Naigel
6th September 2004, 21:16
Yes, I made a little interview for SK. I appreciate it he actually took time to answer the questions I asked. Thanks, SK. Anyways, to the point: I'm not an experienced 'questionnaire' (ya, I just made that up) so this might not be a high quality interview.
Quit the yapping and get the point! Alrighty than:
Why did you start a 'banlist'? Also, what do you want to achieve by maintaining a banlist?
Coming from an admin background I had spent many an hour maintaining healthy game servers for a large Gaming Service Provider (GSP), namely BarrysWorld. I had a fairly large list of bans I had done over my time. Most of these are petty bans such as name calling, player abuse, racist comments, etc, etc, but the odd one would be for cheating.
Now when Valve announced that WON would be closing and be replaced with Steam they noted that WONID’s would also be replaced with STEAMID’s. This means every single server admin who had spent many hours removing these people from their servers had just had all their work reset. This is what sparked the idea of having a global ban list. Whilst waiting for the cheats to join your server why not stop them before they do?
The main achievement is to give these cheaters as much as a hard time as possible. The list will be somewhat like an Anti-virus program. Those who invest in such protection have less chance of becoming a victim than those who don’t.
The Banlist community has quite an interesting history as I've heard, especially the Svenco-op section. Could you tell me some more about some special events the banlist has had?
Again going back to my past I have always enjoyed playing HL (mainly its mods). It’s the one game that really got me into playing online. I started hosting servers back in the TFC days when I played a lot of skill maps. I developed a part time server for mainly me and some mates to play on. Overtime I was introduced to SvenCo-op and again did the same hosting as and when we decided to play. My mates also used to be the usual gamers that game through to the early hours, me working full time meant I couldn’t always stay online. This is when a dedicated server was setup on a spare PC. Somewhere between SvenCo-op and TFC it also ended up a dedicated Freelancer server (http://www.microsoft.com/games/freelancer/). Shortly after the server remained as a SvenCo-op server (8 Players on a 256k upload) it gained popularity as it was a Steam server running a hacked hl.dll file. Reason for the hacked dll was SvenCo-op v2.1 didn’t work on Steam. The Ban List came some time after this. Shortly after SvenCoop v3 was released and the server was moved to the office where I work (4/4Mbit). It moved from an 8 player to a 10 player. The Ban List became involved with the server because I added the url to the site into the host name of the server. I also redesigned the Glow plug-in so only authorised users can access the glow command. The main reason for this was to gain users on the forum. Did it work? I’m happy to say yes it did! Like many others I too look at how many users there are on a forum before registering. To this day the server remains a SvenCo-op server and I like to think that its one of the more popular ones in Europe. I’ve had to recently enable reserved slots just because of this :)
There’s actually another story about a 24 player TFC server that you can briefly read about in the next question.
How did members like Prometheus and Maddin and Pippa (and other respected members) end up in the banlist community?
Pippa666 was one of the server regulars on one of the TFC servers I adminned for at BarrysWorld, when BarrysWorld renamed to Game.Net and became P2P (Pay to Play) she joined the team as the community liaison and ran twice weekly gaming events for users. During which Prometheus joined the team. Sadly this didn’t last too long (Either a year or just under) and Game.Net closed. To keep up the spirit of organised games with friends we hosted a TFC server in my office on my works server (My boss would have killed me if he had found it). Again we had a few good games but this closed down for (can’t remember). It was at this stage I introduced them both into SvenCoop. They both then became regulars on the server and eventually moved up to admin status to keep the server organised when I wasn’t around. maDDin came about as yes another server regular. maDDin was rather popular on the server & very respectful towards others. Someone with this amount of respect was ideal for the role. He first started by helping uploading new maps to the server. This was short lived however due to the problematic issues I had with the FTP server. He then moved up along side Pippa666 and Prometheus and helped manage the server.
The banlist community has grown a lot within a small period, hasn't it? How did that come all of a sudden?
Without mods like Counter Strike, Team Fortress Classic , Day of Defeat, SvenCoop, Natural Selection etc, Half-Life wouldn’t be around today. The Half-Life community as a whole is bigger then any other. When I started this project I knew that it could become quite popular. I didn’t and still haven’t advertised the site. I at one stage had “Report cheaters here – www.thebanlist.com” in my signature on the Steam forums. I took this out after about a month. There was also at one stage a sticky in the VAC section that Valve had put up. The forums saw a 300% increase of users during this period. They have since removed the sticky but a lot of users are aware we exist now and are prompting others to visit us.
