I am sick and tired of this no life idiots, who come to demo servers, and wreck people, ban them without reason, and so on..!! This game is really geting some bad publicity among sim lovers, sim magazines, etc.. because of this! And partially devs, it's your fault. You should make that who ever wants to play the game online, that he must be registred on the liveforspeed.net or lfs world! That everyone has unique registred name like in licensed version. So when you ban him, he can't return with different name, and continue his pathetic mision!
I like to return once in a while to our demo server, because mostly there are people from my country, but because of idiots, i disconnect 2 minutes later.
So please, tell me if there is a solution for this?

no there is no solution, the demo should be easy to play, requiring the demo users to register will lead to less racers on the demo servers, less people who might buy S2 license.

ps: its banning :-)

Quote from jmkz :

no there is no solution, the demo should be easy to play, requiring the demo users to register will lead to less racers on the demo servers, less people who might buy S2 license.

ps: its banning :-)

Indeed.

We all had the same problem when we only had S2 Demo. I still think that requiring a registered username (and any email address can only be used once) would make demo life much more pleasant.

It could also lead to INCREASED sales, as Reviews (which only seem to use the demo) and word of mouth would spread news of a polite, clean, fair demo.

It's in Scawen's hands I guess...

Quote from Boris Lozac :

I am sick and tired of this no life idiots, who come to demo servers, and wreck people, ban them without reason, and so on..!! This game is really geting some bad publicity among sim lovers, sim magazines, etc.. because of this! And partially devs, it's your fault. You should make that who ever wants to play the game online, that he must be registred on the liveforspeed.net or lfs world! That everyone has unique registred name like in licensed version. So when you ban him, he can't return with different name, and continue his pathetic mision!
I like to return once in a while to our demo server, because mostly there are people from my country, but because of idiots, i disconnect 2 minutes later.
So please, tell me if there is a solution for this?

If the demo users had to register in LFSW and needed an email address for that it wouldn't stop them. Getting a new email is just too easy. It would slow 'em down though. And it would just put more burden to the moderators of the LFSW (the devs?). And the extra coding needed for this... Though we need some kind of solution for this. LFS is getting some bad reputation because of this.

As some want to use team tags etc. in their names and sometimes you want to use your real name - how do you organize the name policy for that? Of course we could have a tag text field in lfs in which you can put short tags. And the option to choose from "LFSW name" and "real name" inside lfs but do you make sure the real name is real? (stop it hyper, this isn't improvements forum :smash3d: )

Quote from tristancliffe :

We all had the same problem when we only had S2 Demo. I still think that requiring a registered username (and any email address can only be used once) would make demo life much more pleasant.

It could also lead to INCREASED sales, as Reviews (which only seem to use the demo) and word of mouth would spread news of a polite, clean, fair demo.

It's in Scawen's hands I guess...

Exactly... BUT.. know that i had some thinking about this, and this thread of mine.. it's kinda good to have this wreckers on demo servers, because it would only make LFS sales INCREASE because people would get sick and tired of that, and they would like to enjoy the game in it's full glory.

Reading all this i got an idea, how about :

To play demo online (LFSWorld ):
1- You must register the demo and get a username (activate/confirm via e-mail)
2- Any new Username must complete some basic training before getting 'online license'

Basic training would be a specific group of tests with relevance to online
racing. These could be on anything like overtaking, taking turns stuck
between 2 cars, a start with a full grid would also be appropriate and let's
not forget the infamous Start-to-Turn1 sprint, be first out of the turn and
through the gate 100 feet away. I'm just brainstorming at this point.

Although there is no solution to the online rebels, LFS isn't gonna solve
any society problems anyday soon, there ARE ways to minimize it.

Yeah, I think registering and some training before being able to race online would greatly improve the situation

People who race fair and never get banned only have to do this once, so the amount of work for the good racers is minimal, while wreckers would have to re-register and run through the training again after being banned to "quickly" enter the wrecking carnage again. Additionally, an account that has been banned three times should also be removed, forcing someone who gets banned multiple times to do that training again. I chose three bans because sometimes the wreckers manage to ban someone innocent and the victim shouldn't be punished even more (by having to complete the training again)

So:

1. Register at LFS.net to get a Demo account (with e-mail "handshake" to activate)
   
2. Complete some training missions to unlock multiplayer (that's the thing that takes some time, maybe 5 to 10 mins?)
   
3. When you get banned
   - once: nothing happens (besides being temp. banned from that server)
   - three times: your account gets removed, forcing you to go back to step #1

As an additional safety you could restrict an e-mail address to one account only. So not only would a wrecker have to register again and repeat the training, he'd also have to get a new mail address.

I think this would practically eliminate all wrecking whatsoever.

I think that a unique checksum identifier per client could possibly solve this problem.

A "demo key" that is generated by the demo client based on some standard system parameters (thus not requiring any registration annoyance from the end user) and identifies the specific client.

@all: [_]Understood basic ideas of marketing/advertising/demostuff...

think about it: Any regulation to the demo will decrease the use of it, and the sales.

@Vykos69: Understand basic ideas of customer support, end-user experience and a marketing/demo strategy which offers these transparently (without active registration of the product).

think about it: The more people are happy playing the demo the more people will buy LFS.

I really fail to see how that would decrease sales. And anyone who thinks that that is too much of a hassle to play this great game is probably only wrecking the demo servers anyways.

