Sunday, December 19th, 2010
Issue: 60   Editor: McAldarion


COLUMN: Blind and Innocent or... McAldarion
This week, a lot of discussion was going on about several people who have/had been banned for using an auto-reloader. A tool that helps the player ‘play’ the game without this specific person being on his/her computer. Sometimes this is hard to prove, but some of these tools result in things that make it relatively easy to spot potential users. Some of the bans may have caught innocent players, but not all of them were, I am a hundred percent sure of that.

A few things should be explained about the world of bans. Almost no-one on this game will admit he or she cheated, after being banned. Some will rest their case because they know what they did was against the rules, and some will fight even though they know exactly the same. Remarkably, some people seem to think that not having been banned automatically means they did not cheat. This, of course, is bullshit. There are several ways a player can cheat without the system ever knowing, or without the mods ever seeing.

Back to the auto-reloader. As explained before, it is (almost) impossible to catch someone using it directly. CAPTCHA-codes (standing for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) were introduced to avoid people using reloaders. A user has to enter these codes as a computer, or a script normally cannot and this used to be the way for Bootleggers to avoid people using a tool to that makes use of auto-reloading. However, several hacks for this system exist, which resulted in people still being able to use a reloader, meaning they could still do a huge bunch of crimes without actually being on the computer. That is the reason why new CAPTCHA codes were introduced for this round, to make it harder for the scripters.

Apparently, there is a way around the current codes as well. However, the script has problems getting the right code resulting in several attempts where codes are entered wrong, systematically wrong. Not just once, but almost every time the script has to enter a code. Most people banned in the past week found this as a reason. However, most of them also claimed to be innocent. If you are innocent, my tip would be to enter the codes carefully and to make sure that you do not systematically make errors. There should normally be no way you can ever be banned for that reason if you do not enter the codes wrong.

Which brings me to the following; I can understand that some people sometimes enter wrong codes. It happens to me as well, a few times a day. Apparently, some people systematically enter wrong codes, two or three times, every time they enter a code. I think this is completely normal, if you are five. Any normal person in the entire world should be able to enter these codes without any problem at all. Sure, it can be wrong a few times, but I came across someone who did it wrong nine times. Nine times. You have to be a bit of an idiot to enter a code wrong nine times in a row. I would not even get close to that at the age of two.

I also read another interesting thing on a profile of someone who had been banned for this offense, “Spend 2 days online time criming 1200 times, even with the bonus weekend.” Join me on some maths. Assuming this was achieved during the bonus weekend where timers were halved (else, this is effectively admitting cheating) this means the guy did 600 crimes a day. Since you can do 60 crimes an hour, this would take 10 ten hours straight. However, this best-case scenario can obviously never be achieved in practice, as codes needs to be entered as well, and we are human beings, not machines. The guy did this two days in a row. Ask yourself the question, does that make any sense at all?

As with all, there is a negative side to not being able to catch people directly. Innocent people may become victim of this system, and therefore I advise you to always keep track of the things you are doing. Having entered wrong codes on itself should not be the only criterion if the number of codes you entered wrong is limited. If you only do a few crimes an hour, it would not make sense for you to use a reloader. I do not know if these are the things looked at, but they could help in your appeal if you are innocent.

This method is a result of the players who cannot play the game fairly, I think the people who were innocently banned can thoroughly thank all cheaters. For me, opening my eyes works best when having to enter a code. It really is not that hard if you are used to it. In fact, it is very easy. People still making systematic errors after a year of it may have some very bad eyes, some bad typing skills or some bad drinking behaviors. Whatever causes these problems, I think it is preposterously ridiculous.