Administrative Capabilties

[tarafudge]

I've been particularly interested in the OJP project since it began, but never needed to look anywhere else but what I've had.

 

The problem is that Slider is becoming more and more of a "goody goody two shoes'" person and that just won't work for proper administration of a server. With the release of JA+ 2.3, he has forced active project users to his "belief" of a practical world where non-abusiveness is everything by fixing vulnerabilties and adding JA+ Client side mod which has custom moves that players are quickly adapting too.

 

I run a large server which runs 24 players, and because of the limitations of the newest version of JA+ 2.3, clients are braver because they know the incompetance of Slider's mis guided good intentions has givin' them the ability to bleed through the holes that kept them from abusing our services (that we provide for them...) and hack/crack them because they think they can do it and not be harshly punished for their actions.

 

My philosophy is that if user's believed they were being abused by the administrators, then they could relocate themselves to a more professional server which doesn't. This means that admins would learn to be less abusive, because there wouldn't be anyone that would come to their specific server.

 

HOD (http://www.hodclan.net/) is growing everyday. New ideas and concepts are coming to mind, and I believe OJP is what we should focus on because it offers adaptability in ways that no other modification allows. As a Open Source user, I've always found these types of things of better overall quality because having your code revised by hundreds of other developers I would imagine, does just that (Quality Control).

 

Quality of Service is important to us and the regular visitors of members. It's important that we keep our servers clean of mis-usage in a way that negatively effects other player gameplay experiences.

 

Please inform me of ways that I could contribute to the project.

 

PS: I believe that this modification framework should be listed under the terms of the GPLv2 liscense.

[razorace]

JKA mods can't be listed before GPLv2 thanks to the EULA for the game. Yeah, we already looked into that. Plus, it means we can't use SourceForge without lying thru our teeth. We've been using freepository for over a year now (probably even two years) and it's been working fine...even if it's not as user-friendly as SourceForge.

 

As for contributions, it's really a matter of what you can do. If you're skilled with coding, we can use you on the coding side. And if you don't really have any particular modding skills you can always help with the documentation.

 

However, I should note that our viewpoint on admining "tools" is probably not going to be in line with your line of thinking. We've always felt that abusable admin tools are trouble. We beleive that the player abusive behavior should be handled by simply not allowing the behavior in the first place instead of punishing players after the fact.

[tarafudge]

Well then what about laming?

[razorace]

Define laming. You mean like chat killing?

[Cid88]

There is no laming. Laming is just a state of mind.

 

Thats how we have it in MB, and I think OJP should stay similar to it, less kiddy admins seem to appear that way.

[tarafudge]

Chat killing, saber down killing in non-FFA games.

[razorace]

I'm sure there's something we could design that would help with a lot of those issues.

 

Probably just protecting people who are chatting or have saber down under certain conditions. However, it would have to be a cvared ability and would have to be well designed.

 

For example, you simply couldn't be invincible while carrying the flag/siege objects or while in the duel gametype. Plus, you shouldn't be able to pick up items or regen force while doing so.

[lukeskywalker1]

There is no such thing as laming. Besides, ummm... in what non-FFA gamemode would you need your saber down? Crap, you don't need, nor should you want, to put your saber down in FFA mode.

[tarafudge]

Whether you like it or not, Laming IS definitely in existance. Maybe on your server you perform simple tasks and just play FFA (on JKA FFA is lame).

 

Much of the HOD existance is based on the common knowledge that JKA will never be anything but a Star Wars enthusiast chat/skill based game.

 

If you want a true FFA, go play UT2004 or the like...

[razorace]

Well, like I stated earlier, I'm open to the idea of limiting the mechanics of "laming", in this case I assume we're talking about chat killing. So, what sort of mechanism would you suggest?

[lukeskywalker1]

The only way to eliminate that it to make you invincible while you have the chat box up. But then theres other problems, what if I am about to do a finishing move on a player and he throws up a chatbox to prevent his death? Its stupid. Plus, like everyone else, you shouldn't mind dying, even with your chat box up.

 

Crap, people chat kill me all the time, I don't care. I chat kill them, they don't care. Obviously you've never been in an all out FFA with guns and lotsa explosions... man, it feels good to drop some det packs on a bunch of jedi dueling it out and watch em' fly.

 

Look, Razor, if you give them an inch, they will try to take a mile. Kick/Ban is sufficient. Next thing you know they will be suggesting slap, and slay. Im not trying to tell you how to run your mod however, do what you wish. Its just a known fact that this honor community has hindered JKA, crap, if it wasn't for that, your mod could have been downloaded several thousand times, but instead, half the players left because they got kicked/banned/slapped/and slayne while playing JKA.

[razorace]

I agree that abusive commands have been a bane to the community. However, I'm trying to be open to alternatives.

