i'm a rude bastard and i apologize.

i'm a rude bastard and i apologize.

i'm a rude bastard and i apologize.

Look .. if ppl didn't abuse DR, leech tech, yada yada.. you wont get improvements on it. Since you classify the above abuse as cheating then it is for you fellas than. I just call it abuse of bugs or short comings in the game.

CHEATING to me is running MULTIPLE COUNTRIES or breaking clearly written rules. Anything otherwise is just free play.

Criminals and abusing DR is MASSIVELY different.

So I abuse DR.. I should be labeled as a cheater and shamed ? pffft !

Xin.. don't be an arse. :p


There is a reason why I use the same name across servers all the time.. easy to identify me. I am not good or great players like some of you, but I am here for fun.. break from reality.

But some of you "tards" really act all wussy and get your panties in a knot over the fact that you lost your "deserved" number one spot because so and so CHEATED(for some form of so called abuse that is not even in the rules)!

Bah.

^^terrible person$$%^^

Scarface rules!

DR is stupid rule because if some random suicider attacks me 5000 times. What do I do? Just stop grabbing?

90% of the cases, a player used his landfarms to get it`s main country into heavy DR. Therefore "Criminals" and abusing DR is MASSIVELY the same thing.

wait, so tda, i can landgrab and ab you as many times as i like and you simply will never fight back?

that might be why you're attacked five thousand times. try defending yourself, and see the attacks lessen my friend!

This is rapidly devolving...

Although it has been somewhat constructive. I am getting the general feeling that if we can adjust tech allies to provide benefits based on the ratio of labs on one or both sides, that would be a positive change. If that is too difficult to implement, removing tech allies completely might be an option.

Regarding the whole idea of 'making friends' via this server..I am somewhat confused by that. Sure, many people run the same country name ingame every set, and often ally up with the same people, but I think the majority of conversation takes place on these forums, not ingame. Not to mention the multiple name stealers/copycats... There's just not much you can do over 5 days of time :/

Changing a few things like bonus turns and DR timers might be good. I'll definitely bring that up with qz and see if making changes makes sense.

As far as 'outing cheaters'....I have only been doing this for 2 sets now, but I can already see how complicated this is. Sometimes the deletions are clear as day, but sometimes they are very very tangential and are tough to call. I don't see how outing people would really help...they'll just move on to a new nickname and do it all over again, which is the reason we don't have a ton of permabans. It's easier to track someone and monitor them on one nickname than keep trying to determine if they are the same person or not. If someone wants to defeat the system we have here, they can and will, unfortunately.

That being said, I think there is a certain level of responsibility that the community has to police itself. As I've been telling people repeatedly lately, I'd appreciate if you used the reporting feature MORE instead of LESS. With only 5 days each set, and the limitations of some of the mod tools, I kind of need you guys to point me in the right direction. Things change quickly and there is a lot of information to sort through in a short time. So help me out and provide me with detailed suspicions, backed up with the ingame reporting tool, and I will do my best to sort through these things.

But yeah, keep the CONSTRUCTIVE discussions going.

You guys are so irrationally afraid of cheaters! You're afraid if you ban them, they'll make a new name. Well, I can see them doing that. But you're also afraid just by saying who cheated that they'll make a new name? So you won't tell us? So you'll let them cheat anonymously? Even if caught? Don't worry, nobody has to know. Because we're too afraid to tell them. That's nutso!

CX LaE has a purple in his history, he still has his history public. Ebert has a purple in his history, he still has his history public. h2o has been caught cheating 10 or so times and still plays as h2o. Same for Viva. Same for JJ before he was finally driven out. Same for Seth. I'd recommend saying, X player got deleted, it was for Y reason. You can even say something flimsy like "it was for what looked more likely than not to be coordination." People can recognize distinctions and realize someone like Ebert being deleted once for coordination and then learning what was and wasn't allowed doesn't make him a cheater. That everyone in RD being purple doesn't mean they were involved in cheating. Going into serious detail isn't necessary. Just some basic information, who, what. Anyway, moving on...

You do meet people in the game. That's how I first started talking to people like Rob, oldman, crest. It was all in Express, since an active grabber logs in their Express country every few hours, there's lots of times you're both sitting in the game writing back and forth, or receiving quick responses even if not instant.

I don`t think the general policy is to "be afraid of cheaters". I think the general policy is to keep as many players as they can even is some are pushing the rules to their limits.

And guess what- i have 2 purples. One because of you and one because i went full swearing in-game on some alliance idiot.

