disallow renames in lobby for normal users?

disallow renames in lobby for normal users?

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abma
Spring Developer
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Joined: 01 Jun 2009, 00:08

disallow renames in lobby for normal users?

Post by abma »

we had this discussion already a few times, but i want to bump it a bit.

would there real problems when user renames would be disallowed in lobby?

it is/was mostly used for clan tags, but imo a clan tag is set once and then used forever. renames only lead to confusion to other players, also it would make trolls live much harder as they can't easily reuse their existing account.

maybe the feature, that moderators can rename users, can be added.
allowing the clan-tag in the name was a bad decission, it should be some optional parameter, similar to the country code.
Last edited by abma on 23 May 2013, 12:27, edited 1 time in total.
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PicassoCT
Journeywar Developer & Mapper
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Joined: 24 Jan 2006, 21:12

Re: disallow renames in lobby for normal users?

Post by PicassoCT »

why so hardcoded?
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Beherith
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Re: disallow renames in lobby for normal users?

Post by Beherith »

Would lead to an increase in smurfing, while not giving greater recognizability.
abma
Spring Developer
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Re: disallow renames in lobby for normal users?

Post by abma »

Beherith wrote:Would lead to an increase in smurfing, while not giving greater recognizability.
reason? why?

in zk imo its bad to loose player stats, registering a new user was always possible, so i wouldn't expect an increase in smurfing. also the normal lobby rank would be lost, too. with allowed renames trolls lose nothing.
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knorke
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Re: disallow renames in lobby for normal users?

Post by knorke »

it is/was mostly used for clan tags, but imo a clan tag is set once and then used forever.
Usually a player does not have a clan yet when he register. It is only after some time that he joins/creates a clan and then he must be able to change name. For zK planetwars players sometimes added their faction to name. For some time players liked have their played games in the name, like "playername[CA][NOTA]"
So changing name is somewhat popular, even "respected non-trolling" players (for example zK team) often have 5 or more variations of nick.
abma
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Re: disallow renames in lobby for normal users?

Post by abma »

knorke wrote:So changing name is somewhat popular, even "respected non-trolling" players (for example zK team) often have 5 or more variations of nick.
this doesn't mean renaming is required. a "tag" is then required, i still see no reason, why a user should be allowed to rename his account. renames are miss-used for storing data...

(but thanks for this info, this makes an alternative a requirement before renames can be disallowed.)
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Silentwings
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Re: disallow renames in lobby for normal users?

Post by Silentwings »

I agree with behe - trolls would just make new acc to 'rename'. And there is a lot of non-troublesome renaming too.

Making a new account takes no time at all & I'm worried that the change would encourage autohost owners back to bad old days of banning rank 1 accounts since these accounts would be more likely to be trolls (& goodbye newbies).

Atm we have SLDB + an active autohost admin network and between them for now they prevent trolling problems very effectively (@abma do you disagree? what's made you to want the change?). Thanks to SLDB it's become near impossible for someone to change name or account without host/lobby admins being able to identify - 99% of the time the automatic system links accounts for balancing/banning purposes too.
gajop
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Re: disallow renames in lobby for normal users?

Post by gajop »

I think that just using one data field for a globally unique identifier, human displayable name and clan tags is wrong.

Ideally we would have a globally unique name that gets created when the user creates his account, and that should never be changed.

We would also have a human name which would get displayed and can get renamed.

Clan tags are a different concept altogether. Ideally one could be a part of multiple clans, but those should be specified elsewhere (not a part of his name). We also lack a concept of a clan (i.e. you can put a clan tag without actually being a part of any clan, which is wrong imo).

The display name may include the human name, unique name and clan tag(s) but that should be up to the application.

My suggestion is to create a new "human name" for each user and copy the users current "name" to it, disallow changes to the "name" field and allow changes to the "human name" fields. Add clan tags later, but allow them to be a part of the users "human name" for now. Allow moderators to change the users "name" during the transition process but lock it after a few months.
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BrainDamage
Lobby Developer
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Re: disallow renames in lobby for normal users?

Post by BrainDamage »

Ideally we would have a globally unique name that gets created when the user creates his account, and that should never be changed.
this exists already, but it has been introduced as an aftertought and as result nearly all commands return login name instead of user id, howrever the unchanging id exists, is in place and is advertised in the protocol

user id is a simple progressive number assigned by the server when you create the account, without that weird complicated system you suggested, if anything, the protocol should support using user id as args for commands instead of login name, but it's not strictly necessary since you receive user id upon logon and can still track
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CarRepairer
Cursed Zero-K Developer
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Re: disallow renames in lobby for normal users?

