Closed Discussion Account pushing and coplaying

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AuroraMoon

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As with every other time this has been discussed, it would be lovely if either of these two options could work in practice. But I've never seen an actually effective suggestion for how to resolve all - or even most - of the issues that doing either of these things would create. Take, for example, the people above suggesting you work based off of MAC addresses, not understanding that MAC addresses are not a unique hardware identifier, or that even if they were, they can still be spoofed. As many others have said, this has been a discussion for literally over a decade. If there was a better solution to coplaying than what we have now, chances are somebody would have stumbled across it by now.

if inno/tw could get the mac address to begin with
connecting the information with the account ingame prevents any change/spoofing from going unnoticed
it would also remove the use of vpn's since they would no longer be effective

putting an ingame feature that accommodates the co-player process and makes it an official part of the game
forcing the player to log in through their own accounts also goes a long way towards monitoring and limiting the coplayer issues

theres no single fix for the issue
but if some of the ideas were put together and cross referenced, it would remove some of the loopholes players point out
also loopholes can always be fixed via other methods where needed and not everyone is a tech wiz

in saying that the biggest issue is that inno/tw are remaining impartial to the issue (for the most part)
neither supporting or condemning it and without them making an official decision (even in the rules)
issues will continue and become more difficult to fix later due to the contradictions

6.Players are not allowed to share their or third party personal information with others, as it might be used to compromise their account or in otherwise illegitimate ways. Passwords need to be shared to have a co-player

1.Players are only allowed to have one account on each world. Players may play on multiple worlds with the same account or to play Tribal Wars with several accounts, as long as these are not active on the same world. why do players need more then 1 account to begin with

4.Creating and/or using one or more accounts for the primary benefit of another account ("pushing"), as well as profiting from such behavior, is forbidden. this is what coplaying is except someone else does the creating while you get the benefit

5.It is not allowed to gain or try to gain unauthorized access to another user's account. Even the attempt is punishable. coplaying allows you to gain access to another account albeit authorized by the player themselves

6.It is forbidden to share passwords or other login credentials with other players. There is no obligation for the support team to assist in such cases. coplaying once again is the exception to the rule since those credentials are shared

2.Selling, buying or offering accounts, parts of accounts or external services related to accounts in exchange for Premium Points or any other benefits is strictly forbidden. The only exception to this are game play elements or features that are a direct part of the game and designed to interact with the in-game economy. wouldnt a free village or a few count as 'parts of an account' and be considered a benefit

2.When switching from one account to another, the password of the account must be changed. The player is only allowed to switch to the new account 24 hours after this change took place. The old account must remain active on the world and the new account cannot noble it. Please review all regulations on this process as listed here, before taking any action. unsure how the old account remains active if the player switches to a new account
 

Deus Vult2020

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if inno/tw could get the mac address to begin with
connecting the information with the account ingame prevents any change/spoofing from going unnoticed
it would also remove the use of vpn's since they would no longer be effective
Except it has been said above that nowadays(2020) changing or faking(spoofing) your MAC adress can be -easily- done.
Hell there is even a wiki page about it;

And I've know people who have gotten MAC banned(different game) and they were back online on set game in less than 60seconds.

Also.... i'm not sure about this. But I think there comes a lot of extra paperwork and potentially legal issues(privacy and such) with the devs forcing and storing MAC adresses
 

AuroraMoon

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Except it has been said above that nowadays(2020) changing or faking(spoofing) your MAC adress can be -easily- done.
Hell there is even a wiki page about it;

And I've know people who have gotten MAC banned(different game) and they were back online on set game in less than 60seconds.

Also.... i'm not sure about this. But I think there comes a lot of extra paperwork and potentially legal issues(privacy and such) with the devs forcing and storing MAC adresses

true

attach the ban to the account itself - using the mac as a reference only

highly likely - which kinda sucks
why cant people just play a game fairly and how its intended
is anyone truely achieving anything if some bot or even another person has done everything for them
personally everytime i see someone mentioning a world win they never seem to mention their coplayers - which i find sad
 

DaWolf85

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why cant people just play a game fairly and how its intended
My point this entire time has been that if a game is designed in such a way that playing with a certain strategy is optimal, and that strategy cannot be banned effectively, then that strategy is how the game was intended to be played. If they intended for TW to be played without coplayers, they would redesign the game to not just require less of our time, but also punish us for being online too long. They will not, as that would be a completely different game - therefore we will continue to coplay.
 

