No they wont leave. That is just your opinion. Like I said before, showing consideration for the amount of money spent, is not gonna make people quit. Even people in other alliances. You have to understand that the same rules apply for everyone. I know there are 2 sides to a coin, so lemme simply point out certain facts here:

1. You use bans as ingame strategy in order to remove competition. I have seen YOUR alliance do it. You immediately go running to the admins, whining, not because you actually care who cheats and who does not, but you want someone banned. I have seen this happen a zillion times, not just by your alliance, heck I have done it myself. Now while my case might be right, it still is a misuse of the ban system.

2. If there are two alliances, and both have supporters, and if one of them cheats, then the admins can go ahead ban him. Like I have said numerous times before, a ban given with consideration for the amount of money spent, losses on both sides reimbursed, WILL NOT result in someone quitting. If they quit there might be other reasons, that are personal, but they wont rage quit on BD. If you still say the guy that didn't cheat will pack his bags and leave, and I assume you assume you are one of those dudes, then Id say you are having a hissy fit over nothing. You are simply trying to get people banned and again misuse the ban system, as ingame strategy. And most importantly how long a person gets banned is no one's business.

So Bottomline, Always consider supporters and how much they spend. Just because a guy cheats, does not mean you have to nail him on the cross. Give a punishment that is reasonable enough. Cheater or not, the person is a customer too. Indeed, I would like this extended to everyone in general, but I use the example of supporters here, since I believe they have a little more of bargaining power, or atleast should have in an org that cares about retaining customers.

The other side to this is, trying to implement certain ingame features that wont cause people to cheat in the first place. Like giving ministers the power to move squads. Its time people understood that activity SHOULD NOT, and I repeat SHOULD NOT, be a requirement to play a strategy game. Its that, that is the root cause of one of the most common violations of ingame rules today - Account Sharing. If you are not gonna handle the root cause of a problem, then you are never gonna solve the problem. Throwing bans around is not a solution. Its a reactive procedure. Its time to get a little more proactive though.

Your current system wont work for you very long, is all I can say. You are giving proof from E3, F4 and E4 that no one can verify. Multies are not supporters, they are created by supporters in certain cases. Yet, players wouldn't know for sure if some colony is a multi or not, and they wouldn't know if those people supported.

Saying I haven't placed myself on both sides is false. I have, and I have proposed solutions to make both sides happy in a more reasonable way. I said if multies are hurting people who support, then compensate them for the loss. And if you do find a supporter creating multies, right now you are up for perm banning (or a very long ban) him. I am saying, dont do that, cuz you will lose that customer. If you compensate people for losses, they incurred, I am sure people wont quit. If they demand you perm ban him, its none of their business, or they are simply trying to take advantage of the ban system.

From MY personal experience, I have been hurt by multies before, and haven't been compensated even a single time. That is something that is missing in BD, and no wonder people threaten to quit. Throwing bans around like I said is only reactive. Not proactive. Of course the multi issue is unique, but there are other more common forms of violations, that can be solved by thinking a little out of the box.

I am done with this as well. Do what you guys want. You will progressively see those threats, turn into reality, and you will progressively see things getting worse.

There is no concrete evidence that you can give Seth. Even in the quote you showed, there is absolutely no evidence that you offered him compensation, and that he refused it.

Most of your burden comes from that fact that you have to make decisions based on your judgements. Thats why this job is so thankless for you. I know you try to do your best, when presented with a situation, but you will not be right in everyone's eyes. Its for this reason, that we need a system that is clearer. As long as we dont have that and as long as you are basing your decisions on your judgements, there is nothing wrong if you consider how much a person spends.

Now if you do not want to do that, because it could be unfair, then let us have a system where people know what they will get if they cheat. For example, if they multi - that will be a certain amount of time ban if found out. If they account share - a certain punishment.

If you still wanna make it better, bring in game options, that do not let people account share, use slave colonies etc. For those like multiing, have some sort of improvement in your processes, that will actually improve the situation when it comes to banning or providing compensation.

When these things become standards, people will accept it. It will be fair to everyone and not subject to individual or circumstantial interpretation. You simply cannot continue using your judgements to run the game, it will only get progressively difficult for you both to retain customers and to make people happy.

Its like the CEO of my first company used to say: "People are not disgruntled with the organization they work for, they are rather disgruntled with their managers"

Alrighty, then. I see you guys are just going to keep going around in circles. lol

Yes, they supporter/cheater should be removed and yes, the victim/reporter should be compensated. But it doesn't and can't work that way.

Let me ask you this. You see a super heavy booster, or a guy that cleary has some farming going on. What is it you'd rather see? You grow bigger than them and have a score 50 pts higher? OR His colony... with a blue halo and red star on it, and your alliances flag in yellow fluttering in the breeze?

Most ppl would get more satisfaction from seeing a person paying for what they did wrong than they would from just recouping their losses.

