still be inclined to frown upon such behavior as a Magistrate. Depending on the exact circumstances it could go against Tom's position on clanning, violate the activity IR, or generally amount to power gaming of the sort explicitly frowned upon in the Social Contract. It may not be explicitly against the Rules, but it violates the spirit of several of them. As a player, you shouldn't have to be on AIM 24-7 to get orders from your power-gaming General.
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Well the simplest solution I see is disabling family gold to stop people from funnelling gold.
Here's a better idea: Just disable characters altogether. Only the map to look at! Absolutely no cheating after that, guaranteed! ;-)
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Um, what? It totally is.
We can't prohibit things that we have no means of tracking or disabling. That'd just be crazy.
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We can't prohibit things that we have no means of tracking or disabling. That'd just be crazy.
Um, strategic secessions?
There are many things we prohibit without an ability to track or disable.
Now, sure there's no foul when you send orders IC, and you maybe repost them to IRC. Sure, whatever. But actually using OOC means to supplant IC means
100% pure and simple cheating. It doesn't matter if we can't track it: it's still cheating. And, if by some means we happen to hear about it, we should respond to it as such. Heck, I think we HAVE responded to it as such in the past.
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Now, sure there's no foul when you send orders IC, and you maybe repost them to IRC. Sure, whatever. But actually using OOC means to supplant IC means
100% pure and simple cheating. It doesn't matter if we can't track it: it's still cheating. And, if by some means we happen to hear about it, we should respond to it as such. Heck, I think we HAVE responded to it as such in the past.
This is simply not true, at least historically.
You may have formed an opinion that this is how it should be—indeed, perhaps it even is how it should be. But I know for certain that Tom's policy on this, historically, has been: If you give an order OOC, no one cares. If you punish someone for not following it, you're in trouble.
Think about this, Vellos. Fundamentally, there's no difference between a player moving their character because of an order given OOC and because their friend told them OOC that "the plan" was to do it. Either way, it comes down to simply acting on OOC information. And, whether any of us like it or not, that is very clearly not forbidden.
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And it's not forbidden because we simply don't know about it - we don't read all your emails, SMS and face-to-face conversations or any of the other 20 channels for OOG messaging.
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This is wrong.
So you're saying it would not be forbidden for a realm to do its orders via e-mail instead of IG messages? Have elections on SurvekyMonkey maybe?
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This is wrong.
So you're saying it would not be forbidden for a realm to do its orders via e-mail instead of IG messages? Have elections on SurvekyMonkey maybe?
If it were happening on a mass scale, that would be a clear violation of the Social Contract.
If, however, I order my friend, in person or on IRC, to move to the capital so we can start the rebellion, that's not something that's punishable.
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I was always under the impression OOC actions were against the rules - at least ethically.
If you all move one way, without sending orders, and someone in your Realm notices. . . that would be seen as a very bad thing.
Plotting and such OOC - even discussing your orders or plans - happens all the time. Heck, reminding people OOC to make the move is fine too.
But you always had to justify your IC actions with IC. . .things. Even if it was all planned and organized OOC, failing to do it IC at least half-assed could be seen as a form of abuse or breaking the code of conduct.
Plot to overthrow the king ooc sure - but at least make sure you join the rebellion or send letters to each other plotting. If it's ALL OOC that is against the rules - or at least intent - of the game and should not be encourage or allowed. Proving it. . . is entirely a different matter.
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If it were happening on a mass scale, that would be a clear violation of the Social Contract.
If, however, I order my friend, in person or on IRC, to move to the capital so we can start the rebellion, that's not something that's punishable.
Want to go ahead and define "mass scale"?
Ordering for a rebellion is the worst example ever. All intrigue needs to occur in forms that could hypothetically be tortured out of you.
Seriously, this is in direct conflict with every discussion of this issue I've ever heard. You cannot substitute OOG communication for IG communication. No, we can't police it: but if we discover it, we have grounds to address it.
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Nah. OOC should replace IG. So much more convenient and you don't have to worry about that stupid SMA. And it is quicker too. You are not bound by IR if you do it through OOC. Hack why am I using IG communication!
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All intrigue needs to occur in forms that could hypothetically be tortured out of you.
This is a good reason to have all OOC orders sent IC too. Although I am at IRC and many of us give orders OOC there, all of them are instantly followed by one IC.
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Want to go ahead and define "mass scale"?
Not especially. You know the general policy on specifically laying out details of things like this.
