Tourney's at 7Sultans

[funeral979]

Yes, it is only a couple of bucks, but still, it is MY money. And that minute or so cost me a prize.

After a few exchanged emails they would not give me anything and stood by their decision.

I had a similar situation occur last week, and they did elect to give me a $20 comp while they 'looked into it'

Actually I have these situations occur on almost a daily basis, but I got tired of not complaining

 

[Rusty]

There are some very good points raised in previous posts, particularly the fact that when you buy in to a tournament you are paying for a set amount of time.

Obviously if some people are getting less time than they paid for because of faulty MGS software they are not getting their monies worth and perhaps more importantly all the players that enter are not playing on a level playing field since some will suffer more than others and this means the tournaments are not fair.

Curiously there is a very simple fix to all this which MGS have failed to implement.
That fix is to make the tournaments over a set amount of spins at a set stake rather than timed.
This would mean that the speed of your PC or connection, any disconnects or MG bugs would not influence the result.
Similarly add ons could be so many spins per Buck.

Perhaps that just makes too much sense though.

 

[vinylweatherman]

MGS always say it simply CANNOT be at their end, but where is their analysis. It is EQUALLY valid for us to say it simply CANNOT be at OUR end, and in THIS case, our ISP's will BACK US UP (even though they will simply be giving MGS a "canned response"). IF our ISP admits it is THEIR fault, they will have to compensate us, so they will blame MGS. This evens out the playing field somewhat, since rather than an individual against a big company, you will have ISP vs MGS, fighting over who is responsible for a problem that MIGHT land the ISP with a fine from the regulator here in the UK at least.

Whilst MGS blame OUR end, the INFORMATION WE WOULD NEED to sort out "our end" is something MGS WILL NOT RELEASE, therefore, no matter where the problem lies, it HAS to be down to MGS to investigate, and provide a SPECIFIC solution, such as tell us what are the best internet settings to use for our connection. It is actually possible to "tune" a broadband connection, although without specifics it is merely trial and error, with different technical experts giving different advice. There MAY be something that can be done to tune a broadband connection to work best with the MGS lobby, but this might be at the expense of other things.

Bitrate is NOT the issue though, since only small packets of data are exchanged between client & server when actually playing in a tournament. I have found the "lapses" are FAR to "regular" to be the result of a RANDOM process, which connection drop outs and packet losses are, and there seems to me to be a pretty DIRECT causal relationship between player action and tournament malfunction, which points strongly to a software "bug".

The most obvious is the one where delaying for a while before taking the first spin prevents the first spin lag. Pretty obvious too is where the TOURNAMENTS are unavailable in the lobby, but you are CONNECTED TO THE CASINO, and can play "normal" games. In THIS case, you KNOW the problem lies between the CASINO server, and ITS connection onward to the tournaments, which is very much THEIR END.

I have noticed that despite various heated discussions of MGS tournaments, there is nothing but a DEAFENING SILENCE from the MGS reps here, yet they often leap in to other threads that are a generalised "bitch & moan", particularly when it is THEIR casino being highlighted. The SAME deafening silence is all we hear back from MGS when a complaint is made.

I hope that one day an MGS casino with lobby tournaments gets a proper UK license, as their current stance of NOT adhering to "malfunction voids play" in tournaments would NOT be legal for a CONSUMER contract, and they would have to refund the price paid if players did not receive what they had paid for, and could not have it "reset".

In the mean time, the more we bitch about this, the less money MGS are going to make from these, and players not familiar with forums will perhaps stumble upon the fact that they have been "fobbed off" into believing they are alone in having these problems.

 

[binshakindown]

Well even after re-installing my

operating system, and the casino I got kicked out again twice today. I can't understand this crap. In fact, it is so frustrating that I feel like I will always play the free tourney's for free and I will never deposit real cash. In fact, I'm am frustrated enough that I don't think I will deposit anymore at any MG software based casino. They won't miss me I'm sure. One last attempt : Can anyone tell me how to pass on this software problem to MG?

 

[Tengil]

operating system, and the casino I got kicked out again twice today. I can't understand this crap. In fact, it is so frustrating that I feel like I will always play the free tourney's for free and I will never deposit real cash. In fact, I'm am frustrated enough that I don't think I will deposit anymore at any MG software based casino. They won't miss me I'm sure. One last attempt : Can anyone tell me how to pass on this software problem to MG?

Hire a lawyer and let him contact them on your behalf that you want all your money lost because of their faulty product reimbursed. Edit: Thats the only way to get a response from MG.

The only problem is that the costs would greatly exceed the possible refund.
And Im pretty sure MG has covered their ass.

If you know a lawyer that would do this for free try it, would like to see MGs response.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Hire a lawyer and let him contact them on your behalf that you want all your money lost because of their faulty product reimbursed. Edit: Thats the only way to get a response from MG.

