The Declining State of Natural Selection Servers: A Plea
TrueVeritas
Join Date: 2006-10-20 Member: 58082Members
Join Date: 2006-10-20 Member: 58082Members
<div class="IPBDescription">ATTENTION: O|nE MEMBERS</div>First off, let me start off by telling a short story about myself and Natural Selection. I began playing around the time 1.04 was released, and have been playing on and off ever since then. A little over a year ago, I came back to NS and started playing regularly on the old classic server, 'Richnet'. Back then, it was populated, and we even had our own little community. It was fun logging on a few hours a day playing siege maps. Sure, I knew the basics of the game, and it was a jolly old time, but it wasn't as if I was the best player on the server. In fact, I don't think I ever improved until I met the 'one letter clan'.
The 'One letter clan' was comprised of a bunch of veteran CAL players. If you've been playing NS for a while, you'll know these guys were many times the reason that servers banned one letter names. It wasn't that they were rude, it was that they usually did so well that many newer players considered them to be hacking.
Back then, I didn't really understand CAL, or any type of competitive play. I too was one of those players who cried 'hacks' the second a player went 10-1. Obviously, we ######ed and moaned at the Richnet admins until finally they were indeed banned. Later on, the player 'e', or as he is more commonly known, 'shoester' taught me how to simply be better at the game. He told me which upgrades to get, strategies to use, etc. From when he had started teaching me, I have been an avid competitive player.
Of course, this was a long time ago. For the most part, the Richnet classic server has died off, and the combat server has learned its lesson and sees few bans today.
Today, as I joined the O|nE Lerky Jerky server, I was greeted by friendly players and seemingly friendly admins who sounded like they just wanted to have a good game of combat. In essence, we shared similar desires. As I walked out of marine start, two of the admin skulks walked out at me, and I pointed my crosshair and fired. The two were instantly dead with me barely moving my crosshair, and I still had 15 bullets in my clip. Another skulk came around the corner, and I missed a few shots of my LMG, so I hopped out of the way and pistoled the skulk. I spent the point of damage one seeing clearly that a full clip of my shotgun would be able to clear the entire team. As I walked further out of my base, I heard a skulk in my left speaker somewhere up ahead. I came through the doorway, and instantly checked my left side. I shot him down straight away, and proceeded to pistol a skulk that walked right up to me.
The admin, being sharp as a whistle, said: "yep, walls". Five seconds later, I was banned.
Now, this isn't the first time this has happened. Not counting the time I got banned from the forums for making a pleasant unban request (it WAS pleasant), I have been banned three times previously from this server. Each time for 'wallhacking', 'aimbotting', or 'spawn camping'. This sort of thing isn't new, of course. There have been plenty of other bans from other servers for the same reason, without warning. BAD, Asero, COR, CoR, Necrophix, are all great examples. Check the 'unban requests' from each of the forums websites to see exactly what I mean.
What I'm asking of these servers is very, very simple. I enjoy playing NS, whether it is shooting at skulks, creating a strategy on TG, or going 200-0 as a 60 minute xmenu fade. I'm tired of going on servers and having 5+ people call me a hacker, and then getting banned for absolutely nothing. PLEASE, before you ban someone, have a <b>good reason to do so</b>. Some examples:
<b>Good Reasons to ban someone:</b>
Racism
Blatant Spam, and a refusal to stop when given a warning
A <b>true</b> hacker, with proof of said hack with a recorded demo.
<b>Bad Reasons to ban someone:</b>
You 'think' they're hacking.
They spam, and you give them no warning.
'Spawn camping' when there is spawn protection or when it is simply impossible to kill the hive.
Feel free to add reasons to both lists, as these are just the things that come to my head.
Oh, and I know the On|E guys read these forums, so if it wouldn't be too much trouble, could you please respond to this thread and have a conversation with us?
The 'One letter clan' was comprised of a bunch of veteran CAL players. If you've been playing NS for a while, you'll know these guys were many times the reason that servers banned one letter names. It wasn't that they were rude, it was that they usually did so well that many newer players considered them to be hacking.
Back then, I didn't really understand CAL, or any type of competitive play. I too was one of those players who cried 'hacks' the second a player went 10-1. Obviously, we ######ed and moaned at the Richnet admins until finally they were indeed banned. Later on, the player 'e', or as he is more commonly known, 'shoester' taught me how to simply be better at the game. He told me which upgrades to get, strategies to use, etc. From when he had started teaching me, I have been an avid competitive player.
