I don't know where all this is coming from. How likely is it that the game terminates abruptly while engaged in PVP combat? And then you get a message which may be nice and polite.
Add a message / warning for task-kill combat logging commanders on next start-up
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I don't know where all this is coming from. How likely is it that the game terminates abruptly while engaged in PVP combat? And then you get a message which may be nice and polite.
This is p2p, I can use some software to pull your IP address from the connection, not difficult at all, I can then run a DOS attack against your IP address, disconnecting you whenever I want, and along comes an email or in game message calling you a bad boy! There's a Law, or should be at least "any available method to harass other players will get used." All you are doing is giving is giving trolls weapons to harass people outside the game.
I am not against some method being used to control combat logging, but if it's going to be punishment or harassment by email or in game message then it needs to be 100% accurate otherwise all FDEV are asking for is a lawsuit they can't win. You can't stop Clogging by punishing people, all you do is drive people away from the game.
You don't even need that
Please don't - that's illegal in many parts of the world and only leads to trouble.
Now, making your $30 printer think it's running Elite - is a work of art
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Again, I'm talking about task kill, terminating the game process, like with Alt-F4. A disconnect would not show you that in-game message as I'm suggesting. If you'd manage to kill the game process remotely then FDev has bigger problems to deal with.
I get get the feeling that the impact and frequency of such an educational message gets a bit blown out of proportions here. If you have done nothing wrong then you have nothing to feel guilty about. And as Roybe said before, the message can be kept quite civil and polite.
You may indeed have the feeling, it's nice, isn't it?
However I also have a feeling - that you have absolutely no experience with a networking implementation and architecture pushed to a production environment. You can never trust the client. You can never assume that a client has task-killed, terminated it's process, or Alt-F4'd.
You are mistaken. And I'm not really sure what you are aiming at with your remarks about the client. I'm suggesting to detect any unclean shutdown of the game client during PVP combat and to display a reminder on next startup that process termination during PVP combat is against the rules, with some friendly and politically correct wording, of course.
No, that's a fallacy of immense proportions similar to the "if you have nothing to fear you have nothing to hide" fallacy.
There is no civil and polite way to accuse someone of cheating, which is in effect what you are doing. The very accusation itself is impolite and uncivil regardless of how it is worded.
And here we go again. Just today I had the game lock up on me and had to end it using task manager.
So basically if the game crashes during combat the player is breaking the rules? What possible rule could they be breaking if the client itself crashes during combat? You need to be 100% sure that the player themselves have deliberately ended the game to avoid defeat, ie: combat logged, because you are accusing someone of cheating. Posting the message that termination of game during combat is against the rules is an accusation of cheating, so you better be 100% sure you they are combat logging and not just had a game or PC crash. Why do you think FDEV are so cautious about it, it only takes one person to take offense to being accused of cheating to end up in court.
Just last night I had to kill the game task.
I was stuck in a hyperjump - the game client had obviously lost communication with Frontier's back-end server and I was in a hyperjump tunnel which was never-ending.
Pressing the escape key does nothing during hyperjump, and after giving the game more than enough time to re-establish communications it became apparent that the only route left to me was to "hyperlog".
It would have been highly annoying if the game then accused me of combat-logging, just because the game had b0rked on me.
So, a polite no to this suggestion, OP. It's predicated on an assumption of guilt on the part of the player, and in a P2P+back-end-server based game like this, this assumption can't be made.
I was stuck in a hyperjump - the game client had obviously lost communication with Frontier's back-end server and I was in a hyperjump tunnel which was never-ending.
Pressing the escape key does nothing during hyperjump, and after giving the game more than enough time to re-establish communications it became apparent that the only route left to me was to "hyperlog".
It would have been highly annoying if the game then accused me of combat-logging, just because the game had b0rked on me.
So, a polite no to this suggestion, OP. It's predicated on an assumption of guilt on the part of the player, and in a P2P+back-end-server based game like this, this assumption can't be made.
While you could certainly include a flag file in the game implementation that is deleted as part of a graceful exit, or could, theoretically, parse the Software Event Logs for a graceful termination message and generate the message when that doesn't occur, neither of those will tell you WHY the software terminated ungracefully. By their very nature, neither of those methods are going to be able to determine what led to a sudden termination.
