Re: "CoolThings"

On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 01:59:30 +0200
"Ger Hobbelt" <[email protected]> wrote:

> multidetector for MUDs? What the heck is that? Okay, my MUD days are
> probably over, if they've ever been there at all, but I thought I was
> nuts in using CRM114; sounds like somebody bettered me on that one.

Like newsgroup sock puppets, but players taking multiple positions in
MUDs, MUD-like role-playing games with web interfaces and multi-player
strategy games like Diplomacy are extremely disruptive. The only ways to
catch them right now are to watch what IP addresses they use to log in
or wait for them to mess up and send something with the wrong log in. If
a text processor can identify text composed by the same author with 70%
accuracy that's a big step towards shutting this kind of cheat down.

The administration of the game is a pure autocracy. Accuracy of 70% is
enough for players to be grateful to be asked to move one character to a
different instance of the game as opposed to getting both positions
auto-killed. Some of these games are open-ended. Even those with victory
conditions run over 6 months. Players will tolerate a lot of issues
with a free game, but if a server gets a reputation for being home to a
lot of cheats then it's all but impossible to recover.

Chris


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