We have been mulling over the issues and have gotten to a point where we have formulated some thoughts (I know, thoughts are a rare and challenging thing for us, but here goes):
- Basic premises
- Any change that happens needs to be focused on curbing abuse
- Any change that happens needs to allow for people sitting for eachother for non-strategic purposes because this is a casual game. But curbing abuse is the primary goal
- Any rule needs to be clearcut, well defined and not leave any loopholes or gray areas for mis-interpretation.
- Team games should involve coordination, both of strategy and of moves and as such, one person should not be playing more than one account as many players consider this a strategic advantage leaving room for calls of abuse. In a doubles tennis match you can't just pick up a 2nd racket and call yourself a 2 person team...
With these basic premises in mind, we are going to propose the following amendment to Rule #1 (the multi rule):
Rule #1: No multiple accounts
Multiple accounts are discovered by routine scans and community cheating reports. They are strictly forbidden whether or not they play in the same games. If you suspect certain accounts belong to the same person, please report it following the instructions at the top of the Cheating & Abuse Reports forum.
We do allow members to occasionally "babysit" for other members that are away from the game. The babysitter may not play for more than one account in the same game (even if they are teammates) and may not start or join new games (with the exception of ongoing tournaments). It is common courtesy to announce in game chat that another player will take your turn(s) during your absence.
So, what this means is that we are taking the hardline that you cannot sit for your team mates. It does however, relieve the 24 hour rule so that you can have people sit your games even if you are going to be away for less than 24 hours.
It stops potential score abuse with a clear cut rule but does not stop you from finding a 3rd party friend to sit one or two games that you just can't make because you are busy.
We understand that this may not be as convenient as some of you would like, but in the interest of cracking down on users who have unfairly benefited from this, it is a sacrifice we are asking you to make for the benefit of all.
In the future we do plan on adding a hard coded babysitter feature that will let you designate sitters in a more secure way than giving out your password, but, as with everything on the to-do list, we may not get to it for a little, depending on priority issues that pop up here and there.
Thank you to everyone for all of your feedback, we are of course still looking for feedback on this rule as it is not set in stone until the next update roles around...which should be in a week or two
Have a cheater free one!
Twill
an advantage and anyone who thinks otherwise is ignorant ...... maybe in freestyle i agree 100% ... but not sequential .... it's just not true...
