The Official Clan Sitting Rules (Old Version)

[jghost7]

What more can I say?

Nothing would be fantastic. I won't hold my breath though...lol.

[ahunda]

crispybits, I think, your suggestive question somehow misses the point:

If account sitting was banned, a new luck factor would come into play: Clans, who had the bad luck of a RL emergency happening to one of their members during an ongoing clan challenge, would suffer several losses due to no fault of theirs. No unfair advantage for anyone, just completely arbitrary outcomes of games & challenges, that could easily have been avoided by account sitting.

At the same time, as out-lined in my last post, plenty of options to take unfair advantage would remain for people looking for them: "If a clan really wants it that way, they can have one (their most skilled) player dictating every single turn in every single game of a challenge." Banning account sitting will not have any impact on this.

Probably not relevant to the discussion at hand, but banning account sitting would have negative impacts outside of clan competitions also. I for example am planning a Christmas vacation, where I will have no Internet access at all. Knowing this I stopped joining new games well in advance, yet it is beyond my personal control, if one of my active games due to crazy dice (or a lot of missed turns of other players) will turn into a really lengthy battle, lasting much longer than average. Right now I have total peace of mind, because I know, if 1-2 of my games are indeed not finished before I leave, I can ask a clan mate to sit & finish them for me.

[Funkyterrance]

Yeah, well, Funkyterrance: As I said, I think, you got carried away here & are not seeing things clearly anymore.

The new rules, that were laid down in this thread, might make account sitting abuse a bit more difficult, but they also make life a bit more difficult for all honest & fair players, who only ever sit accounts in real emergencies, as per the official CC rules.

You are mixing up all kinds of issues here and cry for radical measures without even considering their real effects, incl. the side effects for non-cheating, honest & fair players. Now I personally didn´t comment in this thread for 10+ pages. Only when you guys got so far as to call for an all-out ban of all account sitting, did I post. Because this really goes too far, in my opinion.

Why would you want to abolish this practice ? How much positive usage of account sitting would you sacrifice for a very questionable impact on actual cheating/abuse ?

Do you think I have never had my account sat? I've had power outages, vacations, etc. where I needed my account sat but I would gladly give up this feature for the sake of fairness. Yes, there are always new and inventive ways to circumvent the system but if it makes the cheating harder, I'm all for it. Just logging into your clanmates account is just way too easy.
I've read the threads regarding the account sitting abuse cases and it's disgusting. I would have never have believed the lengths that people would go to do such things but the proof is right there. Am I now supposed to forget I've seen this underbelly and take your word that it's not really an issue? I don't see why I should care about the convenience of account sitting if it endangers the fairness of the game. I can see your stance but for you to consistently not see the other stance just looks bad.

[crispybits]

The entire game is based on luck - we all roll hundreds of dice every week (assuming we're premium with a decent game load running).

The extra luck wouldn't benefit anyone more than anyone else.

As I said if clans wanted competitive gaming, then the competitive gamers who very rarely miss turns because the competition is important to them will find each other. If clans want casual gaming, the players who don't mind losing the odd game because someone deadbeats will find each other. If someone wants to go from casual to competitive then they know they have to prioritise it higher.

There are net cafes in every town in the western world. There is internet access on smartphones. If your power goes out both of those are viable options. If your internet is down both of those are viable options. If you have to go out of town on business both of those are viable options. The number of people for whom neither of those are viable options is tiny, and limited to park rangers, professional mountain climbers, etc. If you get sick even most modern hospitals have ways that patients can get online, and if you're really sick or hurt then until you're over the worst of it CC doesn't matter a jot anyway. If a family crisis comes up then CC won't matter anyway.

As for the team mates of the players that get sick or hurt or have to deal with family crises.... do they have such little compassion that if a friend and clan mate is in a hospital bed, or having some sort of major life crisis, the thing that they think about is "damn that joe! how dare he make me lose a computer game just cos his dad died!" Seriously?

It's A GAME. IMO you either play it by rules that are fair to everyone, or don't play it at all.

[Funkyterrance]

So it's settled then, no more account sitting.

[IcePack]

So it's settled then, no more account sitting.

...or not.

