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Your Elvenar Team
If you read the whole thread you should know that this isn't true.
Cheaters cause players to quit.
Players quitting causes the developers to lose money.
The developers losing money is bad for the game, and since you play the game, that's bad for you.
Also, you won't always be a new player, so eventually you may wish to try and get good prizes from the Fellowship Adventures, where you and your FS are pitted against others, so if cheating is allowed to continue, by the time you get there you'll be completely outclassed.
How is it different for a player to have multiple accounts that put kp into an AW to level it up than it is to have the FS members put kp into a players AW to level it up? Is it not basically the same thing?
If your fellowship members never receive anything in return, and their only purpose in the game is to feed KP to your account, then yes, it's the same thing, but who does that?
It's also a matter of scale: You might have a couple FS members that donate a few KP to your account sometimes.
The players we are talking about are getting 600-900 KP every day.
Behaviorally... no. The player gets visited by all alts minutes apart like alt 1, then 3 minutes later alt2... then 3 minutes later alt3... so on and so forth... Same pattern day after day. But, even if it was multiple people. It's still technically cheating as all these account are consistently pouring kp into only the main account with zero reciprocation.
I'm sure there is a reason why he or she hasn't been banned, though. Is it possible it's not one person? Or that person is hiding tracks by using different ways to log in? It would be hard to ban someone using 1-2 phones, 1-3 ip addresses, etc?
It's certainly puzzling! They and others like them certainly have been reported numerous times.
Even if they're using multiple addresses... a basic investigation would reveal the user is getting all their KP sequentially one user after another... (i.e. in the most efficient manner possible for an alt user) so they're not covering their tracks very well in that regard. Quite simply if you're going to donate 950 kp sustained per day over a time period of 16 days there is no way to cover your tracks. It's blatant and shocking.
I think Inno needs to get the info that this is cheating out into the game and tell players in game that if they are pushing there main account they will be banned.
I just started playing Elvenar in October. I didn't know what "push accounts" were as I was scrolling through the threads, and so it caught my eye. I'm still not totally sure I understand it. But from my perspective as a new player, I don't care.
Soggy hit the points on this better then i could... but I'll just say add... I get it. If i was still in my 2nd month I probably wouldn't care either. Thanks for providing your perspective and welcome to the forums!
It's like a train wreak. You don't want to look, but you just can't help it. That, and you just can't believe anyone is wigging out over stuff in a game when there are far worse things to be concerned about in real life. If I shared a tenth of what was dumped on me yesterday, this might seem like a Big Bang debate between Sheldon and Leonard.
I just started playing Elvenar in October. I didn't know what "push accounts" were as I was scrolling through the threads, and so it caught my eye. I'm still not totally sure I understand it. But from my perspective as a new player, I don't care. It doesn't affect me from what I can tell.
How it affects you depends on what you want from the game, really. If you are a competitive player and hope to attain a high rank either for yourself, or for the Fellowship you belong to, this affects you greatly. This can determine how you play your game.
Certain things--like how far you've scouted on the world map, what buildings you have in your city, what level those buildings are, what your culture level is, what your population is--are tied to your global ranking. Ancient Wonders figure in to this too and the reason is because they don't level up the same way other buildings do. Other buildings that level up do so in chunks...you enter a new chapter on the tech tree and unlock the tech for 'x building upgrade' and you get a set number of upgrades you can do to that building for that chapter. Ancient Wonder leveling depends totally on how much KP you put into them.
Every ten hours, unless you're using the Inspiring Meditation enchantment, you get 10 KP. That's 20 a day naturally. 40 if you're using the enchantment, because it expands your KP bar for 2 days. Dropping 80 KP every two days on one of your AWs doesn't amount to much in the long run, because the rest of your city can't advance, because your KP is going into your AW, and not your tech tree. It's probably not something you'd do often because of that fact. And it's fine, as long as you're only doing it to yourself, or maybe a member of your Fellowship if you have a KP swap agreement.
How is it different for a player to have multiple accounts that put kp into an AW to level it up than it is to have the FS members put kp into a players AW to level it up? Is it not basically the same thing? The end result is the AW gets leveled up faster, right?
