BZ2 1.3.6.4b patch - OPEN BETA & TESTING

[MrTwosheds]

I have only seen exactly 2 people engaged in this activity on an ongoing basis and one of those could be generously described as only a part-timer or sidekick
The main protagonist is rather careless about who else is in the games he attacks and may be watching what he does, he isn't the only person who can cloak.
ZA what is written there might just as well be his signature.

[Ded10c]

Once again, just because he's a kleptomaniac doesn't mean he was the thief this time.

[MrTwosheds]

True someone could be deliberately impostering the imposterer. We await the case for the defence...

[Zero Angel]

The defense has already made its case, your honor.

And shame on you MrTwoSheds, as a prosecutor you should know more than to bring up such shaky evidence and expect it to fly in this court of law; morality and past actions cannot simply be enough to convict a person because it is a slippery slope of punitive action which is devoid of the facts of what actually happened; and where do we stop there from persecuting anyone who may have once or twice committed a crime simply because we suspect he may do it again, it is a slippery slope my friend.

Your honor, the prosecution's entire argument has been based around a character debasement of my client and the prosecution has been unwilling to bring any substantive testimony or come up with any tangible facts to put my defendant at the crime scene which is what the crux of this case is based on.

[Nielk1]

Excuse me ZA, get that stick out of your ass.
I never even implied that a majority of "vets" were this way.
If you are going to take issue with something, how about taking issue with something that actually happened.
You are the one who made that jump, not me, and thus you are the one creating the implication. The fact you jump to it so quickly gives me pause to think it might in fact be correct. This is from your statement, not mine.

Now you go and create some sort of farce on the side instead of concentrating on the actual issue, that of a list of vets that can be counted with around 3 hands, a whole hand are confirmed griefers.

I told you my solutions and you gave me **** over not having them implemented. I told you why. Do you really want me to throw together the 1 hour app that downloads a new banlist before every run of BZ2? Then who makes the decisions?

Additionally, this is not a court of law, this is a game community. Just as no one has any right to free speech on this private property no one has right to a fair trial. Pretending they do is to make a false argument. We already see how little happens with great evidence, what about how much can happen with scant?

I am disgusted that you would try to take my words and use them to create a conflict. All I can say is grow up before you lead me to actions both you and I don't want me to take.

EDIT:
And furthermore, back when we were trying to keep everyone included in the community proper I had some nice long voice conversations with these brain addled twits. What I gave was their exact stated reason. That MPI players are not good enough at the game if they join STRAT, which means they are griefing STRAT, so they must be removed.

[MrTwosheds]

Yeah its not a court and I'm not the prosecutor, been a witness many times and a victim too, all I'm trying to do here is help people to continue playing BZ2 if they want to and not have that decision made by someone else for them. The identity of the griefers is unimportant, what matters is that people have effective ways to stop them doing it.

[Commando]

I agree the thug recycler needs fixed. I'm holdinv off on doing so for a few reasons. Even if i updated it, it would be unofficial until a new pat h is released. A new patch could resolve the issue by adding a new variable and setting it to false.

In the past, i would have had more motivation to fix, but years of dissapoinfment killed that off.

I was able to put more time into playing multiplayer in bz2 this weekend than I had in the last several years. That was mainly due to the build being publically available. That says a lot.

[Nielk1]

We add an option, we default it to the more restrictive. The defaults become the standard form of play and its as if it doesn't exist. Another mechanic is exploited, another change, and another. Even with options, they don't get touched, they don't get used, slowly the game becomes more and more restrictive.

Does Raknet offer an account system? Things that are not bugs but choices should not be fixed, they should be allowed as a matter of cause. If you are going to make it an engine change, it better include an ODF flag so that no assumption destroys functionality. Never allow assumptions.

[MrTwosheds]

I agree with Nielk1 really, further restrictions on what you can and cannot do are not particularly desirable, if funkwits cannot demolish the commanders recy then they will just demolish everything else instead, if they cannot demolish anything not on their team then they will probably build stuff in the way as a form of griefing, either way options for legitimate players are just closed down, while the idiots just have to find another form of harassment.

[MrTwosheds]

Peerblock also does allow lists, so skill obsessive Vet hosts could quite easily use it to block out the rest of the world and only allow their known friends in. Solving all those annoying problems of players who are not quite good enough to play with or don't understand english well enough to heed the known knicks or kick msg. All I can say is if you do, please don't include my IP in the allow list, I am just not interested in being part of an elitist gaming community.

[Zero Angel]

I agree with Nielk1 really, further restrictions on what you can and cannot do are not particularly desirable, if funkwits cannot demolish the commanders recy then they will just demolish everything else instead, if they cannot demolish anything not on their team then they will probably build stuff in the way as a form of griefing, either way options for legitimate players are just closed down, while the idiots just have to find another form of harassment.

Yeah but from a practical point of view, what is the harm on adding a 'canDemolish=0' on a single recycler variant's recycler until the problem is fixed in a more satisfactory manner.

Also, lets say that I'm a griefer. Friendly fire protection is on. I get a thug rec, make a con, tell it to demo your recy. You notice a con suspiciously marching towards your rec, kick me. Well the con is still gonna demo your rec (even though I'm already kicked) and then it's game over, nothing you can do (besides maybe try and capture it with a tug, which may be infeasible). You are guaranteed to lose the game.

Now, lets say that the situation is similar except that I can't demo your recy. Now I as a griefer have to demo a different high-value building like your fac. You notice my con suspiciously marching towards your fac, kick me, your fac gets demoed. You type /lockdown and the game is locked. Then you make a much greater chance of making a recovery. The total cost of this to you as a commander? Well, whatever buildings the griefer managed to demolish while you werent looking (a smart or moderately observant commander would notice suspicious activity quickly), and maybe the ability to invite further players to your game (for fear of griefing). Heck if you even did a /ban and didnt lock the game down, you still force the griefer to go through the problem of changing IPs which may be too much trouble/hassle to make it worth while.

The cost of implementing it for BZ2 players in general? Oh you cant demo your own recy on the MPI thug variant. Well, why would you ever need to do that anyways? I mean if youre losing so badly that you need to quickly end the game by demoing your own recy on the MPI thug recycler variant, than just have the host quit the game and relaunch. There is 'not' a slippery slope here. It's a targeted fix that while may not be absolutely 100% ideal, is far better than the alternative of doing nothing or 'over fixing' the problem which may make things worse for everyone (not just the griefers).

[Nielk1]

Can I just point out the countless times that "what's the harm in..." has lead to a spiral of loss of rights that eventually leads to revolution IRL?

Lets actually learn from history?
Certain people are the problem, not the game. Pretending that new rules can fix a problem is ignoring the problem.

[Ded10c]

As a temporary fix while a proper solution is worked out, it's probably worth doing.

[Vadam]

By removing any options, the griefers are getting what they want, which is to try to ruin the game for normal players. Yes, I know its a useless option. But like others have been saying, the griefers will find other ways to pester us until their new methods are blocked. It might be a temporary fix, which makes me ask what a permanent one would be, or if one is possible since griefers are tenacious little bastards.

[Ded10c]

Persistent accounts are the best suggestion I've heard so far, but something like that would take a hell of a lot of work to implement and even more to maintain.