SPY accounts - Fix by determining IP and nation chat + inactive for anything else

[Destraex]

Just wondering if the devs could allow ALTs but detect spies by the following criteria:

 

1) Two accounts logged in at once

2) These two accounts have the same IP address

3) These two accounts are of different nations

4) One account has never had any other activity than sitting in nation chat

5) Inactive nation chat account is not associated with a clan but active one is

6) Over a period of a few months

 

Then perhaps give a warning asking why one ALT account has never done anything in game and the other account is very active.

Ask to justify.

 

ALTERNATELY - Make an all friends only chat that talks only to all friends logged in on your list? This way enemy reports and location of your ships could be reported to known and trusted allies without having to get on teamspeak.

 

ALTERNATIVE 2 - Make a TRUSTED nation chat that is rather like a more open clan chat. People here have been verified by the community as actual people rather than ALTs..... oh I don't know. Nothing really works. It's the interwebs.

[Salty Dog.]

Just wondering if the devs could allow ALTs but detect spies by the following criteria:

 

1) Two accounts logged in at once

2) These two accounts have the same IP address

3) These two accounts are of different nations

4) One account has never had any other activity than sitting in nation chat

5) Inactive nation chat account is not associated with a clan but active one is

6) Over a period of a few months

 

Then perhaps give a warning asking why one ALT account has never done anything in game and the other account is very active.

Ask to justify.

 

ALTERNATELY - Make an all friends only chat that talks only to all friends logged in on your list? This way enemy reports and location of your ships could be reported to known and trusted allies without having to get on teamspeak.

 

ALTERNATIVE 2 - Make a TRUSTED nation chat that is rather like a more open clan chat. People here have been verified by the community as actual people rather than ALTs..... oh I don't know. Nothing really works. It's the interwebs.

 

 

1-3 IP addresses do not equate to a single computer.  Network Address Translation (NAT) results in a pool of IP address representing a few,  hundreds or thousands of computers.  

4.  Especially with the new patch, Alts can more accurately be called farmers.  Harvesting wood or supplies to direct to the main.  That would show at a minimum trades, sailing, shipping and crafting.    The only way I see this working is keeping track of who they are trading with.  If a midshipman with high level crafting has only been harvesting wood which he only trades with one person.....then maybe you have a link between the two accounts.  But I still don't see that that makes them a spy....for sure.

5.  Many players are not in clans.

6.  over a few months?  who has time to watch this?

 

Not to be the pessimist but I don't think the DEV's have any motivation to stop people buying alts.  Believe it of not the prime reason people go into a business is the make money.  Should they not take the money for more accounts?

 

Besides, what does it matter?  Hostility is visible to every single player on the server.  Port battle times are visible to every single player on the server.  If you want to keep a secret, don't post it in nation chat.  

Edited November 7, 2016 by Salty Dog PVP1

[Mrdoomed]

Very funny you post this. We had an alt "discussion " on nation chat today. A few players who have OVER 10 alts talking to some of us who dont think alts are fair.

Regardless of how you feel about alts think abkut this. If you think PAY TO WIN is not fair and equal gaming then you cant like alts. IT gives players who can steal moms credit card or people with extra funds a easy win.

Many many many plyers find alts and faction jumping the biggest negitive to the long term success of this game. I definitely think its up there.

If the admin is going to ask people to pay 40 bucks for a game be better hope they dont know anyone willing to just spend extra money will dominate them in all aspects (even combat because they will have better ships and mods and more of them) and could even talk them into trading away something to an alt who then steals it with no course of action to be taken because he simply changes his name.

Pay to win is a crap game policy so the use of alts really pushes that limit.

Edited November 8, 2016 by Mrdoomed

[victor]

There is a legal problem: if a game developer allows alts when a customer buys the copy of the game for an alt and then - only later on - the seller say "you cannot use anymore the alt that you bought when I allowed to use ti", it is likely that the seller will be compelled to refund the player.

 

If they did not forbid alts from the very beginning, it is very difficult to do it later.

 

Moreover alt are almost essential for the life of underpopulated games (and naval action has only 650 players online in prime time on PVP 1).

 

This said, i think alts - until they are not exploited in fake combats in order to get easy XP - are not really a problem for the game, since there are a lot of other MMO games that have them (think of eve online).

Edited November 8, 2016 by victor

[Mrdoomed]

15 hours ago, victor said:

There is a legal problem: if a game developer allows alts when a customer buys the copy of the game for an alt and then - only later on - the seller say "you cannot use anymore the alt that you bought when I allowed to use ti", it is likely that the seller will be compelled to refund the player.

 

If they did not forbid alts from the very beginning, it is very difficult to do it later.

 

Moreover alt are almost essential for the life of underpopulated games (and naval action has only 650 players online in prime time on PVP 1).

 

This said, i think alts - until they are not exploited in fake combats in order to get easy XP - are not really a problem for the game, since there are a lot of other MMO games that have them (think of eve online).

Well i do not agree with your  excuses for letting players pay to win i do agree that the company would decide to not allow alts.

I dont know if because its EA they can do it legally and get away with it or not but it would be bad  publicity for them for sure.  i seriously doubt they will suddenly not allow alts for multiple reasons so its likely not important . 

