is a complete gal with no visable names breaking the rules ?

[waassaa]

just a question, seems like rule abuse though.....
shame on coders for missing the tabs

[Ruler]

yeah it sucks!
they'll screw up parsers etc.

jup sucks....

[Ace]

Saw that gal too.

I think creators will do something about it, cos this will cause lot's of problems (with parsers and stuff) IMHO.
But pld them for finding the bug (yup I think it's a bug) :-)

[Asar]

Not fair on the rest of us :|, Change them or lock the accounts. If that does not work i think that a good old hanging is in order for the sneaky F*&kE^s

[ElAlan]

I have no idea if it is breaking the rules, but tbh its more annoying that anything else and will cause a bit of confusion i would reckon. They have taken it from a planet that did that last round

[hAl]

Don't make us look for it...

[waassaa]

hhmm are co-ords allowed

[Ruler]

let's find out if it's allowed :P

[Nope. -Leshy]

[Ace]

Nope coords are not allowed on the boards :-(

[Ruler]

oops

[hAl]

I'll bet they are all Xans

[Asar]

I think that coords should not matter in this case. Its not like we can trace this gal after shuffle via gal names using any specail tools because they dont have any.

[Ruler]

Originally posted by hAl
I'll bet they are all Xans

lol, that would be fun

[Vapula]

As Techie for some Alliance and former host and co-developper for some online game (Stellar Crisis), I think it's really a big problem.

Problem will arise at two levels :

- PA-Dump parser
The \t character (tab) is the field separator in these dumps. This can screw some PA-Dump parsers (perhaps not all).

- Scan Parsers
Scan cut/pasted will use, following the browser and OS used, either spaces, tabs or newlines as separators between the various fields.

This will lead to many parsers to fail, for example in gal status and newsscan parses.

Here, it's only hard for external tools (parsers and pa-dump parsers) but should that be accepted, what would prevent from using Japanese or chinese characters (unreadable unless you've the corresponding localization support installed) or sequences like \t\b\b which is known to crash MS Windows in some situations (*)

Here, it's only a "one galaxy" problem... but what if other find it funny ? What if we get 1/2 of the galaxies with unreadable names at next round ?

It's up to PA-Crew to decide what steps have to be done. I'd say to rename their planets, not to delete them (after all, they paid for their account). But I think a strong policy against such abuse should be done in the future (and maybe some stricter validity check to Rulers/Planets names)

-----------
(*) The following piece of code compiled under MS Visual C from an unpriviledged account crashed MS Windows NT and other (blue screen of Death)

#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
printf("\t\b\b");
}

[at0mic.c0w]

5 points for creativity

[Ace]

Yup 5 points :-)

But I think the sooner the creators change it the better.

[dabult]

Creative..perhaps.
Lame..yes.

ur all whiners blarr

[Chax]

Originally posted by Vapula
It's up to PA-Crew to decide what steps have to be done. I'd say to rename their planets, not to delete them (after all, they paid for their account). But I think a strong policy against such abuse should be done in the future (and maybe some stricter validity check to Rulers/Planets names)

There is a clause at the end of the rules that allow for deleting these planets. I don't think it'd be unfair to do it either, because if they're clever enough to figure out to do this, then they're clever enough to figure out why not to.

Ok, so one person figured it out and the rest are just sheep, well if they're sheep enough to follow the naming scheme they can be sheep enough to follow the deleting scheme. Like their mothers probably once asked them; 'if everyone was jumping off a cliff would you do that too?' (no offense hirr).

[Oghy]

Intresting, creative and a bit lame indeed.

But my bot (vanxbot) did not seem to have any problems with it, although it did make spaces out of all the names, it still displays the information correctly like you see it in game.

Looking at the botfiles the names are enclosed by " " which in theory means parsers could and should seperate it from the rest.
My bot apparantly does this, though I havent checked why it removes the name and makes it a space.

As for breaking the rules, Names are restricted to certain chars, tab apparantly is an allowed character, so I dont see any rule breaking. Whether or not the Creators accept it is up to them.

I personally think its quite funny, parsers will simply need to adapt


PLD to them

-Yogibear

[ParraCida]

Whats the big deal? I dislike people who put three different sets of coords in their ruler/planet names way more

[One_Darling]

When i was [older] life was hard i wish i was [younger] again when it was easy but hey enough of my life how about those nameless planets

[cypher]

what's the problem? it's not like they are abusive names... and if parsers can't handle it... then people should make the parsers more advanced shouldn't they?

and the people that say these players should be deleted should grow a brain.. it would be really really lame and pathetic to delete anyone over this. if it was illegal pa shouldn't have made the option to make names like this.

[Axis_WLF]

heh I dont care to much about it as it actually HURTS them more than helps them. They atm have a big sign that says LOOK AT MY GALAXY WERE COOL WITH BRACKET NAMES PLEASE HIT US ASAP.

[Ruler]

erm...
No one said they should be deleted!

[One_Darling]

ruler read up and get back to me

[Doorsdown]

Originally posted by ElAlan
I have no idea if it is breaking the rules, but tbh its more annoying that anything else and will cause a bit of confusion i would reckon. They have taken it from a planet that did that last round

Breaking the rules and being inconvinet are two very diffrent things. If there is not thing in the rules that says that they can't do it then they should be able to keep it that way. But the creators can ammend the rules for next round to make this illegal. They were just trying to see if they could get an edge over the others, looks like they have.

[whoop]

Can you imagine the discussions next year ?

