Is this not considered against the fair play rules?

English Boards
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So on Yeager I had an IL agreement with someone as I was running an international route to a hub. I next get an IL agreement from someone else in the hub. Seemed like a good idea so I agreed. I’m running what I consider an airline to be proud of. Nice seats, good service, not raking anyone over the coals with pricing. Full flights. A split between domestic and international. I’m running a 747 on this international route.

Next thing I know my load factors drop to almost nothing and I’m barely able to clear the week. Not sure what happened. I go to look and the second airline that added me is running 3xMD11 on the route now. I’m charging $630/seat and he’s running $480. I don’t understand how he’s making money but basically it’s wrecking me so I cancel the IL.

Within minutes of cancelling the IL I get an email in-game telling me if I don’t reinstate the IL that he will have my other IL in the hub dropped. That his friend is the largest carrier and they will run me out. I refuse and frankly started to ignore him. He keeps emailing me stating how him and his friend preplanned everything and started to go through their past tactics stating how they’ve had to resort to this because in the past they got in trouble for using economy seats with business class pricing. So to me I already know the kind of person I’m dealing with here.

I then start getting other IL agreements dropped by a couple others. All with the same sort of build to their airlines. Then They seem to all join in the same alliance. I considered it BS to leverage other people against me and basically was told there was nothing I could do so I wrote other players in game expressing my concerns about them gaming the system. What these particular players apparently are doing is signing an IL with every single player they can in every single city they undercutting them all in pricing to drive them underwater.

Now there is a second airline with the same name so XXXXX vs XXXXX II in my hub now. This airline is from a new account that was created two days ago. This airline now has accumulated over 40 aircraft and is doing the same exact thing. They’ve picked every single route I’m running, some pretty obscure, and are running them at cutthroat pricing. Both airlines appear to have already been reported, I never did. But I did email customer service over it. This magical second airline that popped up now has almost 700flights and given the cost to staff the aircraft I see no way for them to be profitable to make all their payments in a week.

I message the guy about it and start getting messages in Chinese.

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Before this there were several other messages. Apparently an entire group of Chinese players decided to join the server and ruin it for everyone else. He’s stated that they had preagreed conditions and a plan. They decided to operate multiple airlines in each hub in coordination with each other and that was vital to their success. They would effectively start with double the manpower, double the funding, and as such have double the fleet size capability. When I cancelled the IL with one he wrote me stating if I didn’t put it back he’d have the other airline cancel me as well and did instantly. I don’t consider it fairplay and within the spirit of the game to operate this way.

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So how is this NOT considered cheating and abusing the system? There’s several bad actors as part of this. What can be done? He already mentioned in the past cheating by using economy seats in business class. His words were they were “persuaded” to not do that anymore in the future. So sounds to me like AirlineSim has already had confrontations with them once, allowed them to continue, and here they are finding other means to ruin a new server.

What is the policy of AirlineSim in regards to dealing with people? There’s a certain integrity that should be maintained here. The same people that have been bad actors in the past are here being bad actors again, just in a new way. It’s not hard to know the intentions of the game. You don’t need lawyers here. You know what they are doing is morally wrong, they’ve been involved in shady practices in the past, what’s it going to take to start banning people? I can give you a list, it’s not hard to see who it is. I can show you 5 people right here and now that are part of this and acting in this way (that’s just who i’ve had direct dealings with). How much is their $$$ worth to you vs the integrity and longevity of the game? Another player in my hub already quit and if this is allowed to continue I suspect myself and many more will also. There’s no point in putting in the $$$ and effort when these types of bad actors are allowed to continually ruin it for everyone else.

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I personally don’t find anything against the rules in their acting as described by yourself, a bunch of well-coordinated players dumping prices and saturating slots with old metal. It’s a pity too many players choose this odd and totally unpersonal way of playing this game, but it is not against the rules as far as I know.
You are free to IL with anyone you like and vice versa. The fact they all join in the same alliance is just the precise meaning of what alliances do. Now, if they copy paste your flight plan from A to Z, that clearly constitutes mala praxis, but again not necessarily forbidden. If I was you, I would accept the challenge and look for some better partners to do business and do your best to push these guys out of market. Or maybe change your tactics, not always the airlines you would like to have is the one that can be profitable at the same time.

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So what’s the point of the “same IP” rule? He mentioned it here and several emails/his company info. It’s cheating the system and why that rule was made but very simple to ignore with a vpn. There’s a section on fair play and this isn’t it. If airline sim is going to permit this then I guess I’ll back out and request a refund. Use to be every server was maxed out at 1200people so fast you had to fight to get in. Now it never passed 550 and is already going back down. People don’t want to deal with this. If everyone does have the same opportunity it’s an unfair advantage, plain and simple. I guess running economy seats with business pricing wasn’t against any real rule either.

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So we’re on the same page if a second airline called Wild Wings II happened to popup in their hub, bought a ton of old aircraft, ran every route they do at cheaper with high density seating and crap service, its it’s fair game? It can go BK and restart it again and keep doing it? Hmmm. Ok. Guess I’ll get a friend on and do the same exact things they’re doing since it technically doesn’t violate anything. Here we go! Wonder how long till they complain?! Let’s see!

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I’ll add my two cents.

  • Simple cooperation, is not illegal.

  • Alliances, are not illegal.

  • Alliance members coordinating on a single hub, is not illegal or unheard of.

  • Multi accounting is illegal. (General Rules § 2.1)

  • IP Sharing is not allowed, especially as in this case you describe it is for economic gain (General Rules § 2.5)

I’m not sure whether this player or group is breaching these rules or not, and I am not alleging as such. I simply reiterate stated rules.

