Need for Mods on the Xmage Servers

[Clarota]

Hey,
For a long time, the servers for Xmage have been a decent place to go. There were a couple people that would call names and what not, but recently there have been players that just verbally abuse people with some really mean stuff, spam the server with games, or both. I was hoping that there could be some moderators put in with the power to ban these types of people. It would really help out when these types of people emerge.

[Doctor Weird]

The problem with banning someone on XMage would be that it's very easy for them to get right back in. You ban their "account" and they just make a new one on the spot; you ban their IP and they just reset it and come back in a couple of minutes. And I can tell you from experience, once you start actually banning the bad apples on a server of a game you just end up enticing them into keep coming back and doing worse and worse to spite you. Then it just keeps escalating into a bigger and bigger group of more and more degenerate people eager to attack the server/community in worse and worse ways.

I'm not saying it's not already getting worse as the population of players grows, of course it is, I'm just giving my opinion that, the way I see it, good old moderators and admins "policing" the server wouldn't quite cut it and would just keep being a losing battle.

In the case of XMage it would probably be more efficient to apply preventive measures instead, which, while being yet another headache for the already small and overworked group of developers to work on, would still probably be a smaller hassle than just trying to "put out the fires" as they come up by throwing moderators at the problem.

People spam? Add spam blocking measures to the chats and game tables where needed.
Harassment? Ways to block other users could help.
Someone playing/watching a game is being a general nuisance? A vote kick system might be worth considering, with consideration for its possible abusive usage, of course.

In general, I think it's better to work on reinforcing the walls rather than trying to cover up the holes as people make them. Preventive measures instead of punitive ones.

I'm not saying I'm completely against moderation, I'm saying it probably won't solve much of the problem and will end up bringing some of its own. But hey, that's just my own two cents, others should give their opinion about it too, and I hope they do, posting bug reports is good and all but I feel so much more could be improved if people showed some more interest and got involved in here.

[Clarota]

Oh yea I completely understand that even with mods, those types of people can hop right back in. What I think would be helpful would be preventative measures. Something like only being able to have two or so games open so people cant do this (picture) when they throw a hissy fit. Stuff like that would just make it harder for people to mess up the server.

[Hocari2]

I second this and for the same reason Clarota posted.

Everyone who frequently plays on the NA server knows that Jace_Bearelan AKA manbearpig is a troll.

He consistently

1) spams the Game List with multiple games open (see the screenshot provided by OP)

2) harasses other players with sexual/racial slurs

Adding moderators might not keep him or other problematic players off the server, but at least it will reduce the harm they do. Kicking/Banning a player will impede a troll's ability to flood the game list.

As of this post, he now has 50+ games open.

[escplan9]

Sounds reasonable we should at least find a way to limit the amount of open tables (not yet started) one can create. I'm looking into what needs to be done to enforce something like this and discussing it with the other developers here.

[LevelX]

Strange, what kind of people do exist.

We won't make the effort to moderate the servers. No time for this and no tools for this.
So we better use the time to develop functions the user can better handle that kind of situations.

Is think about the following functions to improve the situation:
1) Limit tables a user can create
Limit the number of match tables that can be opened from a user (1-100 played matches = 1, > 100 Matches =2)
Limit the number of tournament tables that can be opened from a user (1-100 played tournament matches = 1, > 100 Tournement Matches = 2)

2) Ignore list
A user specific ignore list, where you can add users to you want to ignore. So no chat messages or tables of the ignored user will be shown for you. The ignored users can't join tables or watch games the ignoring user had created.

[escplan9]

Those new proposed functions would be great.

[DemonicSei]

I'd like to add my voice to this. He did it again this morning.
Please, we need to do something about it.

As of this post, he now has 50+ games open... again!

I second this and for the same reason Clarota posted.

Everyone who frequently plays on the NA server knows that Jace_Bearelan AKA manbearpig is a troll.

He consistently

1) spams the Game List with multiple games open (see the screenshot provided by OP)

2) harasses other players with sexual/racial slurs

Adding moderators might not keep him or other problematic players off the server, but at least it will reduce the harm they do. Kicking/Banning a player will impede a troll's ability to flood the game list.

As of this post, he now has 50+ games open.

[Clarota]

I feel like those sorts of features would be fantastic. Without the ability to open so many games, his tantrums wouldn't really hurt anyone besides who he tries to single out.

[escplan9]

When the next version of XMage is released, there will be table limitations added. More details upon finalization at release of the next version. Thanks for the input everyone.

[Clarota]

Great! I'm really glad you guys listen to your playerbase