It's not the same thing, because those contributions from Fellowship members are never going to equal what a fleet of alt accounts are going to add up to. Say you have three other accounts. Say you develop them as you would your main account. Now say that once they unlock the Ancient Wonders tech you use them to drop a few KP a week on the Golden Abyss or Tome of Secrets in your main city. No real biggie (especially if you continue to develop those other accounts), because over the long haul, it still doesn't amount to much, and neither of those could squish a fly.
It's when you have one player that creates literally dozens of alt accounts for the sole purpose of dumping all of the accumulated KP into their most powerful AW...that's where we have a problem. That's where we're talking about thousands of accumulated KP being dumped into a single AW in an abnormally short span of time, bringing their global ranking up so high that a regular player would never be able to compete. Therein lies the core of the issue these folks have devoted so much time and effort to eradicate.
Basically...the players who pay major dollars on diamonds to fuel their sport pay for the rest of us to play this game for free. This is a fact of every single free-to-play MMO that exists. Some of them get very, very angry and quit, taking their dollars with them. If enough of them leave, this is no longer a lucrative enterprise, and Inno has to change the model; it becomes free to a point, where players eventually have to pay a monthly subscription fee if they want to progress past a certain chapter of the tech tree, or it becomes completely pay-to-play. Then it's a wholly different game, and most of us are gone.
Call it the domino effect, or the trickle-down theory...whatever, it's bad for business. It's rough for a gaming business to recover from such a huge loss of its player base.
Ultimately, for me personally, I don't really care that much because this is just a game, and I am far more concerned about and affected by what happens in my real life. This is in the realm of fantasy (where I am at the moment far more concerned about who survives Infinity War, and, Gods help me, whether or not Rey turns to the Dark Side. I shouldn't, but I do). I'm just one player though, and the amount of money I've spent on diamonds, over all of my accounts since I started playing in March, is less than $50. Each 'account' is a 'character' to me, and I love a couple of them very much, but I could walk away from this game tomorrow and not look back. Some people, however, are quite invested in this game, and it means far more to them than it ever will to me. If Elvenar went boots-up because of some nasty cheats who should be ashamed of themselves and these folks lost what might be the one thing that gives them joy, or an escape, or is the only way they can connect with other people, I would be...very angry. So even though I "don't really care", I am still affected. Weird how things like that work out.
I was going to multi-quote and respond to each person who answered my question. But the truth is I'm tired this morning and just don't have it in me. Sorry to not give individualized attention. It doesn't mean I don't appreciate your response.
I do want to say to all who answered my question, thank you. I now understand why some people are upset and why it is different than what happens in a fellowship or even with a person who has a few alt accounts and plays each of those. I'm currently playing in three worlds with one account. One world I just started my own fellowship in that has yet to progress very far. I am trying to participate in the event in all three worlds. I couldn't imagine anyone creating dozens of accounts and doing that because my mind gets fried by the end. Perhaps if the game developers made it so a city has to show some growth tied to the number of logins it would sort out the pushing issue. I don't know. It's just a thought. At any rate, I hope they get it sorted.
I wrote a ticket and named 3 cheats who operate at least 6 push accounts each. I said, before I take screen shots, let me know what the burden of proof that is required to prove these are push accounts. You tell me what it would take to prove someone has a push account as so far nothing has been done.
I also just now wrote a ticket requesting a refund of all my money that I put into the game, and I also sent an e-mail to INNO requesting the same. INNO does not enforce the rules and are in violation of the TOS agreement.
I suggested using a computer program to identify culprits. This is easy to do. First you select people with high AW points. Then you look at their AWS to look at the contributors. If the contributors are chapter 3 accounts, have been chapter 3 accounts and typically do not have an AW of their own, it is a push. Chapter 3 is where the best tournament scores for maximum KP are made with easy fights and small catering. People who create push accounts know this and create many of them. This week in W-World 15 people in chapter 3 all in the same FS and with the same avatar finished in the top 100. That means they have a lot of provinces opened and have been in chapter 3 for a long time. All their KP goes to the top guy. Why are his push accounts so hard to figure out? You don't even need a computer. Yes INNO, you know who the cheaters are, and you refuse to operate an honest game.