[Foxglove]

As I said if clans wanted competitive gaming, then the competitive gamers who very rarely miss turns because the competition is important to them will find each other. If clans want casual gaming, the players who don't mind losing the odd game because someone deadbeats will find each other. If someone wants to go from casual to competitive then they know they have to prioritise it higher.

There are net cafes in every town in the western world. There is internet access on smartphones. If your power goes out both of those are viable options. If your internet is down both of those are viable options. If you have to go out of town on business both of those are viable options. The number of people for whom neither of those are viable options is tiny, and limited to park rangers, professional mountain climbers, etc. If you get sick even most modern hospitals have ways that patients can get online, and if you're really sick or hurt then until you're over the worst of it CC doesn't matter a jot anyway. If a family crisis comes up then CC won't matter anyway.

You're a moron. As is FunkyTerrance. I enjoy CC a lot - I have played here for 5 years now through holidays, vacations, family issues, and illnesses. I enjoy playing competitively, and yet I've had my account very legitimately sat any number of times. Not for any advantage, but because I've been doing things like:
- giving birth to a child who arrived 5 weeks early
- taking a cruise
- traveling to visit ill family members
- traveling internationally on very long flights with a child
- traveling for work
- etc.

CC requires a commitment EVERY SINGLE DAY. I have done this FOR YEARS (as have many people here). I feel completely within my rights to request clan mates to sit for me on the rare occasions I'm unable to get my turns. And I intensely resent the people in this thread who are acting like witch hunters and trying to create an atmosphere wherein every person who ever advocates for or uses account sitting is viewed as a despicable cheater.

Also - anyone in this thread who has written any variation on the words "all clans do X" or "all top clans do Y", please do me the favor of shutting your ignorant mouth. No single person knows what "every clan" does. I feel like I barely know the workings of any other clan than my own. If you've never been in a particular clan, and you don't have first-hand knowledge of how it works from a friend who is in that clan, then no, you don't know how they do things. All you're doing is exaggerating and spreading gossip.

[crispybits]

I have at no point claimed that every pro-sitter is a cheat. I have only said that some people will abuse grey areas and loopholes

And well done for having your rank, seriously. It's a testament to your skill and dedication and I respect that. But does that rank on this site mean more to you than any of those things you listed? Does that rank mean more to you than anyone else's versions of anything you listed?

I'm not accusing anyone of anything. I'm simply saying I want a fair game. That means closing off the loopholes and the grey areas. If that means that for a couple of weeks each year (on average) everyone will suffer a bit of a rankings hit then it's the same for everyone. If I said everyone should drop 100 points right now would that be unfair? Or would it make no difference at all to the overall standings? If I said that those people who don't mind bending the rules as far as they will go all get given an extra 100 points right now would that be unfair? Or maybe a percentage, so a fair player who wouldnt bend any rule gets 0 extra points, and someone who will go half way to the limits gets 50... how about that? Is that unfair?

[Foxglove]

I have at no point claimed that every pro-sitter is a cheat. I have only said that some people will abuse grey areas and loopholes

And well done for having your rank, seriously. It's a testament to your skill and dedication and I respect that. But does that rank on this site mean more to you than any of those things you listed? Does that rank mean more to you than anyone else's versions of anything you listed?

I'm not accusing anyone of anything. I'm simply saying I want a fair game. That means closing off the loopholes and the grey areas. If that means that for a couple of weeks each year (on average) everyone will suffer a bit of a rankings hit then it's the same for everyone. If I said everyone should drop 100 points right now would that be unfair? Or would it make no difference at all to the overall standings? If I said that those people who don't mind bending the rules as far as they will go all get given an extra 100 points right now would that be unfair? Or maybe a percentage, so a fair player who wouldnt bend any rule gets 0 extra points, and someone who will go half way to the limits gets 50... how about that? Is that unfair?

First, thank you for being reasonable after I was rude. My apologies!

Second, I think you misunderstand my motivations. I actually don't care about points and individual games. What I enjoy on this site now are clan challenges, and the stakes of a missed turn are (potentially) a lot higher than just some lost points. What if I missed a turn that lost a game that lost a clan challenge? Then I would be responsible for ruining the efforts of 25 people for 9 months of clan warring? That seems unreasonable to me. If I only played standard non-team, non-clan games I wouldn't care about missing turns.

