Unintentional "combat logging"

[AluminumAlloy]

So, let's say you've loaded up for a local combat community goal. Dropping at the conflict zone, you are greeted by a commander on the opposing side and the battle to death begins. After a few good minutes of your lasers burning holes in his ship while his own lasers are burning holes in your ship as well, your hull's damage becomes critical and your canopy shatters, fragments of glass flowing away into the dark void of infinite space. You attempt desperately to escape. At the last second just before his last beams of lasers blow you up...Boom! Your computer instantly shuts off while your room goes dark as an obvious consequence for your lights shutting off as well. There's a bright flash outside shining out your window, followed by a very loud buzzing noise:

The terrible snowstorm had blew up a nearby utility pole's transformer! Ah, time to take out your flashlight and read a book, sitting by the gas-powered warm fireplace that doesn't require electricity to run. Several hours later, the power shoots back on -- the power transformer had been replaced. You walk back to your computer, turn it on and fire up ED and find out your ship is still alive. After a few hours, your game disconnects and you have an e-mail from Frontier Developments telling you that you've been banned for combat logging.

And there's nothing much you can do about it, because it looked so obvious to intentional combat logging with the fact that you were about to blow up. What do you guys think? Does ED fortunately have a way of checking to see if it was for sure a power outage, or do you just have to deal with injustice in life?

 

[GilliganTX]

File a ticket with a phone number to contact the local utility company?

 

[sbdags]

Nice story!

Stuff happens. ED has no way of checking. Such is life.

 

[Asp Explorer]

There's not really any way for FD to tell if it was a power outage. If you kill the client, they have ways of detecting some things using watchdog.exe

 

[Chase Quinnell]

Honestly, even if FDev could tell the difference between Alt+F4 and the power going out, what's to stop someone from literally unplugging their network cable and saying their Internet went down briefly, or simply hard-resetting their PC? (obviously they'll pay for the latter in having to reinstall Windows at some point, but don't underestimate people! They can keep backup OS images if they're dedicated enough!).

Only way I can see this working is if they check if the person has a history of combat logging at suspicious moments. That might work, actually.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Honestly, even if FDev could tell the difference between Alt+F4 and the power going out, what's to stop someone from literally unplugging their network cable and saying their Internet went down briefly, or simply hard-resetting their PC? (obviously they'll pay for the latter in having to reinstall Windows at some point, but don't underestimate people! They can keep backup OS images if they're dedicated enough!).

Only way I can see this working is if they check if the person has a history of combat logging at suspicious moments. That might work, actually.

Simply put - when a network cable is unplugged from a local interface, Windows knows it has been unplugged. FD could, if they so chose, monitor for that behavior and send the telemetry back the next time it is connected. It's not a foolproof way of course, there are ways of solving that little problem - but well, many cable-pullers tend not to be the cleverest of people.

 

[AluminumAlloy]

Honestly, even if FDev could tell the difference between Alt+F4 and the power going out, what's to stop someone from literally unplugging their network cable and saying their Internet went down briefly, or simply hard-resetting their PC? (obviously they'll pay for the latter in having to reinstall Windows at some point, but don't underestimate people! They can keep backup OS images if they're dedicated enough!).

Only way I can see this working is if they check if the person has a history of combat logging at suspicious moments. That might work, actually.

Yep, that's the thing. FD wouldn't be able to tell if it's alt-f4 to a power outage, which would be identical to unplugging your computer. Gilli's suggestion above would be ideal, to contact FD that there ain't no monkey business by sending the local power company's number. Only downside is, they'd have to pay a long-distance telephone call fee.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Yep, that's the thing. FD wouldn't be able to tell if it's alt-f4 to a power outage, which would be identical to unplugging your computer. Gilli's suggestion above would be ideal, to contact FD that there ain't no monkey business by sending the local power company's number. Only downside is, they'd have to pay a long-distance telephone call fee.

That's just the thing though - they could.

As it turns out, the MSNdis_StatusMediaDisconnect class - a WMI event class - can monitor a computer and notify you any time a network connection has been lost (whether that’s because of a network cable being pulled or some other reason). As we often do, let’s show you the script and then explain how it works

http://blogs.technet.com/b/heyscrip...-any-time-a-network-cable-gets-unplugged.aspx

I'm not a coder, and I couldn't code anything in Windows to save my life - but I do know that in mainframe-land, if a network cable is unplugged when it shouldn't be - all sorts of alerts go off, pagers buzz (remember those?) and lights flash - even when the machine is turned off!

 

[Jackboot]

So, let's say you've loaded up for a local combat community goal. Dropping at the conflict zone, you are greeted by a commander on the opposing side and the battle to death begins. After a few good minutes of your lasers burning holes in his ship while his own lasers are burning holes in your ship as well, your hull's damage becomes critical and your canopy shatters, fragments of glass flowing away into the dark void of infinite space. You attempt desperately to escape. At the last second just before his last beams of lasers blow you up...Boom! Your computer instantly shuts off while your room goes dark as an obvious consequence for your lights shutting off as well. There's a bright flash outside shining out your window, followed by a very loud buzzing noise:

http://cache4.asset-cache.net/xd/14...7111452E48A176016EF047F2B6FEA2FF0933516819977

The terrible snowstorm had blew up a nearby utility pole's transformer! Ah, time to take out your flashlight and read a book, sitting by the gas-powered warm fireplace that doesn't require electricity to run. Several hours later, the power shoots back on -- the power transformer had been replaced. You walk back to your computer, turn it on and fire up ED and find out your ship is still alive. After a few hours, your game disconnects and you have an e-mail from Frontier Developments telling you that you've been banned for combat logging.

