Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

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42 days, 16 hours, 32 minutes ago

fantasia

Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide it to an ally?

42 days, 16 hours, 29 minutes ago

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

no

42 days, 16 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

No, it's not against the rules.

The site rules are here:
http://help.planets.nu/rules
1. Be considerate of other players. Refrain from name calling, swearing, and other abusive behavior.
2. Do not, under any circumstances, join any public game with two accounts. You should only ever have one view of the game from one player position. Joining with two accounts is considered cheating. (Private games are not restricted by this rule.)
3. Do not use any technical means to fool, post to, or modify the system data. (Utilizing an exploit is considered a violation of this rule.)

----
With that said, if your ally is providing you share intel they might not want you sharing info about them. ;)

42 days, 15 hours, 45 minutes ago

fantasia

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

Hmmmm....

What do the rules say about it exactly?

"You should only ever have one view of the game from one player position"

What about screenshots sent to opponents when discussing border proposals. For me it's sometimes easier to draw a line on a map than talk about planetnumbers.

https://i.postimg.cc/XYnnJP1R/Border-proposal.jpg

As one player I only get one view of the game. but if I asked an ally (or opponent) to send me a screenshot, I'm still only getting what they sent. Not necessarily a view of the game. They could photoshop it or otherwise mislead me. Do they really own all those planets? Did they hide their cloaked invasion fleet?

Someone would also have to ask for it and someone would also have to send it. That takes effort. I don't think it's the same as using two accounts.

Is everyone sure that's what the rules say because the way I read it screenshots are fair game.

What about phoning someone up and explaining it to them verbally?

42 days, 15 hours, 39 minutes ago

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

I`m leaning towards the view that one screenshot from one turn, of a limited area, would not be a `view of the game`. But it`s a grey area I believe.

42 days, 15 hours, 32 minutes ago

fantasia

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

I agree it's a grey area. That's why I'm checking.

I think if you were systematically sending a screenshot of everything, every turn (maybe even automating that) and the recipient player then telling you exactly how to move all your forces and essentially controlling your faction through you...that would be like using two accounts. But cheating here is much easier to do than that. Just sending one screenshot is too much effort in most cases.

42 days, 15 hours, 21 minutes ago

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

It is the same as share intel.

42 days, 15 hours, 21 minutes ago

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

@Fantasia,
I mean, how different is that from intel sharing? Or having an alliance?
I don't see a problem.

BTW: LOL, what interface are you using? That is an amazing-looking graphic. Hard to read, but very interesting.

P.S. - you can use Mcnimble's Redraw & Filter to include or exclude things at will from your screenshots.
https://chmeee.org/#planets.nu

42 days, 15 hours, 13 minutes ago

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

I see problems when using screenshots to go around any diplomacy limits. Like you already have max number of higher level diplomacies but use series of screenshots over multiple turns to give a view of the game to someone.

I have previously wondered if sending a screenshot showing planets after a Dark Sense scan with a copy+paste of the messages would be considered problematic by the majority.

42 days, 15 hours, 11 minutes ago

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

From a practical standpoint, if someone sends you a screenshot it's possible for it to have been altered. As such, I'm personally not convinced that it breaks the rules for a single shot.

On the other hand, it is kinda marginal.

42 days, 15 hours, 6 minutes ago

fantasia

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

It's completely different to intel sharing. For starters, when you intel share, your allies don't get to see everything you see. They don't see all the intel belonging to another faction that you also share intel with, even though you can see it (I think). You also can't lie in an intel share but you can with a doctored screenshot. You also might have run out of share intels due to the new diplomacy limits.

I'm sorry to disappoint but it's not an interface. It's just a pretty picture. You might as well make your screenshot look the part.

42 days, 14 hours, 53 minutes ago

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

Like I said, I might object to sending 3-5 screenshots from subsequent turns showing area specific information that the game interface does not allow sharing.

Then again that information can be shared in written format in-game. So I might not object in some cases. That's why it's a grey area to me.

I mostly play EE and would like to think that I play fair. That's why I have wondered about sharing Dark Sense screenshots in the past. Majority opinion would be great to survey. But then again, what do the uneducated masses know?

42 days, 14 hours, 33 minutes ago

fantasia

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

If I were playing and somebody said to me..."be careful, that empire player over there is sharing screenshots of his map with is allies every turn" I wouldn't think that were cheating. I'd just think I needed to do the same.

42 days, 14 hours, 20 minutes ago

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

Yeah, your opinion seems pretty much formed on this.

42 days, 14 hours, 15 minutes ago

fantasia

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

You're right. I should just go ahead and do what I was planning to do. I'm not an empire player anyway.