[catnipdreams]

I feel strongly that legitimate sitting needs to be as painless and easy for the person doing the sitting as possible. A sitter is adding to their time spent on CC; extra time that could have been used differently is now being used to assist another player. To properly sit a turn in a game that you aren't part of takes a considerable amount of time. The team chat needs to be read to understand the strategy being used, and a new board has to be carefully examined to fully understand the current status of the game, before the turn is taken. We need to be very careful not to significantly add to this burden.

Some mention has been made of eliminating sitting altogether. This is completely unacceptable to me. I put a considerable amount of time into my team games, and to have those games ruined because a teammate cannot play his/her turns for understandable real life reasons is ridiculous. I also don't want to let my teammates down. Just because I might have a real life issue that is more important than taking a turn in a game, should they suffer for it? A simple request for sitting, and the conflict between whatever is going on in my real life, and my desire to not let my teammates down, is easily avoided.

Requiring that the sitter's name be posted in open game chat when the turn is taken seems like a simple thing to do. Some allowance needs to be made for a sitter occasionally forgetting to post in open game chat; that is normal human error. Doing random IP checks seems like a reasonable way to uncover any systematic abuse.

I understand why a time limit of one hour for emergency sitting has been proposed, but it also potentially excessively burdens a sitter. The 3 am example has been mentioned before; that is a very valid concern. Waking up in the middle of the night to take a friend's turn when there is a reasonable expectation that it would be missed, and could have been sat earlier at a more convenient time, is not fun.

It seems to me that this is all about transparency. If it is known exactly who is sitting, and when that sitting occurs, then abuses can be easily identified. Until a software sitting function is implemented, perhaps the requirement to identify yourself in open game chat if you sit for someone, plus the random IP checks, is sufficient? That doesn't seem excessively burdensome. Allow sitting to occur at any point during the 24 hour cycle; this is easiest for sitters. Look for patterns of abuse that lead to an unfair advantage, and react accordingly. Strongly encourage the new site owner to implement a proper sitting function as a priority.

I also really like allowing individual clans to negotiate sitting terms along with other clan war terms. The negotiated parameters can be as precise (or not) as the clans involved desire them to be. This allows maximum flexibility, while minimizing the impact on legitimate sitters.

[JBoy]

".......

[spiesr]

Thing is, crispy, the only "account sitting" rule I signed up for when I signed up for this site was not to abuse it; but abuse wasn't defined as, "you can't take the turn for the account you've agreed to sit unless there's less than 1 hour left to play or you received three people's permission in advance."

If you have "agreed to sit" someone's account then that means that they have informed you of there impending absence and thus the emergency one hour rule isn't in effect. You can take those turns at you convenience.

I for one have never ever taken turns for a clan mate in order to gain some advantage, and yet I find the idea, that I might now need to stay up til 2 o´clock at night to cover a turn for someone, who just missed turns in 3 other games, just so that the timer is down to the last hour, a bit irritating. I feel, I am being made to suffer for the abuses of others, by no fault of mine.

Look at it this way. You are NOT required to take those turns. You and/or your clan have the choice of either taking those turns at that undesirable time of day, or potentially letting those turns be missed. As such you can weigh the expected impact and importance of said turns versus the difficulty of taking them at the allotted time. It is your choice how much effort you want to put into your clan's war effort.

[crispybits]

OK how about a different solution, and bear with me here because the idea is forming as I write it out.

1) Ban account sitting. Period. No player is ever allowed to log into any other payer's account.

2) For tournaments and clan games only, a feature is coded into the site to allow a nominated substitue to take over a game from another player.

3) If a player goes AWOL (and cases of this will be rare, players being in car wrecks or family emergencies or whatever isn't a common occurence) the substitute can permanently take the place of the AWOL player in any and all of that player's clan/tournament games.

4) No player is allowed to be substituted unless either (a) he is within the final hour of a clan/tournament game turn without having logged in during the duration of that turn or (b) he has already missed a turn in a non-clan game.

5) Tournament organisers, when they set up a tournament game, are allowed to put in a maximum of 2 substitues for any team (subject to their own discretion, they may choose to allow only one or none at all) when they send out the invites. If they have restrictions on who can participate in the tournament then obviously they can also enforce that restriction on who can be named as substitutes.