The only problem is that the costs would greatly exceed the possible refund.
And Im pretty sure MG has covered their ass.

If you know a lawyer that would do this for free try it, would like to see MGs response.

The only way to get MG to respond is find an exploit that screws over THE CASINO, rather than the PLAYER.

There WAS an exploit due to a blunder by MGS in 2006, and they fixed this bloody quick, and bloody quietly, rather than pretending it was down to the player's PC, ISP, or whatever. NO WAY did they allow this to linger for 2 years or more as they have the tournaments.

I bet if an error created a situation where the timer froze, and the coins were never spent (but play & winnings continued) cropped up, MGS would be all action, and would not blame the internet.

MGS seem to be basing their case on the premise that THEIR software is perfect, but this is disproved by cases of player advantage bugs, which MGS are prepared to admit to (to operators), and fix. They cannot, therefore, argue a different premise just because a problem is to the disadvantage of players, and does not affect the bottom line of either the casinos or MGS.

I actually know that MGS are hiding something about these tournaments, as when they first came out, I did indeed stumble upon an exploit, which made the tournaments play far better than they do now. Funnily enough, MGS took a different view, that it was NOT player's ISP's, and so they introduced an update to fix them back to "crap", and it was at this point that we started seeing all these problems of being booted, lagging, not being able to get in.

The exploit was a simple addition of a single parameter in the registry key that was present in "normal" Tomb Raider, but absent in "Tournament" Tomb Raider. Making both registry keys' data match resulted in "Tournament" Tomb raider playing just as good as "Normal" Tomb Raider. The MGS fix "back to crap" firstly re-downloaded all the tournament games, and reset everything. They also did something at the server end to disable any such future exploit, and so the tournament server is having to do a lot more processing than simply firing out the results from each spin request. I suspect this extra work has come at the cost of the ability of the server to cope with the increasing number of tournaments.

Interestingly, my success at "fixing the problems due to my ISP", and giving out to a few other Casinomeister members, got the attention of MGS who realised they had a problem (exploit). I only found the exploit because of a severe problem at Royal Vegas, and was told it was my PC, so I fixed it

 

[binshakindown]

Not to change the thread,

but since MG isn't interested in player concerns when it comes to tourney's, are there other casinos that have decent slots tourney's? I know about 3Dice and they are hard to beat, but any others?

 

[Rusty]

A little Birdie told me that RTG are looking to introduce tournies into their software as well as some new concept slots.

MGS on the other hand are looking to evolve the multi-player experience beyond tournament play.

I have heard a little more detail about these projects but won't post it here as it is currently just hearsay.

 

[vinylweatherman]

A little Birdie told me that RTG are looking to introduce tournies into their software as well as some new concept slots.

MGS on the other hand are looking to evolve the multi-player experience beyond tournament play.

I have heard a little more detail about these projects but won't post it here as it is currently just hearsay.

They had this in 2005 The River Belle multiplayer casino, later withdrawn, going the same way as the BelleRock buddy.

Given the problems with the CURRENT multi-player options, this is surely the LAST thing they should be introducing at the moment.

 

[chjr1973]

Same thing here.

First time poster here and long time reader/player..

I just wanted to add my 2cents to this thread. I played three Tourney's today at 7Sultans and was booted each time AND never could get back in to any of them, so I guess it's my connection...LOL

These Tourney's seem to have gotten much worse over the last few months, at least for me.

Thanks to all for the interesting reading over the last few years..

C

 

[chjr1973]

Tried a test...

I realize that most readers here probably don't play the tourneys a lot, or maybe they do..anyway today I tried a little test with the tourneys at 7 Sultans. Me, my sister and brother all have accounts there. My sister is over 300 miles away and my brother is about 50 miles away. We finally all got together on the phone and all entered the same free tourney this morning.

About 3 minutes in....bang! All three of us got the dreaded.."wheels spinning for ever" and the timer kept counting. Then we were all booted back to the games view screen. We all looked under the "my tournaments" tab and all three said the same thing...you are not registered for any tournaments.

So, three different pc's. Three different internet connections and three different accounts all booted at the same exact time.

Sorry to rant about this, but this IS an MGS/7 Sultans problem without a doubt, no matter what they tell us.

C

 

[miket2112]

This has happened to me as well. Not just once, but many times. seems to happen on the smaller $50, 5 minute tournaments though. Same thing, about 3 min into the tourney and booted. The only difference is that it was at All slots casino.

