Fake players on JP01

Salix wrote:

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.

Well, I did not say, I ONLY care about existing players. But I care more of existing players, than of new dump-*****, who are not able to join a game by using a 2FA. Existing players are the basic of every online game. To take care of them is a long term job. And a basic thing, if a game should be a long term success.

Taking these new players on board and accepting the risk of to lose existing players is not a long term thing. This is only something like "the revenue of tomorrow must be higher than the revenue of today"

Sorry, but I always think in long terms. Because it's a basic in my job. And I don't care about a short term downgrade, when I expect a long term upgrade, what will be much more worth than a short revenue.

Salix wrote:

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

Sustaining a game is not as difficult as you make it sound.

I never said, that it is simple, but it doesn't matter if you want to sell bread, a new car or sustaining a browser game.

Fact is, you have to establish a basic of customer. Customer, who talk about the bread, the car or the game to other people...in the most positiv way. If you don't care about your basic customers..you will not succeed.

If you change the taste of your bread, because your hope is to win 2000 new customer, but after 3 month you see, you lost 3000 of your basic...well done.

If you change the engine of your car, because you want to win 500 people from Green-Party, but you lose 1200 other people...well done, go ahead.

If you make some advertise with bonus packages, because you hope to win 100 new players and RN will maybe earn 10000€ more than the month before, but in the end you lose 10 from your basic long-term players and RN makes 500€ less...well done, go ahead.

If you make it as easy as possible to join the game for new players "because they don't want a 2FA" and not only the new players, but also 20 of your basic players leave your game...good job.

This is short-term thinking, nothing else. They think about revenue of tomorrow, maybe of the next week. But not about, what will be in one year, maybe in 3 or maybe 5. Most important thing is to generate more and more revenue tomorrow, next week and maybe next month.

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.

Well, you tell "not possible". Or Korea to be the only country where accounts (ok, I think you might only think about game accounts) link to actual persons.

I am not that sure about this matter. i would very much appreciate, if you could provide a like about the Korean law, as I think it might not only focus on game accounts.

However, why should linking to actual persons not be possible in Europe? The GPDR does not totally disallow the collection of private data, it just disallowes to collect them without asking. Actually you DO collect private data. If TG payment sells gold to us asking for our credit card number, the name on it, or our phone number. Or if you ask us for postcards with our real addresses to send out the prizes, you know our names, each employess who has access to the pinboard of postcards knows those names.

You might even publish them, IF ... yes, if you would ask us to be allowed (but I guess, that question would make some players run).

Also, I often use the example of Linden Labs and their product Second Life, not a Korean company, but a US company. When they started to allow 18+ content on some of their servers, I had to prove my age to get access to those servers (to make my games run on that servers, not to watch naked avatars ..) or when I wanted a "confirmed" account to use the virtual currency exchange, again I had to verify my identity by id card, driving licence or passport.

Even the GDPR allows collecting of private data, allows using them for verifying account access ... as our data security officers tell us, you just have to give a good reason when reporting that data use to authorities.

And I am not sure about adult games. What if your games had 18+ content ... wouldn't you have to do a good, reliable way to get to know the RL age of that customer?

However ... as I see it: there ARE problems, worries, sorrows expressed in the start posts. Your customers here try to suggest things. Answers like "not possible" or "2FA would ..." or "we are not in Korea" ... well, those are arguments, but also stoppers, they stop the ideas.

Yes, there IS the GDPR in Europe. It's a law that disallows the collection and use of private data ... without asking and informing. So, instead of "not possible", why not talk about the law to let the idea grow .... would you customers be ok with giving some proof of your identity, so we can better and easier and simpler check multi account misuse? Would you rather run away or would you stay, because you can be sure about the other avatars have been asked to be unique too?

"Not possible" kills the idea before it can start to grow into a good solution or strategy.

No invention has ever been done by humans, who said "not possible" and went away to forget about an idea.

