Twilight Forums

As mentioned on the front page of the game, the recent chips bug either led certain people to temptation, or caused me to be aware of a number of people who were already giving into the temptation of multi abuse, and I wanted to talk about it for a bit, so I can either understand issues that need to be fixed, or--more likely--explain to people why what they're doing is cheating.

First, a fundamental principle of the game is that certain resources are limited. Time is the obvious one, but that's modified by other limited options, like caffeine consumption, and that then affects the amount of money and items you can get, and the amount of progress you can make in a given day.

The ultimate benefit of this system is that it allows a certain amount of fairness to the game -- anybody who plays is given roughly the same opportunities as anyone else, and as long as you can spare 10 minutes or half an hour or whatever daily, you both ought to be able to compete fairly well, whether we're talking about leveling up, or collecting items, or holding a leaderboard spot, or whatever.

So, then, anything with circumvents these intentional rules of the game is, frankly, cheating. The most obvious way to try to break these limitations is by having more characters who then contribute to each other or funnel all the resources into just one character. I want to be clear here that it's perfectly okay to have two, three, or forty different characters, as long as they're doing their own thing. Each character has the same limitations as every other character, so that's still fair. What isn't fair is when one or more of these characters sends items to other characters.

Here's an example. Say that someone can't afford to donate but really wants the item of the month. In an ideal world, if you do nothing but farm for chips/valuable items, by the end of the month you ought to have enough cash to buy yourself the donation item. Some rough calculations by some of the players suggest that one farmer should be able to make maybe 600k chips per month. If there's a lot of demand for the item (which seems to apply right now--the game is small and there aren't many extras), the farmer might be competing with many other players for the item, but each of them--assuming equal footing--will also be able to pay about the same amount. If the items are limited, it might go to the player who's a slightly better farmer, or who saved up some money from a previous month, or whatever.

Now imagine that there's a player out there with five characters, all of them farming and pooling their resources. This player can earn 3 million chips in a month. This player has a huge advantage when it comes to donation items: they would end up fighting with other buyers if they tried to buy five items for 600k apiece, but they can easily bid 700k for four items and have chips left over. This means they're getting FOUR items of the month at a price where other players can't afford any. Even worse, they've established the price for these items at 700k, beyond the reach of any other farmer, meaning that a player with one character has to farm and month and a half to get an item, or some months just doesn't get any at all. And that's simply unfair.

There's a lot more to is than that, of course. Since the game is still small, even a few multi abusers can really mess with the prices of just about everything. They can also use the cash from one character to pay for another character's leaderboard spot by allowing them to spend all their turns at the VR center, for instance.

Weirdly, when I've talked to a few players about it, I've gotten some strange responses. Most basically came down to "I wanted stuff," but here are some (anonymous) examples, with my rebuttal.

1) I was just doing it to collect X of item Y. I was going to stop after that.

Okay, so you wanted a bunch of stuff, and didn't want to take the time that would normally be required to get it. That's tough: it doesn't justify cheating. If you're going for anything that is a point of pride (and a collection surely is), you can only be validly proud if you did it yourself. If you collect a million baseball bats but it takes five multis to do it, you've got to know that someone with 200,001 baseball bats on a single character has done better than you have, so the million is pretty meaningless.


2) If I spent time farming my own chips, I'd fall off of X leaderboard because I wouldn't have enough time pursuing the leaderboard.

Besides the fact that there are a number of ways to earn chips outside of strict farming, if you can't make the leaderboard on your own, you simply don't deserve to be there. Or, put the other way, if everyone else multi abused, the leaderboard would be meaningless, because everyone could have exactly identical points totals because they'd all be doing the same thing. The meaning of the leaderboard comes from having to strategize.

3) I've got four characters, one of each class, and I like to think of them as a team.

In theory having a team is a great idea. I like teamwork. I wish there were more of it in Twilight, and eventually I'll try to address that through clans and such. However, Twilight is essentially a one-player game, and for all the reasons listed above, combining funds from multiple accounts gives you an unfair advantage. Am I going to delete an account for sending an occasional buff toward one of the others? Probably not, but I'll tell you to knock it off if I see it. On the other hand, if you're passing enough money to buy a silver star back and forth, that's clearly taking an advantage that most other players don't have.


