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Everyone knows national chat is an unsafe place for mentioning tasks, places or discoveries of safety-related importance. Because there are spies. Usually - and this is another alt-account problem - it is someone who mainly plays for another nation and chose his alt to be a national in his target nation so he can listen to what's going on where. And exploit the fact he cannot be attacked, no way.

manon-lescaut-soldiers-arresting-a-spy18

Yes, we know some names in NA French community which are considered to be spies. I won't mention names here. Such person does not interact with the community much, he likes to stay unnoticed. But you find him in small vessels in front of port battles or on major trade routes where he is monitoring ship traffic, fleet composition, movements and all that kind which he submits to his friends in the enemy nation. For the damage of the nation he infiltrated and parasitized.

We need a weapon to deal with such persons. Of course I know you will say "In love and war, all means are legitible" or remind me that the alt account is sacred because he paid for the game when he put the alt into the game. So the method could not be a removal of that account. However, you cannot expect a nation to live with spies it cannot touch because the appropriate measures are missing. So, what to do? I suggest a national council where such known persons can be trialed and excluded from the nation.

Yes, this is one of the possibilities where you could use a 'special permanent group' as I proposed yesterday; let's call it the 'Supreme Court of the Nation' here (just for example). They collect info on the suspected spy and confront him with the evidence. If the doubts are not dispersed, they sentence him to leave the nation. The spy will then become a Pirate and no longer belong to the nation he parasitized. Because Pirates are nothing less than the criminals of the high seas, so it should not be a big surprise he has to join them. Alt account isn't touched beyond that.

Game mechanics for this suggestion needs the permanent group founding feature implemented which I talked about, plus a basic voting system for the Supreme Court judges, with a majority of voices having the effect of shifting the alt account's nationality from current nation to Pirates, mandatory. And by the way, the Supreme Court could also handle other issues within the community of one country. Could relieve the tribunal here in forum of some minor cases which are taking place within a nation.

Edited by Cetric de Cornusiac
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42 minutes ago, seanjo said:

What if an alt or two get on the supreme council and start exiling legit nation members?

I don't think a spy could be working so long and so undisputedly in the service of a nation, that he gets elected into the Supreme Court. And to new players I don't think they would grant the honor. So reputation acts as a protection against electing the wrong guys into the board.

Even if it is such master spy who could establish such trust that he got the job of a national judge, he would need several of his sort to cooperate for finding a majority - for sentencing the 'good guys' as you imagined. In such case the nation is totally doomed anyway.

Edited by Cetric de Cornusiac
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There will always be spies. You have to use a Private message chat channel, a Group chat channel, or a battle group chat...or clan if you are in one. There are ways to communicate around spies. 

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the question remains : what can we do against>  known same nation>   spys on the water?

the answer is to the defs i believe.

they made it possible to have alt account 

they have to come up with the solution 

 

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1 hour ago, seanjo said:

What if an alt or two get on the supreme council and start exiling legit nation members?

is that not what makes rvr great? Its the drama that feeds war my friend. In my opinion spies don't have any real effect. People that dislike spies are the people that want to take ports uncontested in my opinion. The only secret we ever had in RVR when I was gb was the "invasion" of the us coast that we got sick of fast because we always hated flipping ai. 

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What you speak of is Buggery, ill have no ear for it! to give the rabble in my nation the ability to condemn a man in more then just speech is absurd (of course with the exception of outlaw mechs...) To think, a man can be thrust from his home at the behest of the court of public opinion.

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1 hour ago, Headless Parrot said:

There will always be spies. You have to use a Private message chat channel, a Group chat channel, or a battle group chat...or clan if you are in one. There are ways to communicate around spies. 

Don't you think we do that? Anyway, there has to be means to remove the spies once you detect them. You also would not recommend to use your arms for walking if your legs are sore from parasites. You have to remove them for healing. Period.

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15 minutes ago, Cetric de Cornusiac said:

You have no idea. Or do you play naive? Of course they have, or why else are they there? I even gave you examples how spies are working in Open World. Of couse this is damaging.

I have an idea. I have played RVR in this game for 3 years. You know what wins wars? Winning port battles. If you cannot win port battles you achieve nothing.

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So, the only way is to let unfair players acting as spies bully those innocents who become their victims, when their ships get intercepted and sunk which otherwise would get through unharmed? As they would not have been reported to enemy nation if spies were caught and trialed?

Edited by Cetric de Cornusiac
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What if there was a way that you could stop people seeing what you type in chat, similar to ignore but the other way round so you could decide if a particular person could not read your chat. That way if a group or clan suspected someone of being a spy they could prevent them from seeing what they type in nation chat.

