Sync Lock - The End of Multi-Scoping
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Today QONQR is announcing we have lost the battle against multi-scoping. We have spent several hundred hours of developer time over the past year building tools to detect and analyze player behavior, tools to gauge the likelihood of someone cheating and tools to penalize those that multi-scope to gain an advantage. Even with all this technology, in reviewing Christie’s time card for the first 6 months of her employment, we were disturbed to find that over 50% of her support time is spent researching multi-scoping claims.
This alone isn’t a problem. It is very important to keep everyone on an even playing field. However in recent months public sentiment has become very dark against QONQR support. When we investigate a claim, most of the time we find enough individual activity to respond to the person reporting that the activity doesn’t look suspicious, or looks as if a family or work colleagues are playing together. While many people respond to our notices with appreciation for checking, many more have begun to hurl claims of fraud, incompetence and bribery. Some have threatened lawsuits. In some cases the people who are reporting cheaters and unwilling to accept our answers, are hurting the QONQR community more that the cheaters themselves.
In response to this business challenge, we are stopping all player bans for multi-scoping. Any accounts previously banned for multi-scoping can now be reactivated by emailing support@QONQR.com. Accounts banned for other reasons will stay banned.
Today, we are also announcing a new feature called “Sync Lock.” Each day at midnight UTC/QST (5 PM Pacific Daylight Time) all players will receive a free Sync Lock Packet. This network packet pair is a QONQR Virus (not a real virus that will hurt your phone) that you can use to infect two other players in QONQR.
Scopes that spend too much time in proximity become susceptible to Synchronization Lock. Sync Lock is a virus that can infect scopes, causing them to combine overheat metrics, resulting in rapid overheat on both scopes. Scopes become susceptible to “Synchronization Lock” when deployments happen together, within the same GPS proximity. Scopes that have been jail broken or rooted have greater risk of being infected based on common launch patterns. All players are issued a Sync Lock packet daily. Players can attempt to sync lock two opponents by sending the sync packet pair to the targeted players. If the scopes can be infected, the packet pair will returned indicating the outcome of the Sync Lock attempt. Returned packets can be reused to infect additional players. If the two scopes cannot be paired for sync, the packets will be destroyed in the process. There is no limit to the number of players that can be infected with the same packet, if it is not destroyed. Players can purchase a new packet for qredits if they are unwilling to wait until a new packet is issued the next day to infect more players. Players can protect themselves from Sync Lock infection by purchasing inoculations in the depot.
Players that rarely play in the same location as other players should have no concern for being infected by Sync Lock. However multi-scopers will find this feature a new challenge to their previously easy road of holding their zones by getting “their wife and 3 children” to play with them 12 hours a day. For families who legitimately play as individuals there are two options. Purchase anti-virus in the depot, or make sure at least 80% of all your deployments for both players are 2 Km (a little over a mile) apart or that 20% of your “same time” launches are over 2Km apart. “Same time” launches are launches that occur within 30 seconds of each other. It may take some good coordination, but family and work friends can avoid sync lock without buying anti-virus through well-coordinated attacks when apart. There is also the option that you stop being a complete jerk to your enemies, meet them for beers after work, show them that you are a fun loving group of work friends and perhaps you won’t get Sync Locked every day.
Scopes qualify for Sync Lock based on the previous 24 hours of activity, and Sync Lock infection lasts 24 hours. Sync Lock Anti-virus comes in 24 hour and 30 day protection. Attempting to Sync Lock two players can currently only be done through the web portal at https://portal.QONQR.com/SyncLock.
Antivirus can be purchased through the portal or the phones. If you attempt to purchase anti-virus but are already inoculated, the purchase is blocked (you won’t waste your funds). In future version of the clients on iOS, Windows Phone and Android, an indicator will make it easy to see if you are infected or inoculated. We are working on the client updates now. You will receive an in-game message if you are infected. The web portal will show who is infected or inoculated. Player profiles will look the same as always if they are neither infected nor inoculated. http://portal.qonqr.com/Player/Search
Still don’t get it? Here is an example. Scott and Christie play QONQR together all day. Someone discovers this and Sync Locks their scopes. In the past hour Scott has deployed 5 times and Christie has deployed 21 times. However since both scopes are now Sync Locked, it is as if both scopes have had 26 deployments in the past hour. Christie is in maximum overheat anyway, since she has already deployed over 20 times in the past hour, and the extra 5 deployments from Scott’s scope has no impact. However, Scott, who had previously no heat on his scope with only 5 deployments, is now also in maximum overheat and suffering from the painfully slow bot and energy refreshes.
