Forged Alliance Forever

Re: Anonymous playing

2015-04-15T09:28:56+02:00

Someone suggested this as feature in ladder games. If you select a random faction your real rating and name would'nt be shown to the enemy. So you get compensation for playing with random faction.

Statistics: Posted by RoLa — 15 Apr 2015, 09:28

Re: Anonymous playing

2015-04-15T09:01:06+02:00

I think this would be cool if
a) you still had to log in - just your username was hidden - otherwise this will be exploited by jerks like others have pointed out.
b) your rating is still displayed - for balancing custom games
c) you are unable to chat in game, ingame lobby, aeolus
d) people who are jerks could have this imposed on them as an alternative to banning.

Statistics: Posted by nine2 — 15 Apr 2015, 09:01

Re: Anonymous playing

2015-04-15T06:49:18+02:00

Softly wrote:
Would like to suggest the ability to play anonymously (hidden name+country), seems like a few people would like it and would help reduce smurfing.

Please leave feedback!

Would only increase smurfing....

Imagine tec-tec / Katherine / [now banned] being able to circumvent the recognition based on flag and rating...

Statistics: Posted by E8400-CV — 15 Apr 2015, 06:49

Re: Anonymous playing

2015-04-13T16:41:09+02:00

I really like Vee´s suggestion! Making an `anonymous` lobby where everyone is anonymous!

In my opinion the community has accepted smurfing, there are alot of well known smurfs around. By creating an option to host an anonymous game-lobby is possibly great way to maybe go back to keeping smurfing at an all time low!

Statistics: Posted by Totaltuna — 13 Apr 2015, 16:41

Re: Anonymous playing

2015-04-01T18:38:25+02:00

I don't think this was ever stated explicitly so I'm going to ask about it: "Anonymous" means the name is something generic like "Anonymous," right?

Reading through the thread it seems like a lot of people are assuming it means you can change your name any time you want... my vision of this would be a check box on the login dialogue box. You still log in as yourself, but instead of your name people just see "Anonymous." We'd probably need to add a number for moderating purposes.

No infinite name changes. Still traceable.

As far as the problems about smurfing, etc. I think there are already people on both sides and I don't have anything new to add so I'll just drop it there.

Would be interesting if logging in as anonymous meant you couldn't gain points. Plot twist...

Statistics: Posted by codepants — 01 Apr 2015, 18:38

Re: Anonymous playing

2015-04-01T14:56:27+02:00

IMO GW worked also fron reason, it was buggy, connection issues and everything so not everyone played it

And people who actually stayed wanted to play GW and not do stupid shit just to ruiun other games cause they can, I think if it was played as faf is, then you would see the difference

Statistics: Posted by speed2 — 01 Apr 2015, 14:56

Re: Anonymous playing

2015-04-01T14:28:04+02:00

How about an option to host an anonymous game where everyone is anonymous? Then it's at least a level playing field and everybody knows what they are getting into.

Statistics: Posted by Vee — 01 Apr 2015, 14:28

Re: Anonymous playing

2015-04-01T14:22:59+02:00

speed2 wrote:
I think you missed some facts, GW was same for everyone, everyone was annonymous

exactly, and it worked. everybody was (more or less) anonymous, but i haven't heard of any complaint about abusive behaviour or something, but this seems to be the main contra argument against anonymous playing right now.

speed2 wrote:
there was no rating, no need to balance, it was different from ladder and custom games

naturally, nobody expected balance. but it was (and is) definitely possible to display indicators like expected game quality for matches before starting them.
and balance would not suffer for ladder/custom games even with anonymous players, if done correctly

Statistics: Posted by Myxir — 01 Apr 2015, 14:22

Re: Anonymous playing

2015-04-01T13:55:15+02:00

I think you missed some facts, GW was same for everyone, everyone was annonymous, there was no rating, no need to balance, it was different from ladder and custom games

