Separate games need separate passwords
Fri, 05/09/2008 - 03:30 — book
It is often useful to give allies your login data (i.e. username/password) so that they can play for you when you are not around. But this then could cause a problem in other games where we are not allies (e.g. allies in LT11 so password is shared, but not in LT12). I know of three instances when the "goodsportsmanship" of not being evil and logging in as someone without their permission in that game did not live up to expectation ;), so I am asking that separate passwords be implemented for individual LT games.
heh, do you have some
heh, do you have some shorter version? this is too long :-)
And where exactly can that
And where exactly can that "edit" button/link be found?
I am very afraid it should be just below my post... but I do not have it :)
edit: Ok, this single post is equipped with the button - but, believe it or not, the one you wanted to be cut into distinct pieces is not :D
I second that
I second that
VonZgred and Edrim: could
VonZgred and Edrim: could you please use paragraphs in your long long long posts?. I tried to read them three times, no success :).
Please, use 'edit' link below your comments and add empty line between paragraphs :).
Alright, I'll port the
Alright, I'll port the necessary code from warserver. :/
This fails because it
This fails because it requires too much manual (fallible) human intervention. Compare with the takeover list and idle replacement.
More reasonable was kevin's previous suggestion (i.e. extending diplomacy to fulfill the needs that password sharing tries to satisfy now). Once we have fleshed out that idea a bit more, I would be inclined to implement it and submit a patch.
I like this rule.
I like this rule.
A proposal: New rule:
A proposal:
New rule: players are only allowed to have access to 2 accounts at any time, their own account and an account which they temporarily manage for someone else. This 'managed account' should be listed in the 'vacation-idle-list' thread on the forum (http://www.longturn.org/forum/...), including the name of the one managing it.
So if your ally is going on vacation for a week he makes a post at the vacation-idle-list, giving an indication of the time period he'll be away and listing the name of his ally that is managing his account.
If at some point a different player wants to manage the account he notifies this change at the vacation-idle-list.
If someone can't give an indication of the time period he can leave it blank, but we may ask for a reason later. You can ask an ally to make the post at the vacation-idle-list for you.
If we accept this new rule then anyone seen playing for 3 or more accounts, or anyone seen managing an account that is not in the vacation-idle list will be warned and if necessary punished. We could either apply the rule for LT13 and later, or apply it right away.
=== 0h Marduk, thou art chiefest among the great gods! To destroy and to create; speak thou the word, and thy command shall be fulfilled. ===
It is only game vonZgred,
It is only game vonZgred, everybody wants to get all tricks to win, we are not talking how to avoid uses all tricks, but about password sharing, for me this ruin this game. When we must meet with each other living in different continents and timezones in past games and other ally let one man playing by themselfs, for me it is unfair to do it. Next step in this EVIL way will be to create more then one account in website and sign to game by this accounts and use more then one nation to win, another step will be to sign in by 5 or more nation because of pleasure of winning. I am here for fun i want to play for fun, i am not 100% serious in this game and i dont like to play game like this, that one best expirenced player get 5 allies account and play by them. We will all use every trick that we can invite in game, we cant forbid use tricks, because there is lots of tricks waiting for inviting, we can forbid use known tricks by polls (like mass caravaning), we cant do this gam fair for everyone, but we can do it little more fair for this unexpirenced players joining to us in future.
We cant forbid switching wonder? cut them off!
We cant forbid switching cities? make one city ruleset!
We cant forbid switching techs? diplomacy off!
We cant forbid making fair map for everyone? cut off specials and make only plains-tile map!
City Walls are to good? cuuuuuut them off!
Caravans? what for, cut them!
Maybe we can play only by warriors? Warriors ruleset yes thats good!
Please, play for fun, at least dont ruin others players fun.
edrim.
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Czego zechcesz synu gdy wszystkiego masz już dość.
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Lol, I've already create the
Lol, I've already create the "citytrading" poll about a month ago. Maho deleted it, because this setting isn't implemented in the standard freeciv server :(
City trading, as it is
City trading, as it is currently implemented, is completely unbalanced. That I think should be pretty obvious to most players now.
But we are getting off-topic. Either start a new thread (i.e. forum post) or wait for my own summary when lt13 voting starts.
It is hard to choose the
It is hard to choose the place where I should have my two cents added, but I want just to express opinion, not take place in "live" discussion.
Hence, the opinion is, that sharing passwords is one thing. You have to tell it at least to one person, someone who you trust. We are all people having lifes ( I hope we all are :D ), it happens sometimes that one is told by boss to check third party supplier in Moldovia (for example) personally, having plane in half an hour... or gets his ISP bancrupted, or coffee accident directly over the main unit, or like me the sudden need to have ER team visited him. All that can happen, and happens some times. Therefore, I am not voting for banishing password sharing. But games change, previous ally is enemy now, and so on - and we are only people. Having different passwords for every game is imho good idea. They are not being run like 10 of them simultaneously, it should not be a problem to maintain that under control for anyone.
