Having played quite a few games here, I met a lot of cheaters using multiple accounts. I feel very bad about that and I think this is more than annoying. But I don't know what should be done.

Sometimes the cheat is very simple. 1 player will open 2 accounts and they will play together for easy points or more generally in the same games. A couple of times, I wrote private messages to Tom so they could be banned after he would have checked it.

Then I thought that banning them was not the best thing to do, as they can come back so easily, with a much more efficient strategy, using many more accounts. I found easier to put them in my ennemy list. At least I knew them, even if I regret that it's impossible to block a premium member to join a game you are in. But I believe it's rather efficient as usually all these multiple accounts are standard (even if the primary beneficiary is sometimes a premium).

Below are some examples of proven multiple accounts (but there are a lot of unproven ones, some of them are very high in the ranking)

http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/1146/Multiple_account_bans

http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/1257

http://www.wargear.net/forum/showthread/906

Something has to be done.

What are your thoughts ? If you are a cheater, tell us why do you cheat ?

Ban them. 

They may try and come back a time or two, but I would guess that it would get old attempting to cheat on a Risk website in which you really don't get anything (ie no $$$ and it's different than an MMORPG), before long it would become work and I would be surprised if the player stayed around on this type of site if they are working.

I'd also be surprised if there are really "a lot" of cheaters with multiple accounts, and I'm pretty curious as to who (if anyone) is "very high in the ranking" that is cheating.

To be more precise on what I mean by "a lot" I would say I took into account all the accounts used, more than 10. So it's in fact 3 players I'm thinking of, 2 of them in the top 20 (1 even in the top 10 but no longer). I'm going to send you the names and details in a private message so you can look by yourself. I'm not giving them here just to avoid to sully their reputation in case I am wrong.

I'm of the opinion that cheaters are eventually outed.  Toto, just out of curiosity - if you filter the rankings page to show only players who have played 100+ games, are these same people still there?

Only 1 is still there.

Reviewed those you sent me (and replied and copied tom), looks like you may be on the right track for 1-2 of them, only 1 as a possible paranoia on your part .

Toto, there are a few players I'm suspicious of also, 2 of them in the top 20. I'll send you the names, let me know if they match up.

That's it, I am done playing BlackDog and Hugh; those cheating b@$%^.

But really, I agree with Yertle, ban the real cheaters and if they come back ban them again.  Why would anyone want to cheat on a site that is entirely for fun and there is little if any fame associated with being BlackDog, I mean number 1.

It's gotta be frustrating putting all that time and energy into cheating just to get kicked off the site, but I guess someone has to do it.  

But seriously, we simply need to police ourselves.  Most of us have played at least half the players in the top 50 (provided they have played 100+ games). and I think we do a pretty good job taking care of this issue as a community. Really, it's not that hard to spot cheaters, especially given that you can check the history of games AND view all of a suspect player's public games.   Hey, if they can fool us, they can probably be top players without cheating.

Alpha, I haven't played that many games against BlackDog but I have to admit that I'm convinced that Dud cheats  ..but only against me!  But then I guess it's OK; he gave one of my boards a favorable review.

It's funny: I look at the top 20 and there are only about 3 or 4 I don't "know" (one I know from RL, but the rest I feel like I "know" them well enough to be SHOCKED, SHOCKED I SAY, to learn of their cheating.)  The thread has me very curious with all the intrigue. I started looking at the "footprint" of the 3 or 4 I didn't know well, and couldn't find anything, so it's especially fun.

Staying tuned... although I will say I prefer the old school asm straight up accusations complete with the "hard data" posted on the forums for all to see and discuss.

Also agree with Yertle - ban and ban again if they come back. At some point, it can't be worth it.

There are I'd say two that I haven't played a ton of games with that "might" be questionable.  But for real if you're going to accuse people do it in public and present hard facts not just suspicion.  Nearly everyone in the top 20 I've played 30+ games with or more each.

