The Hacker Project - a free online game

There's been quite a bit of discussion about this topic throughout the forums. I agree that it's very OP, but it's supposed to give new players an advantage. The problem is that their servers can' handle the top players' virii, so it only benefits other high players.

making IP change drop connections is the most true-to-life solution; that's why I'm so confused on why it doesn't do it already. If you've ever tried changing your IP in real life, all your connections die - downloads can be resumed with managers, but even those connections are definitely severed when the IP changes.

One more thing to note: It's been said that this "feature" is in place to protect the smaller players... so they can occasionally get away with a disinfect or stealing a virus. Here's some quick math: stealing a v.55 virus takes 1650 CPU and 63250 memory. Fourteen of them were being stolen by the same person, at the same time. That means they were using 19800 CPU and 759000 memory at the same time, just on me. Smaller players have to drop their firewall and password just to run one... Who's really benefiting from this? Is it the smaller players? Clearly not. The players who already have impressive servers are using this to gain even more of an advantage. Those small players who only have half a dozen viruses up are losing those and don't have the system resources to steal them back.

Well, you're the game creator and your word is final of course. I can also say that I didn't buy gold membership so I could steal back my own viruses every day. Although the idea of stealing viruses is a good one, the factors of IP changing and stealing viruses that you can't even see combine to inevitably give virus thieves the edge. I say inevitable because they can't be stopped; anyone who specializes in stealing viruses will win in the end because, as you've said, there's a limited amount of server space. If I'd known that "features" like this would be implemented I wouldn't have bought gold membership and, as it stands, I wouldn't recommend gold membership (or most likely this game) to anyone I know. Please don't take that as a threat - it's constructive criticism. I want to see this game grow, and honestly believe that in the long-run this change will do much more harm than good.

The allure of this game is that's it's a game of skill and tact. If you remove both elements by allowing players to always steal viruses, the allure is gone and the game becomes pointless.

It's true that the higher players will have better hide/unhide files, but isn't that the point? If all players were equal, why play the game? The point is to win, not to compete. As it is, there's really not much purpose in hide/unhide, since your software can still be taken.

While more small players may use VB than high players, I'd say high players use VB more (their servers are more powerful and can run more instances simultaneously). I know for a fact that one individual is stealing a minimum of 14 viruses at once. A low player MIGHT be able to run two or three; it's not at all unlikely that this person is running 20+ at once. While smaller players could use the protection, this system is clearly exploitable, and is clearly being exploited.

The difference is people can research unhide file to see the hidden files, whereas there's nothing you can research to find someone's changed IP. Someone started virus break on my files no more than 25 minutes ago - I followed the trail to a dead end; they've already changed IP and so they steal another batch of my virii. If this game is heading towards an eternal tag match on who owns the virus, I'm not interested.

That's fine unless you factor in people stealing viruses and then changing IPs. The fact is people need to sleep - if someone stay up late and has an uber server, they could steal every virus in the game and be untouchable after one hour.

Scour every IP to find a random one? Are you kidding? There are about 4.5 billion possible IP addresses. We're just supposed to "guess" the right one if someone starts stealing our viruses while we're asleep? Since people can easily check if you're online or not, it's not difficult to time your attack. Stealing a virus should be difficult, not a guarantee.

I've got to be honest, between this and the uselessness of hide (the fact that you can steal viruses you can't even see), I'm strongly considering finding another game. This game is too small to be losing players.

And thank you for your prompt response. I'm enjoying your handiwork here

The "manage transfers" option is very useful, but I'd like to see one minor change to it... Allow users to assign bandwidth based on available bandwidth, instead of total. This would allow people to transfer more than four files at a time.

For example, say you have 1000 bandwidth. Right now you can have four transfers of 250 each, two 250's and a 500, two 500's, or a single 1000.

If my suggestion were implemented, it would work like this: Your first transfer is set to 50% (500 BW), and you set your next one to 25% bandwidth - instead of doing nothing, it would take 25% of the remaining 500 bandwidth, so 125. The next one is set to 50% (50% of 375) so it would take 187.5. Your next transfer only needs 25% of that, so about 46.9 BW. 50% of that gives you 70 BW and your last transfer is set to 100%, taking the other 70 BW.

Basically, as the game grows to larger and larger scale, it makes sense to have more control over your transfers. This simple code-switch (I assume it wouldn't be too difficult to code) would allow us to have greater control over how fast we download, but to upload/download more than four things at once. Thoughts?