I've spoken with a few of the top players on the ladder, and there has been a mention of this on the 2K forums twice, so I thought I'd see what you all thought. Yesterday I matched with the #6 guy on the ladder, I wished him good luck via voice on the 360, he remains silent, we launch the game.
I was the Zulu, and I play aggressively. First turn begins, I lay down my settler in a perfect starting point, I modify my worker output for customized production, and I hit end turn after taking a peek at the diplomacy panel and seeing that he's romans. I thought to myself that he's going to do the typical Roman settler boom cheese strat, unfortunately for him though my Impi Warriors move two tiles a turn, and I'd be making my best effort to find him as quickly as possible.
So the turn ends, the gears spin, but then "waiting for joeyf1985" pops up. I had seen this message before, but it would usually go away after a few seconds and the game would resume. I found it odd that this popped up the second the gears started spinning though. The message remains for about 15-20 seconds, then it goes away. The gears keep spinning.
So I try talking over voicecomm, still no communication from Joey. I quickly pull up the 360 dashboard mini-window and navigate to Players. I see that he's in-game. I send him a private chat request along with a page, and send him a text message. I wait a minute or two, no response. I then send another text message and wait. No response. Finally, I send another chat request with 2-3 pages this time, and a final text message asking if he was exploiting or something. It was just too odd that this guy was ignoring all communication attempts.
So I continue to wait, minutes pass. He never joined chat, never messaged me back. I look at his profile about five minutes later, and see that he is now "away". He stays away for 32 minutes before coming back. While this is going on, I begin a private chat with another top ladder player (rank 3) who says he believes that an exploit may be out there to lag out games when it goes to end a turn. He pulls up Joey's current stats, and I begin gathering some evidence just incase there is an exploit in use.
Joey had come back, and he had gone away again. He hadn't messaged me back, he ignored chat requests and messages. He received four messages in total, and around six chat requests in the two hours he made me wait. A little after the two hour mark, Joey quit the game, I received the victory screen, and then he messages me saying that he was sorry that his game had locked, so he went out for a bit. He was gone for 32 minutes before coming back, then was away again, then came back. All that time he had messages from me, and chat requests, which he ignored. Then when he finally wants to quit, he messages me.
Now, this is a guy who on the 2K forums was complaining that he never had lost a game, and was upset how disconnects were handled since they had given him losses. I found it extremely suspicious that this occured on the first turn, which I'm guessing if it is an exploit he knew that with me being Zulu and he being Romans, he'd be in trouble if I rushed him. The fact that he ignored me, then went away for 32 minutes, then came back, then went away again, makes me think that he knew exactly what he was doing. He was waiting for me to quit the game. He quit first, I got the win, the ladder updated to reflect this.
Here are four pictures during the event. When he initially came back after the 32 minutes, the "waiting for joeyf1985" prompt did come up again, and stayed on the screen for several minutes before going away. The gears only stopped spinning after he quit the game.
http://www.invisibledream.com/joeyf1985.jpg
http://www.invisibledream.com/joeyf1985b.jpg
http://www.invisibledream.com/joeyf1985c.jpg
http://www.invisibledream.com/joeyf1985d.jpg
So do you believe that this was the use of an exploit by a top ladder player?
I was the Zulu, and I play aggressively. First turn begins, I lay down my settler in a perfect starting point, I modify my worker output for customized production, and I hit end turn after taking a peek at the diplomacy panel and seeing that he's romans. I thought to myself that he's going to do the typical Roman settler boom cheese strat, unfortunately for him though my Impi Warriors move two tiles a turn, and I'd be making my best effort to find him as quickly as possible.
So the turn ends, the gears spin, but then "waiting for joeyf1985" pops up. I had seen this message before, but it would usually go away after a few seconds and the game would resume. I found it odd that this popped up the second the gears started spinning though. The message remains for about 15-20 seconds, then it goes away. The gears keep spinning.
So I try talking over voicecomm, still no communication from Joey. I quickly pull up the 360 dashboard mini-window and navigate to Players. I see that he's in-game. I send him a private chat request along with a page, and send him a text message. I wait a minute or two, no response. I then send another text message and wait. No response. Finally, I send another chat request with 2-3 pages this time, and a final text message asking if he was exploiting or something. It was just too odd that this guy was ignoring all communication attempts.
So I continue to wait, minutes pass. He never joined chat, never messaged me back. I look at his profile about five minutes later, and see that he is now "away". He stays away for 32 minutes before coming back. While this is going on, I begin a private chat with another top ladder player (rank 3) who says he believes that an exploit may be out there to lag out games when it goes to end a turn. He pulls up Joey's current stats, and I begin gathering some evidence just incase there is an exploit in use.
Joey had come back, and he had gone away again. He hadn't messaged me back, he ignored chat requests and messages. He received four messages in total, and around six chat requests in the two hours he made me wait. A little after the two hour mark, Joey quit the game, I received the victory screen, and then he messages me saying that he was sorry that his game had locked, so he went out for a bit. He was gone for 32 minutes before coming back, then was away again, then came back. All that time he had messages from me, and chat requests, which he ignored. Then when he finally wants to quit, he messages me.
Now, this is a guy who on the 2K forums was complaining that he never had lost a game, and was upset how disconnects were handled since they had given him losses. I found it extremely suspicious that this occured on the first turn, which I'm guessing if it is an exploit he knew that with me being Zulu and he being Romans, he'd be in trouble if I rushed him. The fact that he ignored me, then went away for 32 minutes, then came back, then went away again, makes me think that he knew exactly what he was doing. He was waiting for me to quit the game. He quit first, I got the win, the ladder updated to reflect this.
Here are four pictures during the event. When he initially came back after the 32 minutes, the "waiting for joeyf1985" prompt did come up again, and stayed on the screen for several minutes before going away. The gears only stopped spinning after he quit the game.
http://www.invisibledream.com/joeyf1985.jpg
http://www.invisibledream.com/joeyf1985b.jpg
http://www.invisibledream.com/joeyf1985c.jpg
http://www.invisibledream.com/joeyf1985d.jpg
So do you believe that this was the use of an exploit by a top ladder player?
