1 Topic by heinrich5991

  • heinrich5991
  • heinrich5991
  • Moderator / Donor
  • Offline

Topic: What constitutes a "pure" server?

Due to the recent development of client-side and econ bots, I think we need to discuss what constitutes a "pure" (vanilla) server.

I'm inclined to say that bots controlling a server (via econ) should be disallowed, and servers with client bots modified so they don't broadcast these bot clients for the server browser.

For the first part: I think that a permanent bot connected to the server is not much different (from the perspective of a player) from modifying the server code, or e.g. putting a proxy in front of the server that modifies the packets on-the-fly.

Second part: We've established a so-long unwritten rule that servers may only broadcast real players in the server browser. I think it would only be consistent if we forbid broadcasting permanent client bots.

What do you think?

2 Reply by Dune

  • Dune
  • Dune
  • Moderator
  • Offline

Re: What constitutes a "pure" server?

  • I agree that Non Player Characters should not be broadcasted to the server list.

  • To me, a server is pure if there are 0 noticeable differences with a vanilla server (no modified gameplay, no killing streaks...)

Not Luck, Just Magic.

3 Reply by wappsify

  • wappsify
  • wappsify
  • Donor
  • Offline

Re: What constitutes a "pure" server?

Would using an external tool to send server messages via the econ every now and then and other similar things make the server modified in your opinion? Where do you draw the line?
What if client bots are being run on a server, but not by the owner? Should it be the responsibility of the server host to make sure all of the players are real players? I do not think that is a viable approach and it would be nigh impossible to ever enforce such policy as with the more advanced client bots its very hard to distinguish them from real players.
On the other hand, if a server uses these client bots excessively just to push it to the top of the server list, I do think something should be done against that.
Funny, just a few days ago i thought about trying to write a little tool to control a vanilla server via the econ without actually having to use the econ, some sort of GUI, through which you could automate some tasks.
Interesting topic.

burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me.

4 Reply by Oy

  • Oy
  • Developer
  • Offline

Re: What constitutes a "pure" server?

A "pure" server is an unmodified official release or trunk version - rest is irrelevant.

The rule about the current player count always has been to show the number of actual connected clients and to indicate the maximum number of players that are able to join for the max-value.

Remember the 80s - good times smile

5 Reply by heinrich5991

  • heinrich5991
  • heinrich5991
  • Moderator / Donor
  • Offline

Re: What constitutes a "pure" server?

Oy wrote:

A "pure" server is an unmodified official release or trunk version - rest is irrelevant.

The rule about the current player count always has been to show the number of actual connected clients and to indicate the maximum number of players that are able to join for the max-value.

I feel like this rule isn't effective.

Let's take a step back. Why is there such a rule? It's because some servers with vanilla gametype showed different behavior than the official ones. To the players, it's pretty much irrelevant whether that comes from 1) modified server code 2) connected bots or 3) a reverse proxy for the teeworlds server, and it's not just irrelevant, but also indistinguiashable. That means that anyone could claim that they're just running a teeworlds server with a reverse proxy and run DDRace on CTF.

Again, why did we create the rule about number of players? It was not because players are specifically interested in the protocol and wonder how many network connections the server has – but rather about how many other players are on the server. I don't see why we would treat server-side bots any different from client-side bots in that regard, again, that's the same experience for players, what happens "in the code" is pretty much invisible.

6 Reply by Oy

  • Oy
  • Developer
  • Offline

Re: What constitutes a "pure" server?

heinrich5991 wrote:

Why is there such a rule?

Because there used to be no custom gametypes. With 0.5 custom gametypes were introduced and this rule to force people to use a non-standard gametype for their modified server. So player wouldn't report bugs and such which are linked to mods and waste development time any longer.
And second of all to have an indicator for standard gameplay and to show new players what teeworlds is about.

heinrich5991 wrote:

To the players, it's pretty much irrelevant whether that comes from 1) modified server code 2) connected bots or 3) a reverse proxy for the teeworlds server, and it's not just irrelevant, but also indistinguiashable.