Bad thing is that with a low population and allowing pay to win as the game model will ensure this will be more a game of alts than a game for people.

I know on my server its not uncommon for someone i attack to pm me that its so and so alt or to see someones alt in our faction whos main is another faction .  its all really stupid and just disheartening for anyone hoping for a fun fair game.

Pay to win only attracts a certain crowd so this will be fun to watch lol.

[Jacob Elston]

The best thing to do is lock every account to one nation so every second character onwards is locked into the same nation as the original.

Second, coding could be added to prevent dual boxing the game on the same PC (similar to EVE Online).

 

However, there is not much the DEVS can do to prevent players from using two accounts on two different computers.

The only course to take against suspected spies is to report them to the DEVS and they will look at the evidence and decide what action to take.

[Anolytic]

2 minutes ago, Jacob Elston said:

The best thing to do is lock every account to one nation so every second character onwards is locked into the same nation as the original.

You can currently only have 1 account on any server per Steam account, so this is not an issue. To have alts you need to have another Steam account.

[Mrdoomed]

5 minutes ago, Anolytic said:

You can currently only have 1 account on any server per Steam account, so this is not an issue. To have alts you need to have another Steam account.

Its SUPER hard to make more steam accounts .  SUPER hard !

[Anolytic]

1 minute ago, Mrdoomed said:

Its SUPER hard to make more steam accounts .  SUPER hard !

What I mean by "this is not an issue" is that locking one account to one nation doesn't change anything, because one account is already locked to one nation by not being able to have more game accounts per steam account.

[Augustus Charles Hobart H]

i don't care to much about spy alts, so long as they are not used for tagging fleets meh

Edited November 9, 2016 by Augustus Charles Hobart H

[Mrdoomed]

Its getting to the point that players or the only player who doesn't have alts should get some bonuses lol.

[Neverdead Ned]

Seems like their is a lot of hate towards those who forked over cash for an alt account or accounts,  probably the same hate which gets directed towards anyone who pays for DLC or anything else.   Like it or not, Gaming companies like making money by selling their products.  It's what they do.  They are not a welfare system.  I'm sorry you don't have the money to buy any extras but perhaps rather than whining about what other people have that you don't, you could maybe take a few hours off of the game to go and earn some real money doing real work.

As for alt accounts being banned for spying or giving a player an unfair advantage...I can name enumerable other mmo's where people have multiple accounts or have multiple family members playing the same game.  It's just a fact of life...deal with it.

 

[jodgi]

41 minutes ago, sruPL said:

Buying alts in all nations you destroy the resources importance that Devs wanted to create...

You just pointed out the main reason people get alts, that and LH.

The devs are realistic and pragmatical about this, there is nothing to be done about multi steam accounts and purchases.

A long time ago I suggested premium (ships) content to lessen the push for multi accounts. That was met with more resistance than alts, people kneejerked with the clueless and ufounded "pay2win" complaints. 

[Destraex]

On 08/11/2016 at 10:46 AM, Salty Dog PVP1 said:

 

 

1-3 IP addresses do not equate to a single computer.  Network Address Translation (NAT) results in a pool of IP address representing a few,  hundreds or thousands of computers.  

4.  Especially with the new patch, Alts can more accurately be called farmers.  Harvesting wood or supplies to direct to the main.  That would show at a minimum trades, sailing, shipping and crafting.    The only way I see this working is keeping track of who they are trading with.  If a midshipman with high level crafting has only been harvesting wood which he only trades with one person.....then maybe you have a link between the two accounts.  But I still don't see that that makes them a spy....for sure.

5.  Many players are not in clans.

6.  over a few months?  who has time to watch this?

 

Not to be the pessimist but I don't think the DEV's have any motivation to stop people buying alts.  Believe it of not the prime reason people go into a business is the make money.  Should they not take the money for more accounts?

 

Besides, what does it matter?  Hostility is visible to every single player on the server.  Port battle times are visible to every single player on the server.  If you want to keep a secret, don't post it in nation chat.  

If you have a dynamic IP address yes, do ISPs around the world still go with dynamic IPs or (hackers with spoofing just for a game)? Guess we could go to MAC address level. 
Unless you are a business you are not going to have 10,000 computers behind your account's IP/router's NAT. Mostly it will be 1 router with only a few computers behind it. 

Where I am from a lot of ISPs give 1 IP STATIC address for a person and allow only 3 changes throughout the life of that customers account with that ISP. Guess I was thinking of that.

But in any case I guess we don't even really need to worry about any of the above. Because it will be about ONE PUBLIC (internet facing) IP ADDRESS logging in two accounts concurrently at a single point in time. That is where you will find the spies by also looking at activity and nation of the other account. The accounts will be using the same IP addy usually but the IP address could be any IP number at any time. But at the concurrent login time they will be the same.

I don't really expect it to be fixed. Was just an idea. I don't want to stop the crafters with ALTs. They work hard and paid for it. But sometimes it annoys me that everybody is expected to be on national voice coms (impossible right) and somehow get information while the enemy concentrates against them on voice coms which is possible. That is where raiding is probably much easier than trading. You can pick and choose your attacks with little or no risk when you have radio intercept tech not really invented until much later. Imagine how valuable nation chat would be to enemies if merchants were listing their positions? Instead we have a kind of information blackout which is almost as bad especially for new players.