 

[luckydabberbingo]

this happens to all of the mgs casinos and even when you pay $20.00 a turn for the $20,000 weekend tournament .Another thing that happens to me is the games keeps spinning for 7-8 seconds between spins.Can be frustrating when you are in a high position and just need 1000 coins to get you in top 3 -I know LOL

 

[vinylweatherman]

I realize that most readers here probably don't play the tourneys a lot, or maybe they do..anyway today I tried a little test with the tourneys at 7 Sultans. Me, my sister and brother all have accounts there. My sister is over 300 miles away and my brother is about 50 miles away. We finally all got together on the phone and all entered the same free tourney this morning.

About 3 minutes in....bang! All three of us got the dreaded.."wheels spinning for ever" and the timer kept counting. Then we were all booted back to the games view screen. We all looked under the "my tournaments" tab and all three said the same thing...you are not registered for any tournaments.

So, three different pc's. Three different internet connections and three different accounts all booted at the same exact time.

Sorry to rant about this, but this IS an MGS/7 Sultans problem without a doubt, no matter what they tell us.

C

If that means different PROVIDERS, and the boot out was simultaneous, then this is proof it is NOT THE PLAYER'S CONNECTION, it IS something to do with MGS, the tournament servers, and where they are located, and how MGS choose to connect them to the players through the internet VIA THE CASINOS rather than directly.

It is interesting that what seems to break is NOT the players connection to the casino, but the connection between the logged in casino lobby and the tournaments. I have had this, booted from a tournament, then they just don't exist, yet I am NOT booted from the lobby, and can even play the games in the casino with no lag at all.

The 7-8 second lag between spins is something I experience often, and sometimes it ends in being booted altogether. Oddly enough, if I get a run of spins like this, and I just STOP, and wait over 5 seconds, I find normal service is resumed, and I don't end up getting booted. This is NOT ACCEPTABLE however, since the TOURNAMENTS ARE TIMED, which is why MGS need to have some serious pressure applied to them to fix this issue properly.
This is proving impossible, they refuse to respond to players, and they even refuse to respond to CASINO OPERATORS who bring the problem to them WITH PROOF!!!!!! (Playlogs & session logs).

MGS make the same money (so they think) whether the tournaments work great, or are malfunctioning. Casinos are simply giving out free tournaments instead of bonuses, so players are being hampered from boycotting the paid ones since their promotional bonuses are now free tournaments instead of cash prizes.

 

[chjr1973]

If that means different PROVIDERS, and the boot out was simultaneous, then this is proof it is NOT THE PLAYER'S CONNECTION, it IS something to do with MGS, the tournament servers, and where they are located, and how MGS choose to connect them to the players through the internet VIA THE CASINOS rather than directly.

vinylweatherman,

Yes this was 3 different providers and yes, the boot out was simultaneous. I said, while on the phone that my reels were in the "spin for ever mode" to which my brother and sister said they had the same thing. Then...poof...back to the lobby with no tournaments listed under "my tournaments" for all of us.
The worst part is that the timer must be somewhere local on the machine as it keeps counting even when you can't play.

I will never pay to get into any tournament until this is fixed.

C

 

[vinylweatherman]

vinylweatherman,

Yes this was 3 different providers and yes, the boot out was simultaneous. I said, while on the phone that my reels were in the "spin for ever mode" to which my brother and sister said they had the same thing. Then...poof...back to the lobby with no tournaments listed under "my tournaments" for all of us.
The worst part is that the timer must be somewhere local on the machine as it keeps counting even when you can't play.

I will never pay to get into any tournament until this is fixed.

C

This would be the BEST part

Sadly, not entirely true, since every time you receive a result, the timer receives it's correct value from the server. I have seen this, it will sometimes "steal a second" if you watch it closely enough.

After my previous contribution, I went to play my free tournaments at Royal Vegas. I got the reels lagging, where all of a sudden they start taking 5-8 seconds to receive the result from the server, and keep doing this WITHOUT FAIL until you stop pressing "spin" and just sit there for 5-10 seconds, whereupon the fault magically clears on the FIRST SPIN afterwards.

There is something VERY FISHY about all of this - these tournaments look rigged to me, since NONE of this should be happening, since any effects due to connection problems should be random in nature. I have nearly always found a clear causal relationship between my actions, and most problems magically curing themselves (apart from the complete boot out).

The silence from MGS is DEAFENING. Maybe these "problems" are SUPPOSED to happen, so of course they can't go on record and say this, but they can't fix it either.

I remind you all that these problems SUDDENLY started happening over one weekend, when there was a rather curious lobby update. No new games, but the lobby first DELETED each and every tournament game, and then started to download them again - I WATCHED IT HAPPEN!!!!

