Servers for registered players only - a social experiment

larsl · Post by **larsl** » Sun Sep 28, 2003 9:50 pm

Starting today, the BZFlag servers at glasstowers.homelinux.net:5155 and glasstowers.homelinux.net:6155 will only be open for registered players. This is an experiment to see if a registration will decrease the cheating and other bad behavior that unfortunately is common on some servers. To prevent cheaters and other lowlifes from registering a new callsign every time they log in, I have disabled the /register command. Only the server admin (me) can register new players.

If you want to be registered, just send me a message (a PM here on BZBB, a /msg to larsl on irc.freenode.net, an email to larsl@users.sourceforge.net, whatever is most convenient) and tell me what callsign and password you want. I'm not awake 24 hours each day, and I'm not at the computer all the time when I'm awake (but almost), so it might take a while before you are registered on the servers. If you want to encrypt the message with your password you can get my public PGP key at http://www.d.kth.se/~d00-llu/pgp_key.php .

Once I have registered your callsign you can connect to one of the servers and use the command "/identify PASSWORD" (where PASSWORD is the password you asked me to register). If you have connected to glasstowers.homelinux.net:5155 you can then change your password with the command "/setpass NEWPASSWORD". You can't do this from the server at port 6155, for security reasons - only one server is allowed to change the user database.

glasstowers:5155 will be running my Glasstowers map in 2-team CTF style and in FFA style (switching every weekend). glasstowers:6155 will run a server generated FFA map, and Tim Riker's HiX2.0 with 4-team CTF (also switching every weekend).

The more people who test this, the more interesting it will be. Register your callsign today! =)

PS. I have made some modifications to the official server for this. The changes are available as a patch against the latest 1.7 CVS code in the patch tracker on SourceForge:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.ph ... tid=303248

Spaceman Spiff · Post by **Spaceman Spiff** » Mon Sep 29, 2003 1:38 am

This idea rocks!

Is it possible that it could be made into a server option? Like something that the admin could set in the config file for the server. But then it might be better to make the /register command work on an admin approved basis. Say someone typed "/register password".. and then the admin would have to "okay" it afterwards. That would cut out the problem of having to e-mail, PM, or IRC the server admin(s) to get your name added to the "allow" list.

Dervish · Post by **Dervish** » Mon Sep 29, 2003 2:26 am

larsl,

Thanks for helping to make this happen!

What an excellent thing to try.

Spaceman Spiff · Post by **Spaceman Spiff** » Mon Sep 29, 2003 3:57 am

/me wonders if something like this would make KP consider re-opening Turkey.

larsl · Post by **larsl** » Mon Sep 29, 2003 12:20 pm

Spaceman Spiff wrote:This idea rocks! :D Is it possible that it could be made into a server option?

It is an option (or several options) in the patch. -regonly will kick unregistered players when they try to spawn, -noregister will disable the "/register" command. The code for sharing user databases between several servers can also be turned off, -master bz.internet:5155 will tell the server to run in "slave" mode (no writing to the database) and tell users to go to bz.internet:5155 if they try to use commands that would change the database. -reloaddb X will reload the user database every X seconds.

JeffM · Post by **JeffM** » Mon Sep 29, 2003 4:25 pm

This was part of my origonal registration plan but got bumped due to time.

I'll talk to you on IRC and let you know how we had planed to do the kick and stuff, then you can just get it into 1.10

widowmaker · Post by **widowmaker** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 1:13 am

This sounds like a great idea guys! Registration should cut back on cheating. How is it working so far?