Anyway, I doubt there really is a bright line in this sort of thing. More of an "I'll know it when I see it."
In general, though, I'd say that one person giving orders to a small number of other people once or twice for convenience's sake is fine, while coordinating an entire realm over a long period that way is not fine. In between the two, there are areas of "pretty much OK," "pretty much not OK," and gray in-between-ness.
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Intent matters. The reason that sending out orders via OOG mechanisms (it isn't a widespread phenomenon, btw) is discouraged is because it excludes that portion of players who aren't privy to it. BM is a game built on communication and inclusiveness. Exclusiveness, especially the kind against which there is no recourse, is harmful.
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This is wrong.
So you're saying it would not be forbidden for a realm to do its orders via e-mail instead of IG messages? Have elections on SurvekyMonkey maybe?
*sigh*
There is a difference between "we can't run mass surveilance on the entire Internet, all phone networks world-wide and every private meeting on the entire planet" and "it's all fine".
Realistically, we can't prevent OOG communication. Heck, everyone who knows another BM player in real life has probably had one.
So we turn a blind eye to individual cases because that's the only realistic approach.
However, the FAQ clearly states that any official business must be conducted in-game. So if you ban someone for not following an order you sent by e-mail, the Titans or Magistrates will consider that order non-existent and reverse the ban, punish you, whatever. It doesn't exist for us.
So running your realm through e-mail is not ok. But sending your buddy an SMS saying "cool battle with XYZ, you there next turn?" is something we will a) never learn about and b) can't prevent anyways and thus c) do nothing about. Because, frankly. telling people they can't talk about the game outside of the game is just crazy.
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Well, the point I'm trying to make is this:
1. Multiple accounts = cheating, if you log into each one.
2. Multiple accounts = not cheating, if you have someone else log into each other account.
Both types of multiplaying are identical in every way but the way I've illustrated above. In example #2, your minions mindlessly follow orders and click buttons. There is absolutely no possibility of them ever not doing what you say because you don't have !@#$ty friends, they don't like the game, and have no reason to not follow your orders. They are not invested, so they have no reason to do anything contrary to what you say. Maybe you're even rewarding them OOCly, or on another game, for their obedience. They are human proxies.
Why are human proxies a legitimate tactic of play on BM, but virtual proxies are not?
An example:
1. Making 10 accounts, logging into each one and setting movement to a particular region despite having no orders to do so. Purposefully inciting a war with an ally to destroy the realm you're in.
2. Getting 10 friends to make accounts, and telling them via email to set movement to a particular region despite having no IC orders to do so. Purposefully inciting a war with an ally to destroy the realm you're in.
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Why don't you get these 'minions' yourself as well? He has more BM friends than most people it seems. Why can't you bring more people to do what you want? ;)
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That's just it. If it's truly not cheating by magistrate and GM standards, what's stopping more people from doing it, aside from their own personal morals?
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Well, the point I'm trying to make is this:
1. Multiple accounts = cheating, if you log into each one.
2. Multiple accounts = not cheating, if you have someone else log into each other account.
This is the point where I am leaving the discussion because we are deep in the theoretical, hypothetical, "what if", and the only "what if" that I care about anymore is http://what-if.xkcd.com/
It is cheating to have more than one account per person. Having one account per person is not cheating, even if those persons *gasp* know each other or *oh my god!* actually talk to each other sometimes.
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Kk.
Stand back, I'm going to try science.
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This is wrong.
So you're saying it would not be forbidden for a realm to do its orders via e-mail instead of IG messages? Have elections on SurvekyMonkey maybe?
As others have stated or implied, most of the OOC things that people would object to would actually end up falling under other aspects of the IRs or Social Contract. The Golden Rule still applies: I know wrong behavior when I see it. Not every instance of OOC communication is breaking the Rules, but some most certainly would be depending on the circumstances. If you're looking for an "All OOC communications are wrong under all circumstances," you're not going to get it. Tom's position seems to be pretty easy to grasp: We're not going to outlaw OOC communication because a) it's going to happen anyway, b) we have no way to prove it did or otherwise monitor it, and c) most abuses that might result would fall under other Rules and can be punished if things get to that point.
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1. Making 10 accounts, logging into each one and setting movement to a particular region despite having no orders to do so. Purposefully inciting a war with an ally to destroy the realm you're in.
2. Getting 10 friends to make accounts, and telling them via email to set movement to a particular region despite having no IC orders to do so. Purposefully inciting a war with an ally to destroy the realm you're in.
