AMD4EVER Post

[xobsidianx]

Early this morning I responded to a post by AMD4EVER about a major flaw in smac and smacx. His post of this flaw is gone along with the posts that responded to it. Can anyone tell me where to find it? Shouldn't that post still be active if for no other reason than my current response to it. Thanks.

[Kody]

I'm guessing it's because that post was spreading flaws that have already been discussed and may encourge people to try it in the PBEM games they play.

The complete bug list that buster has posted has a couple of the major flaws removed I think. Quite simply, because new players might be too tempted to use the major flaws to their advantage.

Kody

[Snowflake]

You could PM the administrators but I suspect that you already received a PM from one of them explaining why the thread is deleted.

ps. Comrade Kody, nice to see you here.

[Mr. President]

I posted in a thread that got deleted yesterday.

I'd like to think it was because I exposed an embarrassing secret about the administrators' style. But I think it was actually because the thread was questionable.

[AMD4EVER]

I guess someone is still trying to stop the spread of flaws in this game. For what reason, I'm not sure. For those of you who didn't get to read what the flaw was, let me assure you it is major and that it is now known to some people. Thanks to what this admin who didn't even give a reason for the deletion of the post or a simple description of the flaw that it spoke about, you have no idea what the symptoms of the flaw are and may end up being a victim of it.

I got no PM from the admin about my post and I have done nothing to warrant the deletion of that post. The admin must think that flaw will cause harm to AC is some way when infact I believe at this point it is all moot. I could get on and use it right now against people and because they don't know anything about this flaw, they would not be able to detect it. Someone who knew about this flaw would be able to realize that it is being used and report it.

Having read this post, perhaps it is in the admins interest that no one knows about this flaw because he wouldn't want anyone to be able to detect it when he uses it. Perhaps this is not his motive but what other motives has he given us for him to delete that thread? Knowledge about flaws would stop the use of those flaws.

I'm done with my rant but I'll go elsewhere to other AC message boards soon to spread this flaw around if I do not receive a good reason not to by our unfriendly admin here if for no other reason than to spite him. So delete this post and don't give me a reason for anything admin.

[Mongoose]

First, let me confess that the thread was removed from this forum due to my instigation.

The reasons for that are the same as they were when you posted this flaw at CGN last May, at which time it was deleted from that forum.

Summarizing those reasons:

1) The flaw is a game-breaker and a community breaker. Should the exploitation of this flaw become prevalent in the PBEM community, all the games would be ruined.

2) Use of this exploit is almost undetectable, certainly it is so to a casual player. To detect its use, one would have to become suspicious, have infiltration on the player suspected, then go through at least two consecutive turns and analyze all the myriad uses the suspect could have made with his ec, account for all the sources of ec (some of which are not knowable, even with infiltration...pod pops, grants from other factions) then determine if untoward rushing had been done. Even then, there is no proof, merely a (strong) circumstantial case of cheating.

3) Proliferation of the knowledge of this exploit will certainly lead to proliferation of its use.

4) The most likely victims, all unknowing, will be 'casual gamers' or newcomers to the MP community.

5) The effect of subsequent discovery of having been so victimized will be to disaffect that victim from future games...to abandon the community at large.

6) Even the rumor of an outstanding mega-cheat will have a deleterious effect on our community, which effect cannot now be avoided, since you SIMPLY WILL NOT LET THIS ISSUE REST!

7) Without new blood, the community will wither and die.


I oppose that.

What is it you seek to accomplish here? Do you wish to be lauded for your brilliance in discovering what nobody else did? Or do you seek some sort of absolution for having been an incorrigible cheat in your MP days?

In any case, and despite whatever you are seeking, you are dealing blow after blow to the community I love.

Just let it be, would you?!

[Solver]

2) Use of this exploit is almost undetectable, certainly it is so to a casual player. To detect its use, one would have to become suspicious, have infiltration on the player suspected, then go through at least two consecutive turns and analyze all the myriad uses the suspect could have made with his ec, account for all the sources of ec (some of which are not knowable, even with infiltration...pod pops, grants from other factions) then determine if untoward rushing had been done. Even then, there is no proof, merely a (strong) circumstantial case of cheating.

As for this one... well, it's rather possible to detect, IMO. Any cheat that gives the enemy any strange advantage will be noticed by experienced players - knowing location of enemy bases, units, getting free facilities or prototypes, such stuff becomes visible.

However, AMD4EVER, I am rather interested indeed as to why do you so much insist that this bug be known.

[Gufnork]

Mongoose, this could have been prevented by a simple message as to why the thread was removed. Noone likes to have their threads removed and I bet most of us would react similarly to AMD4EVER if the admin didn't bother to give us a reason. There's a lot of unnecessary hostility in this thread and since noone appears unreasonable it's totally unnecessary.

[Solver]

Noone likes to have their threads removed

Wait till you learn of some other people at this site .

[AMD4EVER]

Originally posted by Mongoose
The reasons for that are the same as they were when you posted this flaw at CGN last May, at which time it was deleted from that forum.

What is it you seek to accomplish here? Do you wish to be lauded for your brilliance in discovering what nobody else did? Or do you seek some sort of absolution for having been an incorrigible cheat in your MP days?

