On 10/20/2010 7:39 AM, Curtis Olson wrote: > It would not be dissimilar from the forum, or the wiki or any other > CMS. All those systems need to deal with user management and > authentication, and as soon as the flightgear MP starts ruling the > world, we'll probably see spambots too. Once we start attracting > spammers then do we still consider it a free world where a social > solution and peer pressure is the best option? You are right though > that it could be a large project. On the other hand, there is a lot > of systems that do authentication ... maybe there are some modules > available that we could just plug in and use that wouldn't require > starting from scratch? > > I'm not saying this is what we *should* do, I was merely suggesting > that it's a possible route we could take, and perhaps with some small > tweaks to the MP protocol we could easily support authenticated servers. > > Would it be bad if a user had a choice between the open free for all > we currently have and a more constrained and managed system (that > someone has taken the time to build and continues to manage.) > > Regards, > > Curt. >
Since I'm pretty familiar with BZFlag, I'll use it as an example again. It is a multiplayer game by design where anyone can host their own server and "maps" (worlds). Each server can have its own rules about swearing (including custom word filtering or no word filtering) and what is or isn't considered abuse of others, but they all have one thing in common: Users are authenticated (or not) by a central server. Their credentials are those of their BZFlag forum membership. When a player tries to connect to a game server, the player's credentials go to the central server. That server tells the game server that the player's authentication passed, failed or that the server doesn't know them. Game servers can decide what to do with that information; most game servers refuse connection to an "authentication failed" player, but allow those that the server doesn't know (usually with reduced privileges). The central server also hosts a global ban list that maintains banned IPs and/or callsigns. Severe abusers are generally reported by individual game server admins or players to the benevolent dictators who maintain the central server. Having central authentication in place allows for a "trust" mechanism to be implemented globally. Allowing unregistered people to join in lets people try it out without the hassle of signing up, but with reduced privileges or ability to mess with other people. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Nokia and AT&T present the 2010 Calling All Innovators-North America contest Create new apps & games for the Nokia N8 for consumers in U.S. and Canada $10 million total in prizes - $4M cash, 500 devices, nearly $6M in marketing Develop with Nokia Qt SDK, Web Runtime, or Java and Publish to Ovi Store http://p.sf.net/sfu/nokia-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
