Quote:
Originally Posted by Zeyi
As an example, I have at least 2 friends who'd play PA if I wasn't already using at least 2 IPs the same as them. Making it impossible for us to work together (the restrictions on exceptions are stupid for an online game). The only way for us to do this would be for us all to setup external SSH tunnels at different IPs just to be able to play PA together (Then probably get banned for multi-ing knowing MH).
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In todays world of WMMOs, several people sharing an IP is a very common thing.
Look east, towards Asia. In ManagerLeague today, we have about several thousand users from countries like Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia. These are countries where IP-addresses (IP4 mind you) are scarce. You won't find a home-connection with it's own IP. The culture there is to meet up at gaming-cafes to hang out and play games. The cafe is lucky if it has it's own IP at all, a single one! And as they "play together", suddenly you have 25 accounts logging in from the same IP during say 15 minutes.
Many of them use their
[email protected] as email, so they sure look alike. All the computers at the cafe has the same software installed too, so even their useragents are the same. But this is the reality.
An anti-cheat-solution must never be based on IP as evidence. It is worthless.
And if you want to get around it, use TOR, VNC or whatever. With a TOR-plugin in FireFox, I can click one button to change to a different node. Bang, new IP.
But why is it any better to let 50 people work closely together in an alliance, talking together in their own private chat, launching together, defending together, than to have 5 guys in a dorm do the same?
If 1 person playing 2 planets can cause such a big impact, it is the game mechanics that are wrong. You can throw 100 multihunters at the problem, but it will not solve the real issue.
Original PA was even more vulnerable than it is today, due to it's "naive and unrestricted nature". But you can not make games like that anymore. You need to "pick a side". You either make a one on one game, or you make a true MMO. In a true MMO, cooperation is key, cooperation is REQUIRED, and players should not be thrown out if the cooperation is not done under the "right circumstances".
Of course, I agree that one needs things like bot-protection, mostly to avoid technical issues and someone creating thousands of accounts to just hog down the system for fun. But my point remains, a person playing 3 accounts should have very little impact in the bigger picture, where the universe is dominated by huge alliances with 75 members.
Oh heck, whatever...