A note to the moderators

[wicked]

Delboy that'll never happen because busted players are given a 2nd chance and allowed to upgrade to continue playing. So if they do this, it's a seamless transistion and most of the time, no one is the wiser. Another reason, our methods are never and will never be foolproof, and being the fools (i.e. human), we do indeed make mistakes. We're not going to punish the erroneously busted for our mistake.

[delboy01]

OK. But how long are busted accounts allowed to operate before being deleted? Surely only one should be allowed to continue. And as a side issue a score reset should also occur. Why is feedback not posted by admins saying busted for being a multi/secret alliance/being a knob. That would make it easier for us to spot people we want to aviod.

For example one guy has replied to a feedback stating he is a multi by defending himself saying the guy is just a sore loser. He was busted for having 6 accounts!!!!! But the feedback makes it look like he is just a poor misunderstood victim!!!

Negative General Quarters I have been given enough proof (via forum chat) to know that you are operating in a small ring of cheats and i think that others need to know. I had my suspicions during the game. I hope others will report as you as i am now going to. You are the scurge of CC and i hope you are banished
General Quarters's response: You get beat and all of a sudden I am cheating. If I was, CC would have banned me from here since you reported it and they did not. Read the game log. It is obvious there was no cheating going on.

The admins have banned his other accounts (although the cat still active) but this makes it look like he was found not guilty when infact he was as guilty as possible. An admin feedback would be definative.

[wicked]

A busted multi can finish out all current games, but not start new ones UNLESS they upgrade, then they continue on as normal.

Not all multis are playing themselves for more points. A large percentage are just attempting to get around the 4 game limit.

Everyone makes mistakes. We wouldn't want to brand them with a scarlet letter. Feedback is not the place to accuse multis, mainly because the hunters never see that! I'll look into the one you mentioned though.

[delboy01]

But surely just one account. They cant pay for 3 as it breaks the Terms.

[greenoaks]

the only multi i think i have found looked to me like it was to avoid the 4 game limit. they were players 101, 102 & 103. i don't know for sure though as the hunters haven't posted anything one way or another.

in RL if you get busted for a crime, you do your time and then you are free to mingle again with the 'assumption' (hope) being you won't commit any more crimes. surely this site should also be allowed to let them see the error of their ways (pay for membership) & set them loose again.

[Anarkistsdream]

the only multi i think i have found looked to me like it was to avoid the 4 game limit. they were players 101, 102 & 103. i don't know for sure though as the hunters haven't posted anything one way or another.

in RL if you get busted for a crime, you do your time and then you are free to mingle again with the 'assumption' (hope) being you won't commit any more crimes. surely this site should also be allowed to let them see the error of their ways (pay for membership) & set them loose again.

You have obviously never been busted for a crime, then... Not only are you on parole or probation, but you are told where you can or cannot hang out... You certainly are not 'free.'

[greenoaks]

the only multi i think i have found looked to me like it was to avoid the 4 game limit. they were players 101, 102 & 103. i don't know for sure though as the hunters haven't posted anything one way or another.

in RL if you get busted for a crime, you do your time and then you are free to mingle again with the 'assumption' (hope) being you won't commit any more crimes. surely this site should also be allowed to let them see the error of their ways (pay for membership) & set them loose again.

You have obviously never been busted for a crime, then... Not only are you on parole or probation, but you are told where you can or cannot hang out... You certainly are not 'free.'

are you stalking me ?

[AAFitz]

My tone stems from exasperation and disillusionment.

lol.. well, i admit im right there with you on the exasperation.. I know your hearts in the right place... im going hard on you here because you are approaching this the wrong way...and my personal tone was really just to keep you in check, which I suspect you well....suspected..

I hate the cheaters too.. but Ive seen how much time these individuals put into stopping them...and to be honest.. I dont think there is that much... ive actually lost very few points from cheaters, and as a percentage of games its minimal.

Put your time into krushing the cheaters... take your energy and wit and aim it at them as I have occasion to do. The management really is working hard on it, and the hunters are very good at it, and im glad they are more nervous about condemning non cheaters, then getting all gestapo, and creating an unhospitable environment.

[Dancing Mustard]

Wow... I thought this thread would have died by the time by ban was over.

