I was playing on "aloha uswest pinpoint" when a griefer came on the server. I initiated a votekick, as any responsible player should, and was shocked to see how few people actually bother voting. Even after 20 minutes when our entire side of the map was COMPLETELY flat, we couldn't kick him. Eventually, the entire map was flat and he started spamming blocks everywhere -- the whole server was ruined and everyone left. It was a disaster.

I made note of all of the problems I noticed with the current votekick system:

   ◘ A lot of players don't pay any attention to the chat, so when a votekick comes up they don't vote. This is a problem because it allows cheaters to continue ruining everyone else's fun with no fear of being kicked.

   ◘ Trolls use the votekick system to try to kick innocent players, and it is very difficult to identify who the troll is unless they make a typo while votekicking.

   ◘ Some players will vote for anything, even if the person they are voting against hasn't done anything. While their hyperactive voting is good for kicking cheaters, it's bad when trolls initiate false votekicks against innocent players.

   ◘ Some players maliciously ignore votekicks. They see the votekick and don't even bother to press 't' and type '/y' despite the pleas of their team mates. They can do this because there are no negative consequences for doing so.

   ◘ Often times players will initiate votekicks against cheaters but won't specify WHY they're votekicking. This causes confusion and a lot of the more cautious voters won't vote because they think that someone is abusing the votekick system.

   ◘ The votekick doesn't last long enough to be effective. Psyspades's time length is a lot more effective at kicking cheaters from the game.

   ◘ Newfags can't votekick.

I did a search and saw that there aren't any good votekick suggestions on the forums, so I made an attempt to address a lot of these problems.

http://minus.com/mdNV82o#1f

What do you guys think? I think I got everything covered (except for the newfags, but what can we do about those?). Do you guys think this will solve our votekicking woes or will this simply create more problems? Also, do you have any things you would like to add?

I think effort to control griefing is wasted until registration.
That is my 100% honest opinion.

Even with accounts, we will still need votekick.

Yes, I know that. Currently, votekicking and banning does absolutely nothing against the skiddies that just change their IP and jump back into the game.

OP used the search bar.
OP didn't post in General Gameplay.
OP has pictures.
You wins the internetz.

This is my take.

1. I'm kind of iffy about making votekicks not anonymous. If somebody does try to votekick a griefer, then said griefer will be able to see who's trying to kick them and start a kick against that person in retaliation.

2. Requiring a reason may or may not help. Hell, I could just type some random reason in and nobody would be the wiser. What I mean is, griefers can lie about why. I can't tell if the Deuce on the other team is griefing their base to hell, because I'm not there to see it.

3. Making the votekick more in your face with that window should definitely help. With the current system, its easy to miss the name of the person being kicked or the reason why, epecially if somebody is spamming the chat.

4. I don't know what to think about the Y/N system. Certainly, not typing /y to kick an innocent is doing something.

The problem is, many people don't give a damn about kicking someone unless they themselves have been directly affected.

I agree with kaede, but still wrangle, those are some pretty good ideas! I agree that the votekick system right now is wonky and ineffective.

Does it freeze the player, forcing them to input an option?

I really like your idea, it would make kicking much easier. I think also the vote of each person should come up in the chat, so we can see who is voting what and then also how many more needed to kick. Some servers already have this and it would be nice to see who is voting to keep griefers.

Furthermore, other options should be added as punishment. Mute, votekick and voteban would allow responses tailored to the action.

Overall, its a great idea and lets hope the system is fixed soon. I hate having to beg people to kick griefers.

We had negative "/n" votes in pyspades at the beginning, but we dropped them due to reports of malicious players grouping up and preventing each other from being kicked.

Our conclusion was: better to risk having innocent players kicked than being unable to expel griefers.

>Change IP
>Skiddie

Jesus, are they losing brain functions?

@Hompy: I actually miss the negative votes, since they also allowed legit players to "gang up" and protect themselves from trolls, although I also noticed the griefer-kicking troubles involved there.

i think this is a great solution, but it would be better to remove the "no" option and just raise the % required for "yes"

"no" got abused too often when pyspades had it

In the past i have tried to kick some one for griefing, and my poll was invective. the griefer sall me tell every one that he was destroying everything and started saying that i was the griefer, and that he hasn't done anything wrong, that i was doing everything. So after his pleading of don't vote him out he put a poll up for me and at the end of it..... i was kicked from a really good game.

And i think that we should all get names assigned to us. Where we go in and see if that name is taken or available. So if we do need to ban some one not only is there ip ban that that acc is ban as well. (more difficult to get back in) because then they not only need another ip address, they need a new e-mail address, and a completely different account.

@Hazard: E-mail registration has been suggested a lot. It's a pretty popular idea with most of the legitimate players in the community, and I can't say I've seen anyone actually opposed to it. We can hope Ben's listening, hang in there in the hopes we'll get a system for that.

I am opposed to it since it has no real effect besides wasting ben's time thanks to websites such as http://www.yopmail.com
Also: hope that my impostor didn't votekick anyone lately :>

I agree with the thread creator. But as to the issue of no-voters: I would suggest that it should be tried out and if it not works, then take it out.
First forum post I think.