Statistics: Posted by speed2 — 01 Apr 2015, 13:55

Re: Anonymous playing

2015-04-01T13:18:33+02:00

to everybody who thinks that anonymous is a bad idea because the feeling of beeing anonymous leads to trolling, bad and even abusive bahaviour etc.:
What about Galactic War?
it's anonymous, there are basically no restrictions to name changes (die on purpose, get new name), no means of balance and i doubt that even mods were able to track GW names back to their FAF account owner.

purposes of smurfing:
- anonymous playing
- lower rating
- escaping bad reputation
- planning on trolling and abusive behaviour

i've ordered these by what i think is their importance to make a smurf (at least for most higher rated players). smurfing is somewhat accepted in this community, we're even discussing that VMs are allowed again (viewtopic.php?f=42&t=9626).
at least the people who want to play anonymously would not smurf (though ofc creating a smurf account requires more effort than a simple name change via an anonymousity option) and thus not create the "lower rating" problem to begin with.
everybody who plans on abuse behaviour, wants to bash lower rated players or whatever can already do that.

Statistics: Posted by Myxir — 01 Apr 2015, 13:18

Re: Anonymous playing

2015-04-01T00:18:13+02:00

Also: Smurfing will not even slightly be stopped with this - because you are smurfing to get a new rating not a new name.

If you want to change your name - it's already possible with some (IMO good) restrictions.
If you are able to change your name every 24hours it will be much too confusing!
There are many Forum threads which do a lot critique of changing your Nickname.

that's not really true.
you can still use http://app.faforever.com/faf/userName.php to know who is the guy when he decide to change his name.
You don't want to have a new rating when you smurf (ex : luxy or blodir), they only want to remain unknow for some time.

Statistics: Posted by keyser — 01 Apr 2015, 00:18

Re: Anonymous playing

2015-03-31T20:37:30+02:00

I think Anonymous playing is a bad Idea.
If nobody knows who you are - you can troll and troll and change your name and troll and troll (maybe troll with you changed name, too)

Of course the Moderators are still able to ban or warn the players (since they have an UID) but consider this: When you "feel" anonymous your may get much easier rude than you "know" you are known. This will result in more moderative actions -> more work to do work our kind moderators.

Also: Smurfing will not even slightly be stopped with this - because you are smurfing to get a new rating not a new name.

If you want to change your name - it's already possible with some (IMO good) restrictions.
If you are able to change your name every 24hours it will be much too confusing!
There are many Forum threads which do a lot critique of changing your Nickname.

Statistics: Posted by Frozen_byte — 31 Mar 2015, 20:37

Re: Anonymous playing

2015-03-31T16:56:16+02:00

I can't believe this is being discussed seriously. Am I missing something obvious necessary to understand this, like experience in top 50 or so ladder where people keep playing the same guys or what?

Statistics: Posted by Col_Walter_Kurtz — 31 Mar 2015, 16:56

Re: Anonymous playing

2015-03-31T15:41:55+02:00

That could work, but how hard is it to do? I know shit about coding and how related stuff works but i have the impression that all the replay info is set in stone. Wont you need to upload 2 different replays for that purpose?

Something like that, yes. Or just hide the name in the replay forever, but show the real name in the replay vault after a certain amount of time. It's certainly possible, but the question is if implementing all this is the most productive/fun use of the programmer's time, and who is willing to implement all that. If you really want that feature maybe you could pay one of the faf coders to do it

Statistics: Posted by Vee — 31 Mar 2015, 15:41

Re: Anonymous playing

2015-03-31T15:40:17+02:00

Vee wrote:
Delay the time until the name becomes visible?

That could work, but how hard is it to do? I know shit about coding and how related stuff works but i have the impression that all the replay info is set in stone. Wont you need to upload 2 different replays for that purpose?

Another idea i had is just delay the replay appearance by lets say 2 hours.

Statistics: Posted by Mad`Mozart — 31 Mar 2015, 15:40