disallow renames in lobby for normal users?

[bibim]

lobbies don't use account id's. so stuff like ignore doesn't work after a rename.

Which lobby? The account IDs were introduced years ago, I really though all lobbies were supporting them. At least mine does... (even the IRC bridge does btw).

i prefer having fake newbie accounts as its visible that they are newbies and so possible fake accounts.

The important part in my sentence was: "badly rated", which means leading to unbalanced games...

also there are very few renames, about ~100 (where the same accounts where renamed multiple times) in one month and most of them are by the same persons, so # of fake users can't be so high.

edit: 50 unique users have renamed in ~1 month.

I don't see how this is relevant. If I follow you from the start, the problem is that we can't recognize a renamed user. So it could be only 1 player renaming all the time it would be the same problem, since we can't recognize him. What is important is not the number of fake users, but the number of fake names/accounts.

[abma]

Which lobby? The account IDs were introduced years ago, I really though all lobbies were supporting them. At least mine does... (even the IRC bridge does btw).

springlobby. i don't know about others how it is implemented there, but i would implement it like this: store id->username the first time it is seen and use that forever. only the springlobby user can rename people, server renames are ignored.

I don't see how this is relevant. If I follow you from the start, the problem is that we can't recognize a renamed user. So it could be only 1 player renaming all the time it would be the same problem, since we can't recognize him. What is important is not the number of fake users, but the number of fake names/accounts.

yes, true. we simply can't. so why allow renames? this makes it impossible for players to recognize some renamed user? a renamed user keeps all his stats, rank, etc, a new user has a newbie rank.

i could add a patch to springlobby which keeps track of renames, yes, but.. why? this would make rename obsolete. -> disallow rename.

[very_bad_soldier]

Renaming gives an unfair advantage. Imo games should not display names of enemy players ingame. Show all enemy units in the same color or something without names. This way all players have the benefit of being anonymous.

[Jools]

I think that introducing more rules is not the way to go, people will always find ways to circumvent them. We have some people renaming, don't know really why, but I guess it could be related to the trueskill system: people get a good score and don't want to ruin it. Still, we all know who these people are anyway.

Disabling renaming can have technical issues: for example now my replaybot account got corrupted and needed to be fixed. It's always good to have options to do these things if needed.

[bibim]

springlobby. i don't know about others how it is implemented there, but i would implement it like this: store id->username the first time it is seen and use that forever. only the springlobby user can rename people, server renames are ignored.

So when players are speaking to a renamed player in the battleroom you simply don't even know who they are speaking to since you only see their first name? And when you start the game you see different names in game than when you were in lobby? I don't see how you can think of it as the good way to implement this...

yes, true. we simply can't. so why allow renames? this makes it impossible for players to recognize some renamed user? a renamed user keeps all his stats, rank, etc, a new user has a newbie rank.

i could add a patch to springlobby which keeps track of renames, yes, but.. why? this would make rename obsolete. -> disallow rename.

Ok I simply can't make you understand so I will stop wasting my time. Go for it, forbid renames so the lobby will be full of fake newbie accounts. I will then disable TS balancing since it makes absolutely no sense using it in these conditions. This will actually save me much time.

[gajop]

Picasso renamed 17 times...

FTFY

Guys, just do it like Steam does it. Stop reinventing the wheel.

[bibim]

We have some people renaming, don't know really why, but I guess it could be related to the trueskill system: people get a good score and don't want to ruin it.

TrueSkill is bound to account IDs, not names. That's why it's good if people renames instead of creating new accounts, it doesn't impact TrueSkill balancing system at all.

[bibim]

Guys, just do it like Steam does it. Stop reinventing the wheel.

No one is reinventing the wheel here. Abma wants to remove a functionality, whereas I tell him it won't help at all and would even make things worse. I see no one reinventing the wheel.

However if anyone wants to add in lobby protocol an unmodifiable name bound to account ID (first name used during registration?), which would make current system exactly like Steam one from what I just read, I have nothing against it.

[dansan]

My 2 cents, sorted by perspective.

From a player perspective:
* Renaming can be fun.
* I want a correct [true]skill assessment for balancing.
* I want to know who I'm playing with -> identity, not current name. "Identity" is for me established through the name I got to know a player in the past.
* I want to know and use the name that a player is currently using, so chat works, the other team members know who I'm talking to, etc.
* Idea for solution: lobby+game show+use current name, but I can hover with mouse over name and get a tooltip with all names ever used by that account -> I can find out the identity, everything else works like before.

