Realm 177 cheating

[pooperado]

All attacks on Kargeo on this realm are being blocked in the middle of our war on a player, he suddenly 20 mins ago cannot be spied or attacked when all his army is on the field, its still blocked now. This is a Mackedonian player being deliberately protected and is destroying the game. ITS CHEATING

[Muwe]

If the player has been blocked he is unable to play.
Has he activated Vacation mode?
If not, maybe, he has been blocked for breaking the rules of the game.

[Angela]

There is a problem with the spying of this account and some other accounts in the game, we are familiar with it and we are already working to fix it. The player has capitulated to you and you can't attack him until tomorrow at 21:04. His account can be attacked.

[pooperado]

He wasn't on vacation mode and he hadn't capitulated to me when i was unable to spy or attack him, neither were the other 6 or 7 people who also tried to spy and attack him at the same time, it was being manually blocked by someone in the system it was not a bug, it was a deliberate act to protect this player, and this is the second time it has happened on this realm. Whenever he is being attacked it gets blocked, one of you is protecting him and it is outrageous and it is cheating, you are ripping us all off by not allowing a fair game. Nobody else was unable to be spied, we tried loads. And then miraculously he comes back an hour later and all his army has been restored. YOU ARE RUINING THE GAME FOR EVERYONE BY ALLOWING AND PROMOTING CHEATING.

[Angela]

We didn't find any problems with the attacks upon this account, the player who is having problems attacking him should report for himself so we could check. Sometimes, the espionage screen doesn't load for some time for some accounts, this account is one of them. Sometimes, the account can be spied later. The reason for this is bug in the game. It will be fixed.

[Barbiearian]

Pooperado himself was one of the players who suddenly found he could no longer attack or spy. Along with myself, RyanTW, Somatik, Edmundba, Legantois, Mario1086 that I can remember. There maybe others.

The problem with spying on Kargeo's account not working, has been reported before. If you have big accounts on the server, that 'a bug' stops players being able to spy or attack them, but they themselves do not suffer this problem, then it is not a fair playing field.

We had opportunity to remove his entire army - but without the ability to spy or attack, suddenly enforced on us, we were forced to stop. These are troops he can now use for alliance castles.

How can it be acceptable to have a game where the competitors have this kind of advantage - why are we bothering to pay to play, if this is repeatedly happening.

If you have accounts you know are faulty they should be removed, for the good of the game.

[Muwe]

I wont comment on everything you have said as it has been explained already by Angela.
However I would like to put you in the shoes of the person experiencing that problem:
Lets say that you would be the one to have that bug in your account and with no fault of your own you would be banned or your account removed/deleted/inhibited from playing. Again, with no fault of your own. Would that be then a fair fix?
Why not instead try and fix this so that everyone can play and nobody be affected?
Wouldnt that be better?
And the problem in that account has not happened continuously throughout the era. Poped here and there and fixes have been found and implemented.
If that player is using an exploit to trigger the inability to spy or attack, the support team is already looking into it.
Cheers

[Barbiearian]

Well I hope you feel the same way, and will put yourself in my shoes too, as moderators.

Lets say, you were the person spending real life money, and through no fault of your own, was unable to attack certain players, who were competing against you. Lets imagine, that this might mean the competitiveness of the server is severely compromised. Chances to hit top players do not come along very often, and can make a major difference to which alliance ultimately wins the server. Is this a fair solution - that I, and others are expected to pay money to try and win, and find out that our money is wasted, because of either a bug or an exploit?

Why not compensate the players, or get the bug, which has been ongoing for some time fixed. Wouldn't that be better?

The problem has not been continuous, and indeed has been sporadic, which hints at an exploit.

Its happened - we can't change what is done - but what is needed now is assurance this will not be repeated. If you know there are bugs or exploits that put people at a massive disadvantage against others, but do not declare this to players before they spend their money, then its at best deception, at worst fraud. I want to know that the money I, and others are spending, really is paying for what is reasonably expected. If this is not the case, then suitable recompense will be sought, and I am sure many others will feel the same.

