How is this not "pushing"?

[SoggyShorts]

There is a player who is using an entire FS of 12 multi accounts to feed KP into his main account's wonders. That has got to be considered pushing, no?

Every "player" in that bogus FS has the exact same city layout, and the are listed as donors to the main wonders. To be clear, he is in a real FS, the FS of 12 push accounts is separate.

 

[qaccy]

Sounds like a ticket would be more appropriate if you're suspicious and want support to take a look, rather than posting on the forums. Unless, and your wording in the title kind of implies this, you've already reported it and it seems like nothing was done about it?

 

[mucksterme]

I can't imagine going through all the effort to create 12 dummy accounts and play them far enough to unlock AWs.
And especially when you say they are all exactly alike. How incredibly boring.
Also, imagine having to log into all those accounts, I'm guessing at least twice a day to feed the KP to the main account.
Seems like you wouldn't get much chance to actually play.
I've started various cities on different worlds to try out different styles of play.
But eventually I gave up on most of them because it just stretches my mind too much.

 

[DeletedUser3640]

I can't imagine going through all the effort to create 12 dummy accounts and play them far enough to unlock AWs.

That could possibly be the record. On Elcy I found a player who had 6, he/she was also in a "personal" fellowship. Highly leveled wonders...all KP from other members, exactly the same amount. Stopped playing though a while ago, probably got bored like you said...plus wonders were kinda bad back then.

At some point of the game I was very interested in the subject of pushing. Back then I found few "top" players who obviously had multi accounts. Easily identified just because their AWs got leveled by the same players non-stop by incredible amounts...so it couldn't be "fair" KP swap (been checking for like 2 months, just to see if game mods are actually enforcing game rules). Many of them even had multi accounts with just slightly different nicknames.....because why bother, lol (honestly, I'd ban them just for that freaking reason... impudent cheaters are the worst).

I believe that there are many more players who are doing that, they're probably just smarter and not as easily identified.

P.S. Fun fact for you - on Elcy there's a fellowship which many members left just because of this. Got tired of cheaters Many stayed though...not sure if all cheating, or just don't care. Granted, I talked just to 2 players who left, but for me that's enough of a proof.

 

[qaccy]

Y'know, something that stood out to me when I read the rules was the fact that, with how it's worded, player A giving all their KP to player B is technically 'pushing' no matter the circumstances if it's over a long period of time. I could pick a name at random from rankings and give them all of my KP for the next three months and that would be considered pushing, if I'm not directly receiving anything in return. Per the game rules:

This is defined as unbalanced routine resource (resources, Knowledge Points etc.) transfers from one account to the next even if involved accounts do not belong to the same player.

If you're freely donating to any AW that isn't your own, you could be considered a push account according to the rules. Food for thought!

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

Your right this IS pushing, but unfortunatly not recognised as such by the elvenar team, we had this discussion on the dutch forum last october, 2 players where pushing like mad, screenshot, movies we had them all. even to an extend even a blind horse could see it was pushing.

The discussion was fierce, but in the end they told us they looked into it and the player did nothing wrong so no further action was waranted.
We protested like mad, but nothing changed.
In the end and we openly stated this that with this ruling the only option left for us who like the ranking is to either quit, or join the dark side. not because we wanted it, but because we were left no other acceptable option (quit)

right now the dutch server is one big push fest. where the starting player now owns 2 full fellowships of push accounts. all her wonders are now lvl 20 and there now used to "improve" the other guildies. once she puts down the new wonders (amazed she didint yet, maybe because she is 200k ahead of the competition) but once she puts them down it litteraly takes her the amount of times it takes to upgrade them to get them to level 20.

The upside of this free for all is that it evens out the game, since everyone "can" push and get away with it, it evens the odds, if you like it, or if you join it is a choice you have to make.

the last statement in this continuous discussion from an innogames employee was (translated):

Many of our games have a competitive character but elvenar doesn't, you have your fellowship to help eachother, but this ain't a game where you attack, plunder or loose complete villages. outside of your fellowship you play this game alone.
Some "die hards" see the ranking as a form of competition and want to be as high as possible in the standings, but in fact this is not what elvenar is standing for

My question, then why does the ranking exist?, why does the tournament exist?, why do we get ranking points as a reward for the tournament?
why did they add competitive elements into this game if it wasnt supposed to be competitive?