AuroraMoon

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My point this entire time has been that if a game is designed in such a way that playing with a certain strategy is optimal, and that strategy cannot be banned effectively, then that strategy is how the game was intended to be played. If they intended for TW to be played without coplayers, they would redesign the game to not just require less of our time, but also punish us for being online too long. They will not, as that would be a completely different game - therefore we will continue to coplay.

a player can not determine how the game was intended to be played based of their own or others play style
the fact that the account sitter feature exists is proof that the creator expected players to sleep and the need for breaks
with that in place the need for co-players is purely a personal choice by players to gain an advantage without any of the disadvantages the account sitting causes

this game is a real-time strategy game and marketed as one (or atleast used to be)
and what you have effectively described is the mob mentality of players joining the mob to keep up
forcing the issue to become worse.
didnt anyone hear the words growing up "dont stoop to their level" or "if everyone jumped of a bridge would you follow"??

by the same mind set if enough people used bots (basically a mechanical version of a coplayer - less intuitive though)
that would become the new optimal strategy and thus become the new "intended" way to play

and lets not forget the external forums only accounts for around 10% of the playerbase (most of which are the old timers/vets/experienced)
out of that theres a portion holding the game hostage by suggesting that they will quit if they had to play an account by themselves....
 

Aretas

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Get off your high horse and stop pretending to hold some form of "morale high ground" for not co playing. Comparing co playing to using bots is dumb and a dumb straw man argument. Using bots is illegal and cheating, while co playing is not illegal/unfair/cheating in any way shape or form. Hence why this thread is here. Until the day comes that inno actually "bans" co playing, its a game play choice that every player gets to make based on their own amount of time and play style. The account sitting feature in no way shows that co playing could not be intended as part of the game, or replaces co playing. Account sitting is used, aside to cover people's offline times when under attack, to watch people's accounts when IRL issues come up that keep a player away. Vacation, health issue, work, etc. Plenty of co-played accounts have asked for sitters before. Real life happens and hence account sitting.

Banning co-playing would basically turn .net into .EU lol over night. While this is the international server and people come from all over the world. Anyone who has ever looked for a sitter can tell you that its much harder to find one during EU nights or NA/Asian hours. The simple facts are that the majority of players here are EU. They've had the most regional servers merged in, and while I have no clue about numbers, I can easily say they make up a large majority. Most tribes I've been in, including premade tribes, have at best 3-4 NA players, most have less, who are willing to take account sits of anything more demanding than tagging. Account sitting currently allows for 1 account to sit up to 3 other accounts at a time. Most normal world have a tribe limit of 25-35 accounts. So every night, you are going to be asking these NA players, to not only play their own account, but also be sitting 3 accounts each, since no one will have a co. Now ok some of those accounts will be NA people, since NA's are playing right now, but even if we go with the minimum of half that's 12-17 accounts that will need sat at night, and again its more then half the people here who are EU. so we break those 12-17 accounts over your 3-4 players and you don't even have every account covered with NA people having 3 sits plus their own account to play. Sounds like a great way to burn out NA players. Sure some new people might start taking sits if they didn't have a co when they did before. But in my experience if someone doesn't take sits when its easy, they aren't going to start when it gets harder and they have their own accounts to manage.

The idea that co playing is holding anyone hostage is a pure joke. Its a choice, that everyone has the option to make. Does it give you an advantage, sure. Does it come with risks? Sure it does, there is plenty of stories of people having their accounts hurt by others who they gave their pw to at some point or another. There are plenty of less "rash" steps that can be done and looked at to deal with account pushing aside from banning co playing. Removing the restrictions on Account Sitting and limiting the "invite a friend" option would be much more viable options to both limit the advantage that people get co playing and to limit early game account pushing.
 

AuroraMoon

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Get off your high horse and stop pretending to hold some form of "morale high ground" for not co playing. Comparing co playing to using bots is dumb and a dumb straw man argument. Using bots is illegal and cheating, while co playing is not illegal/unfair/cheating in any way shape or form. Hence why this thread is here. Until the day comes that inno actually "bans" co playing, its a game play choice that every player gets to make based on their own amount of time and play style. The account sitting feature in no way shows that co playing could not be intended as part of the game, or replaces co playing. Account sitting is used, aside to cover people's offline times when under attack, to watch people's accounts when IRL issues come up that keep a player away. Vacation, health issue, work, etc. Plenty of co-played accounts have asked for sitters before. Real life happens and hence account sitting.

