Account system discussion

[Watermelon]

I've always wondered if we could have an account system on Zandronum. We are entering the point in Zandronum where mods are trying to breach the last line, which is storage of information. When this barrier is broken, it will open up an arena for many new mods to surface that could bring even more addicting gameplay than we already have (is this a bad thing?)!

Some interesting ideas that can come from account systems are:
- Stat saving
- Account approval for private servers
- Friend finding

Stat saving
Stat saving would allow people who make custom ACS plugins to write things into a file and save data for future parsing/what-have-you. So far this is sort of impossible without knowledge of a programming language to connect to with rcon, but those who are ACS savvy could whip one up with strparam and archiving playername_stat in the .ini

I had a solution for this, I wrote a *huge* ACS thing that allowed logins with a keyboard and connection to a server database, but it required a RCON plugin to be active which would constantly parse the server for a string that said "LOGIN: [name] [pass]" and verify it with an encrypted file through the I/O program (in this case was java), and would respond with a puke saying if it failed, or if it did log in then it returned the account number on the server. This was a bit of a problem because it's bulky and requires an active rcon 'bot' plugged into it, which can get a bit hefty if there's a ton of servers running on a machine.

The biggest hurdle right now is a database where there are passwords and accounts. It shouldn't be hard to make one, and it'd require the server to send the player name/pass to the master and respond with a login accepted/failed/anything else.

From here, stats could lead to RPG games, data saving on records (like Jumpmaze but easier), or overall statistics for private CTF games and such. I was working on an interface that recorded each private CTF game and wrote it to a website (it would look something like this

Account approval
Accounts would be free to make, so it wouldn't change aliasing and such, but it could help with private games where you only want certain people inside. So far Konar got a great system up, but it'd be nice to expand it even further.
This would also help in keeping dynamic IP ban evaders out potentially.

Friend finding
Be able to find friends through their in game aliases. You could even possibly follow them or have a chat interface w/ them sort of like Steam. A majority of us use IRC but there's a lot of mod players in this community who don't use IRC and may like such a feature.




I've been thinking about this for a while, and I even at one point wanted to implement it, but it'd be a pain in the ass for me to do because
1) I'd need to modify a new binary that stores the password/name somewhere, and then verify with my own custom master server
2) Create my own game launcher that does all the above
3) Make it auto-update because it'd be a completely separate binary
4) Distribute it to everyone, of which would probably be the hardest part

That is way too time consuming, plus the developers could implement it better.

While being an absolutely major feature to request, I think it'd be very interesting. What do you think? Would you be for or against this?
I posted a poll to get people's opinions, if you are against it could you post a reason why (for discussion).

[Hardbash]

I didn't understand 75% of what you said halfway through the paragraph. lol.

[Torvald]

I'm definitely in support of this notion.

[Synert]

You could definitely do some cool stuff with this.

[Ænima]

I support it on the basis of the "ACS stat-saving" you mentioned. I want players to be able to save the weapons/items they earn in Mercenaries between play sessions. Currently, there's no way to do this without scripting some complex global array system, and that would still require players to "log in" every time they join the server, aka inputting their PIN number into the script so that it can access their items from the array.

Being able to just keep items on the server (via a sv_* command) and have it be based on a player's unchangable "account" would be a FAR better solution.

[Fluffles]

I love account systems, but maybe it should be optional to have an account rather than forced to use an account.

[John Zombie]

I join fluff's bandwagon

[Watermelon]

So far, like ZD, I think accounts should not be mandatory. If you join a server it will just return NULL or NOACCOUNT or PLAYER or something to signify you're not logged in, since I believe people should still be able to connect without an account.

That way nothing will really change, just people will be able to choose to have an account and play with it, which will allow people access to various benefits. I'm sure lots of modders would love this for certain ideas as listed in the thread.

[Torvald]

Just have it so that if you don't have an account, nothing is saved, and no access to private servers. That way people can have their cake and eat it too.

[Tosen]

Very good idea, as long as users have the additional option to log in as a guest (which won't save stats or anything, of course).

[Catastrophe]

Yes, yes, and yes! This is needed, imagine the shit you can do by saving individual stats of a registered players in a server!

High scores
Achievement Rewards
RPG Leveling system
Much, much more!

Though I'd take it a step further and save it in a cheap/free online database somewhere, so then stats would be loaded regardless of who hosts.

[Medicris]

I want this done. ASAP.

I cannot express how much I want this. The pros far outweigh the cons.

I only ask that IDE be given full account functionality. That and those banned would stay banned, and impersonation would be a thing of the past.

I wouldn't mind a global stat tracker either. Though, only visible through their profiles on Zandronum's site, if the concern is belligerence and K/D ratios. In that case I'd also definitely have the option for servers to be Unranked, meaning that anything that happens in that server does not affect your recorded stats. This'd be helpful for servers with heavily modified gamemodes.

[-Jes-]

Has to be completely optional, or you can forget about getting any new blood for this port.

Ayep.

[Empyre]

This sounds good, if optional, like others have said. However, feature requests must be in the tracker to be even considered.

[infurnus]

There's been a unified account system planned for some time now.
The system we have now manages the avatars for the forums and tracker, but in the future it might be a good opt-in for white-listing people that get caught in ban ranges.

[one_Two]

I'm a bit on the fence, while it would be good to have all those things implemented, making life easier for modders etc.. I think you'd have to be careful not to lock zandro off to too many people. I know a lot of people who will just play it for a bit and leave, but if it's optional then this could work. I don't think it would end cheating though as people could just make a new account under another ip? but yeah, that could be worked on.

[infurnus]

I'm a bit on the fence, while it would be good to have all those things implemented, making life easier for modders etc.. I think you'd have to be careful not to lock zandro off to too many people. I know a lot of people who will just play it for a bit and leave, but if it's optional then this could work. I don't think it would end cheating though as people could just make a new account under another ip? but yeah, that could be worked on.

It would be optional, and only for people that aren't cheaters or abusers of some sort.
The idea is for each individual to have a single account, so that if two people are in a similar range and make an account there would be some kind of screening process in the event that bans were in their range(s). Cheaters wouldn't be able to continuously make streams of new accounts to evade bans if there were adequate checks and balances in place such as this.

[Konda]

I wonder how this will work, especially since the client and server are open-source, which means that people can modify their clients/servers to send false information.

[Watermelon]

I figure the the server(s) would communicate with a closed source master that responds with a yes/no to a request to join a server with an account name/pass, and if they don't match then the server boots the person.

[Balrog]

I vote against this.

Making an account system could lead to players who can't, won't, or don't know how to use the system getting trolled by the 31337 for it. Considering the amount of e-penis that the Skulltag community had, and what happened when MM8BDM experienced an uptick of popularity thanks to a YouTube Bump, I wouldn't want to risk having another way for people to feel superior. Similarly, mods with large numbers of developers like AOW2 (or mods in general, really) could end up having ACS to screw with people the developers don't like. I'm not denying that an account system could be beneficial, but I believe that the Zandronum development team should think long and hard about consequences such as this.