Yeah, and you didn't bail and get a new name. It's an irrational fear, and it's a policy that protects the cheaters and encourages cheating.

i think the admins and game developers would like to keep all the players because the numbers are so thin. But they don`t actually realize that they make the clean ones leave, because they take so few actions against those who push the rules to their limits and beyond...

Well, in tellarion's post he says they're afraid if people find out someone cheated, that person will make a new name and be harder to track. But that's clearly not the case is my point...

You guys act as if the admins and mods are retarded, you do realize that?

Hmm, I act as if nobody's ever put forth a response to the type of stuff I posted in my last couple posts, because nobody has.

Hello blid. My name is Tellarion. I just joined the mod team. Nice to meet you.

If you want me to push for change, you have to stop blaming everything on the mods/admins. I understand that you have a bone to pick with martian and/or qz, but I am neither of them, so stop acting like that.

Nobody is trying to protect cheaters ffs. When people cheat, we delete them, each and every time. The set before last I deleted a few pairs of cheaters multiple times each. The issue, which I have identified and others have constructively put their input into, has to do with the various inconsistencies and gray areas, ie tech leeching and what the whole point of anti-coordination is. Which is the whole point of me posting this thread in the first place.

Not to mention you kind of defeated your own argument. If outing cheaters will somehow make them stop cheating, then why do certain people get deleted MULTIPLE times, despite all of you seeming to know they have cheated? You can't have it work both ways.

Additionally, some of the people I deleted over the past two sets seem to be obeying the rules at the moment, despite us not revealing what they have done. Weird, huh?

hahah, cut tella some slack blid... give him some time and see what happens.... he is like he said only 2 sets old...

if nothing happens after a while... i'll join you and flame him... :P

How were any of my posts above flaming anyone though stony? I just read what he wrote and responded to it in a fair and from what I can tell re-reading it also a pretty polite way.

The idea is my making the case why cheaters should not have their identities protected and if it's a strong case maybe you'll put some pressure to bear on qzjul and martian to change the policy which I find to be wrong-headed. I never said anything was your fault. I thought part of the purpose of this thread being created was for people like me to bring up things we find nutso.

My country specifically has been wronged by cheaters multiple times in the past with me never finding out who they were. Cheaters will many times topfeed or group kill or do other things before being deleted, with their victims not knowing who the abuser was in those cases either. These reasons for cheaters being revealed still stand.

And, while you're right that I showed being made known doesn't dissuade some serial cheaters like h2o, that doesn't mean it's not effective in putting a disincentive on cheating. One example I can give you is Seth, who was deleted in Express probably 8 or 9 times before finally the connection was made that this is the Mr. Titanium who has a high profile in Alliance. Once that was revealed, he didn't get caught cheating in Express again. Further, what of the people who have been deleted whose identities are still a mystery? My examples don't have anything to say about cases like those.

What my examples do universally speak to is that players don't abandon their nicks after being revealed to have violated rules. I can't think of one player, ever, who went purple, and whose identity came out, who retired that account after that round.

If you found out who was behind a purpled country that messed you up, what could you do with that information? How would it benefit you?

Anyway, I think drastic changes like lengthening the game or changing the turn count aren't top importance. They might make the game more fun for some but others like it how it is. I wouldn't mind it being slowed down since it'd help my country from being beat up while I sleep but I don't think that's one of the pressing demands of the Express players.

Leeching is obviously a problem. I was told last set that one of the techers being leeched from told someone he was "helping his friend." That's coordination and should have been deleted for. Of course then, all people have to do is not say that outloud, and anyway, leeching in general though will always happen, even between unassuming parties who just don't know any better, if only because the slots are there. That's why the game changes suggested about this always would be so helpful. But these suggestions are old and qzjul already knows about them:
http://www.earthempires.com/...allies-14830?t=1362196602

That thread is now two years old. Not to mention the threads already brought up about DR changes. Those suggestions were heard and a response was even announced very long ago. I guess qzjul has other stuff on his plate like Alliance changes. Fine, whatever, but that's another reason a *policy* change like not hiding cheater's identities is something I'm pressing for. Policy can be changed just by people agreeing to change policy.

If the intention of this thread wasn't to hear things like that but to receive feedback on what "we" view as coordination, I'll give my own take at least. If a person has their own reasons for doing something, reasons that befit their own country directly, it should be fine. For example, if someone multitaps me, I should be able to war that player even if someone else is also warring that player. That's not coordination, that's just me warring someone who multi-tapped me. Also I've several times run into a thing where, when I retal someone, one of their allies attacks me in response. That's getting closer to the line, but on the other hand, that's a grab that helps that person (at least until I retal), so it would be okay.