From a infra perspective:
* 1 person = 1 account is imo good for DB, balancing, password-reset, etc.
* multiple player-names per account is not strictly a _requirement_ of RTS gaming, so why do the work?
* Idea for solution:
- separate player-name and login-name
- allow a fixed number of player-names per account (like 10), /rename returns the list of used and free name slots, so players are aware of the limit
- extend lobby protocol to so that info can be used by lobbys (and widgets) to show all player-names in tooltip

[very_bad_soldier]

I will then disable TS balancing since it makes absolutely no sense using it in these conditions. This will actually save me much time.

I am sure you did not intentionally sound like you are trying to blackmail someone here. But just out of interest: are the sources for the TS-server available as open source somewhere? Maybe someone else could host/maintain it anyway if you are not happy with the current situation cause it costs you time which is totally understandable?

[abma]

No one is reinventing the wheel here. Abma wants to remove a functionality, whereas I tell him it won't help at all and would even make things worse. I see no one reinventing the wheel.

yes, because still many stuff doesn't support / use the account id's and renames is a functionality which is used by very few players, imo mostly for
abusing/trolling.

afaik stuff which doesn't use account ids: (and gets fooled by renames)
- zero-k lobbys (or springies?) mute
- springlobby
- lobby server itself (channel owner, bans, mutes)
- some bots
- stuff idk about (other lobbies, ...)

its a lot of work to fix that for a functionality which is used by very few people.

also i don't understand what an extortion (either you don't touch that, or i will shutdown service...) would help here, this is off-topic.

maybe in other words:

i still think atm allowing renames for every user makes much more problems than it solves.

[Jools]

also i don't understand what an extortion (either you don't touch that, or i will shutdown service...) would help here, this is off-topic.

He means that there is no use in having the TS service if people are going to create more accounts ... that it won't work. I didn't read is as blackmail.

[abma]

He means that there is no use in having the TS service if people are going to create more accounts ... that it won't work. I didn't read is as blackmail.

why are you/is he sure that people don't already do that? when looking through ip lists, there are many many ip's with multiple accounts.

SELECT count( * ) FROM `users` GROUP BY last_ip HAVING count( * ) >1

returns ~13k of results... means 26k accounts from 13k ip-addresses and we have ~160k accounts. -> ~10% are smurfs. this number is to high, because of irc users for example, but i still would think 5% are smurfs.

i understand the reasons to allow renames, i only don't understand this particular reason: "disallowing renaming would lead to much more accounts / balancing wouldn't work any more."

imo the current balancing works MUCH better than the old ones using ingame-times, so please keep it regardingless of this discussion.

balancing can't be perfect, imo goal should be that each player loses similar games as he wins games. (but thats offtopic...meh)

[CarRepairer]

I want to know who I'm playing with -> identity, not current name.

Well put.

Idea for solution: lobby+game show+use current name, but I can hover with mouse over name and get a tooltip with all names ever used by that account

Why all? Why not just the one original name?

- allow a fixed number of player-names per account (like 10), /rename returns the list of used and free name slots, so players are aware of the limit
- extend lobby protocol to so that info can be used by lobbys (and widgets) to show all player-names in tooltip

Arbitrary number limit which would just complicate things. And all the names is useless info. Same question as above. All you need to know is the identity.

[Jools]

why are you/is he sure that people don't already do that? when looking through ip lists, there are many many ip's with multiple accounts.

If you lookup [PRO]Jools you will find 5 accounts with same IP, but they are all legitimate. There are reasons. 2 are replaybot accounts, 1 is autohost and 1 is weblobby testing account.

[bibim]

are the sources for the TS-server available as open source somewhere?