I think far more people have been turned off by the demo behaviour than we would've lost with a registering system. Also all the reviews contain the demo carnage aspect, which simply sucks.
The registering itself should be very quick and easy, even easier than the forum registration because you wouldn't even have to enter some other information, just e-mail and maybe a name and that's it. Receive the confirm mail, click link in mail, play the game. Done. The physics can be experienced, the general look and feel also. You want to try multiplayer? Ok, just complete this bit of training (maybe with some general "noob"-rules attatched to it) and go online.

Besides that, the features of S2 should be the reason to buy it, not because the demo servers are unplayable and full of idiots.

I agree with Vykos. When I downloaded the S1 demo early 2004 if it had said to me that "You must register to play our demo", I would have thought: "WTF no I dont want to register to your spam list and get my email address to some unknow game makers". That would have been before I knew what kind LFS team is. If people are so blind that they dont buy LFS just because demo-drivers I dont know do I even want that kind of people have it. There is a big waring before you enter the demo. And rewievs, they are for general mass people, do we want them wih their NFSU2s?

No, you must register to play online, not to unlock the demo itself.

Quote from AndroidXP :

No, you must register to play online, not to unlock the demo itself.

That would turn off alot of people though - the whole trouble of registration, etc. However (*assumes caresalesman voice*) with a unique client identifier key generated automatically for each client which is based on system parameters you don't have to register and bans would be persistant, it is also not a violation of privacy and requires no user intervention (and if you are still not sure, we'll throw in the deal a free microwave).

Ah well ok, then go on and live with the demo carnage/wrecking/general unpleasantness. I don't care, I have S2 anyways - it's the devs choice what to do.

Also I think alot more people would be scared of that "omg it uses info from my computer to generate a key" thing (that would surely somehow get through to the users) than a simple registration would... where THEY have the control to give out the info. And even if you don't like giving out your mail, use spamgourmet or something like this. Sure this would circumvent the one-account-per-mail thing I mentioned earlier, but the training "mission" would still be in place.

I too only use S2 hosts, but took an interest in this subject as it seems to come up pretty often.

Quote from AndroidXP :

Also I think alot more people would be scared of that "omg it uses info from my computer to generate a key" thing

Well, that's called a GUID (Global Unique IDentifier) and it's something that is common practice (esp. in Windows apps). The only thing the user would see is, for example, "Demo GUID" like it now says "S2 License" and to ease conspiracy freaks it could show them the GUID being used, simple as that.

In fact, even this forum right this minute uses a sort of GUID to track your session (check the bbsessionhash cookie)...

Well that would be ok I think

That's not 100% the same. The session is just a md5 key, not using your system info but just something random to be unique. Whereas the GUID would have to use system info because it has to be the same for the user all the time. Also, as soon as he changes some hardware components the demo liscense would be borked. I can understand such a behaviour for S1/S2 liscenses, but not for demo.

Quote from AndroidXP :

Also, as soon as he changes some hardware components the demo liscense would be borked. I can understand such a behaviour for S1/S2 liscenses, but not for demo.

Nah, it wouldn't be invalidated and thus ending the functionality of the demo - it would just be regenerated.

Sure that would "lift bans" but how many people would want to change system components just to get rid of a ban? This ID obviously is of no other use but this and helping with the previous problem stated of people using the same name as someone else.

(I am not sure about the current forum's session key but some server-side scripting platforms use the incoming host's IP addy to generate the key. But that is irrelevant.)

EDIT:
And to clear up what I mean - this GUID would not be stored anywhere else but on the host the player connects to. Thus if he gets banned there it will be a persistant ban for him for the duration set, no changing of username/playername/whatever will circumvent the ban. There is no point in tracking the GUID with lfsworld or any of the lfs servers.

Anyhow, I shan't go on any longer about this idea, I believe it's been analysed enough (and it's probably nothing new to the devs anyhow).

Bring on more ideas!

Quote from xaotik :

Sure that would "lift bans" but how many people would want to change system components just to get rid of a ban?

Wreckers would

Quote from xaotik :

(I am not sure about the current forum's session key but some server-side scripting platforms use the incoming host's IP addy to generate the key. But that is irrelevant.)

(I really couldn't care less for my IP.

AOL: Yeah hi lolz, wazzup
Dude: Shutup or I'll steal your IP
AOL: OMG PANIC HACKER ALERT

)

Quote from AndroidXP :

Wreckers would

Well, then together with the demo warning there should be a phonenumber for a psychiatric hotline.

How long does a ban last for?? me and my fellow sim racer AJ were on there and this person randomly asked for a vote to ban and they voted to ban him off the air attack server! he hadnt even done anything wrong people for some reason choose to press one even if they dont know what the other player has done wrong.


Will he be let back in or will he have to ask on the airattack forum before he can be alloud back in??

Votebans are only temporary, so he'll be able to join again later on (dunno how long, though)

Quote from AndroidXP :

No, you must register to play online, not to unlock the demo itself.

That's exactly the point. LFS Demo wins, cause u just click Multiplayer and can play online. If I would have had to register to play online, I dunno, if I would have tried it at first back in the days...

From my point of view of Racing-Challenge admin, I would like to see registration for demoplayers, but then again a Registration always frightens people, and it's better a LOT of people see that great online code, than less