What wouldn't be okay is me having someone do spy ops for me, me having someone join me in a war just because they're my ally, and that sort of thing. Having someone run a land farm for you is coordination. Having someone put you in DR is coordination - and this has been handled well by moderators since they were given power to act on it. Having someone buy $10,000 tech is coordination. These are sacrifices someone else would be making on my behalf.

You don't see how some peace of mind would come with knowing who messed up your best resets? Or alternatively, the nagging annoyance of never knowing who screwed you?

In any case, as I went on to say in that post, the other reasons stand as well - just because a few people continue to cheat after being outed doesn't mean this policy wouldn't deter other cheaters, and nobody has ever abandoned an account after being found out, that I'm aware of.

I've met a lot of people in Express with the ingame messaging. I've had a good laugh with "enemies" and met some good people who were allies. I was playing in the very first few express games and learning it when I was invited to join the Monsters by an ally.

Don't worry about the incessant complaining Tellarion :)

Remember this Blid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpYEJx7PkWE

I can't wait to get old so I can be more like them

There has always been cheaters & there always will be....start by changing some small things, that can be changed to make the game more interesting an dynamic. Leeching could be limited some by dropping the 24 hr wait period for dissolving a research ally pac....Raise the number of bonus turns you get by not logging in to 1 an hr. If you don't log in for 8 hrs you get 8 free turns, limited to 10 hrs, make it worth the wait, or something along those lines. Any change makes things a little more interesting. If change become part of the game, cheaters won't be able to cheat, because they'll be to busy trying to figure out how to exploit & use the new changes...but all the players will doing the same, & trying to develop new strats, they can boast up. It has been the same since the days of Solaria & Mehul, players begging for some change.

Believe me, I'm a programmer. Changing the amount of tech from tech allies is a one line code change that takes no longer than 5 minutes, most of which is going to be finding WHERE that line of code is to multiply in an extra ratio. And then maybe another 20 minutes to test it.

You know the Express/Primary changes just a couple of months ago (removal of O-allies, making tech stealing GDI protected)? ALL of that only took about 1 hour, and then an extra hour to test it.

I never really answered your questions directly. So here it goes.

Answer 1) Current allies are fine on Express. Just make the anti-tech-leeching change. I don't really mind if tech allies are removed, because it will benefit techers in general (less tech = price of tech will rise = bad for non-techers). D and I allies should stay because they create interesting and meaningful risk vs reward choices when landgrabbing.

Answer 2) It isn't so much that they are vague or confusing. It is that
a) Slow response time, particularly in the past. Entire resets are over by the time a mod gets to a report, and there is no recourse, this is obviously exacerbated by the pace of this server. This isn't actually a problem on Primary because it is the slowest server.
b) Extremely opaque. When someone is deleted, it isn't said why. When someone is undeleted, it isn't said why. It isn't even said who is deleted. There is a difference for being deleted because someone harassed someone else, vs running multies, but without transparency, the 2 transgressions are lumped together and treated with equal severity.
c) Multiple suggestions and discussions made in the past (which are seen/read by mods/admins), but no action was ever taken to actually improve the situation. Game changes made are always Alliance-oriented, to the detriment of solo servers.
d) No way of giving partial punishments. Sometimes an offense is not severe enough to be deleted for it, but also serious enough to be of concern. In such scenarios, mods should be able to remove land or add land to players that were wronged, or apply a -50 turn penalty, or grant 50 turns bonus or something. Right now, it is only "delete" or "no delete", making every transgression a "you cheated" or "you didn't cheat" scenario. Instead, penalties should fit the crime.

So to summarize (2), the moderation simply wasn't satisfactory (at least to me) because of multiple reasons, and qz/pang hasn't ever paid much attention to solo servers. It wasn't because of vague or confusing rules.

Xin, are you talking about adding turns in order to compensate people harmed by cheaters?

Current formula:
Ally techs -> You get 10% of that tech
New formula, unchanged code in parentheses, programmer's change outside
(Ally techs -> You get 10% of that tech) * Labs/Total Acres

We've waited two years for that ;)

Adding turns is a no-no.

Xin the problem in the past was that I was left to do it on my own, even after I asked for more help, most days I could be online to answer questions fir most of the day , but for some reason my phone didn't like the setup of the mod tools and wouldn't allow me to access them.


