The only practical solution I can think of would be the karma system. When you start out with low karma, and as registered player you gain karma from playing over time without causing trouble, and lose karma when you get into trouble (these would be automatic adjustments). With low karma you would have few abilities and would not be able to cause much damage, with higher karma you would gain abilities, so if your account gets banned that has higher karma, you have something to lose.
This is something planned for the initial release of 1.3
What about a system where every level 0 can’t join?
If admins see that someone has more than 1 name registered (looking from IP), you proceed to a sanction.
Only admins with lvl4+ can give lvl1. Delete, then, the cmd !register.
People that has not the client are forced to get one.
@Blizz , I moved our posts to a new topic as Karma is a major feature planned, and this is something that deserves discussion in itself.
That would be doable with the karma system.
If a player isn’t registered, a menu could pop up if they try to join a team or try to chat telling them that they need to /register in oder to continue. If they don’t have a qkey nor an rsa key (related to rsa key authentication, another major feature that is under development). then they could be given a url to download the new client from.
The problem with that is there are many instances where multiple players actually play at the same ip address. Additionally, multiple players at the same ip address isn’t as much of a problem as the same player at multiple ip addresses.
That would be very inconvenient to manage, as at least one admin who could /register another player would always have to be available on the server. However, with the karma system it is not such a bad thing for players to /register , as registered players would still start out with 0 karma and have very limited abilities, but could join a team unlike unregistered players.
We have to work out the details more, but some of the general ideas for 0 karma would be:
No private messaging
No using PlayMap
Limited or no vote calling
Very limited chat
Very limited building abilities
Limitation of weapon purchasing/usage (like no dropping nades when you are within X distance from a human buildable).
As you gain karma over time, you would gain abilities. Once you have gained all of the previously game play restricted abilities, you would start to gain none-gameplay related fun abilities with more karma in the “mid-range” (like the abilities to pick custom player models).
the highest levels of karma could start to issue some admin abilities similar to what level 3 and 4 currently have on GrangerPub, but at that point karma should be more difficult to gain, and based on metrics that indicate you would be trustworthy and capable with those limited admin abilities.
All abilities associated with any karma level should be adjustable by the server owner (or perhaps even by Senor game moderators).
This we are only planning it for 1.3, however, once the Vanilla Game Mode (1.1 vanilla game play), and the new admins system which would include this karma system are ready for active use, we will upgrade GrangerPub with such a server.
Well I think this system should be tried. Current pub server is a good tester.
This because I think that you should release 1.3 with everything tested and fixed.
I agree, once the basics are stable enough from the tests on test7341, we will be upgrading GrangerPub with the new server before the initial release of 1.3, so that we can improve and finetune it from seeing it in action on a 24/7 server, which is the only way you can determine if such admin tools would work out well.
also, every ISP with minimal knowledge of privacy periodically changes the IP addresses of subscribers.
WRONG. allowing someone to connect to a server with multiple clients (same IPA or different IPAs) is, and should be, a supported feature.
though it happens that 1 client (and thus 1 IPA) per person is almost always the case.
or maybe @Blizz sux @ communicating and laying out new needs. an attempt to fix the statements:
btw, the PROBLEM is not specific to Tremulous.
there have been proposals such as requiring linking to the personal (eg. FaceBook) account of each registrant (ie., using OpenID). uhm, how about requiring a scanned copy of each registrant’s passport ? anyone ?
Yes having messaging external to the game is something that is desirable, that comes with many benefits, and planned to be implemented at some point. However, that is not planned to be implemented for the initial release of 1.3, so could still be something that karma limits. Additionally chat can be abused and can be very disruptive (like as a means for ghosting, targeted persistent pestering, etc), so it makes sense to be related to the karma system.
PlayMap would for the most part be a more effective means for any player in general who can use it to play the maps they personally like. Requiring a minimum karma level to use this feature (and others) gives an incentive to behave in a way to earn enough karma, and gives more of a downside to losing karma and to be banned. So while when PlayMap is finished, it is not a feature that you could misuse and cause disruption, it would be a very beneficial feature to have access to.
If you have an account that you have earned enough karma for gaining many different abilities, get banned, and then evade with a new account, that new account would not allow you to immediately have the abilities you gained on the banned account, you would have to earn the same karma all over again while you evade, and if you get caught evading, not only could your evading account be banned, but also your original banned account could lose more karma. So while evasion could still be done under this karma system with the same level of difficulty as now, evasion would be no where near as advantageous as it is now, and you would be encouraged to behave better even while evading.
Multiple potential server owners/hosts have been waiting for more than a year for the multi-protocol network code…for a fucking karma system that nobody gives a shit about? Why should this be in the initial release of Tremulous 1.3, when the only reason anybody wants Tremulous 1.3 is so they can host their own servers again?
