[LURKERS] Sweet 16: Civ Party Fun Time and Philosophical Debate

[darrelljs]

Could Xenu be Kanye?

Darrell

[Bobchillingworth]

Isn't "Mikehendi" ded-lurking yuri in PB17? It seems odd that someone with a fake account would do that...

Well, I think Yuri is ded-lurking him here, so maybe it's a reciprocal thing and yuri may or may not be aware of who Mike is.

[sunrise089]

Strongly agree with Ichabod. @space - in very surprised you view the right of the smurf to not be detected trumps the rights of the other players to not be misled as well as the rights of the game at large to have its rules respected.

[BRickAstley]

Strongly agree with Ichabod. @space - in very surprised you view the right of the smurf to not be detected trumps the rights of the other players to not be misled as well as the rights of the game at large to have its rules respected.

How does it make sense that players have the right to know when another player is playing under a different account? That doesn't seem right to me at all, I'd definitely argue that if someone wants to make an anon account, then let them be with it and not disturb them doing so.

I would say that yes that players need to not use these accounts to have information they normally wouldn't. Since I can see more than most as an admin i kinda get a sense if anyone is on here on an alt account, and i kinda keep an eye out for that to make sure there's no issues. But here Sullla's post in the lurker thread was made 11 days before the game even started, so I really wouldn't call this trying to break the rules of the game.

[sunrise089]

Is 'don't have anything to do with posting in the lurker thread' not a 'rule of the game?' Do you think the other players would have been just fine with a player not using a smurf making a post in the lurker thread? I'm proud that the culture here, even as it's evolved, still is such that players who merely misclick into threads still post apologies/explanations. Creating a totally separate account, to say nothing of (assuming Scooter is correct) impersonating another member of the expanded community, and then posting as a lurker seems the polar opposite of our culture.

Look, it's not lost on me why a player might want to play under an alt account, nor do I think that any actual gamebreaking advantage was obtained here. I love the idea of a fully anonymous high profile pitboss game, but if that's the game setting it doesn't need to be only enabled in secret by certain players. More so if the lurkers are kept in the dark and even intentionally misled.

One's username on this forum isn't exactly a social security number, but it's not completely arbitrary either. And people joining these games and committing their time have, IMHO, a right to a 'non-bastard' setup (to steal the analogy from ww). Again IMHO the fact that another player or even most lurkers feel players don't deserve to know who their opponents are or that knowing wouldn't change anything doesn't matter, the fact is player X thought he was playing with a certain guy from CFC and not Sullla. Now playing with Sullla is probably largely a good thing, but what if to player X it isn't? By logging in and signing up under a username the poster is making an implicit claim to be that person and not someone else (and I'm not inclined towards claims of 'we should all just assume there may be psuedos out there' when the psuedo in question isn't a Locke-like totally new player but rather a case of online identity theft), and others joined the game in part based on that information.

Obviously I feel strongly about this, and if it was up to me having secret alt accounts would be officially forbidden on this site. But far short of that I suppose I just need to ask any potential future pitboss opponents to sign some sort of honor pledge promising to play under their true identity. It's disappointing to me that I'd need to do that.

tl;dr - I'd actually be fine with a player saying before the game 'I'm the alt-account of another user, and I'm not saying who I am until the game is over' and then letting the other players do as they will. I don't agree though that a desire for secrecy entitles one to mislead the other players outside of the game itself.

[BRickAstley]

Well, I should take back some of what I said. posting under the lurker thread shouldn't be done for any reason, i agree with that, and don't wanna set any precedent of allowing that. My thoughts were more of that I don't see any reason to halt the game or give major sanctions on him right now for it, instead of a reprimand for it here/after the game. Yes it is breaking the rules, but it's not doing so in a way to gain advantage that warrants a major reaction or disturbing gameplay.

And I understand what you're saying about how you feel about alt accounts but I entirely disagree. I guess I don't see how playing under a different name would actually ruin the game for someone.

[sunrise089]

@brick - Agree about no during game sanctions barring no other problematic information, but I don't think anyone is suggesting otherwise. I do think Ichabod as the agreed upon admin has a right to know everything going on though, which is primarily what I was agreeing with above.

I think the only place in your last post you and I disagree is whether it's plausible for a player (or lurker, they count too) to have a game ruined by this sort of behavior. My tendency is to be very skeptical of third parties deciding what's important to someone else. I don't think I'm known for flaming or abusing people on this site, but there are a few members I'd not opt to play a WW game with right now. If one of them joined a game I was in under an alt account I'd have a worse time, maybe during the game, maybe only on reflection afterwords. Whether I'd be acting fairly is another question, but to me the deceptive identity would matter.

[retep]

I see it like this.

Play as a new player : Cool, you try that your reputation don't get on your way.
Identity theft: You actually take other person reputation to mislead the other players. Not cool.

[Jowy]

Wait, Bob isn't just fucking with us? :P

Strongly agree with Ichabod. @space - in very surprised you view the right of the smurf to not be detected trumps the rights of the other players to not be misled as well as the rights of the game at large to have its rules respected.

How does it make sense that players have the right to know when another player is playing under a different account? That doesn't seem right to me at all, I'd definitely argue that if someone wants to make an anon account, then let them be with it and not disturb them doing so.

Skill differences can make or break a game. Take PB12 for an example. That game was a dud because Serdoa absolutely destroyed everyone. We can't blame him of course. If wanted to, we could have said he's too experienced to play with us (since it was described as a "mid skill level game" when recruiting players). The game would have been way more exciting and interesting without a clear dominant winner from the beginning. Now PB16 is a slightly different matter because it wasn't advertised as a mid or low skill game afaik, but that's how it ended up, and how it was by the time Mikehendi was joining up. The original line-up didn't have Krill/Seven or Gaspar/NH teams, so it was all greens (inb4 Speaker is Goreripper). I think it would have been fair that the players know who they are playing with and what they are signing up for. If I was setting up another game that aims to be balanced and for non-experts, I would be absolutely livid if someone super experienced set up an anonymous account to get into the game and then blew everyone out of the water. In games like this one, it's more acceptable, but still would have been far more respectful to just play with your own account and offer everyone else the same information they offer you when signing up for a 6-12 month game. It's not just about skill levels either, could be other things that would make people not want to play with you, such as previous rage quits and other bad behavior. We might not see many, if any, drop outs due to these things, but the players deserve a CHANCE to do it. Just my two cents.

[BRickAstley]

Identity theft: You actually take other person reputation to mislead the other players. Not cool.

Keep in mind that there's no evidence that actual identity theft is going on, it's just speculation that it might have happened, and that it isn't the case that mikehendi isn't a sullla alt on CFC too. Not saying you think it is retep, but it feels like some people are taking that to be the truth or what happened.