[Naiga Wan]

Just to add something (I skipped page 3-5 so I hope I am not repeating something heh) but I didn't know about this section of the forums. Instead I have so far sent two Cheat/Multi messages to the admins direction through the message system. Both were dealt with within 24 hours. (I only receieved feedback on one of them but the others were promptly turned into "user no longer exists" accounts)

So the mods are 2 for 2!

[Tk 421]

i agree with this topic. In one of the games i play (Star wars combine...) if you are caught with a Multi Account, You are banned. 30 days later (30) You may Email the person that banned you and request one account to be reopened with a loss of some items (Points) If you are ever caught again, You are banned Forever.

So for CC This is what i was thinking.

Multi accounts:
First Offence : 30 day ban.
Second offence : Ban From the game (Forever)

Secrent Alliances
First Offence : Ban from playing with player and reset of points
Second offence : 30 day ban and another reset of points
Third Offence: Ban From the game (Forever)

Now your thinking
Thats Great but what happens when they create a new account when banned. The solution: Delete the account! No Questions asked. If your IP is the same, Good bye! (That is for both accounts!)

[delboy01]

I totally agree with the above. The arguement that a lot of multi's are just trying to get round the 4 games rule is pretty lame when there are a lot that abuse multi's to advance points score. There should be different levels of offence. Someone that cheats to gain an advantage over others is not only cheating to advnace there own score they are robbing the people they play of points. Multi's who just try and get round the 4 game role are only cheating the site. Big difference in my book.

And as for 'we sometimes get it wrong' Fair enough have an appeals process before implimenting the process. BUT state that if found guilty on appeal the punishment will be doubled. That will sort out the cheats from the genuine.

I would like to see a more robust punishment system in place.

The new issue is going to be those who use IP hosting to create accounts. Thinking hats on everyone.

[Tk 421]

why not Create a Screening Proccess When people first join?

[delboy01]

Just to add something (I skipped page 3-5 so I hope I am not repeating something heh) but I didn't know about this section of the forums. Instead I have so far sent two Cheat/Multi messages to the admins direction through the message system. Both were dealt with within 24 hours. (I only receieved feedback on one of them but the others were promptly turned into "user no longer exists" accounts)

So the mods are 2 for 2!

The issue is not catching them, that seems to be working well imo, but the punishment dished out. Allowing multi's to complete games where they can have 3 or 4 accounts running in the same 8 player game for example is just pathetic. Only one account should be allowed to continue and only if they cough up. Even that account should be suspended until they do cough up. These people seem to be driven by gaining points so why let them complete games they are cheating in!!

Mods. I know this has been going for sometime but many of the posts agree about this subject and I think the admins should encourage suggestions on a code of conduct and set out punishment/appeals process as I previously posted.

[Naiga Wan]

I got what you meant there.. it is so frustrating to be caught in a game with multis too...

[Teutonics]

AAFitz, with your strong sense of fair-play & decency, why don't you give Ooga Booga a hand with his question to the mods, which he has been trying to get an answer to for the last several weeks. He admitted that he was cheating (by starting his own thread to turn in himself & his co-conspirator) and, as a result, his score was reset. Later, he found some cheaters that committed much more cheating than he did, yet they were only blocked. He wants to know why he was treated differently, even though he was the honest one and admitted his crimes (they denied theirs and throughly trashed him in his cheat report against them). Since you still have faith in CC, perhaps you can accomplish more on his behalf than I was able to do. Check out his case in the jsmith/gloman cheat report thread.

[greenoaks]

it seems like someone is bitter they were told their assistance was not needed.

[lancehoch]

Honestly, I really do not want to tear another person's argument apart, but it seems necessary, since some people clearly cannot read points that were previously made. Also, some concepts appear to be above the understanding of select individuals.

1) CC has the wherewithal to create more tools to catch cheaters, but hasn't been doing so. CC is not some kind of hand-to-mouth operation that is barely getting by. It's a very profitable business. To date, more than 190,000 accounts have been registered and more than 6,000 were registered this month alone. The company has at least 3 paid employees and has most likely brought in more than $500,000 in revenue since it was started a little over 2 years ago.

True, there have been almost 200,000 accounts created, but how many are active, only 21519. These are the people that have taken at least one turn in the past 30 days, and have at least one completed game. As to the revenue, where you are getting that number from is beyond me. Most of the players on this site have not paid the annual dues to become a premium member.

