Utterly Frustrating

[DanCleary]

I am playing a pbem game with someone from a different game club. From turn one until now, turn five, I get a message about reloads. From two to five reloads each turn. :eek1:

I would continue to play if this were a normal scenario and then never play that person again. However, this is FitE. I don't think I can stomach this for this long game.

I am playing other scenarios with other people and no reload messages so I am going to assume these messages are correct. I want to inform this person of the reload messages and tell them the game is over. Would this be proper? How can I go on for hundreds of turns with endless reload messages? :conf:

[RedDevil]

Can't hurt to ask him whats up.

[Antoni Chmielowski]

I am playing a pbem game with someone from a different game club. From turn one until now, turn five, I get a message about reloads. From two to five reloads each turn. :eek1:

I would continue to play if this were a normal scenario and then never play that person again. However, this is FitE. I don't think I can stomach this for this long game.

I am playing other scenarios with other people and no reload messages so I am going to assume these messages are correct. I want to inform this person of the reload messages and tell them the game is over. Would this be proper? How can I go on for hundreds of turns with endless reload messages? :conf:

Dan,

Have you approached the ladder commander @ the other club and made him aware of the situation ? - have you approached the offender *politely* to ask what is happening ?. :soap:

If you dont get a satisfactory answer you can resign the game, although he can then claim the highest win level against you.
You then put him on your personal blacklist and never play him again:kill:

[Bigwig]

Personally, I think the TOAW anti-cheating system is overzealous. I NEVER reload, but I've had a couple of people complaining about reload messages. Plus I've gotten single or double reloads from time to time against almost every opponent I've ever played, and I see no reason to believe that ANY of them have actually been cheating.

I think what I figured out in my case was that it was case of accidentally reloading old turns, though, since I've been more careful about that recently and haven't gotten any complaints since.

But two to five every turn is a lot. Ask him what's up. Then, yeah, you should quit if it persists.

[Heldenkaiser]

When I was new to TOAW, I hadn't yet figured out that the game names files saved during a PBEM turn under a different name (.sal) from the one the file receives after turn end (.pbl), and also uses a different start menu button to open the two--I believe only TOAW does that, from all games I have played PBEM. In my first games I would save the file often; sometimes open a file just to watch the replay, then close it to think over my moves some time. Several times I then accidentally opened the .pbl file again instead of the .sal file and no doubt triggered one or several reload messages.

If your opponent is also new to TOAW, he may be making similar mistakes in good faith. Just a thought.

[Currahee]

Good points by Heldenkaiser; and if you'll use the start menu button to open saved games, you're unlikely to open a .pbl file, because it won't show them, unless you select the wrong button. Also, if you're prompted for a password, that's a clue that you've opened the .pbl file.

Also, note that the automatically saved moves, labeled "END OF TURN- DO NOT SEND" can be freely opened without triggering an anti-cheat message; that's what they're for; so it's no problem, if you want to go back and look at an earlier position. It's not cheating, as those files are no longer part of the "active game".

Dan, if your game is a ladder game in another club, of course their rules will apply; but we won't require you to forfeit your games here, if you have to quit because of multiple reload messages. And also, unless your opponent registers here, you won't be able to report the game on the Blitz ladder. So you may just want to terminate the game, unless that gets you into trouble in the other club.

If players want to allow "take-backs", that's easy; you can still take back moves as always, your opponent gets a "beep" during the replay movie, so if you've agreed to allow it, no problem; there's no need to do turn reloads.

Even considering all the various legitimate reasons "reload" messages may be triggered, the false alarms are very infrequent; the sad truth is, some players were used to playing COW for years, and doing multiple, intentional reloads, to replay moves, or portions of moves. If you responded in kind, the game became exceedingly tedious, and completely put off new players; it's really good for the game system, to put that behind us.