MP Cheaters/Griefers

[Ubercat]

Have you guys had many run ins with griefing or cheating in MP games? I'm in one of Gandalfs blitz games and someone jerked up my first turn of the game. No I didn't think to password protect my turn, so I guess that was an open invitation to some twelve year old idiot. I'm a pretty new player so it was an easy mistake. I just thought the maturity level was generally too high around here for that sort of thing.

Still, the very first turn? Is there some pimply faced little troll sitting out there, checking every game for vulnerabilities? If so, congratulations. You ruined the game for me. Happy? Try that on an AI player. If you're one of my opponents then why not just play SP, rather than force the humans to go AI?

[IndyPendant]

Uuuhmm...passwording turns? Is that something I should be doing in the MP game I just joined? *gets out the manual to rtfm*

Sorry to hear about that. One of the reasons I generally don't like MP is the griefers/cheaters...

[sum1lost]

Most griefers I've encountered are well past middleschool, and I know a number of trolls who are anything but pimply.

[Gandalf Parker]

You have to choose a password as part of creating your god. After that you are out of luck.

[Jazzepi]

The only one I've ever heard of is Norfleet, and that's only because someone mentioned him briefly, and I did a forum search. I went back and looked, it's some pretty heinous cheating.

Jazzepi

[vfb]

I've heard of other players having problems when they forgot to password their pretender. So, it's best not to forget. Though I still forget sometimes too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. catgod is nice if you forget, since it makes it easy to create the same build. If the game hasn't done the first turn yet, you can reselect your nation and upload your newly passworded pretended, replacing the unpassworded one.

[Velusion]

It does happen very rarely. Always password protect your pretender.

[Sombre]

But if you do include a password, make sure it isn't too long, or anyone who subs for you will be driven insane by it.

[Meglobob]

Its happened to me in 1 game out of about 20+, someone changed my orders (twice) after I had issued them, so its not common but it does happen. Ever since then I always password protect my god.

Some people will go to any lengths to win a game, sad but true.

[Tuidjy]

Guys, it is unlikely that a player in the game you're in will change your orders.
Unless he has two legal copies, he risks messing up his turn, and it will be easy
for the host to tell who did it.

On the other hand, unless you protect your pretender, you will never know whether
someone is not _looking_ at your empire every turn.

[Kristoffer O]

I think (and hope) this is a rare event. I usually forget to use a password. I haven't been cheated on to my knowledge.

On the other hand I have accidentally opened another player's turn and looked at it when I played in more than one game and got nations mixed up. It doesn't feel good to accidentally come over information you should not have.

Is it possible that another player accidentally entered your turn, and chose redo turn from start, with the intention of redoing his own turn? That way he could have messed up your turn without intending to be a prick and afterwards realized that he had done something stupid, felt ashamed, and hoped that you would redo your turn so no one noticed his mistake.

[Methel]

Kristoffer... do you have something to confess? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Seriously though, I've played quite a few games online over the years and I'd have to say that the dominions community has the least cheaters and griefers I've ever seen http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Ubercat]

Kristoffer O said:
I think (and hope) this is a rare event. I usually forget to use a password. I haven't been cheated on to my knowledge.

On the other hand I have accidentally opened another player's turn and looked at it when I played in more than one game and got nations mixed up. It doesn't feel good to accidentally come over information you should not have.

Is it possible that another player accidentally entered your turn, and chose redo turn from start, with the intention of redoing his own turn? That way he could have messed up your turn without intending to be a prick and afterwards realized that he had done something stupid, felt ashamed, and hoped that you would redo your turn so no one noticed his mistake.



I hope you're right, but he'd have to know that it wasn't his correct game/country if his intent was to redo his OWN turn.

[llamabeast]

I have to say I've never come across any cheating, it does seem like this is a very mature community.

To people playing on the LlamaServer (or any other PBEM game) - you don't need a password, since no-one else can get hold of your turn anyway. This is only an issue for network games.

[lch]

Ubercat said:
I hope you're right, but he'd have to know that it wasn't his correct game/country if his intent was to redo his OWN turn.


I think that as soon as somebody connects as another nation the old orders are overwritten with no orders (stale turn), but I'm not sure about that.

[Gandalf Parker]

I monitor the connections to the games running on my servers. I havent seen any blatant effort at that particular type of cheating but I do consider it worth continuing to watch for.

[Ubercat]

Gandalf Parker said:
I monitor the connections to the games running on my servers. I havent seen any blatant effort at that particular type of cheating but I do consider it worth continuing to watch for.



I give my orders and then discover later that they've been changed. I can't tell if the person has some strategic plan that differs from mine, or if they just think it's funny to do. I don't care. I told the other players in a message what was happening and that I'm going AI. Next turn I'll do so.

Is there any way to tell who your opponents are in one of your blitz games?

-Ubercat

[Gandalf Parker]

I did have one game where two people were playing the same nation. It was a miscommunication. They both thought they were the proper player and we never did figure out a way to answer it since neither had "called" it in the forum and neither had passworded their file. To make it worse, both had used the same god-build that was recommended in the forums.

As far as seeing who is playing who, I would have to declare that to be "impossible". Of course I consider impossible to be tech jargon meaning "I can do it but its more time and trouble than its worth". Any server can watch and record activity. I can record IP numbers that upload a file, compare the serial-code (a CRC, I cant really see their CD key but I can compare them), and with some effort I can pin down who's login on the forums is sending what files. But thats mostly more trouble than its worth unless it turns into a major problem. So for the moment, I do not run those watchdogs continually. I just spot-check.

So far I have done spot-checks to see if
A) the same people are filling up most of the games
B) if the same person is playing multiple nations in blitzes to stack the wins in their favor by having dumm2 always help real-name to win
C) if an expert player is playing the same nation/tactic to pad the end-game reports to prove their particular favorite bug report
D) if the same person keeps dropping out of games within the first few turns

So far I am happy to report that every nasty action I can think of to check on has come up with nothing worth taking action on. But I will try to keep my white-hat hacker mind working to stay ahead of the black-hat possibilities. (its part of my job and what I do all day anyway)