Bottom Line Up Front: Recent changes to how the client handles
disconnections breaks server-side plugins' kick/ban reason functionality.
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I'd like to bring up an issue I think has been slightly overshadowed due
to the recent server connection issues. This is in regards to a client
change as of version 6770799.
The following change has caused reduced functionality in some basic
functions in SourceMod:
> - Removed the disconnect reason when a player leaves the server
The string "Disconnect: Client Disconnect" is always shown to the client
whenever the server terminates the connection between client. What has
changed though, is that the client overwrites the sent string with
"Client Disconnect" regardless of the cause of the disconnect eg.
SourceMod's kick function.
In short: Kick/ban message reason functionality does not work as of
6770799. The change affects the game client, not the server binaries, so
there's no workaround.
While it's logical to see the reasoning behind not showing disconnection
messages to other clients by default due to abuse within Valve servers,
I personally believe this could have been implemented better e.g. to
allow moderators of community servers to show a kick or ban reason to
the target client only, as currently almost all disconnects from a
community server to the disconnected client will all show as "Client
Disconnect", which can be misleading and confusing depending on the
circumstances.
In practice, there can be multiple reasons for disconnects, such as
server shutdown (quit), removed by administrator or vote kick (both via
SourceMod functionality, I cannot comment on the stock vote menu),
prohibited by whitelist, prohibited by account status or statistics, and
so on.
If possible, can this functionality be changed to only send a static
message if the server is registered in the Valve Matchmaking pool? This
would mitigate abuse by malicious actors in Valve servers, while still
allowing community server operators to use the disconnect function for
the purpose of showing disconnect reasons to users (kick/ban/et cetera).
Thank you.
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