Yes.

According to the NCAA, when a team recruits too well you take away their right to recruit. Cllassic examples are SMU, USC and Bama. SMU had the two greatest recruiting classes of all ime; they got the death penalty. USC has a fifty year tradition of illegal recruiting; they have ruined their conference becasue the conference will not discipline them. Bama was allowed to win the BS championship despite being on probation for cheating.

We should adopt the NCAA model of restricting recruiting for organizations which are caught cheating.

The size and duration of the restriction would be based on the severity of the cheating just like in the NCAA.

A hypothetical clan which has been caught cheating and does not deserve the death penalty,

the first reset after the violation

restricted to 80% of their size at the time of the violation

second reset if no new violations

85% of size at the time of the violation

This is not punitive merely remedial.

Sorry gregg, this makes absolutely zero sense.

If they're not cheating, there should be no penalty for cheating. EE admins aren't concerned about server parity, nor should they be. The reasons for such policies in pro and college sports leagues is to make their television contracts more marketable so TV stations, leagues, teams and (in pro sports) even players can make more money. After all, if the Patriots won 10 Super Bowls in a row, there would be a decline in NFL viewership.

Furthermore, it doesn't even make sense if someone IS cheating. Clan A has 1,000 countries and were caught cheating. So the next set they can have 800? If they had to cheat to get 1,000 countries, don't you think they probably would have to cheat to get 800?

Furthermore, in some cases it's not the leadership but a rogue member that cheats. If that rogue member leaves, should the clan be punished for a person having 30 countries instead of 15?

That's like when a coach brings sanctions down on a school and jets for a new (and often better) job. If it's the coach that screwed up, it makes no sense for the school to get punished and the coach to get a better job at a different school where he faces no sanctions/penalties.

If you're just trying to stir up discussion, you'll probably get your wish, but if you're trying to actually come up with real policies that would be good for this game, modeling it after the NCAA, which has some of the most ridiculous and unfair rules of any institution of its size, is probably not the way to go.

I dont think any restrictions should be placed on recruitment or alliance sizes


The fact that Lae got caught cheating is not indicative of there size, small alliances have been caught doing the same thing


The common factor among all cheaters is one thing and only one solution

Common Problem - Lack of Game skill

Solution - Learn to play the game!

Twain is right about some things.

We dont need a hypothetical pro football example.

The 1950s Cleveland Browns were the greatest pro football team of all time and they destroyed the all america conference which had to merge into the nfl. The browns chased the nfl champion rams out of cleveland to los angeles. N one watched the nfl team despite their championship because the browns were so much more talented than the nfl champs. The Browns did go to ten consecutive championships and it was bad for football.
The reason the Browns became the greatest team of all time was that they were able to recruit all of the best players. The nfl teams had a draft and restricted recruiting while the browns league did not and the browns had an endless bankroll. That is why none of the nfl teams could compete against Paul Brown. It wasnt until after the Browns were restricted by draft rules for nearly a decade that the dynasty collapsed. We should learn this lesson.

If clan A cheats again and again. like USC, you have to keep restricting them. If Clan A's leader cheats the penalty is greater than if it was merely some members. Twain makes a great point about punishing a clan while the cheater just skates off to another clan. But will Clan B accept the player, knowing that they risk their recruiting if the player cheats again which he almost certainly will.

Twain indicates that Earth should not be interested in parity.
I think that is debatable. If we really have any interest in expansion, or the FaceBook rumors or anything like that then some measures to acheive parity are probably a good thing.

It was not until title 9 caused the other teams to be able to catch up to the big ten, that college football really took off.

As to Rahl's point that small clans cheat also, that is why the restriction should be on percentage of size at the time of cheating.

Rahl says that cheating is caused by lack of skill, Does anyone think that the latest example of cheating was done by players who lack skill? In the most recent example the cheating was by a very skilled leader of the largest of all clans. Look at USC they cheat despite the fact that they could win the pac 10 easily without any need to cheat at all.
Cheaters do not stop cheating once they move into first place.

gregg









i can see your vagina from here

lol greggs my favorite poster so far.

gregg: Sure, parity is good for the game, but I don't think it's the role of the admins to be involved in forcing parity. In fact, I agree with their current stance so far which is to do everything they can do stay out of the politics of the game as much as possible.

And let's clarify my earlier example.

Clan A has 400 countries one set. They have 1,000 the next set.

If you catch them and say: "Ok, as your punishment, you can only be 80% of your previous size" then you're telling them it's ok to cheat, as long as they cheat LESS.

The admins are doing exactly what they should be doing. Players who cheat should have their countries deleted. If the cheating becomes habitual and continues multiple sets, then admins should look into banning those players.

As it is now, Blake, Juggs, DM and llaar were involved in cheating, so they got exactly what they deserved. The offending countries were deleted. That's as far as it should go for now.

If they continue to cheat in future resets, that's when you talk about banning them from the game.

Remember, when you're trying to come up with ways to handle cheating, you have to consider certain things:
1) What fixes the problem in the short term?
2) What's reasonable?
3) What's enforceable?

It's simply not enforceable to say those 4 people will never be allowed to play on the same alliance again without putting far too much work on the admins, as that would be a rule that would simply have WAY too many ways to get around it.