Of course, this was a long time ago. For the most part, the Richnet classic server has died off, and the combat server has learned its lesson and sees few bans today.
Today, as I joined the O|nE Lerky Jerky server, I was greeted by friendly players and seemingly friendly admins who sounded like they just wanted to have a good game of combat. In essence, we shared similar desires. As I walked out of marine start, two of the admin skulks walked out at me, and I pointed my crosshair and fired. The two were instantly dead with me barely moving my crosshair, and I still had 15 bullets in my clip. Another skulk came around the corner, and I missed a few shots of my LMG, so I hopped out of the way and pistoled the skulk. I spent the point of damage one seeing clearly that a full clip of my shotgun would be able to clear the entire team. As I walked further out of my base, I heard a skulk in my left speaker somewhere up ahead. I came through the doorway, and instantly checked my left side. I shot him down straight away, and proceeded to pistol a skulk that walked right up to me.
The admin, being sharp as a whistle, said: "yep, walls". Five seconds later, I was banned.
Now, this isn't the first time this has happened. Not counting the time I got banned from the forums for making a pleasant unban request (it WAS pleasant), I have been banned three times previously from this server. Each time for 'wallhacking', 'aimbotting', or 'spawn camping'. This sort of thing isn't new, of course. There have been plenty of other bans from other servers for the same reason, without warning. BAD, Asero, COR, CoR, Necrophix, are all great examples. Check the 'unban requests' from each of the forums websites to see exactly what I mean.
What I'm asking of these servers is very, very simple. I enjoy playing NS, whether it is shooting at skulks, creating a strategy on TG, or going 200-0 as a 60 minute xmenu fade. I'm tired of going on servers and having 5+ people call me a hacker, and then getting banned for absolutely nothing. PLEASE, before you ban someone, have a <b>good reason to do so</b>. Some examples:
<b>Good Reasons to ban someone:</b>
Racism
Blatant Spam, and a refusal to stop when given a warning
A <b>true</b> hacker, with proof of said hack with a recorded demo.
<b>Bad Reasons to ban someone:</b>
You 'think' they're hacking.
They spam, and you give them no warning.
'Spawn camping' when there is spawn protection or when it is simply impossible to kill the hive.
Feel free to add reasons to both lists, as these are just the things that come to my head.
Oh, and I know the On|E guys read these forums, so if it wouldn't be too much trouble, could you please respond to this thread and have a conversation with us?
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Obviously, not all servers are this bad; this type of thing is usually the exception. My main complaint are the server admins who believe they can do no wrong and make insulting posts, after I have intentionally kept myself civil. Admins are human too, but the difference between a good and bad one is that the good one is willing to admit their mistakes.
And before somebody comes in accusing me of getting banned because I was being an insufferable ###### or something, I do make a point of following server rules to the best of my ability, even if they're dumb rules (Ex. A "mature" gaming community that bans language considered inappropriate for children or using asterisks being against the rules). I don't think I have ever been banned anywhere for anything other than "hacks".
Although I did notice many admins share this flaw and I feel your pain buddy.
Isn't it great when a seasoned player teaches you how to get better. Its like you finally understand, the gates open, you free your mind of routines that only made you bad. I know this becuase it happend to me a long time ago when nslearn first started up.
Many players just dont understand what is and isnt possable in NS so cheating accusations fly. NS has a very high skill gap when it comes to high skilled players vs very low skilled. (medium to high isnt that bad.) It can get it a point where player A will never be able to kill player B becuase he just doesn't understand how to, so player B must be cheating.
That being said I have myself been banned for aim botting and I'm not even that good, especially compared to most competitive players. I was even banned as a fade, even thought they couldn't say how I was supposedly cheating I just must have been...
Anyway Veritas, I remember you from the 1.04 days but haven't seen you around much at all. You only play as letter name now?
Basically, this time you hurt the pride of those that you outskilled. They don't want to accept that they are bad, nor do they want to get better. There's no point in arguing with the operators of a server if they don't want to entertain decent players. And, from my previous experiences, On|e's operators are pretty much like that.
Fortunately there are enough servers out there with good admins; just stick to them.
Hopefully the bus has some kind of server rating system. It is really time and necessary to (temp)ban servers from the browser, if the admins are crap.
