In the spirit of GGG's great friendly approach

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crazynomad wrote:

GGG isn't taking a friendly approach. They're actually clueless on what they're doing. I'm mainly referring to who the heck gets into the beta. I could discuss game mechanics too but this is the beta invitation section.

GGG pretty much promotes multiple account persons. Ya, they've banned some, keyword 'some', people with multiple accounts. That was only because enough people got on the forums and called them out.

Not sure if you're referring to me as one or not, but rest assured that this is my one and only account. I always use the 1. It's my 'thing'.

On topic of multi accounts though, I do agree. It needs to be stopped entirely.

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Viney1 wrote:

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crazynomad wrote:

GGG isn't taking a friendly approach. They're actually clueless on what they're doing. I'm mainly referring to who the heck gets into the beta. I could discuss game mechanics too but this is the beta invitation section.

GGG pretty much promotes multiple account persons. Ya, they've banned some, keyword 'some', people with multiple accounts. That was only because enough people got on the forums and called them out.

Not sure if you're referring to me as one or not, but rest assured that this is my one and only account. I always use the 1. It's my 'thing'.

On topic of multi accounts though, I do agree. It needs to be stopped entirely.

If you can provide a better system, this entire forum is waiting for one.

However your system will most likely fail one of these criteria:

1) must support families
2) must not penalize people who signed up but do not chat
3) must not overwhelm the servers with large influxes of people
4) must not penalize Bob1234 if he's not the same guy as Bob1991
5) heuristics must have a minor impact upon database performance

We'll just leave it there... if you have a system that asserts all 5 of these properties, then by all means tell GGG about it.

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zeto wrote:

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Viney1 wrote:

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crazynomad wrote:

GGG isn't taking a friendly approach. They're actually clueless on what they're doing. I'm mainly referring to who the heck gets into the beta. I could discuss game mechanics too but this is the beta invitation section.

GGG pretty much promotes multiple account persons. Ya, they've banned some, keyword 'some', people with multiple accounts. That was only because enough people got on the forums and called them out.

Not sure if you're referring to me as one or not, but rest assured that this is my one and only account. I always use the 1. It's my 'thing'.

On topic of multi accounts though, I do agree. It needs to be stopped entirely.

If you can provide a better system, this entire forum is waiting for one.

However your system will most likely fail one of these criteria:

1) must support families
2) must not penalize people who signed up but do not chat
3) must not overwhelm the servers with large influxes of people
4) must not penalize Bob1234 if he's not the same guy as Bob1991
5) heuristics must have a minor impact upon database performance

We'll just leave it there... if you have a system that asserts all 5 of these properties, then by all means tell GGG about it.

1. Not sure what you mean by Families. My guess is .. Families of the staff? Just add them in if they aren't already. :P They are family right? (If I am thinking about the same thing.)

2. Check by last login. (If they haven't logged in for a year, then there is no way they are active - not even watching site)

3. Keeping the 25 minute timer/1 invite is fine as long as new rules are added to slim down the number of participants by a ton - thus increasing everyone's chances.

4. Check by IP. Seems simple enough via database and MySQL.

5. If you already select by IP, then there should be no difference in performance of the database.

If all steps are added, then majority of inactives would be removed (true inactives - not lurkers). This would mean that the chances for active players would sky rocket (but there still would be a chance for inactives to get picked - you can never stop that sadly), and more actives would be accepted into the beta.

More actives accepted = more bug reporters and beta testers. More suggestions would come, more bugs would be found, people would get rewarded more so for being active and engaged in the community.

Thanks for the post by the way, and hope to hear from you or the team some time soon!

PS: Lastly, it might be in GGG's best interest to make a new rule of activity to the Beta Member title. It would make it seem like less of a free thing to give out, and more of a privelage.

You could:

1. Remove Beta Member status from all those inactive for over 6 months.

2. Make an announcement warning people that if they are inactive for over 6 months (or less since the Beta would have ended after 6 months from now), then their Beta status will be revoked.