Please read the posts that have already come in the thread before making the same damn arguments again.
But in all of those scenarios, there's an important random factor that you're not considering:
All those OOC friends you recruited to the game have the free choice to not follow your orders blindly.
I have actually, personally, seen at least one case where someone recruited OOC friends into the game to prop him up when it looked like he was going to be losing support and/or power—but one or more of them, upon joining, found that not only did they like the game, and not only was the job of propping up the OOC friend a bit harder than he may have made out, but they actually didn't want to prop him up once they knew the situation in-game.
In general, though, you're absolutely right: People who are willing, and whose ethics (or lack thereof) will permit them, to push the rules to their absolute limits—or break them in ways that are highly ambiguous and/or easy to hide from those in authority—will gain an advantage over those who are not.
This is true in just about any situation I can imagine. If you can come up with a realistic way to prevent it, then I suggest you start publicizing it widely, because you'll be a shoe-in for the next religious prophet or Nobel Peace Prize winner.
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Much like stupid facebook posts, the problem here is that it costs relatively little to be annoying. Sure it takes time with VPNs or proxies but plenty of people have time.
If I had this problem, I'd charge 10 bucks a year to play BM. That barely covers the cost of a merchant services account, transaction fees, and the hassle of dealing with taxes and reporting. But it gives you something a lot more valuable than $10 * players: billing addresses and credit cards (last 4 only since you don't want to actually store the numbers). Lots of people have multiple cards but not multiple billing addresses. You don't even forbid it - you just check on it, because there are valid reasons why people share cards just like there are valid reasons why people share IPs.
This is by no means the only solution and you wouldn't even have to charge anything - you could just validate the card, but then you're out of pocket for the merchant services account and cost of doing so.
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Nobody here is talking about the instance of a friend dropping a friendly text seeing of they're going to be involved in an upcoming battle. I'm on the forum– clearly no objection to OOC communication here.
Clearly we're talking about where e-mails, or IRC, or text messages, or whatever, but a situation where those messages are used instead of IC conduits. The discussion began with someone giving a series of questionable behaviors. Tim stated that it was fine to send orders OOG: I never anywhere stated that OOC communication was evil. But "sending orders OOG" has an obvious meaning that anyone who can read can see: that sometimes those orders might not be IC. No, there's no problem when IC orders are going out but two players who know each other talk about it, obviously.
There is a problem, however, when players choose to avoid using game mechanics. Communication OOG is fundamentally and by its very nature, in all circumstances at all times in all places, exclusive. Which is totally fine for shooting the breeze or OOC commentary on game events! But for IC character interactions? No. Realms run from IRC are as bad as Mendicant's multis, and just as exclusive.
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Also, on the "I know it when I see it" thing:
Magistrates cases have failed to identify that alleged phenomenon ever actually cropping up. Everybody has radically different definitions of what they know only when they see it.
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Much like stupid facebook posts, the problem here is that it costs relatively little to be annoying. Sure it takes time with VPNs or proxies but plenty of people have time.
If I had this problem, I'd charge 10 bucks a year to play BM. That barely covers the cost of a merchant services account, transaction fees, and the hassle of dealing with taxes and reporting. But it gives you something a lot more valuable than $10 * players: billing addresses and credit cards (last 4 only since you don't want to actually store the numbers). Lots of people have multiple cards but not multiple billing addresses. You don't even forbid it - you just check on it, because there are valid reasons why people share cards just like there are valid reasons why people share IPs.
This is by no means the only solution and you wouldn't even have to charge anything - you could just validate the card, but then you're out of pocket for the merchant services account and cost of doing so.
This would reduce player count, which would make the game less fun, which would reduce player count even more, which would reduce the fun even more, which would...
Not viable option.
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persons *gasp* know each other or *oh my god!* actually talk to each other sometimes.
Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. Back up there. What are "people" and whats this "talking" thing? :o
RL Hax!
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Also, on the "I know it when I see it" thing:
Magistrates cases have failed to identify that alleged phenomenon ever actually cropping up. Everybody has radically different definitions of what they know only when they see it.
This... "I know it when I see it" is incredibly subjective, and really isn't a very good measure for determining anything, since everyone has different measures of what is and isn't "it".
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This... "I know it when I see it" is incredibly subjective, and really isn't a very good measure for determining anything, since everyone has different measures of what is and isn't "it".
