Server Impostering

[Monkey.D.Luffy]

Wild West =Capture The Flag 2= 0 / 10
Wild West =Capture The Flag= 0 / 10 < only original server
Wild West =Capture The Flag= Mirror 0 / 10
Wild West =Capture The Flag= Mirror 0 / 10
Wild West =Capture The Flag= Mirror 0 / 10
Wild West =Capture The Flag= Mirror 0 / 10
Wild West =Capture The Flag= Mirror 0 / 10
Wild West =Capture The Flag= Mirror 0 / 10
Wild West =Capture The Flag= Mirror 0 / 10
Wild West =Capture The Flag= Mirror 0 / 10
Wild West =Capture The Flag= Mirror 0 / 10

Apparently in your book, to fake a clan/team name to create a server is allowed. Personnaly it's not normal, and i think that im not the only to think that by far. You can say that we are complaining but this is normal to complain about this. We ask help because we can't do anything against that, only the dev team can do something, so when we see that you are reticent to delete these servers from the master list, we are disappointed, and again i think it's a normal feel.
Ww ctf server is the most popular CTF server, it's CTF history mainly, so now when i see all these servers i think that CTF is just dead because only One server can make a good game.

Obs have some server called Obs Wild West server, personnaly i dont have problem with that.

[Obsi]

I just wanted to come here and apologize for taking actions that may have used up your time/brainspace when it could have been put to more productive endeavors.

I tried multiple times to respectfully resolve the issues I had with the moderators on the WW servers, and was kicked, banned & ignored on most occasions.

Having personally witnessed people become abusive in the past when I've given them admin on my own servers, I understood what was going on. Essentially what WW CTF had become was a tron version of the Stanford Prison Experiment. They cultivated an "us vs them" mentality both on the forums and in the server, which led to more harassment of players, and more ill will all around.

When these issues were brought to Destiny's attention, she usually took it personally, threatened to shut down all the servers and be done with the mess.

What I was attempting to do, was to show her that her idle threats would no longer hold water, she either needed to face the issue head on, or watch as WW CTF died from attrition.

I believe this has been accomplished. I know I wasn't the only one fed up with abusive mods, but people go where the players are, and as long as she held a monopoly, she would still wield her power and lord it over others.

I will not add any mods to my servers. Kickvotes & server settings are enough policing IMHO.

I put up 10 mirror servers today, and watched 40(!) people playing CTF at the same time. That goes to show that the community just wants to have a good time, without the threat of some mod's bad day ruining their fun.

I hope this post has helped clarify my reasoning, and helped to show I'm not another useless troll, but a part of a community that thrives on freedom & fun.

[Z-Man]

Monkey: Yes, the addition of "Mirror" at the end is enough in my book. It says "it's like that other server, but isn't exactly that server; it runs on a different host. May or may not be run by the same people." Yes, WW Clone would be better. Obsi's WW would be better. Obsi's Free West would be optimal. Not running ten of these things would also help. But he's done enough to refute your original claim that the servers are exact lookalikes, and I'm sure he'll shut down the spam servers after a bit. You can try to get him to cease and desist via trademark or copyright law if you like or try honestly goodwilled diplomacy for a change. By the way, when did you ban him from your forums?

Ww ctf server is the most popular CTF server

Well, quite obviously, it isn't any more. And that is the thing you really are peeved about, not the impostering.

[Monkey.D.Luffy]

By the way, when did you ban him from your forums?

I didn't

Well, quite obviously, it isn't any more. And that is the thing you really are peeved about, not the impostering.

What i mean is that ww server is the most used, considering that it's the most used the CTF players will be influenced by the game in this server. So yes, impostering it is annoying because the players who don't know about this situation is gonna play some weird games with auto-respawn, players 1vs1ing, in clear people who don't really play the game.
If Obs want to show that his mind of CTF is better, then why he does not create one server and to attract players there instead of using a clan name, then if the server become popular gratz to him

[Mecca]

What i mean is that ww server is the most used, considering that it's the most used the CTF players will be influenced by the game in this server. So yes, impostering it is annoying because the players who don't know about this situation is gonna play some weird games with auto-respawn, players 1vs1ing, in clear people who don't really play the game.
If Obs want to show that his mind of CTF is better, then why he does not create one server and to attract players there instead of using a clan name, then if the server become popular gratz to him

Just having the WW name on your servers attracts people. Look at the list of 9001 servers, notice how WW CTF is usually the ONLY CTF server that has people in it.