Resident registration number - Wikipedia

An example of one of the most played games in the world. If you want to play League of Legends on the Korean server you need the RRN for registration.

Thanks for the link, Hilti.

But as I understand wikipedia ... that RRN is not only used by games, but ... "Many South Korean websites require users to submit a valid resident registration number to create an account."

What I am not sure about after reading the wiki page: An RRN is given to residents in Korea, no matter which nation. But how about people wanting to play on a Korean server but living outside the country? Can they get an RRN too?

So, that's a number that creates the idea of creating unique accounts (not only for games) but the downsides of that idea is identity theft, cause once hacked, those hackers can take your (numbered) identity. As I undestand the news from China, they even collect internet activities, not only those connected to any account, and store them together with their social insurance number, with - my perception - is a large step on to totally controlled people.

I understand the suggestions made here as a much smaller id check, just the confirmation that any player just plays only one avatar on a server ... and a 2FA login (like for example a push message to be confirmed on your smartphone) is just one of the ideas here. What we witness in Korea (and China) imho is the bigger thing, where autorities want total control of their residents, while we here are thinking about a company making sure that one person plays one avatar.

Klabbauter wrote:

What I am not sure about after reading the wiki page: An RRN is given to residents in Korea, no matter which nation. But how about people wanting to play on a Korean server but living outside the country? Can they get an RRN too?

No, not in my understanding.

Klabbauter wrote:

well, those are arguments, but also stoppers, they stop the ideas.

I don't really understand the value of discussing ideas that are simply impossible. I know you frequently blame me for saying "not possible", but those two words are the most appropriate words for things that are in fact not possible.

I prefer discussions to lead somewhere. Yes, in terms of "Punishing disruptive behavior" it would be nice to register players social security numbers. But that's not going to happen, no matter how long we discuss about it, because in the current legal situation, this is simply not allowed. It's hard to predict the future of these laws. Maybe this will be possible one day. Maybe privacy laws will get even stricter. Maybe gaming companies will one day legally be required to collect this kind of data (Great Britains released a quite worrying white paper for censoring and controling abusive content on social media social media that might lead to some changes...or will simply exclude British citizens from big parts of the internet).

Klabbauter wrote:

I am not that sure about this matter. i would very much appreciate, if you could provide a like about the Korean law, as I think it might not only focus on game accounts.

I'm not a lawyer, so I can't really provide you the details of Korean law (or any law, for that matter). In this area, I trust the judgement of people who know far better than me.

Klabbauter wrote:

You might even publish them, IF ... yes, if you would ask us to be allowed

Actually not, at least not that easily. With GDPR, sometimes even consent is not enough. I don't fully understand this law, to be honest, but I know that just because a customer agrees to his data being collected this is NOT necessarily enough to actually legally collect this data.

Klabbauter wrote:

But how about people wanting to play on a Korean server but living outside the country? Can they get an RRN too?

Not that I am aware. There is a black market for those RRNs and I assume that would not be the case if you could get those RRN easily/legally.

As interesting as all this is, could we (including me) try to focus a bit more on the topic again?
I think there is a chance to find methods to limit the problem of troll acounts via gameplay changes, which in my opinion is one of the more feasible options in comparison to breaking the law or killing off user acquisition (and therefore the game).

GI_Joe wrote:

Thank you for your message. We will check". Is this an auto reply?

No. But it's the reply we give, because we can't provide specific information about what exactly we did to an account you reported (privacy laws, again).

The problems discussed in this thread are related to the problem that it's difficult to get rid of the disruptive player who is active on the JP server right now.

I see the talk about legislation as irrelevant, some people suggested 2FA which usually requires a phone number and is perfectly legal to collect anywhere, we don't need to go down the rabbit hole to find out where is possible to collect your social security number (or equivalent).