The idea that co playing is holding anyone hostage is a pure joke. Its a choice, that everyone has the option to make. Does it give you an advantage, sure. Does it come with risks? Sure it does, there is plenty of stories of people having their accounts hurt by others who they gave their pw to at some point or another. There are plenty of less "rash" steps that can be done and looked at to deal with account pushing aside from banning co playing. Removing the restrictions on Account Sitting and limiting the "invite a friend" option would be much more viable options to both limit the advantage that people get co playing and to limit early game account pushing.

i compared co-playing to bots since they provide the similar benefits - coplaying actually providing more since a person can adapt
if you blur the lines between person and machine, you start to get the same benefits from them.

its holding the developers hostage due to the repeated comment from the vets/experienced/old timers
that they will stop playing if it was banned - very few have looked to find a middle ground between the two
which is basically just bringing it inside the game rather then outside the game like it is now
 

Aretas

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The only likely result from banning co playing would be experienced/vets leaving the game. Facts don't hold people hostage. If co playing was banned, some X% of people would quit. Everyone can argue for days over what that percentage really is, it doesn't really matter. The rest of people who co play now will just adapt to the new rules and work around it as people always have. Player A and B who used to co play, will now instead have player A join the world as the main account, and player B will join the world as their account. Player B will then likely leave their account at 26pts and account sit player A's account when they would have otherwise been online if they were co playing before. Hence there will still be 24/7 online accounts, which is the main problem people have with co played accounts. And if anything, pushing likely will become even more of a problem, as if player B now has to have their own account on the world, well then why not build that account up to have someone noble? This would just result in more pushing, with still accounts just as active as when co playing was allowed. Thus banning co playing would likely only result in that X% leaving the game, whatever you think that percentage is.
 

AuroraMoon

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The only likely result from banning co playing would be experienced/vets leaving the game. Facts don't hold people hostage. If co playing was banned, some X% of people would quit. Everyone can argue for days over what that percentage really is, it doesn't really matter. The rest of people who co play now will just adapt to the new rules and work around it as people always have. Player A and B who used to co play, will now instead have player A join the world as the main account, and player B will join the world as their account. Player B will then likely leave their account at 26pts and account sit player A's account when they would have otherwise been online if they were co playing before. Hence there will still be 24/7 online accounts, which is the main problem people have with co played accounts. And if anything, pushing likely will become even more of a problem, as if player B now has to have their own account on the world, well then why not build that account up to have someone noble? This would just result in more pushing, with still accounts just as active as when co playing was allowed. Thus banning co playing would likely only result in that X% leaving the game, whatever you think that percentage is.

peoples intentions and comments do however - its called peer pressure

thats the thing the opinions in this thread and the whole of the externals only accounts for 10% of the playerbase (since theres only 1000 external accounts)
that same 10% are mostly the vets/old timers very few new players even get to externals, that same 10% is divided on the subject

if inno/tw wanted to truly check how many were for and against co-playing accurately
they would use their old survey section that rarely gets used and ask the accounts directly
instead of asking the same vets/old timers that have abused the system for years

if no one has an advantage, then no one has a disadvantage either
 

One Last Shot...

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Nonetheless, i believe co-playing is helpful to the game however that co-playing rules should dictate that you can't co-play someone who is already playing the same world as you.

This is in the rules already. Nobody is allowed to play more than one account on any given world.

No ones gonna spend 10hours+ to manage 3000 villas on a daily basis. People will just do illegal co-play if you do this

Worlds on .net don't last long enough for accounts to get that big. The biggest account on any open world on .net right now is at about 1100 villages. AM handles that so you don't need to manage the villages yourself.
 

Deleted User - 11549951

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Account manager, doesn't send the attacks or snipes :)
there are many accounts over 1000 villas in casual for example.


As for account merging, support deemed it legal if you merge account and join another account as a co-player.
I have evidence of players who are apart of support team doing this themselves!
I am very interested to hear what you have to say!

Is there some miss information here?
 
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One Last Shot...

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My comment was aimed at multi-accounting. A single player accessing more than 1 account on a given world.

Merging is not in itself a breach of rules currently provided all rules are followed before, during and after. The guidance for changing accounts is found here.

Please keep in mind that I am posting as a player, not as an ingame moderator.
 

Deus Vult2020

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Worlds on .net don't last long enough for accounts to get that big. The biggest account on any open world on .net right now is at about 1100 villages. AM handles that so you don't need to manage the villages yourself.

It's not managing the villages that's the issue. It's defending them.
Unfortunately I'm speaking out of experience in this matter.

Last HP world during the end-game I was (mostly) solo defending an account. And to point out the obvious, the stress of having to deal with this was (probably) incredible unhealthy( ruined sleep schedule, 16+ hours activity per day,...) and so stressful it really made me consider just giving up on the game.

On these speeds noble trains are mostly <60min walk time. Massive nuke waves with 1-2 hour walk. Incomings climbing up to 10.000 (Not an over exaggeration).
So just going to sleep for a "healthy" 8 hours can mean you wake up and you have lost a large cluster or villages with a lot of your troops dead(either backline nukes or just stack busting).