Planet 1: man, remember we had that galaxy ?
Planet 2: yeah. I had the 1337est name, I was " "
Planet 1: no way dude, I was " "
Planet 2: you're wrong, I was " ", you were " ", don't you remember n00b ?
Planet 1: wtf you calling a n00b, don't make me have to bitchslap you
Planet 2: go ahead and try it fatso.

(a fight starts).

-whoop

[Hicks]

Originally posted by One_Darling
When i was [older] life was hard i wish i was [younger] again when it was easy but hey enough of my life how about those nameless planets

Your just soo "clever"

Why is the fact they exploited the system such a problem ? Fix the system don't waste time punishing those who abuse it As Axis says what they’ve done is more of a hindrance than a help, the last thing you want to do is draw attention yourself early on.

Also Mit's Tool Kit seems to have no problem with the data.

[hinch]

I personly blame Hicks as he is the root of all evil!
Nasty Furry man

-AF

[Hicks]

Originally posted by hinch
I personly blame Hicks as he is the root of all evil!
Nasty Furry man

-AF

I blame Allfather for haxing hinch's forum account

[Dante Hicks]

Just give them stupid names (Spinners Bitch #1 - #10 or something).

[Carpeia]

I had the one with that kind of no name thing in my gal last round. He got deleted.. heh but i think that was cause of other reasons than the name

Shame ive forgotten his nick already.

[Axis_WLF]

Well what exactly are they doing wrong. for one their all named the same thing so if you were attacked by all of them would that be a form of multying but with 2 different people? NOOBS might mistake their incoming as a simple flaw in the game as perhaps the incoming will only show coords followed by [ ]'s and this might discourage them from getting defence or doing anything about it. <I SAID NOOBS>. Sending a Mail to them or getting one might not show anything other than coords and well is hiding your physical identity in the actual game a cheat or exploiting a bug? Would the galaxy status only show RED with coords if it showed nothing but brackets/tab then it would look like a bot invasion or simply look like a bug to them.

So this is what I can see from all this. They do not in a sense have a planet and ruler name visible to anyone being attacked or getting mail from so they are in a sense cloaked PHYSICALLY which makes them pretty much non-existant. If there is no rule about it then I would not wait till next round to simply implement it but rather give them a chance to choose a RULER and PLANET name that is physically visible outside of symbols.

If creators can in the middle of the round as they have done in the past make altertations to ships and stats then they can make alterations and changes to other aspects. I would ask creators to politley give them a chance to change their names BOTH PLANET AND RULER to show something physically visible.

[K-W]

I agree that seems a reasonable and rational response to what theyve done. Planets are not allowed to have the same names for a reason, and for all intents and purposes these planets have the same name.

[Tactitus]

Well it's not like this sort of thing hasn't come up before. Players have been trying to insert html and other "special" characters into names since R1. The simple answer is that the game ought to disallow html and all such special characters in planet, ruler and galaxy names. Then this can never happen and 'How To Deal With It' is not an issue.

<insert usual it'll-all-be-fixed-in-R10 response here >

[10th Man Down]

Someone PM me the coords plz ta.

[Axis_WLF]

hehe look in the universe planet wise and the current #194 is well blank apparently : )

[Pitchfork]

Originally posted by Hicks
Your just soo "clever"

Why is the fact they exploited the system such a problem ? Fix the system don't waste time punishing those who abuse it As Axis says what they’ve done is more of a hindrance than a help, the last thing you want to do is draw attention yourself early on.

Also Mit's Tool Kit seems to have no problem with the data.

Having a look at it, it has serious problems, dunno if they are related to the galaxy in question though

[MadeMan]

konge, they wont survive for long

if its not allowed why allow it on signup or name changes.

also if its suck a big problem they should been contacted befor ticks start


u guys got any thing else to complain about, seems like all you like doing

[Gayle29uk]

Originally posted by bob_the_bund
if its not allowed why allow it on signup or name changes.

also if its suck a big problem they should been contacted befor ticks start


u guys got any thing else to complain about, seems like all you like doing

It screwed up everybody's parsers big time and was certainly harder to work around than I thought. Happily they have now been changed

[Devo]

If you read the last Creators hour, Spinner did say he would contact the said planets and change their names to something more suitible...

The name change feature was only meant as a rough temp thing, so they didn't spend hours thinking of all the possible ways to abuse it!

[at0mic.c0w]

Originally posted by Devo
The name change feature was only meant as a rough temp thing, so they didn't spend hours thinking of all the possible ways to abuse it!

somehow this doesn't surprise me.

[Hicks]

Originally posted by Pitchfork
Having a look at it, it has serious problems, dunno if they are related to the galaxy in question though

It worked earlier but it seems the quick view for any galaxy is b0rked on Mit's toolkit. Bring back Pikera !

[Scouse]

Originally posted by Hicks
Bring back Pikera !

That's Pilkara, dear.

[Axis_WLF]

clearly titans and scouse are a part of this secret name cloaking device system!!!!!

[Dave]

1   [Unknown 1] Unknown 1 3 6.929   
2   [Unknown 2] Unknown 2 3 6.683   
3   [Unknown 3] Unknown 3 3 6.702   
4   [Unknown 4] Unknown 4 3 6.391   
5   [Unknown 5] Unknown 5 3 6.353   
6   [Unknown 6] Unknown 6 3 6.458   
7   [Unknown 7] Unknown 7 3 6.458   
8   [Unknown 8] Unknown 8 3 6.461   
9   [Unknown 9] Unknown 9 3 5.779   
10   [Unknown 10] Unknown 10 3 6.680

Looks like they are changed

[Zitos]

while talking of tools and things.. this "mit's" tool kit, aint that sexy as pilikara..





so, could ely set up pilikara again? (-:
*lloks sweet*