I know people who are boycotting diamond usage and others who have quit over this. If INNO doesn't clean up its act, I will have no issue in joining their ranks.
This is supposed to have been kicked up to the community to be looked at as the low level moderator who get the complaint really can't do anything about it.
So with all that information on the best way to create push accounts, I hope one day all the honest players leave and INNO is left with FS that all have one archmage and 24 chapter 3 accounts. That is where they are headed. Boy, won't that be fun then.
One world I just started my own fellowship in that has yet to progress very far. I am trying to participate in the event in all three worlds. I couldn't imagine anyone creating dozens of accounts and doing that because my mind gets fried by the end.
They don't necessarily do the events in all the alternate worlds... For the most part, they just log in every 10 hours, dump the KP and then move on to the next account. They might do some easy tasks to get some KP but they're not stressing over completing each of the tasks because maximizing the population per square from special event buildings doesn't really generate more KP per hour.
Chapter 3 is where the best tournament scores for maximum KP are made with easy fights and small catering. People who create push accounts know this and create many of them.
That's interesting. I didn't know that someone had done that analysis and determined that. I was curious why some push accounts were in 3 and some were in 2.
This is supposed to have been kicked up to the community to be looked at as the low level moderator who get the complaint really can't do anything about it.
I also just now wrote a ticket requesting a refund of all my money that I put into the game, and I also sent an e-mail to INNO requesting the same. INNO does not enforce the rules and are in violation of the TOS agreement.
Clever! There have been several posts here about how cheaters could sue or become jaded against INNO if they suddenly enforced cheating... Hadn't considered the fact that they're not enforcing the TOS could be considered a breach of that contract.
They don't necessarily do the events in all the alternate worlds... For the most part, they just log in every 10 hours, dump the KP and then move on to the next account. They might do some easy tasks to get some KP but they're not stressing over completing each of the tasks because maximizing the population per square from special event buildings doesn't really generate more KP per hour.
That's interesting. I didn't know that someone had done that analysis and determined that. I was curious why some push accounts were in 3 and some were in 2.
I think you meant kicked up to the developers instead of "community".
Clever! There have been several posts here about how cheaters could sue or become jaded against INNO if they suddenly enforced cheating... Hadn't considered the fact that they're not enforcing the TOS could be considered a breach of that contract.
The elf e-mail said "community" maybe (s)he meant developers. Also according to the TOS if you know of anyone violating the rules you are required to report it.
I think the front-line, volunteer support people are specifically forbidden from doing anything that can't be done by copying and pasting from a pre-defined list of acceptable responses. Unless a complainant refuses to accept those answers, they're never going to get escalated to anyone who can do anything else.
Then those of us who have more than one account are required to report ourselves, since the TOS states
You may only have one Account per game world (one section of the Game). You can login to your account both via the relevant website of the Game or via the App you have downloaded. Using multiple accounts ("Multi-Accounts") within a game world (irrespective whether this is via a downloaded Mobile App or the Games' websites) is prohibited and can be punished with an immediate ban or extraordinary cancellation of the Licensing Agreement. Asserting any claims for damages by you is excluded in such a case.
This is from the InnoGames General Terms and Conditions, not the Game Rules as posted here on the forum. When in conflict, the GTC is supposed to take precedents. So really, the only players who aren't cheating are the ones with only one account, regardless of what the Game Rules here state.
In addition to these GTC, the relevant applicable game rules and game instructions (if applicable) for the Game that are made available via the downloaded App or listed on the website shall apply. In the event of any contradiction between these GTC and the game rules or game instructions, the GTCs shall prevail.
When I sent my first report on a pushing player they asked for the names of the pushers as well, and declined my offer of screenshots.
They also replied to another player that they will not use or even view any document/spreadsheet from an outside source.
My guess is that all they want is names, and that they want to take it from there. Any proof you would be able to provide would have to verified by them anyways, so they'll just do it themselves.
On a positive note(kinda) they do have logs of every action taken-- I had a FS member who didn't get quest credit for finding a spell during a visit, and they were able to tell her that she collected one 3 minutes before accepting the quest, and then collected something else etc etc.
