Guild Wars 2

Seriously, We need stricter policy for WvW regarding to this matter otherwise dont make WvW tournament anymore. This season is terrible, spies kept destroying our seiges and revealing our plans.

And what can they do about people spying?
I think that is a much better question.
It is 100% impossible for them to stop people from reporting the movement of the server to other servers, so adding a rule against it would be completely pointless.

Well that’s just great. let the spying game begin!

Begin?
It has been going on for almost two years.
It is not something new.

Do you actually have a suggestion how to stop this though? Or did you just want to create a thread complaining about it and wait for others to come up with solutions?

lordkrall.7241:

Begin?
It has been going on for almost two years.
It is not something new.

Do you actually have a suggestion how to stop this though? Or did you just want to create a thread complaining about it and wait for others to come up with solutions?

I do want to make a thread to complain about it enough to get Anet’s attention. Like you said the problem has been going on for two years. Suggestions ? There are plenty of suggestions out there but how many have been implemented or looked at ? Reporting doesnt work, screenshots dont work.

ANet doesn’t care, so long as people buy the next shiny thing in the gemstore.

I agree, that the spies are annoying, but I don’t think it is possible for them to destroy friendly siege… well except golems — those they can destroy.

Waste supplies (drain a tower/camp/keep) sure.

And, while it was frustrating to see people build siege that the commander hadn’t dropped, pugs wasting supplies has always been a part of the game.

-Du Marque de Tarnished Coast

“There is some guy from BG looking in my window….”

Anet has demonstrated that they plain don’t care. We have recurring siege trolls with countless screenshots and reports submitted with no action, and I’m sure other servers have them too. No infrastructure and moderation ingame for griefing and exploiting means that this will continue to happen.

Only way you are going to get a response is if you make it a “match up thread” and get it locked.

I am still waiting for a suggestion about how you even CAN stop spying?
Destroying siege and wasting supplies is already stop-able by sending screenshots to ArenaNet.

But giving the enemy servers information? How can you stop that? Seeing as they can’t control TS/Mumble/Skype/Whatever and as such they can never stop someone from joining a server and spread information to other servers.

lordkrall.7241:

I am still waiting for a suggestion about how you even CAN stop spying?

Straigth up information gathering you cannot stop. But some spies go and sabotage, dropping and building useless siege that are without argue a waste of supply/siege cap. These can be stopped.
The game recognizes who placed the siege so it should be possible to punish people that do this.

arenanet, unless it interferes with pve, has a complete hands-off policy when it comes to WvW. Cheating, hacking, exploiting, spying and griefing are all pretty much fair game.

lordkrall.7241:

Destroying siege and wasting supplies is already stop-able by sending screenshots to ArenaNet.

What a fat lie. I’d post the “we are investigating, use the ingame report function and don’t bother us anymore(and of course no action ever taken)” type of answers I got when I tried to do it, after months of 1 guy trolling our server and hundreds of ingame reports every day, but I once did and got 3 infraction points for “namecalling/shaming”.

Pavel.8531:

What a fat lie. I’d post the “we are investigating, use the ingame report function and don’t bother us anymore(and of course no action ever taken)” type of answers I got when I tried to do it, after months of 1 guy trolling our server and hundreds of ingame reports every day, but I once did and got 3 infraction points for “namecalling/shaming”.

Yeah, I suppose spamming reports might make them a bit tired.
I, on the other hand, have reported people that way and a few days later that player were nowhere to be found.

Terrahero.9358:

Straigth up information gathering you cannot stop. But some spies go and sabotage, dropping and building useless siege that are without argue a waste of supply/siege cap. These can be stopped.
The game recognizes who placed the siege so it should be possible to punish people that do this.

arenanet, unless it interferes with pve, has a complete hands-off policy when it comes to WvW. Cheating, hacking, exploiting, spying and griefing are all pretty much fair game.

Exactly, and SPYING is information gathering. Other than that is is sabotaging, which is a different issue.

