But that is still another topic. If you have an idea that does the same and does not depend on an authoritive master-server, we'd like to hear your idea (really) .
Maybe i should have read all the other threads about this first. but here goes:
The game i was playing before this one was BZFlag, which is also open source and hosted on sourceforge. Some of you that know that game will be making fun of it's simplistic graphics and control of movement. But if played on the right servers, it's great fun really. Especially it's league action.
But any free game attracts all kinds of people with different intentions, and when a game gets more popular, you will have to start to have some sort of control mechanisms. Pure anarchy can kill great servers.
Now, since I never played a commercial game, I have no idea how NaziBuster and it's alternatives works. All i know from news media, is that there was a lot of controversial about them. I may be completely wrong, but from what I understood is that the main aim of NaziBuster is to prevent illegal copying of games. I hardly believe that that is something Trem wants to prevent
Anyways, on BZFlag Servers there were similar problems with players, going from spamming racist and nazi messages, disrupting matches to using obvious or non-obvious cheats.
Similar to this trem forum, there is also an official BZFlag forum.
What the developers of BZFlag have implemented two years ago into the BZFlag server is a global authentication system in addition to a user group rights management. It uses the official bzflag forum database for authentication, meaning you have to use the same user-name and password for forum and game servers.
Server owners are free to use this, but are not required to use it. And when they use it, they can decide themself in what way they use it. As a consequence, different servers are running different configurations depending on their usual player base and server purpose (you have public servers and match servers).
Some example of configurations how they could work for trem servers.
1. No authorization is requiredThis is as it is now, players log in with any name they choose.
2. Special rights for registerd playersAnybody can play on a server. But only those that provided a valid user name and password have special rights, such as:
- the right to start a vote
- the right to talk in public chat
- non-registered players are kicked when a registerd player logs into a full server with no other open slots.
- right to build
(these are just ideas)
3. Only registerd users can playYou have to provide a valid user name and password to be able to log into a server at all.
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In a normal scenario, you would have a mixture of servers running. Having no open servers at all will make it difficult for players that have just downloaded the game and want to try it out. If they like the game and are interested, they will find this forum and a note on the first page on how to log into register-required servers. This way, more experienced players also don't have the grief of having to pwn first time newbs, but are playing on servers with other more experienced players that were interested enough to sign up.
I believe, that the forum software used for the trem forums also allows to add and remove players to certain groups. So forum admins can add and remove players to these groups. Rights on servers could also be made dependant on these groups. Example of Groups could be:
ALIENWRATH.PLAYER (default,but no public chat, only pm and team chat, and no build)
ALIENWRATH.DISSALOW (not allowed to join)
ALIENWRATH.TALK_AND_BUILD (in addition can talk and build)
ALIENWRATH.TEAMVOTE
ALIENWRATH.PUBLICVOTE
For match servers you could even set up spawn rights, so that you can make clan matches public viewable for spectators without the threat of non-clan members entering the game and messing it up.
In addition, or as an alternative, is to have the list of servers that you get in the server list dependant on your register and login status. This way you can hide the servers for certain users. You probably can still log in when you know the IP number, but that system would not be as restrictive as the above solution.
The game server itself will not be allowed to see the passwords in clear text. Abuseminded serverowners could have patched the server for it to write the usernames and passwords into a local file. Instead the password is encrypted first, or the authorization process is done directly between client and forum.
The whole forum authentication needs a dedicated forum team to keep things operational and smooth. It actually all depends on how this is maintained. Granted, it does seem to be quite a job, but trusted serverowners and admins could help in the process. Many other things may evenutally also be automated.
But, if someone gets banned from global login, it is ofcourse not very difficult to create a new login (hotmail, yahoo). But it is a much greater hassle already for evil minded server hoppers.
One solution to make it even more difficult is:
- to forbid certain email domain names like yahoo or hotmail, but still add them on special request
- track IP of registrations
- on registration the client GUID must be provided. registration could even be done from inside the client menu.
Anyway, I don't know all the details how this all is managed on the BZFlag Forums, but they do, and playing that game has been a lot more fun since they introduced it. To tell the truth, most server owners where totaly against this concept. Once it prooved how easy maintaining a server is and keeping it troublefree, and that a system like this can work in a way that the opensource community acceptes it, there are now hardly any servers left that do not use global authentication. And those that don't are not great fun to play on.
These are just ideas....i am sure that tomorrow i will think that half of the ideas are crap and won't work. But maybe they are helpful in getting a solution. And remember, its the free will of the server owner if he wants to use the authentication service or not, or for which servers to use it.
Eeeeeew
