Factorio Forums

Today, I learned that I can not log in the game, can not download mod, view account status, became a free user

chalkm wrote:Today, I learned that I can not log in the game, can not download mod, view account status, became a free user

Your account has downloaded the game over 1,500 times, due to this, your membership has been suspended.

In fact, I have not downloaded more than 1500 times, I recently did download too many times, this is because my network problems, I need to use VPN to download, I use the download tool is Internet (IDM) Download Manager

Klonan wrote:

chalkm wrote:Today, I learned that I can not log in the game, can not download mod, view account status, became a free user

Your account has downloaded the game over 1,500 times, due to this, your membership has been suspended.

In fact, I have not downloaded more than 1500 times, I recently did download too many times, this is because my network problems, I need to use VPN to download, I use the download tool is Internet (IDM) Download Manager

If you order pizza with people, do you also take 5 times as many slices as the rest? As that's what your download manager thing is doing, it's abusing the server into giving your more download speed at the cost of everyone speed. And could pretty well explain 1500 downloads, as it tries to download the same file many times at the same time to take more bandwidth.

Just so you know.

I suggest you write an e-mail to support@factorio.com and explain the situation. If what you say is true, then I am sure that they will lift the suspension of your account.

However, in future, don't use any download manager or download accelerator or at least make sure it is restricted to one connection per download (i.e. disable the download accelerator function). Otherwise, it is likely that you will be banned again.

So, what is hard limit of how many times we can download the game until our licence runs out? This doesnt sound good.

I would also suggest to change your password on Factorio site.

It could have been download accelerator, but your password could also leak and some other people could be downloading the game in your name.

Distelzombie wrote:So, what is hard limit of how many times we can download the game until our licence runs out? This doesnt sound good.

Probably it's a limit per time unit. 10 downloads of the same client version within 1 month might raise some red flags. 10 downloads of the same client version over 2 years. Probably no effect.

The devs are not idiots. They would be able to tell if this was one person using a download manager to make multiple download connections at the same time.

I expect that this guy shared his account and 500-1500 people all downloaded the game using it.

"Joined:Tue May 02, 2017 12:27 pm" and 1500 downloads? My Spidey senses are tingling.

Shokubai wrote:"Joined:Tue May 02, 2017 12:27 pm" and 1500 downloads? My Spidey senses are tingling.

As far as I know, most (legal) players of Factorio never join the forums. Therefore, you cannot infer the purchase time of the game from the joining time of the forums.

It would seem plausible to me that the original poster purchased the game several years ago and that he only joined the forums after recently being banned due to using an aggressive download accelerator. Using an aggressive download accelerator does justify a temporary ban, until the customer agrees to stop using the aggressive download accelerator. However, in my opinion, it does not justify a permanent ban, at least not if it is that person's first offense.

The Factorio team can of course judge it better than us whether what the original poster is claiming is true or not, i.e. whether these 1500 downloads could have been caused by network trouble and/or an aggressive download accelerator, or whether he was deliberately doing mischief with his account.

You can (probably) tell pretty easy if this was a Download Manager or a shared account by looking at the Time Period.
Many download (connections) in a short "burst": Download-Manager.
Many downloads over a longer period: Shared Account.
A closer inpection of the Logfiles may even reveal more details: While a VPN does protect your local IP, multiple open connections will still show the same IP (that of the VPN exit). If the VPN is really clever (and annoying) it will spread the exit nodes, but that will result in 5 IPs or something, not 1500.
The Devs/Mods/Whoever is in charge here/ are clever enough to figure that out. Theyll know by now what the reason was.