I started the casino, and it did the characteristic "double launch". THis means update time, yet there was NOTHING due It was busy with something, so quickly went through all the categories, and it was when I reached tournaments that I saw them all greyed out, foloweed by the line advancing as the games were downloaded all over again. This was at a casino where I had previously been playing the tournaments, so I knew full well it was a delete and update, and not simply the introduction of tournaments for the first time. Following this, there was uproar on the forums, the new update was somehow screwed up, and so many players just couldn't register for the weekender that they posponed the close for two days. I played, and THAT was when I first noticed what is all too common today - reels lagging 5-8 seconds all of a sudden, and not getting back into their stride unless I stopped for a 5-10 second rest, which miraculously fixed it. The other problems were also markedly more common after this update, and over time have just grown worse. It does not appear to be related to the number of players playing either, as there are a few times when relatively few tournaments are "in play", and there simplky cannot be more than a few hundred players REGISTERED in a "now playing" tournament, so probably only a few dozen or less actually playing - yet the problems and laggy reels are STILL EVIDENT - WTF kind of server or connection cannot cope with this tiny load when it is designed for peak loads of many THOUSANDS of players.

 

[binshakindown]

Awesome test

I realize that most readers here probably don't play the tourneys a lot, or maybe they do..anyway today I tried a little test with the tourneys at 7 Sultans. Me, my sister and brother all have accounts there. My sister is over 300 miles away and my brother is about 50 miles away. We finally all got together on the phone and all entered the same free tourney this morning.

About 3 minutes in....bang! All three of us got the dreaded.."wheels spinning for ever" and the timer kept counting. Then we were all booted back to the games view screen. We all looked under the "my tournaments" tab and all three said the same thing...you are not registered for any tournaments.

So, three different pc's. Three different internet connections and three different accounts all booted at the same exact time.

Sorry to rant about this, but this IS an MGS/7 Sultans problem without a doubt, no matter what they tell us.

C

I am glad you did this because lately I was wondering if it was happening to everyone at the same time. I guess I still don't know the answer but if I were a betting person, and based on your test I would say it happens to all players at the same time.

 

[Jasminebed]

I get this lag almost every time. When I start to get the endless spinning, it will go on for 20 or more seconds. I usually happens about 2 minutes in, regardless of when I start playing.

I'm not at 7Sultans, but I get this at more than one MG casino.

I have no idea why they can't just award you the 2000 coins or whatever and time to play it...and even without a lag, when you hit bonus rounds you end up without being able to play all your coins.

 

[gloria460]

tourneys

I found at RR today and yesterday that when I was booted or rather left the tourney to reenter the clock had reset to 5:00. It usually picks back up where it left off but not these two times.

When your reels start turning and don't stop just hit games and you'll be able to get back in without losing too many seconds. I found that out by mistake the other week. It's easier than waiting on the reels.

 

[chjr1973]

I found at RR today and yesterday that when I was booted or rather left the tourney to reenter the clock had reset to 5:00. It usually picks back up where it left off but not these two times.

When your reels start turning and don't stop just hit games and you'll be able to get back in without losing too many seconds. I found that out by mistake the other week. It's easier than waiting on the reels.

Gloria460,

I too noticed the same exact thing twice this weekend. My first spin in the tourney and I get the spin forever thing...I was kicked out and when the tournament finally reappeared I did have the full 5:00 back, but during a 20K free roll last night, the tournament worked fine until 1:26 to go and I got booted and NEVER was able to get back in. Same thing for the blackjack tournament. After 4 hands the screen seem to freeze up and by the time I was finally able to get back in it was on the 8th hand. It also looked to me that the other at the table were able to continue due to the amount of money on the table...

Still some problems for sure.

C

 

[binshakindown]

It happened when I was in the lead and guess what?

I was booted and could not re-enter the tourney. Very frustrating so I emailed support and they offered to help out. I will update soon.

 

[binshakindown]

Well I played the tourneys since the upgrade and

did't get kicked or lag out once. Anyone else still lagging or timing out on the tourneys?

 

[vinylweatherman]

did't get kicked or lag out once. Anyone else still lagging or timing out on the tourneys?

I tried one at Royal Vegas (same tourneys), and at first I began to believe MGS had slipped a fix in - but I was disappointed, as the laggy spins kicked in when just over half way through, and suddenly it was like playing with everything encased in syrup again - but with the attendant frustration of seeing the timer having no such trouble getting a move on.

After a dozen consecutive laggy spins, I stopped for 10 seconds, and started again, which always clears the problem, even if not permanently.

THIS is what puzzles me, how can this one action at MY end somehow fix the internet "tubes". There should be NO connection between whether I press "spin" as soon as I can, or sit back & wait for near on 10 seconds, and such behaviour MOST CERTAINLY SHOULD NOT BE 100% REPEATABLE - it should be depending upon RANDOM factors, down to general internet traffic.

There is something MGS are not telling us - and I noticed when this behaviour in the tournaments all started, hot on the heels of a lobby update.

So MGS (to borrow a saying), "Don't piss on my head and tell me it's raining".