I got tired of watching Vicktorialynn and lambofgo1970 start one after another non-team realtime games and play them as a team.  After I publicly and privately called them out on this and they refused to acknowledge my posts, I took the preemptive measure of joining their games with my own and another username I created.   Surprise, surprise, with my two players against their one, I was able to easily eliminate them.   Gosh, I must be a brilliant risk strategist or fiendishly clever in my exploitation of the alliance concept.  After eliminating them, I terminated the game or surrendered to the remaining other player.   I will humbly accept whatever punishment is merited for my transgressions. 

Alliances are part of the game, so I'm not sure they did anything illegal by wargear's rules,  but playing game after game as a team from the start of the game is, at the very least, poor sportsmanship and outside the intent of the alliance principle.    And, by the way, it is clear from reviewing their games that this is not simply a case of some friends playing together and sub-consciously tending to favor each other.    

Several of us posted to their profiles as warnings to others, but who checks all opponent's profiles before joining a game?  Plus, they could delete those posts.  So, I'm not sure what effective  mechanism we have to warn other players about this.   

>Alliances are part of the game

Yes.

>playing game after game as a team from the start of the game is, at the very least, poor sportsmanship

no this is cheating. 

 

At the bottom of every game there is this text/link:

Are you suspicious of cheating in this game? Click here to report this to an administrator (note in-game alliances are not cheating)

If you click the link you see:

. Please note that in-game alliances (as long as they are not pre-game alliances) are permitted according to the site's rules.

Not the "not pre-game" clause.

Instead of posting in the forum, or even worse succumbing to cheating yourself.  Please just report anyone you suspect of cheating.

I respect your honesty and Ozyman's breakdown is accurate.  You should delete your second account to show that you have forsaken using two accounts.

Mostly Harmless wrote:

Several of us posted to their profiles as warnings to others, but who checks all opponent's profiles before joining a game?  Plus, they could delete those posts.  So, I'm not sure what effective  mechanism we have to warn other players about this.   

I don't check all profiles, but this ended up being useful to me today. I check more frequently in lightning situations. Viktorialynn created one game with and one game without lambofgo1970. The game without lamb had players I recognized, so I figured they wouldn't be teaming and I joined/won. I did not join the lamb game.

Anyway, since pre-formed alliances ARE considered cheating, you and the others are encouraged to use the link at the bottom to report the cheating. The wording "in-game alliances" on the cheat report button means that the alliance was formed in response to something in the game, not some pre-agreed nonsense.

MH, creating a second account to "prove" something, or to retaliate is a breach of the site's rules.

Consider that it could turn out upon closer scrutiny that they haven't been breaking any rules, in which case you're the cheater and you could be banned from the site.

I too respect your honesty in this matter, but you need to use the proper channels that Hugh and Ozyman mentioned, and the game needs be struck from the record.

M57 wrote:

MH, creating a second account to "prove" something, or to retaliate is a breach of the site's rules.

Consider that it could turn out upon closer scrutiny that they haven't been breaking any rules, in which case you're the cheater and you could be banned from the site.

I too respect your honesty in this matter, but you need to use the proper channels that Hugh and Ozyman mentioned, and the game needs be struck from the record.

+1 see underlined above

Yes those two should be looked at, but I'm not so sure MH shouldn't be banned as well.  As was said, that's just as much cheating and throwing off of stats as the other two in question.

Personally, this looks the worst on MH and even if he is allowed to stay I don't know if he can be trusted any longer.

I would hope that MH gets off with a warning as he was using his 2nd account in an analytical way. I agree that he should have used proper channels and perhaps this can be a useful lesson to him.

The point this discussion has reached is absurd.  Some of you (not all, you can self-assess) need to grow a pair or get a life.  Thank God I didn't mention to you schoolmarms the overdue library book in my office.  If this discussion represents the best minds of this gaming community, than do me a favor and ban me before the comments get any sillier as the masochistic side of me can't help but follow this thread.  And while you're at it, throw in a lifetime membership to vickorialynn and lambofgod1970 for finally exposing the likes of me and saving wargear from the cancer I represent.  ("M.H. always seemed like such a nice guy....  Who knew?!"). 

Yea, I realize that by getting in your face it's only going to cause some of you to dig in harder to justify your positions, but that's part of the fun at this point.   Just be careful you don't wield your wit and logic too forcefully or I'll get banned before I can read and appreciate the sting of the verbal spankings. 

p.s.,  In deference to the aforementioned "sanctity of the game stats" (pause for angelic choir sound affect)...  as a courtesy to those I'm currently playing against, you might want to let me finish up those games as I would hate to see my ban actually screw up legitimate games.   Hmm, then again, at this point,  you can't trust me not to purposely screw them up anyway.   That would be my style now, wouldn't it.   Yea, better to just ban me.   The wargear community will thank you and you'll be able to stand a bit taller when you look in the mirror tonight to re-tape the bridge of your glasses.

You have an overdue library book?!?

haha trollolololololol

here is my take on all of this.

m.h. you got mad, and rightfully so. you retaliated by cheating and admitting it.(you got what you got out of it.) i don't want you banned or punished. just ask tom to delete those games and don't retort to those tacticts you chose again. there is a old and rightfull saying that two wrongs do not make a right. maybe instead of writing that off as something our parents just said to us.   .......... we actuaully abide by it. why do we as humans/morons always submit ourselves to beeing over aggressive in what we do.