And as stated earlier in this post, they actually DO act if sabotaging can be proved.

The main issue is that they have to make sure that it is actual sabotaging rather than just straight up stupidity. You can’t ban people for being stupid after all.

ITT: People who don’t know the difference between spying and sabotage

I found it rather amusing that certain servers had to resort to DDOSing our server TS whilst they simultaneously tried to take our waypoints on multiple maps.

I must say it was a highly effective method in doing so.

^^FYI the DDOS turned out to be a hardware fault or do you mean last night? TS was fine last night afaik.

spies are part of real war too. what you gonna do about pixel spies? you’re supposed to have your leaders make plans in secret. that way the spies can’t do anything that the enemy scouts cant do. neutralize the risk instead of complaining about it, because spies aren’t exactly a new concept.

Asgaeroth.6427:

spies are part of real war too. what you gonna do about pixel spies? you’re supposed to have your leaders make plans in secret. that way the spies can’t do anything that the enemy scouts cant do. neutralize the risk instead of complaining about it, because spies aren’t exactly a new concept.

Awful comparison. In “real war” if you catch a spy you kill him. Here we have our good friends build 50 ballistas in every keep while you try to imagine Anet giving a kitten. There’s no counter-play outside of doing it yourself, or just living with it. “Spy” or even “sabotage” is a terrible glorification for what these people are doing – basically petty griefing.

lordkrall.7241:

I am still waiting for a suggestion about how you even CAN stop spying?

IP restrictions. You can’t participate in WvW if your IP was recently associated with another account (presumably your primary one).

Jamais vu.5284:

IP restrictions. You can’t participate in WvW if your IP was recently associated with another account (presumably your primary one).

Too bad for people living together then.

And if people really want to spy they can quite easily bypass a restriction like that as well.

The only thing it would do is punish normal people rather than those spying.

And why would you even need to be on another server for that matter?
It is fully possible to have only one account on one server and still spread information from that server to other servers.

I will log on and sell a servers movements for 20g/hour. Who wants to buy my services!?!?! lol

If they had GM then grifers that destroy siege or waste supply maybe cod get banned, but players reporting to other server is imposible.

Sicarius.4639:

I found it rather amusing that certain servers had to resort to DDOSing our server TS whilst they simultaneously tried to take our waypoints on multiple maps.

I must say it was a highly effective method in doing so.

lol, disrupting enemy communication is a legitimate real-life tactic in wars; as with the spying and unrequired mass siege building, I believe they will say they are legit tactics in the game as well.

Note I dont condone it, in fact I think it’s unsportman-like for a game to go to these lengths, even to the point that it’s cheating really.
But what can you do expect do what most are doing, stick to your own guild ts and divide the server community.

In the real world, intelligence gathering is a real tactic. But you can defend against that with encryption, steganography, canary traps and a litany of other defenses.

In GW2, there are NO defenses. These guys blatantly break the game and laugh opening at us in chat.

In real war, spies are captured and tortured for information and traitors are put to death.

So the things that people complain about are underhanded tactics that can’t be defended against in a practical way.

In real life, if someone in the army was deliberately wasting supplies to aid the enemy, they would be court martial-ed for treason.

If they build structures over supplies, the army would break down the structures and reuse the supplies.

The whole real life argument is completely invalid. This is not real life. It is a game of strategy and action. Spying is the lowest way of cheating in a game. At least in Vegas if you spy on a blackjack dealers hand, you get your legs broken by Al Pacino.

Spying and siege abuse in WvW is cheating plain and simple. Anet should aggresively ban people guilty of this. Sure they will buy new accounts, but at least it would make more money for Anet, and force the player to think twice or lose money for traitorous actions.

Suggestion:

If you guys dont want to devote time to make your players happy, perhaps you could give the choice to us, or maybe a few select guild leaders chosen by people to have moderator powers.

woofie.5603:

Suggestion:
If you guys dont want to devote time to make your players happy, perhaps you could give the choice to us, or maybe a few select guild leaders chosen by people to have moderator powers.