* On #2 for a second.. Of course inactive for 6 months from now would mean Beta ended, but a good idea could be maybe inactive for 1-2 months from site/forum would mean removal of Beta status. This would promote activity in general (if people don't visit site, they don't visit game), and promote engagement in the community itself *

This keeps Beta with only the actives, and gives the open Beta spots to those that are truly active!

Regarding to the family issue, i think that the mod refers to the IP thingy. If they filter by IP, then two persons living in the same place or using the same computer, will lose the chance to get both to the beta.

Anyway, i stick with your system Viney. In my opinion the game will benefit more having more "active" people inside than families (or roommates).

Any way to get MAC addresses instead of IPs? Now that's a sure fire way to make sure someone is multi accounting (even if they proxy to do it). :P MAC Address never changes!

No idea how hard it is to find out someone's Mac Address, but I hear it's almost near impossible?

Thoughts on this approach?

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Viney1 wrote:

2. Check by last login. (If they haven't logged in for a year, then there is no way they are active - not even watching site)

Don't need to login to check the site or read the forum. I don't generally login unless I want to reply to something.

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Viney1 wrote:

Any way to get MAC addresses instead of IPs? Now that's a sure fire way to make sure someone is multi accounting (even if they proxy to do it). :P MAC Address never changes!

No idea how hard it is to find out someone's Mac Address, but I hear it's almost near impossible?

Thoughts on this approach?

This is not true... MAC can be changed easily. Similarly, hardware hashes have been suggested, but those too can be easily changed.

Your approach in general relies on checking IPs, which GGG already does. IP checking does not disallow multi-accounts, which was the premise of this challenge.

They are not going to remove beta access from people who already have it, and they are not going to require a login to view their forums... many users do return, as evidenced by google analytics, but do not login.

Ultimately what you need is a unique personal identifier, which is difficult to create. Some games in the past have used credit card validation, but that biases entry against minors and other people that do not have access to credit cards.

Well, i think that you can find MAC adresses if you scavenge into the IP packages.
However, that might requiere some low level coding, and im not sure if they are going that deep with the timer.

In my opinion the IP stuff as you posted before sounds fair enough.

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zeto wrote:

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Viney1 wrote:

Any way to get MAC addresses instead of IPs? Now that's a sure fire way to make sure someone is multi accounting (even if they proxy to do it). :P MAC Address never changes!

No idea how hard it is to find out someone's Mac Address, but I hear it's almost near impossible?

Thoughts on this approach?

This is not true... MAC can be changed easily. Similarly, hardware hashes have been suggested, but those too can be easily changed.

Your approach in general relies on checking IPs, which GGG already does. IP checking does not disallow multi-accounts, which was the premise of this challenge.

They are not going to remove beta access from people who already have it, and they are not going to require a login to view their forums... many users do return, as evidenced by google analytics, but do not login.

Ultimately what you need is a unique personal identifier, which is difficult to create. Some games in the past have used credit card validation, but that biases entry against minors that do not have access to credit cards.

Interesting. I'd laugh if you required people to use SSN of their country to verify (rather than Credit Card). It would be highly illegal, but still funny to think of. I guess the Personal Identifier aspect is plausible, but will take some time.

Have you ever thought of asking GGG staff to send out some constant wave of Beta Invites? These waves could be much smaller than normal, and would involve true activity and what not.

I think more waves would make a lot of people happy, but I kind of doubt they would.

Either way, thanks for the chat, and maybe some of my ideas can be used. :D

Plus there's no way to corroborate the validity of something akin to a SSN... especially on an international basis. Therefore since a unique identifier cannot be created, a fair system of 1:1 account creation cannot exist.

Anyway, they do have a constant wave system that they are happy with... it's called the beta timer :P

Also your concept of 'true activity' goes against the premise #2 "Must not penalize people who signed up but do not chat"