Salix people are losing patience with you because you are so negative, and from all your talk, the feeling we have is you are not really invested in efficiently solving the problem.

people come to play your game to enjoy, relax, have fun, enjoy the challenge, enjoy the trains, meet new friends.

we have enough stress from adult life of work, paying bills, etc... do we need this extreme stress from a hobby?

the issue with the FAKE players/ accounts ( YES, they are FAKE, not the other fancy name you created for them) combined with your negative talk full of `not possible` , `impossible` , `we cant` is enough to test the most patient person who plays this game.

it is not you being bombarded by fake accounts trying to disrupt and ruin the game.

this is why you can easily be so negative, move on, and we are still left with the unsolved issue.

bad, bad idea, business wise.

So, so many applications and websites do require an authentication code given by a cellphone message (requiring registration of one valid phone number) to activate an account. It is perfectly legal.

Why this thought is impossible to you, is beyond my understanding.

★YUKI★ wrote:

It is perfectly legal. Why this thought is impossible to you, is beyond my understanding.

That's not surpring, given that I never said that. You misunderstood what I actually wrote.

2FA is not impossible because it's illegal (it's not), it's dangerous because it would effectively shut down user acquisition. The steady stream of new players that is keeping RN alive would reduce massively and result in the game having to close quite soon. That is the problem. The legal problems we discussed were about social security numbers, not 2FA.

I'm not being negative here, I'm being realistic. And it's simply not a realisic solution to basically kill off the game, just to get rid of a troll. RN shutting down soon is not in your interest either, isn't it? It's in no ones interest.

So why would we implement an idea that does exactly that?

Salix wrote:

No. But it's the reply we give, because we can't provide specific information about what exactly we did to an account you reported (privacy laws, again).

See, what I was talking about when I wrote about "no information"?

That first reply is no information ... just the little that support has the plan to look at it.

If, as a second information you cannot give specific information, just let people know and give unspecific information.

Tell them, that you took action, tell them that you will not specify the action and persons, tell them that the case is finished ... but tell those worrying, enganged and waiting customers something that gives them the information that you are worrying too, that you understand them, that you care.

There is no need for specific, detailled or private information ... but with no second step, no second answer to your customers, they stay in a situation of "no information". And from the business view ... which part of the customers do you want to keep? Those, who are worrying but get no second answer after that copy&paste text? Or those disruptive players who kill the fun of your customers ... no matter how you prefer to call them?

Salix wrote:

I'm not being negative here, I'm being realistic

Truth is not in the words "I am ..."

Truth is, what people read from your words. There are two perceptions here, two thruths. One says you are realistic, the other one says you are negative. Both are truths, opinions, perceptions .... discussions have the big chance to find out which percecpion provides the better arguments and which perception(s) lead(s) to solutions.

Klabbauter wrote:

Tell them, that you took action

That is already not okay.

Salix wrote:

That is already not okay.

If that is not ok then the complaining customers stay angry.

"We took action" does not mean, that you punished the reported players. It just tells that someone was active, investigated.

There is no private data in that message.

Okay, so now everyone should know that on the JP server and on all other servers, people will go through the reports sent by players and will act based on what they find. This may take days.

What is missing is a response from the support that answers to the most burning question: Will something be done (without telling what is being done, how and when)?

Might sound impossible, but based on the comments in this thread - we could review the answers we give so that the answers give at least some peace. The main issue here seems to be the misunderstanding that nothing is done, and that is unfortunate.

What the answer from support can say? We are thankful for the report, we are looking into it and if we find anything - we will act on it. That's pretty much it. We could probably add that due to privacy laws, this is all the information we will give.

Another burning question is how to address the expectations players have? We are not acting in a way that is visible to players, while that is what players want. Action, now.

***

And the other topic mentioned by Salix - How it is always better to find ways in the game mechanics that support playing fair and according to game rules. I hope we could concentrate on this if you have ideas how to achieve this? How to support those who play the game as it is supposed to be played and how to make it fruitless/not worthy to break the rules?

Adding extra identification steps, let's try and move forward from this wish and concentrate on what other options we have?

