Tremleague Rules Draft

[Smokey]

These rules are to be followed by clans both during clan play and while partaking in any Tremulous activity where acceptable.

Rules on Cheating:
ANY PLAYER CAUGHT CHEATING AND OR SHARING CHEATS IS SUBJECT TO BAN, REGARDLESS IF IT WAS IN A TREMLEAGUE GAME OR NOT.
No cheating is acceptable, This includes but is not limited to aimbotting, wallhacking, radar hacks, texture modifications, bug exploitation, glitching, speedhacks and ghosting.

Third Party Communitcation(Teamspeak):
The use of third party communication, such as voice chat programs like Teamspeak is allowed. However, Spectators in the game are NOT allowed in the same channel as a team who is matching on the teamspeak server. This also goes for any other voice program, like rodger-wilco or ventrilo. Ghosting is grounds for a ban for the player ghosting and punishment for the team allow it to happen.
There is a Teamspeak server open for players to use, and it is encouraged they do so.
12.192.82.50:8767


Pre-Game Rules:
Before a match is started, a (co)leader from both teams must agree to the match. Once a match is agreed on, A server must be agreed on for the match. In the case of East Coast vs West Coast or US vs EU then one round per server is acceptable. A map must then be chosen.

Map Choosing:
It is up to the two teams to decide what team picks the map. Whatever team picks the map, must accept the side (alien or human) designated to them by the opposing team.
No layouts are to be used for clan matching. The default map layout MUST be used.
Maps chosen for play must be a defualt map. Suggested maps are:

    * ATCS
    * Tremor
    * Nexus6
    * Niveus

Players:
The players of a clan must be registered on tremleague and a member of the team at least 12 hours before they are allowed to play in a match. It is up to the members of your team to validate the players of the opposing team.

Names:
It is mandatory that you use the name you have registered on tremleague for the match. If you are found using somebody else's name or playing for a clan other than the one which you are a member of on the site, then any matches you have played in for that team will be discarded, and the team will suffer a points punishment. You will also be banned.

Spectators:
If either team wishes for there to be no spectators in the server, all spectators must promptly be removed. The only exception to this policy is Tremleague admins and referees. At any time if you request spectators be removed and it doesn't happen promptly, then please inform the other team that you will be reporting them, and they will face justifiable punishment.

Servers:
Servers that matches are played on may be any server, provided it is not hosted on a cable/dsl connection. The player admining the server must inform the other team of all settings on the server before the match is started. In order to guarantee fair play, we suggest you play on a Tremleague approved server. They can be found Here.

Suggested Settings to Limit Camping:
In order to keep the level of camping at a minimum, it is suggested that default build points are used, Sudden death start between 15 and 25, the timelimit be set to 45-55, and Sudden Death mode be 1.

In Game Conduct:
Clans should act in a mature and acceptable manner. MM1 (Message Mode 1: AKA Say or Using T to talk) should be kept to a minimum. Any form of spamming is unacceptable. Use of private messages, tell or admin say for the use of ghosting or informing teams of knowledge they shouldn't have is not acceptable and is grounds for banning. Names should not be changed excessively during the match.

Demos and Screenshots:
All players MUST record demos, it is simple to do so there is no reason to not do it. Screenshots at the end of the game also should be taken. If all players do not record demos/take screenshots then the team will be issued a warning.

Winning the game:
A team must win TWO consecutive rounds to win the match. If a team wins the first two rounds consecutively then there is no need for a third round to be played. In the case of a tie round(s), then you continue to alternate sides.

The only things I think need to be changed are maps and Sudden Death and timelimits suggested.

[your face]

darn, no cheating... how sad. xD

[BeerBastard]

I posted some stuff on the site forums. I can move it here if you want to. Most of the rules look fine.

The no spec rule, and suddendeathtype 1 aren't usually to me.

What is suddendeathtype 1 again?

[Smokey]

I posted some stuff on the site forums. I can move it here if you want to. Most of the rules look fine.