 

In this case, the protection would obviously have some sort of delay to prevent people from using it like a shield.

[tarafudge]

Honor has been a major part of the Jedi Series even since the beginings.

 

Quit Hijacking my thread!

 

And people do care about laming, because we've heard numerous testimonies from people who visit our public servers. A delay for chat killing is almost for granted, maybe you can make a setting that when a persons saber goes down, or chatbox comes up, theres a 5 second delay, then they're protected. And that this will not apply for melee.

 

HOD is not mainly a JKA game, infact, we play CSS more than anything. It is a fact that in CSS there is no laming, why? In CSS the goal of the game is to defeat the other players for skill. JKA is not a competive game at all, its an enthusiast game.

[razorace]

Why not for melee?

[tarafudge]

Because you can still attack people in melee.

[lukeskywalker1]

Hence, the reason for making you invincible against it....

 

HOD is not mainly a JKA game, infact, we play CSS more than anything. It is a fact that in CSS there is no laming, why? In CSS the goal of the game is to defeat the other players for skill. JKA is not a competive game at all, its an enthusiast game.

 

The only reason JKA isn't competitive is because you honorz guys made it that way. Come to a no rules FFA server and watch the competition meter explode.

 

In the long run all CS is, is a fancy TFFA. JKA requires a bit of skill to play as well, more skill than any other random FPS, including CS.

 

Honor has been a major part of the Jedi Series even since the beginings.

 

In reality, "Honor" is tearing up the battlefeild without being a coward, living for the thrill of the saber cutting the opponents flesh, and walking away victorious. Your Honor system is exactly the opposite.

 

In addition to the delay, why not make the invulnerability cut off after a while, say one minute. Theres nothing you can type that would take a full minute, this would prevent further abuse of the chatbox (EX: Players just sitting around with chatboxs up for no reason)

[razorace]

Well, I don't think players would be able to move around during said invinciblity, otherwise players could go saber down just to get away from an attacker or to pick up items.

[tarafudge]

An idle system is already in place then, just make it more immediate when saber goes down.

 

Honor was brought into the game due to "Jedi" examples, you notice on all the servers with guns, there is a common game between the players, as there is no way to really have no weapons out.

 

I'd understand in like a TFFA game or CTF game, but a majority of the FFA servers use a "unprovocative attack" rule, JKA being the chat/interaction game that it is. So why not improve both sides of the game?

[razorace]

What you appear to be suggesting doesn't prevent people from abusing saber down to run away and pick up power-ups. Really, this seems to be more of an issue with the lack of an RPG gametype than an issue with the rest of the gametypes.

[lukeskywalker1]

What you appear to be suggesting doesn't prevent people from abusing saber down to run away and pick up power-ups. Really, this seems to be more of an issue with the lack of an RPG gametype than an issue with the rest of the gametypes.

 

 

Exactly, like I said, give em and inch, and they take a mile. If you add one Honor command for them, next thing you know they will want a slap command, then a slay command, and a empower command...

 

Honor was brought into the game due to "Jedi" examples, you notice on all the servers with guns, there is a common game between the players, as there is no way to really have no weapons out.

 

Right... thats the point... its so you always have a weapon to kill the other players. Dueling was meant to contain an uninterrupted battle between you and someone else. Other than that, the game was meant for utter and complete chaos to be striken throughout the maps... Your supposed to run around with a e-11 and shoot the crap out of your clan mates, and then whipe out a saber and cut the next guys head off (chat box or not)

 

Everyone has an equal oppertunity the way it is.

[Wudan]

If it's your server, you are free to do as you please, so, yes, you win ANY argument about lame/laming/honor hands down, fantastic. Great.

 

Everything you have suggested is plausible - it wouldn't be hard to come up with a 'invincible if saber down, or chatbox up' solution. Great. I'll bet it could be done, server side, so it'd be cvar controlled, so it'd be completely in the hands of the server admin. However, it'd be neat if the server browser could show if this cvar is enabled or not, so those of us who think such 'anti-laming-measures' are (pardon!) LAME can avoid these servers.

 

You and I disagree, but there's no reason this can't be done in OJP.

[Kurgan]

Honestly, the BEST "anti-laming" system that I've ever seen was in Xmod2 (though it still has problems and I would not suggest adopting it into OJP, more on that later).

 

This is how it worked (from memory):

 

The cvar was set, then if a person stands perfectly still (they can mouse aim and chat, but no force power usage, no weapon readied (ie: they have to have saber off or melee, and no movement) for X seconds (usually 10 or more) they become "unlamable."

 

Now IIRC the way he had it, once the person was "unlameable" they were invincible to saber throw, force powers, and saber attacks (and melee strikes, including kicks) but NOT to guns or explosions. This meant that it could only be used in say, a Saber Only gametype, if the person wanted to stand around and have a chat with somebody without fear of being killed. In a guns server, Hex didn't care if you got gunned down for chatting, because you'd be stupid.