The site still owes a great deal to the SvenCo-op server. Without it we certainly wouldn’t have the near 700 users that we do at the moment. Were not even a year old yet!
Are you happy with the community as it is at the moment? And why?
I’m more than happy with it, I had a feeling the site would take off but never as quick as it has. I did try other websites in the past, each time failing due to lack of content. The site is slightly lacking and could do with more sections, however more sections will appear in time. I’m also happy to say we have Oreo in the background improving the site now. He’s done some great work which is yet to go live.
When you started the banlist, and worked out the idea... are you satisfied how the banlist is working at the moment?
I’m more than happy with the number of submissions there are, although I am sure Valve aren’t due to at least 90% of demos are on servers that are VAC enabled. At the start I was happy with the system but over time and as popularity became more intense the manual system we currently use can be very tedious. Hopefully with Oreo’s scripting skills we will have a much more automated site, thus increasing the amount of server admins who are using the list.
Are you planning to support more mods? Or will you stick with the current TFC and CS banning system?
Yes, I hope to support more in the future. The site is still very new and because of this it started with only me viewing the demos. I wanted to support mods that I understood rather than mods I don’t know too well. Once I am happy with the new submission system I will be looking at adding new moderators to support newer supported mods.
The future of the banlist and it's community... how does it look like in your eyes?
It can only get bigger. The site is still growing along with its community. The biggest aspect in my eyes is that I have managed to meet new people. All of the regulars are very much an important aspect of this place. Without them I wouldn’t be answering these questions :)
Will there be more servers? Servers for those others mods?
The SvenCo-op server is really more of a hobby than anything else. As long as the bandwidth remains free and I can find a spare PC/Server laying about there’s always that chance there’s more servers to come. The connection the server is sat on at the moment can vary. There’s more than just the SvenCo-op server hosted on the line so there are times when the server can lag. SvenCo-op isn’t such a problem with the odd lag spike, but other mods where pings are critical this can be the difference between life or death :). I guess this one is a ‘possibly’. I would like to think there will be but only time will tell at this stage.
Quit the yapping and get the point! Alrighty than:
Why did you start a 'banlist'? Also, what do you want to achieve by maintaining a banlist?
Coming from an admin background I had spent many an hour maintaining healthy game servers for a large Gaming Service Provider (GSP), namely BarrysWorld. I had a fairly large list of bans I had done over my time. Most of these are petty bans such as name calling, player abuse, racist comments, etc, etc, but the odd one would be for cheating.
Now when Valve announced that WON would be closing and be replaced with Steam they noted that WONID’s would also be replaced with STEAMID’s. This means every single server admin who had spent many hours removing these people from their servers had just had all their work reset. This is what sparked the idea of having a global ban list. Whilst waiting for the cheats to join your server why not stop them before they do?
The main achievement is to give these cheaters as much as a hard time as possible. The list will be somewhat like an Anti-virus program. Those who invest in such protection have less chance of becoming a victim than those who don’t.
The Banlist community has quite an interesting history as I've heard, especially the Svenco-op section. Could you tell me some more about some special events the banlist has had?
Again going back to my past I have always enjoyed playing HL (mainly its mods). It’s the one game that really got me into playing online. I started hosting servers back in the TFC days when I played a lot of skill maps. I developed a part time server for mainly me and some mates to play on. Overtime I was introduced to SvenCo-op and again did the same hosting as and when we decided to play. My mates also used to be the usual gamers that game through to the early hours, me working full time meant I couldn’t always stay online. This is when a dedicated server was setup on a spare PC. Somewhere between SvenCo-op and TFC it also ended up a dedicated Freelancer server (http://www.microsoft.com/games/freelancer/). Shortly after the server remained as a SvenCo-op server (8 Players on a 256k upload) it gained popularity as it was a Steam server running a hacked hl.dll file. Reason for the hacked dll was SvenCo-op v2.1 didn’t work on Steam. The Ban List came some time after this. Shortly after SvenCoop v3 was released and the server was moved to the office where I work (4/4Mbit). It moved from an 8 player to a 10 player. The Ban List became involved with the server because I added the url to the site into the host name of the server. I also redesigned the Glow plug-in so only authorised users can access the glow command. The main reason for this was to gain users on the forum. Did it work? I’m happy to say yes it did! Like many others I too look at how many users there are on a forum before registering. To this day the server remains a SvenCo-op server and I like to think that its one of the more popular ones in Europe. I’ve had to recently enable reserved slots just because of this :)
There’s actually another story about a 24 player TFC server that you can briefly read about in the next question.