42 days, 14 hours, 6 minutes ago

jovian goose

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

I don't think screen shots are a view of the game. To me a view of the game would be the information as seen by the player sending, ie all statistics on all planets, all information on all ships. That is a view of the game. Screenshots are merely a political map update. Share intel has equel information as a screen shot and is much more practical to use and assess from.

I think rule 2 is designed to prevent multiple accounts in the same game or 2 players having access to ech others screens and/or keyboard.

42 days, 2 hours, 17 minutes ago

mcnimble

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

Curious about the pretty picture, too.

FYI, in our Earth-Minbari game, I created maps with connected wormholes, based on coordinates that we shared manually (because host does not share wormhole information even in full alliance! Reported at the time).

Shared those maps with my allies. Updated most turns when there was new wormhole info.

I'm inclined to believe that is on the legal side of the grey area, even if it is a map "shared every turn"

42 days, 2 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

You can actually draw borderlines, with the draw plugin,
or the new draw function in the new client

42 days, 0 hours, 2 minutes ago

fantasia

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

I find the draw plugin to be very limited and clunky to use. It's useful for leaving yourself a few notes sometimes but if you are taking a screenshot anyway you might as well use a proper painting program.

Once you have a background template with all the fancy gridlines and stuff you can just screenshot your latest turn on to it and create nifty maps for people in not much more time than it takes to use the draw plugin.

@Psydev @Mcnimble The full sized pics are several megabytes. The compression makes them difficult to read. You can download this one by clicking the download link in the corner.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10sNqZOEaMPhdCwU8kgOhch2i_5niwmgv/view

41 days, 23 hours, 1 minutes ago

'brizio

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

Let's go one step further.
What about calling your ally with Skype (or similar software), share your screen with starmap view and discuss live about strategy, next moves and so on?

41 days, 22 hours, 19 minutes ago

fantasia

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

I don't know what starmap view is but I think that might be taking it too far.

The original game was play by email. I think we should try and remain true to that. Sending a picture or small file attachment maybe acceptable but acting like you were almost in the same room as someone when they viewed their turn seems more like a rule two violation.

41 days, 22 hours, 1 minutes ago

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

It's really not any different than going to your friend's house and sitting at his computer while he shows you things. This is legal, so it's OK.

The original game was not play by email, it was play by dial-up BBS. So you would usually play against people in your own city (local telephone area code).

41 days, 21 hours, 54 minutes ago

jovian goose

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

@PSYDEV said
The original game was not play by email, it was play by dial-up BBS. So you would usually play against people in your own city (local telephone area code).

Sorry but you are wrong. The original game was played by post and discs were sent backwards and forwards in padded envelopes. It moved to BBS after that when turns were uploaded and downloaded direct to a BBS. Later it went to the internet and e-mail was the means of file exchange.

I would think that your idea that visiting a friend and sitting at his computer would be a violation of rule 2.

41 days, 21 hours, 35 minutes ago

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

The original game want even played on computers,
the trn files were large Stone tablets that had to be carried up a mountain to the host, a god like creature, who took weeks to host the game, and rst(Really big STonetablets) files was taken doen the mountain again.
But if you tell that to the youth today, they dont believe a word....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue7wM0QC5LE

41 days, 18 hours, 29 minutes ago

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

@jovian+goose
> "I would think that your idea that visiting a friend and sitting at his computer would be a violation of rule 2."

No, I don't agree.

41 days, 17 hours, 44 minutes ago

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

> "I would think that your idea that visiting a friend and sitting at his computer would be a violation of rule 2."

Yes I agree.

41 days, 16 hours, 54 minutes ago

fantasia

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

When I first played planets as a child it was with my brothers and some friends. We played on our single computer and we all took turns. We were all enemies in those early games and we all had the decency to leave the room while the others did their turn.

As an adult I discovered planets.nu and started playing again. At that time I had a partner who also took an interest. That's when I realized how unfair it was is two people played together as one.

If people do live together they should only play on opposing sides in my view. Maybe an exception would be if you announce on turn one, a preformed alliance and the fact that you lived together and were playing as one. People could decide then if they wanted to play or not. But certainly not in a championship game or anything formal.

41 days, 14 hours, 26 minutes ago

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

@Fantasia,
Yes I agree that it's kind of unfair and less fun when people co-operate in a game. I.e. they agree to an alliance ahead of time.

-> But it's not against the site rules. This is crucial. It is not a rule #2 violation.
If you actually violated that rule, you would be kicked off the site. So it is not a rule violation to co-operate with other players (in whatever way).

Some people don't like public games for this reason (another common reason is people don't like droppers). So people play a lot of private games. And/or, games with higher difficulty levels, with players that are more likely to be experienced (and hence, hopefully "honourable").