Yet, even though $$ is no problem, the tools that the hunters use are rudimentary. They have a long list of tools on their 'wish list'.' Lack has the resources to implement more tools, but he he's got their wish list on a very low priority. Maybe due to greed. Maybe due to a laissez-faire attitude about premium-account cheating - bust the obvious multis that use free accounts, but in general let paid accounts do as they may, with blocks, while enabling players to keep the premium cheaters in check through negative feedback.

Excusing the fact that no one here knows how much money lack has, or how much money the site is generating, what affect does that have on the tools that the hunters use? If they are catching on average one cheater per hour (Andy said that somewhere the other day), are they really using "rudimentary" tools? Also, how do you know what the hunters' wish list is or where it is on lack's priority list. Those items would probably not be made public. Also, how does greed play into how lack implements new hunting tools. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, lack makes more money by having people get busted. If someone gets busted, they must pay an extra year's membership to continue playing. If they do not pay, who cares they were cheaters and if they will not play by the rules they do not deserve the privilege of playing here anyway. I do not see where your comment about letting premium players get away with cheating comes from. If you could site examples that would make your case stronger.

3) They don't want to punish premium accounts with stiff punishments, such as score resets, which would discourage future cheating and future renewals.

Again, do you have any facts to back this up. I can say whatever I want here, but that does not mean it is true. If I say that you and delboy01 were multis (I am just using this as an example, no I am not accusing them) I would need to provide facts to back that up. If I could provide facts, then you would be busted.

4) They don't want a committee. The first reason given was that they didn't want to divulge hunting secrets. Not necessary. The second reason was that the committee wouldn't know what types of tools they needed. We proved otherwise. The third reason given was that they already know what they need. My guess is that Lack doesn't want this issue to get much airplay and doesn't want some committee telling him how he should run his company. Unlike committees on dice, tournaments, and the like, the issue of how many CC man-hours are devoted to rooting out the cheaters and how harshly the premium cheaters get dealt with has a direct influence on how much money his company makes. My guess is that he doesn't want any oversight.

Obviously they do not want a committee. If the committee were made up of people like you, nothing would get done because you would not be able to stop complaining about every restriction that they made. As to divulging hunting secrets, if they were to tell the people on the committee what is used to catch the multis, what is to stop the people on the committee from creating their own army of multis? They would know every way that multis are caught and could find ways around that. If there were a committee and the committee made a suggestion, then the committee would also know what new tools were being implemented and could avoid those too, if they wanted. There are committees for other issues (dice, tournaments, colors) because those are issues that do not involve giving away secrets and possibly aiding people in an effort to cheat. Of course lack does not want people to tell him how to run his company, it has made it for two years without any problems, just a bunch of people whining that they are not getting everything that they want. The end of your rambling is just more repetition of the same garbage that you have mentioned before.

[Teutonics]

Even before lancehoch posted his response, I had deleted most of my post within about 30 minutes of its initial posting, but obviously not quick enough. [It was there when he started his response, but had disappeared by the time he posted it.]

I'd prefer that it drops but since he reposted most of it, I feel somewhat obligated to respond.

In point 1, he forgot about the dropouts. People pay and then they drop out. Only a small percentage don't eventually drop out. I looked at a sample of the approximately 200,000 sign-ups and conservatively estimated that at least around 10% of these accounts went premium, before most of them dropped out. So... I calculated that 10% of 192,000 * $22.50 (average of $20 & $25) paid 1 membership fee, 2,000 paid a 2nd annual $25 fee, and that at least 1,000 busted multi's paid another $25 fee. That makes just over $500,000.

In point 2, I stated that the hunters are using rudimentary tools [in regards to secret alliances, as opposed to apparently good tools for catching multis, which catch 1 per hour]. The cheating reports show the extent of the secret-alliance cheating that their tools do not catch. Go look at Ooga Booga's, JohnnyRocket's, and the many many others' to see the blatant "secret-alliance" cheating that CC's tools didn't catch. One of the mods said that they have a "long list" of tools the hunters want implemented. On the basis of a "long list," what I perceive to be rudimentary anti-secret-alliance tools, and having the financial wherewithal to implement these needed tools, I concluded that the "long list" of needed tools has a low priority.

Point 3 has been demonstrated by many others. There was no need to support it in the post.

