What is wrong with the community? I need ideas.

[wolfreak_99]

Okay, now please bare with me i haven't done much skimming on the forums, but I am currently busy with a couple of features. But I have noticed that there is something I can't help but shake and am concerned about.

Before we had the system that helped with remembering permissions if you left and came back, there were more servers up. The community seemed more alive. Yes, people were frustrated about the lack of controls and authentication for networking; permissions were forgot if you left and came back, there were impersonators with no easy way to tell who was who, and people could only be kicked and not banned. The trolling was pretty big and people were frustrated about the seemingly absent control over them. I resorted to an ip based banning /autogrouping version for my server, and i remember being able to leave the server up for many hours after populating a few mods and banning some trolls. But then janisozaur came in and implemented the hash based authentication which made its way to the official build. This was/is not as easy to bypass like ip bannings. This solved the problem with peoples permissions being forgot. it also helped with impersonations to a degree. But lately i notice that it feels the liveliness of the community is dieing.

at about 6pm EST (along with various other days) i was looking at the server list. about 80% of the servers are password protected, and the only public ones are dedicated website hosts with about 2 or 3 people online. It seems that lately there is no active / personal servers. I'm concerned about this. 

I want to hear any and all reasons, ideas, brainstorms, anything, on why this community is slowly dwindling. What will help bring this community back to the liveliness? (I am aware that people can grow old with a game and move on, i'm not wanting to focus on that right now. i want to focus on features or problems with the multiplayer liveliness)

[cascadia]

A way to keep relatively good trolls around and let them troll while still being constructive is to have a trolling server while trolls and anyone else can do whatever they want (I've opened one a few times, and people seem to like it).  When they want to be constructive, they can (and do) join other servers.  A trolling server provides an outlet for people to troll if they feel like it, and keeps them on board because without one, they feel too constrained by rules on other servers.

[ziscor]

I've seen this plenty of times and the short answer might be: everyone has burned out. I remember losing all interest because of playing nothing but RCT, and it forced me to try other games which was good. Now, I don't know if it is the exact case, but if you ask me I haven't seen many familiar faces on Multiplayer these days. If not the entire game, people can even get tired by the Multiplayer aspect in specific (like I did).

Another possibility is that duty has called upon them. Most folk that play (okay not most) OpenRCT2 are college students who are likely having more assignments and papers to submit these days. 

For both possibilities the easy answer is to wait things out. Since the community is very small still, a lot of people burn out or have work at the same time, which means they'll also come back at their own pace instead. 

If you have any interest in making a Server, please do. We still have lots of people playing (if not familiar faces for the most part). Maybe people are simply afraid of the trolls like cascadia suggested.

[Broxzier]

With the online community you mean? I wouldn't call it a community, most of them are just random players not taking part in any groups. With the groups that there are (forums, gitter, steam) I don't think there's much of a problem.

To make online more fun, I suggest a tool to easily add and edit trusted users for online games, and that people can share their public key somewhere.

[Nubbie]

Too many public servers nowadays need registration on a 3rd party site and/or are too strict

[newton27]

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Edited August 15, 2016 by newton27
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[SensualEthiopianPolice]

I blame the liberal media

[dVoo]

Currently, there are too many people who delight in ruin the game for other players. I find it pathetic. It starts with insults, continues with slander, goes on with trolling and finally the beautiful grief (either obviously a large area or only individual tiles)

It is currently not possible to operate a public server. Registration solves the problems not really. Reduces only frequency. I had already griefers on my servers with registration. The behave properly for 1-2 days ... next day I went online and everything was destroyed. As a server operator I don't want to waste another hour again every day, just to pick out save without the grief. -> Simply lacks the ability to undo a player's change.

If not all was destroyed, users 'll diligently build further. -> That they aren't happy when I load an older save file, should be clear.

The hash system brings as little as an ip ban. (based on public servers). Both can be regenerated with a few clicks. 

Edited June 14, 2016 by dVoo

[cascadia]

1 minute ago, dVoo said:

Currently, there are too many people who delight in ruin the game for other players. I find it pathetic. It starts with insults, continues with slander, goes on with trolling and finally the beautiful grief (either obviously a large area or only individual tiles)

It is currently not possible to operate a public server. Registration solves the problems not really. Reduces only frequency. I had already griefers on my servers with registration. The behave properly for 1-2 days ... next day I wen online and everything was destroyed. As a server operator I don't want to waste another hour again every day, just to pick out save without the grief. -> Simply lacks the ability to undo a player's change.

If not all was destroyed, users 'll diligently build further. -> That they aren't happy when I load an older save file, should be clear.