Mostly Harmless please ask tom to delete those games and in the future just contact him when you suspect cheating.

on a side note this is just a game.   a free one for some, and for others ,well  .............. and obsession. :)

and since i am feeling so outspoken, i would like to revert to one of my favorite sayings.

don't sweat the petty things, pet the sweaty things!

 

Source: The Best of Robert Service (1953)

let us put this thread to waste ,

for it has gotten to much crass.

and all of you can kiss my little @$$

MH - I wasn't calling for your ban. Most of us are just saying one thing: use the link at the bottom of the game to report the cheating. By saying so, we aren't judging you - we're just saying to use that link. The main reason for the link is to prevent the forums from becoming...

If the reports are accurate, viktorialynn was cheating; alliances from move 1 are considered cheating. tom has been good about addressing cheating, so use the link at the bottom!

I've reviewed a bunch of their game and I'm not convinced that they are cheating. The three players clearly know each other but I have reviewed several games where they fight against each other. Their performance is also not consistent with one person managing three accounts as you would expect a far higher win percentage than they are achieving.

As others have said, the correct thing to do is report any suspicions of cheating via the link on the game pages - something that you've not done so far MH. All this sort of action does is create more of a mess to clean up afterwards.

Thingol wrote: I would hope that MH gets off with a warning as he was using his 2nd account in an analytical way.  

That's not true, you can't justify how he was using his second account as he said it was for blatantly attacking a single person or set of people.  MH seems to already see himself as justified for what he did, I'm not convinced that he won't do the same thing the next time or just let it grow to any time he's losing.  

As tom said too, this type of behavior just creates more work for him and doesn't help or solve anything at all.

If MH was actually apologetic or convinced he did something wrong then I could see just brushing it to the side, but I haven't seen that yet. This has nothing to do with me or my ego, it is simply about MH and what he has done.

Anyhow, this is probably going to get out of control, so this will be my last response on this, anyone else can get the last word.

Yertle wrote:

Thingol wrote: I would hope that MH gets off with a warning as he was using his 2nd account in an analytical way.  

That's not true, you can't justify how he was using his second account as he said it was for blatantly attacking a single person or set of people.  MH seems to already see himself as justified for what he did, I'm not convinced that he won't do the same thing the next time or just let it grow to any time he's losing.  

As tom said too, this type of behavior just creates more work for him and doesn't help or solve anything at all.

If MH was actually apologetic or convinced he did something wrong then I could see just brushing it to the side, but I haven't seen that yet. This has nothing to do with me or my ego, it is simply about MH and what he has done.

Anyhow, this is probably going to get out of control, so this will be my last response on this, anyone else can get the last word.

Yert, I think the reason MH created the 2nd account was to confirm his suspicions of these players cheating. Atleast, that's how I interpreted his post.

Thingol wrote:

Yert, I think the reason MH created the 2nd account was to confirm his suspicions of these players cheating. At least, that's how I interpreted his post.

How could his using two accounts prove that they are in collusion? 

It just showed that he could win with two accounts and then

tom wrote:

All this sort of action does is create more of a mess to clean up afterwards.

 

Was it a fog game?

Mostly Harmless wrote:

The point this discussion has reached is absurd.  Some of you (not all, you can self-assess) need to grow a pair or get a life.  Thank God I didn't mention to you schoolmarms the overdue library book in my office.  If this discussion represents the best minds of this gaming community, than do me a favor and ban me before the comments get any sillier as the masochistic side of me can't help but follow this thread.  And while you're at it, throw in a lifetime membership to vickorialynn and lambofgod1970 for finally exposing the likes of me and saving wargear from the cancer I represent.  ("M.H. always seemed like such a nice guy....  Who knew?!"). 

Yea, I realize that by getting in your face it's only going to cause some of you to dig in harder to justify your positions, but that's part of the fun at this point.   Just be careful you don't wield your wit and logic too forcefully or I'll get banned before I can read and appreciate the sting of the verbal spankings. 

p.s.,  In deference to the aforementioned "sanctity of the game stats" (pause for angelic choir sound affect)...  as a courtesy to those I'm currently playing against, you might want to let me finish up those games as I would hate to see my ban actually screw up legitimate games.   Hmm, then again, at this point,  you can't trust me not to purposely screw them up anyway.   That would be my style now, wouldn't it.   Yea, better to just ban me.   The wargear community will thank you and you'll be able to stand a bit taller when you look in the mirror tonight to re-tape the bridge of your glasses.

If you posted to express your anger? Check.

If you posted to shed light on a possible injustice? Check.

If you posted to get feedback? Check.

If you expected to get taken seriously and have people respond accordingly? Check.

Was your last post unnecessary? Also, Check.

If you expected to be able to address a public audience by saying __ person did X (douche action), I responded by doing y (douche action), and not have said public comment or give advice on both behaviors? Reality Check!

Would it be a good idea for you to go back and read all these posts as if they're about someone else, to maybe get some objectivity? Advised.

In non-nerd terms:

Think someone cheated you? Life sucks. Deal with it. If you wanna cheat to get your own back? Whatever! But, don't expect us to be, "oh poor baby." when you act like a little B' instead of a grown man.

Untwist your panties, stop acting like a D-bag, and chill the F' out.

Please.