Why is the game centered about becomming "better" instead of many options to individualise your city? if just building was the point, should we not be able to rotate our buildings? should the difference between building a and b not be minor? in such a way that we can individualise our towns in such a way there awesome pretty but at the same time not standing still in our development?

To me anything that has a ranking in it, is a competitive game. if I want a pretty city builder I rather play anno 1404(my personal favorite) or simcity. or another focus on a game whose focus is to build something cool there I do have control over how to build it. instead of being dictated by innogames how to build it.

 

[DeletedUser6219]

I always find it interesting how others are so bothered by the way some people play their game; especially since it does not affect your game. If someone wants to play 12 accounts to better their one account... I am not sure how that affects your account as it doesn't take away from you or stop you from exploring, upgrading, etc.

 

[Calenmir]

This thread is about violating the rules, so that is what people are bothered by.

 

[DeletedUser1269]

I agree it is pushing and each player should only be able to have one account on a server. Rankings are important to some and certainly encourage both pushing and spending. If the spenders and pushers are the same people, I guess that justifies Inno's position to themselves. If they stop the pushing, they stop the money.
I pride myself on being in the 130's as far as rankings go since I am neither a spender or a pusher. I never expect to break the top 100 unless these people get bored or run out of money....lol.
Ban the pushers!

 

[DeletedUser6219]

Well it must not be seen as breaking the rules that much? I know several people who have multiple accounts. I have two accounts as well because I wanted a human planks city and it took me 10 tries to get one. I finally got one and it was on the same server I already have a city in...that's the result of not giving your players an option to choose their goods. So I have 4 cities.. 3 on one account and 1 on another... on 3 different servers.

 

[qaccy]

In the end and we openly stated this that with this ruling the only option left for us who like the ranking is to either quit, or join the dark side. not because we wanted it, but because we were left no other acceptable option (quit)

The problem is that Inno's definition of 'pushing' falls into a huge gray area. However, I do feel that multiple accounts owned by one person all funneling resources into one should not be allowed...and should be pretty easy to track. Of course, people are able to do all sorts of things with IP addresses these days to make it look like none of their multiple accounts are directly connected, so maybe it's a more complicated problem than it appears to be. Currently they seem to be erring on the side of caution in order to avoid potentially banning people who are 'innocent', at the expense of ranking-focused players who aren't doing it being stepped over by folks with multiple accounts. You could always 'join the dark side' as you said, but I imagine that banning/suspension DOES happen occasionally...and think about it, if you were someone who got banned for that you wouldn't really be able to call foul here on the forums, could you? Anyone would be able to look it up fairly easily and see you deserved it so when it happens it probably stays pretty quiet.

 

[Mykan]

On another forum they talked about this issue. IP address has nothing to do with pushing, it might be an indicator but you can be pushing a person with a different IP address. It was mentioned there are criteria to assess a town and its activity in terms of pushing so it was possible for a person to give KP for example to another account and not be considered pushing if their activity in other areas was ok. Of course the criteria was not shared with us.

So in the case of giving all your KP to some random for their wonders that may not be considered pushing depending on what else your doing on your account. This does provide a level of protection for fellowships with KP swaps, particularly those that are more focused than the random endless threads.

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

On another forum they talked about this issue. IP address has nothing to do with pushing, it might be an indicator but you can be pushing a person with a different IP address. It was mentioned there are criteria to assess a town and its activity in terms of pushing so it was possible for a person to give KP for example to another account and not be considered pushing if their activity in other areas was ok. Of course the criteria was not shared with us.