The gameplay of a pure server can't be altered.

heinrich5991 wrote:

That means that anyone could claim that they're just running a teeworlds server with a reverse proxy and run DDRace on CTF.

That would just be a fake server entry and hijacking the sesssion and would also lead to a ban. Already had that 5-6 years back.

heinrich5991 wrote:

Again, why did we create the rule about number of players?

Like I said, to show the number of actual connected clients and to indicate the maximum number of players that are able to join for the max-value. As there used to be fake players(dummies, get on top in the server list, reserved slots...).

heinrich5991 wrote:

I don't see why we would treat server-side bots any different from client-side bots in that regard, again, that's the same experience for players, what happens "in the code" is pretty much invisible.

Server-sided bots are clearly linked to a server and could gain much more information as a "usual" client could get. Client-bots on the other hand have a various range from aim to hook, semi-auto and full-automatic bots and they're not explicitly linked to a server as they can join any server with the server hosters permission or not.

Remember the 80s - good times smile

7 Reply by heinrich5991

  • heinrich5991
  • heinrich5991
  • Moderator / Donor
  • Offline

Re: What constitutes a "pure" server?

Just addressing two points right now:

Oy wrote:
heinrich5991 wrote:

To the players, it's pretty much irrelevant whether that comes from 1) modified server code 2) connected bots or 3) a reverse proxy for the teeworlds server, and it's not just irrelevant, but also indistinguiashable.

The gameplay of a pure server can't be altered.

Yes, it can: Take a reverse proxy that does nothing but alter the snapshots messages. But why would it even interest the player how things are coded – It doesn't. Why make a difference when there is no difference for the player?

Oy wrote:
heinrich5991 wrote:

I don't see why we would treat server-side bots any different from client-side bots in that regard, again, that's the same experience for players, what happens "in the code" is pretty much invisible.

Server-sided bots are clearly linked to a server and could gain much more information as a "usual" client could get. Client-bots on the other hand have a various range from aim to hook, semi-auto and full-automatic bots and they're not explicitly linked to a server as they can join any server with the server hosters permission or not.

However, when they're linked to a server, I propose to make the obey the normal serverbrowser rules.


Can you tell me why you want to make a difference for things that aren't differences from the point of view of a player?

8 Reply by Oy

  • Oy
  • Developer
  • Offline

Re: What constitutes a "pure" server?

These rules are mainly there to make the teams life easier - time is limited.

heinrich5991 wrote:
Oy wrote:
heinrich5991 wrote:

To the players, it's pretty much irrelevant whether that comes from 1) modified server code 2) connected bots or 3) a reverse proxy for the teeworlds server, and it's not just irrelevant, but also indistinguiashable.

The gameplay of a pure server can't be altered.

Yes, it can: Take a reverse proxy that does nothing but alter the snapshots messages. But why would it even interest the player how things are coded – It doesn't. Why make a difference when there is no difference for the player?

The pure server provides no features to alter the gameplay. And if it doesn't behave as a pure server - which is the only way to determine - it will result in a ban.
With the econ-thing server hosters are limited to features the official server provides and it was explicitly done to give them more administrative possibilities without having to modify the server.

heinrich5991 wrote:
Oy wrote:
heinrich5991 wrote:

I don't see why we would treat server-side bots any different from client-side bots in that regard, again, that's the same experience for players, what happens "in the code" is pretty much invisible.

Server-sided bots are clearly linked to a server and could gain much more information as a "usual" client could get. Client-bots on the other hand have a various range from aim to hook, semi-auto and full-automatic bots and they're not explicitly linked to a server as they can join any server with the server hosters permission or not.

However, when they're linked to a server, I propose to make the obey the normal serverbrowser rules.

How to prove that they're linked to a server?
What if they just remove the note from the server name? Deny it?
Should server hosters be forced to ban bots from their server?
Where does it stop? Full-bots? Aim-bots? Hook-bots?
Who should check all that stuff? Have all these useless discussions?
Nobody has time for that nonsense...

Remember the 80s - good times smile

9 Reply by Dune

  • Dune
  • Dune
  • Moderator
  • Offline

Re: What constitutes a "pure" server?