6) Clan war organisers, when they set up clan war games, are allowed to nominate 2 players per game as substitutes when the game is set up.

7) When the conditions are met when an account sit is allowed by these rules, both substitutes automatically receive a game invite, similar to being invited into an unstarted game, to replace whatever player is AWOL. If either of those people accepts the invite, the substitution takes place.

No player is allowed to be a substitute in a game where they are already playing as part of one of the teams.

9) All substitutions are permanent. If the original player comes back he does not take back his place in that game, and he now only has whatever access to the game that any other 3rd party would have, including not being able to see through the fog.

This removes the grey areas, as players can't log in to anyone else's account and do the morally dubious things that would be possible. As soon as a sit takes place it's clearly visible to everyone that the account has been sat and who has taken over. And everything is visible, above board, legal, and without grey areas or loopholes. It also allows clans to agree on the limits of the sitting allowed during the war, and who is allowed to sit for either side.

It's late here, so I may have missed something, but maybe that's a starting point. I have no idea of the coding complexity or anything else, and I am open to improvements on the basic idea.

[Funkyterrance]

You're a moron. As is FunkyTerrance.

Classy.

[Funkyterrance]

OK how about a different solution, and bear with me here because the idea is forming as I write it out.

1) Ban account sitting. Period. No player is ever allowed to log into any other payer's account.

2) For tournaments and clan games only, a feature is coded into the site to allow a nominated substitue to take over a game from another player.

3) If a player goes AWOL (and cases of this will be rare, players being in car wrecks or family emergencies or whatever isn't a common occurence) the substitute can permanently take the place of the AWOL player in any and all of that player's clan/tournament games.

4) No player is allowed to be substituted unless either (a) he is within the final hour of a clan/tournament game turn without having logged in during the duration of that turn or (b) he has already missed a turn in a non-clan game.

5) Tournament organisers, when they set up a tournament game, are allowed to put in a maximum of 2 substitues for any team (subject to their own discretion, they may choose to allow only one or none at all) when they send out the invites. If they have restrictions on who can participate in the tournament then obviously they can also enforce that restriction on who can be named as substitutes.

6) Clan war organisers, when they set up clan war games, are allowed to nominate 2 players per game as substitutes when the game is set up.

7) When the conditions are met when an account sit is allowed by these rules, both substitutes automatically receive a game invite, similar to being invited into an unstarted game, to replace whatever player is AWOL. If either of those people accepts the invite, the substitution takes place.

No player is allowed to be a substitute in a game where they are already playing as part of one of the teams.

9) All substitutions are permanent. If the original player comes back he does not take back his place in that game, and he now only has whatever access to the game that any other 3rd party would have, including not being able to see through the fog.

This removes the grey areas, as players can't log in to anyone else's account and do the morally dubious things that would be possible. As soon as a sit takes place it's clearly visible to everyone that the account has been sat and who has taken over. And everything is visible, above board, legal, and without grey areas or loopholes. It also allows clans to agree on the limits of the sitting allowed during the war, and who is allowed to sit for either side.

It's late here, so I may have missed something, but maybe that's a starting point. I have no idea of the coding complexity or anything else, and I am open to improvements on the basic idea.

I like this idea up until rule number two.
The problem I have with rule 2 is that the substitute comes from clan itself. There are scum out there who would think nothing of making up an excuse like this, it happens all the time in real life when people make excuses so why should it be different on an online game? Lets say someone claims to have had 3 debilitating car crashes in one year. Bs, you say, but it's pretty darn hard to disprove. It's just still too fuzzy.
How about the substitute is someone who works for the site? There could be a group of volunteers whose duty it is to fill in for these games who have no affiliation with any clan. Sully would be a good choice if he were around. I still think that any situation where one clan member is subbing for another is begging for sneaky behavior.

[crispybits]

Why - in a clan v clan fight, if both clans agree to use subs and the subs all come from the clans, then it gives the clans control over their own fights.

I could even imagine that on top of the "no individual player may play more than 6 out of 10 games in any set" you would also have "no player is allowed to be named sub in more than 4 of the 10 games in any set" kind of conditions.

If the subs are named in advance it doesnt allow sneakiness because everything is above board and agreed beforehand. If clans rig it so that one person ends up playing all their games and every sub game possible then that's been agreed just fine already. It's up to the clans to police their own wars, this just gives them the tools to do so, and to allow for sits without wrecking their months and months of team play if someone goes off the grid.