In my opinion, bigger problem is not abusing that one is being given a password to one's ally account, since such thing should be, like I said above, shared. Having common gold vault is a principle behind alliance as such, so gold trade should not be banished. The only problem I see to solve, is city trading. It leads to all problems - tech blocking via one man handling the caravans, trading caravans itself, trading any units itself too, to be honest. Also, trading wonders, avoiding anarchy cons... These all things were designed to work in game not in the way we use them now... Wonders should be unique to one nation, it is the basic idea of them not being balanced by any other effect ingame, they are named WONDER for god's sake... Anarchy was thought of being a way to stop juggling government. All the things were designed to form a nice, complex game of Free, Independent, Civilisations. Maybe word free is not in that context in the name of the game, Freeciv, but civ definitely stands for that. Civilisation, in its vanilla shape was to simulate real world history, reenact it again , in varying shapes, and so on... So lets pick an example, I choose France and Germany deliberately here ( but not to offend French and Germans that are here :D). Imagine France and Germany signing alliance. It is simple. Imagine French President, King, or whatever, saying, lets lend our good friends Germans some gold for fighting these crazy Poles, for benefit of our whole alliance. Simple, again. But, do you see in real life Mer of Paris ordered by the President to tell all citizens of Paris, they are now Germans for a year, cause Germans would benefit from having the Eiffel Tower? Or, Parisian volunteers they are Germans now, cause German want to train them now to higher unit standards? Or Parisian merchants, they should pay their taxes to Germans, having their lifes (eg. health care, education, social care, and so on) run by French budget, stripped from income? Or, back to anarchy case, that they will elect new government on weekly basis ( that could be fun for some, but consider elections cost, and fate of poor trees turned into ballots :d )
Money, it flows. Inventions ( techs in-game), they are traded, given, whatever. Nationality of citizens, does not change almost ever. It takes war, union, separation, civil war - they all can be simulated, or are directly implemented in Freeciv code. Trading cities for short-term goals is simply, all the way, wrong. Just like that. Wrong.
I agree, and I will be
I was thinking of doing something like that. I will wait eagerly for what you think is broken, before commenting :-)
I think the worse "sin" is city trading. If you aren't trading cities, I think there isn't as much benefit to sharing passwords. I have no problems with gold trading, unit sharing is mainly done via city trading (I think).
I disagree The abuse
I disagree
The abuse referred to is password sharing.
City trading, gold trading, and unit trading are all part of the game without having to do any password sharing. You just have to arrange a time to both be online.
It is the 'abuse' of password sharing that is the problem not the trading.
This issue is going to need far more discussion.
Another example of the current 'abuse' is wonder sharing.
With one person logging on to each of their allies accounts immediately after turn change when a wonder has just been built and transferring the wonder city you can 'share' the wonder's power immediately. This was done to great effect in lt11 by the players above.
I see nothing wrong with 'wonder sharing'. A fix that would remove the password sharing abuse is to have a switch in the diplomacy dialogue to allow wonder sharing amongst allies.
It is fixes like this and the "move refill" patch that will remove the need for abusive password sharing.
Kevin
I agree, and I will be
I agree, and I will be posting a detailed description of the broken game rules and my recommendations when the setting voting period for LT13 begins.
Most of the abuse is from
Most of the abuse is from city trading, gold trading, and unit trading.
If there is a vote, I would vote yes for banning all three.
Ah. So you mean the
Offline diplomacy, offline messages, offline events, even unit-move-refill-time are all implemented and the patchs are ready to go. But so far maho has only integrated offline events into the server sources. You can check it out here:
http://mantis.pagema.net/view_...
(though I think maho has it setup to require login registration).
I see nothing wrong with
Personally, I see a big difference between looking after or micromanaging multiple nations (e.g., sharing passwords) or due to external reasons giving your cities away for a period or using your new /take directive.
PS - I'm paying my kid much less - however your kid seems to be more skilled. I must consider switching suppliers.
that means doing it manually
that means doing it manually though ;-)
--
eminentia omnia vincit
I see nothing wrong with
I agree with mr synical and edrim, it is evil! There are several reasons, one I experienced my self, it's easier to let someone control your nation than doing it yourself, and then you loose interest.
The only time it's ok to give away your account is this:
It's impotant to note that both are timeconstrained, so you give away your nation for at the most a certain time. If you don't take your nation back then you should be removed from the game.
As I said, among allies this should not really matter. And I have already implemented patches to alleviate the need for frequent micromanagement (they sit cold and lonely in mantis, waiting for a home).
Ah. So you mean the diplomacy code?
Oh noooooooo! You found my secret. :(
Being constantly connected or having someone doing your work for you is the same thing.
If this is directed at me
Alright as you say that it was an accident, and it does look that way, I'll believe you... (not to imply that it was directed at you, that I can neither confirm nor deny ;)).
I see nothing wrong with allies doing this for each other; my worry was about being able to login to a player who shares vision with your enemies.
For example, there could hypothetically be a large, expensive attack that gets miraculously thwarted. Was it just luck? Or some quick peeks at your enemies plans? It is impossible to know either way.