Why should any player ever get to force an entire server to play a map that only they want to play? Honestly, this has to be on the list of the top 10 worst thought out ideas I’ve ever heard of, but any further conversation about it should get a separate thread (which it has already had multiple of, I believe, all featuring community members explaining why it would be a terrible feature).
There has been (and are) a lot of problems and drama that resulted from the inadequacies of the admin systems that tremulous has had available. It doesn’t matter how good the game might be, if it is very easy for anyone to ruin a game with little disadvantage to evade and continue to ruin games regardless of how many admins a given server has, the same fundamental problems/drama would still plague any active public server regardless of who owns the server and who is on its administration.
Such distracting problems and drama have even delayed our own progress in developing 1.3 at times, and has previously delayed/ended other Tremulous mods/projects throughout Tremulous’ history. Either server owners (who might happen to also be modders) would shut down their projects from being overwhelmed by drama, or players would abandon a server that developed an undesirable environment.
The bottom line is that players should be able to have fun playing the game on most servers without being overwhelmed by excessive game-play disruptions and server drama. Otherwise the players, server owners, mappers, and developers can better spend their finite spare time on something else. Additionally, anyone who decides to host their own game server, should be given the best chances with the available default tools and systems out of the box to provide successful and competitive game servers with minimal required resources and headaches.
The karma system will be customizable for server owners’ preferences, and it could even be disabled (karma may not be needed for all types of servers, like private servers and clan servers).
The focus for the design of the initial release of 1.3 is to fix the major fundamental problems that got in the way of Tremulous’ success, so that the initial release would give Trem a good chance to regrow. I don’t expect the karma system to eliminate all the problems/drama (and we are working on other tools and systems to assist as well), but I do expect the karma system to address many many issues several orders of magnitude better than what is currently available in trem.
regarding the karma system: be advized that a karma system hinders all users, most of which will be expected to be legitimate ones. it will induce exceptional annoyance
to players new to Tremulous — causing a decreased rate of acceptence and speed of population growth —; and
to players switching between servers — which is a counter to our1 goal of fairly supporting all servers.
1 well, let’s put the DICKBUTT out of my way
however, as chat may be external and irrelevant to the game, some state of karma system is to be independent of any game server.
which only means that there should be a proper admin system.
a key meta-advantage2 of a proper admin system (essentially control commands) over a karma system (essentially captcha-like limiters) (both being some sort of server defence systems related to user permissions and deterrence), is that an admin system is simple to use (modulo the non-existence of a proper UI), and its implications r easy to understand.
this feature is difficult to define properly, i don’t have a clear picture of it, and much of the so-far proposed workings of the karma system r shit, i’d say. so let me tell u: u will fuck this feature up, multiple times; first, u will iterate multiple times during pre-release testing, and second, the feature will be found to be fucked up after its first public release.
2 here, „meta” is used correctly:3 the advantage is not inherent to the system (vs the other system), but comes from a constrained set of developers not being able to get some good shit together 3 as opposed to usages like when „meta-game” is used to refer to „mainstream mode of play”
do u have any reason to disagree ?
pro: in general allowing — in fact, in this case, not specifically preventing — satisfies more users, and users more. if a user wants to connect with multiple clients (from the same computer, using the same „installation” of Tremulous; or from 2 different computers, whether or not from different IPAs), then why specifically make this annoying (or impossible) for him/her ?
contra: sometimes, allowing may also get the user to shoot himself/herself in the foot. sometimes, a 2nd connection to a server from the same computer is the result of an earlier client crashing.
pro: however, this is only reason to handle the other connection, not to prevent the new one.
pro: one legitimate use is game-behavior testing, in which someone wants to test eg. damages / attack ranges of a particular server. specific prevention is requiring the user to a contact human „assistants” and ask them to connect and do various in-game things (things that could otherwise be performed altogether by 1 user switching between multiple clients).
English is not my first language either, it’s actually my 4th.
the differences, between what u communicated and how i reinterpreted it, were not linguistic, but logical/conceptual.
i am a total fan of facepalming. explain ur story of perfect facepalming.
To a certain extent this is true. The trick is to create the correct balance in the “low tier” player abilities between minimizing potential damage low karma players could cause while still allowing the game to be enjoyable and sufficiently sociable for those players.
Whatever minor inconveniences there might be for players starting with low karma on a given server, it would be a great benefit to everyone (including the low karma players) to be able to play on a server with far less instances of game play disruptions, and to even protect new inexperienced players from accidentally causing disruptions that may result in administrative consequences or at least from negative verbal reactions from the other players on the server towards said new players (which can be a turn off for new players). So the karma system also serves an additional purpose of protecting inexperienced new players from themselves.
Additionally, all of these inconveniences imposed by the karma system would be temporary, many restrictions would be lifted after playing regularly for a week without incidents.
