NeoEE: Upcomming changes
Posted: Sun Oct 01, 2017 11:58 am
Hi!
As I am suffering of a cold, I got some time to implement some stuff I always wanted to add to NeoEE, despite being rather technical. First of all, NeoEE.net now uses a SSL certificate from "Let's Encrypt", so by standard, NeoEE.net is now reached via HTTPS.
Also, I published the source code of the NeoEE server to a private Git repository. Everybody who got a notification by me can now push/pull/clone/fetch from the official repository. The source codes of neoee.dll, the installer and the updater will follow.
Last, but not least, something some users might find controversial: Recently, many players complained about smurfers spoiling games. There were already many discussions here about this topic containing different suggestions: prevent smurfing by cdkey checks, confirm accounts by a confirmation email or make the smurf <---> user name table public (as for now, only I can see which player got which smurf accounts).
On the other side, many players said that smurfing is part of their EE multiplayer experience and would hate it to see it being removed. I therefore rather decided to do nothing about it.
Because of this, many players got frustrated and started to ban every user from their games with names they don't recognize, either expecting them to be noobs or smurfs. It's okay if you don't always want to play with noobs (as long as there are still some players who don't mind to do it now and then). And it's okay if you ban smurfs. But what's not so okay is banning noobs (accidentally). When you only want to play with people you certainly know, please use the "Invite only" or "Ask to join" features and rank your games according to your requested skill level. It is very frustrating for new players logging in and joining a game and then just being banned for no apparent reason.
Anyway, the upcomming server version (Leviathan 0.4.0.7) will contain a somewhat trade-off between the smurf-yay and smurf-nay fractions: Banning from game rooms will now affect any account. So if you have, say, an account "A" and you got banned, you won't be able to join the game by logging in with your account "B". You will stay banned. Same goes for muting. This means: if you smurfed and got banned, don't expect to be able to join the game without having got unbanned before, even if you've logged in with your main account. If you want to join the game, you have to ask the host for getting unbanned, effectively losing your smurf anonymity on this particular account. This will be a test run for, let's say, a month. But if there is no excessive protest, it will stay. And now, dear fellows, argue! I want to see blood.
As I am suffering of a cold, I got some time to implement some stuff I always wanted to add to NeoEE, despite being rather technical. First of all, NeoEE.net now uses a SSL certificate from "Let's Encrypt", so by standard, NeoEE.net is now reached via HTTPS.
Also, I published the source code of the NeoEE server to a private Git repository. Everybody who got a notification by me can now push/pull/clone/fetch from the official repository. The source codes of neoee.dll, the installer and the updater will follow.
Last, but not least, something some users might find controversial: Recently, many players complained about smurfers spoiling games. There were already many discussions here about this topic containing different suggestions: prevent smurfing by cdkey checks, confirm accounts by a confirmation email or make the smurf <---> user name table public (as for now, only I can see which player got which smurf accounts).
On the other side, many players said that smurfing is part of their EE multiplayer experience and would hate it to see it being removed. I therefore rather decided to do nothing about it.
Because of this, many players got frustrated and started to ban every user from their games with names they don't recognize, either expecting them to be noobs or smurfs. It's okay if you don't always want to play with noobs (as long as there are still some players who don't mind to do it now and then). And it's okay if you ban smurfs. But what's not so okay is banning noobs (accidentally). When you only want to play with people you certainly know, please use the "Invite only" or "Ask to join" features and rank your games according to your requested skill level. It is very frustrating for new players logging in and joining a game and then just being banned for no apparent reason.
Anyway, the upcomming server version (Leviathan 0.4.0.7) will contain a somewhat trade-off between the smurf-yay and smurf-nay fractions: Banning from game rooms will now affect any account. So if you have, say, an account "A" and you got banned, you won't be able to join the game by logging in with your account "B". You will stay banned. Same goes for muting. This means: if you smurfed and got banned, don't expect to be able to join the game without having got unbanned before, even if you've logged in with your main account. If you want to join the game, you have to ask the host for getting unbanned, effectively losing your smurf anonymity on this particular account. This will be a test run for, let's say, a month. But if there is no excessive protest, it will stay. And now, dear fellows, argue! I want to see blood.