4) I only did it because Brays are so valuable. Everyone else will, too. If you don't want multi abusers, you should make it so that everyone can get lots of Brays.

Let's think about that for a minute. First, let's imagine that Brays are plentiful and cheap. They're in the coffee shop for 50 chips apiece. They're also the best caffeine in the game. So, what's going to happen? Everyone will drink a Bray every time, because anything else would be stupid. In other words, I might as well just give everyone an extra 3.5 hours per day and completely trash the caffeine mechanic, because it has ceased to be interesting in any way. The best drink in the game has to be rare to make it interesting, otherwise it destroys an entire mechanic. Maybe you're okay with that, but I'm not.


5) I didn't know.
Uh, it's on the policies page. It's the second rule, so it should be nearly impossible to miss. You agreed to them when you signed up. It says no interaction at all between characters. That's clean, clear, and simple.


Are there any valid reasons for what might look like multi abuse? I think there's possibly one, under the right circumstances:

1) I was doing some spading and tossed some money and items around as part of it.

This, if done right, is potentially okay. However, fairness is still the important part. If your spading absolutely requires resources that one character doesn't have, or requires the interaction of characters, that's okay, as long as in the end neither character benefits unfairly. Thus, to do it right, if you send money or items to a character, you should send the same amount back immediately when you're done. Ideally you'd even include a note to yourself saying "for spading purposes" and "returning" so that I can see what's going on. (Note that the note or lack of note doesn't break the deal -- sending chips and not sending it back is an issue whether or not there's a note.)

Updated with actual information.

I also think that a clear set of rules are needed for multi abuse so that everyone is clear on what it is. I understand the need to keep it vague so that you can handle new/weird situations you didn't anticipate but a few examples of what clearly is, and clearly isn't abuse would be helpful.

There's a VERY clear rule in Twilight. No interaction between characters that you own. Maybe it's harsh, but it's simply not necessary. And if you argue it *is* necessary, then that clearly means you're getting an advantage from it that you shouldn't, which means it's abusive. KoL keeps it vague because they like it that way. I'm saying flat-out no interaction between yourself and yourself. That can't possibly be confusing.

Updated with actual information.

I also think that a clear set of rules are needed for multi abuse so that everyone is clear on what it is. I understand the need to keep it vague so that you can handle new/weird situations you didn't anticipate but a few examples of what clearly is, and clearly isn't abuse would be helpful.

There's a VERY clear rule in Twilight. No interaction between characters that you own. Maybe it's harsh, but it's simply not necessary. And if you argue it *is* necessary, then that clearly means you're getting an advantage from it that you shouldn't, which means it's abusive. KoL keeps it vague because they like it that way. I'm saying flat-out no interaction between yourself and yourself. That can't possibly be confusing.

Multi abuse is something that can be unintentional, especially for new players, and only concerted abuse should be punished without warning.

I agree. Thus far the only players who have been punished have been around for weeks or months, have at minimum four or five multis, and have been passing around more than 100k chips. We're not talking small-time abusers, here. A few players who were passing around smaller amounts were reminded of the rule and asked to stop.

Multi abuse is like snowflakes, it's never the same.

Wait, no.

Multi abuse is like a box of chocolates- you never know wh-

No, that's not it either. Eh, forget I ever said anything.

I multi-abused the hell out of KoL, but I voewd not to do so again.

I made a multi for Psion, but didn't like it that much, so he is now neglected. Aw, poor fella.

Currently, you can't delete accounts, and probably never will be able to.

But why delete them? There is certainly no problem with playing more than one account as long as you don't let them interact.

I don't want players to be able to delete accounts, for two reasons:

1) Someone will inevitably delete one they didn't want to, and I don't want to spend the time cleaning it up

2) It would allow password-guessers and other hackers to not only steal all your stuff, but also destroy your account if they get in. That's just bad.

If you don't want to keep the account, just change the password to something random, and you'll never be able to log in.

But it's also perfectly fine to have multis just to mess around on, or try different classes, or explore different hobbies. Just don't exchange items or chips, and it's fine.