So in a lot of cases it could be 18 hours before I could do anything, and most reports come in on the last 2 days of a reset which meant if anything needed a 2nd opinion I was out of luck as pang,qz and martian could take days to reply.

In the end I gave up trying to get things changed


Do you know when I finally got help??? A few months before i quit modding. Oh and when you became a mod (well for me anyway) you are just given access and left to figure it out on your own. Hell the main express mod at the time never even spoke to me(spawn).

Warstar: That's the point I'm trying to say all along for 3 pages. This server doesn't have the proper infrastructure and staff to properly support it. Thus slow the game down. The slower servers don't suffer from THIS much problems that are unique to THIS server.

It's either that, or everyone has to "live with it - it is a free game!".

Well with the addition of tella, staffing shouldn't be an issue anymore, just need qz and martian to make a decision on some things mods have asked them about

dont forget the other govern can put up 40% of their units on the market instead of the usual 25%.

Regarding the tech leech change, I would still prefer if the teching player gets a TPT boost. Because on Express, if you multiplied the current tech gained from tech allies by labs/land ratio, it is still possible to store 360(360) turns while in a tech-start scenario (i.e store turns before switching out of labs), and leech 720 turns of teching from teching allies. This amounts of 40% of a reset's turns.

This is another example of the problems of being allowed to store an excessive amount of turns.

I can volunteer to help mod this server since I don't play it all that much myself anymore.

well crest i think one of the issues is they almost never accept anyone's offer to mod. and then when the people who are mod try to quit they don't let them hehe. very strange

Yeah when we try and quit , they chain us up and refuse to let us go :)

I do think Xin's proposal is fair and reasonable. However, my thoughts on it are simple:
I do NOT want leeching to be made illegal on this server.

I think we can handle these rats on our own. I think the players in express are the best judge and jury we could ask for - and it's a fun experience to track the leeching rats, expose them, destroy them, and then publicly humiliate and trash talk them on the Express Forum.

I think that sort of destruction is a fitting and effective punishment for that sort of play. If leeching were removed from this server, we wouldn't be able to expose these rats and many of these players that we now know to be unethical would go otherwise unnoticed. Let them leech and let us catch them and own them

i will happily mod express server and not play it.

it will never be accepted, so i feel safe to offer ;)

xin already said tech allies are a detriment to techers, so they can do better without it. without their added gains, it will even it out far more for other strategies. now all we need to do is curb commie indy..

for this, i suggest communists are NOT allowed to PS their jets, or if they do, they last TWICE as long as any other governments ps.

also remove or decrease the indy production bonus of communists, to make the server fair for solo players not playing early game commies, where they are able to gain an unfair advantage of having military vs other strats that do not.

if our 360(360) is abhorable because it's unfair to those who play every turn as it comes in, then we need to make it fair for both sides.

OUTSIDE BOX THINK ALIN BOX THINK OUTSIDE BOX IN OUT

VIC. Preventative measures are better than solutions.

Cure's are worse than vaccine's.

No we can't. Nobody did last set. Nobody noticed that guy because he rose up late. By then humanitarians were about to kick in. Besides which, it's better to just prevent that kind of nonsense than to put the onus on the players to 1) notice it and 2) give up their own resets to take care of it. And keeping in mind again if I spy on a guy and catch him leeching I can't make a thread about it since that info takes a turn to gain. So the knowledge kind of percolates or maybe passes slowly through PMs or something which even that I don't know if it's allowed.

and like you have been told plenty of times blid if you see something report it with a message that states what you want us to look at.

But if we're talking about leeches I don't think that's reportable anyway. What would my message say?

that their actions are decidedly going against the spirit of the server?

Heh. If you guys want me to report leeches in game I can do so, I just didn't think that was the kind of report anyone wanted to see. And also, even if the mods don't mind seeing me report that, should I expect them to do anything? Because if not, it's still a problem to address.

well, again not intentionally ignorant, trust me, but i figured it was along the lines of they wanted us to kind of police ourselves.. maybe not to go find it, per se, but if you come across it, tell them in detail what you find.

and then if they continue to do nothing, it is them telling us in no uncertain terms that we are allowed to do it. no action from mods or admins means it's perfectly acceptable for us all.

We need express police to catch leechers.

if you're gonna report 'leechers'. you'll need to define whats one.

if you're doing a tech start and you tech ally a techer do you consider this as tech leeching? if it doesnt, how long later does it take to confirm that you're leeching from a techer?