Also, by putting "mirror" in the server name it makes it obvious that it isn't the same server. Be honored that someone wanted to use the WW name to promote their server(s).

Hi Z-Man! How are you doing?

[Lucifer]

Ok, fine I agree with z-man. And I ask you this: if players don't like how the server is run, what do we tell them? Start a competing server....

But more seriously, Destiny, you need to lighten up. Why do we all have to walk around on eggshells for you? What makes you so damn special? I think I've had my fill of Destiny whining about how nobody likes her. Take the white paint off your face, emo kid. We've bent over backwards to try to make you feel welcome and you just throw it out and act like we hate you.

Fine. Say it enough and it will be true sooner or later.

[Monkey.D.Luffy]

kk Fine. No need to turn it into personnal attacks. That's pity, its about a game mode and all that i see is about reputation and judgement of a clan/person mainly.
I'm curious, if 6 months ago 15 clone servers of Fortress Cafe would have been deleted
Well, no need to post more on this thread i guess.

[Lucifer]

To answer some of these silly accusations being thrown at us:

1. If it were Crazy Tronners, they'd have already won the battle with the rival based purely on charisma and chutzpah. It never would have come up here except as an afterthought.

2. If it were Fortress Cafe, there'd be a hundred people in here yelling and screaming for us to do something, and we probably would do "something", but it wouldn't be a master server ban, which is what you've asked for.

The real questions you guys should be asking instead of saying "Oh shit, they all hate us because we're an emo clan" is "Why would we not consider it a problem if it happened to us?" More importantly, "Why hasn't it happened to one of us already?"

A long time ago, I was unhappy with the way a particular server was run (true, it was mostly the downtime I was unhappy with), so I ran up a clone. Followed the naming theme so people would recognize it as a clone. Over the years we diverged on settings, and my server became almost as popular as his did. Instead of "stealing his players" (which was never my intent anyway), we grew the community together by running our two servers. There's a reason the generally accepted standard fortress physics are based on his server....

You guys are responding with force, but you'd do better to respond with candy. Seriously. This is a leadership problem, near as I can tell, not a technical problem, and there's no amount of programming that can fix it.

[ender]

We have already tried to solve the problem with "candy"... You have to agree that there are just problem players that love to do just that, cause problems. There are only, in reality, 2 to 3 players that have a problem with the rules of the server. In my opinion 2 to 3 unhapppy players is not reason enough to completely change the server rules. The Ww ctf server is still the most poplular and one of the most frequented servers in A.A. The emo name calling is hilarious btw...

[Lucifer]

True, there are problem players, and you don't have to challenge *me* to agree with it, because just a little while ago I was telling *you* that.

This isn't the first time someone's tried to blatantly copy a server, rather than just setup a clone in the style of a particular server. It happened to me a long time ago with Breakfast in Hell. My players asked me what I was going to do about it, and this is basically what I told them:

I'm going to ignore it right now. Some smeghead doesn't like how I run my server, he's free to set his own up and do whatever he wants with it. My players know my server, and they know how it runs and what to expect from it. If he can deliver a quality game server, then the community benefits. If his copy is still up in a few days using my server name, then I'll decide how I should deal with it.

The offending server didn't last the day. He didn't get any players (people could tell the difference based on pings, and there were enough that custom connected that didn't even know there was a problem). I basically said "don't give him any attention, because clearly that's what he wants", and my players followed my advice. And he didn't have the skills needed to make his server high quality.

I won that silly competition without even thinking of master server level action.