Still, non-human clients should not sit on a server being broadcasted as players, right?
This drags a lot of people in, from the "has people playing" filter, and seems like unfair competition to other servers to me.

Not Luck, Just Magic.

10 Reply by Magnet

  • Magnet
  • Magnet
  • Developer
  • Offline

Re: What constitutes a "pure" server?

I agree with Oy. There are some pure servers with econ bots that broadcast some messages but it's harmless and the thing that matters most is that the ruleset isn't altered. Those who use econ bots are clearly trying to respect the purity rules and I don't know why it's a big deal. I remember some servers advertising as pure that were modded but you wouldn't notice before some time because the modding was subtle changes to the gameplay/ruleset: these kind of servers are the reason purity must be enforced, econ bots are not an issue.

11 Reply by Dune

  • Dune
  • Dune
  • Moderator
  • Offline

Re: What constitutes a "pure" server?

It's still unclear to me what's your take on the "should bots be broadcasted to the server list" issue, Magnet.

Not Luck, Just Magic.

12 Reply by Oy

  • Oy
  • Developer
  • Offline

Re: What constitutes a "pure" server?

Dune wrote:

Still, non-human clients should not sit on a server being broadcasted as players, right?

Well if they actually play the game it doesn't seem like a real issue. How about "human" players who doesn't play the game and are just being afk or chatting all the time? Worse?

Dune wrote:

This drags a lot of people in, from the "has people playing" filter, and seems like unfair competition to other servers to me.

True. That's already happening with the 64 player servers. They advertise fake player counts and have an unfair advantage over standard ones in the server browser.

Remember the 80s - good times smile

13 Reply by Dune

  • Dune
  • Dune
  • Moderator
  • Offline

Re: What constitutes a "pure" server?

Oy wrote:

True. That's already happening with the 64 player servers. They advertise fake player counts and have an unfair advantage over standard ones in the server browser.

Yes, and we've banned many servers for this.
Faking clients should not be allowed imo.

Not Luck, Just Magic.

14 Reply by Magnet

  • Magnet
  • Magnet
  • Developer
  • Offline

Re: What constitutes a "pure" server?

Dune wrote:

It's still unclear to me what's your take on the "should bots be broadcast to the server list" issue, Magnet.

My take is that it's up to the server admins to clear bots; if the server admin is the owner or accepts those bots, I suppose they are actually "playing". That's one thing to mod the server to increase a fake player count to encourage people to join, and another to have bots that are actually in-game, taking slots and "playing", even if they're not humans. And there are very few servers doing this, because playing with or against bots is actually very boring.

IMO it's not a deal big enough yet to change rules and start policing those servers. Those slots are indeed taken and having a look at the player list will show these are bots; most of the time the server description will advertise it's a server with bots. And finally, people ordering servers by player count can fortunately find a bunch of other servers with legit players. The "standard gametype only" list is not very polluted right now, so there's no rush. If TW on Steam becomes a thing and new players come and the list gets polluted, then it will be time to think about it.

15 Reply by Dune

  • Dune
  • Dune
  • Moderator
  • Offline

Re: What constitutes a "pure" server?

I understand your mindset on this, although I'm a bit afraid that it would be hard to change the rules when all the servers get used to broadcasting their bots.

As someone who's often looking for 2-6 player servers this is going to be a pain if this bot trend develops, but I guess I'll get used to watch out for some servers.

Not Luck, Just Magic.

16 Reply by Landil

  • Landil
  • Landil
  • Developer
  • Offline

Re: What constitutes a "pure" server?

Dune wrote:
Oy wrote:

True. That's already happening with the 64 player servers. They advertise fake player counts and have an unfair advantage over standard ones in the server browser.

Yes, and we've banned many servers for this.
Faking clients should not be allowed imo.

/sign

I think we've discussed this a couple of years ago on IRC.

Antoine de Saint Exupéry: It seems that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
Besides -  I am the gfx guy!

17 Reply by heinrich5991

  • heinrich5991
  • heinrich5991
  • Moderator / Donor
  • Offline

Re: What constitutes a "pure" server?

