But for real, I think most people who cheat do it because in some way it makes them feel more powerful or important. Not that it really makes sense but sometimes our thought processes don't make sense as humans.

We own a lot of points and I believe that the cheaters want also some points , so they believe they are able to go the short way to get some points. My opinion.

Many people view gaming the system as the compelling challenge rather than winning within the confines of the system. Whether it be on this site or in real life.

While we're at it, why do people think they accomplished something when they win a game where everybody or most people resign or leave?

People who win cheap games like that should have their points and ranking vacated.

I don't understand something, Putin. The vast majority of comments you make, including almost all the comments you made just over the last few minutes, are negative comments and aimed at criticizing other people's ideas and opinions while rarely providing constructive or even substantial comments. It's just a bit strange.

Also, it seems ironic to me that you criticize people for winning "where everybody or most people resign or leave" when you have 26 resigns yourself.

Zultar, why can't discuss what is a substantive point instead of as per usual, turning my comments into a referendum about my personality? It seems ironic if you want to keep the conversations constructive. This was, I thought, a constructive critique.

I don't see the "irony" in my resigns vs my comment either. I resign from games that drag on and on for no reason as I play nothing but live games. My resign level in fact informs my opinion about those who win through cheap wins.

Now, do you have something to say about cheap wins? Or is any win just as good as any other?

And can you leave me out of it? Are are you the new Obiwan?

@putin there are certain cases where a resign has no effect on the outcome of the game and so a win in that sort of game is certianly still ok.
For instance, let's say a 14 center power finally stabs his 8 center partner and is clearly going to win. If anyone chooses to leave at that point it's only because they are a sore loser, the game should certianly be carried on.

However, if a 8 center power takes advantage of his 8 center neighbors resign to get powerful enough to solo then that is not particularly sporting of him and that win that he would earn certianly was not worthy.

I agree with you Seth. I'm referring to the latter type of win.

Putin's unique sense of humour and passionate political views are part of the rich tapestry of the site. As far as resigns go, not all resigns are equal. I won't pretend I support his philosophy on resigns, but some are much more forgivable than others.

As far as cheating goes, I suspect there are various types of cheater. Amongst more established players I expect a chief motivation is that of boredom

Well, maybe a little debate on a Friday afternoon might be fun.

First, I made no comments about your personality. I remarked a commonality of the comments you posted but said nothing about your personality, real life or online.

Second, it's hard to conceive how it was a "referendum" as it was one remark and I did not ask for a vote or even other people's opinions.

Third, I'm not sure how your comments, even the one in this thread prior to my post, can be construed as constructive critiques as they are just criticism and nothing about the different kinds of CDs or any solution to such. If you are talking about my remark, I did not say that I was making a constructive critique.

Fourth, let's logically walk through your comments about resigning. How do you define "games that drag on and on?" What makes a game dragging on and on? If other people are playing them, even if little "progress" is made, it could still be a worthwhile game to them and they might still enjoy it. In the games that you resigned, are they games where you are doing well or are they games where you are not? What was it about them that made them dragged on if diplomatic exchanges were still taking place, or was it because things were taking place but they didn't include you? Furthermore, if someone decides that a game is dragging on for them, is it fine/reasonable for them to quit if the other people in the game are still playing? If a person quits in the game, should the other people quit too as a rule? Should they quit if the person leaving makes little to no difference to how the game will play out? What should be the general process for people to follow through if anyone decides to resign during a game?

Fifth, your opinion about who "win through cheap games" seems to be causally problematic. Is resigning a part of the problem if these people win cheap games due to resigning? It seems to me that if people winning "cheap" games due to resigns is a problem, then resigning is a source of the problem and not a solution.

Sixth, I don't have to say anything about wins, cheap or not, as I was addressing a comment in the thread. If the OP, however, thought that I derailed his thread, I would happily leave the thread.

Seventh, I don't understand how I can leave you out of it when you address me and it read to me like you were waiting for a reply. Moreover, are you asking that I should not address you at all or that no one should address you at all if you made a comment that they disagreed with?

Eighth, this is one of the very few and rare times I have interacted with you on the forum, so I am unclear how that makes me like Obi, who apparently -according to your last sentence- seems to address you all the time or disagree with you or pull you into conversation. It is amusing to me that it was you who pulled Obi into this conversation when he had nothing to do with it.

Some people have evil inside of them .... they may cheat, but they will go to hell

@Putin33

That's an unnecessarily puritanical way of viewing the game. Without wishing to rub you the wrong way, I actively prefer to win games that are slanted, scammed or fixed in some kind of way.

I hesitate to add that there is an additional pleasure to be had in viewing the (typically impotent) anger of the people who are bent out of shape from these sorts of things.

Should I dare comment?

I only ask because the mods said I can't talk about my previous ban on the forum, but I think it's a good topic to potentially discuss....that is...if the mods are okay with it.

I'd be interested to hear from Sandgoose

Me too

As much as id love to. Zultar kindly ask I refrain

Then refrain, you shall.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-notice_affair

I don't understand cheating in a game like this also, if something is at stake, sure, I can't see whats at stake in these games

Really? You can't see the appeal? Suppose there was a member of the site that you found particularly annoying. Could you not imagine the childish glee that could be obtained by having your multi ally with him all game only to stab him at the most awkward moment?

There is also the question of what could be achieved if you and an ally work with perfect trust from day one. A multi answers this beautifully.

Also, have you never been curious as to what other players say about you to each other? A multi gives you a second set of ears and a fantastic perspective on game dynamics.