So in the case of giving all your KP to some random for their wonders that may not be considered pushing depending on what else your doing on your account. This does provide a level of protection for fellowships with KP swaps, particularly those that are more focused than the random endless threads.

yeah thats a problem,
But when I see a player login drop 9 kp, login account 2 drop 9 kp, login account 3 drop 9 kp, login account 4 drop 10 kp, login account 5 drop 9 kp, login account 6 drop 10 kp and this continues to 30 accounts.

If 2 players advance at an unnatural rate that's so ridicule. if a player advances 10 years of KP in a matter of a few months (or at that time advances several months in a matter of 2 weeks) and you tell those players are following the rules. you tell me. if thats ain't pushing then I dont know what is anymore.

As said right now the dutch server is all about pushing since this this happened last october. the only option left for those who love the ranking was to either follow suit or quit. since you can't beat those who cheat, and the elvenar team told us they dont cheat.

you tell me.

 

[Thistleknot]

I never expect to break the top 100 unless these people get bored or run out of money....lol.

Hang in there Sly. I haven't spent any diamonds and I just made it to 73 on Arendyll.

As far a having multiple accounts and pushing, I am still amazed at how much effort and money people will put into a game just to max everything out quickly. I just don't see the enjoyment there. Apparently these are the people that pay someone else to read the cliff notes to find out what a book is about. I would rather take the time to read the book.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I always find it interesting how others are so bothered by the way some people play their game; especially since it does not affect your game. If someone wants to play 12 accounts to better their one account... I am not sure how that affects your account as it doesn't take away from you or stop you from exploring, upgrading, etc.

It absolutely effects all of us when players cheat. Not just the rankings which I don't care a whole lot about, but the game balance.
If this method of cheating goes unpunished, then more and more players will do it. Then how do the devs balance the difficulty in the game to keep it challenging? They make it harder, and that forces yet more players to make multi accounts just to progress "normally".
Just because this game doesn't have PvP doesn't mean that the actions of other players don't effect you.

 

[Pheryll]

Here is a hypothetical (it does not apply at all to me as I have only one account and it is present on two servers).

Suppose I have a main account called MerlinTheWise. I set up feeder accounts with different wizard names. As soon as a feeder account unlocks the tome of secrets, I diligently use all my accounts (including the main account) to level it to level 16. Once all wizard accounts have a level 16 tome of secrets, I then funnel all knowledge points to the main account MerlinTheWise. Given that the main account donated a considerable amount of knowledge points to each of the feeders, would this be considered pushing?

 

[SoggyShorts]

@Pheryll
I think once all accounts, including the main acount have received the 1,000s of KP needed to level a ToS to 16, and you completely stop giving anything to the feeder accounts it starts to become pushing(according to me, not necessarily INNO).
It's kinda the exact same as ignoring the ToS idea, and straight pushing KP, but with a delay.

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

Here is a hypothetical (it does not apply at all to me as I have only one account and it is present on two servers).

Suppose I have a main account called MerlinTheWise. I set up feeder accounts with different wizard names. As soon as a feeder account unlocks the tome of secrets, I diligently use all my accounts (including the main account) to level it to level 16. Once all wizard accounts have a level 16 tome of secrets, I then funnel all knowledge points to the main account MerlinTheWise. Given that the main account donated a considerable amount of knowledge points to each of the feeders, would this be considered pushing?

with your example your goal is still pushing, you just thought up an elaborate scheme to hide the truth.

Pushing is simply an unbalanced routine from A-->B. now what is unbalanced? we can argue about that.
But if the most extreme case of an unbalanced routine as I descibed earlier goes unchecked then I wonder what pushing in Innogames eyes is.
Because honously I do not longer know.

If we see months/year worth of KP flow from accounts A till Z flow to account XY in a matter of a few weeks. and thats not considered pushing, then I do no longer know what an "unbalaced" routine is.

 

[SoggyShorts]

This is the first game I've played that even allowed multiple accounts on one server. Really there is no reason for it since there are 7 servers + international ones. In other games I had to notify devs that my wife and I would be using the same IP address.

 

[edeba]

I played a game where people figured out how to automate the game, and the one guy made a business out of it and made enough money from selling game automation to send his kids to expensive private schools.