And using that you could almost never fairly punish someone the first time since its not really defined they won't know if they have gone too far so a warning is the only fair punishment the first time. (I say almost never for those cases blatantly doing it to exclude certain people or something else that is obviously a bad thing to the violator and us.
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So we CAN coordinate moves OOCly; that is not illegal and will result in punishment? That is the conclusion of High Above, yes?
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So we CAN coordinate moves OOCly; that is not illegal and will result in punishment? That is the conclusion of High Above, yes?
You shouldn't, is the advice everyone will give you.
Small, individual acts are probably done all the time.
Doing it in large groups will get you accused of playing as a clan or as multis - regardless, it's not pretty.
The advice, and suggestions will always be do everything IC so you can justify it all later. :)
No one is saying don't talk OOC or remind folks or even plot (that's half the fun with friends!). But always make sure whatever you talk about OOC that you do IG . . . you well, do IC as well.
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You can chat up on IRC all you want: nobody disputes that.
But OOG means can never substitute for IG means. If the communication doesn't have your character's name beside it in a game-produced document, it never really happened, and your character didn't say it. Is that something we are able or interested in policing for everybody who gets an idea after talking on the forum? Nah.
But does that mean that's OKAY to substitute OOG communication for IG communication?
Absolutely not.
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If I had this problem, I'd charge 10 bucks a year to play BM.
One of the reasons Might & Fealty (http://mightandfealty.com/) will not be free is this - it will definitely cut down on multi-cheaters dramatically and even those who multi-cheat will do it with 2 or 3 accounts, not with 10 or 20.
But for BattleMaster, I have made a promise that it will always be free.
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So we CAN coordinate moves OOCly; that is not illegal and will result in punishment? That is the conclusion of High Above, yes?
No, the word from High Above is:
Tom is not the head of the NSA, so he won't know if you send each other an SMS or an e-mail about the game. You should be using in-game communications for in-game stuff. It's just that we have no way of checking if you do, so we don't make a rule about something we can't enforce.
We do have a rule where we can enforce it - if you, say, ban someone in-game for not following an out-of-game order, we CAN check that the order he allegedly disobeyed does not exist in-game, so for all we care it doesn't exist and your ban will be reverted.
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What if a bunch of people from an "elite army" move around, and never leave any traces? Torture reports don't show any signs of orders? Could they be targeted by a complaint by a player to have the titans look up their message history and punished for doing it all on IRC?
While it may be hard to enforce, it doesn't seem harder to enforce than some of the other rules we do have.
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What if a bunch of people from an "elite army" move around, and never leave any traces? Torture reports don't show any signs of orders? Could they be targeted by a complaint by a player to have the titans look up their message history and punished for doing it all on IRC?
While it may be hard to enforce, it doesn't seem harder to enforce than some of the other rules we do have.
There is a rule for that:
Don't use your clan to ruin other peoples' fun.
Are clans allowed in this game?
My position on clans is very simple. One, it is not illegal to have friends. Two, having fun with friends should not diminish the fun of everyone else.
If you want to play with and/or against friends, whether you call it a clan or not, that's fine with me. When whatever your group does wipes out the fun for other players, you'll feel my wrath. This mostly means that it is not ok to take over a realm for your clan. There are always other players around, and I expect you to play nice with them. You can form a guild and use that as your in-game clan representation, as long as other players can join as well (imposing conditions is fine, imposing unrealistic and especially OOC conditions like "must live in our street" is not). You get the idea: As long as your clan does not exclude others from having fun, I'm ok with it.
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This would reduce player count, which would make the game less fun, which would reduce player count even more, which would reduce the fun even more, which would...
Not viable option.
On the contrary, it's a perfectly viable option. It's just an option you don't like. So, probably a good idea.
Removing multi-cheaters 'reduces the player count' just as having them reduces the player count. If the problem is a one-off thing, then we can all go home and stop posting on this thread. I didn't lose a lot of work due to Aurvandil so I'm not as upset as others understandably are.
It would deny access to a subset of players without cards, and if that solution is more bad than the level of cheating, I'm happy staying how we are since like I say - this problem hasn't impacted me a whole lot.
And if you're already setting up card processing for another game, you already have a merchant services account, meaning the marginal cost to run validate-only (zero fee) transactions just to verify billing addresses is zero.
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It would deny access to a subset of players without cards, and if that solution is more bad than the level of cheating, I'm happy staying how we are since like I say - this problem hasn't impacted me a whole lot.
I think you're underestimating the percentage of BM players who are poor students.
