Trolls

[blue]

I'm attaching myself to the discussion 1 year ago at http://www.lackeyccg.com/forum/index.php?topic=418.msg3328#msg3328

First, thank you Trevor for everything. Second, hello Ram and Till death. It's nice to see that others I know are facing the same problem of trolls.

Might I ask for a feature whereby

room creators can block unwanted players, by IP address, from entering.

I usually only play multiplayer games. In these games, it's crucial for us to have an open room, that is, non-password protected. Large games require a constant in-and-out of new players. Some players can only stay for 1 game. As soon as that player leaves, we need the next player to enter ASAP. Any delay, and present players will get anxious to leave, causing us to wait for even more players.

The problem with password-protecting rooms, is

1) Players are reluctant to ask for a password, especially if they are curious (and might make great playmates) but simply don't know the room creator or the play format posted in the room title
2) Even if they request the password, the room owner might be in-game, therefore cannot reply, which frustrates the person wanting to enter
3) It's extremely disruptive to players in room for the room owner to switch back and forth between his game, and the main room where the password is being requested.

I'm sorry I cannot make this more succinct, but my point is that the IGNORE button and the PASSWORD feature just don't do anything for trolls. The ignore button just hides noise and cussing in the main room. And the password feature dismantles the multiplayer effort, which is most ironic and unfortunate.

I think, therefore, the only way to handle trolls is IP-address-based blocking. We should be able to type in an IP address when we make a room. (Or something to that effect, like choosing a player from the room list.) That player would then be banned from the room.

This means the troll isn't banned from Lackey forever, which might be too unmerciful from Lackey's perspective. But it's enough to combat troll behavior - he can troll as much as he likes, but he won't disturb me in the main room (thanks to IGNORE) and he won't step foot in my game.

I really hope for player support for this idea. And I hope Trevor seriously considers it for development. Right now, trolls are SO DISRUPTIVE, they seem the only problem facing Lackey. I'm happy with everything else.

By the way, I haven't seen "Torn" in a while. But every day this week I've seen, and experienced, games plagued by "MIKE" who quickly changes his name to "Spin" and "Hola mang". His signature (and apparently only possible) remark is, "You won't get chicks playing Magic" - full stop - "Fag".

[AdLit]

I dont know if this is a possible solution, but if there's a way to create a private/password protected chat room, that may be an option.  There, you could have a chat room that you could have as an established meeting place when you and other people you play with can meet up online, and that would obviate the need to password protect the actual game.  I'm not sure if it's something that really changes all that much (passwording a room vs a game) but it may help a bit....

[Trevor]

I'm going to make it so ignoring someone makes them unable to join games you make.

Also, I just changed it so that if you are PMed on the server while looking at the game panel, you will see the incoming message still.

[blue]

Goodness, I am stoked about the 2 new features.

Can't wait, and thanks again Trevor.

[salmonofdoubt]

While these new features are great, it does not really control people who you haven't already put on ignore, probably because you haven't seen them trolling before. If at some point you have the time, you might want to think about adding a feature that lets the room creator kick people from their room. This could also be useful by allowing larger rooms to kick inactive players instead of having to create a new room.

Since I'm on the subject of suggestions, I noticed that around half the time I enter something in the search bar in the tokens zone, Lackey freezes for a good two minutes, occasionally locking up my entire computer. The same thing happens very rarely when I add packs to a card pool. Any idea what is causing this?

[Trevor]

While these new features are great, it does not really control people who you haven't already put on ignore, probably because you haven't seen them trolling before. If at some point you have the time, you might want to think about adding a feature that lets the room creator kick people from their room. This could also be useful by allowing larger rooms to kick inactive players instead of having to create a new room.

Since I'm on the subject of suggestions, I noticed that around half the time I enter something in the search bar in the tokens zone, Lackey freezes for a good two minutes, occasionally locking up my entire computer. The same thing happens very rarely when I add packs to a card pool. Any idea what is causing this?

I will add kick and IP ignore. I've been doing other stuff.

Regarding locking up on token search, can you be more specific? If you can, try to figure out how to cause a "lock up? deliberately. Do you need to force quit it when it happens?

[salmonofdoubt]

While these new features are great, it does not really control people who you haven't already put on ignore, probably because you haven't seen them trolling before. If at some point you have the time, you might want to think about adding a feature that lets the room creator kick people from their room. This could also be useful by allowing larger rooms to kick inactive players instead of having to create a new room.

Since I'm on the subject of suggestions, I noticed that around half the time I enter something in the search bar in the tokens zone, Lackey freezes for a good two minutes, occasionally locking up my entire computer. The same thing happens very rarely when I add packs to a card pool. Any idea what is causing this?

I will add kick and IP ignore. I've been doing other stuff.

Regarding locking up on token search, can you be more specific? If you can, try to figure out how to cause a "lock up? deliberately. Do you need to force quit it when it happens?

I suspect it has something to do with loading images. Maybe if I haven't used the tokens in a while, lackey has to load them all at once, sort of like how it only loads a set number of card images at any one time. Basically, the first time after booting up lackey I click on "Other" next to Zones. Then I click the search bar. Then, I enter in the first letter of whatever I am searching for. I'm on a mac, so my cursor turns into a wheel and starts spinning, and whatever letter I typed doesn't appear. I can't do anything in lackey for about two minutes, and I also can't see what anyone is typing or doing. As soon as it unfreezes, everything that has been typed or moved since it froze appears all at once, and I am able to access the tokens zone. Mostly this only affects lackey and it fixes itself after some amount of time, but once or twice my entire computer has gotten stuck and I have to force quit lackey to unfreeze it.

I tried to replicate it, but as I said, it only happens about half the time, so I wasn't able to. Next time it occurs I'll try to see what other things I did just before it happened.