So, since I don't have access to IP addresses, or know all the tricks Tom might have access to in detecting cheats, I should just accuse and possibly be wrong? That seems kind of jerky. Of course, asm is a just a bit of a jerk in RL.

It's easy enough to figure out who might be cheating if you're curious, just glance at the histories. One at least just got pushed out of the top 20, so you might not have checked him. (fyi, talking global ranking top 20, not championship points).

ok, my curiousity is piqued...going to see if i can see anything.

what kind of things are you cuing on? was there something that happened directly with either of you (toto, smoke) in order to go looking into this? i hate to think that you're actually spending time going out to look for these kinds of things.

--------EDIT:

without really knowing what you're keying on (or who), i have no idea how to even start something like this unless i look at game list and try to pick out common opponents that seem to always lose.

I just noticed that kinetix, who was recently kicked out is still listed  as #23 in the global rankings.  Is this an oversight or is it difficult to purge these types of things from the system.  Once a game/tournament is played, it's kind of hard to go back an change outcomes, but it does seem reasonable to filter their name out of any or all rankings lists. 

While I'm thinking about it, I would say that after a player has been booted from WG, when one decides to check their personal information, all trophies and data should be struck.   Right now kinetix is still rated #1 on AstroGear 2210. 

It's gotta be a number crunching nightmare.  It might not even be possible to change it at the AstroGear leaderboard, but certainly kinetix's bio page should be blank but for a message on his wall explaining the situation.

or at least put a big red stamped font across their profile page (similar to the 'draft' watermarks in Word) that says "banned" and in smaller font "whatever reason"...

personally, i think if you've PMd someone for another set of eyes to confirm, and they agree with you, then you post here publicly with supporting linkings for the rest of us to ferret out more info. then we turn the lynching over to tom.

weathertop wrote:

personally, i think if you've PMd someone for another set of eyes to confirm, and they agree with you, then you post here publicly with supporting linkings for the rest of us to ferret out more info. then we turn the lynching over to tom.

Agree.  There's nothing wrong with a public investigation.  I think it's fair to say that if you aren't cheating, you're not going to be proven guilty.   Single incidents are hard to prove, but patterns are generally easy to spot.

I'd be happy to be a guinea pig to prove it.  My brother in real life is Elmer Fudd here on WG so you could start by looking there. Unfortunately, in most games we play on the same team so there's no foul there, but in games where we've played against each other we play for blood.  Certainly any collusion on our part would have to be deeply subconscious and I promise we'll both be in denial about it even as you ban us from WarGear for life. 

so you admit it M57!  Banhammer!

haha j/k 

doot em.

weathertop wrote:

ok, my curiousity is piqued...going to see if i can see anything.

what kind of things are you cuing on? was there something that happened directly with either of you (toto, smoke) in order to go looking into this? i hate to think that you're actually spending time going out to look for these kinds of things.

--------EDIT:

without really knowing what you're keying on (or who), i have no idea how to even start something like this unless i look at game list and try to pick out common opponents that seem to always lose.

Well, I could work ... I'm not actually obsessed--the kinetix banning put me on guard, though. I was in a game with him and an alter when it happened, and suddenly everything became clear.

Take for example, KINSKI and LIONHEART, since it's public anyway -- see the conversation in this game from earlier today, where I was a less than gracious winner: http://www.wargear.net/games/view/52930

I just happened to check on KINSKI because I hadn't played him before, saw how he was high up on the ranking with few games, and figured he must be specializing in some game. Looked at his games list, and noticed he won a lot, and when he lost, he lost to LIONHEART enough to be notable. LIONHEART was also in the game, and checked him -- he showed the same pattern. Then check the join dates, within a month. All cap names. Similarity in logo artwork, kinda. Then looked at a few game histories to see if anything looked off. It did. 

It looked to me like they're family or friends, that's how they play. So I didn't want to just accuse of cheating publicly, when maybe what they need is a stern lecture on going into a game as a team.