How did members like Prometheus and Maddin and Pippa (and other respected members) end up in the banlist community?
Pippa666 was one of the server regulars on one of the TFC servers I adminned for at BarrysWorld, when BarrysWorld renamed to Game.Net and became P2P (Pay to Play) she joined the team as the community liaison and ran twice weekly gaming events for users. During which Prometheus joined the team. Sadly this didn’t last too long (Either a year or just under) and Game.Net closed. To keep up the spirit of organised games with friends we hosted a TFC server in my office on my works server (My boss would have killed me if he had found it). Again we had a few good games but this closed down for (can’t remember). It was at this stage I introduced them both into SvenCoop. They both then became regulars on the server and eventually moved up to admin status to keep the server organised when I wasn’t around. maDDin came about as yes another server regular. maDDin was rather popular on the server & very respectful towards others. Someone with this amount of respect was ideal for the role. He first started by helping uploading new maps to the server. This was short lived however due to the problematic issues I had with the FTP server. He then moved up along side Pippa666 and Prometheus and helped manage the server.
The banlist community has grown a lot within a small period, hasn't it? How did that come all of a sudden?
Without mods like Counter Strike, Team Fortress Classic , Day of Defeat, SvenCoop, Natural Selection etc, Half-Life wouldn’t be around today. The Half-Life community as a whole is bigger then any other. When I started this project I knew that it could become quite popular. I didn’t and still haven’t advertised the site. I at one stage had “Report cheaters here – www.thebanlist.com” in my signature on the Steam forums. I took this out after about a month. There was also at one stage a sticky in the VAC section that Valve had put up. The forums saw a 300% increase of users during this period. They have since removed the sticky but a lot of users are aware we exist now and are prompting others to visit us.
The site still owes a great deal to the SvenCo-op server. Without it we certainly wouldn’t have the near 700 users that we do at the moment. Were not even a year old yet!
Are you happy with the community as it is at the moment? And why?
I’m more than happy with it, I had a feeling the site would take off but never as quick as it has. I did try other websites in the past, each time failing due to lack of content. The site is slightly lacking and could do with more sections, however more sections will appear in time. I’m also happy to say we have Oreo in the background improving the site now. He’s done some great work which is yet to go live.
When you started the banlist, and worked out the idea... are you satisfied how the banlist is working at the moment?
I’m more than happy with the number of submissions there are, although I am sure Valve aren’t due to at least 90% of demos are on servers that are VAC enabled. At the start I was happy with the system but over time and as popularity became more intense the manual system we currently use can be very tedious. Hopefully with Oreo’s scripting skills we will have a much more automated site, thus increasing the amount of server admins who are using the list.
Are you planning to support more mods? Or will you stick with the current TFC and CS banning system?
Yes, I hope to support more in the future. The site is still very new and because of this it started with only me viewing the demos. I wanted to support mods that I understood rather than mods I don’t know too well. Once I am happy with the new submission system I will be looking at adding new moderators to support newer supported mods.
The future of the banlist and it's community... how does it look like in your eyes?
It can only get bigger. The site is still growing along with its community. The biggest aspect in my eyes is that I have managed to meet new people. All of the regulars are very much an important aspect of this place. Without them I wouldn’t be answering these questions :)
Will there be more servers? Servers for those others mods?
The SvenCo-op server is really more of a hobby than anything else. As long as the bandwidth remains free and I can find a spare PC/Server laying about there’s always that chance there’s more servers to come. The connection the server is sat on at the moment can vary. There’s more than just the SvenCo-op server hosted on the line so there are times when the server can lag. SvenCo-op isn’t such a problem with the odd lag spike, but other mods where pings are critical this can be the difference between life or death :). I guess this one is a ‘possibly’. I would like to think there will be but only time will tell at this stage.