Samisu wrote:

Adding extra identification steps, let's try and move forward from this wish and concentrate on what other options we have?

Is that really something TG just does not want to use?

With Google Authenticator, players would just have to scan a QR-code with their authenticator app, and you're in.

You can set how many times they need to actually use it to log in.

Thanks, Samisu, that sums up, what we are discussing.

Samisu wrote:

What is missing is a response from the support that answers to the most burning question: Will something be done (without telling what is being done, how and when)?

Might sound impossible, but based on the comments in this thread - we could review the answers we give so that the answers give at least some peace. The main issue here seems to be the misunderstanding that nothing is done, and that is unfortunate.

What the answer from support can say? We are thankful for the report, we are looking into it and if we find anything - we will act on it. That's pretty much it. We could probably add that due to privacy laws, this is all the information we will give.

That is one of the suggestions here.

After that first (sounding like copy&paste) answer, players are left with no further information.

The good side of this is: no problems with GDPR and other lawy, the bad side of that strategy is: the complaing players feel left alone, nobody caring ... plus: they are losing trust in the words of Travian people.

Support has several ways to get over this:

- they can provide a final answer (this case is closed) and even tell they took action without any private data

- there could be something, other games call "police report", which would be an ingame message like "Unfortunately we had to ban 4 players for 48 hours each for disruptive behaviour" ... there is no private data in this, but the complaining players know: something has been done and the disruptive guys know: oh, there are punishments

- there are more ideas in this thread that should be thought about before calling them impossible

Samisu wrote:

Another burning question is how to address the expectations players have? We are not acting in a way that is visible to players, while that is what players want. Action, now.

So true, this IS a burning question.

My personal feelings are: Travian far to often does not continue to answer second questions or backchatting, or if they do, the answer starts with "We can't ..." or contains words like impossible or complicated.

As I see it, players would love to build up trust to the company. Trust also contains trust in "Yes, they can!" or "Wow! They can make it possible!" and "So great, they care about us".

If answers would go into that direction (you, Samisu, have given so great examples for that) of "they can", "they care", "they do what they say", "they are masters in their jobs" .... I think, Travian answers would mach expectations very very well.

Your last paragraph:

Well, that's about rules. Rules are never written in stone. If rules don't have the effect they were expected to create, changing rules should always be thought of. So, I would love to also think about: are the set rules supporting, what the players wish and what creates income for your business.

Changing rules can also be an option. Do not limit yourself by your own rules.

Hey

As i see it U are close to a burning platform, U need to show players U take action - U need to show us some result - for now even me (nomal very patient) is about to think what next, another game (not Travian) or play with troll, but never again buy gold, i hate to pay and then the troll laugh at me.

If this was Real life U would already got a shitstorm but people here is very loyal to the game, show us that you are loyal to your customer.

Cheers Rype

Samisu wrote:

What is missing is a response from the support that answers to the most burning question: Will something be done (without telling what is being done, how and when)?

that's is a very true statement. I asked in the past very often to get a reply on tickets what we did send in. What is done with it, is there something done with it. Was it send to the correct people to investigate, update etc. We were left in the cold.

With the new ticket system the communication has improved a bit but it can a lot better, the communication and information needs to be much more transparant. We still don't know always if there is really something done with our tickets.

Samisu wrote:

What the answer from support can say? We are thankful for the report, we are looking into it and if we find anything - we will act on it. That's pretty much it. We could probably add that due to privacy laws, this is all the information we will give.

Now there is a lot of resistance from TG because of the privacy laws. When there was an issue a few months ago about privacy violations. TG didn't want to recognize it as privacy violation. The person who was violating the rules was even encouraged by TG to continue.

Now suddenly it's not allowed anymore to give a common answer as "We have received your message and look into it. If we find abnormalies we will take the proper actions"?

We all can see if we suspect a multi account and it's reported it will turn black suddenly when a ban is given.