Post by CarRepairer »

Any user can use the ZK site to create a clan and upload an icon. Members of the clan can be added by that user. Icon shows in zklobby and weblobby next to user names.
gajop
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Re: disallow renames in lobby for normal users?

Post by gajop »

BrainDamage wrote:weird complicated system
Using a name instead of a surrogate key as a unique identifier is weird?
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BrainDamage
Lobby Developer
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Re: disallow renames in lobby for normal users?

Post by BrainDamage »

I meant the transition process, however I agree that a single login name that doesn't change with displayed name would be nice, but I don't see that happening anytime soon unless someone steps up and extends the protocol with yet another optional flag since I suspect backwards compatibility will be required to accept the patch
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NeonStorm
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Re: disallow renames in lobby for normal users?

Post by NeonStorm »

If we allow 2 different names and login names I fear we get the same problem as in - for example - NovaRaider.

How do you want to invite or send message to a player called "¤5ŦA®¤ĦUŊŦ€®¤"?

Or what do you do if someone has a "human name" which is equivalent to another person's login name or vice versa?


I like how ID-numbers work, and I would like a name-prefix or sufix field.

I will +1 if you can only put a tag with these "][" brackets or 3+ upper case letters into your pre/suf-fix if you actually have the rights for this tag.

If we compare names with already registered names, the system should thread Zero and the letter 'O' equally, because they look so similar.
The same with lower case L and upper case i, etc.
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hoijui
Former Engine Dev
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Re: disallow renames in lobby for normal users?

Post by hoijui »

if you allow separate login and human name, the "i can not login anymore" threads will sky-rocket and overspam the forum.

also, the name system as it is now, is simple, and as silentwings said, it works quite well as is. spring is generally nto short of complicated systems where one needs to find and read a manual or guess or find someone to explain it, for understanding it (in-game commands, keyboard short-cuts, how to upgrade ZK commanders, how to host a game when you are behind a router, ...).
most of the suggested changes here would introduce more complex stuff. like.. clan tags.. would requrie to disallow clan tags in the name (why else would people start using it?), then newbs don't understnad why they can not choose this and that name, and how are others able to get such names, ...
the clan tag system just introduces an other useless level of potential force abuse and power-games.

to loose the rank when creating a new name is just as much an advantage for a smurf as it is a disadvantage (it disgueses him better, as he will be rank 2 or 3 in no time anyway).
or say.. i also see no reason to change anything.
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Neddie
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Re: disallow renames in lobby for normal users?

Post by Neddie »

I'm not certain I'd change it either, but if I did change it, I'd introduce a unique and permanent identifier which is not visible in normal usage, to which I would bind names and - potentially - other tags such as clans. Seems like a reasonable solution, I see it in a lot of multi-service systems.
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PicassoCT
Journeywar Developer & Mapper
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Re: disallow renames in lobby for normal users?

Post by PicassoCT »

Lets map all names to a hashmap and use the hash-ids as names. That way everyone could identify each other faster.
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NeonStorm
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Re: disallow renames in lobby for normal users?

Post by NeonStorm »

Neddie wrote:I'm not certain I'd change it either, but if I did change it, I'd introduce a unique and permanent identifier which is not visible in normal usage, to which I would bind names and - potentially - other tags such as clans. Seems like a reasonable solution, I see it in a lot of multi-service systems.
We already have uniqe IDs.
How else should the database link - for example - ranking or player settings if you change your username?
cleanrock
Former Engine Dev
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Re: disallow renames in lobby for normal users?

Post by cleanrock »

I beleive the smurf problem is because its too easy to create new accounts, renaming is not a problem imo.
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Neddie
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Re: disallow renames in lobby for normal users?

Post by Neddie »

NeonStorm wrote:
Neddie wrote:I'm not certain I'd change it either, but if I did change it, I'd introduce a unique and permanent identifier which is not visible in normal usage, to which I would bind names and - potentially - other tags such as clans. Seems like a reasonable solution, I see it in a lot of multi-service systems.
We already have uniqe IDs.
How else should the database link - for example - ranking or player settings if you change your username?
I'm aware, however we aren't connecting all other data in a structured way to it. We're not getting the full benefit of it.
cleanrock wrote:I beleive the smurf problem is because its too easy to create new accounts, renaming is not a problem imo.
Bingo.
abma
Spring Developer
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Joined: 01 Jun 2009, 00:08

Re: disallow renames in lobby for normal users?

Post by abma »

I beleive the smurf problem is because its too easy to create new accounts, renaming is not a problem imo.
atm you can't trust any high rank player as he could have renamed. next time he has just some different name, so imo renaming IS a problem.
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