What you call "TS-server" is just a part of SLDB. SLDB source code isn't available anywhere for now. I plan to release all my Spring related code under GPL v3 when it's ready for it, and SLDB will be part of it.

yes, because still many stuff doesn't support / use the account id's and renames is a functionality which is used by very few players, imo mostly for abusing/trolling.

afaik stuff which doesn't use account ids: (and gets fooled by renames)
- zero-k lobbys (or springies?) mute
- springlobby
- lobby server itself (channel owner, bans, mutes)
- some bots
- stuff idk about (other lobbies, ...)

its a lot of work to fix that for a functionality which is used by very few people.

abma, do you read my messages? Do you understand them? If you don't understand them, please tell me because I feel like there is a communication problem. I have to keep repeating the same things again and again.
I will try yet another time to explain you how pointless it is to prevent renaming for the reasons you invoke: if you prevent players from renaming, they will create new accounts for these new names instead. For example do you really think it will solve your problem of lobby server not able to mute someone because he renamed? Now, instead you will have a player who changed name AND account. Do you really think it's easier to recognize a player with a different name AND a different account than a player who just changed his name keeping his existing account? How come your server mutes will work better after this change? And it's the same for all the things you listed...

also i don't understand what an extortion (either you don't touch that, or i will shutdown service...) would help here, this is off-topic.

Extorsion? What are you talking about? I'm just stating facts and explaining things. If you think I'm blackmailing then it's because you simply didn't understand what I tried to explain in several ways already.

He means that there is no use in having the TS service if people are going to create more accounts ... that it won't work. I didn't read is as blackmail.

Exactly, thank you Jools.

why are you/is he sure that people don't already do that? when looking through ip lists, there are many many ip's with multiple accounts.

Of course there are already people doing that, and it's annoying. And you will only increase the problem by forcing players to create multiple accounts when they just want to rename.

i understand the reasons to allow renames, i only don't understand this particular reason: "disallowing renaming would lead to much more accounts / balancing wouldn't work any more."

I will try to explain again with simple sentences. There exists in Spring community some players who like changing name. I don't say it's good, it's just a fact. Currently they can do this with a command so they keep same account. If you prevent them to use this command, they will create alternate accounts instead. So it won't solve the "alternate names problem" at all. Even worse, it will increase the "smurf accounts problem". Smurf accounts are brand new accounts, they can't be associated for sure to an existing specific user. Only "guesses" are performed by the rating system, which can be good or wrong. So, by increasing the number of smurf accounts, you are making balance system worse. Whereas when users simply rename, they keep same account so their ratings aren't lost and it doesn't impact the rating system.

I've spent enough time trying to make current balance system the best I can, but if I see lobby server developpers making it even more difficult for me for injustified reasons, I don't see why I should keep managing all this. Instead of implementing new things I would spend my time working around bad choices. It's not a extorsion. It's a reasonable, logical, justified, fact. Do you understand?

[abma]

if you prevent players from renaming, they will create new accounts for these new names instead.

this point wasn't clear for me. i thought/think players won't do that as they would loose all their stats. trolls wouldn't care at all.

Of course there are already people doing that, and it's annoying. And you will only increase the problem by forcing players to create multiple accounts when they just want to rename.

seems like this is out of my scope of understanding, i can't understand why people want to do that. if they want, something was wrong with the old account/name, the new one isn't better.

what makes you so steady that keeping rename is good? anti-troll-tools are bogous (zero-k mute for example) because of that. we have no facts about what happens when rename is disallowed, its just some guessing. i would like to have some facts...

[bibim]

Sorry but I did my best to explain it clearly already.
All the answers are present multiple times in my messages, I can't think of better ways of explaining it.

This is my last message here because it's not going anywhere and I have other things to do than repeating myself.

[abma]

Sorry but I did my best to explain it clearly already.
All the answers are present multiple times in my messages, I can't think of better ways of explaining it.

i understand what you mean, but do you have any facts about that? examples, ... imo both opinions are wild guessing. only fact i have is, that this month there where about ~100 renames by 50 account ids.

[dansan]

anti-troll-tools are bogous (zero-k mute for example

afaik stuff which doesn't use account ids: (and gets fooled by renames)
- zero-k lobbys (or springies?) mute
- springlobby
- lobby server itself (channel owner, bans, mutes)
- some bots
- stuff idk about (other lobbies, ...)

Fixing the software that doesn't use accountIds to identify an account would solve these problems.

its a lot of work to fix that for a functionality which is used by very few people.

True, and good argument.
The counter argument is, that the consequence of removing it would also involve work (more difficult to identify a player with multiple accounts) and would work worse, resulting in a worse playing experience (bad balancing).

So... who gets the work load, and with which result?