At first I was a skulk and didn't know about it. St arted bhopping and some admin scolded me. So i said "OK whatever," literally unbound +jump just in case, and just went fade. Started blinking around ina fashion where i would expend a little energy, then hit the ground then blink, expend a little energy, hit the ground... etc, all while moving pretty fast around ns_eclipse. I hit tab and what do you know. Admin in sepctator. I was banned within 30 seconds. The reason?
"Thats a form of bunnyhopping"
Tried to appeal on their forums stating clearly that it's impossible to bunnyhop without +jump bound to anything. But because they're the experts, I still got banned.
Anyway Veritas, I remember you from the 1.04 days but haven't seen you around much at all. You only play as letter name now?
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Usually you'll see me on a server as ex_interp 0.02, Veritas, or lately, Don Caballero.
Take a minute to review the "best post of the year." Should solve your problem.
The Admins/owner pay for the servers, they do the rules. I don't know why this posts should belong to the NS forum in any way. Maybe you should try and post this at the forum that belongs to this specific server, if they have any. It is not a problem anyone could solve here.
Whatsoever, i think this is a server-specific problem - if it realy is. Don't get me wrong, but we have only YOUR statement and everyone usually tells us the story in the view of their own.
The Admins/owner pay for the servers, they do the rules. I don't know why this posts should belong to the NS forum in any way. Maybe you should try and post this at the forum that belongs to this specific server, if they have any. It is not a problem anyone could solve here.
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Did you read my post at all? I wasn't singling out one server, I was just using that as an example. There are little servers left up in Natural Selection where I get a decent ping, and I would rather not get banned from them. I wrote this here so that I wouldn't have to go to each forum and write it, and have the admins on each forum call me an idiot and ban me.
This is a problem with gaming, and competetion in general.
Players who get killed once and claim hacks are in every game. I'm sure if you'd played on more servers than richnet in your past (aka, had you sampled every server ever) you'd find that this isn't a "new fad" but rather an old one that you are experieincing.
Still I do not know how some people manage to be banned from so many places for aimbotting, Veritas as a prime example. Is demo detectives still around?...they should get everything sent there before banning a non-disruptive player. They totally have nothing better to do, I mean <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
That's not rhetoric. That's a solution.
Barring that, I see sooo many people make sooo many posts over the years, and I wonder why these good people can't create a server and satisfy themselves with a self-made environment that is immune to the "all-too-avoidable" administrative imperfections they're victim to when playing elsewhere.
I really do wonder that. The disgust that so many find with various servers doesn't surprise me. We humans like to do what *we* want to do, and we're not big fans of being forced to do otherwise, even when we're responsible for placing ourselves in the environment that creates that unwanted requirement. What surprises me is that all of those sooo unhappy aren't able or willing to create solutions for themselves.
While we're talking about communities, and about bans, I do want to say one thing about Tactical Gamer. It's common knowledge that we require banned players to contact administrators privately via TG forums PM, and it's common knowledge that we're firm ("nazi", "anal", "mature", "elitist", whatever floats your boat) in our policies. That pisses off a lot of people, but we're OK with that. It's always been the price we pay for doing things the way we want them done, in our little space. We don't design to create the anger, but we don't design to solve it, either. Conventional wisdom suggests that such arms-crossed resolve is a good way to sit alone in your own empty server every night. Fortunately, we're blessed with a group who fills our server nightly and appreciates (each player has his own reasons) how we approach server administration.
<b>The one thing I want to highlight</b> is something we pride ourselves on. Like everything we do administratively, we're not perfect. But we go to great lengths to get one thing right: <b>cheat accusations</b>. We don't allow them publicly (not in the server (not say or say_team; admin_chat only), not in our IRC channel, not in our forum threads, not anywhere). Some very talented players enjoy TGNS, and its due largely to that very policy. They can come "pwn" in peace.
When we get a cheat accusation, privately, we take it very seriously. We're all adults with careers and daytime (and, often, nighttime) obligations, but cheat accusations go to the top of the list. We have server-side HLTV-recorded demos of every game on our servers, so we're dependent on no one's account of what happened.
There's a <a href="http://www.tacticalgamer.com/natural-selection-general-discussion/51701-what-not-allowed.html" target="_blank">rare example from April 2005</a> of my offering for public consumption an example of the investigative diligence that TGNS admins will typically give a cheat accusation (be sure to view the video file linked from the TG forum post). As with this example, "cheating" typically just turns out to be somebody getting fairly and genuinely bested by the better player, but our reviews of the false alarms complement the other education we have to reliably detect and quietly remove genuine cheaters who have been reported silently, without any drama (which we don't tolerate).