41 days, 14 hours, 17 minutes ago

jovian goose

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

How about a ruling from the site admin on whether it is against rule 2 to look at another players screen, of course in the same game, and be able to view a game from another player position.

41 days, 13 hours, 26 minutes ago

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

@Jovian+Goose -- We have one. It's quite clear.

"You should only ever have one view of the game from one player position."
--and, likewise:
"Do not use any technical means to fool, post to, or modify the system data. (Utilizing an exploit is considered a violation of this rule.) "

There's only three rules, and they're straightforward.

https://planets.nu/#/howtoplay/rules

41 days, 13 hours, 19 minutes ago

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

@PsyDev -- When we were first writing the documentation, I asked for clarification on Rule 2. I asked if it would be legal to physically look over someone else's shoulder if you were both in the same game, and I was told "no".

I don't know how this would be enforced, or even if it would. Most times, we rely on each other to play fairly, and in a spirit of good sportsmanship. The weight of community disapproval against any egregious offender is heavy, and that alone should prove sufficient deterrent.

Does a screenshot violate the spirit of the rules? In some cases, sure. But if someone's just taking a picture of something they could easily copy down by hand, stick in an envelope, and snail-mail... well, in that case, using a screenshot instead is a mere convenience. We're talking circumstances, and those change.

Others may not agree with my personal interpretation regards screenshots. I hold my own honor, so I don't mind if they disagree.

41 days, 12 hours, 53 minutes ago

lunchmoney

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

@Jovian Goose: Sorry, turns weren't mailed. They were delivered by my kid who bicycled over to my friend/opponent's house the the trn file.

41 days, 12 hours, 25 minutes ago

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

@Lunchmoney,

You were lucky that you lived in a city with such amazing technology.

I lived in a rural area, so I had to rely on data transmission via carrier pigeon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers

41 days, 12 hours, 0 minutes ago

lunchmoney

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

@Psydev: Yes, living in a city of 500 has it's advantages. There was a technological leap when my buddy moved from 4 blocks away to just up the street. Our data transmission speed immediately doubled.

41 days, 11 hours, 40 minutes ago

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

If you want to go WAYYYY down the rabbit hole... I think some of the add-ons could be argued as a form of cheating. It literally is having software do your work, and do it flawlessly. No errors in setting waypoints, no miscalculating taxes, perfect intel gathering of observed ships readily available, IDing ships constructed from military scores, etc.

These "aids" take away many of the shots on goal faced by players (using a hockey analogy), and thus improve your overall play.

Screenshots/SKYPE improve ally coordination similarly (and more flawlessly) as the scripts perform the mundane tasks, so if one is a form of cheating then it would be possible to view the other as cheating too. Slippery slope.

I don't play with add-ons, and am a better player for it. I'd personally favor bans on using scripts, citing my "shots on goal" reasoning. I'd not call you a cheater for using one though. That is too harsh. But it is like using a golf cart in a professional golf tournament. Unprofessional and soft. Again, my controversial opinion.

Screenshot sharing is certainly not worse than using add-ons, and is not a rule 2 violation in any case. If the admins want to prove me wrong, they have the power to clarify Rule 2 and say otherwise. They want to keep it gray. Same as they don't want to ban add-ons/scripts to avoid angering key elements in the community. Gray is good.

So be careful what you ask, for you may not like the answers if you force them to be made.

41 days, 11 hours, 24 minutes ago

chanain

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

My ears are ringing...must be a statutory interpretation question...

The key phrase here is "from one player position". What does that mean?

We can immediately rule out absurd interpretations, like anything that would happen with Shared Intel. And we can immediately rule IN the most obvious meanings, such as having two accounts in the same game, or logging into a friend's account. The example of playing with a friend 'hot seat' style and looking over each other's shoulder would presumably fall into a comparable category.

But conversely, because of the nature of Shared Intel, and the inherent cooperative elements of the game, it doesn't really strike me that the 'sharing' of any information - coordinates, screenshots, hand-drawn diagrams with stick-figure Horwasps - can ever really be a Rule 2 violation. That being said, a purposive read would also leave us prohibiting certain extreme scenarios, such as a script that automates the sending of all information in a way that would effectively simulate a review of the account itself. THAT might get us into a grey area.

But just the sending of a screenshot, or a few screenshots? I think that, if the admins wanted to prohibit that, they'd have done so in much more express language.

41 days, 7 hours, 52 minutes ago

mcnimble

RE: Is it against the rules to screenshot your map and provide...

@lord+pollax There is an API for plugins. Nothing grey about that ;)

The API is neither complete nor convenient. I do not restrict myself to that API. Grey again.