Should I Make This?

[oops_ur_dead]

Someone proposed to me the idea of a program that would allow you to report people in-game. While using hooks would probably be against Blizzard's EULA, I thought of another method to do this that is quite feasible. It would be a third-party program (made by me) that you'd run when you play Mafia. When you run it, you (or anyone in your game, for that matter) could type a command "-report [playernumber] [offence] [reason]". The command would have no immediate effect in-game, and in fact all the game would do with it would be to hide it from other players. But, after the game ends, the program would automatically scan the autosaved replay for any report commands, and if it finds any, it would send them to the server and upload the replay, so that a report could be posted by the bot. This would allow reporting by anyone without having to bother with logging into the forum and without even having to make an account.

Such a thing wouldn't be hard to make, and I could probably have it done inside a week. The issue is that I don't want to spend time making it if nobody will use it. So this is a poll to gauge interest: If I made this program, which would be Java-based and wouldn't take up much memory, that you'd run in the background while playing mafia, would you run it?

Of course if you have any feedback and ideas on this, feel free to post those as well.

[Ash]

sounds neat for those who likes to reports. i uninstalled my sc2 so i wont be using it

[RLVG]

Wouldn't it be against Blizzard even if it's third party and not cheating?

Advertising for this program would make it obvious we're using a third party program, which could promote such use in other custom maps.



If it's not a problem, sure why not report? But I doubt it would be able to access lag-screen unless it takes a scripted TXT file for each of those made.

[oops_ur_dead]

Wouldn't it be against Blizzard even if it's third party and not cheating?

Advertising for this program would make it obvious we're using a third party program, which could promote such use in other custom maps.



If it's not a problem, sure why not report? But I doubt it would be able to access lag-screen unless it takes a scripted TXT file for each of those made.

It would be if the program somehow directly collected data from the game. My plan is to only have it read replays, which plenty of other things already do, such as SC2Gears.

[Lazers]

yes but it has to be able to stream porn too

[Apocist]

I believe having a program hooked to sc2 is against the terms, but reading the replays soloy shouldn't be a problem.

[RLVG]

I believe having a program hooked to sc2 is against the terms, but reading the replays soloy shouldn't be a problem.

True, but what I've said earlier is the possibility to capture the lagscreen chat. Replay don't have it I believe.

I've seen multiple cheats ongoing when someone purposely lag the game to enable the lagscreen for others to abuse.



If that gets implended, I'm game for using this.

[Raptorblaze]

True, but what I've said earlier is the possibility to capture the lagscreen chat. Replay don't have it I believe.

I've seen multiple cheats ongoing when someone purposely lag the game to enable the lagscreen for others to abuse.



If that gets implended, I'm game for using this.

The lag screen chat is still saved into the replay chat log, but we couldn't see WHO was lagging.

[Yayap]

I will abstain from voting since I don't play sc2 mafia anymore (mostly due to unbalanced setups)... but if I did, I would probably have used it.

[Voss]

doesnt this run the risk of abuse for spam?

[Jim]

I would report so much if it wasn't such a pain, I save games where people skype/throw but it seems to be way too much work to actually go on forums and do the appropriate format of reporting, I would actually use this if it wasn't too much of a pain.

[Duzero]

Yes I would use it, but I don't play mafia atm :P

edit: mintberry please change avatar, I always think it's cryptonic

[Brendan]

edit: mintberry please change avatar, I always think it's cryptonic

this. also no it's a waste of your time lol.

[oops_ur_dead]

doesnt this run the risk of abuse for spam?

1) The person running the script would need to logon to their forum account. I can restrict it so that, say, you can only run the program if you have at least 100 posts, and if anything we can ban anyone who abuses it.
2) If we're gonna do the thing with ingame commands, we'd be able to see the ID of anyone who submits a report. If a person is being abusive, we can block their ID from submitting reports.

[Jim]

1) The person running the script would need to logon to their forum account. I can restrict it so that, say, you can only run the program if you have at least 100 posts, and if anything we can ban anyone who abuses it.
2) If we're gonna do the thing with ingame commands, we'd be able to see the ID of anyone who submits a report. If a person is being abusive, we can block their ID from submitting reports.

Will I get post count for using it?

[Damus_Graves]

I would use this program

[oops_ur_dead]

Will I get post count for using it?

Depends on how I set it up.

[oops_ur_dead]

Another thing: would if be a problem if I made this as an SC2Gears plugin?

[Glip]

Another thing: would if be a problem if I made this as an SC2Gears plugin?

I have no idea what SC2Gears is.

[Voss]

I have no idea what SC2Gears is.

+1

[Raptorblaze]

Another thing: would if be a problem if I made this as an SC2Gears plugin?

SC2Gears is kinda laggy though

[Fatalis]

I gave up playing sc2mafia quite a long time ago.. but I don't see why not as this can help keepers greatly

[SuperJack]

Anything to get rid of bad players is good for me! hope it happens!

[Roflcopter]

Yes, but... (PM SENT)

[BorkBot]

I think a potential problem could be that people will report anything and everything if there's no effort at all. Keepers will have to waste a lot of time digging through false alarms whereas the "hit percentage" is currently better because reports are only made when someone is absolutely convinced they might have caught someone cheating. On the other hand, more cheaters would probably be caught.