 

Now, if you started to walk/run, turned on a force power or turned on your saber or whipped out a gun, you became normal again. If you wanted to become "unlameable" you'd have to stand still with your weapon away and start over.

 

The only thing wrong with his system that I can think of off hand was that you could theoretically grab a capturable item (Siege item or Flag) and then make yourself unlameable and hold up the entire game until you were kicked! But of course if you were not protected from guns/explosions, somebody could still probably find a way to kill you, unless it was say, Sabers Only CTF (which people DO play, so that's still a problem).

 

Because of the lack of protection against guns, even if the Jedi Master in JM became "unlameable" he could still be killed. In a Duel it would be rather stupid for somebody to become unlameable.

 

Really the only place it would be of any use would be in a sabers only FFA or Sabers Only TFFA/CTF (as long as you made it so that the holder of the flag can never get the protection, period).

 

The "consequences" for attacking the "unlameable" person with a saber was that your lightsaber fell to the ground (as if you dropped it) upon your first strike against them (and the target takes no damage, anyway). And a message appears on your screen telling you not to try to lame somebody, etc.

 

There was also (IIRC) a feature in which if you tried to "lame" an unlameable person X number of times you were kicked or banned. This could be set by the admin.

 

 

NOW, that all said, I still have problems with said system. Like was said above, give them an inch, they'll take a mile. Once you start down the honorz path, forever will it dominate your destiny... CONSUME YOU IT WILL!

 

Considering the damage the "honorz" motivated admin mods have done to the community, and considering OJP is one of the few useful non-abusive mods out there, I think this would be a REALLY BAD MOVE.

 

I have a few suggestions for those people who are mad about "being lamed:"

 

 

1) If you want to Chat, do so when you're dead, or while you're in spectator mode. Nobody can kill you there.

 

2) Suck it up and move on. If you are there just to chat, why should you care if somebody got one point off of you? Don't chat in the middle of a duel or in an area where there are people fighting or out in the open where you can be sniped. And if you get killed while you're off taking a leak, well it's your own fault. This is a game, and everybody isn't here to wait for you and when you're ready to play. Come ready to play or don't play at all...

 

Actually, my real advice for Razor is the following:

 

Add a Cvar option that lets you make it so that you do NOT LOSE YOUR SCORE when going into spectator mode. Say, if your score is above Zero, it is not reset, or you only lose 1 point, and it won't go below zero, if you get switched to spectator. This would lessen whining about getting team switched AND have the side effect that "honorz" people who want to chat and worry about being killed or losing their precious score can spectate and still keep their points.

 

This would NOT, obviously count towards team scores, only individual points.

 

Sound good? This is the best solution. Far better than the "anti lamer" Xmod2 method, or the countless "punishment" and "chat god mode" features of the abusive admin mods out there.

 

And if people simply cannot live without their "punishment" commands, let them use one of the other countless abusive mods out there. OJP does not need to copy those abusive mods in order to "fit in" or "be cool."

[tarafudge]

Perhaps instead of freezing or slaping a player, Kurgan gave me a great idea. Since slapping or freezing is somewhat immoral, and slaps can be avoided, why not make a command to manually make someone drop a saber for that moment and display a warning (and they'll read it because their not hacking/slashing away).

 

And It'd be really cool to introduce admin ranks, but not for abusive commands. Certain admin ranks can have access to certain server cvars, messaging techniques, and bans and kicks.

 

If we can't punish someone for being in the server, would it be possible to make a name based ban? I know people who get banned constantly and they are still able to come on. And sometimes when its really bad, when we ban the subnet, they manage to get in another way (such as through a backup dialup conn. or friends computer). This way we can make those really abusive players NOT mad, but go away .

 

Also, it should have a mechanism to not allow it to be dropped in duels, when its already dropped and when a player is idle (because then that person isn't really doing anything).

[yangyan]

how about a command to completely blind the player by coloring their screen black, and printing big red letters in the middle of the screen

[lukeskywalker1]

//(BHVD)
camera ( /*@CAMERA_COMMANDS*/ FADE, < 0.000 0.000 0.000 >, 0.000, < 0.000 0.000 0.000 >, 1.000, 2000 );
print ( "^1NO LAMING" );

 

ICARUS Script... lol... (Fades to black, then puts red "NO LAMING on the screen.)

 

Anyways, I think that would be a bad idea. I hope you were joking.

 

 

Actually, Kurgan, another idea is to make them invincible after 10 seconds in ONLY FFA SABER Servers. That way no other gametypes would be affected. The other commands should be scrapped. Just let the player stand there and slash at them, it won't matter... none of this drop your saber stuff is needed.