Server message - multiple turn downloads

[JonPowles]

A couple of times today I've got this email from the PBEM server:

Dear tullius,

We noticed you have downloaded some turns multiple times. If you are having any technical issues please report them to at www.slitherine.com/forum.
We'll do our best to resolve any issues and get you up and running ASAP.

I'm assuming this is a gentle anti-cheating caution, to stop people CTRL-ALT-DEL ing out of the game and trying to replay the turn. In which case it's a nice touch.

Only problem is, I'm not doing this. I haven't "downloaded some turns multiple times". I have twice hit "close game" and returned to my turn later. But I've done that loads of times before without generating this message.

Anyone else getting this?

[Tiavals]

I actually got this, after a few of those messages:

The server tracks all actions taken by all users in the PBEM++ system and we notice that you have consistently downloaded your turns multiple times.
Please contact technical support via www.slitherine.com/forum to resolve the issue or you may find you are unable to continue to use the PBEM++ server system.

I have just played normally, I haven't even clicked "close game" and continued later a single time. Ironically, based on the timestamp, the last message up there in the quotes, I got was because I merely accepted the game of another player, and we haven't even started yet, since I lost the initiative! Either there's something terribly wrong with my network connection and it breaks down a lot, or there's something strange with the anti-cheat system here.

[JonPowles]

I think I got my messages after I accepted a challenge, too.

[batesmotel]

This certainly sounds like an outright bug in their new system. I often will start a turn and then close the game part way through if I need to do something else and or otherwise want to take a break before I finish my move. (I've also been known to do it when my old laptop was being unreliable and overheating before I could finish a turn.) Since the partial move is saved to the server, this certainly does not allow for any cheating or other skulduggery so certainly is a legitimate way to play the game. In Eric's case, with an unreliable computer, it would seem that saving partial moves is the best way for him to get through a turn (or at least was when I had a similar problem.)

This certainly needs to be fixed before any enforcement mechanism is enabled!

Chris

[FedeM]

Ok, got news. Maybe a light in the dark. I got the following message after accepting a challenge. At first I didnt realize it was a quick combat challenge so when I saw the army options I thought uh, what happened? . So I close the game to see if in the info current games I was able to see a description or something. When I opened the game again I think it downloads again the saved instance so: I dont know if opening the saved game causes the mentioned email or just accepting the challenge.

Back soon
Dear Fedem,

We noticed you have downloaded some turns multiple times. If you are having any technical issues please report them to at http://www.slitherine.com/forum.
We'll do our best to resolve any issues and get you up and running ASAP.

Regards,

The Slitherine Team.
http://www.slitherine.com

[FedeM]

Well, I accepted another challenge without closing the game and didnt received any emails. So apparently the "anti-cheating device" takes the saved game as multiple download and as a result punishes you. It should diffenciate a download of a saved game than one provoked by a loss of connection from a computer crash or killing process.

Cheers!

[Tiavals]

I'm not sure that's the case for me at least. I don't think I exited the screen between accepting my games and choosing my armies. I mean, I accepted two challenges, then opened one chose my army and then opened the next and chose the army for that. I didn't open it, then exit the screen or anything like that. I was wondering that perhaps having two games in the "pre-game setup" mode causes a problem. The same text is shown in the waiting-for-turns screen for it, so perhaps the server confuses the different games as the same game, so when I choose my army for both games at the same time, it think I'm doing it twice. I guess it would be very easy to test. Might try it tomorrow. It seems my explanation is quite poor, but ah well, I'll try it out tomorrow.

[batesmotel]

I've now gotten this message after opening and closing turns without ending them:

Dear batesmotel,

We noticed you have downloaded some turns multiple times. If you are having any technical issues please report them to at http://www.slitherine.com/forum.
We'll do our best to resolve any issues and get you up and running ASAP.

Regards,

The Slitherine Team.
http://www.slitherine.com

It's clear to me that this new "anti-cheat" mechanism is broken and clearly needs to be fixed before it is allowed to actually prevent players from using multi-player.

Chris

[FedeM]

Well, here is another one that shows that this is a most welcome idea but needs to be fixed:

I made a view of my finished game with Triarius to post the result on the respective forum and after doing that I received the following message:
Dear Fedem,

The server tracks all actions taken by all users in the PBEM++ system and we notice that you have consistently downloaded your turns multiple times.
Please contact technical support via www.slitherine.com/forum to resolve the issue or you may find you are unable to continue to use the PBEM++ server system.

