Micro Normal 1100 | Game Over

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This sure was an.... interesting? game to spectate.

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To the newbies that stuck around - please feel free to ask me questions if you want a non-player's established perspective on anything that went down, as I have no biases from having played.

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I actually did take them up on their post about getting a PM to reveal the truth, which is HILARIOUS in hindsight given they freaked the royal fuck out about "yes, the IP of every user is logged and matches are flagged" now I know whY!

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I was playing on an alt earlier, SuperfluousNinja. I kinda sorta played like complete shit when I played as SuperfluousNinja and freaked out quite a bit and felt like I had forever tarnished my reputation there, so I figured I'd just start over with a new account and wipe the slate clean. But I guess that's considered a "secret alt" and not approved by the site, so I was replaced for it.

I was given literally no warning about it at all. I found out I was being replaced at the exact moment Thomith said as much in the thread. They didn't bother to ask me if it was an alt; they just went ahead and kicked me out of the game.

They also managed that whole thing in an unnecessarily secretive way...Thomith was instructed to not tell me why I was being replaced. I only found out by accident because I had signed up for DragonEater's game, and he informed me I was being kicked out of that too because I had a "secret alt". Like, fuck.

If it was that big of a deal I would have just told them. I don't know why they had to treat me like an enemy of the state and do this shit to me instead.

Anyway...any comments on how I played this game, since you were spectating?

Then my reply:

Hi.

So first of all, I want to apologize to you on behalf of the site for your experience with the whole alt selection process. The box is there during signups, but it's very easy to miss.

Unfortunately in communities centered around a game on forums like this, most rules are written in blood and suffering, and this one is no exception. In my 11 years on the site, I've borne witness to several incidents of players cheating by owning multiple accounts, some of which they maintained the charade up on for YEARS, just to join the game with multiple bits of info.

The "alt" box during signups only reports that info to the site's moderation team, who view any flags of multiple accounts with the same IP address. I know this because:

A- I am friends with one of the site admins
B- My wife and I play (and met here actually) so we got flagged in that way too
and
C- I have an alt or two of my own that was made prior to this policy, and one post-policy.

The secrecy is also a policy reason, as actions taken in one game can compromise players that are sharing games in another. I once again know this as I have one had to replace out of several games at once due to this sort of thing. I am aware it may feel like suckage, but the possibilities of it being open knowledge can be worse.

As far as my feedback on the play of the game itself, I'm going to be dropping that in the post-game main thread!

Their reply:

Do you know how they are able to figure this out? I'm a little freaked out that they discovered it...are they recording my IP address and comparing it to IP addresses of other accounts?

And then my unanswered final reply:

Not asking to insult, promise.

How tech savvy are you?

The IP address of any given device is something that is by nature given when connecting to a remote server. It's stuff that is logged on every website you visit, always. Usually, if you're using home WiFi/lan, all devices on you network share a single external IP address, so a laptop computer or cell phone using WiFi would report the same external IP. There's nothing particularly damaging that a site can do given JUST your external IP.

Nearly all forum software does this as a built in function, IP address overlaps get reported to admins. That's why the field for "alt account" exists to pre-clear these instances, as a community we are fine with alts when documented properly.

Nobody is going to get you in any actual trouble for this, and it won't be held against you or anything. Should you choose to want more information, I highly encourage you to PM the user Anix, who is the primary site admin, for clarity about what occurred.

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In fairness to me re: last statement, they didn't come clean about the THIRD alt so meh