Hi there!
I’m a bit new here and so far I like what I see! I can tell that this game is the product of endless hours of hard work, followed by inspiration, followed by more hard work! Mind you, there seems to be an overall concern about attracting new people to the game, and, if I can ask for a moment of your time, I’d like to help. I believe, in taking up the aforementioned topic, that it might be good for the game and the community to revisit this. Of course there need not be anything as drastic as a complete revision, but perhaps a minor modification would not only not be as bad as had been feared, but will be beneficial for the game as a whole. Also, the first sentence of the original post does indeed express a desire to “understand issues”. So tally ho!

1) The example given illustrates the danger of a group of people hard-core farming with five accounts, all month, every month, destroying the economy as it exists. My first question is: Does this really happen? Have there been many problems with such epic multi-farming in the past?
If so, does it happen in such a pandemic proportion that the current Trade-Nothing-Ever policy is the only thing preventing economic collapse by a great hoard of obsessive-compulsive farmers? Even if this is so, wouldn’t this be easily detectable and best handled on a case-by-case basis? The question is hypothetical, but the policy is real, so, might it be considered that if such a problem does not and has not existed, might this possibly allow some leeway in the future?

2) The next problem suggested that such multi-farming would immorally propel someone onto a leaderboard. This line of thought is open to the same questions as above. Wouldn’t the kind of true multi-abuse that would be required to not only beat but shatter the current impressive records be easily detectable since the abuser would be advertising themselves? Again do we truly see a need for the whole to be punished for the abuse of a few?

The stories collected from actual players are quite interesting, but I believe that #3 might hold the most intriguing point of discussion: That is, the case of a player who simply wishes to experience the whole myriad of options that this game has to offer, and to do it in a way that threatens no one, and who “cares” about each account used.
Isn’t this the best case scenario for the game? If someone forms a “team” of 2-4 accounts and trades _moderately_ between them, when they inevitably purchase an IOTM, they will be tempted to get one for EACH of their accounts! “If one IOTM is good,” this person will think, “are not more better?” If this person simply enjoys managing their team, is on no leaderboards and bothers no one, and pays cash for each IOTM, isn’t that good for the future of the game to have someone so devoted? Can TPTB truly say that a minor amount of moderate trading between accounts would not be worth a sale of an extra 4, or 8, or 40, or 80 IOTM per month? If such a person is so obvious in their enjoyment and devotion to the game to have the passion to manage several accounts, might not this person develop loyalty? Might they even, after seeing the success of their growing “team” be motivated to advertise such a wondrous game to others? How is this bad?
(And, no, this isn’t hypothetical. I have multiple accounts in another game, and each of them has been enriched. I am on no leaderboards, and the devs have over $100 of my money. One might call that symbiotic.)
To use this opportunity wouldn’t even require a firm definition of “multi-abuse”. KOL currently has something akin to the legal definition of pornography, which is, roughly, “I can’t define it but I’ll know it when I see it!” Your policy states that this sort of thing is monitored. Okay, monitor it. If one account trades a digital rapier to another, that is hardly worthy of notice. But if they trade 1000 rapiers, might not the wise Powers That Be have enough astuteness to tell the difference?

Another post talks about “new players,” some of which were egregious, and were punished, and others were “reminded to stop.” Doesn’t this example prove that judicious monitoring is effective? Here we have very good evidence that anything outside the realm of “reasonable” can be caught and punished. So why fear it? Why prevent all activity of a certain nature when you have already proved yourself capable of catching and meting out justice to the most egregious offenders?

But we don’t need to talk about the abusers. We do need talk about the new people that were “reminded to stop”.

Are they still around?

And this, really, is the point that I’m getting to. In this example the broad net of the current policy caught some small fish and gave them a talking to for enjoying a game with self-monitored moderation, and told them that the manner in which they were enjoying the game was bad, and needed to cease, lest punishment follow. No one likes to be yelled at, and less so for doing something that harms no one. If all these new people stopped playing, turned away from the game with hurt and resentment into the fast-flowing stream of entertainment that exists outside this game, does that make it worth it? For a game that thirsts for new people, could it be reasonably said that this policy might, possibly, be more hurtful than helpful?
Of course the retort to this is: “But what they were doing is immoral! We need to stop all action that goes against healthy societal norms!”
Alright, let’s see what society has been doing.
I don’t think anyone would say that Blizzard has a failing business model. Yet with the genre-defining RPG monoliths of Diablo and WoW they not only don’t discourage multi-account trading, they encourage it. Using the mountains of fan requests after Diablo 2, both games now make use of a ‘common chest’ wherein equipment between characters can easily be swapped. Today the population at large is used to this option and simply believes that if one item held by one character would work better on another character, it is normal to make the trade. For this game to go against that might be to swim against the tide.