The no spec rule, and suddendeathtype 1 aren't usually to me.

What is suddendeathtype 1 again?

No specs is to prevent cheating via ghosting, and IIRC sdmode 1= only rc rebuildable

[Geni3]

i thought it was only building that don't need any bps are rebuildable: om, hovel, rc, repeater

[Smokey]

i thought it was only building that don't need any bps are rebuildable: om, hovel, rc, repeater

Yea, you're right. My bad.

[BeerBastard]

That hurts humans a lot, it discourages camping how?

If humans are worried so much they might loose armory(Then the game) how does that make them want to leave base in sd.

The spectator thing can be handled different ways, which don't compromise the witnesses who could possible spot an aimbot.

http://tremleague.com/index.php?link=bzforums&forumid=1&threadid=1&

As i posted above.

This is something I see that could get a little tricky, the bigger tremleague gets.

All a clan would have to do is ask for no specs, and it would be really hard to catch cheaters. I believe there is a easier way to insure no one is ghosting. While still enabling spectators to watch matches.(Matches are publically recorded so there is no privacy reason for no specs)

1. Turn message mode one off, and pms off.

2. Then have both clans share a teamspeak, Go into 2 separate locked channels. The only players in the channels should be the ones playing.

3. Or have a trusted tremleague admin. In each of the clans teamspeak.

I don't think this would be necessary for every match, but can be requested like the no spectator rule is at the moment.

More ideas?

[kevlarman]

i thought it was only building that don't need any bps are rebuildable: om, hovel, rc, repeater

Yea, you're right. My bad.

that's sd mode 0, sd mode 1 = nothing rebuildable (as it should be)

[Lakitu7]

The spec thing seems off. I'm not sure that sacrificing the ability for the game to be a spectator sport is really justified by anti cheating paranoia, particularly when some people around here are so worried about cheating that they see it at every turn and will invoke that right all the time. It's the only solution that will actually work to prevent ghosting (you can monitor the teamspeak channel, but people can run teamspeak twice or even just use a damn telephone), but it may be taking the game too far into not-fun-anymore territory. Of course, aimbot paranoists will see no specs as an excuse to fling wild accusations. Since you're damned either way, just allow specs. You're damned by either the aimbot paranoists or the ghosting paranoists regardless, so why not go with the option that lets people enjoy themselves more?

As Kev said, Mode 0 is stock 1.1: only things that cost 0 BP are rebuildable. It's broken, because OM rebuilds and arm doesn't.
Go Mode 1: Nothing rebuilds or Mode 2: bunch of junk rebuilds. Since you want short games, go mode 1.

Draconian policies with aliasing are needed. That's a good start. If you can't show your true face to your competitors, you do not deserve to have competitors. Some people have remotely legit reasons to do this on public servers (though I still don't agree with it, at least I see a point), but in a match setting, there is just no excuse. I'd make using your real name not-optional and IP-check everyone too, but my hatred of aliasing in this game is legendary.

Rules against "bug exploiting" and "glitching" are unclear. You will need to formalize what building anomalies are considered okay and which are not: ie how bad does a glitch build need to be before it invokes the BAN FROM EVERYTHING. I don't imagine that you'd invoke that for an overahanging style "floaty" trapper or someone building in the Karith dark stairs where falling models are unavoidable.

A "mature and respectable manner" is similarly unclear. Personally, I don't care what people say, but some folks may start calling for a draw and a ban because another guy said "fuck" or "penis" or "jesus." Those people have problems since they're complaining about naughty words while playing a game about shooting each other, but they do exist, so you have to deal with the issue preemptively.

[==Troy==]

Specs can still idle in lobby tbh, it will be quite easy to tell server not to send any entity info to specs.

As for cheating, why not just record server-side demo? Then after the match you will be able to see how EVERY player performed exactly.

[Lakitu7]

If they can't see anything, then there's still not really much of a point. You might as well just leave them kicked.

You could very hackishly code a filtering by clantag to let them only watch their own team, but that assumes that everyone speccing is one one clan or the other whereas there's always plenty of nonaffiliated specs, as there should be.