At this stage of the game, account sitting is also out of the question. As there is only a handful(like a dozen at max) of players remaining. So finding a sitter with opposite day/night time is already hard. And even if you did, with the sitter limitations it's also inefficient as that's 1 massive account "locked" out from sending support or participating in the same OP the next day.
 

Deleted User - 11549951

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That's a fair point. I believe the discussion surrounds co-playing rules rather than losing or tiring yourself out.

I'm sure we have all merged in order to enforce a position by this point of the game no?
Then we should all know how easy it is to do and that there is no skill required other than maybe some pps spent at events or good level of farming.
 

Tha Rule

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Agreed - what about MAC tracing, could work
Well that could work, But you get people that use VPS or IRCD and setup eggdrops onto bots etc and could use any vitrual box out their to hide their true Id Or just setup a smoothwall machine to hide yours. there a lot different ways to ghost your mac and IP. Not sayin I know how or anything.
 

Deus Vult2020

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Isn't that part of warfare? The enemy wanting to overwhelm you and tire you out?

That argument isn't about coplaying. It's about another tribe being tactical in their approach.
It is indeed part of warfare. So part of the game as well, obviously I did not mean that we should "carebear" every player.
My point was simple responding to other people in this thread.
Who said co-playing accounts makes (new) players quit.
To which I replied;
Banning co-playing will also make players quit
 

DeletedUser124863

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Reading this thread, all I really see is the same problems/complaints/conversations that were being had a decade ago. And it all comes down to one simple fact: Most people playing tribalwars are chumps. What you're saying--what everyone is always saying when these conversations come up--is that it's unfair. And whenever people say that something is unfair, what they're really saying is that it takes away my control over the situation. So naturally, the resolution people seek is to take away the control of the offending party.

Almost every time new or tweaked rules and features have been introduced trying to combat allegedly unfair tactics and strategies, the results have been largely negative because rule abiding players get caught in the giant net. Every time one unfair thing was reduced, a new unfair thing emerged as a consequence. You don't have control over something, so it's taken away from someone else. Now, they don't have control over the situation, and we're right back at square one. It just doesn't affect you anymore.

It's called the self-serving bias. When things outside of your control break your way, you will tend to take credit for the results, as if it's a reflection of your skill and talent. When things outside of your control break against you, you will tend to blame external factors, like unfair rules, cheaters, or people who violate the "spirit" of the game. If you completely (or as much as possible) reduce a game to meaningless chance, then you maximize your opportunity to have self-serving outcomes.

I'm old school enough to remember when co-playing was practically unheard of. It was like black holes--a theorized phenomenon that everyone talked about, but was never really encountered. Then, one day, you stumble across it, but it's still rare. After a while, you realize it's everywhere. Nowadays, there are too many people who want to win, but they don't want to actually play the game. They want to deliver the knockout punch, but they don't want to slug it out. They want to be on the field for the touchdown, but they don't want to block for a three yard run from midfield. They want to get to the end, but they don't want to take the journey. Those people are looking for any avenue they can find to rush to an easy lead, and use their artificially inflated size to clobber others over the head like an elephant stomping ants. And they've figured out that it's just so damn easy to do, because as soon as things don't go their way they can just quit the world and restart the whole process. The culture of the game won't roll back.The simple fact is, you're trying to hold onto a dead past.

Innogames is not in this for charity. They're in this for money. And the introduction of the pay-to-win system was the irreversible nail in the coffin. They aren't going to simply walk away from all the money that people are willing to spend for an easy button. And as long as you can pay to win, other people will be looking for a less expensive easy button. You can try to lobby for changes to the rules to make it more difficult for those people to get their easy button. But if you're looking for a way to play based on your own skill, then you're just going to make things harder on yourself, not easier. Either way, you're going to have to accept that if you want to play this game based on skill, you're going to have to playing in a field where the majority of players are the kinds of idiots who think that having the skill equates to having the biggest stick they can get their hands on.
 

DeletedUser124932

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What Stormy said.

I remember these exact discussions from 10 years ago and it hasn't changed any. My opinion on it has though.

This game is damn brutal and consumes your entire life if you let it. Get a coplayer. That is, if you're serious about winning while at the same time not losing your spouse or becoming diabetic or fused to your chair or whatever. If you're not serious about winning and just want to be casual then don't get a coplayer and just care a little bit less about how it turns out.

This game is brutal. I haven't even played in years but I'm sure it still is. I remember working 9 hours, playing for 5, sleeping for 2 hours, waking up to send attacks and then go back to work. And being so damn tired I can't even drive safely. Wow, I was starting a new village today and putzing around but I'm already talking myself out of this.

(This is why TW has dwindled for years)
 
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