I have noticed today that there is I assume a record number of Timeouts (Skips) on WarGear Warfare. So far there have been 59. They all seem to be from or around the U.K.. These players are always in a lot of games and always online playing. Therefore it's a mystery. I am affected because my Teammate in 2 tournament team games is involved. I do not enter anymore team games unless I know that my partner is reliable and will be available when his turn has come. Here is the list so far for today:

jinkyjim - U.K. - 32 skips

The Tullow Tank - U.K. - 17 skips

The Ant Hill Mob - Ireland - 4 skips

bomberman - U.K. - 1 skip

montyghan - U.K. - 1 skip

Simon Le Tocq - U.K. - 1 skip

allandinsdale - U.K. - 1 skip

hatemben - France - 1 skip

Strychnine - Netherlands - 1 skip

Also, 12 out of the next 13 skips scheduled involve 7 for jinkyjim, 3 for The Tullow Tank, and 2 for The Ant Hill Mob.

If anyone can find out and explain what is going on in and around the U.K. involving these players I would appreciate it. These skips will hurts their rankings and also affect their Teammates in team games and their rankings. I guess this is the main reason more players do not get involved in team games.

Sorry, I forgot to mention that these all occurred today. 

Is that an unusual # of boots for a day in wargear?  Just based on the ones you listed it doesn't seem like a 'record' to me, but that is just my intuition - I have nothing to base it on.

I guess it could be some weird DNS thing?  Seems unlikely, but I can't think of any other way for the UK to be having trouble if the rest of the world is not.

I wonder if there is something like http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/ that is based in the UK.

FYI - montyghan has logged in today.  And Tom is (was?) based in the UK.

Thank you Ozyman,

How about the 3 with the most skips? So far today they have 7, 1, and 1, soon to be 7, 2, and 2 in the next 1/2 hour. I believe this all started 2 days ago. It is very unusual for all 3 of these highly active players to just disappear. 

I found this website:

http://www.us.ntt.net/support/looking-glass/

That allows me to ping a server from another country.  They've got two London routers and both were able to ping wargear.net:

Query Results:
Router: London
Command: ping ip wargear.net

Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 162.243.56.214, timeout is 2 seconds:
!!!!!
Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 68/69/72 ms

The skips just keep on mounting in WarGear Warfare. 48 more yesterday and 72 and counting so far today. Some other players have also jumped into the mix primarily from the U.K. and Ireland area. The previous skips are now becoming boots. The mystery continues. 

March 5th seems to be the date this all started. 

Skips and now boots continue to mount on WarGear Warfare.

The Tullow Tank, The Ant Hill Mob, jinkyjim, bomberman, the stig, allandinsdale, dublin57, and level7, have disappeared from competition since March 5th.

The mystery thickens.

Babbalouie wrote:

...

The Tullow Tank, The Ant Hill Mob, jinkyjim, bomberman, the stig, allandinsdale, dublin57, and level7, have disappeared from competition since March 5th.

The mystery thickens.

No I think it's getting clear.

Look at Dublin's opponents : almost all the other ones you mentionned (and you) appear in the top 13's. The last conection is not only on the same day but at the same time for 5 of them (13h to 13h25 Brussels) and at another same time for the other 2 (10h41 to 10h44).

It's more than likely it's a multiple account.

Add dandeman to the list. Also, March 5th.

Also hatemben. March 5th. Also has joined games that have not started. 

Added ;)

Can e-mails possibly be sent to these players just to see if they are still live on the internet?

There's enough evidence to convince me that there is cheating using multiple accounts here. The following accounts have been disabled as a result:

• The Tullow Tank
• The Ant Hill Mob
• jinkyjim
• bomberman
• the stig
• allandinsdale
• dublin57
• level7
• robertelee
• hatemben
• dandeman

Points recovery to follow. 

And how about the games these players were in?

Are they being terminated? 

Thijs wrote:

And how about the games these players were in?

Are they being terminated? 

Games in the past where they won no longer count.  Games in the past they lost don't change.  

Current games the players/accounts get booted and the game continues.

What about team games moving forward if one of those booted in a team member?

I think the other team mate is still in the game/tournament, but they are down a team mate.

Ozyman wrote:

I think the other team mate is still in the game/tournament, but they are down a team mate.

That's unfair. Games should be terminated in this case (unless the rest of the team feel confident they still can win , but that's more tricky to judge. Could be done throught an option given to the team) 

if it's a tourney tho, there are no other options. just SOL...same as if someone's partner decides not to show up.

I'll review team games individually. As weathertop says, tournament team games I can't do much about.

It does rot big time.  I'm in the middle of a 3v3v3 round robin tournament on Colossal Crusade.  Right before the 1st game one of my teammates became z_disabled.  We just started a new game that is 3v3v2. It would be lots of fun if we won, but I'm not holding my breath.

It's only part of a bigger problem with team games though - seriously our last game was 2v2.  

This game in the tourney was a 3v1  (not one of my games)

http://www.wargear.net/games/view/336020

What's worse for me is that I set-up the tourney.  I don't particularly care for the board, but I like team games and knew the tourney would fill on this board.  Just the way it goes I guess.