In any case, and despite whatever you are seeking, you are dealing blow after blow to the community I love.

Just let it be, would you?!

First off, I never posted this flaw before, ever. Not even my best friend or brothers knew about it. Just me and one other person. I sent it in a PM to one person, thats it. I described the flaw before in a post only to get the attention of a person at a message board. That person told me that this flaw can never be spread around, so he said he would leave a description of the flaw around so people would be able to recognize it if it were used against them. Unfortunantly he didn't even do that. I really didn't appreciate that not only because he lied to me about it, but also because I believed he was using it himself and that is why he didn't want people to know about it. I decided never to go to an individual like that again because of this. If it was you that did this, you probably already know why I decided to post it here. I had a suspicion that people in the MP community were already using this flaw to their advantage, specifically the person who had lied to me. So mainly I wanted to see how many people knew it existed and to spread knowledge of it amungst the few people that still played here.

As far as I can tell, there are very few new players here to get taken advantage of. This is the reason I didn't post it earlier to the public, because new people were still showing up a lot. The reason I post it now is because the knowledge of this flaw is no doubt known to people who play now anyways and since it is such a small community, those who would use it here should be caught or at least know they can be caught.

Having been using this cheat on my MP days even when I was using it, I wanted to be the only one who knew about it and always kept it to myself because of the advantage that it gave me. Knowing this, I believed if anyone was using it, they would wish to remain the only one and having others know about it would make it difficult for them to use it. Even I knew back in the day that I couldn't really exploit the flaw to an extreme degree without arousing suspicion.

I seriously doubt that flaw would strike a death blow to this community. If you were the one that I did contact long ago about this flaw, then that means you are possibly the only one other than me who knew about it. I tend to believe that even the most honest person would have taken advantage of it in the time since then meaning it has been getting use anyways. And assuming the person I gave info about the flaw to in the past quit the game, I believe he would have passed it on to his most trusted anyways and they would be using it.

Although this is the most powerful flaw I've ever seen, I'm sure there are many other flaws that could be taken advantage of in MP yet are not because the players wish to maintain a code of ethics. I believe any strong community like this would follow a code of ethics anyways.

Finally, I think this situation wasn't made any easier by you deleting my post without giving any reason. You didn't send a PM to me and you didn't even let me see what people had posted in response to me either. I don't consider myself a person who gets angry too quickly but this morning I was furious to see my post gone for no reason. I'm no longer angry about this since I did receive a response now, however I still believe knowledge of what this flaw does should be spread at least in the form of a description of it. It shouldn't remain covered up like it was last time I tried to give out info about it. Don't take this the wrong way, but I just don't trust one person being given a lot of power such as knowledge of this flaw would give them. As I found out, absolute power does corrupt absolutely. If this is covered up this time, you have at least 3-5 people who will be able to get away with using this. Don't let it happen if you want to do what is good for this community.

[AMD4EVER]

Originally posted by Solver
As for this one... well, it's rather possible to detect, IMO. Any cheat that gives the enemy any strange advantage will be noticed by experienced players - knowing location of enemy bases, units, getting free facilities or prototypes, such stuff becomes visible.

It is detectable and infact I have had people question how I was playing long before anyone knew about this flaw. It is so powerful that the results are very noticable late in the game. So that is why early in the game is the best time to use it, making it difficult to find out whether someone has used it at this time. Once mid-game rolls around, you can get away with it once in a while, but you can't suddenly complete 4 projects at once or an entire fleet of carriers and planet busters. People notice these things, especially if they know what they are looking for.

[Solver]

That person told me that this flaw can never be spread around, so he said he would leave a description of the flaw around so people would be able to recognize it if it were used against them.

That would be the correct solution.

As far as I can tell, there are very few new players here to get taken advantage of.

Not correct. Should someone here decide to cheat, there are easily enough inexperienced players to do that to.

Having been using this cheat on my MP days even when I was using it, I wanted to be the only one who knew about it and always kept it to myself because of the advantage that it gave me.

That's what makes me a bit suspicious to your motives... you HAVE cheated in MP games, something most of us would not see as acceptable. I can't speak for everyone here, but I myself never play games with persons who have got any cheating record.

I seriously doubt that flaw would strike a death blow to this community. If you were the one that I did contact long ago about this flaw, then that means you are possibly the only one other than me who knew about it. I tend to believe that even the most honest person would have taken advantage of it in the time since then meaning it has been getting use anyways.

Honest persons here would not use cheats, even if somehow having a 100% guarantee against detection.

Although this is the most powerful flaw I've ever seen, I'm sure there are many other flaws that could be taken advantage of in MP yet are not because the players wish to maintain a code of ethics. I believe any strong community like this would follow a code of ethics anyways.

I do also believe this is the most powerful one. And, there are records in the community of people not following the code of ethics... although yes, that's what we hope and rely on.


I have a few more things to say, and I will PM those to you now.

[Solver]

however I still believe knowledge of what this flaw does should be spread at least in the form of a description of it.

As I have said, that will be done.

[Sarxis]

Its probably not a big secret anyway whatever this 'flaw' is. And there are so many security loopholes in PBEM AC that your best bet is to only play with players you can trust.

[Lazerus]

Arguements are fun to watch when you have no idea whats going on