ArmA 2 - Server Ban List - ?

[terox 316]

IRC has #Help channels

Maybe it's about time BIS ran a dedicated server using a selective bunch of admins and was used to show newcomers (I hate the word newb's, so derogatory) how to integrate into the game.

Documentation has also never been a stong point of theirs and maybe the Game manual should also have a section on how not to irritate other players and wreck their gaming session.

I do not agree at all with a public ban list.

1) Standards of adminning vary massively from one server to another and there is no way you can be sure someone was banned for the right reason unless you monitor the situation yourself, or trust the word of the admin who activated the ban

2) A player's ID should not be bounced around in public display. I am absolutely gobsmacked that the Forum Moderators have not deleted those few posts that display them.

Unfortunately, to increase a community's numbers means public gaming sessions, with this comes the chance of an idiot teenager logging onto the server and teamkilling half a squad in the middle of a coop that you have been playing for the last hour or so.

How you deal with that, or defend against it is down to the individual community leaders and their policy's.

I've been running OFP/ArmA servers for 7 years now and having tried various systems to defend against this, these are the options and their side effects as I see them

Golden Rule, for every step you take to restrict players from joining your server, you lose 50% of the clientel that you could have

1) Passworded servers

PRO'sThis obviously stops anyone joining that cannot get their act together and find your website or teamspeak server to get the password

This tends to stop the mindless morons intent on spoiling your gaming session

Cons

Very slow to stagnant increase in your player base

2) Lock Server after Mission Start

I am leaning towards this for ArmA2 gaming

PRO'sThis gives you a chance to check the current player list and see the communication level you can expect from players not on your teamspeak server prior to mission start. Your regular players joining a mission late can easily request the admin to unlock the server via teamspeak, so they can get in.

This also stops the "chance gamer" logging onto your server in mid mission and screwing up the mission because they havent got a clue whats going on and then either walk straight into the enemy or teamkill friendlies

CONS

Not sure there is any. This does increase the player base albeit slowly which is more managebale because you can spend more time teaching individuals how to integrate iwith their squad/team and the mission

3) Addon Servers

PRO'sThis obviously stops anyone joining that cannot get their act together and find your website to download your addon pack

Cons

Stagnant Player base growth, not even enough to replace those who naturally drift off

2)Other Options

You can implement scripts into your missions which deter or stop teamkilling

For example

A killed event handler script using a publicvariable event handler verify's that a Teamkill has occured

The script then Immediately removes the teamkillers weapons preventing further deaths (possibly blackout his screen or kill the individual, or whatever else you feel like doing)

The script informs all the Players who killed who

Admin can then decide what action to take and more importantly gives him a chance to question the individual.

Scripts can also be used to lock vehicles making them only enterable by certain classes

You could even develop an "Admins Dialogue" (Oh if only the comref had "IsAdmin")

Those who open their doors to Newcomers tend to do so because they want bigger numbers of players for larger missions.

I think the best approach is to select the maturist and most sensible players in your community to admin

Dont rush into BAN decisions without investigating the problem

Create a place on your website where "Offenders" can plead their case, which tends to be only used by those who "made a mistake" or where an admin made a rash decision.

If you want to share a ban list, do so via PM's with community admins who's decisions you would trust

and TALK to the players when they JIP in, try and HELP them, some want to learn and these will return again and again. Others are just absolute selfish teenage tw**s who need a good kicking

Implement some "Idiot scripts" into your mission so you can recover some gameplay from Mr. Idiot's activities

Edited September 7, 2009 by Terox

[sbsmac 0]

>You could even develop an "Admins Dialogue" (Oh if only the comref had "IsAdmin")

Don't know if you are aware of this, but I requested this on the bug-tracker. See my sig for details if you want to vote for it. I agree it woudl open up a lot of possibilities.

>2) Lock Server after Mission Start

My slightly contrarian view of JIP is that it was simultaneously an excellent addition to the game and a complete disaster for organised teamplay. In OFP, there was some effort involved in getting a PVP game started. Having to wait in the lobby for 5 minutes gave some kind of commitment that players would stick around for the entire length of the game and therefore be more engaged in the outcome. (People who dropped out of a game half way through when things weren't going their way tended to be labelled as 'quitters' and not welcomed back.)

Edited September 7, 2009 by sbsmac

[KELLO 0]

I would be willing to let the community use my server for this project as a public server, its a quad core with 4 gig of ram, the only game running on it would be arma 2 so should hold 50+ players, I think it would be cool if we had a few decent admins on running some good PVP maps etc..