SO just paying the reporter off usually won't solve the problem. PLUS you still will have the person who's cheating offending and ruining the game for others.

BUT at the same time you do not want to get rid of a paying customer. Generally it just seems to make bad business sense to purposefully rid yourself of those supporting you.

However that is what ALL successful business do. (Go into a restaurant and try to smoke in the non-smoking area, and see if they don't ask you to put it out or leave)

The issue is in the above example all the other patrons are paying customers as well, here you could lose a paying player and gain no "new" revenue in it's place.

The simplest and most easy solution for this situation that I can come up with is....

Rules. Set in stone. On the wiki (which badly needs an update) and in the forums, and in the sign in or era select.

With clear definitions and punishments for violations that increase in severity and/or length of time for multiple offenses. Regardless of a payers supporter or non-supporter status.

And here's the brilliant part. If someone is a supporter of such extreme value that BD really would suffer from the loss of a permanent ban, guess who keeps track of the number of offenses? That's right Admins. And if someone happens to get 2 third strikes... Oops.

You could get creative with punishments.
Farming = your resource production is Halved for the next 3 days.
Offensive broadcast? = Energy is now zero.

and things like that for the first offense or two. Up to 24 hr bans, 2 day bans, Booted from the server (ban) and finally altogether banned from BD.

People cheat because they want to win. If the price of cheating is making it even more difficult (if not impossible to win) *As opposed to not being able to play the game* people will be less likely to cheat. AND more responsive when warned and upon receiving a msg like...

"I see from ip's, locations, log in time and several other activities that you have mulits in N:? E:? this area. You have been warned and added to the list of those who violate the rules of BattleDawn. If it happens again you will be subject to administrative action up to and including a permanent ban. For this infraction you will lose 2000 metal and 2000 oil. Please see that it doesn't happen again."
~Admin~

If they feel they didn't do anything wrong they'll msg the Admin back. and if it's discovered they didn't do anything wrong (since everyone's calling someone a farmer now-a-days) they can receive their resources back plus some. (Can't really give a player 24 ticks back from a wrongful ban now, can you?)

And if the admins wish they can give those in the area around the cheater or those who suffered from the farming a little something. But that's up to the admin.

That's my best solution. Maybe a tweak here or there but it creates finite rules, absolute and clear penalties for breaking said rules. And is just cloudy enough to provide admins with a case-by-case response to any issue. *Including a situation where you don't want to lose either player*

seth i get what you are saying on this and it is 1 thing i have to disagree with deadman on though i do believe ALMOST everything deadman has said needs to be put into place i cannot agree with the multie issue. multies supporter or not banned.
account sharing needs to be removed to allow ministers to move troops and no this does not take away from activity because ministers can only move troops not get conquers and crystals from random nubs and actualy make troops for them.
what this game is not understanding is that people have a REAL LIFE and when they have to fit a war in battle dawn into their plans to make sure they dont die is rediculous.
now moving on to more of deadmans topic people do abuse the ban like for what happened to me the other day in F3 our enemy was blatently insulting me and my alliance on the world chat and i couldnt take it and snapped. then here comes admin joe to the rescue threatening to ban me for it when i was prevoked to my limits with trajic insulting me WWs my friends and i would almost bet he got no warning.
also another thing i had this well made middle finger and posted it up in the chat and we all got a laugh out of that not directly made towards any1 but just for kicks and giggles and every1 laughed at it now from reading what i have said here do you honestly see that as a problem? Because honestly i see no problem in it since it gave everyone a nice laugh but oh here comes andrew with the warnings because of it and i'm like wth?
and seth i can even get you on something you did to me while i was MGH when i built the fake trees that ANYONE CAN BUILD ON and several people have built there. i understand it was a little glitch but i was only a small pack of trees which gave me 0 advantage and was also for kicks and giggles. But here comes seth with the ban hammer for this and i'm like really is that an offense worth banning especialy since that is a problem with the game and not me? also i would like to remind you that YOU said everyone is a potential supporter and when i get a job i will most likely support but if you were in my shoes here getting in trouble for these petty and non important things would you want to support?

Hello. Julius Caesar here. Leader of GanG on F6, as well as the founder of the Empires on F5.
I think the idea to have ministers move units would be a great idea, but allowing 5 people to move 1 set of units is unrealistic. (The user maintains his abilities, including the following ideas) Instead, why not have the Leader and the Minister of war able to move units, and attack. The leader and the minister of Foreign Affairs have the ability to change the allegiance of alliances. And the leader and the minister of intelligence have access to B-reports or Scan information. This will give more significance to the Minister roles (other than ...just a name?) and allow the leader to strategically place his members with the title. This also would mean players could be less active, and not die, as long as the leader or MoW are online.
If this is an issue, a limiter to the amount of times the ability can be used, can be in place. Such as requiring mana for each ship moved, similiar to gating's costs.
Just an Idea from an Era winning Booster. lol

exactly so with that people that want to be good on battle dawn can also have more of a life