Decreasing playerbase

[Stanky]

Change the rules of permanent banning (Emax ... bombom). It's too much to ban them for life because they camp! even if he is a recidivist, take a week at most each time.
permanent ban only to those who use cheats or something very serious.

I want to reply to this: we leave 4 chances per annoyance category for people to understand. If they are dumb enough to do the same mistake over again, they are hopeless. They break the rules, they pay the price. Permaban can seem extreme too you, but after 4 trials what do you want to expect from them. We're already generous compared to other servers I think...

Are you absolutely sure that they knew what they were doing was wrong and why they were banned? The few times I was banned I had no idea why. One ban was because I voted for a relatively small map when there were a relatively large number of players playing... I had no idea that was against the "rules", and I received no warning. Another ban was because I was on the roof in Goliath and I was tossing FP7's down the elevator shaft, which is something players had been doing forever, but an admin on that particular day decided that was against the "rules". I was warned, but didn't notice the warnings until after I was banned... and I still don't really understand why throwing them up/down a staircase, hallway, tunnel, ladder, etc is any different than throwing them up/down an elevator shaft, but you make the "rules"... which sometimes seems to be based on current mood rather than logic.

Point being, were BomBom or eMax warned about their indiscretions, and did you get a confirmation that they understood what they were doing was wrong and against your "rules"? I believe BomBom was from Turkey and understood very little English... not sure where eMax was from, but could it be possible that he didn't see or understand your warnings if you gave them? If they don't understand English, they probably don't understand how to get to your Web site or how to use it to appeal their ban.

Chances are they will never come back, but it would be interesting to see if they do if you unban them.

[focus]

Things are especially interesting, taking into account the fact, that eMaxx maybe
reading this and decides, if he should come back or not.
Or maybe he already decided.

Anyway, his profile is present on the forum. Username 'eMaxx'.

Anyway, thats indeed a very interesting subject. Behind nicknames (not each maybe. There could be dups.) there are real people. They are sitting somewhere on the planet. What are they thinking about LDG? What are motives which draw people here?
After all, LDG admins govern the server according to their own beliefs. Which of course could be very different from what players want. Years have passed.
Maybe players wanted to have something very different during all this time?
Or maybe simply everyone is tired of this?
Also, i have noticed that there is a group of people here who are talking. They include admins. But they are not the whole 100% of players. Who are the rest we simply dont know. We were talking about things, admins were deciding things. But the rest were simply had to face the facts.

Also, consider this pattern of behaviour. You somehow found the LDG. You tried to play. It was fine. You were playing here, not getting into discussions. You were in the list. But things have changed, and you leave the server, coz it doesnt suit you anyway. From objective point of view, you were a player. But no traces. We dont know about you nothing.
Have admins were thinking about such players, when tweaking the server?

Also. Have admins were recording each change of the server to be able to revert things back? I guess no. Things like SVN could have been helpful here btw.

[iRobot]

Another ban was because I was on the roof in Goliath and I was tossing FP7's down the elevator shaft, which is something players had been doing forever, but an admin on that particular day decided that was against the "rules". I was warned, but didn't notice the warnings until after I was banned... and I still don't really understand why throwing them up/down a staircase, hallway, tunnel, ladder, etc is any different than throwing them up/down an elevator shaft, but you make the "rules"... which sometimes seems to be based on current mood rather than logic.

The rules have always been stupid regarding this. I don't know which member of staff is so anal about it but it's absolutely ridiculous. Would throwing assault rifle grenades down the same lift in a stock weapons game meet you with a ban? Absolutely not.

Portal camping too, if you play a stock weapons 1v1 DM game on Goliath for example, peppering flak alts into the teleport when you are being chased through it is a completely valid tactic. If you did the same in BW? Banned. The rules just make no sense, when the tactics being employed are all acceptable in other gametypes, which leads to confusion and anger when banned for it.

[Aberiu]

The rules have always been stupid regarding this. I don't know which member of staff is so anal about it but it's absolutely ridiculous. Would throwing assault rifle grenades down the same lift in a stock weapons game meet you with a ban? Absolutely not.