When people were impostering me, doing crazy shit and getting me into a situation where I couldn't login and play without getting vote-kicked before saying a word, I didn't exactly go for a ban, although we did talk about authentication a lot. But I told people then that the only reason it's a problem is because it's getting *me* kicked from servers. If I wasn't getting kicked, I'd just try to track down whoever it is and talk about names for awhile. But the solution that was wanted wasn't a global ban on the offenders, it was a system that the game actually needed. (And has now, it's called armathentication) And there were plenty of reasons to want the system besides using force to deal with asshats. Global statistics, server communities (subcultures), all sorts of stuff. Simplify a lot of server tasks. The point of this paragraph? We didn't need to use force to solve the fundamental impostering problem.

My take is that if you have to ask for action at the master server level, you're doing something wrong. The number of incidents where the only real solution *is* at the master server currently stand at 0. We've never needed that sort of global level for action. And I haven't yet seen anything here to convince me we need it now.

What can you do? You can take dlh's advice and setup the Ww servers as a subculture. Your regular players can use that to always find your servers. That's just good policy right there, independent of the problem you've got right now. Also encourage people to bookmark your servers and play from their bookmarks. If you're that worried about losing loyal players, use the existing tools to keep the loyal players. If they really are loyal players, they'll meet you in the middle, and you'll find your level of service is much greater than it was before.

Dealing with this specific incident? Obviously the first thing I'd have done was ignore the guy. If the problem didn't go away in a few days, then I'd use my servers' vast popularity to educate all players about the situation in the MOTD and in the console between rounds, when you have nothing better to do than to read what the server tells you. Players that agree with making a complete copy of a server are few and far between, and if your servers are as well-respected and admired as you say, then you should be able to leverage your community of players to confront the issue. Some of the more punkish people in your community might even do something unsanctioned against the guy and you can quietly ignore it.

That's what I mean by meeting this problem with leadership. Ideal leaders never have to resort to force to deal with problems. Leaders who are less than ideal, but still good, rarely have to resort to force to deal with problems.

This community was built on clones. I thought about going into a long history lesson, but couldn't think of why I should. You know damn well that Ww started its servers as clones, you know your own history. We've had so many good servers come along that started as clones, and the community as a whole is better for having had them, and having them now. So fundamentally, you have to let the guy run his server however he wants. If he runs a high quality server, then the community is better for it, and you can resolve the name issue only after he's proven his worth as a server admin for that particular server.

[sinewav]

Over the years we diverged on settings...

The perpetrators are already in this stage (so quickly!). I think a lot of people fail to see what a blessing this is. The core group of offenders, meaning the ones who argued for new rules, will likely abandon the Wild West and a longstanding problem will be solved.

It's funny. On lagtest.net I said something like "you guys are just bored. Rather than ruining other people's fun and complaining, you should go to another server and create your own game." It's beautiful how things work out sometimes.

Let the cartoons begin!

[compguygene]

What I find most amusing is that there is now a clone of a clone! Obsi has put up a clone of my XzL.Server Clone! I kind of find that amusing since i have a very small following of players.....np. This post is the most attention i will give it. I find it rather ironic because i have never kicked or banned a player in any of my servers, and according to my logs, neither have my mods. I have only used the suspend command once. But, I can see the sense in Lucifer's argument about the community benefiting from clones, etc.
Personally, I will just continue to try to improve the servers that I run.

[MrsKsr]

mya to tank, lock please? this topic makes me want to drink more (Good song - U Make Me Wanna Drink More - Ticon)

[Lucifer]

Hey, sometimes, well, most of the time, people who setup clones aren't doing it because they object to how a server is run in particular. Maybe they want to tweak settings, or just provide a backup for a server that's not terribly reliable. Ww setup their clones intending to make family friendly versions of other servers, that's not a fundamental objection with how the other servers were run, it's a desire to create the same server with a different environment. Some clones start as clones to make it easier for the server admin to get up and running, but he/she intends to turn it into a completely different, just started with a clone of his/her favorite.

And realistically, 99% of the new servers we get start as clones.

It is the ability to create a clone that provides a way for players to check server admin's otherwise god-like powers. And we encourage people to make clones and to share settings by having the separate settings_custom.cfg and server_info.cfg files.

[MrsKsr]

Oh oh by the way

@ compguygene: HR was cloned because it was requested by someone. It appears they don't like the ping in your server and soooo Obsi cloned it on request... just F.Y.I and to support the whole "for the good of the community" thing C=