I suspect it would deny access to at least 50% of the player base.
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I think you're underestimating the percentage of BM players who are poor students.
I suspect it would deny access to at least 50% of the player base.
Not only that, it would be a block for new players. Today, I would pay 10$/year to play BM (I have donated more than that). If there were a paywall, however, I wouldn't even have started playing. It's easy to say it's worth it now that I've been playing for 4 years, but I didn't know it at first.
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I think you're underestimating the percentage of BM players who are poor students.
Then don't charge any money and just validate the card. That's what a validate-only transaction is - when we process cards in my line of work, we submit a validate-only transaction first, and if that's approved, we submit the actual transaction. All you're doing is checking on the billing address.
Or go a step further and say you can play for 15 days or 30 days without being verified, but you can only have one character.
None of this is worth it if you don't think cheating is a big problem, and I have no idea how big it is.
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Aside from the cheaters we just locked, I don't think there's more than about 10-15 more (accounts, not players) in the entire game.
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I think you're underestimating the percentage of BM players who are poor students.
I suspect it would deny access to at least 50% of the player base.
Agree, and, to pay will not avoid all cheaters. I can assure to you that in another game, we have hundreds or thousands of clones that pay to play. It will be just another kind of cheater, richest ones.
It took some time to me to understand this OOG and IG thing. There are many and lots of reasons to have a one account/one player rule and we could discuss one by one for years, and at the end of the day many will still disagree.
BM is a special game. If there are players that dont see this and cheat, and in a way that make it difficult to dennounce, let them do it. Ignore them, move out. Imagine what could had happened if everyone that was not cheating at aurvandil moved out to another realm leaving the cheater alone?
They are getting creative, be more.
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Then don't charge any money and just validate the card.
... I'm a poor student without a card.
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... I'm a poor student without a card.
Then you're clearly a cheating communist!
(okay, okay...)
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There is a rule for that:
What if it's not "ruining the fun for everyone", what if that realm also has other armies that do plenty of fun stuff? But it would still 1) segregate people according to their ability to login to something like IRC at certain times or 2) prevent enemy judges from torturing military info out of those people.
It was my understanding that using OOG communications that avoid leaks through torture was against the rules, but the recent messages don't all seem to support this.
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What if it's not "ruining the fun for everyone", what if that realm also has other armies that do plenty of fun stuff? But it would still 1) segregate people according to their ability to login to something like IRC at certain times or 2) prevent enemy judges from torturing military info out of those people.
It was my understanding that using OOG communications that avoid leaks through torture was against the rules, but the recent messages don't all seem to support this.
My point was that what you describe looked like clanning, and clanning is not right, whether it uses OOG means of communication or not.
Also, requiring a group of people to log in on IRC would violate the activity IR.
There are plenty of rules to prevent bad behaviour, and taken together they take care of the vast majority of actually objectionable cases.
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... I'm a poor student without a card.
He is just a poor boy from a poor family! Spare him his battlemaster from these monstrosities!
I think you're underestimating the percentage of BM players who are poor students.
I suspect it would deny access to at least 50% of the player base.
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My point was that what you describe looked like clanning, and clanning is not right, whether it uses OOG means of communication or not.
Also, requiring a group of people to log in on IRC would violate the activity IR.
There are plenty of rules to prevent bad behaviour, and taken together they take care of the vast majority of actually objectionable cases.
"Requirement" can be left up to debate. Because people can make an army of people that log in to IRC only, by organizing it all on IRC and never once mentionning any hints to IRC or OOG communication IG.
OOG communication as a torture-proof means of organizing (be it armies, rebellions, elections, or whatever) is more what I want to put the focus on.
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It was my understanding that using OOG communications that avoid leaks through torture was against the rules, but the recent messages don't all seem to support this.
People in this thread still don't understand the difference between "we allow/support this" and "we can't do anything about it anyways, so *shrug*".
So I'm out of here, because as long as people don't get that difference, we are arguing about entirely different things.
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People in this thread still don't understand the difference between "we allow/support this" and "we can't do anything about it anyways, so *shrug*".
So I'm out of here, because as long as people don't get that difference, we are arguing about entirely different things.
Is there really "nothing that can be done about it anyways"? There may be no easy means to catch all violations... but then again, a bunch of multiers have gotten away with it for a very long time before revealing themselves or getting caught. And as others pointed out, there are other rules we are just as hard to apply, such as strategic secessions or capital moves, because of how they depend on intent and there arent many things harder than policing intent...
