I was wondering if any of the SysOp's may have a suggestion to our problem.

We run 6 games on our TWGS. Two were open, 2 closed, and 2 private. Our site is structured so if you want to register as a member you can play in the open or closed games. If you don't want to register you can play in just the open games.

Now enter the problem of dupe accounts. Players have notified us that there is an individual that had multiple accounts on this game. We removed the accounts, and I decided to change the game to closed. So now all people wanting to play have to register online. Registration is free, and all was going fine until now. So we were forced to change all the open games to closed, and I know this person when he logs in is not going to be happy.

My question is, what is the best way to prevent this? I tried the "limit 1 ip" option, but some of my players are on a network. I have no problem with that. Some players are in game A and B at the same time and that is okay too. But it's the duping that is taking over.

I know the twgs can log ip's. I'm wondering if there is any possibility the TW portion could log ip's as well, that is to say when you view user accounts, it shows the IP they were on. May be far-fetched, but it would be a help.

Right now all our games remain closed or private, so users have to fill out a form and e-mail to our admin to get their account. Is this too much? I'm trying to be a fair SysOp for those that play, yet need to maintain some order.

Thanks for your input.

Ban their Ip addresses in the TWGS configure part....That is about all you can do

quote:Originally posted by Strider_2001

Ban their Ip addresses in the TWGS configure part....That is about all you can do


Yes, we have started that already, and it is listed in the rules. Dupe accounts will result in banned IP's. The other problem is what stops a player from filling out a form to join a closed game, and repeating the process? Mind you, the TWGS log would still log the IP and we can match to the banned list.

Thanks. That does help. It's sad when you have to go through this.

Question:

Why are dupe accounts banned in your open games?

Let me explain, with modern BOT scripting, a player can play any character that allows him to do so, without logging in as them. All they have to do is log in, leave their terminal open, and let the other player run his bots. This is essentially the same thing as duping, but without anyone knowing (or evidently without anyone caring for that matter, these days).

Hence, prohibiting duping only does one thing, puts the players who do not have these bots at a distinct disadvantage.

Might I suggest just saying "no dupe accounts in such and such games," and "dupes allowed" in the open games?

Just a suggestion

The best I can suggest , other than setting up a page like coastgames sign on page.
Is to use Eleq's program Dupe Catcher found on my webpage.
It is run on a copy of each twgs's game folders TWLogs file.
It locates possible dupes by IP numbers.
You/SysOp will have to confirm them and check in each game for p/w's to verify IF it is a dupe.

I'de suggest making a Excel sheet on your normal players so you can keep track of them and all of their charactor names & emails.

This will only help but not totally stop those who really HAVE
to dupe to play.

Dupers are mostly newbies who have found it impossible to live without extra lives [:P]
Therefore cheat to give them that extra edge , but really don't learn anything from it.

I would suggest asking JP to make something for TWGS that only allows a certain many user names per IP address. so players in games A, B, C, D can play in all 4 games with different usernames if they wanted. If they were to dup, they could only go up to 4 and would need a new IP. this stops someone from making 180 user accounts. (like on alein base and twuniverse)
of course, this would be something that would log IP's and user names and would have to be cleared after all the games rebanged so people could change there usernames.

Just a thought off the top of my head...

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Galactic Overlord

Question:

Why are dupe accounts banned in your open games?

Let me explain, with modern BOT scripting, a player can play any character that allows him to do so, without logging in as them. All they have to do is log in, leave their terminal open, and let the other player run his bots. This is essentially the same thing as duping, but without anyone knowing (or evidently without anyone caring for that matter, these days).

Hence, prohibiting duping only does one thing, puts the players who do not have these bots at a distinct disadvantage.

Might I suggest just saying "no dupe accounts in such and such games," and "dupes allowed" in the open games?

Just a suggestion


Thanks for the explanation. We've mainly an our TWGs off our BBS and this is a first time players are hollering "dupe accounts" in a game. I see your point, and that would make sense. I suppose i'm geting caught trying to be a fair SysOp, and being new to this scripting/helper programs, it certainly makes sense on the duping accounts. Never looked at it that way.

