Confused about some game rules (in General)

After reading a public record thread, namely this one:
http://carnageblender.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002IxG
and afterwards reading the FAQ/TOS, I am left wondering about some of the "finer points" of what exactly is allowed and what is not.

Preamble note: nobody else in my house plays CB, it's just a thought experiment... I am curious.


So, sharing an account with anybody else is forbidden, apparently.
Therefore, if my brother or sister or girlfriend decides they want to play (and hence they share my IP constantly or occasionally), they not only can, but MUST create new/separate accounts for themselves, as they are not allowed to share mine ?
But how can anybody decide which one is a legitimate other user or simply a multi (since that is also forbidden) ?
Do I end up being the only one in this house allowed to play, or can others join in too ?
Also, what happends if I my girlfriend decides to play both from my house and from her house ?
What happends if HER brother also plays from her house ?
I suppose you can see where this is heading.

Nothing in the rules says you have to have one IP per account. So if your brother or your sister or GF all want to play they can make a new account with the same IP as you.
As long as you don't act like a classic multi and that is one-sided transfers to one account from the other accounts.

Note: following paragraph is tongue-in-cheek, so take with a grain of salt.

So, what if my "sister" and my "brother" decide they want to run a 0-NW mage strat, and at the end of their CB-NUB life they decide they don't like the game so much and sell everything before they leave ?

And what if they were actually my real-life brother and sister ?

I imagine that if they don't like the game, they will leave in the first week or two. So they will not have much to sell. Who cares?

My guess would be it's up to the honour system.

After all, if you really wanted to cheat that badly you could just set up a proxy for every account, something that requires no skill at all and anyone could do, and noone would know if you kept the suspicious transfers to a minimum. Hell, you could easily make huge one-sided transfers now and then and say it's a USD deal, and noone would be able to check. That's simply the nature of games like this. If you REALLY want to cheat, it's almost impossible to stop you.

But if it's a real situation. it would probably be best that, if you have someone who shares your IP playing, you'd make a post or contact an admin about it right at the beginning, before any 'suspicious' activity is detected. At the least it wouldn't sound like a lame excuse afterwards. And maybe a Public Record post with the details of the transfer if one of you is donating equipment or money to the other.

Well, I know that one time when I was fighting my cat stepped on the keyboard and tried to re-fight a comatose character. I'm hoping that's okay since she didn't actually spend any BA and I quickly put her on the floor afterwards.
My wife on the other hand has no interest in CB at all.

LOL@Yukk.

And, Arrgh, bartjan has caught multis that had IPs that were in different continents, so I wouldn't be too confident. IPs are only one of the many ways multis can be caught. Obviously they can't be revealed by the admins because then people would create loopholes around them.

As I understand the rules (whether they are actually written down or not):

A multi is decided based on 1-sided transfers (although I am sure the admin's have other criteria they look for). If player A continually buys high NW equipment from player B for $1 CBD, then they are going to be hit hard by the law.

Players on the same IP can trade, as long as the trades are at market value and the average player would deem it a fair trade.

USD trades between players on the same IP are disallowed as there is no way to verify the trade. So if your "girlfriend" decides to sell out after her NUB, you really can't get anything out of it if she used your computer.

I think the simplest rule is: Don't trade with anyone on your IP in any scenario, and you won't have any problems.

Regarding such ethical thing, like my teacher said:" If you question the thing you are about to do is ethical or not, most likely it is not ethical."

There are grey areas, and "gifts" aren't unheard of. But as has been hinted around for years, there is more than one way to skin a multi.

Flamey, I understand that there are more ways to catch a multi than just comparing IPs, but there are also more ways to evade detection than just using proxies. I could name a few examples if you want but I wouldn't want to give potential cheaters too many ideas.

My point was that if you really want to cheat that badly (and have even the slightest idea of what you're doing), it's very hard if not impossible to stop you, so at some point you're just going to have to trust people not to cheat.

And besides, the more zealously the admins hunt for cheaters, the more likely it becomes for innocent people to get accused. For example someone getting a very good deal for an item, or someone 'donating' gold or items to another player for an unknown or trivial reason could be considered suspicious, but it happens often enough and of course normally isn't anything illegal. I guess it's up to the admins to make the choice about how strictly the rules are enforced, and to judge situations on a case-by-case basis.

The admin are good at finding Multis.

Even "brothers" or "sisters" that gift another player. Or just sell out at the end.

Sure, this can happen, and I'm quite sure it *has* happened before. But it is usally caught, and the effort comes to nought.

If you like CB, do you *really* want to take the chance that you Multi and won't be caught?

To be honest, that's why my "Dad" and "Sister" haven't started playing. I like CB too much to risk throwing it all away on a stupid Multi.

even if the admins miss it, i have seen many multis be their own downfall. they respond as one player when the are logged in as another or something similar. it is quite funny actually.

The trick is in all of this, this is no different than life, for instance, speeding. It is against the law. If you go 5 MPH over the speed limit, you are likely not to get a ticket unless you do something else stupid.

A multi that is worthless in that it goes no where wont go anywhere, and in the end really does nothing to the game is not likely to get caught unless they do something else stupid.

If you go 50 MPH over the speed limit the chances of you NOT being caught on small.

If you build and use a multi effectively that can give you an unfair advantage, well you will be noticed and likely caught.

It is like the line drawing in the other post about multis. This is not unlike life. It mirrors life.

Whenever you draw a line there will always be cases that fall on either side wrongly. It cannot be helped. I will mention a consistant set of codified punishments makes the line even stronger not less so. Without a consistent set of codified punishment the line does not appear linear. The logistical problem with a codified set of punishments? Well in the old USA the problem is to make them "fair" takes hundred and hundreds of books and specialized occupations to understand them. An "unfair" system is much easier to administer and much harder to justify. On a side note, you do NOT have any sort of "right" to "fair" in CB2. You might have it as a priviledge, but it is not your "right".