Chompers UI mod on gamearena

[Arch_Enemy]

Ok recently gamearena has been banning people that has been using chompers ui mod, i want to know how many people use it now or have used it in the past on gamearena.

[chompers]

cprebound has banned me permanently from GA over it, while I was playing human too.

I've never once said whether or not I use it, but got banned anyway. I did say in game that I dont think it is a cheat and as such it should be allowed, and was permanently banned on the spot without either a warning or a request to not use custom HUDs.

I would advise against arguing with cprebound in-game, since disagreeing with him in-game is a bannable offense.

[Smokey]

Bad admins on Terrible servers FTW!

[n00b pl0x]

Bad admins on Terrible servers FTW!

+avacado's number

[Arch_Enemy]

nah chompers im not arguing with rebound or anything i just putted this poll up to see how many ppl use it or have used it on gamearena.

[_Equilibrium_]

i don't think i've ever been on game arena before. besides, there are plenty of other servers to go to if you get banned from one.

[Seffylight]

I voted yes, even though I'd never even think about playing on GA. People banning for UI mods are retarded.

[n00b pl0x]

I voted yes, even though I'd never even think about playing on GA. People banning for UI mods are retarded.

[chompers]

i don't think i've ever been on game arena before. besides, there are plenty of other servers to go to if you get banned from one.

This is unfortunately not the case if you're Australian. There is one other public server available to us with < 100 ping, it's the iiNet server which is running standard v1.1.0, so it is full of bugs and hacks.

My options are to look around for an American server running unlagged and deal with the 250+ ping, or to dodge the ban by changing my nick, IP and GUID, or to just quit playing trem altogether.

Right now, I'm thinking it will be the last one.

[Arch_Enemy]

lol permantly banning a person from a server for using a crosshair is just fucking stupid. did they have any proof that u had the ui mod on at the time chompers? lol

[_Equilibrium_]

I voted yes, even though I'd never even think about playing on GA. People banning for UI mods are retarded.

was this a QFT post, or just a mistake?

[Arch_Enemy]

wth is qft?

[tuple]

Would it help if us non-australians made it a point to go to the server and begin immediately arguing, fill his ban list and generally (though politely) hassle this person just for being such a jerk?  What do I care if I get kicked from a +200 ping server  

[chompers]

heh, thanks for the offer tuple, but I do not advocate griefing the GameArena servers on my behalf at all.

If you really must let cprebound know what you think, please do it in a way that doesn't disrupt the game for the other players there, ie. private message or something.

But a handful of internationals dropping in to tell cprebound he's an idiot won't change anything, I'm pretty sure he already knows what the players on GA think of him.

[Stof]

Go post in the GA forums them ( talking to chompers here )

That forum is fun to read, half the posts by link` have been removed by admins for inapropriate content Scratch that, 99% of his posts have been removed

[Bug!]

Well you have been banned for a crime you have not commited, they are labeling you as a cheater / hacker which is not the case.

You should not be banned you have modded something in an online game that is open source and you are allowed to make custom huds.

Prehaps you can see about getting iinet to upgrade to a better server like TJWs and you could also get admin, if iinet dont have admins on thier servers they will get some.

http://games.iinet.com.au/

If iinet had the better servers then i would play on them as i get better ping on iinet then i do GA.

Also if thier servers are more active then you will see more iinet trem servers.

[chompers]

raar, raar, fight the POWAH! and all that

[01:00] <Timbo> the whole aliens crosshair thing is ridiculous
[01:00] <Timbo> the only reason they don't have them is because they're kind of redundant
[01:01] <Timbo> since the hti detection is so wide anyway, very little accuracy is required
[01:01] <Timbo> hit even
[01:01] <mercury__> you mean as alien you hit by not even aiming at the bbox or you mean that the bbox has a wide angle at the distances aliens attack?
[01:01] * Firebird8 has joined #tremulous
[01:02] <Timbo> i mean the trace that does the hit detection is a bbox itself
[01:02] <Timbo> it's not just a line
[01:02] <mercury__> oh

Heh Bug, that is some deja-vu - it was EvilJimmy, myself and a couple of others who pestered GameArena to install trembot in the first place, I think I was even an admin there when they finally installed it, but it was around that time I stopped playing for a few months. Anyway, EvillJimmy is an ex-iiNet employee, and we both LAN with the guy who set up, and used to run iHug games (aka iiNet Games sydney) but even so, Jimmy reckons contacting iiNet about their trem server is a waste of time.

