Banning via script
 

I know this can be a security concern, but on Era we spend half an hour or so daily banning and unjailing players (virtually all are new Graal# players who are trying out hacking tools) who are caught by automatic hack detection. There is no reason to waste so much time when literally all we do is copy and paste the reason into the ban window and click "Apply". This can all be done by script very easily.

The commands I'm requesting are:

• banAccount(str account, str banType)
• isAccountBanned(str account) - returns bool - if the player is banned

The isAccountBanned function is so that I can place a friendly message in the server news (where servers often show description etc) saying "Your account is banned. If you have questions, see here" with instructions on contesting a ban.

To add some necessary security, banType is a predefined ban length and reason. Server options like such are declared:
(or however is most convenient for Stefan)

In addition, the banAccount command should not be able to ban accounts in staff= (server options) or with an adminlevel of 1 or above.

If you add this, I request it to only work then the npc server has rights to ban.

Of course, although that's not really necessary since ban types would have to be defined in server options anyway. It might also be a good idea to limit banning to the Control-NPC.

Imho, a player should be able to call the ban functions if they have the rights on their account. That could be any staff player or the NPC server.

Hmm if you're using systems to ban players automatically why don't you auto jail them too?

We do, but the problem is that it's preferable to ban players for x number of days as it adds to their ban log, which can be used in the future if the jail system becomes obsolete, or by other servers.

Can't really say I support this. Too easy to ban everyone and too difficult to unban everyone. I don't see this being added.

Some kind of limit like 5 bans per hour would prevent this. There's no reason this shouldn't be implemented with all of the security measures I've proposed including inability to ban staff, only works from Control-NPC, only defined bans in server options, and the ban limit.

Don't really see the insecurity at all. It should only work if the player attemting it has a) NPC rights b) banning rights. Who cares if some unknown tard goes about abusing it to the living hell on his unknown little playerworld that'll never get anywhere anyways?

I guess my feelings on it are. We have a working ban system now. Why fix or change what isn't broken. I can see where being able to ban more rapidly might make someones life easier from time to time but just how often do mass bans actually have to happen.

I'm not talking mass bans. I'm talking about the 15-20 people who are caught daily on Era by automated hacking detection. We waste lots of time filling out comments, unjailing, and banning these players each day. You can imagine it takes time to open the comments of 15 people, add the ban reason, ban the player, then unjail them.

hire someone to do it for you :D

I don't like hiring unnecessary staff members; in general, a server doesn't need more than a dozen staff members. PR staff handle it now but it's a waste of time they could spend helping players.

Ohh, I see. So like a local version of the gserver ban system but for those scripted hack detections that the gserver misses cause of the trainers working around them?

oh i didn't see that either.

Can you ban via Client-RC? Write a script to interface with the Client-RC's GUI-Controls and you have what you want, albeit hacky. Could just say /autoban or something and it goes through the array, automating the process on the client. Still a huge hack that's pretty stupid, but whatever, it would work, and I doubt what you want will ever be implemented anyway.

hmm good idea

Yes.

Not really, you can't push buttons and probably can't change text. It might be possible to some extent but it wouldn't be as streamlined. I might look into doing that though.

Well, some things were possible in the past, not sure if that was changed.