I don't know if you guys have been looking round here recently, but it struck me a couple of weeks ago that we're starting to sound/smell/talk a lot like "Live!" - or worse, XBC :P You all know as well as I do that the biggest problem we face as a tunnel service is cheating - you also know that the second biggest problem faced by *any* online gaming community is ignorant, spoilt, fat little children who start smashing things up if they don't get their own way. The title of this news article was *actually taken from a real Kai help request* - and it was the *only information provided by the user*. I promptly banned him, only to receive a veritable tirade of (very, very poorly constructed) abuse via email.

This however, is nothing, compared to the state of some of Kai's arena chat areas - not to mention some of the racist filth who lurk behind communicators in Halo 2.

Quite clearly, this must end. I've been trying to work out how to do just that for quite some time now - and have finally decided on a sensible solution (I think).

See, when we finally get to Evo VIII, people will no longer be able to sign up for Kai. That's right - you will *not* be able to turn up, download the client and play. In fact, Evo VIII will have only 1 user initially - me. Now, while it would be pretty good fun sitting here on my own playing with myself, it kinda defeats the object. Hence, as a Kai user, I will be able to give accounts to other people - think of it like gmail invites - but I have as many as I want.

So, odds are the first thing I'm gonna do is allow the other Admins to become Kai users - and probably the mods too. That's gonna give us somewhere around 25 users - yay.

So, we have our 25 guys who we know aren't a.) racists b.) cheats c.) ignorant fat children. Chances are those guys play in groups with others - maybe just mates - maybe proper clans. I'd expect those guys to give their respective group members access to Kai - the clans would be pretty boring with only 1 member.

So, we're probably looking right there at over 200 people - all non-assholes, who use Kai quite a lot - super fun, for sure - but we need more people to make it any good. Most clan/group guys play with people outside their clan frequently - and know a whole load of other good people on Kai who aren't in groups - they're surely gonna invite those guys - who will in turn invite others. That's great, but as we go further down the chain, we will undoubtedly encounter the kind of filth which is plaguing us at the moment. Here's where the fun begins..

Because we will soon have a user "tree" as opposed to a user "list", we can start to have a little fun with hierarchies. Now, lets say SensibleDave is a good user - does all the right things - top bloke. Let's say he gives his little cousin SickBilly access to Kai - perfectly natural - but let's imagine SickBilly is a drooling, racist, bling-wearing ingrate, like so many of the people who turn up at our virtual doorstep each and every day. Someone needs to do something about him - but who? I'll tell you who - anyone "higher up" the tree than SensibleDave, providing they've *been on Kai longer* than SickBilly. Read that again, if you would - let it sink in.

So, in our little example up there, let's say SickBilly was 6th Generation - that means about 10000 people have the ability to ban him (for a fixed time period). Now, it gets even worse. Because SensibleDave has unleashed a gobshite upon us, which we have had to waste our time dispatching, he will also get punished - he will be banned for 25% of the time SickBilly gets banned. Should teach him to make sure people he admits to Kai are not jackasses.

So, right about now, you're thinking a few things - probably a.) man, this is really harsh and b.) we're not going to end up with many users if people can't just turn up and get an account! Well, OK, let's deal with that then.

As to it being harsh - to an extent, you're right. However, balance that against what we stand to gain. Because people cannot sign up unless they have a "sponsor" as such, then we can prevent shit like Tony52/XC/Whatever from repeatedly signing up under different names. Why? Because once someone has sponsored him once, they aren't likely to do it again - especially after we politely explain to them that re-admitting someone previously banned, under a new name, will get *them* banned for life, and will get the person who sponsored *them* a few days ban. Hopefully by now, you should notice how the burden of responsbility is completely shifted onto those who are responsible enough to decide who to admit - in other words, "the way it should be (tm)". As for the second argument.. well, at present Kai has somewhere over 200,000 people registered - but only a small chunk of those people play regularly. When we go live with this stuff, we'll be *automatically* generating *lots more* good users than we ever have before.. Why? OK. Well, I take it you've all had the misfortune to stumble across that THUG shit? Or if not, you've all probably had, at some point in your life, someone trying to blag you into joining some sort of pyramid scheme. Though so :). Well, this is a similar thing. Whereas before, we had a huge number of stupid little kids who just got bored and caused trouble, this time, if all goes well, we will end up with a bunch of little kids who want to grow their own little armies of recruits - and because they're responsible for who they recruit, they will soon learn the basics of what not to do. Couple this with the fact that your ScoreCard will display how many people you have brought to the community - ie. the people beneath your node in the tree - along with how many of those people have had to be removed.

If this ends up working well, we end up with, essentially an online gaming utopia - lots of decent people who use the system responsibly. If it does not go well, the worse we will end up with is a considerably smaller userbase - made up of decent people who use the system responsibly. In my opinion, both states are preferable to the direction we're heading right now. Anyway, yes, you guessed it - it means a new user database :( However, we will allow you to keep hold of tags you've registered already through a simple migration procedure when the time comes. There will, of course, be provision made for someone who turns up out of the blue, and doesn't know anyone at all. Perhaps some sort of trial period, whereby the potential new user will be locked in a Wasteland of unpoliced arenas for 7 days - as he tries to convince a full user to sponsor him.

I certainly welcome any sensible discussion regarding this new topolgy for the Population database. Suggestions can and will, as always, be taken under consideration.

Posted by TheDaddy on Monday 11 July, 2005