[Risujin]

raar, raar, fight the POWAH! and all that.

chompers, little Fletchy's lonely without its animations...

[treminator]

My options are to look around for an American server running unlagged and deal with the 250+ ping, or to dodge the ban by changing my nick[...]

[ After rushing to the elevator room on Karith at S1, the admin playing on humans briefs his team... ]

Lt. Gamearena, "Good morning, Marines. I'm sorry we didn't have time to brief you people before we left this base, but... "

Hudson, "Sir?"

Lt. Gamearena, "What is it Hicks? Didn't I ban you from this server?"

Hudson, "Hudson, sir. He's Hicks."

[_Equilibrium_]

wth is qft?

it means "quoted for truthery"

...i think

[hosler]

+avacado's number

my chemistry teacher would throw acid on my face every time i said that.

[ThunderBird]

i don't think i've ever been on game arena before. besides, there are plenty of other servers to go to if you get banned from one.

This is unfortunately not the case if you're Australian. There is one other public server available to us with < 100 ping, it's the iiNet server which is running standard v1.1.0, so it is full of bugs and hacks.

My options are to look around for an American server running unlagged and deal with the 250+ ping, or to dodge the ban by changing my nick, IP and GUID, or to just quit playing trem altogether.

Right now, I'm thinking it will be the last one.

There is always the [TK] Clan server you can join. I get around 35 ping there.  

[Arch_Enemy]

who r u thunderbird? lol

[n00b pl0x]

+avacado's number

my chemistry teacher would throw acid on my face every time i said that.

My teacher just makes me hang over a vat of sulfuric acid, no biggie

[BeerBastard]

There are several points here.
Even though you don't like the fact you got banned, Its a private server, Hosted publically meaning its not a democracy. I know it sucks but its true, alot of people like having power just to abuse it.  Try out our server [OPP]public we dont care what hud your running, crosshairs cant be detected anyways. Plus there is nothing against putting a spitball on ur monitor for a crosshair.   I used a spitball for months in cs scoutzknivez its the only reason I dont need a alien crosshair.

P.S. Me and my brother run [OPP]Public.  I hope you get decent ping, but we have a no cussing rule. Its not that severe just mostly the f word.  We don't have the rule posted but the first offense is a verbal warning, and people keep pushing it.  We don't tolerate assholes either.

Isnt the new trem version going to have alien crosshairs?

[chompers]

Thanks BeerBastard and ThunderBird, I'll check out my ping on both your servers.

edit: My ping to the TK server is pretty good, but it's passworded. I did see the password mentioned over at GA a couple of times, but never wrote it down. you could tell me in PM thunderbird, but doesn't a passworded server just end up empty all the time?

Stof, I've joined the GA forums and started up with the long diatribes of protest there, currently the cp mod-squad outnumbers and outranks (GameOp = forum moderator) the regular players there.

As I said, I hate the idea of the GA servers being disrupted because of this, but by all means, if you do play on the those servers, join the forums at http://www.gamearena.com.au/messageboards/tremulous/
and add your voice to the discussion there. I'd appreciate some support from the community.

[Seffylight]

After reading the arguments made by the gamearena game-ops and administrators, I feel the apt time for this has come:



Congratulations are due to the gamearena team, for proving how fucktarded they are!

[Stof]

Chompers, just post on their message board that the Quake 3 engine was DESIGNED to allow custom huds on PURE servers. That's what the ui cfg files are about.

If they can still call that a cheat after that, then you'd better never play there again.

Then, looking about their choice of admin I say, don't bother it isn't worth it. Unless it is the only good server available for you.

[chompers]

heh, Stof, I'm banned from their messageboards now as well. The reason they gave me for that ban: Avoiding another ban. :eek:

Go figure.