I cant give access directly to the box but could set up ftp accounts for admins to upload maps etc...

[Alex72 1]

Awesome initiative KELLO! Hope some good come out of it. :)

[Duboix 10]

This a game or real army?agree with Terox,for example i played CLR played as a cop 6,i attack gang house,shooting their truck just for fun,then instant kick,when rejoining again ban,i just beginning playing CLR FFS,i felt that arma 2 getting too serious about a game,most of you treating it like real life,have a tolerance for a beginner or you will lost new fanbase by these elitist,you wanna play just with your elite friends/clans fine!i will leave arma 2 soon,will spread this unfriendly community to other community.This really ridiculous,administrating is your job as admin,how you will make sure this case like me,beginner bad luck would treated equally?e-mail you to revoke my ban?TK i was do that at first,some server doesn't have name on the top of the player,either the team mates marked as red.Hundred of mod,new maps,island,even experienced player need times to getting hang of it.

Why you don't put simple solution,put new tag infront of your server like :

#Elitist only,beginner GTFO

#Fun

i just choosing the wrong game if most of server choose this :(,just bought arma 2 for 1 week!. Bye

[fincuan 0]

Find a server where you're allowed to shoot trucks just for run, or behave on servers which don't. Getting banned is very easy to prevent with the use of common sense.

[Niccolo Machiavelli 19]

I got banned from the AAA + Deadly or not server. I am not sure why. my ping was green, i dont shoot in HQ, and I never kill friendlies on purpose. The only thing I can think of is, I had a mod file in my addons and kept getting rejected out of the server room. It was an all honest mistake and I had no warning of being banned. Its the only server I have ever been banned from and I play on alot of servers. AAA always has poeple in their room and I have good ping with them, I would like to get unbanned so I can play non glitchy games. Any help or advice would be great! Thank You

[Westsailor 10]

You know what would be REALLY great is if the server admins made a public ban list we could all share, So be an idiot on 1 server expect to be banned from all the decent ones, Yes its harsh, but so is life

( very fed up with idiots )

Define idiot.

I'm new to Arma 2, still getting the hang of it. One of my first experiences online went like this:

HALO in and sneak into the forest around the objective. I see someone ahead. I crawl up close to them and it turns out to be an enemy. They promptly shoot me. Doh!

HALO in again, land in the same spot knowing there is an enemy in the vicinity. I crawl in to the area where the previous enemy was and see a prone figure. I shoot them and immediately get kicked for a team kill.

Oops... so I rejoin the (public) server and apologize for the PK, saying I'm new.

I not only immediately get kicked again but now I'm banned on that server... no reply, no nothing. Just banned.

I've tried to locate the squad (Elite ArmA Warriors) to email them, try to explain and get unbanned (seemed like a decent server) but no joy.

Yea, I'm an 'idiot' but not the kind I think/hope you are referring to. But given your black & white interpretation of a banned idiot list I would probably be having a HARD time finding ANY server to play on anymore.

Quite frankly, if something like this took root and became prevalent I'm not sure it's the kind of 'elitist' community I'd really want to be a part of anyway.

Edited May 6, 2011 by Westsailor

[Cpt Blade 10]

Define idiot.

I'm new to Arma 2, still getting the hang of it. One of my first experiences online went like this:

HALO in and sneak into the forest around the objective. I see someone ahead. I crawl up close to them and it turns out to be an enemy. They promptly shoot me. Doh!

HALO in again, land in the same spot knowing there is an enemy in the vicinity. I crawl in to the area where the previous enemy was and see a prone figure. I shoot them and immediately get kicked for a team kill.

Oops... so I rejoin the (public) server and apologize for the PK, saying I'm new.

I not only immediately get kicked again but now I'm banned on that server... no reply, no nothing. Just banned.

I've tried to locate the squad (Elite ArmA Warriors) to email them, try to explain and get unbanned (seemed like a decent server) but no joy.

Yea, I'm an 'idiot' but not the kind I think/hope you are referring to. But given your black & white interpretation of a banned idiot list I would probably be having a HARD time finding ANY server to play on anymore.

Quite frankly, if something like this took root and became prevalent I'm not sure it's the kind of 'elitist' community I'd really want to be a part of anyway.

that is a problem with a public banlist since any admin can ban players without any reasons, so to Westsailor to bad you cant get intouch with them to get unbanned.

Like us we have open up a part of our forums with our banlist and they can also reply there if their ban was wrong.