Perhaps it would be wise to create an open game and post the "duping in this game only". Thanks for the insight.

I really don't see BOT's as duping there are some things you can use a BOT for like buydowns planet nego's to run a saveme and there are other things you can't like taking a BOT into combat won't work the BOT will lose because you can't move it fast enough to out smart a person or griding never been able to have a BOT grid for me also the person who runs the BOT is usually at keys enough to play most of his turns. Trust me on this I have been using peeps BOT's enough since I have been back to know the difference between a BOT and a dupe.
The problem with allowing dupes is eventually they will start MEGA corping adding one corpie to run turns then dropping the member and adding another to run turns over and over also like I said it way safer to bring a dupe into a combat situation then it is a BOT therefore BOT’s can’t make kills in games and dupes can the person who is running the BOT would have to be at keys to make a kill.

IMHO ban the IP’s and don’t let the dupers back on.

quote:Originally posted by Speed Demon

it way safer to bring a dupe into a combat situation then it is a BOT therefore BOT’s can’t make kills in games and dupes can the person who is running the BOT would have to be at keys to make a kill.

IMHO ban the IP’s and don’t let the dupers back on.


Point taken. The bot thing was a bit off the subject and I shouldn't have mentioned it I guess. I just know that since I had a long conversation with Kemper3 about it on ICQ, I've decided that banning duping in today's game environment is a bit silly. Let them dupe the crap out of the game, it doesn't hurt the server, shrug.

As far as banning IP's. I can change my IP adress and it only takes about an hour, sometimes, only a minute or two.

But it does hurt the server if the duping is way out of control why would I want to play on a server where there is a game with 5 man corps and one player had 10 accounts rotating in and out of the corp. everyday or one player made 20 accounts to moth my planets that’s not fun at all and in my book that’s cheating.
Now if the game was setup as a dupe game where each person was allowed to play all 5 peeps in corp. or can have 5 different peeps play in that corp. that’s fine with me.
I’m not disagreeing with you. What I’m trying to say is it all mater on what type of duping is going on in the game.

Actually, my point was a rule against mega-corping would be a more fair rule. Whether you allow dupes or not, mega-corping can easily ruin a game. If duping is within the confines of one corp, it isn't an unfair advantage.

Well, I have taken all the advise mentioned into consideration. I have tried Wiz Kid's suggestion and we run the dupe catcher just to check the logs and see what possible dupe accounts there are.

I have followed Supreme Galactic Overlord's suggestion and made an Open game, and the rest Closed. Therefore I don't worry about the dupe accounts in the open game.

I am still learning all the aspects of this TWGS. I just became introduced to the tw helpers, and yes I admit the "bots" are something new to me. I have no issues with that, but as a SysOp, players are noticing possible dupes appearing in games and are asking me to deal with it. Users that want to play in a game submit a form to join it. We have a date range for them to join and then that's it. I guess that is the best we can do to make it okay for all involved. Our rules make it clear no dupe accounts in closed games, and if they are sharing an ip to let us know to prevent their account being removed from our Admin.

However, I apreciate all the advise and help, and hopefully we will fit into the TW community.

Thanks all. Muchly appreciated.[:)]

I have made some changes and implementations on my end to help combat the dupes. I'll share what I've done.

First, I made an Open game, where any player can go. That way, they want to dupe, go for it.

Second, I have 4 other closed games. Each game directory has a twgame.log file. I have taken the perl script, configured it for my needs, and I converted to exe and I run the exe file, which scans the log and prints the output to a file with IP's that are possible dupes. Inside each game directory is a dupecatch directory, where the exe file is located and the game log is copied to. I use a batch file to copy the log and run the exe file. I match the users to the database I've created and the users that did not select "on a network" when joining are sent an e-mail to find out if they are sharing a computer.

It's not 100% fool proof, but it has removed most of the dupes. I even went so far as to talor the perl script for each file. For example, Game 1 log is copied and renamed twgs_g1.log, game 2 is twgs_g2.log, etc.

Thanks to all for their insight. It has helped me out, and I apreciate the help.

I have had a bot grid for me....hehe....told him to run a certain grid script....