What's reasonable? What I stated above. Deletion the first time up to bans for multiple instances from the same person.

What fixes the problem in the short term? Deletion. LaE is now back down to earth (pun unintended) when it comes to country numbers. Part of this is the deletions and part of this is the group of players that left due to the problems. LaE is still the biggest, but in one sense they deserve to be. I'll still reiterate what I said when I was part of LaE. Their member list is extensive and most of those members login regularly. If everyone on the LaE website played 15, they could have had 700-800 countries legitimately.

Obviously from what's come out, that wasn't the case, but if the admins are satisfied that the remaining countries are clean and there really is that much activity on their boards, the "punishment" fits.

From here on out, the admins' role should be to sit back and wait to catch the next instance of cheating, not to make a witch hunt out of the last instance just because it was on a larger scale than many other people who got deleted.

I agree let the admins handle the last instance.
If its over its over, but we know the next one is coming.

The best deterrent and the only way to expand is to have clear standards going in and sunlight on the process.

Otherwise u get situations like David Stern picking champions.

yarp?

*facedesk*

*facedesk*

how would you enforce such a policy?

I always thought I was the biggest idiot in this game.

Thanks gregg :)

Delegate enforcement to the players.
Enforcement will be difficult.

However, those of us who read Pang's post that ffa is just too dirty and may not be worth the effort realize that getting this issue resolved is in all of our interests. We do not want a situation where the developers become disheartened with the game.


For the players of any game there is nothing more frustrating than feeling like you are the only one obeying the rules. The perception that enforcement is lax or sporadic or biased leads to more cheating and cheating by people who only do it because they believe everyone else is doing it. If you can start to get a handle on it that perception eases and the expectaion of fair play can be perpetuated.

Ask the clans if there are any clans willing to take each of the cheaters, one clan per cheater. If the clan is willing to do so they become liable for any cheating done under their auspices. This they get a skilled player but they know they have to be watchful of that player.

Your tech guys should easily be able to put a numerical limit on any clan that is under restriction. We can imagine any number of scenarios where clans will cheat. But if the clans have recruit restriction as a tool of enforcement and they set the penalties for each infraction out in advance the clans should be better able to keep themselves clean. The clans can devise other enforcement mechanisms as well. Rome was not built in a day and our disciplinary policy wont be either.

Ask the clans to get together and pass a code of conduct with enforcement built in so that the clans know what to expect and are invested in enforcement. Like any congress they should imagine scenarios which might occur and set out the penalties in advance. This should not prove overly complex because the number of cheat scenarios is not that great in this game. Discipline can be delegated to people other than the admins who as Pang said are trying to improve the game and expand it not constantly monitor the site for cheating. The discipline for second third and fourth offenses are set out in advance by the clans so once again the community is invested in the rules. You could have the clans establish a small pool that reviews the evidence of cheating and renders the penalty. Failure to cooperate would be punishable by preset standards as well.

For individual games, ask the people who played each set if they are willing to discuss ways to keep that server clean. See if you can get a small pool of people dedicated to keeping each server individual server clean.

This will require an investment of time by many people but if a game does not inspire people to work to keep it going then it will fail eventually anyway. This game has proven fairly resilient and there are volunteers ready to help.

Other games which are bigger than ours have similar set ups which work well, Bridge is a good example. In Bridge there are people who started as players who are now just full time rule enforcers and a lot of them do it for free because they love the game.

This pool of volunteers allows the site designers and game theorists to spend time doing what they like and lets the players know that the rules are set in advance of any violation either intentional or unintentional.

Set that up here and you will be surprised with how easily and efficiently you can deal with the next scandal.

so... now you want it so if cheaters are found they are moved to a different clan and that clan be punished for having a cheater there... just because they were in a pool?

i understand that objection

No clan should be required to take a cheater

if you are not going to give the player the death penalty

especially in this case where one of them posted that rant which was so disturbing to pang and everyone who read it

shouldnt he at least be sent somewhere where he will be monitored. if u leave him where he is u r just asking for trouble.

i still say delegate enforcement to the players

in soviet russia enforcement delegates you

if you played as long as you claim you did gregg you'd know cheaters aren't exactly well recieved in this game when they are found guilty.

Moderating a set of ffa must be a tough thankless job.

First of all thanks for the effort.

You have a lot of responsibility without a lot of help.

I agree with pang not desperado, cheaters all too often prosper at this game. LaE, Na and LaEx are all dominanat on their servers.

Despie - he started playing when EE opened up according to one of his posts in Express Talk. For me, that explains an awful lot of this....

im still hopin for that ignore option

i think i want to shoot myself



decent idea gregg - posse comitatus ... led by the mods ?

i know right? lets just go ahead and have the players themselves mod the game



wait fluff...

LaE lies
-pang

yet another example is saying i just started playing

LaEx stop whining like five year olds

stop makin dumbass threads like this and theyll stop eventually

they were whining for years before i left swirve and came to this site

I see no indication they will quit

all three LaE and LaEx leaders are bawling on Express forum

and if u follow the alliance forum they are lying and whining over there right this second
trying to make up lies for the second cheating scandal in as many weeks