Account system discussion

[Catastrophe]

"I.E lets say I play skull tag duel maps vs duel32, I have 99 wins on Duel and never play duel32.

Actually if that were the case it would be easy enough to cheat such a system if it could even be called that, I feel that this example be just one of a few topics that would cause unnecessary drama about perceived ranking for one game mode."

I think you've misinterpreted it.

[Ijon Tichy]

Also accounts would eventually become mandatory to avoid area I.P black listings and I don't feel this should be necessary to play online, but maybe I'm wrong on that maybe area black listings will ban accounts too

I'm guessing you hate Steam then, also why would range bans block accounts considering that's basically the only objectively good reason to implement accounts

In conclusion much of the beneficial features of an account are already there the only interesting proposed so far is saving stats for an RPG mod but that's already been done too. I recall a thread back on Skulltag of a Korean Mmo styled doom mod with stats and location being saved in hex after logging the players IP though I don't know how far it got a long.

yeah unless this guy was using a modified binary (which given the "skulltag" thing I heavily doubt) or an external bot to call ACS scripts, what you're saying is flat-out impossible - you can't get IPs through ACS or DECORATE, and the output of playerinfo cannot be captured in variables
so yeah you've been duped

the closest we've gotten now is storing stats in cvars which are then referred to by puking ACS scripts from the client - location is right out (and how would that even work, considering map changes?)

either way tying mod data to accounts is a Bad Idea - let's say the server storing all this data has a hard drive crash. oh, cool, you just lost all your stats and other crap for all mods on all servers! ain't that just grand. playing single player? hahaha fuck that.

for persistent stat saving, what we really need is a way to work with DBM or SQL files - but that's another thread

[Catastrophe]

I'm not disputing that, but I'm sure there are plenty of people, myself included, who would say "Ooh Zandronum, what's this? Oh I have to register? Never mind," without giving it a second thought. Of course making registration easier would help. The thing is, they could have no idea that they're getting a new car in this raffle.

To be fair Qent, why would registering sway people away from this port? People find this website with the intent to play regardless of what cost.

Hell, you gotta buy doom 2 to play in this port. So I'm pretty sure a little registration wouldn't matter.

oh, cool, you just lost all your stats and other crap for all mods on all servers! ain't that just grand. playing single player? hahaha fuck that.

Hmm, why are we assuming that all stats from every player ever will be saved in one single spot

[Torvald]

I don't think it will divide or alienate the community, especially if the option to enable log in is nonmandatory. It could be disabled/optional on public DM servers, or completely turned off for some mods or survival servers. This would still allow people to play the game freely with the option to become more involved in the community.

"Competition seems to be the main goal here, when we have ranks and stats what will happen is people will get more arrogant, spread more negativity and there will be less respect for people who lose more."

I have to disagree with this because the competitive scene is very small and everyone knows each-other quite well around here. In fact, stat saving might even help boost the competitive scene and motivate people to become more active and participate in tournaments. It's all whether you look at it optimistically or pessimistically.

[Savant]

I'm guessing you hate Steam then, also why would range bans block accounts considering that's basically the only objectively good reason to implement accounts
yeah unless this guy was using a modified binary (which given the "skulltag" thing I heavily doubt) or an external bot to call ACS scripts, what you're saying is flat-out impossible - you can't get IPs through ACS or DECORATE, and the output of playerinfo cannot be captured in variables
so yeah you've been duped

the closest we've gotten now is storing stats in cvars which are then referred to by puking ACS scripts from the client - location is right out (and how would that even work, considering map changes?)

either way tying mod data to accounts is a Bad Idea - let's say the server storing all this data has a hard drive crash. oh, cool, you just lost all your stats and other crap for all mods on all servers! ain't that just grand. playing single player? hahaha fuck that.

for persistent stat saving, what we really need is a way to work with DBM or SQL files - but that's another thread

Admittedly I couldn't remember what the deal with that mod was It was a long time ago but I thought it was worth mention.

and for the record I don't play on steam and dislike account based subscriptions for video games I like being able to just get a game and play it whenever I want and not have to worry about creating an account.

[Watermelon]

I'm voting against this for a couple of reasons.

This honestly feels to me like it will just split the community and cause untold amounts of drama also every benefit posted so far is redundant.

Competition seems to be the main goal here, when we have ranks and stats what will happen is people will get more arrogant, spread more negativity and there will be less respect for people who lose more.

And what happens if everyone plays ranked or unranked? You're not getting a game, we'll have elitists who only want to play one way causing further separation though I'm sure you could define this when the server is created I can still see it causing problems.

Another thing about competition I was under the impression that Zdaemon was built for competitive playing whereas Zandronum was mainly development, by implementing stats it becomes counter productive having another server for accounts sending and receiving score information across all servers in use also sounds like a major bandwidth issue and will hinder mods being played for stats It will just become more of a mess to sort through.

There is another thing I just don't understand about stats and that is how you'd intend to save them account wide, given the amount of WADs scoring them all would in itself be a load of work, and trying to score just based off game modes wouldn't be ideal either.