So, anyway, go somewhere else if you can't watch your mouth, or if you feel entitled to be selfish or childlike. We've got lots of nit-picky rules that we're quite fond of, so you've plenty of cause to play elsewhere if you can't agree with them. Otherwise, and especially if you're tired of your gameplay being regularly interrupted by accusations whose laughable novelty wear off after years of hearing the same things hurled at you, please see my sig, and enjoy.
That's not rhetoric. That's a solution.
Barring that, I see sooo many people make sooo many posts over the years, and I wonder why these good people can't create a server and satisfy themselves with a self-made environment that is immune to the "all-too-avoidable" administrative imperfections they're victim to when playing elsewhere.
I really do wonder that. The disgust that so many find with various servers doesn't surprise me. We humans like to do what *we* want to do, and we're not big fans of being forced to do otherwise, even when we're responsible for placing ourselves in the environment that creates that unwanted requirement. What surprises me is that all of those sooo unhappy aren't able or willing to create solutions for themselves.
While we're talking about communities, and about bans, I do want to say one thing about Tactical Gamer. It's common knowledge that we require banned players to contact administrators privately via TG forums PM, and it's common knowledge that we're firm ("nazi", "anal", "mature", "elitist", whatever floats your boat) in our policies. That pisses off a lot of people, but we're OK with that. It's always been the price we pay for doing things the way we want them done, in our little space. We don't design to create the anger, but we don't design to solve it, either. Conventional wisdom suggests that such arms-crossed resolve is a good way to sit alone in your own empty server every night. Fortunately, we're blessed with a group who fills our server nightly and appreciates (each player has his own reasons) how we approach server administration.
<b>The one thing I want to highlight</b> is something we pride ourselves on. Like everything we do administratively, we're not perfect. But we go to great lengths to get one thing right: <b>cheat accusations</b>. We don't allow them publicly (not in the server (not say or say_team; admin_chat only), not in our IRC channel, not in our forum threads, not anywhere). Some very talented players enjoy TGNS, and its due largely to that very policy. They can come "pwn" in peace.
When we get a cheat accusation, privately, we take it very seriously. We're all adults with careers and daytime (and, often, nighttime) obligations, but cheat accusations go to the top of the list. We have server-side HLTV-recorded demos of every game on our servers, so we're dependent on no one's account of what happened.
There's a <a href="http://www.tacticalgamer.com/natural-selection-general-discussion/51701-what-not-allowed.html" target="_blank">rare example from April 2005</a> of my offering for public consumption an example of the investigative diligence that TGNS admins will typically give a cheat accusation (be sure to view the video file linked from the TG forum post). As with this example, "cheating" typically just turns out to be somebody getting fairly and genuinely bested by the better player, but our reviews of the false alarms complement the other education we have to reliably detect and quietly remove genuine cheaters who have been reported silently, without any drama (which we don't tolerate).
So, anyway, go somewhere else if you can't watch your mouth, or if you feel entitled to be selfish or childlike. We've got lots of nit-picky rules that we're quite fond of, so you've plenty of cause to play elsewhere if you can't agree with them. Otherwise, and especially if you're tired of your gameplay being regularly interrupted by accusations whose laughable novelty wear off after years of hearing the same things hurled at you, please see my sig, and enjoy.
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Mr. community and TG are the ONLY good servers left to play on these days. Sadly, I was banned for 2 months from TG (it wasn't aimbotting, 'insulting the admins'), I have to deal with playing on any other server I can find. (By the way, unban me from TG please <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" /> )
As for tactical gamer, I don't like being kicked for having my voice_enable set to 0.
the other large problem is that great players simply do make the game less fun for those that are bad at skulking. just try joining aliens half the time and don't spawn camp. building structures will also help.
as far as the sane servers go as long as you apologize and act courteous you'll get unbanned. if you say "you don't know anything about the game you scrub. i am not hacking!" then you'll just stay banned.
as long as you apologize and act courteous you'll get unbanned.
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never worked for me.
many of you compound this factor by stacking marines, res whoring and turning off voice. pub ns is a mainly social event.
the other large problem is that great players simply do make the game less fun for those that are bad at skulking. just try joining aliens half the time and don't spawn camp. building structures will also help.
as far as the sane servers go as long as you apologize and act courteous you'll get unbanned. if you say "you don't know anything about the game you scrub. i am not hacking!" then you'll just stay banned.