Anyway, earlier today I sent a stupidly long email to one of the other GameOps there who I've known to at least be mature and rational in the past, this is after he basically asked me to keep my head down, swear not to use the HUD and to remove the link to it from their forum. I'll paste it here so at least people will know that someone read all this and still decided that banning chompers was the right thing to do. Don't say I didn't warn you though, it really is stupidly long.

You say it's a contentious issue, but any contention exists only in the mind of yourself and rebound. Even the overly vocal champion of the anti-crosshair cause on the tremulous boards, Lava Croft, when asked on IRC agrees that custom HUDs are not a 'cheat' and has said that being banned over it is "totally retarded"

You ask for my word that I will not use crosshairs on GA, but I'm sure that's not exactly what you mean, since humans and two of the alien classes have crosshairs on by default.

If you're asking for my word that I will not use Custom HUDs, then I can't agree to that at all. My HUD is simply better, for me at least. When the next version of tremulous comes out, there is a good chance it's going to make a LOT more information legally available to the HUD. Things like your teammate's health and ammo. There's no way I can agree not to 'fix' something I haven't yet seen, who knows how 'broken' it's going to be?

I assume you have your own binds set up, would you comply if you were told you cannot use custom binds at all? Because to me, it is exactly the same issue.

But, if you're asking for my word that I will not use a custom HUD that includes illegal information such as the rumoured HUD with a permanent radar, then sure, you have my word on that. I have never done that, and you *can't* do that without invalidating your client against pure servers. It is very well defined in code by the developers what information can and cannot be legally accessed by the HUD.

If you're making a GameArena specific distinction between illegal content and unfair content though, well, I do not consider any of the changes to be unfair. The HUD I personally use is not exactly the same as the one in public distribution. On the human team, I can see my entire inventory at all times, without having to scroll the mousewheel. Is that unfair in your opinion? Should I, as a modder, have every little change approved by you and cprebound before I use or release it? Should I avoid GA when I am testing out new changes to a HUD in development?

Can you at least appreciate why I would think this is completely unreasonable?

If rebound owned and maintained the server, he could easily modify the server code to force all players to load the default HUD. But this is not the case. In a game where every second server runs their own little customisations, this is not something that anyone has even thought of doing.

I wouldn't be too worried about me writing an aimbot or anything like that, my goal is not to make the game unplayable. It would be trivial for me to write a modified client that fills up every available player slot and prevents anyone from playing on GA, but that is counter-productive, and not something I would ever do.

On the other hand, if I think up a simple hack that will make GA unadministerable *without* disturbing the game for regular players... something that will cause rebound to give up in frustration, then you bet I will do it.

Trog stated this in Jimmy's thread: "We're prepared to grant an exception if the circumstances warrant it, though if they're going to build it into the game we'd prefer to wait until they do that."

Now I ask you to consider the fact that legal HUD customisation *has* been puposely built into tremulous already, and such an exception is truly warranted for Tremulous. This is something that is endorsed by the entire Tremlous community, and I urge you to consider making the exception for Tremlous on GameArena, rather than making GameArena the exception to the rule within the Tremulous community, which is what the case is currently.

You said that you and rebound came to this decision on IRC, is this a public channel I can join, or are you refering to a private conversation?

[Stof]

I do hope that the next Tremulous version will include in big bold letters that custom huds are possible.

With the release of Quake III: Team Arena (Quake3 point release 1.27), Id Software introduced a new method of creating menus. Instead of creating the menus in the C code of a QVM, menus can be described in menu description files, in a sort of menu-scripting language. These are plaintext files that are more flexible and customizable than C-based menus.
For further customizations, these files can be read off the user's filesystem, outside of pak (pk3) files. As a result, a customized menu can be used regardless of whether the server is in pure mode or not. (XXX: Describe pure mode.) The restriction, though, is that the filename must end with ``.menu'' or ``.cfg''. Only then may Q3A (and mods based on it) be able to read from the filesystem instead of only from a pak (pk3) file.

Note: the HUD is a menu.

cg_hudFiles   Controls the type or layout of the HUD being displayed, in Team Arena a smaller HUD gives you a slight gain in FPS.