Pasik, was speaking to Jack about this yesterday, but us dedi server hosters are really needing the ability to create a ban list; some of the usernames I am seeing on our {SAS} servers are quite simply horrific and as our Clan has a Zero Tolerance approach to racism/homophobia/etc the inability to ban these players is starting to become an issue. Also, some of the chat in game is also something that I do not want our Clan to be associated with but unless I am either in game or shown a screenshot there is nothing I can do about it so the ability to view a chat log would help with those issues. At the moment all we can do is kick and wipe, but that requires 24/7 monitoring which is something I just cannot do, and it just doesn't stop them coming back.

Sadly, as Gaming becomes more and more idiot proof we are seeing more and more idiots in game, and we need the tools to deal with them.

Without these tools we cannot stop the idiots, and I am not comfortable with having our Clan associated with the aforementioned idiots, or to be seen to be doing nothing to remove them from our gaming environments.

This really needs to be a priority.

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Ok, so let's work up something.

Any initial ideas how you want things to work?

On technical side, ban is at least possible to achieve by something similar as the Invasion penalty manager. If the manager detects a specific profile or IP joining the server, it applies the penalty; the ban manager could be doing the same but insta-kick the player out. It would require some way to add players on the ban list, controlled by an admin. The challenges come from where do you want to control things: in-game or server console or something else.

I guess there could be an in-game command for it, /ban X, but X can become difficult to handle if it's a long username, has indistinguishable upper and lower case letters or contains characters you don't know how to input. Ok then, id's, either machine indices or username hashes, could be used to uniquely identify a player, but there would need to be a way to see them in-game so you'd know which id is which player.

I suppose there could be /list command to get a list of player names and their id's as a private message, but if there's 60 players in the game, that's gonna be a one heck of a list to be shown with radio messages in-game. At least the info would go into the in-game chat log, so you'd be able to make the connection anyhow.

On server console there's much more room to be doing this sort of thing, but then it's restricted to the very head admin only.

The chat log as a separate text file should be easy to add.

A simple banned user array like you have for Admin settings would be fine to start with, so that I could manually enter the desired usernames. Ideally this file would be checked real time so that a server restart wouldn't be needed.

The only problem I see is if a player is desperate to troll, and keeps adding a numerical addition to the name, although perhaps a wildcard could be used, or the ability to ban the actual user as well as the usernames. IP bans can be problematic with the shared IPs that a lot of ISPs use.

Simple text logs are perfect, it would just be for looking through and identifying any reports of harassment or inappropriate behaviour so that appropriate action could be taken. Ideally this could be combined with a "username joined at/left" at log to help with correct spelling of confusing usernames.

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Sounds good to me, I don't mind that it's only accessible by the server admin. Using a similar array as for admin names wouldn't work very well given how that thing needs to be declared before running the script, but just a text file listing the names can be read easily and refreshed on the fly, no problem with that.


The wildcard will indeed stop the troll only to the point he realizes it doesn't work, and then he will just use another name, so in the end it won't stop him longer than for one attempted reconnect. The wildcards would be good for ruling out insulting names, sure.

Users can only be detected by usernames, SteamID's and IP addresses basically. A matching SteamID could be the reason for the ban, but the game can be run outside Steam too and the SteamID won't then be used so -> the troll is in again.

Excellent, cheers Pasik.

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For the ban functionality, try this: http://modulaatio.com/runningwithrifles/scripts_ban.zip

Unzip it in media/packages/vanilla/scripts, it should overwrite scripts/internal/metagame.php and query_helpers.php, and add scripts/trackers/ban_manager.php.

It then uses scripts/ban_list.txt, where each line represents a pattern for matching with usernames. Wildcards such as * and ? should be supported.

When you make changes in ban_list.txt, it needs to be read into the script with an in-game command /refresh_ban. You can also call it in server console with say /refresh_ban. Looks like it echoes to everyone in game, will have that changed for 0.99.4.

The ban manager is used for all gamemodes automatically.

A few things:

First off: @DocStone and @Pasik Thank you for reminding me I am not the only adult player.
And I'm glad that for the SAS Clan and hosts of the main used server that there is some personal guidelines of conduct, not just in game but in general behavior and life. I think I know some of the "Player Names" you are talking about.

I TOTALLY agree with SAS and IT'S server applying certain guidelines and rules as to conduct.
Obviously if the game tried to restrict player names and whatnot as whole it could cause quit an issue with those that wanted it to be about "free speech" and all that. However giving this type of control to the ADMINs individually is a great idea! I personally would support, play, and encourage others to play on a servers with some level of "expectations" to appropriate and mature behavior by it's players. The Internets been around for a while now and I don't think there is any issue with culture shifting a bit and having a little less patients with the really awful and childish behavior. I am also aware that probably half the people ARE kids, but it seems even more important then to have standards and lead by example. ( But it is comforting to know the current "average age" for gamers is in the early 30's)


May I suggest when it's fully implemented that there be (if possible in some way) a "Notification Window" of some sort for the player. Letting them know they have been blocked, banned, or restricted, and if you can a little reason as to why. On the player side (even idiots) it can only add to aggravate and may help "feed the trolls". I mean at least if you're notified you know why you're being an "idiot" and why you can't play. If it's too difficult to implement, maybe a numerical code and they can come here or SAS site (if they have one?) to check and see the reason relating to the #code. That way they'd have to sort of "contest" it in public.

And such as something relating to a poorly chosen player name, maybe the warning or something about changing it first. I think some people just pick a name casually trying to be funny but not really caring without realizing they may actually enjoy it and come back often to play. (I think we've all known our fair share of people that pick dumb names in lots of games.) After ranking up a bit it can be hard to give up a profile to start over. But YES: They are idiots, lol.

Thanks again Doc and SAS for running the server so long. I know its to help RWR testing and stuff. But you guys have given all of us a place to meet up and play for a LONG time. I don't think most new player realize. I'll do my best to support your guys' "Tolerance Rules" and pass along relevant info as it comes into play on the field.
Thanks for having standards!

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Footage

For both ban manager and chat logger, take this: http://modulaatio.com/runningwithrifles ... hatlog.zip

Chat logger produces scripts/chat_log.txt, cleared each time the script is restarted.

Let me know if you come up with adjustments for those.

This stuff is included in 0.99.4 too, but it'll take a while for that to go out.

Thanks for this Pasik, the turnaround time for this is incredible, and is very much appreciated.

@Opt_O: Thanks for your kind words. We try to uphold a certain standard on all our servers, and we think it makes it a better place to play on

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Hmm, appears the chat log isn't working, or at least it isn't updating in real time.

Also, could you make it so rather than delete the chat log at a server restart it archives it with time and date?

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