Not even mod powers are needed I think. Anet just needs like 10 guys max?(heck, I’d do it for free and I am sure many others would too) with the power to switch servers immediately and for free with the “staff” account they are given, no delay on entering WvW(maybe a “go to ‘playername’” type command too) and a direct connection to someone that can act on the gathered information and not just reply to the players’ mails with a canned and infuriating “we are investigating” reply.

Spy is annoying but I still think it is legit.

22. While participating in Plaver-vs-Player (PvP) gameplay, you will not participate in any form of match manipulation. Match manipulation is defined as any action taken to fix or manipulate the outcome of a match or alter or manipulate the rankings or ratings of the ladder. This also includes disrupting other people’s game experience by not actively participating in matches in good faith, a.k.a leeching.

Source.

I know it doesn’t necessarily sound like it applies to WvW, but I definitely recall seeing a dev post many months ago that cited it in reference to WvW.

Thelgar.7214:

“There is some guy from BG looking in my window….”

You like it and you know it, you little exhibitionist!

Only thing I can think to help stop it is to make it so you can only create characters on one server, if you switch servers all your characters have to move to the new server.
It may help not being able to create characters on different servers.
Of course they can still buy multiple accounts and do it that way, but not as many would want to do that just to spy.

i can even make it better lol, its not just spying but guys like sfr and bb are on each other ts to make plans to attack deso lol.

kelman.9451:

Only thing I can think to help stop it is to make it so you can only create characters on one server, if you switch servers all your characters have to move to the new server.
It may help not being able to create characters on different servers.
Of course they can still buy multiple accounts and do it that way, but not as many would want to do that just to spy.

That is already the case.
The account is tied to your servers, not characters.

william dj.6953:

must have missed the memo where spies are not allowed in war. all the whinning about this is funny. Let’s fight to the death but make sure you follow MY rules. if you don’t your a griefer, or a cheater. you should be banned if you do things people actually do in war. You should not be allowed to play if you don’t play the way I think you should. utter nonsense. obviously comments from the no child left behind education system.

I’d hate to break this to you, but this isn’t war. It’s a video game. Didn’t you wonder why your AoE spells didn’t hurt your ally? Weren’t you wondering, “I wonder why my bullets aren’t killing Commander Kittens but it’s hurting Yak’s Bend Invader… Very odd.”

In this video game, the position of the enemy is obfuscated. It’s one of the rules of the game, which are bypassed by spying. If someone in Starcraft II – another video game – was relaying the information of their opponent, which is hidden in the fog of war, they would be suspended because it’s cheating.

I hope I’ve cleared some things up for you since you seemed to be a very confused person. Also, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny aren’t real either.

william dj.6953:

obviously comments from the no child left behind education system.

This quote makes more sense when you realize he’s talking about himself.

Nokaru.7831:

william dj.6953:

must have missed the memo where spies are not allowed in war. all the whinning about this is funny. Let’s fight to the death but make sure you follow MY rules. if you don’t your a griefer, or a cheater. you should be banned if you do things people actually do in war. You should not be allowed to play if you don’t play the way I think you should. utter nonsense. obviously comments from the no child left behind education system.

I’d hate to break this to you, but this isn’t war. It’s a video game. Didn’t you wonder why your AoE spells didn’t hurt your ally? Weren’t you wondering, “I wonder why my bullets aren’t killing Commander Kittens but it’s hurting Yak’s Bend Invader… Very odd.”

In this video game, the position of the enemy is obfuscated. It’s one of the rules of the game, which are bypassed by spying. If someone in Starcraft II – another video game – was relaying the information of their opponent, which is hidden in the fog of war, they would be suspended because it’s cheating.

I hope I’ve cleared some things up for you since you seemed to be a very confused person. Also, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny aren’t real either.

william dj.6953:

obviously comments from the no child left behind education system.

