range-ban

[Green Manalishi]

i would like to know how to do a range-ban. i have found no info about this on the forum.

[A Meteorite]

I'm not sure about specific ranges, but you can use asterisks to get people matching part of an IP. Like:

Code: Select all

/ban 216.55.160.* 0 Hah! Got ya now.

But usually that's a bad idea since when you want to use a ban like this it's for those with a dynamic IP. And most of the time their dynamic IP would be out of this range unless you want ban the whole ISP.

I've never tested (or read even) if BZFS accepts ranges like, 50-100.

[Green Manalishi]

thanks for the quick reply. i have tried that with the asterisk on two servers. it doesn't work. it says 'malformed address or invalid player/slot'. i know a range-ban can be problemous since it can exclude legitimate players, but it looks like the only solution against a certain cheater with a dynamic IP these days.. his IP always starts with the same four digits. like this: x.xxx but as i said it doesn't work when i type /ban x.xxx* 0m reason

[temporal distraction]

/ban x.xxx.*.* 0 reason for ban will work for now, but since s/he is on a dynamic IP, it won't last.

[Green Manalishi]

x.xxx.*.* works. thanks.. i have high hopes that will keep the cheater out, since the first four digits of his IP so far have always been the same.

[cosmos]

x.xxx.*.* works. thanks.. i have high hopes that will keep the cheater out, since the first four digits of his IP so far have always been the same.

of course you have just banned an entire class b and may have also locked out alot of legitimate players. just another example of how cheating jerkoffs ruin the game.

[pyr0]

be careful too, i accidently banned glassjaw for 5 hours earlier today, he reconnected with a new ip a few minutes later, heh... tis one reason weird names draw attention at 30-2 on pb but its ok, all is well

[Green Manalishi]

x.xxx.*.* works. thanks.. i have high hopes that will keep the cheater out, since the first four digits of his IP so far have always been the same.

of course you have just banned an entire class b and may have also locked out alot of legitimate players. just another example of how cheating jerkoffs ruin the game.

we have checked on a servers' website if any other players were connected from that specific range. there were none. it was always that same loser with different callsigns. actually later we have decided to make it a partial ISP ban, and lifted the range-ban. i agree, you always have to be cautious about these types of bans, but then again if a legitimate player were caught in the ban and cared enough to get unbanned s/he could always contact the server owner or an admin and get an exception...i think (though honestly i can't be sure about anything technical)..

be careful too, i accidently banned glassjaw for 5 hours earlier today, he reconnected with a new ip a few minutes later, heh... tis one reason weird names draw attention at 30-2 on pb but its ok, all is well

'accidentally' banning glassjaw..hmm that sounds great.


thou shalt not pwn me on badgerking's, neither shalt thou mock me!

[WeBeGood]

i would like to know how to do a range-ban. i have found no info about this on the forum.

Did you ban guppy for using a modified client?

You banned me for teamkilling, when he had intentionally tked me many more times than I did him. And he was using a modified client.

[Green Manalishi]

to the best of my knowledge we are not talking about individual policy decisions on this forum, but since your post is -still- here, here you go anyway:
there was NO single mention of guppy using a modified client even though a lot of words have been exchanged during the game. he seemed like a very good player to me and he was getting some less than great flags too (to exclude the possibility of a certain type of cheat client). his tk rate was NOT high at all. in fact it was surprisingly low for a map like fox burrow, which is another sign of being a good player. not that he has ever tk'ed you once, if he indeed intentionally tk'ed you it would be MUCH wiser to tell that to a present admin (in that case it would be me and even thumper, the server owner, after he joined the game) than hunt and tk him repeatedly.. enjoy your ban while it lasts. this one will expire soon but an inner voice tells me it won't be your last. good luck..

[WeBeGood]

to the best of my knowledge we are not talking about individual policy decisions on this forum, but since your post is -still- here, here you go anyway:
there was NO single mention of guppy using a modified client even though a lot of words have been exchanged during the game. he seemed like a very good player to me and he was getting some less than great flags too (to exclude the possibility of a certain type of cheat client). his tk rate was NOT high at all. in fact it was surprisingly low for a map like fox burrow, which is another sign of being a good player. not that he has ever tk'ed you once, if he indeed intentionally tk'ed you it would be MUCH wiser to tell that to a present admin (in that case it would be me and even thumper, the server owner, after he joined the game) than hunt and tk him repeatedly.. enjoy your ban while it lasts. this one will expire soon but an inner voice tells me it won't be your last. good luck..

Earlier he was tking me a lot. I agree he is a very good player, but he also has some help from his client. If you check the log earlier, you'll see that indeed he was tking me a lot, he appologized most of the time and continued tking. He even appologized once when he missed me and shot himself. I mentioned to him that he might want to update his client when I left. I'm sure he knew what I was talking about. This isn't the first time too, I had played against him on LEGO land, he must have had the same client. I'd get a good flag, like wings, and it would drop at the worst time. Once, maybe lag, twice ok still lag, but a half a dozen times. Nope, not lag. On LEGO land he was driving thru wall to, more that what F5 will do.

Yesterday when he was tking me, we were facing each other. Waiting for him to become the Rabbit, when the rabbit shoots the hunter that shot him. I had the laser flag, him some other flag. When he became the rabbit, my laser flag dropped right then, and then I had none. The other interesting thing was that one time he tked me, and he did not "blow himself up". Some other tank blew themselves up, could be a coincidence as it only happened one time. BTW when he was doing his tking, i don't recall seeing any admins at the time.