In point 4, I explicitly stated that it was "Not necessary" for the company to reveal its hunting techniques to a committee, yet lancehoch goes on, and on, and on about why this is a bad idea. Yes, I agree it's a bad idea and it's not even necessary, as I stated before.

-----

He omitted the thrust of my post & I've already deleted it. These four points served to back-up why I don't think CC is going to change their policies. The post was an attempt to explain my disillusionment with the company to those who also cared about trying to get tougher anti-cheating rules imposed. Later, I had second thoughts about the propriety of such a post, but didn't delete it quickly enough.

[delboy01]

All of that is fascinating but I return to my original statement, which actually covers nearly all of that.

We need a code of conduct and a statement of punishments for crimes.

I agree, it's not fair that someone that confesses to something is given a stiffer sentance than someone that says 'what me, i'm as pure as the driven snow'. And is then found out. They get blocked, the confessor gets a score reset. This is a perfect example of the crazy way things are done on this site. Please don't get me wrong I love the site. but maybe, just maybe. The drop out rate has something to do with the fact that so many of the public games are filled with cheats. I was days away from saying sod this, it's just not worth it. And then I found one of the clubs whose rules restrict all of the above. I now play about 40% of my games against club members, 50% singles and the other 10% I chance in the public 3 or more games. And dispite the fact that I usually screen games for possible multi's before joining, I still end up playing against suspect opposition.

The owners of the site need to instigate a code of conduct with a list of punishements. If individual clubs within CC can do it why the hell can't the site.

[SirSebstar]

I kinda liked this as rules and code of conduct; maybe you should try reading it.
http://www.conquerclub.com/public.php?mode=rules

Also, it might not have crossed all the T's or dotted the i's as in that its not always clear why someone gets a 3day ban for flaming outside of the flame forum or why someone who confesses gets a score reset when that’s usually not the case.
Well maybe it’s not clear to you, but its crystal-clear to me.
If you try to disrupt this game in the most deliberate way and boast about it, you will get snuffed. Same as starting trouble with the management or the mods. Jokingly insulting them won’t do if your record is that bad. Its like a convict carrying a weapon, oops I did not know that…Well yes you did.

The following is edited because its previous content was unfair and incorrect.
Please read for you, not deldel, but instead read it as a general comment not specifically directed to anybody. And my apologies to deldel, this post was intended as a quick response but grew a bit more..

Now one might get frustrated because one likes to participate in an important way (that’s not to say meaningful) in the running of this site, but bad luck. It’s NOT true that those not part of the mods/management are not qualified nor trustworthy enough. However nobody is that important of itself that management should bend over for you. Moreover is not the case that say you cannot (nor should not) contribute at all if you are not a mod! Simply give to the community and at a certain point you may (or may not!) be respected for those contributions and you might be given a place among the mods (or not). But being a mod should not be your ideal in the enjoyment of this site, if it is, this site might not be the right thing for you.

In general: Help if you will and can, stay out of trouble and try to contribute to this site instead of just complaining.
Specifically: Management has made a call on how to deal with cheating and its punishment. I have no opinion as to the general lazier faire politics this site employs except that it is in my opinion quite effective, especially with the added tools provided e.g. like being able to block posts from being seen and blocking annoying players from playing your games.
As far as there is a call for a more complete system of punishment, well there I assume deldel and I disagree. The catchall will suffice where any more ‘complete’ system of rules will always be circumvented. I would rather prefer it if punishments are a private matter as opposed of having every other ban posted in the forums as unjust, unfair and leading to a total downfall of western (or other) civilisation…

And lets remember: it’s a game, not the most important thing of ones life.

[delboy01]

I kinda liked this as rules and code of conduct; maybe you should try reading it.
http://www.conquerclub.com/public.php?mode=rules

Now you might get frustrated because you like to participate in an important way (that’s not to say meaningful) in the running of this site, but bad luck. You are not qualified nor trustworthy enough that management should bend over for you. Help if you will and can, stay out of trouble and try to contribute to this site instead of just complaining.

Classic comment from a non-sub!!!

[SirSebstar]

Thanks deldel, your reply in a PM allowed me to edit my post. My apologies for not framing it correctly, thanks for pointing that out.
Lets continue from here.

There are more ways to contribute, but I guess that’s already clear to you. Personally I feel a paying member should not be treated totally differently then a non-paying member, however certain differences are justified and logical. In posting one's opinion however all man are created equal. Nobody cares about opinions: lol: