Fake players on JP01

    Salix :

    I just want to ask, if I understood you correctly. Perhaps the 15-20 players are only newbies who just started a new game to see what it is about? And accidentally, because they are new at RN they don't know what to do with the "start-up" vouchers and money and they simply invest everything in "our" factories? Well, to be honest, I do not believe in easter bunny or santa claus any more.


    I will ask my team mates to comment on this as well and we will see, if they want to comment this too.

    GI_Joe What I wrote was more about this problem in general, not every (or this) specific case. There are of course cases that are plainly obvious. But ideally we would also like to have solutions for situations that are less obvious or, best case, simply prevent those obvious cases instead of reacting to them.

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    Salix wrote:

    To be honest I never thought about this option. What negative and positive outcomes would you expect?

    Negative result would be the same as the release of doping. Everyone has to do it if he or his team wants to win. At least everyone will think so and then you have a self-fulfilling prophecy. And the honest players who don't want to play more than one account would leave the game.

    The case is about THIS obvious misuse of new created fake accounts not about generally dumb noobs. So please take immediate actions as no one can believe that 20+ new players appear in ONE specific city just to see what can be done with game money.

    You as support should not fool people who pay and Play.

    Who says we didn't take action or won't take action?


    I can not comment on decisions about individual cases, so I don't. That doesn't necessarily mean we don't do anything.

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    You can, for example, take a screenshot of those players you would like to report and send the images to the Japanese game support or to admin@railnation.jp / support@railnation.jp

    To avoid writing in Japanese, you are welcome to join any of the other domains and servers where you can use your own language if that helps (in the future)?


    Forum is not a tool the game support uses, and no one here on COM forum has access to Japanese game servers (only to COM/US/M1/TR). You can send messages to the support from the game server where you play.

    Salix wrote:

    Who says we didn't take action or won't take action?

    Nobody definitely tells that.


    The problem is, that if people do not see any results, if they witness trolling and don't see that stopped, if they witness multis and see them again tommorow, see them on Tuesday and next week too ... what do they think? You cannot stop people, players, customers from thinking. And without information, thinking will be guessing.


    Problem is, you cannot tell details. Privacy laws are clear, they do not allow you to tell detailled results. However, if you tell nothing at all, that means, there is no information at all for those whose fun is spoiled, who acted to help you, who are angry, who feel bestrayed by other, wrongdoing, players ...


    And those, who DO wrong, who spoil fun ... they feel safe to continue. You may ban them for a day, for a week ... do they care? If they really want to spoil our fun, they will be back tomorrow with a different mail ... the wrongdoers WILL return, only a family father who confessed that he knows the password of his daughter ... that one will not return after his ban.


    Well ... the words "We take action" ... are just words. Many will believe in them, but those who have never witnessed results, will start to doubt. Your words "We take action" are true, or maybe they are true. But with no information there is no way to emphasize trust in your words and to delete doubts.


    First step could be to send out a message on the game world like "Today we had to ban 5 players for 48 hours each. Please do not spoil the fun of the players ... we don't enjoy sending out news like this one."

    Homo forensis, der gemeine Forenuser ... eine erstaunliche Spezies.

    Salix wrote:

    d) About Two Factor Authentication: While 2FA is probably the gold (ar at least silver) standard in terms of account security, there is a huge downside to it: Most people don't want to do it. You will find very few free games that use mandatory 2FA, because this simply stops players from registering at all. When people just want to test a game quickly, the last thing they want to do is to provide their phone number or anything like that. So instead of doing that, they just leave again. It would essentially mean that we wouldn't just prevent fake accounts, we would mostly prevent new accounts in general. It probably sounds a bit overly dramatic to say it like this, but: This would mean a quite quick end for Rail Nation.

    Tell you what...I don't give a damn, if "most people don't want to do it".


    I care about the people who are already here. Because they are the ones, who give you money. They are the ones, who make suggestions in your forum, who are interested in developing the game and eerything else...not those idiots, who are not able to count 1 and 1 together.


    You guys at RN think in a very, very short way.

    Tell me, please, what's the profit, if 10 people stir up a whole server and not one remains ... but for 3 regulars disappear forever from the game? What did you win then?

    Well, you would have introduced the 2FA ... because the regular customers would certainly understand for such a measure ... and who has no understanding of it .. you can forget them all.


    And yeah..it is, what it is. If you are interested, you have to give RN your phone number...thats it. You don't want to ?? Ok, move on, play another game.

    Really..every time I read statements like that, it drives me crazy, because it's stupid...and it is a smash into the face for every regular customer/player.

    Klabbauter wrote:

    However, if you tell nothing at all

    I am here, ain't I? I am here and told you things. And I am here for a reason. As you pointed out correctly, I can't tell you what exactly did in this particular case, but you are a smart person, draw your conclusions.

    Klabbauter wrote:

    And those, who DO wrong, who spoil fun ... they feel safe to continue. You may ban them for a day, for a week ... do they care? If they really want to spoil our fun, they will be back tomorrow with a different mail

    That's correct. That's the essence of the problem of disruptive behavior in online gaming....with the exception of South Korea, where privacy laws are not really a thing and game accounts are linked to your social security number, which means you can be banned as a person. In all other countries, this is not possible.

    Gaming companies can ban accounts. Players can create accounts. That's the problem.

    Streitaxt wrote:

    I care about the people who are already here.