[HardAttack]

I feel strongly that legitimate sitting needs to be as painless and easy for the person doing the sitting as possible. A sitter is adding to their time spent on CC; extra time that could have been used differently is now being used to assist another player. To properly sit a turn in a game that you aren't part of takes a considerable amount of time. The team chat needs to be read to understand the strategy being used, and a new board has to be carefully examined to fully understand the current status of the game, before the turn is taken. We need to be very careful not to significantly add to this burden.

Some mention has been made of eliminating sitting altogether. This is completely unacceptable to me. I put a considerable amount of time into my team games, and to have those games ruined because a teammate cannot play his/her turns for understandable real life reasons is ridiculous. I also don't want to let my teammates down. Just because I might have a real life issue that is more important than taking a turn in a game, should they suffer for it? A simple request for sitting, and the conflict between whatever is going on in my real life, and my desire to not let my teammates down, is easily avoided.

Requiring that the sitter's name be posted in open game chat when the turn is taken seems like a simple thing to do. Some allowance needs to be made for a sitter occasionally forgetting to post in open game chat; that is normal human error. Doing random IP checks seems like a reasonable way to uncover any systematic abuse.

I understand why a time limit of one hour for emergency sitting has been proposed, but it also potentially excessively burdens a sitter. The 3 am example has been mentioned before; that is a very valid concern. Waking up in the middle of the night to take a friend's turn when there is a reasonable expectation that it would be missed, and could have been sat earlier at a more convenient time, is not fun.

It seems to me that this is all about transparency. If it is known exactly who is sitting, and when that sitting occurs, then abuses can be easily identified. Until a software sitting function is implemented, perhaps the requirement to identify yourself in open game chat if you sit for someone, plus the random IP checks, is sufficient? That doesn't seem excessively burdensome. Allow sitting to occur at any point during the 24 hour cycle; this is easiest for sitters. Look for patterns of abuse that lead to an unfair advantage, and react accordingly. Strongly encourage the new site owner to implement a proper sitting function as a priority.

I also really like allowing individual clans to negotiate sitting terms along with other clan war terms. The negotiated parameters can be as precise (or not) as the clans involved desire them to be. This allows maximum flexibility, while minimizing the impact on legitimate sitters.

Meaowww

[Funkyterrance]

Why - in a clan v clan fight, if both clans agree to use subs and the subs all come from the clans, then it gives the clans control over their own fights.

I could even imagine that on top of the "no individual player may play more than 6 out of 10 games in any set" you would also have "no player is allowed to be named sub in more than 4 of the 10 games in any set" kind of conditions.

If the subs are named in advance it doesnt allow sneakiness because everything is above board and agreed beforehand. If clans rig it so that one person ends up playing all their games and every sub game possible then that's been agreed just fine already. It's up to the clans to police their own wars, this just gives them the tools to do so, and to allow for sits without wrecking their months and months of team play if someone goes off the grid.

Cuz: Clan one- Uses subs only when appropriate
Clan two- Uses subs when most advantageous

If the subs are third party there's no issue whatever. Honestly I'm not framing this solely in the context of my own clan but I would like to know which clan really is the best. I'm sick of not caring who the top clans are because at least some of them are corrupt and there's no way of knowing who.

[IcePack]

No way am I allowing third parties to play my games. Sorry.
But no third party is going to care as much about reading pages of chat as yourself, or someone on your team.

Ain't gunna happen.

[Funkyterrance]

No way am I allowing third parties to play my games. Sorry.
But no third party is going to care as much about reading pages of chat as yourself, or someone on your team.

Ain't gunna happen.

It's admittedly imperfect but would you rather miss a turn instead?

[Lindax]

Second, I think you misunderstand my motivations. I actually don't care about points and individual games. What I enjoy on this site now are clan challenges, and the stakes of a missed turn are (potentially) a lot higher than just some lost points. What if I missed a turn that lost a game that lost a clan challenge? Then I would be responsible for ruining the efforts of 25 people for 9 months of clan warring? That seems unreasonable to me. If I only played standard non-team, non-clan games I wouldn't care about missing turns.