This quote makes more sense when you realize he’s talking about himself.

What?! Santa an Bunny aren’t real?! That can’t be!

Oh also let’s add to your clarification to that william child left behind education system – in “real war”, spies, when caught, get shot.

lordkrall.7241

And if people really want to spy they can quite easily bypass a restriction like that as well.

No crap. If it were that easy, I’d say even someone as … gifted as ANet would have implented that solution already. My proposal was merely a bandaid, or rather gauze.

The only thing it would do is punish normal people rather than those spying. /

I think you overstimate the number of people who
-live under one roof
-are active at the same times
-play both WvW
-play both WvW on different servers (didn’t specify it, but I actually meant accounts with different servers to them. Else it wouldn’t make a difference, of course)
-do not spy/grief for each other
No doubt there exist such people. No doubt there also exist people who unwittingly duped and got banned or unwittingly farmed at a infinite respawn spot and got banned.
I think one of those accounts not being able to play WvW is a bit less harsh than being banned over one of the examples I mentioned above.

And why would you even need to be on another server for that matter?
It is fully possible to have only one account on one server and still spread information from that server to other servers.

Yes it’s possible, but if the spy/griefer doesn’t have an account on the server he’s spying for, what’s the point for him? He never gets to play with his “friends” and servermates.
I’m sure you can come up with a million exceptions but that doesn’t defeat that this only applies to a tiny minority.

Anet doesn’t run TS3/Mumble/Vent/etc used by players and spies, how would they stop that type of spying?

Spying is an accepted part of the game, imo.

Why would they do that? 1 spy on the other server = 1 bought game or 1 transfer = $$

Anything can go in this game including cheating/hacking/spying/exploiting as long as they get $$. Haven’t u learned that the past 2 years?

They will just come out with the usual bull*** “we are working on it” or “working as intended because we want to promote blaa bla bla bla bla” if they EVER answer :P

Stop creating silly threads pls ^.^

The spying bit I don’t think they can police – they can’t really be expected to keep up with that.

The sabotage, though? That they can and should react to, but they don’t. There’s someone on my server that’s been sabotaging siege for months (but is especially bad – go figure – in the last week of the tournament), reported countless times; everyone knows who he is, and he makes it known what he’s doing.

Dropping portals in the wrong places, using up hundreds of supply in keeps and towers in building useless siege, spam-placing ballistas on top of every piece of siege that the commander puts down, making the rest of us unable to build the right piece of siege…play like that is just dirty and, frankly, should be a bannable offense. But apparently ANet does not care.

Nokaru.7831:

I’d hate to break this to you, but this isn’t war. It’s a video game.

True, but ‘spying’ could be part of the game and even if you decide it isn’t, it will be impossible to prove it.

frans.8092:

Nokaru.7831:

I’d hate to break this to you, but this isn’t war. It’s a video game.

True, but ‘spying’ could be part of the game and even if you decide it isn’t, it will be impossible to prove it.

The only difference is that when you find the spy you cant do a thing to stop them anyway, just like all those unknowns breaking down gates in full view of everyone.

You saw nothing.

How can they tell their spying? perhaps they have friends on that server?
It’s pretty hard to find out who’s actually spying and who isnt’

Spying is annoying but it mostly happens in TS. (And Anet can’t deal with TS issues) Anything out of it can be scouted as well.

The answer is simple… When in Rome, do as the Romans do….. get your spies ready for the next season!

it just can’t be stopped, the only thing you can do is make some moves to test to see if the enemy keeps being where you are going, and then since you know there is a spy just go “owell” and play on…just nothing can be done.

siege griefing is more fixable, just ask anet to attach a name tag (like guild siege) to the siege, it might take up more bits but surely it can be done hehe.

OH and I am in need of all siege, so if you don’t really use siege and would rather waste it to grief please send it to me Ballistas included!