And that, essentially, is what I’m proposing here—that we turn a negative into a positive.

*sigh*
Obviously I’m not doing this just to troll. If that were the case I’d just let out a “dis game is teh SUX!!1!” and have done. But I’m not, because I honestly think that there is more gain than loss for this worthy game and the developers.
This won’t be the last word. Of course there may be some debate. There may even be other ideas that have sounds like “trading license” or “processing fees” or “trial period”. That’s fine, and there’s a place for that, so tally ho!

Hi atlas2112, welcome aboard

Keep in mind this thread is from 2008 and that I took over as developer in 2011. As it's 2013 now, there's a lot more experience under our collective belts.

In the nearly two years I've been developer, I remember banning a grand total one person for multi-abuse and they really, really deserved it. Other than that, I've had to clarify a few things for people, but don't recall issuing any warnings.

So, in short, the problems you're expecting to see with the system aren't occuring. The game itself warns people who aren't aware of the policy. And, if people flagrantly bypass the policy, I would have to bring the hammer down in any case.

That said, I think registering multiple accounts to gain an in-game advantage is completely against the spirit of the game and am extremely unlikely to budge on the topic. If the game were intended to reward people based on the amount of real-world time they could devote, rather than how they use limited resources, it would just let you pour as much time as you wanted into the game.

Cheers!
Kinak

atlas2112 wrote: I don’t think anyone would say that Blizzard has a failing business model. Yet with the genre-defining RPG monoliths of Diablo and WoW they not only don’t discourage multi-account trading, they encourage it. Using the mountains of fan requests after Diablo 2, both games now make use of a ‘common chest’ wherein equipment between characters can easily be swapped.

Two quick points about this specific part of your post:
1. Both of your example games require you to pay for the game, while TH is entirely free unless you choose to donate. If we charged a subscription fee or made you pony up $60 just to get in the proverbial door, then players would be well within their rights to demand the ability to trade between characters.
---1a. I haven't played Diablo 2 yet, but I know that in World of Warcraft you are limited to only sending items and gold between characters on the same realm. So even there the ability to trade items is limited.
2. When you do choose to donate and purchase an Item of the Month from the Wok, that item can be freely traded between your accounts because you spent real money on it. Excluding the items that grant a skill or sidekick, obviously, since they are consumed on usage.

RKBrumbelow wrote:The only things that get shared other than a league are my IOTM (that I paid cash for) and while the warnings are annoying (it would be nice to not flag iotm) they are a reminder that you 'gotta keep em separated'.

That, I might actually be able to do. Most, but not all, of the IotM's are flagged. I suppose all the ones you'd want to pass around would be.

I'll look into that tomorrow if I get a chance.

Edit: Anything that's flagged as "Item cannot be worn in runs with a 'no pulls' restriction" should no longer give the warning.

RKBrumbelow wrote:I think we now have a new record for thread necro now too.

Truth

Cheers!
Kinak

FWIW, I believe the reason those items triggered the warning was because only items which have been donated for were allowed to be swapped between alts, not ones bought with chips from other players.

Cristiona wrote:FWIW, I believe the reason those items triggered the warning was because only items which have been donated for were allowed to be swapped between alts, not ones bought with chips from other players.

Ah, right, that's complicated. I'll give that some further thought, but it's very hard to tell in any case.

Cheers!
Kinak

RKBrumbelow wrote:A lot of coding for a trivial(?) issue

This is about where I stand, except "a lot" vastly understates the issue. I'd be surprised to see anything like this ever happen. No offense or anything, it would just be a huge hassle.

Cheers!
Kinak

RKBrumbelow wrote:I used to code diagnostic systems for medical research, I have a bit of a clue Actually I contributed to PHP back in the day too. My point, and part of why I posted all of the above, being this: Things that are seemingly conceptually simple frequently are not. So, I was not expecting any such an implementation.

Ah, good.

Yeah. It's interesting how some things that would be incredibly difficult for humans are trivial for machines and visa versa. And, beyond that, how things that would be trivial to add to one program would be all-but-impossible in another.

Can't hurt to ask, though

Cheers!
Kinak