I.E lets say I play skull tag duel maps vs duel32, I have 99 wins on Duel and never play duel32.

Actually if that were the case it would be easy enough to cheat such a system if it could even be called that, I feel that this example be just one of a few topics that would cause unnecessary drama about perceived ranking for one game mode.

The note on private servers is also redundant, if you're running a private server not only do you already have full control to kick or ban people you can choose who you give access too logging in with an account is essentially the same as just putting in a password at the server menu.

Also accounts would eventually become mandatory to avoid area I.P black listings and I don't feel this should be necessary to play online, but maybe I'm wrong on that maybe area black listings will ban accounts too

In conclusion much of the beneficial features of an account are already there the only interesting proposed so far is saving stats for an RPG mod but that's already been done too. I recall a thread back on Skulltag of a Korean Mmo styled doom mod with stats and location being saved in hex after logging the players IP though I don't know how far it got a long.

The intent of account systems is not for storage of data on the master.zandronum site, but rather a verification system of which ACS authors can use to index who is who for saving things on a server. ACS can sort-of support strings right now, another alternative is just return the player index that is registered.

Competition doesn't spread that much negativity, only insecure people do who you find in games regardless of accounts or not. Pretty much every priv CTF player is good friends with everyone (excluding some few exceptions) despite our intense amounts of competition.

Zandronum is just as viable of a port for competition, even though those of us who do a lot of ZD play sometimes come over to play mods. Excluding my pre-2007 competition days on ZD, no one ever really cared about the ZD score system. I haven't come across anyone who has, and one of my friends who is #1 or #2 on the ZD charts doesn't care about his points either. Possibly in the 2000's people cared, though I don't think they do now.


For interesting discussion
I have created an account/login system with ACS that saves information with a modified binary (yes String support!) to the servers and can act multiplayer-wise really well for mods, though it was a really hacky attempt and doesn't allow others to easily access it without installing my binary.

EDIT: My idea of an account system is just an encrypted name/pass pair on the master that can be parsed to see if the account is logged in. The code for the master however would need to be closed to prevent any possible hackings from decrypting everyone's encrypted password.

[Qent]

@ Catastrophe, because there're all sorts of people and different ports they can choose from. Or heck, maybe they stop playing Doom altogether.

And the master doesn't have to be closed-source to make encryption secure.

[Catastrophe]

This is the only heavily moddable online multiplayer doom port.

"I have created an account/login system with ACS that saves information with a modified binary (yes String support!) to the servers and can act multiplayer-wise really well for mods, though it was a really hacky attempt and doesn't allow others to easily access it without installing my binary."

do want

[Llewellyn]

I'm not disputing that, but I'm sure there are plenty of people, myself included, who would say "Ooh Zandronum, what's this? Oh I have to register? Never mind," without giving it a second thought. Of course making registration easier would help. The thing is, they could have no idea that they're getting a new car in this raffle.

To randomly renter the discussion: The outcome depends completely on the community. Hopefully most survival servers will be running my suggested mode C or B, not A. This means that anyone could join. I would also hope that Zandronum Official events (FNF/SNS) run mode C or B, meaning that no registration would be necessary. And usually, if someone new is coming to the community, they are being brought by a friend who would probably run a private server or join a server with mode C, in that case.

[Mechromancer]

Tbh, some people are legitimately motivated by seeing some stats attached to them to spur them to do better-- no one winces when they see how bad their k/d is if it isn't tracked, right? Not saying outright it's a great idea, but it might be pretty good if it's not mandatory

[Metal]

If it helps with banning, I'm all for it, because banning like we are now totally stinks D:

[Qent]

Catastrophe, if pub CTF or Invasion were unplayable without an account several years ago (which would have to be the fault of lazy modders or server admins or something, so that they're for some reason impossible to play correctly without logging in), I would very likely have played Doom95 happily until it got boring, dabbled in ZDoom or dropped Doom entirely, without even knowing I wanted a "heavily moddable online multiplayer Doom port."

[Razgriz]

The account system is still a great idea regardless...I doubt that throughout the years a whole lot of people ran to Skulltag because they refused to make an account on Zdaemon..

[Llewellyn]

Catastrophe, if pub CTF or Invasion were unplayable without an account several years ago (which would have to be the fault of lazy modders or server admins or something, so that they're for some reason impossible to play correctly without logging in), I would very likely have played Doom95 happily until it got boring, dabbled in ZDoom or dropped Doom entirely, without even knowing I wanted a "heavily moddable online multiplayer Doom port."

Ah but that's the best part, with the system I suggested you should never have to log or register unless you're joining a priv match or a server that explicitly specifies that you HAVE to log in. No one will be forcing you to register.

[Qent]

Your system looks great, although yeah, it'd be up to the community to implement.

[Ænima]

I have created an account/login system with ACS that saves information with a modified binary (yes String support!) to the servers and can act multiplayer-wise really well for mods, though it was a really hacky attempt and doesn't allow others to easily access it without installing my binary.