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Just now, Cetric de Cornusiac said:

All the worse, when you are in game for three years and have the nerve to deny espionage is costing (ship) lives.

Ok, in my experience I see ships lost by stupid choices people make in battle or outside battles. How many port battles have spies won? If a fleet heads to enemy waters they MUST expect the worst. If you don't expect the worse ships are lost. In GB I always said what the plan was in nation chat and it made no difference. We never used spies against anyone in later stages because I know how useless they are. I know that winning the battle is the only thing that makes a difference and no spy will ever influence a battle. Every commander I have fought is WELL aware of my plans and tactics in those battles. He doesn't need a spy to help him. The mistake most commanders make is that they come up with a reaction to a tactic and if you react you loose. You need to come up with your own one to be on the offensive. Tactics matter port battles or lets say metas. What do spies do other than camp KPR or steal from clans that matters? How many wars have spies won? 0

The wars that are won are won in battles. 

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Short time ago we had that case where a impersonator and false national stole the content of the warehouse of his clan.

 

Of course the friends of espionage and damaging innocents will find ways to excuse this as well, and it is "no abuse of alt account" etc. Just let it happen to you, hypocrites.

Under current mechanics this guy "Spirit of Paris" stays totally unharmed and can proceed to his liking, as nobody can take measures against him. You want that freedom? Why don't you join Pirates then? There maybe it is good custom to steal from your fellow player.

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Massive Multiplayer Online Gaming is a social activity such as others, and rules are necessary in all social activities. Because where people meet, the bad boys meet too. It does not help close the eyes and grant them freedom. Quite the opposite.

If we don't fight abuse and exploits to damage others in other ways than intended by game design, it will just augment while being safe and unsanctioned, until nobody has fun anymore. While some "3 year veterans" are even happy to excuse abuse.

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45 minutes ago, Archaos said:

What if there was a way that you could stop people seeing what you type in chat, similar to ignore but the other way round so you could decide if a particular person could not read your chat. That way if a group or clan suspected someone of being a spy they could prevent them from seeing what they type in nation chat.

That is an idea. But still does not mean a countermeasure against someone serving in small boat in open world for another nation revealing to them the fleet buildup before port battle, trader traffic, and all that...

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26 minutes ago, Christendom said:

OR we could just get rid of nations all together and made this a strictly clan based game.  Problem solved.

what a thought - it's like it would fix everything or something!

50 minutes ago, Cetric de Cornusiac said:

Short time ago we had that case where a impersonator and false national stole the content of the warehouse of his clan.

 

Of course the friends of espionage and damaging innocents will find ways to excuse this as well, and it is "no abuse of alt account" etc. Just let it happen to you, hypocrites.

Under current mechanics this guy "Spirit of Paris" stays totally unharmed and can proceed to his liking, as nobody can take measures against him. You want that freedom? Why don't you join Pirates then? There maybe it is good custom to steal from your fellow player.

and this tribunal thread was resolved with admin/ink saying "if you don't want to lose your stuff or someone steal your stuff you only give roles to those you trust.

so does it suck when someone spies? does it suck when someone steals? yeah, it does. But it's not against the rules, it's not breaking any game play, and in fact all nations in our world right now (the real world) spy on each other all the time. you want to combat spies? well the first thing to do is to not talk about plans in chats and channels that you do not think are safe.

You talk about how your Nation in game is apparently "riddled" with spies. Well pretty much every nation in the game has some spy in it, or some player who takes in information and sells it to the highest bidder. talk to your clan mates, talk to your nation mates, ask them if they have spies in other nations. Tell them you don't like spies and spies should hang so they should also stop spying.....now realize how that doesn't make sense.

Every MMO ever played has players who spy for other players.

Edited by Teutonic
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2 minutes ago, Teutonic said:

But it's not against the rules, it's not breaking any game play, and in fact all nations in our world right now (the real world) spy on each other all the time. you want to combat spies? well the first thing to do is to not talk about plans in chats and channels that you do not think are safe.

In real world you have all ways of countering a known spy. In this game our hands are tied and we have to watch them and leave them unharmed. It's encouraging for more crooks following up, don't you think? And spare me your advice, all this already done, we are no kiddies either. What I ask is a way to actively counter them, not stick the head into the sand and accept what you consider normal and enjoyable while others don't.

And again, it is mostly the new players who get sunk because the spy reports their position and course. They cannot even imagine such treason is part of the game and some "3 years veterans" could possibly nod to all abuse being done.

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