Portal camping too, if you play a stock weapons 1v1 DM game on Goliath for example, peppering flak alts into the teleport when you are being chased through it is a completely valid tactic. If you did the same in BW? Banned. The rules just make no sense, when the tactics being employed are all acceptable in other gametypes, which leads to confusion and anger when banned for it.

I agree with botbot here, the rules against camping only make things worse - you cannot use teleporters and lifts to your advantage when running away, but every kill suddenly becomes unfair when there's a lift around, with certain people bitching for ages about "LAW mines on lift" and other things which cannot be avoided on goliath for example, where the teleporter is right between the teams. And this is where emaxx was banned afaik.

People who stay in one place earn less score anyway, let them camp imo. As long as there's a way around - their kills are valid.

[Butcher]

T10 and FP9 in elevator don't do damage, other nades are allowed. Mounted weapons and/ or melee against elevator shafts and teleporters? this can really piss some people off and should not be allowed...RFF would be my solution to this issue.
Other (non mountable) weapons guarding an area is the same situation as when the teams guard the frozen. So guarding a teleporter or a shaft as Area control tactics should be valid imo... but where is the line drawn?
Point blank aimed Red wood Coach waiting for you in the other side of the teleporter?
M290?
M357 gas shell?
Cylo/A73/staff/xoxo... etc charged melee?
59 close range aimed?
mid range aimed sniper?
deployed x83?
what about bort/longhorn/ M50 grenades?
A73 alt fire...powershot?
wait... LAW rocket...
what about sand bags... they maintain you in the bulls eye hot spot next to the elevator... nowhere else to go.

[bOnO]

Change the rules of permanent banning (Emax ... bombom). It's too much to ban them for life because they camp! even if he is a recidivist, take a week at most each time.
permanent ban only to those who use cheats or something very serious.

I want to reply to this: we leave 4 chances per annoyance category for people to understand. If they are dumb enough to do the same mistake over again, they are hopeless. They break the rules, they pay the price. Permaban can seem extreme too you, but after 4 trials what do you want to expect from them. We're already generous compared to other servers I think...

Are you absolutely sure that they knew what they were doing was wrong and why they were banned? The few times I was banned I had no idea why. One ban was because I voted for a relatively small map when there were a relatively large number of players playing... I had no idea that was against the "rules", and I received no warning. Another ban was because I was on the roof in Goliath and I was tossing FP7's down the elevator shaft, which is something players had been doing forever, but an admin on that particular day decided that was against the "rules". I was warned, but didn't notice the warnings until after I was banned... and I still don't really understand why throwing them up/down a staircase, hallway, tunnel, ladder, etc is any different than throwing them up/down an elevator shaft, but you make the "rules"... which sometimes seems to be based on current mood rather than logic.

Point being, were BomBom or eMax warned about their indiscretions, and did you get a confirmation that they understood what they were doing was wrong and against your "rules"? I believe BomBom was from Turkey and understood very little English... not sure where eMax was from, but could it be possible that he didn't see or understand your warnings if you gave them? If they don't understand English, they probably don't understand how to get to your Web site or how to use it to appeal their ban.

Chances are they will never come back, but it would be interesting to see if they do if you unban them.

No I'm not sure that they knew what they were doing was wrong. That's why most of the time we warn, kick and ban. Sometimes we ban directly because we're pissed or whatever and the first ban we make is for 1 day only. In that day you have the time to go to the forum and see why you're banned, because there is a topic specially dedicated for this. If you don't want to/don't know it exists, you can always ask an admin ingame.

"did you get a confirmation that they understood what they were doing was wrong and against your "rules"?"... I wasn't the admin who issued the ban but in any case: If he did confirm, it means he went on despite the warning so he deserved the ban; if he did not confirm, am I supposed to let it go and let him break the rules? Is it fair to the other players
who respect them? Also some players deliberately ignore the warnings as if they didn't read or understand, we've already seen this case. If they don't understand English, so what? Do I have to learn turkish to warn him? Do I have to learn dutch, german because I have no idea what the fuck they are saying and they could be insulting? English is the most spoken language, and even the worst English speaker knows basic words.