I dare say that the average cheat is a noob who thinks points are worth having, or a poor player shamed by the stigma of never winning, but there are many other reasons to cheat.

It also doesn't help that this game's cutthroat nature, in which actions frowned upon in most other games are actively encouraged, blurs the lines slightly between what is morally right and wrong.

Also, cheating is bad, kids. Don't do it.

You can derive no self worth from cheating. Winning on your merits, can only give you that. The points of this site have no real value, only if you wish to play in bigger games, but then in those bigger games, there won't be there multi, to help and they will be crushed by the better players, so whAts the point?

90% of the cheaters I go through don't even know they're cheating. What entices someone to knowingly cheat is beyond me, but most of the multis you run into aren't intending to do harm.

Multi=cheater. They are synonymous The intend to do harm , otherwise why be a multi

Ah, it's not always true that multis are cheaters though. Some multis created their second account because they ran out of points from the first. They don't play the two accounts together.

that may be why some people multi, the new one can save the old account or the old one can jump start the new one. Craven tactics regardless

And some made a 2nd account because they hadn't been on the site in years and forgot their first username, etc.

Whether it's cheating the game or cheating the site, still a cheat, no?

Well, in a sense you are right, ssorenn, but they are not all equal though as jmo and bo pointed out above. Some are innocuous, but they do break site rules and some do indeed "cheat" the site or the game.
But I think you are more interested in the cheaters who cheat the game to win.

I personally consider people who break a rule but don't cheat in a game to be rulebreakers as opposed to cheaters. I am less inclined to punish someone harshly if they have just made a 2nd account, with no other offenses then I am someone who's ruined dozens of games for other members. Obviously no one gets to keep more then 1 account, but each case is different so I wouldn't say a cheat is a cheat.

I am more interested in cheaters of the game, and fortunately I don't have to deal with the logistical issues created by the "other" types of cheaters. But fair enough. I don't mean to beat a moot point, but would love to hear from some who might know a known cheater and what they think the cheater gained by cheating.

Some intentional cheaters are born into it, in a sense. They play a few games, realize they suck, as new players typically do, and decide that they can only win if they break rules. Winning is an awful motivation, but it's true that many players are simply unable to beat other good players without breaking the rules. You know how when you do something for so long and to success, it almost becomes habit, and when someone tries to take it away from you, you get defensive? There's a lot of that, multis that don't know how to play any other way so decide it's better to screw you over than get better themselves.

Most metagamers that intentionally break the rules just want to play with their friends and don't understand why they should have to make special concessions to play with them. After all, playing with friends is often why they joined this site in the first place. A lot of them come to understand that you can play with friends as long as you do it within the rules but for some of them, they just decide to ignore what we tell them and continue breaking the rules. I really don't know why, but I'd guess that 90% of them are younger high schoolers that are just too impatient to do things the right way.

In some ways, I don't think it's worth trying to understand habitual or intentional cheaters. They don't give you the light of day, and they know that their play style almost ensures that they're at an unfair advantage. They lack empathy toward you so understanding them is inevitably going to be hard.

One thing that has not been mentioned is that cheap wins, dealing with cheating, etc. are intrinsic parts of this game. Reporting suspicious activity and using game history to choose allies comprise the "meta-strategy" of the game -- those are "moves" that are just as valid as the in-game moves. Therefore, I think it is fine to take the cheap win when it presents itself. That makes the act of just staying alive -- no matter how bleak things look -- potentially rewarding. I sort of like the chaos that the game has in this regard -- you have to manage more variables.

Do I recall a time long ago, when cheating accusations were not only permitted but were made part of a player's home page, or did I dream that?

Okay, why do people cheat on this site. There are a few main reasons I come across.

-Their friends make an extra account to try and beat them, so now they need more then one account to be able to beat their friend, and it spirals out of control until you have a ton of kids in the same school all cheating, and it generally starts in private games but expands into multiple public games. This is mainly done for bragging rights at school and among friends.

-Someone sucks at the game, gets frustrated that they cannot win any games and makes another account to try and win. The ironic part is these players generally still cannot win with 2 accounts since the odds of being put next to your multi in a game isn't too good, and people generally ally against you since your press still sucks.

-Some people do it for ghostrating, they cannot get their GR high enough, or get addicted to it. Sargmancher was like this. He was a good, even great player, but he wasn't raising in GR as quickly and was afraid to join games with good players because he knew his GR would fall if he lost it so he played with many multi's in dozens of games to keep his GR from falling even if he lost against good players.

-Some people get frustrated when people CD in games and no one takes positions over so they make a new account to take over CD positions in their games, with the intent of playing it fairly. This rarely goes well, and they end up full scale cheating if we don't catch them first.

There are more reasons but those are some of the main ones that I've run into over and over and over.

Obviously the important part of understanding why from my point of view is so that when talking with people I find cheating I can approach them in a way that will hopefully allow me to convince them to play respectfully from there on out. The mods have conversations with players so that we can figure out the why, and figure out if we think the offenders will be able to play fairly or not in the future with their first account should we give them a 2nd chance on the site. Generally we're able to work out something with 1st time offenders, which is why banning is a last resort and why we generally try to give 2nd chances for game side cheating. Obviously some cases like Sarg and Agent K are too extreme to forgive, but we have dozens and dozens of members playing fairly now after being given a 2nd chance.

@JMO, thank you very much, for your time and input. It helps she'd some light and I completely understand your POV as an admin dealing with these issues. I hope you can see, that I'm just trying to understand the logic behind this, I see it as self defeating, because so much is gained by understanding why you lose. Maybe it's an age thing, but again I appreciate you taking the time to answer.....thx

She'd not she'd^