Griefers can go unpunished in this game.

I would imagine there are less then 20 Guards still actively playing, maybe 5 people are actively making reports on a regular basis. Thousands of people have bought the game, and god know how many servers there are now. Do some rough math, you get the picture.

I use to police servers everyday for hours and hours, but have come to find the process stifling and too slow when griefing needs immediate attention (as in banned from all servers instantly). Roaming griefers can feasibly ruin dozens and dozens of games in the span of 15 minutes.

Video evidence for every case of griefing is impossible to produce and is a full time job in itself. It's a lot of work for very little repercussion for the griefer. And we can't expect community members to be running fraps, collecting video evidence every time a problem player enters the scene.

Honestly I don't see servers policing there own at this rate. I'd suggest abolishing the Guards (or whats left of them) and instating a team of active trusted community members and broadening there powers. Remember Judge Dredd roaming the mega-blocks of Mega-City One, enacting justice as judge, jury, and executioner, right there on the spot? We need that right now. At least until something better can be implemented. (I'm not volunteering.)

Past that, grab your ankles and whistle because it's not going to get any better unless we have the resources to enact quick, permanent tough love on habitual assclowns.

It is sorta funny when you think one dude has been griefing non stop for over a month and has suffered no real consequences for it. At least this puts the spotlight on the problem.

 

A "hackers haven" server? The whole point for these people is fuck up the experience of the folks playing the game the right way, not to get their "hacking urges" out.

The thing is, people play on servers that are open and populated. There's little way for a server to differentiate itself inside the server browser at the current time, so choosing a server based on whether you know if it's policed properly is next to impossible. Also, I doubt many people would pay attention if there were. It's really the curse of the server browser model if you ask me... People go to where other people are playing. At least I do.

The flagging system sounds like a good step. Some "smart defaults" once it is implemented would be a good idea. In the meantime, having some way of getting rid of the blatant, grandstanding griefers would be nice.

 

Take a step back for second and think about this from a player's perspective. How does one go about contacting a server owner? How does one even know who owns a server much less how to contact them? I'm looking at the server list right now and I see no info like that. And what's "seclevs"? I've been playing this game for over 2 years, but I don't know the answers to any of those questions. You want it to be in the hands of the "community", but you've gotta give them the ability to get involved first. Most of the community is just players wanting to have a good time.

 

i learned what "seclevs" were in my first week of playing, and that was in classic.

 

@Solomon-Grundy:
1. PM them on the forums. I did so with hierbo after becoming somewhat acquainted with him on IRC and in-game.
2. If it isn't obvious then ask around on IRC. Look at the server directory on forums. You, too, can make the connections.
3. Read the http://wiki.kag2d.com/wiki/Security_Levels

 

That doesn't work for every server.
Some servers are obivous,like hierbo's,because it is on the server name.
But a lot of servers have no info at all,and their owners don't idle on IRC.

 

At the point where I am reduced to complaining in a forum thread or, god forbid, PMing the server owner with no solid evidence of what transpired, the griefer has already won.
On a slightly related note, I was kicked for bravely hauling a keg out of the way of our workshops while the griefer who lit it got off scot free (the keg did minor damage to some background blocks). So in that case it's a good thing bans lack any permanence. The more immediate control we have over the fate of perceived griefers, the greater our responsibility in exercising fair judgement.
And then there are those inconsiderate assholes who squander the gift of lax criminal justice and ruin it for everyone. Whether we like it or not, they've gotta go.

 

As a learning procedure, the banning time should exponentially increase as more griefing is reported.
It should be linked and stored in your account. After several ban, the griefer should wear the "hat of shame" (a flashy "pig" face) for 48h so everyone can have an eye on it.

You should also think about a griefer detection system.

It's not normal that in a 20 minutes game, one builder of your team start destroying rocks wall / rock door in your main hall or fighter using bomb and keg far away from battlefield.
On each big collapsing, the system detect who trigger it. If it's happening in a quiet area, with team structure by team member using pickaxe / weapon the system should automatically enlist that player to a kick-vote.

 

That's great, and thanks for informing me, but from an average player's perspective, not a server owner's, that doesn't have any bearing on how this issue affects me.

Good point. I will start trying to act on this more. There was a time when you HAD to play on "the server that everyone was on" because that's all there was, but we're fortunate that there are now a ton of people (relatively) playing the game.

 

It's understandable why he loves griefing, though. The way that buildings collapse in KAG is really fun to watch. But I agree with you that he shouldn't be ruining other people's fun. That's why I only destroy buildings that I made, or if it's the enemy team's defenses in a competitive gamemode.

 

Ha, I came on here to make a request about this same topic. Just got ping-kicked from a game where we were being constantly griefed by mucky.

 

Hey, Geti. Could admins possibly get an... "undo" button? If the game reports a collapse, an admin could press undo to literally undo that collapse. I'm sure that's probably a lot of code to take on, but it would take a massive amount of power away from griefers.

Realistically speaking, in order to stop massive griefs, you're either looking at block destruction detection and prevention, which could hamper good people who have to destroy shitty useless structures, or detection and undo, which allows for good griefs (Ie : Griefer built a wall so we destroyed it) while allowing one to undo bad griefs (Griefer kegged the base.)

There should probably be a 30 second limit on the undo though, so if the base gets kegged you have to undo it in 30 seconds or less.

 

There's an anti-grief system like that in kag classic,but it doesn't really work.The "undo" button could work,but that should be really difficult to be done.

 

Yeah I'm aware of that system, it follows the convention of "Detect and prevent" while my idea is "Detect and allow undo".

Which I'm aware is probably a mass of messy coding so, it probably would never work.