The Blacklist

[yoki]

Hi fellow wesnothers!
I play 4-8 games of wesnoth / day. When playing with unknown players atleast 50% of the games
are interrupted because people quit. I am talking about probably 3-4hrs of wasted time per day.
Since there are no mechanisms in the application to prevent such behaviour from users i today decided
(after playing 4 interrupted games in a row) that i will make a list of all users that quit on me for no valid reason.
I thought it perhaps could interest other people here as well so i keep my list in this thread.
Any addititions are welcome!

hhhhh - quit for no reason after 5 turns (well, could have guessed it with that nick)
zuki2 - mid-game quit when he went out of luck temporarily
nord - mid-game quit when he went out of luck temporarily
sha-kaan - mid-game quit when he went out of luck temporarily
- _EXODUX_ - behaviour unknown
roiner - mid-game quit when he went out of luck temporarily
sonymaxell - mid-game quit when he went out of luck temporarily
VIII - mid-game quit when he went out of luck temporarily
Hagbart_ - mid-game quit when he went out of luck temporarily


how to spot a quitter:

nickname is something along the lines of hhhhh/qwerty/jwqdpoq
writes in caps
usually doesnt respond to questions in the lobby with anything else than "GOGOGO"

how to avoid quitters:

check the blacklist
use the standard era
avoid game titles as "no quitters", "experienced players only" as it seems to attract quitters
spend a few minutes in the lobby before starting the game for some quick socializing
(people who dont have time to spend a minute or two in the lobby won't have time
to finish a game lasting longer than 20mins)

[spotUP]

hehe this list is a radical idea.
i am with you, it's really hard to find decent players. the 'good vibes' the devs are talking of doesn't exist.

ranked accounts is a sollution that i'd like. set up a specific server for this so that you can chose to play ranked or not.

another possible sollution would be a server for experienced well behaved non quitters, kind of a VIP server that you had to prove yourself to get invited to.

if nothing happens, i might write down a few names of rotten players here myself if only to remind myself who to kick without further notice.

making password protected / invite only games is a boring sollution, because in a (admittedly rare) good game of wesnoth, a big part of the fun is meeting new funny people from all over the world.

[dontano]

The server is populated with these kind of people which quit without saying anything else. The "go,go,go" feature before you start playing, is a way to recognize these people.
As for ranked accounts and so on... I think developers don't want to do a "selection" of each person, because it is awful and rubbish (this was widely discussed in the various developers' threads, though). Everyone is equal, with pair rights and duties.
However, here's another person who likes to screw the game often (1.3.x server branch):
- _EXODUX_, major jerk face and lord of all trolls.

[yoki]

there certainly are good vibes on the server and i meet lots of nice people.
however, the amount of childish/unmature users is large and is ruining the
game experience for experts as well as beginners. also since the quitters are
usually beginners all beginners suffers from their behavior since many average
players avoid beginners in order to avoid quitters. i don't have any problems playing
with someone playing the game for the first time, i enjoy to help new players
but i've started to avoid beginners in general because i dont want to waste my time
playing against people who stops playing when they are not winning the game.

a second stable server with email-registration might filter away some of the
sandbox-users..

[Mica]

The above is BWH.

[Akkarin345]

I think you shouldn't say all people who quit are always going to do that. As sometimes if my interenet feels the strain and has to prioritise what gets threw it normally shuts off wesnoth first. So it might look like i quit but i can't help it.

Also you don't know whats going to happen they might have a power cut etc. Just say when people arrive that they should have a spare 1/2 hour or something thats what i usually do.

[dontano]

If some one accidentally disconnects because of a power cut, or other reasons, the server clearly says that (ie. "PinkoPallino has disconnected" instead of "PinkoPallino has left the game"). I agree with the fact that childish players are really "infecting" the server by screwing all things up, but aside from that, their "potential" is limited by the countermeasures that the MP has to offer. They can be banned, muted and kicked, and that's all we can do to avoid them. In my opinion, we don't really need some drastic measures to avoid such trolls, simply because you can't know which kind of players you're facing off (or teaming up).
My only tip is to just avoid them. Nothing else. I know it's extremely annoying, but there's really not much we can do, aside from the solutions listed above.
Have a nice Wesnoth day.

[yoki]

@Akkarin345: it sometimes happens that a user is disconnected because of various things outside control
of the user like ISP problems/computercrash/whatever (everyone who played wesnoth has probably been
disconnected by such reason atleast onetime). usually though its generally easy to distinguish childish behaviour
from an accident. descent users usually return to the game (i usually play 2vs2 so when a user quits or disconnects
the other party is given the control and the game continues) within some minutes. once i played a game where this happened 8 times (!).

anyway, the nicknames i list here are only obvious quitters where there is no doubt that the user lacks respect for
other players time.

guide to distinguish a quitter from a disconnect:
* server says user >left< the game
* user quits right after a big loss or when he runned out of luck.
* user actually declares his quit before quitting to annoy the other parties even more (this happens, yes)
* user doesnt come back after disconnect

anyway, this blacklist won't mean that no-one is going to play those people since there are lots of players
not active on the forums and not aware of this thread. however, for us to which this is a serious problem
(players with >4 games / day on regular basis) this thread could perhaps make life a little less annoying

[Akkarin345]

guide to distinguish a quitter from a disconnect:
* server says user >left< the game
* user quits right after a big loss or when he runned out of luck.
* user actually declares his quit before quitting to annoy the other parties even more (this happens, yes)
* user doesnt come back after disconnect

Yeah they are the ones

[Jozrael]

I think it's much more polite to announce you're quitting so the other person isn't left in the lurch wondering if you're returning or not.

[Akkarin345]

Well if someone leaves 90% of the time they don't come back.

[A Guy]

another possible sollution would be a server for experienced well behaved non quitters, kind of a VIP server that you had to prove yourself to get invited to.

That seems pretty elitist to me.

[Jozrael]

Not to mention that once you gained access to it, what motivation is there to return to the regular server? It would bring the influx of new people in wesnoth to a standstill since they would only be playing those we deemed too immature to play with us.

[A Guy]

* server says user >left< the game

It is possible for an accident to occur that causes this (e.g. someone trips over your power cord or there's a spark, it's happened to me before)

* user quits right after a big loss or when he runned out of luck.

While I will not lie here, there have been some instances where I had to leave while I was losing a battle.

* user actually declares his quit before quitting to annoy the other parties even more (this happens, yes)

What is wrong with telling everyone else you have to leave? Sometimes I have to leave a game for a legitimate reason.

* user doesnt come back after disconnect

What if the game does not allow observers?

It's like the Salem witch trials all over again

[cretin]

servers are fine the way they are. no different from any other game i play, free or otherwise. always quitters, always leavers. at least in this game they can be replaced by observers if need be.