Of course, BM doesn't and won't have some police force to go look up every IRC channel and msn logs. But looking through message logs (when founded accusations are made) would actually make this rule easier to police than some of our other rules, so I just don't see why on this case we say "we won't even try", while on others we do.
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People in this thread still don't understand the difference between "we allow/support this" and "we can't do anything about it anyways, so *shrug*".
So I'm out of here, because as long as people don't get that difference, we are arguing about entirely different things.
How about, We can't stop you but please don't do it?
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Also, on the "I know it when I see it" thing:
Magistrates cases have failed to identify that alleged phenomenon ever actually cropping up. Everybody has radically different definitions of what they know only when they see it.
Which is why there is a group of us, and why we are required to come to consensus before we rule. I'm quite certain Tom set things up that way on purpose with exactly what you just said in mind.
Ten pairs of eyes is better than one.
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Which is why there is a group of us, and why we are required to come to consensus before we rule. I'm quite certain Tom set things up that way on purpose with exactly what you just said in mind.
Ten pairs of eyes is better than one.
But my point is that the "I know it when I see it" is just a way of saying, "I will give no advance guidance that Magistrates could refer to." Which is a way of saying, "I will give no guidance to players until they are in a Magistrates case."
Also: it is costless to prohibit something we think is bad for the game (OOG communication substituting for IG communication). Enforcing it may be impossible, but we lose nothing by at least clearly stating IT IS BAD. Saying, "Nothing I can do" and shrugging our shoulders is a worthless response, Tom. Not to get all over-epic in here, but I hope you don't respond that way to RL problems in, say, developing nations. That's not a position of pragmatism but of apathy. Pragmatically, yeah, we can't police this all the time. But we can still do the minimum of at least publicly saying what the majority of players who have chimed in here have stated to be their belief about the pre-existing rule: you have to communicate IG for IC actions. No, we can't perfectly enforce that, and it'd be a worthless crusade to try and hunt down people who do it.
But that doesn't mean we should abandon the position that, yes, that behavior is bad for the game and, no, it is not "allowed." It is against the rules. Admittedly they're rules we can't enforce, but insofar as any social norms or mores matter, we think its a good norm to have. Is that really so crazy a position?
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My point was that what you describe looked like clanning, and clanning is not right, whether it uses OOG means of communication or not.
Also, requiring a group of people to log in on IRC would violate the activity IR.
There are plenty of rules to prevent bad behaviour, and taken together they take care of the vast majority of actually objectionable cases.
And my point is that all OOG communication which substitutes for rather than complements IG communication is exclusive, fun-ruining clanning. And I think that this point is patently obvious.
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And my point is that all OOG communication which substitutes for rather than complements IG communication is exclusive, fun-ruining clanning. And I think that this point is patently obvious.
Wrong
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Wrong
Thank you for your careful reasoning.
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Wrong
Would you care to share some examples of OOG communication used on a broad scale which replaced IG communication that are not clanning? Maybe share some personal anecdotes?
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And my point is that all OOG communication which substitutes for rather than complements IG communication is exclusive, fun-ruining clanning. And I think that this point is patently obvious.
Bolded part is already against the rules, which seems to be both your and my point. I tend to agree with you, but at the same time I agree with Tom: rules should be kept few, and adding extra unenforceable rules is not useful. We all think clanning is wrong, so that's the rule. It's already hard enough to enforce.
What Wolfsong originally described looks a whole lot like abusive clanning to me. Using OOG communication is only a small part of what is wrong with his hypothetical scheme.
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Also: it is costless to prohibit something we think is bad for the game (OOG communication substituting for IG communication).
Except that I don't think that that, categorically, is bad for the game.
That's the whole point, Vellos. The "I'll know it when I see it" is "I'll know when I see it whether a particular case is bad for the game or not."
I've seen lots of OOG communication that supplemented, complemented, or replaced IG communication that was incidental, casual, and in no way bad for the game.
I DO NOT want to institute a new rule that will make players think that we'll be checking up on them or that someone might rat them out for perfectly innocent, innocuous acts that, if they were actually brought up before the Magistrates without an explicit rule like that, would be ruled just fine in an instant. (Well, maybe not an instant, given the way the Magistrates seem to operate...)
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Would you care to share some examples of OOG communication used on a broad scale which replaced IG communication that are not clanning? Maybe share some personal anecdotes?
The IRC. And nice accusation :)
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Except that I don't think that that, categorically, is bad for the game.