Nah, other than a level 5 MA and BH, she has zero premium buildings (hint: you don't need magic residences or workshops with max level wonders)
Which points out another flaw in inno not enforcing the rules: why buy magic residences when you can just upgrade your GA and MtHall to level 25 instead? Also a level 25 Prosperity tower, Endless excavation, and Tome of secrets make way more supplies than magic workshops, and they're free!
Only when you scout though...the only thing it produces regularly is KP. And honestly, I never notice a supply reward when I do scout. So unless you're scouting 'round the clock this isn't something you can rely upon for supplies.
Then those of us who have more than one account are required to report ourselves, since the TOS states
This is from the InnoGames General Terms and Conditions, not the Game Rules as posted here on the forum. When in conflict, the GTC is supposed to take precedents. So really, the only players who aren't cheating are the ones with only one account, regardless of what the Game Rules here state.
I don't have more than one account. I do play 3 cities in 3 different worlds. I don't see where people have the time. INNO tells people how to cheat in the TOS by creating push accounts and then wink wink, nudge nudge, don't do because we can ban you and everyone is supposed to report rule violations, although I am not sure why at this point as it is only futile to do so. From what I gather either INNO can't or won't take action because of German privacy laws. That keeps popping up in their form letters. So it looks like it is open season for cheating.
A person in our group e-mailed INNO on multiple accounts. The response contradicted the rules. They claimed you could have multiple accounts on the same server as long as there was no pushing. Since we are supposed to turn in cheats, should we submit evidence on the same person daily? weekly? Every time they add KP?
When I sent my first report on a pushing player they asked for the names of the pushers as well, and declined my offer of screenshots.
They also replied to another player that they will not use or even view any document/spreadsheet from an outside source.
My guess is that all they want is names, and that they want to take it from there. Any proof you would be able to provide would have to verified by them anyways, so they'll just do it themselves.
On a positive note(kinda) they do have logs of every action taken-- I had a FS member who didn't get quest credit for finding a spell during a visit, and they were able to tell her that she collected one 3 minutes before accepting the quest, and then collected something else etc etc.
So if they keep that kind of logs then they know every person who is pushing including the sneaky ones that go undetected. Does anyone at INNO own a pair?
Is it okay to post the names of the cheats in the forum and their push accounts? Or will INNO delete them?
INNO should just legalize push accounts and be done with it. They refuse to enforce it. Right now I am attempting to get my money returned because INNO does not enforce the rules. If I fail, I will make a complaint to Paypal and maybe launch a social media campaign against them. Hopefully by going above their heads I can make things roll downhill. There are people who need to lose their jobs at Elvenar. I signed up for an honest game. That is not what I am getting. Shame on you Elf. The worse thing that can happen is I quit the game and get my life back. [EDITED BY XELENIA]
Looks like game devs / mods got a habit to justify their actions by simply saying that they are acting in accordance to German laws.
Well, just so you all know, that is bs.
Regarding this topic: they can say who a cheater is and/or what was done to him/her, the catch is that they can do it only after it's been confirmed that he/she was indeed a cheater.
Obviously none of us can do it, because we lack the authority to confirm that someone is cheating. Even if it's goddamn obvious.
Back to my own thoughts:
Mods are constantly avoiding this topic and leaving important questions without answers, so I wonder what will happen if I will ask them something like this:
"I'm about to create additional multiple accounts (cities) and then use those accounts (cities) to swap Knowledge Points between them and my main account (city) in order to fill Ancient Wonders. Planned ratio is 1 to 20, meaning that I'll be giving my secondary cities 1 point per day and receive 20 points. Can I do that / is that okay?"
They are avoiding explaining what "unbalanced routine resource transfer" stands for under pushing prohibition rule, but I believe they can't leave a ticket unanswered.
Depending on the answer:
1) if it is negative, ratio can be changed until we hit golden spot and can "cheat" with mods approval;
2) if it is positive, ratio can be changed until we reach those sweet 0 kp for 900 kp, maybe that's actually "balanced" amount ;
3) if it is vague (like repeating the rule or something similar), then ticket will be submitted again stating that I already provided all the necessary information to give definitive answer.
