Hey guys,
Reading through the Cheating and Abuse forum, the stickied topic directs us here (a request by TeeGee) to post off topic suggestions for the cheating and abuse policies.
It is wonderful that we have dedicated Volunteers, Support Admins, and Multi Hunters. . . . but I wonder if they are overworked and too harsh on these people to begin with. This is only my opinion. I've read through some forum posts from 2018 about multis and I've read through some other forum posts that show a real sense of resentment and mercilessness towards people who farm and achieve high rank.
Bear in mind, by multi I do not only mean people who create duplicate accounts, but also people who are banned and try to come back. I do think it's reasonable to ban people who create multiple accounts and play against themselves to inflate their rank and screw up everybody else's representation of rank earned. This creates some ambiguity in what I am trying to say, but generally, I think we take it a little too hard on people who are trying to have fun playing a game.
As we all know, games can be addicting; war games such as Conquer Club are especially addicting because people love strategizing about war. So, it is not surprising, this game can become very addicting.
Another thing worth pointing out is that this community is not a bunch of nerdy kids playing games like some other communities. We are a diverse group of all types and the game is generally accessible to anybody. Many games are more restrictive. This gives Conquer Club an advantage over other games.
So, it got me to thinking, what is so bad about the fact that somebody was banned and tried to make a new account to come back and play games with their friends? Especially a Conqueror, someone who cares a great deal for the game. I think banning them, "for life" from the game is sort of harsh.
Concerning farming, to put into perspective, consider speed games. Playing about 20 or 30 different maps regularly--even if you cycle between them to create interest in the games--a large percentage are joined by the same small group of people. These people are not always online so oftentimes you wait over an hour for a game to start. If you try to create multiple games, people join too many at once, or you have to set long turn times. If you create the same map again and again, almost nobody joins except those who have a calculated edge on you, or they join infrequently. People are often silent and unfriendly. It is not easy to play Random all the time, and some maps are difficult to interpret. Some maps are fun and we enjoy playing them again and again. Given all this, I think it is wrong to punish somebody for inviting people to games.
What strikes me most is basically turning a blind eye to somebody farming their way all the way to Conqueror and then banning them. There used to be a player who did this in live chat publicly and everybody knew he was doing it. I think his username was some iteration of David. He was also banned for this but only after he spent years trying to get his rank up, and everybody publicly knew what he was doing (correct me if I am wrong). When he finally I assume achieved his Conqueror rank, I was surprised the community turned on him so quickly. Last I saw (several years ago), he was a General or Field Marshall. I think the same thing probably happened to PaulatPeace - he spent a lot of effort giving to this community but the community turned on him and banned him for life? Again, correct me if I am wrong.
And AGAIN, I do not assume that I am completely correct in my enforcement policy recommendations here - but I think we should consider giving people less than a life sentence. After all, the game is very addicting and fun for many people, it's only natural people will do whatever they can to win and play. It seems very harsh to turn on these people who give a lot to the site, their usernames and forum posts will already be online forever stating they are cheaters, many bad things are said about them online and it's shameful.
This topic is open to discussion for everybody so we can have a conversation about this, but no need for Admins/etc. to respond if they do not feel the need to. I have faith this community will do the right thing.
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