I just found his client interesting, and don't know quite how he is getting someone elses client to drop their flag. Is there some other way other than having server access? I know that admins can drop your flag, or other clients with admin privleges, but as far as I know clients without privleges can't.

I think it might be good to talk about what may be a server issue wrt modified clients.

After you banned me, I could even get back on the server in observer mode to talk about it there, so I figured here might be a good place. Would you like to move the disscussion to some other group than Server General Discussion?

I would have banned me too.

good luck, and have a nice day

[Green Manalishi]

he was tk'ing you earlier? i have checked the logs for fox burrow yesterday and he has not tk'ed you a single time. please state exactly when and on which map.. when playing on legoland, are you sure neither of you had high lag (or jitter or packet loss)? these can cause weird things, like you can go nr (not responding) for a brief moment, lose your flag without dropping it yourself (or being shot of course) and people may appear as if they are going through walls. i was there yesterday during most of the time he was playing and i have seen none of those extraordinary things you are mentioning (including a tk that didn't kill him!). he was also getting flags like oo, cl, sb, which generally aren't regarded to be the most powerful ones and using them most skilfully. i have nevertheless managed to kill him some 5-6 times and again, never experienced something unusual while trying to kill him.

if someone can have access to admin privileges, make other players' flags drop and none of it is in any way recorded in the logs.. to me that sounds like sci-fi, but i'm not known to be a computer expert, so maybe someone more knowledgable could answer that.

to talk about anything suspicious that has happened on norang (and remember to give the necessary details like the player's exact callsign, the time of the event and the name of the map), or contest a ban you can PM thumper himself or any admin you are familiar with.. have a good day yourself.

[WeBeGood]

lol, it was on fox burrow, several hours earlier, his score at the time was less than 100. There are all kind of modified code, from god mode down to a slightly tinyer tank. You know, if you play this game long enough you can recongnise when something isn't quite right. Yes, flags get dropped from lag, or jitter. When my flag drops unexpectely I usally check the lag and see how bad it is, and it usally explains the dropped flag. Random things are one thing, but when there is a pattern that happens 5 or 6 times wrt one player it's something else.

Personnally, I really don't mind coming across people with modified (cheat) code now and again. Can be a challenge to get them, right before the wings flag version came out (i had no wings) I must have gotten shot 30 times before I finally shot a cloaked, stealth, flying tank. It was fun.

But, guppy, I don't see why he was doing what he was doing. He was very good without any extra help, so I don't quite understand it. But dropping my flag when he wants is just a bit much.

How he was doing it? I don't know. Do the clients talk to each other or just the server. Sci-fi or, maybe he's found a server bug or a client bug. If the clients talk to each other, maybe he's figured out how send the command directly, client to client.

Thanks, my day is going really well.

[Green Manalishi]

i have checked the logs of the previous day too (for you it was probably the same day). there seems to have been a lot of tk'ing going on, including guppy killing others, and you too. if they were intentional i can't tell for sure, but some of the tk's on you seem to have happened in a short period of time, which could suggest an intention. still, you should have reported it via /report or talked about it to an admin. i have seen tanner's name for one during that period.

i have myself played the game long enough to be aware of the existence of subtle cheat clients. but i also know that a lot of legitimate players have been wrongly accused of being a cheater because they have frustrated other (usually ambitious) players with their skills/scores and because simply 'hey, there are subtle cheat clients out there'. when it comes to proving, nothing gets proven, only 'subtle' claims of could be this, could be that.. i don't know guppy (or you for that matter) well enough to make big claims though. if he is indeed cheating it will come out. i believe if it can't be proven on norang it will not happen anywhere else.

anyway, i'm finished with this conversation. your ban will expire in a few hours so you can continue on the server with other admins if you need to..

[WeBeGood]

i have checked the logs of the previous day too (for you it was probably the same day). there seems to have been a lot of tk'ing going on, including guppy killing others, and you too. if they were intentional i can't tell for sure, but some of the tk's on you seem to have happened in a short period of time, which could suggest an intention. still, you should have reported it via /report or talked about it to an admin. i have seen tanner's name for one during that period.

i have myself played the game long enough to be aware of the existence of subtle cheat clients. but i also know that a lot of legitimate players have been wrongly accused of being a cheater because they have frustrated other (usually ambitious) players with their skills/scores and because simply 'hey, there are subtle cheat clients out there'. when it comes to proving, nothing gets proven, only 'subtle' claims of could be this, could be that.. i don't know guppy (or you for that matter) well enough to make big claims though. if he is indeed cheating it will come out. i believe if it can't be proven on norang it will not happen anywhere else.

anyway, i'm finished with this conversation. your ban will expire in a few hours so you can continue on the server with other admins if you need to..

I agree with you totally about wrongly accussing others of cheating,I've seen this happen a lot. I've seen a lot of cheat clients too. But this is the first really subtle cheat I've seen, that's why I really hesitated in bringing it up. It happened on three different occassions with guppy.

Usally, I like going after the player on the top of the list. If you want to get better at bzflag, play against the best you can find and expect to get shot a lot. That's my motto. I don't really care about scores anymore either, it's really about getting a good game.

What do the other admins think?

How would it be possible for one client to get another client to drop his flag?

[MrsSmith]

if someone does something wrong to you... tell it, do the spy... for you, because if some admin watch you make the tker obviously warn you, but also for him/her.....it's not right such players play