As I said, among allies this should not really matter. And I have already implemented patches to alleviate the need for frequent micromanagement (they sit cold and lonely in mantis, waiting for a home).
Unfortunately as I have exactly no more power than Peon Reporter Extreme(TM), I cannot write a patch to disallow/make separate login sharing because I would need access to the website source and its underlying database. Only our dear, ever-busy leader can do that.
Oh noooooooo! You found my secret. :(
Now I'll won't be able to pay Shakira and baby Kimbo $0.37/week to prop up my score in lt12, leading to their eventual starvation and death before lt13 has even started.
Damnit man, why do you have to be so cynical??? Oh wait... :S
If this is directed at me
If this is directed at me (I'm not sure ... it was an accident that I logged into lt12 as other player), however I must point out that you guys invented the 1 player controls 15 nations. You have now advanced to the stage of 5 players controls 5 nations.
As edrim said, sharing passwords are EVIL. The game is meaningless when "you guys" are checking each other's account everything 30 minutes on some sort of rotational basis. Next we will be hiring kids in Africa to monitor your account 24/7 and make adjustments as necessary, or better yet get kids in Africa to sign up and just give their password to you.
Alright this is getting a
Alright this is getting a little silly in LT12. Right now there is one user controlling three players, one of which is an enemy of the other two and shares vision with their enemies. So in fact there is one user playing both sides in a conflict, and no matter how its played it is certain that at least one side gets screwed over (through foreknowledge, "selective inactivity", or what have you).
People can you please only allow your allies to "take care" of your player while you are out on your drug runs or whatever, otherwise the game quickly becomes meaningless. >:(
Chatlogs can already be used
Chatlogs can already be used to do this, as far as is possible from the client side.
Perhaps Warclient can store
Perhaps Warclient can store the last known hostnames of people that it has seen. And then it could warn you if it sees the same hostname twice. That would help prevent you from accidentally talking to a person that is not really him.
--
eminentia omnia vincit
A somewhat helpful feature
A somewhat helpful feature in this respect, would be for the server to print your last login time and address when you successfully log-on. This way you could at least tell that someone might have possibly been misusing your login.
This could be coded-up easily, though an sql table would have to be added (or an existing one modified)...
Hi again As a defence of my
Hi again
As a defence of my earlier comment I will give a real example from lt12 yesterday.
I began chatting to player El... without knowing that he was on holiday and without checking the host in the players dialogue.
In fact I was chatting to player Tu...
I have no problem with password sharing for a player who is on vacation. BUT I would like it to be more open. A diplomacy setting that showed "Tu... logged on as El..." is much easier to read than having to check through the host names. Hopefully also if I tried to chat to El... using El: it would tell me that he is not online.
Kevin
Let's keep in mind also that
Let's keep in mind also that the full feature patch set waiting in mantis (offline messages/diplomacy/events + moverefill time + ignore) resolve 95% of this issue; hopefully we can have them in LT13, the great and almighty maho be willing.
The other 5% being asking a friend to play for you when you go on vacation, which is solved I think by the vacation thread as previously pointed out and being able to change your password once you get back from fun fun in the sun with attractive hawaiian people.
Sharing passwords is EVIL, i
Sharing passwords is EVIL, i dont think so it is good way to mak this game funny for all.
Maybe maho can make a game for some guys who wants to have at least 4 accounts and they will fight to death in this type of game.
I think sharing should be forbiden, it was start in LT10 when one man take nearly all accounts to play, this is stupid, when you creating ally you should ask if someone has time for play, when he is avalible and other things.
What is for Vacation Thread and idlle kick? maybe we should publish our passwords and everybody may login into every account to check how it is going:P
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Czego zechcesz synu gdy wszystkiego masz już dość.
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This is EXCELLENT idea,
This is EXCELLENT idea, (although not very easy to implement). It will need be saved into savegame for instance.
User with ability to control someone would just type /take XXXXX, do moves in behalf of that someone, and next /take YYYYY (which is his primary username).
Kevin, could you post it to http://mantis.pagema.net/ ?
I agree with Book on
I agree with Book on principle. But there needs to be a better method than password sharing.
I would rather see a setting in the diplomacy dialogue that says allow this player to take over my account. This would be specific to each game. And seems easier to control than having two or more passwords. Even better if this setting could be fine tuned for instance, "Allow player to move units", "Allow player to do diplomacy" ...
At present one of the biggest abuses of password sharing is at turn change. One player logs on multiple times for all his team members. Hopefully this will change when the new movement rules are added.
Kevin
I would rather think about
I would rather think about different mechanism. Way to "lend" your player to someone else (equivalent of /take command).
Sharing password/username, although isn't forbidden, isn't desired. So I'd rather like to avoid giving fascilitation to do that.
Heh - who got shafted??
Heh - who got shafted?? :-)
I would propose that password sharing is not allowed. This is more so true when a weak player just gets managed by the stronger players. I know I will get no support, but though I should say it anyway.
agreed, so use seperate
agreed, so use seperate databases and make a nice web interface to change passwords ? :) also this would be nice so ppl cant make posts in others names.