None of us play in public games together.

Jeepers Creepers, krellin. Just because I used my last unit to attack you instead of fruitlessly attempting to preserve my defeated empire does not mean that I was metagaming. As far as I know, my ally is not currently a high school student, and I am certain that my ally does not go to my school. I would claim that this is a case of sour grapes, and you are just mad that you lost, sir.

Why?

@Krellin, Kestas is currently working on a new mod tool that will allow us to group players together. If people in that group enter a game together a warning message will be posted in the public chat, or the second level grouping will prevent them from playing together at all in public games. It's a large change so it's taking time, but once completed will pretty much solve the issue you just mentioned.

In the meantime please let us know about any meta gaming suspicions you have. We look into everyone we're asked too, and if they are playing fairly nothing happens, so there's no reason to not report your suspicions.

How long do investigations take? Should we expect to hear back if there's nothing wrong?

The mods are good at letting the requestor know when then investigation is concluded.

@shield

Depending on how busy they are and how complicated the case is, it make take a week or so. The mods usually acknowledge they've received your email and will try to let you know when a resolution has been reached.

What about players we know in passing but don't really talk to?

For example, I realized I went to high school with thehamster, but I haven't talked to him in years.

Do they play it as part of some class

Chaqa, if you don't coordinate with one another, you have nothing to worry about.

I imagine if you tell the mods in advance and you play an anon/gunboat game you're in good shape. Unless you coordinate outside the game, which is always a no-no.

Hm, I played with a group of people from another site for a while, and we didn't always have 7 people so we joined normal live games. We never coordinated outside the game though (I drilled that in pretty hard), so I wasn't aware it was against the rules?

Another site is different from your friends you see on a daily basis in real life. If knowing people online were an issue, I couldn't play with half the crew I do. I've gotten to enjoy playing with and against them and gotten to know them well enough we email outside the site, but I've never met a one of them and stabbing them is as much part of the game as allying with them.

The huge advantage to reporting your suspicions while the game is in progress is that if you are right, we can cancel the game even after it's finished. That is the only case where we will retroactively cancel a game that has finished.

abge - No specific reason - I have been warned in the past about certain players, and seeing the proclivity of the high school crowd to walk the grey line in terms of their behavior, I just wondered if there was a way for me to avoid players of a certain demographic. I don't tend to keep list of players to play with/not play with, but if I had a tool to avoid certain players, I would use it. That's all.

@jmo - I appreciate your input - I'm curious how your investigations would work in the case people that are simply known acquaintances - it's not necessarily that there is going to be any "evidence" that people are working together, just a general predisposition to help one another, and a lack of maturity to not fall victim to such impulses..

I will vouch for Draug...he's a stabbing bastard! lol

@krellin

I meant, do you not want to play against high-schoolers because of their age or because they know each other IRL?

Probably both, I would imagine.

I, myself, will only deign to play with middle aged successful businessmen with IQ's of over 140.

@krellin,

I have a lot of tools available to help me figure out if two people are working together because of their real life relationship or if it was a completely in game decision. I've run well over a thousand cases, so I have a pretty good feel for when people are trying to pull something over on the other players. If I think they aren't playing fair then I just ask them to stop playing together in public games. It's pretty easy for people to set up private games through pm and the forum, and those members are always welcome to play in any games without their friends. So there's no reduction in their ability to use the site. The point is, no one on the team minds looking into cases that are borderline. We'd much rather check every borderline case if it means catching the people who are playing unfairly.

@abge - I do not want to play against high schoolers that know each other in real life - I'd prefer to not be sandwiched between a couple guys that sit next to each other at lunch. I'm not concerned about the age, per se - Bo is in high school and I'd play him any time.

@jmo - Thanks - I'll keep that in mind in the future.

krellin you're making this a bigger deal than it needs to be. No one from our high school plays public games with each other. I don't know why you're even bringing this up.