While that is amusing you already know they won't paint themselves into a rigid corner. Would you? They are trained to be vague. The only actual rule is that the Dev's can do whatever they want about anything at any time. Everyone that plays any game should understand this going in.
"10. Changes
InnoGames reserves the right to adjust or change the rules at any time. Each rule change will be communicated within the appropriate channels.
11. Miscellaneous
Even in situations that are not clearly covered by the rules, the Support team can proceed with punishment or ban."
So the only valid complaint one can even give is that the appropriate channels are not being used to communicate but they could be vague on that also as we don't know what 'appropriate channels' even means. It could mean to the support staff.
So they can change the rules and as long as they tell anyone anywhere they are covered.
Looks like game devs / mods got a habit to justify their actions by simply saying that they are acting in accordance to German laws.
Well, just so you all know, that is bs.
Regarding this topic: they can say who a cheater is and/or what was done to him/her, the catch is that they can do it only after it's been confirmed that he/she was indeed a cheater.
Obviously none of us can do it, because we lack the authority to confirm that someone is cheating. Even if it's goddamn obvious.
Back to my own thoughts:
Mods are constantly avoiding this topic and leaving important questions without answers, so I wonder what will happen if I will ask them something like this:
"I'm about to create additional multiple accounts (cities) and then use those accounts (cities) to swap Knowledge Points between them and my main account (city) in order to fill Ancient Wonders. Planned ratio is 1 to 20, meaning that I'll be giving my secondary cities 1 point per day and receive 20 points. Can I do that / is that okay?"
They are avoiding explaining what "unbalanced routine resource transfer" stands for under pushing prohibition rule, but I believe they can't leave a ticket unanswered.
Depending on the answer:
1) if it is negative, ratio can be changed until we hit golden spot and can "cheat" with mods approval;
2) if it is positive, ratio can be changed until we reach those sweet 0 kp for 900 kp, maybe that's actually "balanced" amount ;
3) if it is vague (like repeating the rule or something similar), then ticket will be submitted again stating that I already provided all the necessary information to give definitive answer.
I could see if the pushing was questionable and sneaky, like using the extra KP only to finish up an AW so no one ever sees what account is feeding the AW. Only INNO's computer would know. However it is open and rampant and blatant. The people who have push accounts are open about. They don't even bother to deny it in correspondence.
While that is amusing you already know they won't paint themselves into a rigid corner. Would you? They are trained to be vague. The only actual rule is that the Dev's can do whatever they want about anything at any time. Everyone that plays any game should understand this going in.
So far it seems that their training starts and ends with "if you don't know the answer, or if something actually requires some research just say "German laws", in critical cases just close threads and pretend like nothing happened".
That's why question is stupidly simple, and constructed in a way that it requires yes or no as an answer.
Btw, permission basically ensures that I'll be safe, no matter the changes (and I'll be taking screenshots of everything they will answer ).
P.S. Seems like they have fun with closing threads, not giving answers, not enforcing the rules. I'll have some fun as well.
I could see if the pushing was questionable and sneaky, like using the extra KP only to finish up an AW so no one ever sees what account is feeding the AW. Only INNO's computer would know. However it is open and rampant and blatant. The people who have push accounts are open about. They don't even bother to deny it in correspondence.
Oh, my goal isn't to wake up mods up so that they finally can enforce game rules. Already over that.
We all know pushers exist, and that majority of them are pushing their main accounts for a looooooooooooooooooooong time, which already proves that pushers aren't monitored or w/e the proper term is.
Problem is - rule also exists, and mods are avoiding talking about it.
I'm more about legalizing pushing now. SoggyShorts tried asking if it's legal on US server, because I believe someone said that mods actually allowed pushing on another server (but don't quote me on that, lol). That question was left without answer. Of course it was.
I'd be more than happy if few top players would disappear from Elcy, and they qualify as pushers, trust me. But at the same time, I and probably some members from my FS would gladly take the opportunity to make some push accounts...to...ehem, even the odds a little.
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