Yes please! I can make use of this in Mercenaries.

Infact, I was originally considering using the player's name string and then breaking it down into a number somehow in order to store different players' items at different locations in one big multi-dimensional array. But I couldn't figure out a way to do it (and besides, connecting it to players' ingame nicks is hacky and unreliable and might encourage impersonation). Using some sort of secret 6-digit number that's permanently tied to a player (aka an account number that ACS can access) would be a much better idea.

[Spottswoode]

No matter how easy it is, there will always be some point where registration makes the difference between playing Zandronum or uninstalling it. I'm certain it would have for me, back when I was starting out.

There is a raffle for a new car of any choice from a list...
first form is fill in name and address/email
second form is name, address, phone number and a secondary number or cell phone, zip, country, state, county, birthday, email, and maybe even a few other things i cannot remember

how likely is it people will do the first form over the second one? mostly all. why? simple, easy...short...so yes, the easiness does determine the majority of things..and easiness does determine how many people will make an account on zandronum..

Username, email, password is exactly the same setup for signing up for the forums. On that note, you may actually be able to use the same function to create an account on the forums with the same information and register your name in IRC. I would see it as no more tedious than Zdaemon, and in fact, less invasive than zdaemon given as we won't have network nazis with the ability to permaban your account and delete your statistics. Given that it would be optional and totally for your protection, I don't see how you could argue the registration process will keep people from playing Zandronum.

On the note of bans, if the system utilizes a white list (in combination with the master banlist and the banlists of the individual servers) it pretty much forms the best possible protection/feature balance you could have without becoming too domineering. I'd favor that setup very strongly.
How would accounts be authenticated?

[Torr Samaho]

Joking aside, what would you look for in terms of helping?

Helping to draft how the system would work exactly (who sends what to whom, how to secure the communication, etc.). Furthermore, help with the actual implementation would also be very welcome.

Competition seems to be the main goal here, when we have ranks and stats what will happen is people will get more arrogant, spread more negativity and there will be less respect for people who lose more.

The only reason why I personally consider an account system is to resolve the ban problems. Any other features are up for discussion. In fact, I strongly oppose any kind of global tracking or stats system. The login server should only handle the authentication and not track anything (only exception is information necessary to handle the login and bans).

I would also propose three client settings:

• no login (default)
• anonymous login
• full login

The first case is pretty self explanatory. In the second and third case the client logs into the login server (this of course reveals its identity to the login server) and the login server then hands a session token (likely it will be a good idea to tie the token to the client's IP) to the client. When a client logs into a game server it sends the session token to the game server. The game server then asks the login server whether the session token is valid.

In the "anonymous login" case, the login server will only return yes or no, it will not reveal the identity aka account name of the client. This is enough to allow people in a range ban to enter the server and completely prevents the game server from keeping any stats.

In the "full login" case, in addition to yes or no, the login server also sends a unique account identifier (possibly the account name) to the game server, allowing the server to identify individuals and to keep stats for whatever reason locally on the server.

Note that it's very important that the clients never send their authentication credentials to any game server. They only send the session token obtained from the login server.

And the master doesn't have to be closed-source to make encryption secure.

Exactly.

[Llewellyn]

In the "anonymous login" case, the login server will only return yes or no, it will not reveal the identity aka account name of the client. This is enough to allow people in a range ban to enter the server and completely prevents the game server from keeping any stats.

In the "full login" case, in addition to yes or no, the login server also sends a unique account identifier (possibly the account name) to the game server, allowing the server to identify individuals and to keep stats for whatever reason locally on the server.

I am hoping for a "Status" like command similar to Source which returns their name/uniqueID.
What Status looks like (that I just typed up):

Code: Select all

Status
Hostname: Cool Guy Server
Version : 1.32.2312
IP      : 63.124.52.123:27015
map     : map01
players : 3 (32 max)
#userid name               uniqueid	       connected     ping     loss     state
#   123 "AwesomeCoolguy"   STEAM_0:0:918273   1:15:48       72       0        active
#   207 "LameGuy"	      STEAM_1:1:243213   12:32         102      0        active
#    98 "LaggySpawner"     STEAM_1:0:123512   1:32          315      0        spawning

The anonymous implementation would report Anonymous for the UniqueID and no login would report None. (Normally the server sends the client a full UniqueID but in these cases it returns a simple 0 or 1 byte.) It would also be nice if the server could turn off UniqueID reporting (always return 0) while still accepting logins on the server side.
It would also be beneficial for servers to send UniqueIDs in launcher queries, as well as adding a client request for said UniqueIDs (buddy list implementation) in ACS.
It might also be beneficial to keep separate the Login Server and the Master Server binaries to allow easy modifications and redistribution, so that servers can use their own Log Ins (clans or Priv for example, or even if MM8BDM or some such similar occurance uses Zandronum 1.x)

[Watermelon]

If anyone is interested in support or providing input to possibly help move this along, the ticket is here:
http://zandronum.com/tracker/view.php?id=1176