Oy wrote:
Dune wrote:

This drags a lot of people in, from the "has people playing" filter, and seems like unfair competition to other servers to me.

True. That's already happening with the 64 player servers. They advertise fake player counts and have an unfair advantage over standard ones in the server browser.

They don't have an unfair advantage, they advertise *less* players than they have.

18 Reply by Oy

  • Oy
  • Developer
  • Offline

Re: What constitutes a "pure" server?

heinrich5991 wrote:
Oy wrote:
Dune wrote:

This drags a lot of people in, from the "has people playing" filter, and seems like unfair competition to other servers to me.

True. That's already happening with the 64 player servers. They advertise fake player counts and have an unfair advantage over standard ones in the server browser.

They don't have an unfair advantage,

Of course they have.
When a server that plays by the book has 16 players it gets filtered by the "full server"-option. A 64 player server does not, shows 15 players and stays on top of the server browser.
20 players have to be divided on 2 regular servers (f.e. à 10 players) and one or both servers would show up down the list. While the 64 player server can handle all of them, shows 15 players and stays on top of the list.

heinrich5991 wrote:

they advertise *less* players than they have.

Yeah they advertise fake player counts. Doesn't matter if too much or too less - they're fake.

Remember the 80s - good times smile

19 Reply by Dune

  • Dune
  • Dune
  • Moderator
  • Offline

Re: What constitutes a "pure" server?

Oy wrote:

Of course they have.
When a server that plays by the book has 16 players it gets filtered by the "full server"-option. A 64 player server does not, shows 15 players and stays on top of the server browser.
20 players have to be divided on 2 regular servers (f.e. à 10 players) and one or both servers would show up down the list. While the 64 player server can handle all of them, shows 15 players and stays on top of the list.

That's a very good point (and an edgy one), but the server is indeed not full, so is that really abuse?
People that join 15/16 servers are expecting a not full crowded server imo, and that's what they get, isn't it?

Not Luck, Just Magic.

20 Reply by JonastheRoman

  • JonastheRoman
  • JonastheRoman
  • Member
  • Offline

Re: What constitutes a "pure" server?

Maybe it should be supported to show more than 16 players as the maximum, so the real player count can be shown?
I know that more than 16 players are not supported in TW normally, so I am not sure about this though...

Loving TW since 2010 smile

21 Reply by HeroiAmarelo

  • HeroiAmarelo
  • HeroiAmarelo
  • Member
  • Offline

Re: What constitutes a "pure" server?

I mean, even if the master servers/standard clients supported more than 16 players on the players list, servers with (as an example) 30 players would be on the top of the list.
It's not really unfair in any way. It's the only way to make 64p servers work correctly for the server list.

It's also not abusive.
If a 64p servers has 5 players on it, the server would show 5/16, not 15/16.

Playing Teeworlds since 2011!
"I will always be topless for you"
                  - Günther Branlutte

22 Reply by Baklava

  • Baklava
  • Member
  • Offline

Re: What constitutes a "pure" server?

An econ bot...
1) doesn't modify the source code (as you already know),
2) doesn't modify server memory during runtime, i.e. no use of debuggers like CheatEngine, no exploits of overflows to inject code, no reverse engineering at all,
3) doesn't modify the network raffic, actually it doesn't even care what protocol the server uses, which sets it a part from the reverse proxies you mentioned.

Therefore, I don't see any justification behind considering a server 'modified' just because an econ bot is connected to it. An econ bot makes use of the existing features without any hacks or workarounds. All the communication between the bot and the server can be done using pipes, probably one of the most expected  and used IPC methods on Unix systems. Just because an econ bot makes a server look modded doesn't mean it is actually modded. Yeah, things that are entirely different may look similar if you decide to look at them from a narrow angle you choose.

If you want my opinion, there is no point in tailoring new rules to disallow harmless things. But for now, the current rules, whether interpreted literally or in spirit, don't seem to disallow econ bots.