The hash system brings as little as an ip ban. (based on public servers). Both can be regenerated with a few clicks. 

We need a centralized registration system (that's optional for server owners) for multiplayer accounts on the OpenRCT2 website.  I know that some people don't want that, but that's why I suggest that it's optional.

[ziscor]

31 minutes ago, SensualEthiopianPolice said:

I blame the liberal media

I blame immigrants.

@cascadia I agree.

[newton27]

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Edited August 15, 2016 by newton27
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[Nubbie]

I think I'll stick to the project for a long while but not playing it :U 

[YoloSweggLord]

I agree with Ziscor, I haven't been on in a while simply because I'm feeling burnt out.

I used to run my servers a lot, but I kinda stopped doing that a while ago. Even with my server labeled as realism, I still dealt with many people who came to my server simply because there were no other good servers up, or who thought they were good at realism but really weren't. It was a hassle trying to deal with those types of people while still trying to keep an open eye out for realistic masterminds. Strangely tho I didn't really have any problems with trolls, other than nicman pestering me for perms or spam joining my server with loop codes, which really took the fun out of hosting.

[kylehudgins]

Here's a couple of ideas I think could help improve the multiplayer experience:

• High scores for the parks in the menus.
• A buddy system with messaging.
• The ability to see who's made a ride or path (just some text at the bottom of the screen when you hover over an item with a username would suffice).
• Auto-save with an ability to go back incrementally.
• A leader-board which shows the profitability of each individuals contributions (friendly competition!). 
• The ability to distribute sections out in chunks to different users by an admin.
• The ability to link your park with a friends via monorail while preserving how peeps spawn.

btw: I just want to say I love what you guys are up to. I'm 23 and growing up RCT/RCT2 were my favorite games so OpenRCT2 has been really cool and I appreciate it.

Edited June 23, 2016 by kylehudgins

[imlegos]

15 hours ago, kylehudgins said:

Auto-save with an ability to go back incrementally.

Already exists.

15 hours ago, kylehudgins said:

A leader-board which shows the profitability of each individuals contributions (friendly competition!). 

Most servers run in No Cash, so not really needed.

 

15 hours ago, kylehudgins said:

The ability to distribute sections out in chunks to different users by an admin.

Sort of like Sim City 2000 Network Edition.

 

15 hours ago, kylehudgins said:

The ability to link your park with a friends via monorail while preserving how peeps spawn.

Not anytime soon.

[ledust]

no worries I'm back guys

[Nubbie]

Seem like it has shifted a bit upwards again the couple months that has passed, presume the player statistics are 'like a roller coaster' ;p

[HookerHeels]

A good way to sort out griefers is to join the community on here too. Theres many of us that are well known and we know we're all good players. Also, for the sake of someone 'using someones name,' thats exactly why I made the ORCT2 Discord. Its a way that requires registering and is easy to find out whose on a server. "Zis, are you playing on XXXX?" Makes it simple.

[dartz]

Apologies for the bump but the reason so many servers do not allow you to join without a password or without being approved is simply because of the amount of trolls in OpenRCT2 online. There are designated "trolling" groups which go onto servers just to ruin and destroy everything and in fact I think griefers almost outnumber legitimate players. Since my server keeps frequent backups of my park and I have a banning system in place this is mostly not an issue for me. But that is really the reason there are so many people who protect their servers - because they do not have time to monitor the server to make sure nobody messes it up. 

I am thinking of maybe creating a database of trolls for server admins to utilize so they can ban the well known griefers/trolls from their server which will in turn make people less afraid of hosting an unpassworded server.

Edited October 10, 2016 by dartz

[imlegos]

It's not a group, it's a single guy with multiple instances running, it is also not Nicman, whom he claims to be as Nicman himself has joined the forums to discuss this. My best idea for keeping a public server open is to have it open only when someone is watching the server (who has player group and kicking capabilities). I've been playing around the servers, and I know of the exact thing you're talking about as I was there when it was happening, though under a different name that I use for scouting things out.

Edited October 10, 2016 by imlegos

[Katie]

I believe having 4chan style "tripcode" user authentication would help deal with a lot of user impersonation and trolling. I believe it would be fairly easy to implement, too.

[Nubbie]

6 hours ago, Katie said:

I believe having 4chan style "tripcode" user authentication would help deal with a lot of user impersonation and trolling.

Servers are often run independent from eachother which would generate different hashes (as I understand it) to each server which wouldn't stop impersonating as the user could still be someone else, especilly if the user with that username haven't joined. The update where permissions get saved kinda act that way