Q: What if my kids only play 1 hour a day, when they sit with me and watch TV after dinner?
A: Well, if your kids are a big threat, an enemy will probably Sync Lock you every day, but an hour after they stop playing, their scopes will not have any impact on your overheat. Since your overheat is calculated based on the deployments of both scopes in the past hour. Your deployments + no deployments = your deployments.
Q: So you are saying if I keep guessing right, I can infect dozens of players for free every day?
A: Yes, until you guess wrong and pick two players that don’t qualify for Sync Lock, you will be able to use the same Sync Lock Packet over and over to infect more players. Once you lose your packet by selecting two players who don’t qualify for Sync Lock, you have to wait until midnight UTC/QST to get a new packet for free, or buy a new packet.
Q: Can I be synced to more than one device at the same time?
A: Yes, there is no limit to the number of devices that can be Sync Locked together. However if you are attempting to Sync Lock players A,B,C and D all to each other you must sync each pair. A to B, A to C, A to D, B to C, B to D, and C to D. If all players are synced, emptying the scope once for each player would put everyone in (or near) maximum overheat.
Q: My friend and I are infected, I bought an inoculation, is my friend safe too?
A: No, your overheat will no longer be impacted by anyone else’s scope, however your friend will still be impacted by your scope. Additionally, other people can still be locked to your scope despite your inoculation, but only they will be impacted.
Q: If I try to infect two players and they are both protected from Sync Lock, will my Sync Packet be destroyed?
A: No, the Sync Packet will establish a connection based on the proximity vulnerability, but fail to embed in the scopes. The packet will be returned to you if the connection is established, regardless if the infection works.
Q: I’m going to a party with a bunch of QONQR players, how do we avoid getting Sync Locked
A: Deploy all day long before you get together, while you are still apart.
Q: Do you have any suggestions on how to best use Sync Lock?
A: Yes, create a “hit list” and share it on One Drive, Google Drive, or Dropbox. Every day work as a team to sync lock your opponents by taking turns working down the list until you lose your packet. Then let the next person take over on the remaining players. Re-organize your list to maximize lock potential. Avoid buying more packets by working as a team to Sync Lock your enemies. As a multi-scoper, randomly take days off for one of your scopes, to cause your enemies to waste a packet on you.
Q: My husband and I buy a lot of cubes in QONQR. This sucks that we have to spend even more to play together. Did you realize that you are hurting us?
A: Yes we did. If you are buying the 550 cube pack the cost for you to keep enjoying each other’s company in QONQR every day is $0.18 a day or $3.67 a month for those that buy the 30 day inoculation. We know this new feature hurts legitimate players who play together. As a cuber, we hope you find this as a new weapon to use to keep the game fair. Many players have emailed us saying, “I’m a paying player. I pay your bills and I don’t cheat. You are letting people who don’t help QONQR survive as a company, push me out of the game through cheating. If you don’t stop the cheaters, you will lose all your paying customers and your company will go out of business.” We have been living the pain of stopping multi-scopers for a long time. We don’t think there is ever going to be a perfect solution to the problem, but we hope you agree this is better.
Deciding to make this change was a difficult choice. Many people predicted that as QONQR grows we would never be able to stop multi-scoping. While you may not like this new feature, we hope you agree removing the multi-scoping restriction was an inevitability. We hope you agree this solution is an acceptable one. To the families of free players, we spent many hours working through the scenarios to make sure there was a way for you to continue to play for free and avoid Sync Lock. It will take you more effort now, to have the same attack ability as before, but it was important for us to maintain the fun of QONQR, without the necessity to spend money.
As always, we appreciate your support and will endeavor to make QONQR better every day.
Thank you
-Scott (aka Silver)
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