And there's nothing much you can do about it, because it looked so obvious to intentional combat logging with the fact that you were about to blow up. What do you guys think? Does ED fortunately have a way of checking to see if it was for sure a power outage, or do you just have to deal with injustice in life?

I'd say you have to deal with the injustice. All online games ban people for cheating or using god mode invincibility exploits. Its not really a thing in Elite however, as I believe FD stated they are not banning people outright for cheating, but shadowbanning them, sending them to their own version of solo where they cannot affect anyone or the BGS in any way. This is probably due to the way UK consumer laws work. My understanding is that banning cheaters outright would result in them getting a refund.
Since I started playing Elite, I've learned a lot about UK employment and consumer protection laws, and its something I'm going to consider the next time I think to buy a game from a UK developer.
I think an important question though you could ask yourself is what do other online games do when they ban cheaters who were really innocent? Surely some of them had issues resulting in unjust bans. I think the answer is that in order to have an experience free of god mode type cheats, some people may have to deal with injustice. Its the price we pay so to speak. But as I said, its not something you ever have to worry about with this game.

 

[AluminumAlloy]

I'd say you have to deal with the injustice. All online games ban people for cheating or using god mode invincibility exploits. Its not really a thing in Elite however, as I believe FD stated they are not banning people outright for cheating, but shadowbanning them, sending them to their own version of solo where they cannot affect anyone or the BGS in any way. This is probably due to the way UK consumer laws work. My understanding is that banning cheaters outright would result in them getting a refund.
Since I started playing Elite, I've learned a lot about UK employment and consumer protection laws, and its something I'm going to consider the next time I think to buy a game from a UK developer.
I think an important question though you could ask yourself is what do other online games do when they ban cheaters who were really innocent? Surely some of them had issues resulting in unjust bans. I think the answer is that in order to have an experience free of god mode type cheats, some people may have to deal with injustice. Its the price we pay so to speak. But as I said, its not something you ever have to worry about with this game.

Is it possible that shadow-banning can be prevented if someone were to immediately e-mail FD once the power is back up after an outage by giving a way to contact a local utility company?

 

[Midian27]

This excuse is so old... They won't do anything for one instance. They look for patterns. That being said, i doubt they would actually do anything anyway.

 

[Hooplah]

The scenario is a little extreme as certainly no one is going to get banned for one instance of what looks like combat logging. It would take repeated occurrences with FD taking the time away from other issues to check it out and then just get a warning email versus being banned. No worries.

 

[EUS]

Simply put - when a network cable is unplugged from a local interface, Windows knows it has been unplugged. FD could, if they so chose, monitor for that behavior and send the telemetry back the next time it is connected. It's not a foolproof way of course, there are ways of solving that little problem - but well, many cable-pullers tend not to be the cleverest of people.

Not sure I'd appreciate FD gaining access to any of my windows telemetry without my consent.
Yeah, I know, it could all be in the logs already.

 

[Jamesey1981]

I combat logged once because one of my cats decided to attack my network cable, pulling it out and then chewing the plug off it before I could I could do anything about it.
Annoyingly I was winning.
My cats are jerks.

 

[Faybs]

This excuse is so old... They won't do anything for one instance. They look for patterns. That being said, i doubt they would actually do anything anyway.

Yep, I'm having trouble believing that FD would ban this one guy after a first offense, when there's evidence of streamers cheating and logging for days with no repercussions.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

The smart cheaters will get away obviously.

 

[X-Terminator]

Just seen the film "13 Sins". What if you get a phone call from FD 'cos you quit the game - oh oh!

 

[kurush]

Does ED fortunately have a way of checking to see if it was for sure a power outage, or do you just have to deal with injustice in life?

The only thing it probably has is checking that you clicked the [x] icon while in combat when playing windowed. You need to petition Frontier to send a request to the local electrical grid company to check for any blackouts. They should totally do it because they care about combat logging Not sure how they would deal with my wife watching a movie and causing a major network congestion or my cat playing with the cable

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Surely the power company could send you an email detailing any recent power cuts at your address. Forward that to FD support as evidence and they would compare the times.

 

[Kaerakh]

So, let's say you've loaded up for a local combat community goal. Dropping at the conflict zone, you are greeted by a commander on the opposing side and the battle to death begins. After a few good minutes of your lasers burning holes in his ship while his own lasers are burning holes in your ship as well, your hull's damage becomes critical and your canopy shatters, fragments of glass flowing away into the dark void of infinite space. You attempt desperately to escape. At the last second just before his last beams of lasers blow you up...Boom! Your computer instantly shuts off while your room goes dark as an obvious consequence for your lights shutting off as well. There's a bright flash outside shining out your window, followed by a very loud buzzing noise:

http://cache4.asset-cache.net/xd/14...7111452E48A176016EF047F2B6FEA2FF0933516819977

The terrible snowstorm had blew up a nearby utility pole's transformer! Ah, time to take out your flashlight and read a book, sitting by the gas-powered warm fireplace that doesn't require electricity to run. Several hours later, the power shoots back on -- the power transformer had been replaced. You walk back to your computer, turn it on and fire up ED and find out your ship is still alive. After a few hours, your game disconnects and you have an e-mail from Frontier Developments telling you that you've been banned for combat logging.

And there's nothing much you can do about it, because it looked so obvious to intentional combat logging with the fact that you were about to blow up. What do you guys think? Does ED fortunately have a way of checking to see if it was for sure a power outage, or do you just have to deal with injustice in life?

Since this looks like another good place to say this; a game developer is not responsible for your geographic location, internet connection, or weather. If a developer decides to privilege you by trying to accommodate to your needs then that's awesome, but remember just that, it's a privilege. As players we're all just playing in someone else's toybox. Something EULAs remind us of every time we perform an install.