[Cowboy Pilot 10]

I got banned from the AAA + Deadly or not server. I am not sure why. my ping was green, i dont shoot in HQ, and I never kill friendlies on purpose. The only thing I can think of is, I had a mod file in my addons and kept getting rejected out of the server room. It was an all honest mistake and I had no warning of being banned. Its the only server I have ever been banned from and I play on alot of servers. AAA always has poeple in their room and I have good ping with them, I would like to get unbanned so I can play non glitchy games. Any help or advice would be great! Thank You

You need to contact this group on their website, not via these forums in a post at least. Also the server could have be setup to ban you for a hacked addon or addon with different data. Though most only have it ban a player for hacked addon/signatures, and kick for different data. This is when signature checks are turned on.

[SpectrumWarrior 0]

Define idiot.

I'm new to Arma 2, still getting the hang of it. One of my first experiences online went like this:

HALO in and sneak into the forest around the objective. I see someone ahead. I crawl up close to them and it turns out to be an enemy. They promptly shoot me. Doh!

HALO in again, land in the same spot knowing there is an enemy in the vicinity. I crawl in to the area where the previous enemy was and see a prone figure. I shoot them and immediately get kicked for a team kill.

Oops... so I rejoin the (public) server and apologize for the PK, saying I'm new.

I not only immediately get kicked again but now I'm banned on that server... no reply, no nothing. Just banned.

I've tried to locate the squad (Elite ArmA Warriors) to email them, try to explain and get unbanned (seemed like a decent server) but no joy.

Yea, I'm an 'idiot' but not the kind I think/hope you are referring to. But given your black & white interpretation of a banned idiot list I would probably be having a HARD time finding ANY server to play on anymore.

Quite frankly, if something like this took root and became prevalent I'm not sure it's the kind of 'elitist' community I'd really want to be a part of anyway.

Sorry bud, I went back as far as april 1st and can not find your name in any of my log files as even being in one of my 7 servers. I am the ONLY one that can ban anyone on my servers and I did not ban you, I do not even recognise your name at all. You are going to have to help me out a little bit more here and PM with your game ID so I can check you on the ban list. All I can say is you were in there one day in a different name and someone was in there with that damned darky hack and ban you. PM me and we will get it straightened out ok.

[pogoman979 10]

I know the feeling westsailor. I've been playing arma/a2 for yonks and i recently joined a warfare server i'd never played on to test out some overclocking i'd done on my gfx card. It turns out i overclocked too much so my computer froze 10 seconds after i joined and i had to restart. When i rejoined the server i was automatically allocated to other team as it had less players, and when i entered the game a global message popped up saying that i had "team switched". Everyone on the server went ballistic and i was kicked instantly. I didn't mind too much as i wasn't there to play but on principal i rejoined to explain myself but they all laughed, said i was lying and banned me.

In short arma, like most other games, has no shortage of dickheads and if you are banned from a server for similarly ridiculous reasons you can look at it as a good thing, as that means you'll never accidentally join that server again and have to deal with the pricks.

[nuxil 2]

When i rejoined the server i was automatically allocated to other team as it had less players, and when i entered the game a global message popped up saying that i had "team switched". Everyone on the server went ballistic and i was kicked instantly. I didn't mind too much as i wasn't there to play but on principal i rejoined to explain myself but they all laughed, said i was lying and banned me.

well. if you joined a wf server and had teamswapped. ofcource everyone went ballistic.

team swapping isnt something wf player like much. no matter what your intentions where,

also- anyone can come into a server saying im just checking out my hardware.

the server you where playin on most likely had both "teamswapping & teamstacking enabled", it does not mix well.

but the admin seams like a prick since he banned you.. he should have said. wait until next round or wait until teams are even before joining.

problem with teamstacking is if you play west. disconnect. then connect again, and lots of other players from east have disconnected meanwhile. be sure to spend some time in lobby.

[DustyRod 1]

Sorry bud, I went back as far as april 1st and can not find your name in any of my log files as even being in one of my 7 servers. I am the ONLY one that can ban anyone on my servers and I did not ban you, I do not even recognise your name at all. You are going to have to help me out a little bit more here and PM with your game ID so I can check you on the ban list. All I can say is you were in there one day in a different name and someone was in there with that damned darky hack and ban you. PM me and we will get it straightened out ok.

hi spectrum , since i started arma i always played on your server until earlier today, at spawn location a noob was teamkilling, i fortunatly had time to gear up before getting killed by that noob then i killed him when i spawned, right after that i got punished band banned, im not a teamkiller but sometimes stuff like that happens so im begging pardon and unbann , if you would accept of course..

[SpectrumWarrior 0]

Sorry Dusty: You are unbanned now.