Hopefully someday one of us will code server side demos. I always hear about different groups of people that are supposedly working on it but not much beyond that.

[Smokey]

Lakitu, Is it at all possible for you to code a "specinvite system". This allows for spectators will stopping ghosting. In order for a spectator to be able to watch a player, they must type "specinvite #"(Where # is that players client number) into console, That way clans can only specinvite players they know won't ghost. Anybody who hasn't been specinvite'd by any player just sees black.

[player1]

aren't there two different modes of spectating?
one is actual playerspec (seeing thru their eyes) and the other is freespec (where you just push movement keys at the non-aligned screen)
would you still allow the free-floating spectators?

[Smokey]

aren't there two different modes of spectating?
one is actual playerspec (seeing thru their eyes) and the other is freespec (where you just push movement keys at the non-aligned screen)
would you still allow the free-floating spectators?

No, you'd solely have to playerspec.

[BeerBastard]

We have been scrimming with sudden death mode 2, and spectators for ages.  I don't think that is about to change, most everywhere we go and scrim its sd mode 2, and spectators are allowed. I think the best bet to be successful would to use what most clans agree on all ready.

[Smokey]

We have been scrimming with sudden death mode 2, and spectators for ages.  I don't think that is about to change, most everywhere we go and scrim its sd mode 2, and spectators are allowed. I think the best bet to be successful would to use what most clans agree on all ready.

SD Mode is just a suggestion to limit camping.

[kevlarman]

sd mode 2 allows humans to pretty effortlessly draw the game out to the timelimit, and you should get used to sd mode 1 anyway, since that's the default and only option in 1.2

[BeerBastard]

only option in 1.2? Weird, most players play with option 2. Forcing #1 is a good way to kill the game.

[Smokey]

only option in 1.2? Weird, most players play with option 2. Forcing #1 is a good way to kill the game.

You must not have ever played 1.2, lol.

[Death On Ice]

1.2 games don't always last to TL.

Usually don't last to 40 minutes sudden death either. (Not sure what SD settings on MG Dev are)

[kevlarman]

only option in 1.2? Weird, most players play with option 2. Forcing #1 is a good way to kill the game.

afaik this was decided BEFORE there was such a thing as sd modes
edit:
sd mode 0 favors aliens (they can rebuild OM, humans can't rebuild the armory), and leads to humans camping to protect the armory rather than rushing aliens to try to win. i was there when sd mode 2 was implemented, and i was there to see it badly broken (credit goes to solilo for this) before most people had even heard of it. there is no real reason to allow either of the 2 other modes because they hurt gameplay.
edit2: i suggest that all players be required to provide demos of the match upon request (within a reasonable time period of the match, no one can keep track of which demo is which forever)

[BeerBastard]

So basically om becomes main target, like the armory for humans.

I still don't see whats wrong with sd type 2. although type 1 sounds balanced too.

[Smokey]

sd mode 2 allows humans to pretty effortlessly draw the game out to the timelimit, and you should get used to sd mode 1 anyway, since that's the default and only option in 1.2

Done, let me post updated rules.

Edit: No specs rule will also be changed.

[kevlarman]

So basically om becomes main target, like the armory for humans.

I still don't see whats wrong with sd type 2. although type 1 sounds balanced too.

basically humans build 2-3 armories and 1-2 dcc's at entrances, 2 chainsuits and one builder are usually enough to prevent the human team from ever losing nonrebuildable buildings. it leads to humans tying many games they should have lost. the fact that sd mode 2 no longer punishes all tesla bases also annoys me, but this applies to public games only.

[Lakitu7]

It's decently possible, but it's a whole lot of data to store and commands for a user to type (manually add each player each time, have to reset them all when the person reconnecs). That's why I was thinking something more along the lines of "if name contains (tag), allow it" but that's pretty damn messy too. It's not impossible of course, but I'm having a hard time coming up with a way to do it that I actually like.