I'm not entirely sure if Blizzard would accept this either. Seems like a bit of a gray area, and I wouldn't want to take the risk if the forum admins and the forums could suffer for it. I'd go with a no-vote, but since I don't currently play SC2 mafia I'll abstain.

[Jim]

Yea I think a lot of it would be people not being able to review the game, if I was to report I would watch the replay to make sure they were cheating unless they out right said who other mafia were D1 then left.

[ika]

i do like it. i think it would help considerbly and i would probally use it. i just see some people going this person is point hacked or this person cheated a lot. but you do have the id blocker in there you said. if you make it send me a link i would use it. i just hink you would need a increase in keepers. raptor did say something about a signup for more keepers soon on sc2. im waiting for the news/post of it to come out so i can sign up. but it is a good idea to at least try to use.

i think anyone watchlisted/point banned or above should not be able to use it at all. if they need to do a report they would have to do it manaualy like we do now

[Jim]

i do like it. i think it would help considerbly and i would probally use it. i just see some people going this person is point hacked or this person cheated a lot. but you do have the id blocker in there you said. if you make it send me a link i would use it. i just hink you would need a increase in keepers. raptor did say something about a signup for more keepers soon on sc2. im waiting for the news/post of it to come out so i can sign up. but it is a good idea to at least try to use.

i think anyone watchlisted/point banned or above should not be able to use it at all. if they need to do a report they would have to do it manaualy like we do now

I think people watchlisted/point ban just should get permission to use it, not all of them are bad.

[ika]

well i dont know how to quote someone exactly (telling me the coding to do so would help) but i think some people who have it should at least be watched how they use it. i guess i came off harsh on saying how they shouldnt but should at least be aware its not something to be abused.

[Ash]

I think people watchlisted/point ban just should get permission to use it, not all of them are bad.

disagreed.
if they got there it was for a reason. that's like saying a felon becoming a teacher, or a criminal becoming a cop

[BorkBot]

Criminals getting recruited by Justice actually happens. But in this case, banned players don't really have a service to offer that others can't.

[Glip]

Criminals getting recruited by Justice actually happens. But in this case, banned players don't really have a service to offer that others can't.

What about insider intel and personal contacts within the underground mafia hackers society? :P The ability to move freely in cheater territory without being suspected! The ability to lure other cheaters into being caught out in the open! The possibilities are endless!

[BorkBot]

It might even work.. if they got paid.

[ika]

so whats the news on this opps? its been a while

[Rocshi]

I think he's gonna wait to implement anything until we have enough keepers to handle the influx of new reports that it will bring.

[Jim]

I think he's gonna wait to implement anything until we have enough keepers to handle the influx of new reports that it will bring.

Or untill he finds out if Blizz would allow it/ he can make it.

[Admiral]

Would this enter the dreaded category of

DUN DUN DUNNNNNN banned for using a 3rd party application?

[Raptorblaze]

Would this enter the dreaded category of

DUN DUN DUNNNNNN banned for using a 3rd party application?

No. It's just a replay analyzer that watches for some specific text strings.

[Singion]

As long as mafia is not banned, making this would be amazing. It would help me to send reports in.

[Admiral]

No. It's just a replay analyzer that watches for some specific text strings.

It runs during the game.

[Raptorblaze]

It runs during the game.

Nope, the explanation I got from oops is that it analyzes the replay watching for specific text strings entered. The map itself would just be built to hide those strings from being displayed when entered. The game itself is not modified by an outside program. I already raised the 3rd party program concerns.

[Admiral]

Nope, the explanation I got from oops is that it analyzes the replay watching for specific text strings entered. The map itself would just be built to hide those strings from being displayed when entered. The game itself is not modified by an outside program. I already raised the 3rd party program concerns.

I based what I wrote on the OP, which states it runs during game and watches for input.

[Dagaen]

One thing: if this replay will be automatically send than Mafia staff will be drowned in reports. I'd really appreciate this tool if it loaded replays with "-report" command and displayed chat Log, similar to the one in game (sc2gears sucks here). Basically, if this tool would have same basic feature as normal replay (seeing player perspective, access to log and points, etc. ), but it was faster and simplified, it would be just awesome. And only after analyzing it there would be an option to send it.

Some ideas for other useful functions:
- Pointhacking catcher (simple comparing wins/games to amount of points)
- Finding text in chat log (can't see it in sc2gears)

Anyway, anything that will help reporting cheaters will be awesome. Big YES from me!

PS. And Sc2gears plugin would be fine, it still has some useful replay analyzing features after all.

[Mateo]

WHAT IS THIS?! NECRO THREAD DAY?

[Dagaen]

Oh man, I didin't notice date, sorry:P Still I believe I saw it somewhere in top news xD

[powerofdeath]

Lol i would use it, i disagree with the numbers of posts required to use it. People shouldnt have to have specific amount of posts they have here to use it.
Maybe like 90 percent of the players probably never visited www.sc2mafia.com

[Raptorblaze]

Closed. Christ people how do you accidentally necro like that >.>