And why do you put "rules" like this? There are rules everywhere for everything. If you don't agree with them, you're free to open the debate. We had to create more and more rules, some of them may be absurd to you but if they're not written down, some people don't use common sense and do stupid things. That's why we modify them when there's a new case appearing. About your personal bans you didn't understand, I can't really answer because I don't play BW enough to know if it's really annoying, ask Aza for that.

[ILoveTheNorth]

You know what the problem is.

Some of you guys take this far too seriously. It's just a game. Relax. Breathe.

People aren't breaking the law by committing bannable offences? Why spend a whole thread arguing about the correct way on how to punish when what you should be doing, is deciding how to make the game more inclusive.

Live a little. This is only a gaming server of a 10 year old game, not the security council at the United Nations.

[Greedisgood]

Point blank aimed Red wood Coach waiting for you in the other side of the teleporter?
M290?
M357 gas shell?
Cylo/A73/staff/xoxo... etc charged melee?
59 close range aimed?
mid range aimed sniper?
deployed x83?
what about bort/longhorn/ M50 grenades?
A73 alt fire...powershot?
wait... LAW rocket...

All of these could be waiting for you behind any corner. This is approximately as effective as running around with unscoped railgun rumpspamming it to get some heads. You will get a few kills, but you will be a burden to your team.
- Camping generally limits your mobility. Even good players get rekt while they camp too much.
- Hitting someone who is flying at high speed out of the teleporter is not that easy. Especially with higher ping.
- There are plenty of protective measures - jump out with a shield, check whats up on the other side. Proceed to jump sidewards to avoid the fire and do whatever needs to be done or step back into a teleporter. Warn the teammates after. Will cost you like 30hp in most cases, just grind on someone and recover.

You could see how it goes on current Goliath. The spawn makes the teleporter 100% controlled on both sides so everyone is ready to meet the attackers. Yet people still jump in to harass or get a chance to move into a good position and screw the formation. Offence can be even continued with proper coordination in the team, just like through any other passage + better ability to recover by teleporting back and becoming unreacheable for longhorns and stuff.

[Azarael]

The rules have always been stupid regarding this. I don't know which member of staff is so anal about it but it's absolutely ridiculous. Would throwing assault rifle grenades down the same lift in a stock weapons game meet you with a ban? Absolutely not.

Portal camping too, if you play a stock weapons 1v1 DM game on Goliath for example, peppering flak alts into the teleport when you are being chased through it is a completely valid tactic. If you did the same in BW? Banned. The rules just make no sense, when the tactics being employed are all acceptable in other gametypes, which leads to confusion and anger when banned for it.

The stock weapons tactics you cite are valid because stock is an entirely different game. Anyone who chases through a teleporter in 1on1 when the opponent has any kind of weapon which can punish that is foolish. You're made aware of the risk of following the player and know that that risk exists at a specific moment in time. Your opponent will not be sat at a teleporter camping it because he would forfeit the map control and because UT2004 itself is not a camper's game. However, BW Freon with 22 players (inb4 lol when was the last time we saw 22) is different. The rules against peppering teleporters, lifts and other crappy funnels with area denial weapons were instituted because those strategies were simply too easy and utterly frustrating to run into.

As I've said before, if I have to code around the problem, then that's fine - though I doubt you need to worry too much about that because I don't feel any real pull towards this place right now.

[Stanky]

Soooooo in summary, admins feel the need to enforce "rules" that most of the regular player base think are unnecessary. Most of the regular player base would like to have the regular players that did not follow these "rules" (whether they understood their indiscretions or not) unbanned to help increase player base. Admins think that whether they understood their indiscretions or not, they should still be banned, which obviously continues to reduce player base. Some of the regular player base also think adding more maps, primarily because they are bored with the current map selection, would help to increase the player base, but some admins don't agree.

I'm not an admin, but if I were, I'd probably listen to my regular player base and try implementing what they suggest before the player base declines even more or eventually ceases to exist.