[Muwe]

We dont need to assume. I`m a player and I am spending money in this game.. and worst things have happened to me as player, while I was still moderator here.. I was accused of cheating also.. I was in your shoes and I was in the other players shoes.. All i`m saying is, nobody is protected in IO.. theres no reason for that..
Imagine this: I am working at IO.. I have absolute power over accounts.. Wouldnt I find a much less obvious way to protect a player? Really now.. Would I do it in such way that everyone would start jumping up and down?
And again.. if that player is using exploits, its a matter of time until he gets caught.. sadly people do still look on ways to cheat and take the "easy" way out of something making it so much harder for everyone else to stay patient..

[legantois]

This is the issue you are a player and not an expert

we wish to talk to real experts allowing us to understand some so strange behavior that we have captured , filmed and posted.

And today i am sorry to say that we have no satisfactory answer

nothing personal against you, be assured we all respect you.

But we want real answers

and pls stop speaking of bugs applied to only one player that 20 players could notice and that happens fortunatly for this player at the moment where he should have been completly destroyed.... not at least before having Clearly identified and solve this bug

I hope We both understand each other on this...

And i hope because you are a player like us and you do understand the BIG trouble now spread in the whole community you are going to put some pressure to get all this SOLVED and explained here

and i am repeating myself

Needles to say that answers from support saying 'i do not know what happened but one thing i am sure is that player XYZ is not a CHEATER' is totally absurd and illogical

if Support do not understand what is happening i do not see how they could be 100% sure that this player is not cheating. So do your job and find out

[Muwe]

Never have I said that 'be assured that player XYZ is not a cheater'. I am not a self proclaimed expert either. I did not make that statement. The official answer was provided by Angela.
The support team is looking in to it and WILL find the root cause of this "bug" or bug.


In the spirit of transparency please see also posts from this closed topic:

http://forum.imperiaonline.org/int/index.php?topic=33435.0

[legantois]

Hello Muwe

I was not speaking about your words. And Again what we just want is the truth here. Nothing against you or any Imperia online employee

I received this answer from support (and we are going to publish all answers till we get a final report so that everyone can see them)

Hello there,

I just was in your account and managed to spy the player without problem.
Maybe it was just temporary issue, the player is no hacker, that is clear.
Nevertheless I will send the case to our technical department.

Best regards,
Ivanina, IO Team

They don't have a clue of what is going on but the only thing that is sure is that the player is not a hacker....

We are stronly waiting for another kind of answer from your technical department

And we kindly Ask you TO PUSH with us to get answers. And the whole community with us...

Remove all cheaters from your game, our game... And put the necessary energy/resources/time on this

The probability that this player AND ONLY This player is suddenly prevented from being spied AND attacked right in the middle of the destruction of all his colonies/armies... And this being witnessed/Experienced by ALL the players that do attack him... Until the moment that he is back spending his diamonds to rebuilt what was partially destroyed. This probability of a selective BUG is close to NULL.

[Angela]

The player is not a cheater, he hasn't been deliberately prevented from anything, his account was influenced by a known problem. Spying on this account is possible at the moment. We are working to fix this problem, but until than, it might appear again and also disappear after some time, as the case mentioned by pooperado, when he suddenly came back. As I mentioned before, this is not the only account affected by the problem, and as answered to you, the problem is temporary, the account can be spied at the moment. The player has capitulated to most of the players listed above as the players who were unable to attack this account. The capitulation has been activated almost at the same for these accounts and it certainly seemed the problem appeared from nowhere, nobody couldn't spy and attack the same player starting from the exact same time and the same players were able to spy and attack other player in the realm, all except this one, but it wasn't so. All these players has been informed in their accounts about the reason (capitulation) they couldn't attack this account, they will be able to attack him after the and of the capitulation. Other players in this realm can send attacks now. If there is a player who can't attack him, he has to report for himself and send the message he's been receiving.
Here, the investigation of account Kargeo is finished. Our technical department is taking action on solving the bug and we are expecting to be resolved soon and prevent it from happening again. I apologize for the inconvenience so far and thank you all for your patience.