First way: Be a troll and votekick the people trying to votekick you. This one's only if you don't care about how childish you will seem.

Second way: This one stems from an earlier thread on griefing and a wonderful word called schadenfreude, which describes please gained from causing others distress. Kaede-Chan pointed to this as a motive for griefing, but some other people objected and said that wasn't the case at all. Here's a chance to prove her wrong.

Enter a server hosting a map you wish to grief. I recommend the SuperCool building server, there's a lot of elaborate structures to destroy. Press [F1] to save the map to your computer.

Now take that map and host your own server running that map. Title the server something appropriate for the occasion, like "<yourname>'s Free Grief" and open it to the public. You may now destroy things for the sheer hell of it without causing anyone else undue distress. If you host with PySpades, you can godmode people so that they'll never run out of ammunition or grenades, for a really fun time breaking stuff into small pieces.

Somehow this has never caught on... which is why I agree with Kaede. Still, the idea is out there, so if you ever really just want to blow stuff up, there is a way to do that without being a complete jerk.

After hearing suggestions for many new ways to prevent trolls, griefing, etc, some good, some bad, I gave up and am now shouting from the rooftops the real way to stop the skiddies from ruining your server.

They're called admins. They're actual people who actually supervise things. They can make calls better than any software, assess a situation more accurately, and they're harder to abuse than a public votekick.

However, most server hosts don't monitor their servers very well. This is a problem. Some hosts check on their servers frequently or maintain their presence (or save and close servers when they're away) to keep things under control, and their servers are consistently the best I've been on. It's crucial to hosting a good server that you keep an eye on things to destroy the trolls and protect the people that just want to play a fun game without constantly having to votekick Deuces.

The only feature for vanilla AoS server software that REALLY needs to be implemented is a way for server hosts to appoint admins, and possibly moderators, with the power to kick and ban at will (or just kick and tempban, in the case of moderators). The exact features would need some consideration (can all admins make admins, or only the host? What about making moderators? Could other mods do it or not?), but the overall idea would go a long way to making a better game experience.

All a host would need to do is gather up a friend or two, give them the appropriate powers, and start a server up. This would also strengthen the community (players that have gained a positive reputation might end up moderators on a plethora of servers, meaning that they can play in a bunch of different places and still remain helpful to the other players. If every single member of the AoS community who was trustworthy enough for the job was given it, griefers wouldn't stand a chance. They'd be kicked by five people at once) a bit overall. Servers could potentially have a moderator or admin online at all times, making things very hard indeed for griefers.

So hosts, PLEASE supervise your servers better, and Ben, can we get a feature like this? The system doesn't even require registration to work... server hosts could set a password a la PySpades.

>For KV6 Files and mods.<
A guide to mods, in brief.
( http://ace-spades.com/forums/topic.php?id=2340#post-28851 )

>Hosting Servers?<
When you're using Pyspades, the command list can taunt you! Heres a helpful page from the PySpades guys.
( http://code.google.com/p/pyspades/w/list )

Portforwarding is important, too. Here is a small step guide to hosting.
( http://ace-spades.com/forums/topic.php?id=860#post-8638 )

This is another guide here on the forums.
( http://ace-spades.com/forums/topic.php?id=2025#post-24101 )

>For editing and generating new maps.<
First of all, there is a WIKI post with some good insight to the process but its really just to help you start.
( http://aceofspadeswiki.com/index.php?title=Mapping )

-Nothings made some neat map generation tools and they are here, on his forum post. They make some cool scenarios! But i haven't had many chances to see them hosted.
( http://ace-spades.com/forums/topic.php?id=803#post-8004 )

-VOX-Ed can be a little bit of a pain. Try this out if you want to change a few things about the operations. This is Voxed Companion, a tool to work with Voxed.
( http://ace-spades.com/forums/topic.php?id=759#post-7487 )

-Oh and if you haven't got a hold of Slab6 yet, here is a post for it.
( http://ace-spades.com/forums/topic.php?id=69#post-3309 )

-There is also a whole other forum, full of things to look at. This is a peek into the maps and mods section.
( http://ace-spades-community.com/viewforum.php?f=11 )

-Hey, don't forget we have a Search feature here on the forums!
Its where i get all my smarts.
( http://ace-spades.com/forums/search.php )

Don't be a deuce, guys! I'll add and rewrite over time, i'm sure.

I cant seem to host a server anymore. last week, I had a bridgewars server that worked completely fine. But now, whenever I try to start a server, it says 'disconnected from master server' after a minute, and my server never shows up on the list.

The problem is, I haven't changed ANYTHING. My ports are still forwarded, and I have no idea what to do. I'm just trying to host a normal server, no pyspades involved.

I hope I explained my problem clearly.

As a server host, I expect server programs to be functional.

Here are some issues with the current server program that should be first priority in fixing, before adding more gameplay features.

1. There is no way to save and then resume a map as a server. The only way to do so is to save it from clientside by pressing F1, then uploading to the server. The server should constantly be keeping a save of its map, in case it crashes for whatever reason.

2. You cannot host more than one server from a computer. I might be missing something, but there appears to be no way to host more than one server from a dedicated server without getting an error. I have 8 IP addresses so if I could, I would.

3. If your server loses internet connection for more than a few seconds, then your AoS server will no longer show up on the server list. The only way to fix this is to manually restart the server, thereby also losing your saved map. The server program should attempt to reconnect to the master server. Every other server program does this.

These are just a few things that I think must be changed in order to make server hosting viable.

I've done all of that port forwarding stuff.
But the server.exe says "Malformed http response".
(Yes, I wan't someone to say "BLAH BLAH BLAH HURR DURR DERP." lol)

I hope this reaches whoever is in charge of the main website (ace-spades.com).

This is not a spam or an ad, as I'm in no way affiliated with the service I'm about to recommend, but I have a strong feeling that this game will become highly popular, bringing the site down more and more often. :-)

So, for now I'd use a service like CloudFlare (http://www.cloudflare.com) as in addition to providing a CDN (content delivery network) they also provide security against DDoS attacks and such. Even if your main server hosting the website is down, it'll still stay "visible" to everyone else, as it's being mirrored in a ton of other locations/countries. :-)

Anyway, that's just my two cents, hope you can continue on working this game until it's complete!

Okay I don't get this... I have a VPS which costs 40€ / month and is MADE for hosting. It runs windows SERVER 2008. Why the F can't I host this game on there? I'm hosting a minecraft and a teamspeak server just fine, but when hosting ace of spades, no one can connect.
This pisses me off immensly

I even completely switched off the firewall, did not help...