The game cannot make a log entry for an ungraceful shutdown, and Windows won't care. I cannot speak to your request in the consoles, but in Windows, you are taking a, Guilty, period, mindset because you cannot prove innocence.
The point being, you want to put a message into the game harassing the player for combat logging when you cannot prove that is what happened, and it IS harassment that you want, no matter how much you emphasize "politeness". Hence the earlier comment about police armed with grenade launchers.
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Rather than accusing them of Clogging it might be more appropriate to request that players that have regular "unexpected interruptions to internet service" that it would be a good idea to check their internet connections for issues. Or, for everyone, rather than just the planetary/shader generation screens have a bunch of tips come up while the game is preparing itself. Tips that will politely hint towards certain situations more often if it is noticed that the majority of these "unexpected interruptions" happen in said situations.
Look at it from the other side and try to come up with a message that is non-accusing; I'm sure you can come up with something good.
Did you PVP at the time?
The message should educate you that deliberate game termination during PVP combat is against the rule.
That's not PVP combat, so no message.
It all depends on how you phrase the message in my opinion, it does not need to feel harassing.
Not a bad idea.
Such message should not be felt as a threat.
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To everyone: Thanks for taking part in the discussion. I'd like to re-iterate that the proposed message would only pop up (in-game, next start-up) after ungraceful game termination during Player-versus-Player combat. Do you PVP? If you only do PVE then you never see the message. If you PVP occasionally then there is a very slim chance that the game crashes on you while in PVP combat. If you PVP a lot and are not a combat logger then chances are still slim but then you will probably welcome that such a message is shown.
So, combining your two statements, I, again, reiterate that, if you get this message and you are not a combat logger, you are being harassed because it is accusing you of something you did not do. You can claim that politeness will mitigate that, but the fact of the matter is, YOU are not the person that determines whether an individual is being harassed. That right belongs to the person receiving the message. If I get that message and I am not a combat logger, then it is up to me, not to some person not playing MY game, whether I am being harassed.
Eodemos said if you don't engage in PvP, then it won't affect you.
So um... If that's the case, the problem must be people who attack traders then task-kill when it takes too long to kill them?
Because the trader didn't engage in PvP, so should be allowed to disconnect however they like.
It could be an easy fix. All the counters, timers, flags etc activate when you deploy hardpoints - thereby signifying your intent to fight... Otherwise you're free to log. Simplez
So um... If that's the case, the problem must be people who attack traders then task-kill when it takes too long to kill them?
Because the trader didn't engage in PvP, so should be allowed to disconnect however they like.
It could be an easy fix. All the counters, timers, flags etc activate when you deploy hardpoints - thereby signifying your intent to fight... Otherwise you're free to log. Simplez
Let's wait for varonica's message draft and go from there.
Haha. No. The FDev sanctions way to get out of those situations is menu-log; task-kill is against the rules. Anyhow, a message doesn't affect you (other than educate you) so there is no disadvantage in game. If the karma system comes along then, message or not, you'd lose some karma though.
WOW, another thread. How about this....YES, combat logging is bad. DONT DO IT!! NOW, sit back and wait till FDEV does something about it THEN if they don't either...
1. Play on and accept the fact they're not going to fix it.
2. Stop playing and supporting their game.
3. Take the combat log as a WIN and move on.
Think about it...there are tons of CLOG threads with ideas, and suggestions and even better, TESTS of the system to see if their paying attention. STILL, nothing concrete has happened. What good will another thread do!?!
1. Play on and accept the fact they're not going to fix it.
2. Stop playing and supporting their game.
3. Take the combat log as a WIN and move on.
Think about it...there are tons of CLOG threads with ideas, and suggestions and even better, TESTS of the system to see if their paying attention. STILL, nothing concrete has happened. What good will another thread do!?!
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While we are waiting for varonica's message draft, let me give it a go. A message shown somewhere on the right of the main menu could sound like: "It looks like the game did not shutdown cleanly during a recent encounter with other commanders. Please report any problems you may have experienced. Note that game termination through means other than regular logout should be avoided and is against the rules."
To answer your question, yes, I would accept if such a message was shown even after a game crash during PVP combat.