  • Cutthroat prices and schedule copying are not illegal if, they don’t fall outside the parameters of minimum pricing. They’re an a***ole move for sure though, or mala praxis, if we wish to use more “formal” language.

Unfortunately I know the kinds of players you are dealing with, and as per forum rules I’ll avoid name dropping, they’ve been around for years, and use the language barrier as an excuse to evade not only maybe some rules, but definitely cordiality. They set up under the same alliance name, which other players naively join sometimes, and makes them easy to evade. I hope you know they aren’t the only type of alliance out there though, and most are friendly clans of collaborative players.

And unfortunately, as much as they do cause real pain, I am not sure what can be done, unless it’s a breach of rules as above. And then again, they might be using VPN services, so such a ban would ultimately be far from perfect in execution.

I hope that some action is taken on these players. But unfortunately, as you note very well, the player base is not in its extreme high point and could use more players, not less. So my optimism might be in vain…

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but exactly this kind of players, apparently from the east-asian area, do more harm than good, because they drive away players who enjoy the game and that can only be to the disadvantage of AS

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If the UAB still existed, we would probably have had a discussion about this. Firstly, if the rules are broken then that has to be investigated. None of us speculating on the forums have the power to check that.

What I can comment on is the style of play. Personally, I find it rude and repulsive. Is that punishable? Not really, unless you are specifically discriminated against or bullied.

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We’re the airline what you discussing, and of course we rarely come here to discuss it because we’re busy.

The first thing I want to clarify is that the airline in IAH is another friend of mine, and it is not what you call it only a few days old. He is also an old gamer, and once played in Indonesia for this suit, and then gave up because there were too many planes. I don’t have to engage in multiple accounts to compete with you, because multiple accounts do violate the rules

Secondly, you think that our airlines can’t make money, but you’re wrong, our profit margins are very substantial, about 60 percent per flight, so if our airlines use fares like yours, our airlines can’t develop because we use seats that are worse than yours. However, in the game’s ORS scoring system, the quality of the seat is far less important than the price.

Finally, because you said that my English skills sucked, I had to reply to you with Chinese.

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Personaly I don’t think they are cheating. Using low-price strategy is absolutely a choice for Yeager as there are plenty of old aircrats in the market. New ORS is an price-oriented module especially for Y class.
BTW using VPNs or other kind of tools to escape censorship in PRC is necessary, people there cannot browse websites that blocked by the Great Firewall. Airlinesim is obstructed frequently by DNS hijacking in China.

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Not sure what can be done? I’d say it’s pretty easy. You don’t need lawyers here. These dude already admitted to issues in the past with skirting the rules, yet they are still here. Make a policy change. You get one warning then you’re out.

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Lol wtf? You admitted to getting into the server with multiple people with a plan where one ran international and the other domestic. Look at the statistics for the airlines in the server then cross reference them to each airline. Then take that and look at where each of the airlines is hubbed. You admitted to going into the server with a premade plan to have double everything to the rest of the server and all the biggest airlines are you guys that enacted it. I wouldn’t come bragging about your income and ability when you had to cheat the system to get anywhere to start with. There’s nothing respectable about what you’ve done. I’d rather see you banned and make everyone’s day better.

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While there is nothing respectable about this type of gameplay, it sucks that you feel you have been targeted, but this is how the game works, and you need to play it. On the other older worlds, it was much worst, where alliances would drive players out by taking up all their slots around their waves, making growth impossible.

However, I am glad to see you are making something of yourself on Yeager in IAH, as I know you had problems in other worlds with the competition.

Remember, as you grow, the new ORS weighs the price more than the seating choice in Y.

Now continue to fill those BIS, and I can’t wait to see the end-game numbers you produce. :slight_smile:

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I am afraid that you are getting upset because your opponent is obviously making better use of the system within the rules than you do. Changing the rules for your case does not make sense to me as that would blame other that by now played within the rules for your personal case.
Yes, I get that it can be irritating and annoying, but why dont you take the challenge, search for other partners and grow anyhow?
My personal opinion is, that simply copying the flightplan of an opponent is a very stupid thing to do but often common practise especially in the area where your opponents come from. It is a proove for a lack of creativity as well as ability to understand the game. Anyhow it can be effective.
So if the 747 is not filling up anymore, why not going for a smaller more efficient aircraft that can still be filled and then maybe add additional flights with other partners? Every network can be outrun and you can cut passengers of more or less every competitor. Be creative, circumnavigate their plans and earn your money differently. Considering that with 550 players on the server (as you said) there are several hundreds of other players I would not even put the effort into all this discussions and simply avoid them now in the future as possible partners.

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I heard about this whole debacle via DMs about a week ago, and since it’s come up again I decided to take a look at what the players you mention are actually doing. In short, I think @Colt is right on the money - you’re getting outcompeted by some savy, cooperating players. They don’t seem to be price dumping to any significant extent, in fact they’re usually getting undercut on long-haul routes according to ORS. So, I guess the answer is Git Gud? or at least get better partners.

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Really uncomfortable with this, if I’m being honest. What is the relevance of their country (or “area”) of origin? Would the effect be different if the players were from elsewhere?

Why mention it at all?

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I love positive posts. Great response!

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Yeah I agree, it doesn’t feel necessary. The issue is the alleged misconduct not the national or language of the person doing it.

I hope you can find a way to compete in that market, you definitely are passionate about your stake in it.