[Important information] The truth about ALI213

[Пивная стратегия]

Dear devs and all the other community!

While I was thinking that the biggest problem about the online multiplayer was the scoring system and its' abusers, actually at this moment we're having a much, MUCH bigger problem about that. And the name of this problem is ALI213. Nope, it's not about some Steam user, but it's all about VIDEO GAME PIRACY AND CRACKING.

Yes, I'm sure there's a lot of players who dueled against ALI213 at least once. The fact is - ALI213 is a name of a video game-cracking group that probably already cracked our little humble game into non-Steam version and somehow found a way to connect to the official multiplayer servers by using their cracked version of this game.

So, to the main intrigue - who is ALI213 in Steam and why does he/she always have a different win/lose score? The answer is - although there is about a dozen accounts which have ALI213 nickname, it's very likely that neither of them is THAT ALI213. Because, perhaps, it's hundreds of people using this nickname. Why is that? Because all the players who use a pirated, non-steam version of the game will automatically obtain the SAME default nickname - ALI213.

For the additional information about this I would recommend you to look at these discussions on another 2 Steam games which have exactly the same problem with ALI213 team:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/326410/discussions/0/617336568065592790/ (especially posts 3, 8, 9 and 13)

http://steamcommunity.com/app/236370/discussions/0/43099721626632769/ (especially posts 4, 8, 15, 18)

To the "Oh... Sir" devs:
It would be great if you would be able to contact the devs of these 2 games I've mentioned in the links above: "Interstellar Marines" (same problem since 2014) and "Windward" (same problem since 2015). Maybe they could help you with the solution of this problem.

To the community:
If, by chance, somebody knows more about all of this, please tell us more in this thread.

Let's exile all of these pirating, hacking sc**bags out of our online multiplayer!

P.S. Special thanks to |x|SiriuS|x| who told me what actually ALI213 is.

[Пивная стратегия]

If anybody wonder why do I think that it's a big problem - using the pirated version means that you didn't pay for the game properly, which means that devs will suffer the financial losses because of all those pirated copies of the game.

Honestly, I don't feel bad for the large video game corporations such as EA, Capcom, Ubisoft etc. But when some indie devs, while not having such a big budget, put their hearts into their game and trying their best to make their community happy, I really feel bad for them when something like this happens. This is it.

[Пивная стратегия]

UPDATED: Just try to Google-search "oh sir the insult simulator ali213", and you'll see what I mean :-(

[RagingRowen]

Those morbid monsters! Vile Monarch deserves the money we give them from buying this great and humorous game.

[Пивная стратегия]

OK, now this is just ridiculous, out of the last 10 online duels, 8 of them were against the different ALI213 players who barely knew a grammar and ALL of them disconected or ran away off the duels immediately or after a while (which didn't affect my score, so that means they didn't get the defeat), while I enjoyed 2 other duels against the decent players. It's really hard to find a decent opponent because of all these ALI213 players, so all of them shouldn't be able to play the online multiplayer.

Dear devs, please, can you tell us if you can do something about that?

[RagingRowen]

Originally posted by Desert_Walker:

OK, now this is just ridiculous, out of the last 10 online duels, 8 of them were against the different ALI213 players who barely knew a grammar and ALL of them disconected or ran away off the duels immediately or after a while (which didn't affect my score, so that means they didn't get the defeat), while I enjoyed 2 other duels against the decent players. It's really hard to find a decent opponent because of all these ALI213 players, so all of them shouldn't be able to play the online multiplayer.

Dear devs, please, can you tell us if you can do something about that?

Well I may not be able to play Multiplayer for a while because I don't want my score ruined.
Also, they should ban the ALI213 username.

[Jack]

Really, they can't shell out a dollar for this? Lmao

[RagingRowen]

Originally posted by basedcat:

rofl i thought it was about a bug keeping their names from being displayed, it all makes sense now, a bunch of randoms pirating an one dollar game

Those 10+ people are pretty disrespectful. It's just as easy to buy the super-cheap game than downloading a crack for it.

[Concrete Galoshes]

Game has been trashed because of this.
I have given up my ranking due to hackers.

[Ichmag]

The bigger problem are sites like ♥♥♥. You can find cracked versions of basically any game, but ♥♥♥ is a whole different kind of thing. These are the real enemies of [iindie] devs.

[Vercinger]

Originally posted by Desert_Walker:

Let's exile all of these pirating, hacking sc**bags out of our online multiplayer!

To be honest, I'd rather exile scumbags like you out of our online multiplayer!

It's fair to exclude multiplayer from the pirated version, but that's about it. Calling people "pirating, hacking scumbags" is way out of line. It's clear you're pretty far up your own arse if you think pirates and hackers are the same people. And before you whine some more about people pirating a €2 game (was it cheaper before?), do keep in mind that making online payments is impossible for the majority of people with access to the internet. Online banking is still a luxury, you nincompoop!

[Aoi Blue]

Let's be honest here, not all video game cracking enthusiests do so for the reason of piracy.

Many of the do it to get rid of the restrictions of DRM and (very) annoying diskcheck systems.
We are lucky this game doesn't have such restrictions.

Other times they often do it to simply see if it can be done. It's a matter of challenge.

The fact is that a lot of hackers that belong to groups like to "fly their flag." So let's not judge until we see evidence otherwise.

[Vercinger]

I thought he was talking about hackers as in cheaters in-game.

[✠Tangle✠]

is there anything we can help with this? i am tried of all those hackers in r game we need to do something

[Vile Herald]

Originally posted by ✠PENZER✠:

is there anything we can help with this? i am tried of all those hackers in r game we need to do something

Sir,
with update 1.05 we have excluded them. Are they back in they same amount as before?

Sincerely,
VM

[Sirius]

While I am aware that updating the game will decrease the amount of pirated software users, it will only do so for a short while.

But of course you now that.

Everyone else: You can't really do anything against this.

If anything, it's Steam that needs to tighten their security with certain updates.

I'm obviously not too deep into the subject, but I believe there is a standard Steam emulator / DLL hack that (more or less) just gets copied to a new game - no actual cracker work is needed for the most part.

That's the problem, the ease with which they seem to be able to crack Steam games and apparently even set up accounts to use Steamworks with pirated software.

Valve seriously needs to do something about it.

All the devs of games can do is try to stem the tide, but it's a battle that is already lost because of the above.

Edit:
And I'm pretty sure those we encounter in-game are throwaway accounts, so banning them would also be only a temporary solution.

I suggest something like IP bans, though those can be circumvented as well.
But that might hurt them more than mere updates because now they have to use VPN and junk, and that is illegal under Steam ToS (as far as I know). - So more reason to ban / lock whole accounts,. perhaps.

Just wildly throwing out suggestions here, in the end it won't matter - the filth will always find ways around this.