Regards,

The Slitherine Team.
http://www.slitherine.com

So it seems that downloading finished games also pusnishes you.

Tks!

[ericdoman1]

My fault with the crashes I think but then again. When I rebooted Slitherine offered me to continue playing a game as it was on auto save or something like that.

Thing is I am playing 1 or 2 othe computer games (not PBEM) and they too had been slowing down to the point where I had escaped and loaded a saved game. Chris' point is a good one and I do that but rarely. That is in the middle of a game, especially if I have played quite a few turns in all other games, I will close that game and just do something else, have a breather from palying so to speak.

I think that when you leave multiplayer, a window appears, "logging out". Now as my computer can be quite slow I just close that, wonder if that may be affecting the game.

Although last 24 hoursish have had no message. Learnt my lesson with reference to having too many things on the go with my pc. May have to check out the specs requires. I should be OK though.

The next logical step for me is to just do a dsik cleanup, disk defragmentation and allow Mcaffe to continue it's scan. I had a check and I have closed down the computer on so many ocassions now that my last complete scan was nearly 4 months ago.

Overall though yes if this system is to help with those people who shut down th computer then great.

Once it is sorted out (there must be a bug or something). I personally would like any of these messages to appear for all players to see. Something like Announcement "Player X has .... 12 times today".

[Leonidas048]

Hello ive just received an email with a similar message as this. I wondered what it actually meant is this suppose to be implying that i have been cheating? I didnt even know it was possible. So is this another server problem or something, or someone is messing around with our connections. I hope one of the controllers on this site can explain things here. The only time i guess i redone my turns was when we had to redo them when the site went down. I will have to warn my regular opponents about this problem. Reading all the other messages here its starting to put me off this game site!

[ericdoman1]

Leonidas

There is a bug in the system it seems.

If you think about it there have been numerous bugs in the game but we continued playing until they were despatched.

Similar thing here, nothing new really.

By all accounts in numerous other multiplayer, PBEM games they have a system installed which will point out the true cheats. Again nothing new. Allows us all to be playing equally, "level playing field" or some such expression.

[IainMcNeil]

We'll look in to it but it may be that the system has been tracking the stats and you were not aware of it. This could be related to issues that occurred before it was turned on.

If you are playing normally you have nothing to be worried about. The system will nto ban anyone without us checking the data to verify someone is attempting to cheat.

[Tiavals]

Great news! This means if I do get banned, I can blame it on some actual person instead of a merciless machine.

[petirouge]

Hi All,

The system was tracking also the download instance of games already finished (when you wanted to see the last turn made).
This special case is related to Field of Glory only, that's why we couldn't find it out before the game was added into the log system.
We already fixed it, but it could be you'll receive other notifications like this one in the next days. As already said, the system won't ban anyone without us checking all the data. Before doing anything like this, we always contact you directly!

[JonPowles]

Ah! That fits. It's also why some of us thought it might be triggered by accepting new challenges - I tend to start a new game after I finish (and download, if it happens on my opponents turn) an old one.

[stockwellpete]

The system was tracking also the download instance of games already finished (when you wanted to see the last turn made).

Ah, that explains it then. Thanks for clearing that up for us.

[Leonidas048]

Thanks i was only getting worried that i was going to get banned, until i see it was affecting other people here. But i rarely bother to look at the last turns anyway. And ive only just started a new game with a new player on the site hope he doesnt get this sort of email to scare him off. Hope it get sorted out soon.

[petirouge]

Thanks i was only getting worried that i was going to get banned, until i see it was affecting other people here. But i rarely bother to look at the last turns anyway. And ive only just started a new game with a new player on the site hope he doesnt get this sort of email to scare him off. Hope it get sorted out soon.

We are working on that, but keep in mind that these emails are being sent to you only, your opponent will never know if you received it.

[Leonidas048]

Well i have informed one of my other regular opponents who i have been playing a few months about this in case he gets an email or he sees me on this site, but not my more recent opponent who i have been playing the last few days as i didnt want him to get worried about this yet.