That's the whole point, Vellos. The "I'll know it when I see it" is "I'll know when I see it whether a particular case is bad for the game or not."
I've seen lots of OOG communication that supplemented, complemented, or replaced IG communication that was incidental, casual, and in no way bad for the game.
I DO NOT want to institute a new rule that will make players think that we'll be checking up on them or that someone might rat them out for perfectly innocent, innocuous acts that, if they were actually brought up before the Magistrates without an explicit rule like that, would be ruled just fine in an instant. (Well, maybe not an instant, given the way the Magistrates seem to operate...)
Want to give some details of incidents where OOG communication replaced IG communication in a way that wasn't bad for the game?
The Magistrates are more than capable of saying, "Yeah, this def wasn't malicious and didn't actually hurt anyone: nbd." We've done it before and we can do it again; it's not hard. That's the point of having a non-robot as a Magistrate.
But refusing to make a rule because someone somewhere might hypothetically have an easily dismissable Magistrates case brought against them is just silly.
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And my point is that all OOG communication which substitutes for rather than complements IG communication is exclusive, fun-ruining clanning. And I think that this point is patently obvious.
If the OOC communication is exclusionary, which on the scale you mentioned earlier, it is most likely to be, then I agree with you. But there's already a rule against excluding people, (no exclusive clans).
IRCing or messaging in itself isn't the problem, but it can become the problem if other players are coerced to use it or excluded in some way from the happenings ingame because of not using these tools. And we do have rules for to handle such eventualities.
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The IRC. And nice accusation :)
The IRC is not an example of a communication: it's a means. And it doesn't replace, it complements.
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Note:
The prevalence of OOG communication and the normalization of it also makes identifying multi-cheaters much harder, as they can more plausibly claim that a lack of IG communication (which Tom can monitor) is in fact not because of multi-accounts, but because they chat somewhere else.
Want to catch multis more easily and reliably? Get people to communicate IG.
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Want to give some details of incidents where OOG communication replaced IG communication in a way that wasn't bad for the game?
There have been several conversations that Bedwyr and I have had on IRC that we agreed to consider the gist of to have been discussed by our characters, in private, for simplicity's sake.
The Magistrates are more than capable of saying, "Yeah, this def wasn't malicious and didn't actually hurt anyone: nbd." We've done it before and we can do it again; it's not hard. That's the point of having a non-robot as a Magistrate.
But refusing to make a rule because someone somewhere might hypothetically have an easily dismissable Magistrates case brought against them is just silly.
Making a rule that clearly and deliberately encompasses cases you know will not actually be considered violations is a terrible idea, and reminiscent of the actual actions of some, and purported actions of a number of other, governments that could be named.
Even if no Magistrates ever use it to punish someone who has not done any other wrong, it still has a chilling effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect_(law)) on the playerbase. If that effect were purely to reduce unnecessary OOG communication, it might not be so bad. But it wouldn't. It would make them scared, and upset. And it would make more of them leave.
Purely so that you don't have to actually think about a case, but can just say, "OOG communication? Guilty! Case closed. Next!"
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Note:
The prevalence of OOG communication and the normalization of it also makes identifying multi-cheaters much harder, as they can more plausibly claim that a lack of IG communication (which Tom can monitor) is in fact not because of multi-accounts, but because they chat somewhere else.
Want to catch multis more easily and reliably? Get people to communicate IG.
Only if your multi cheater is an idiot.
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Unsurprisingly enough, 99% of them are.
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Also: it is costless to prohibit something we think is bad for the game (OOG communication substituting for IG communication). Enforcing it may be impossible, but we lose nothing by
Oh yes, we do.
We lose every other rule we make, because players won't take them seriously anymore. How can you take a rule serious that is unenforceable? And if you don't take that rule serious, why any other?
It will NOT make any rules that are nonsense.
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FWIW, there are at least some people who, if they read something to the effect of:
'We can't police out-of-game communication, but we discourage it as against the spirit of the game. This doesn't mean you should point fingers other players whom you think are guilty of it, because we can't stop them - but if you're doing it, know that we don't approve and it will be one mark in the 'no' column if you ever need anything from us.'
...would listen.
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But my point is that the "I know it when I see it" is just a way of saying, "I will give no advance guidance that Magistrates could refer to." Which is a way of saying, "I will give no guidance to players until they are in a Magistrates case."