Now, regarding the pew-pew bots, I don't see a problem as long as the players know that this server is for bots before they enter. If it is mentioned in the server name, nobody will get deviced or misled by the number of players.

Just my two cents.

Meuhmeuhmeuh xD

23 Reply by Dune (edited by Dune 2015-07-15 20:27:13)

  • Dune
  • Dune
  • Moderator
  • Offline

Re: What constitutes a "pure" server?

Baklava wrote:

If you want my opinion, there is no point in tailoring new rules to disallow harmless things. But for now, the current rules, whether interpreted literally or in spirit, don't seem to disallow econ bots.

Now, regarding the pew-pew bots, I don't see a problem as long as the players know that this server is for bots before they enter. If it is mentioned in the server name, nobody will get deviced or misled by the number of players.

I disagree. Last week I was looking for a quick game on a not crowded CTF server, I filtered standard gametype, run a search, and didn't take time to decipher the server names, i just clicked one.
I loaded in, picked up some weapons, fought a player, realized it was a bot, hit TAB, and saw it was actually an effing empty server which I would never have joined if it didn't broadcast itself as non-empty. I was deceived, left, and had to look closely to filter out these servers.

Makes me think to implement a feature to locally ban a server from the server list, but that would be too clunky on the official client of course.

Edit: typos

Not Luck, Just Magic.

24 Reply by heinrich5991

  • heinrich5991
  • heinrich5991
  • Moderator / Donor
  • Offline

Re: What constitutes a "pure" server?

Baklava wrote:

An econ bot...
1) doesn't modify the source code (as you already know),
2) doesn't modify server memory during runtime, i.e. no use of debuggers like CheatEngine, no exploits of overflows to inject code, no reverse engineering at all,
3) doesn't modify the network raffic, actually it doesn't even care what protocol the server uses, which sets it a part from the reverse proxies you mentioned.

The player does not care about how it works technically, they just see a server with non-standard behavior advertising as a pure server.

25 Reply by Baklava

  • Baklava
  • Member
  • Offline

Re: What constitutes a "pure" server?

Dune wrote:

I disagree. Last week I was looking for a quick game on a not crowded CTF server, I filtered standard gametype, run a search, and didn't take time to decipher the server names, i just clicked one.
I loaded in, picked up some weapons, fought a player, realized it was a bot, hit TAB, and saw it was actually an effing empty server which I would never have joined if it didn't broadcast itself as non-empty. I was deceived, left, and had to look closely to filter out these servers.

I don't face this problem personally, but I see you have a point, and I admit that my argument about pew-pew bots is not as rigid as it should be. That's all what I can say about this matter right now.


heinrich5991 wrote:
Baklava wrote:

An econ bot...
1) doesn't modify the source code (as you already know),
2) doesn't modify server memory during runtime, i.e. no use of debuggers like CheatEngine, no exploits of overflows to inject code, no reverse engineering at all,
3) doesn't modify the network raffic, actually it doesn't even care what protocol the server uses, which sets it a part from the reverse proxies you mentioned.

The player does not care about how it works technically, they just see a server with non-standard behavior advertising as a pure server.

As I have said, rules can be applied literally or in spirit. If you take them literally, one has to consider some technical stuff, because the whole issue you are refering to is about terminology, i.e. whether (some server) is /pure/ or not. I don't see how we could discuss this without talking about the technical implementation. In my previous post, I said all what I have to show that econ bots literally don't void any rules.

But how about the spirit of the rules? Well, the features are limited to what the official client can do, and it doesn't affect the gameplay. There are no admin powers to go through walls, no tails with derpy hooves rainbows, no armor on the form of a 40's vehicle, none of that; just plain text broadcast that provides some stats, which can be done manually by someone who is fast enough like, say, Chuck Norris. Oh, wait! What if a server actually employs Chuck Norris? tongue

What I am trying to say is that the current rules neither prohibit nor even /discourage/ econ bots. And if we are going to tailor a rule against everything that some players dislike, we will end up with more rules than the grenades in a typical monster mod gameplay, assuming there are players who dislike econ bots to begin with.

Meuhmeuhmeuh xD