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Right, and I suppose you'll say we deserve it when those of us that do get banned all the time for hacking make a polite and courteous post saying, "I don't hack. The times in that demo that you think I'm hacking, I made this choice for this, this, and this reason" and get flamed for trying to hide the fact we're hacking.
The problem Veritas is pointing out is that there are very few NS servers that don't ban good players on sight. And out of those servers that are left, there's TG, where you get banned if you don't hear an admin asking you a question because you're busy skulking, fading, or idly chatting with someone on Ventrilo while you play, the Mr. server, which is the only server I can honestly say I don't have a problem with, and the <BAD> server, where the admins goad you into saying something stupid and ban you for it.
As to putting up our own pub server and playing there all the time, most of us simply don't have money to donate. Otherwise this would have been done a long time ago.
as far as the sane servers go as long as you apologize and act courteous you'll get unbanned.
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haha nice try
The admins of the bad servers you visit a) don't read this forum
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<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?s=736153589878972160&showtopic=99920&st=0&p=1600369&#entry1600369" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index....p;#entry1600369</a>
Sure, it can be annoying to be kicked or banned for something that isn't you fault, totally untrue, etc But at the end of the day, it is <i>their</i> server. I had my own server for a while, held 16 people. On my server, it was my rules, my decisions that mattered. If I kicked you for assumed cheating, (for example), that was that. Even if you weren't cheating in reality, it was my server. There are other servers to play on.
The only time this becomes a problem, is when you like specifics. For me, I like Combat only servers, low ping in the US, that don't run a ton of weird ###### maps, and have a nice variety of pluggins (xmenu, latejoin, buildmenu, etc). If you've seen the server list for 3.2, the potential list of servers that fill that niche wanting, is not a big list. So yea getting unjustly banned from those servers for some stupid reason, would suck. But chances are you play both ns_ and co_ so you have a much larger pool of servers to choose from, even if you are unjustly banned from a few.
If you dislike so many servers doing what you claim they do, start your own server. Run it your way, with your own rules, as you wish.
Sincerely,
ChimpZealot/Belligerent Beaver/Ted the Bug/Earth's Mightiest Mortal/Black Adam/CM3/civ fan #1
anyway, ns is dead. take a hint from the aus/nz competitive community and wait for NS2. its better than pubbing on terrible servers and waiting for those two other clans to finish scrimming each other.
and if you cant quit playing, only pub on tg or mrserver. those two are tolerable and you wont get skillbanned.
whilst i admit that i am not the best, and even though i played ns ever since it was released, i somehow cannot improve to what ppl have become, it really confuses me and frustrates me that i cant play a game and have fun because i get shot in what seems 3 hits with a pistol spammer or one shotted by a shotgunner, no matter which way i jump, dance, spin around the marine to try and make it harder to hit me, i still die..
being such a novice player i prefer to play against ppl my level than above my level because at least i can run around and not die the second i run out of the hive..
you wouldnt believe how many times i quit games due to being so ###### off because i cant even run 1 meter without dying in 1 second flat without any chance to react..
<b> Its not that we dont want to improve, its because you dont even give us a chance to.</b>
sure i am sure you enjoy making your kills 100-0 but when your a novice player, dying instantly and seeing your kills at 1-42 isnt fun and it definately doesnt motivate us much to get better because youve more or less kicked us in the gutts like a bully so we are too scared to leave the vents because we will die..
understand for us to see you playing like a god can be rather confusing and upsetting, most ppl call it cheating because you dont give them a chance to do anything, your too quick and you have faster systems, faster internet, hell even better speakers, not everyone can max their speakers out to hear every sound, not everyone has insanely fast internet speeds, so while your playing like a single player, others are playing like their computer has a tumor and has od'd on motor oil while spinning in circles screaming out "WTHbbqlag".
in the end i guess it isnt only skill , but also what you play with.. you cant learn to ride a horse good unless its a good horse to begin with, if the horse kicks and buck, then its only going to take you longer to improve.
Nice fix, eh? Now figure out how to get all of this info fed to a central location.... ... .. . <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
And while we're talking about servers here, I think OldF runs a great server. I can get consistently good games when there are a number of regulars playing.
Edit: DEPOT STOP TRYING TO KILL NS.