    Good, so do I. I am pretty sure the people who are already here have an interest in RN continuing to exist. If they don't, sure, then user acquision is something they don't need to care about. But for everyone who wants to continue playing RN, user acquisition is something to care about.

    Streitaxt wrote:

    You guys at RN think in a very, very short way.

    I dare to disagree. If you think that only currently existing players are important for RN, then it's you who thinks "in a very, very short way". This is not a sustainable business practice. If we wouldn't care about user acquisition, RN would have been gone years ago.

    Streitaxt wrote:

    every time I read statements like that, it drives me crazy, because it's stupid

    It's not stupid. Sustaining a game is just not as simple as you make it sound.

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    Salix wrote:

    I am here, ain't I? I am here and told you things. And I am here for a reason. As you pointed out correctly, I can't tell you what exactly did in this particular case, but you are a smart person, draw your conclusions.

    Yes, you are here. Very much appreciated.

    However, the problem is not that players over and over start threads like this one, because they FEEL to be left alone without reaction. My thought were about changing that feeling. ... by suggesting several ideas, like the proactive ingame messages "Today we had to ban 5 avatars ...." for example.


    Customers do not buy or deny a purchase, because of someone telling them "We do something", they decide about their money mostly based on their feelings ... that is, why my ideas go into proactive action.

    Plus: conclusions that I can do, do not matter. Especially they do not matter for our Japanese friends. When they write about their feelings ... the way to keep them is to strengthen their trust in your company.


    Salix wrote:

    Gaming companies can ban accounts. Players can create accounts. That's the problem.

    You may see that as a problem or THE problem. But it's also a chance for companies to grow.


    Also, let us forget about political metaphors like talking about Korea. I was just asked to delete a political metaphor from my profile pinboard, and of course I did. Let us talk about company customer relationship and how to improve quality, trust and sales.


    Salix wrote:

    It's not stupid. Sustaining a game is just not as simple as you make it sound.

    Hehe, how about the KISS strategy? Keep it simple, stupid!

    Sustaining any software, especialle fun software, is not THAT complicated, it's just the job, some of us picked... and it can be a lot of fun.

    If you keep it simple.

    Homo forensis, der gemeine Forenuser ... eine erstaunliche Spezies.

    Klabbauter wrote:

    Also, let us forget about political metaphors like talking about Korea

    This is not a metaphor, it's a fact and it's relevant for this discussion. What is needed to actually exclude disruptive players from a game reliably is to link accounts to actual persons. And this is not possible, except in Korea where this is actually done.

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    Salix wrote:

    This is not a metaphor, it's a fact and it's relevant for this discussion. What is needed to actually exclude disruptive players from a game reliably is to link accounts to actual persons. And this is not possible, except in Korea where this is actually done.

    why is not possible?

    brilliant idea!!

    Klabbauter wrote:

    Also, let us forget about political metaphors like talking about Korea. I was just asked to delete a political metaphor from my profile pinboard, and of course I did. Let us talk about company customer relationship and how to improve quality, trust and sales.


    On top of the reply that Saliz has already given you, it wasn't a political metaphor, he referred to South Korea, the North is the authoritarian country lead by Kim Jong-un, the South is the Republic of Korea, the place with the fastest internet connections in the world where online gaming and esports are extremely popular, so much so that you have television channels streaming games and gaming programs all day and you can make a living out of gaming, not a living as in your 9to5, top Starcraft or League of Legends players are the equivalent of top football players this side of the world.


    When BoxeR retired from the egaming circuit to go in the army, the Korean army (air force?) created an army esport team for him.


    Considering the above, your account means a lot in Korea, which also means that hacking attempts are common and for that reason, to prevent abuse, accounts have been linked to personal information.


    From a privacy perspective I'm not a big fan of 2FA, however, from a business perspective could be an interesting proposal, Travian is probably interested first and foremost in paying players which go through the authentication anyway when they deposit, hence an actual authentication would probably be an additional hassle only for non paying customers and cheaters.

    Salix wrote:

    Yes, but you are an experienced players, you can compensate with skill and knowledge. A new player is simply frustrated. And even if "a few days" is 2 weeks...that still means that over 80% of the time you can't join a server comfortably.


    I can't share this data, but you are asking exactly the right kind of questions.


    Yeah, that's a very good point. I don't know, to be honest. Do you think reducing the money and increasing vouchers (for example train vouchers, since you can't buy trains if you don't have money) would help? Do you see any downsides about this?

    My very first game I picked a half way gone classic scenario, I sucked, learned the lesson and then joined a server from the beginning. I joined a game, realised that I messed up and at the end joined the same game from the beginning, but I can appreciate that people these days get frustrated easily and give up.


    Glad we can agree on the scope of this exercise.


    Money can still be made through vouchers, one can buy engines and resell them. Give vouchers that can't be monetised or maybe give them a timed discount for certain items, say a 40% discount on engines for the first 24 hours, or something similar, as long as they pay more than the price the engine can be resold to and the offer can't be abused.

    Currently playing on:

    M1.201 Scandinavia

    Salix wrote:

    That's correct. That's the essence of the problem of disruptive behavior in online gaming....with the exception of South Korea, where privacy laws are not really a thing and game accounts are linked to your social security number, which means you can be banned as a person. In all other countries, this is not possible.


    Gaming companies can ban accounts. Players can create accounts. That's the problem.

    you could at least eliminate all the actions done in the game (investments) from banned fake accounts

    sorry for bad english