In other words, the benefits from such a system implemented correctly would outweigh the cost of the temporary inconveniences.
With database support and inter-server authentication/accounts , a single “game server network” could have karma synced across all of its game servers that use karma for each registered player. However, it is true that a new “game server network” (which might only include one game server), would be at somewhat of a temporary relative disadvantage when essentially everyone would be starting with low karma compared to an established “game server network”, however it beats the greater disadvantage from experiencing a lot of game play disruptions, and from starting out with very few admins (in most cases).
But as mentioned in a post above, the karma system would customizable, which means a server owner could start out with less strict settings to make it easier for a new playerbase to become established, and then the settings could become more strict thereafter (increased activity does tend to correspond with increased instances of game play disruption).
Also as mentioned above…
In other words, the benefits from such a system implemented correctly would outweigh the cost of the temporary inconveniences.
A karma system would be even simpler to use than an admin system as the karma system would be mostly automatic. The implications of a karma system would generally be if you play regularly without causing significant negative incidences, you would gain abilities/benefits. Such implications are very easy to understand.
Of course an improved admin system can compliment a karma system, they don’t have to be (and shouldn’t be) exclusive towards each other.
Another advantage of continuing to allow multiple connections from a given IP address, is that there are instances where multiple players from the same general locations would be able to play simultaneously. Such examples include family members, roommates, “in real life” friends, public internet hotspots, etc…
however, it may turn out that the correct balance is almost no startup restrictions.
mind u that „n00b team” (incompetent to make proper moves) is almost as significant a disruption as malicious deconning. often, new players constantly feed and waste (even donated) funds, which may be accentuated by being disallowed to use some items. for example, it often happens that new players r urged to buy light armor and helmet, sometimes even credits r donated just to make this possible (however, sometimes, wasted donations cause a bigger annoyance). on the alien team, there is no helping a new player, who will generally feed no matter what !
this isn’t an easy thing to decide, but it seems that the best way to deal with new players is to force them to play humans, use light armor, a helmet and a shotgun (to the extent sustainable) and nothing else (the rifle being a fallback), and to camp behind rets.1 which leads us a crappy dilemma revolving around the following:
failed attempts at using dangerous equipment (high-cost („feedy”) or fallout-prone) due to inexperience cannot be avoided, because the only way to actually learn to use them is to use them is through trial-and-error, which, if not directed through a drill — tutorials, bots or human-aided walkthroughs2 —, has a chance to cause real damage and annoyance. all-in-all, the karma system should not be a de-facto replacement for proper tutorials.
however, if each new player could opt-out of „being protected from themselves”, because they know better (it’s already the 5th server, for Lucifuck’s sake !), then we have less of a PROBLEM.
2 however, we don’t want ppl sitting at the back of the base firing (even safe) practice shots at walls (essentially idling) in active, focused games.
i hope that by „regularly”, u mean something of the magnitude of 30 minutes (not 8 hours) per day.
so far, the existence of a correct definition is yet to be established. the current set of ideas yields only bullshit.
WRONG.
there r implications relating to
annoyance to new server visitors, affecting the chance that a new server may become regularly visited, etc — ??? —; and
promotions/demotions, affecting the predictability of behavior and protections.
use of the karma system extends to its proper configuration. i mean liek omfg wtf g_karmaShotgunAvailabilityThreshold 450000, g_karmaStopFeedingWarning1Threshold 10000 ? also, only (a usually small set of) admins have direct contact with the admin system, while everyone gets to face the karma system.
apparently u’re (wishfully) thinking of the karma system as an artificial admin dealing with n00b and griefers, which would be hard to design.
I would like to know which are first 3. For each language you should use the right terms to achieve the concept. In addition, the Latin languages have a composition of terms and idioms, in addition to disposition of sentence, different from Saxon languages. So to say what I want in logical understandable terms I should spend time that I have not for a language that now I use only for a game.
Anyway.
I think we should reinvent what is outside of the game: connect your game account to that of the forum, create a system of classification of players TremStats: Prolinux NG - www.tremulous.it (like the link, but more “professional”), also a classification for clans.
Let me explain better.
Players and Clans Rating:
By providing players with a rating system, you will create more competitiveness. Clans, looking at the standings updated, will be able to pick them and recruit players who prefer. In addition, a classification for clans will show which are the strongest teams.
CW system:
At the end of each challenge, clans who played will suffer a change to current point total. Obviously the score is given by the level of the clan won (on this one should clarify the issue and maybe create formulas).
More or less a system similar to CS:GO (if I remember correctly). For sure, something like League of Legends.
This will solve the problem of multiclient, as each player will want to climb the ranks as quickly as possible. For the ip actually is right @dGr8LookinSparky .
Karma system will help because every player will have more possibilities to climb the ranks as it’s more easy to do it when you have everything unblocked (like @dGr8LookinSparky described before).
