IP Bans, IP Bans Everywhere
Elongated Musket
A little background for those less interested in what's technically going on.
Ever since the Epic War Tournament/contest/whatever (and those dreadful server slow-downs) the eRepublik team started banning IP addresses that have been making... let's just say unusually high amounts of requests (bots).
And, around the same time, i've heard that the eRepublik api is being shut down (yet again).
Ever since then i've heard players sayng: "Need to get new IP", "Got IP Banned" etc.
I realize that they're not banning those IP's manually (that would be ... crazy).
They must have some king of app/script monitoring access requests.
A couple of days ago i heard that Google Docs's IP's were also banned.
And today i've heard this rumor that they somehow managed to ban an entire Poland Internet provider (namely UPC Poland).
My initial thoughts on this were: either a) some Cloning machines or b) Market farming scripts.
But then i realized something. egov4you.info is run by some polish guys. That means Polish IP's.
And i ask you (Plato, eRepublik team):
You think and API just costs money and produces nothing?
An API SAVES money.
An API SAVES bandwidth.
An API allows players to make their own TOOLS.
An API supports the meta-game.
And when you have a game like yours and fail (for soooo long) to provide players with the tools they need/want, they WILL find ways to get the job done.
No matter your IP Bans and/or restrictions.
Fine. Stop the API. But do SOMETHING ELSE. Here, take Travian's example.
I remember Travian had a nice way of doing this kind of thing without an API.
They would just make available an SQL dump updated daily.
http://{server}.travian.com/map.sql.zip
and that dump file vould contain SQL statements.
CREATE TABLE x_world;
INSERT INTO `x_world` VALUES(...);
I really believe that implementing something like this would drastically reduce the crawl rate by player-made bots.
Just make, at each day-change, some SQL dump files containing player data (containing the friggin' "PREVIOUS DAY_DAMAGE"), grouped by various things:
http://www.erepublik.com/country-{country_id}.sql.zip
http://www.erepublik.com/MU-{military_unit_id}.sql.zip
etc.
How hard can that be?
Here's some b00bs. vote this up 🙂
And remember, always keep it fresh:
Comments
o7
V
Yep, without an API people will create their own tools wich will cost you more bandwidth than your API...
PS: NUCI
PPS: BUCI
PPPS: Praz xD
PPPPPS: FUIȚ
PPPPS: Fal Fal Fal
PPPPPS: LUcssss 😉
lol
V
This is your area of expertise CornelB
You have had at least 2 series of 100 multies / clones banned
and you got a Temporary Suspend for it.
You got yourself tangled in this type of game, unfortunately. You have no joy out of playing a simple eRepublik, and that's because of your greed, I don't see any other reason. Most people work, train and fight, while you build yourself armies of fighting and gold making clones.
Can we call you a hypocrite here for pointing fingers at allegedly "Polish robots" ?
Remember this? (the one you got temp ban for)
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/clonele-far-banate-in-frunte-cu-pastorul-sef--2264569/1/20
What about this?
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/masina-de-clone-primeste-lovitura-de-gratie-2152660/1/20
Dear zmeuNY, please delete your account and free up some bandwidth!
Free Rosia Zmeura Montana!
Also ban Poland!
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Shhhh ... the GROWN-ups are talking ....
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doar o vorba sa-ti mai spun:
Remember that day - 2nd of May
I remember it.
That was the day FAR got about 100 clones banned
I said shhhhh ...
The grown-ups are talking now.
Go play with your dollies and, when the grownups have finished talking, we promise we'll come take a look.
They don't care about players, they care only about money. They should start fixing the code on website and after, get more competent people.
The make Gold Pack so offen because they failed, that's why people are not playing anymore.
I'n not telling them to "care about players".
I'm telling them to care about their own interests and business.
They are incompetent, I notice to much stuff that is "retarded" and doesn't make sense, and i work in Computer Security ...
^ ^ ^
They don't care about players, they care only about money. They should start fixing the code on website and after, get more competent people.
The make Gold Pack so offen because they failed, that's why people are not playing anymore.
+1
quit the game and do something more useful and fun. boring, bloody boring game
I tried that once. I came back 🙂
v
Voted.
v
V
dont care about it , i just wont all of us join TWO and hit together on 1 side 🙂
HAIL TWO
HAIL ALL OF US IN TWO
that would be nice...o/
oh wait if we all " join TWO and hit together on 1 side" who would be on the other side tking our hit's???...... 🙁
i dont care CatBea , as long as TWO is winning all the battles all the time.
hopefuly with time plato him selve will join TWO (if he didnt already 😛)
if all join TWO,, then who is on other side? you can't hit any more 😉
Well, I'm player playing from Poland so I'm influenced with this... But I'm OK with this (despite being innocent) as long as I can use proxy to access the game.
...
Though, now, that I think about it, by posting this comment, I'm an example showing, that this kind of solution is useless...
Some of us have static ip and yes plato we have problem .....
This type of ban which is for server protection against high amounts of requests should be OK for a few minutes - an hour at most.
Instead, erepublik goes for 24 hours ban which is an irreasonable amount of time for this time of protection.
Probably, it was a good idea to implement, but as it always is happening here, Plato's kid just screwed it again.
🙂
retards also managed to ban UPC Austria along, unbelievable..