Because players don't have enough common sense to know when they're behaving badly? If something is at a level where we are likely to consider it abuse, than the player(s) involved are probably also well aware that what they're doing is questionable. I can't think of many edge cases that would involve OOC communication, that is unless of course we go and do something like what you're proposing and add a shiny new rule that opens up a thousand questions about what is and what is not appropriate OOC contact. You've already as much as admitted that not all OOC communication is bad, so where exactly would we draw the line, hmm?
The entire point of Tom's position is that the fewer the rules and the more general they are, the more leeway we (and also the Titans) have to decide for ourselves whether any given scenario seems "wrong". And that's just fine with me; no point in making a million rules to cover every contingency. The more rules you have, the more you end up needing in order to clarify the original rules and cover situations you didn't think of when you first made them. All in all, I think I prefer Tom's approach.
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Sometimes simplicity in rules leads to complexity in enforcement. Just let you all stew on that for a little while. Maybe some of you will get it.
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FWIW, there are at least some people who, if they read something to the effect of:
'We can't police out-of-game communication, but we discourage it as against the spirit of the game. This doesn't mean you should point fingers other players whom you think are guilty of it, because we can't stop them - but if you're doing it, know that we don't approve and it will be one mark in the 'no' column if you ever need anything from us.'
...would listen.
This is exactly my point. Thank you for making it better than me.
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This is exactly my point. Thank you for making it better than me.
If that's all you meant, then why didn't you say so?
That is NOT a rule against OOG communication. That is exactly in the same spirit as the RP guidelines against using OOC information or RPing someone else's character.
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Unsurprisingly enough, 99% of them are.
And yet, you don't catch very many ;)
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And yet, you don't catch very many ;)
Bahahahahaha!
That's the most ridiculous conclusion I've seen in this thread, and there have been a number of them.
We catch plenty. You just don't notice usually, because they're not particularly prominent characters and we don't publicize it.
The cheaters we don't catch quickly are the very, very few who are smart. I can count on the fingers of one hand the cheaters I know of that were smart enough to evade the simplest cheater-detection tools we have today.
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Bahahahahaha!
That's the most ridiculous conclusion I've seen in this thread, and there have been a number of them.
We catch plenty. You just don't notice usually, because they're not particularly prominent characters and we don't publicize it.
The cheaters we don't catch quickly are the very, very few who are smart. I can count on the fingers of one hand the cheaters I know of that were smart enough to evade the simplest cheater-detection tools we have today.
Well then, do continue to rest on your laurels.
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Well then, do continue to rest on your laurels.
You really do love to make an ass of yourself, don't you?
Since we locked Mendicant, we have found and locked two more cheaters, and we are planning on adding some more features to the cheater-detection tools to make it even easier to catch them, but haven't had time yet, between implementing auto-sell offers, finalizing the region rebalance, some serious dev discussion about the future direction of the game...oh, and, y'know, all that pesky real life stuff.
So...what was that you were saying about "resting on our laurels"?
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And yet, you don't catch very many ;)
Again, wanna give some examples?
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If that's all you meant, then why didn't you say so?
That is NOT a rule against OOG communication. That is exactly in the same spirit as the RP guidelines against using OOC information or RPing someone else's character.
I never suggested OOG communication should be banned.
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Yes, definitely, DamnTaffer, if you have evidence of multi-accounting going on, please report it. Tips from players ae great for helping to find the inobvious cheaters.
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I guess no one knows why over-simplified rules lead to one of two extremes. Either they do not cover enough situations to be effective in enforcement, or they make blanket statements that overstretch themselves into legitimate areas.
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I guess no one knows why over-simplified rules lead to one of two extremes. Either they do not cover enough situations to be effective in enforcement, or they make blanket statements that overstretch themselves into legitimate areas.
I think we were all ignoring what you said because it was incredibly condescending.
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I think we were all ignoring what you said because it was incredibly condescending.
Did you hear someone say something?
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Are people still crying about this? Really?
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Are people still crying about this? Really?
(http://i329.photobucket.com/albums/l399/revengeoftheturtle/download.jpg)
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(http://i329.photobucket.com/albums/l399/revengeoftheturtle/download.jpg)
Awesomeness.
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Did you hear someone say something?
How incredibly mature of you. I remember pulling that line in junior high. Also, if you're reacting to the condescending nature of my remarks, grow a skin. Despite what you may see in the movies, arrogance is no more a determiner of correctness than outward appearance is of character.
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Locking this topic before it degenerates into a flamewar.