Mmmm.... This is interesting. I don't care about points and I'm passed caring about clan games. All I care about now is individual games.

There are various reasons I got fed up with the clan scene. One reason is playing clan wars and losing them because of one clan member regularly missing turns. Did I ever think it was ok to "bend the rules" to avoid losing a war because of that? Nope, I was always for getting rid of that player and make sure you have players in a clan war that take their turns (in other words: players that don't go AWOL on a regular basis). Another reason is that some clans take clan wars that serious that they will "bend the rules" to make sure they will not lose a war because of a player going AWOL or a player making a wrong move. This resulting in not playing the game against your opponents in the game, but the best player(s) in the other clan. What's the fun in that? Play your best, have your opponents play their best, and see who comes out as the winner (more often than not decided by the dice or cards anyway).

As I said before, if you can't play the game and/or take your turns, you should not be in a clan war or tournament.

Obviously the practices being talked about here, and bending the rules by some, give the players like myself (honest, following the rules, not seeking advice for every turn, play the best you can, not having turns being taken for you, etc.,etc.) a big disadvantage.

I'm pretty sure the "best clans" wouldn't be where they are if all their players were like me. I'm not saying they are not good, and they have many good players, but the difference between clans would be a lot less if they would stop "bending the rules". Any effort to stop those practices will get my vote. And once we're all on equal footing, I may even consider joining a clan again.

For the record: To my knowledge none of the clans I was a member of, ever engaged in "bending the rules".

Lx

PS: I wish I would be able to get my point across more eloquently, but alas, this will have to do.

[Funkyterrance]

I am equally disgruntled with the state of affairs.
The fat bloated clans with the do-or-die stance towards wars, rule-bending, etc. need to unwrap their egos from their online gaming experience. There are certain clans out there that I have much respect for due to their skills combined with integrity. For example: The Pack. I have had the privilege of playing with some of these guys and they are stand-up players. This was way back when I started playing and I was looking for a clan. I played with their leaders and they were not sketchy a bit and I am pretty critical of this sort of thing lol. Nobody told me what to do, we discussed. I'm not meaning to go off on a tangent, just want to make it clear that I'm not irrationally and randomly attacking the more competitive clans, just the ones who smell fishy. It's pretty obvious to someone not completely wrapped up in their clan standing who is dirty and who is not. I don't trust the bloated fatty clans, they didn't get that way playing the straight and narrow. I can't see any other way to make them change than by force since they are obviously blinded by the ambition to win wars.

[spiesr]

Why - in a clan v clan fight, if both clans agree to use subs and the subs all come from the clans, then it gives the clans control over their own fights.

I could even imagine that on top of the "no individual player may play more than 6 out of 10 games in any set" you would also have "no player is allowed to be named sub in more than 4 of the 10 games in any set" kind of conditions.

If the subs are named in advance it doesnt allow sneakiness because everything is above board and agreed beforehand. If clans rig it so that one person ends up playing all their games and every sub game possible then that's been agreed just fine already. It's up to the clans to police their own wars, this just gives them the tools to do so, and to allow for sits without wrecking their months and months of team play if someone goes off the grid.

Couldn't this setup lead to a situation where if a Clan has a star player that is significantly better than the rank and file members that it would be to their (perceived at least) advantage to make sure that player actually ends up subbing in the maximum number of games allowed? IE it encourages them to have some of their lesser members "going missing." Isn't that the exact sort of abuse that any rules would want to prevent?

[macbone]

The bottom line is we need that sitter feature that's been in the works for a while. Once it's implemented, all players will at least be operating under the same prescribed and enforced guidelines due to the software in place.

Until we do, the rules on p.1 will have to do. I'd still like the time limit to be within 2 hours of the turn's end rather than 1 hour, but I can understand that that might seem like too much of a cushion for some folks.

[perchorin]

The bottom line is we need that sitter feature that's been in the works for a while. Once it's implemented, all players will at least be operating under the same prescribed and enforced guidelines due to the software in place.

Until we do, the rules on p.1 will have to do. I'd still like the time limit to be within 2 hours of the turn's end rather than 1 hour, but I can understand that that might seem like too much of a cushion for some folks.

Exactly what I was thinking on all points. With the regime change does anyone know if that feature is still something "coming soon"?