Unfair BF 2 Admin Practices
OPINION
At long last, it's here. After hundreds of hours of public server play, a long-awaited article about unfair admin practices is finally hot off the digital presses! First, some backfill for those who don't play Battlefield 2 either on-line, or at all.
The subject(s) of this article are “admins”, or administrators who are authorized on these gaming servers to oversee and monitor gameplay to ensure…my my, this is where it gets sticky. To ensure what? Obstensively, the idea is to ensure gamers have an enjoyable and trouble free gaming experience. This means different things to different people, obviously, and isn’t as simple as it might seem. The first layer of complication is common to most on-line games; hacks. Some people can alter their game installations in the comfort of their own homes to give themselves an advantage over other players. These are many and varied. They don’t deserve much detailed examination for this article. Suffice to say games can be modified, or hacked. Other things over which the “admin” exercises control is the language used in the chat screens available in the game. For the most part this involves the use of offensive language, whether it is obscene, or racist, or just plain unsporting. (However, this isn’t universal to all game servers. Some of them pretty much allow whatever is said to pass with no action at all.)
“Teamkilling,” is something specific to this game, Battlefield 2 which garners the attention of admins, as well as players (and obviously a paragraph of its own!) The players are divided into two teams by an auto-balance feature, or by player’s choice. When one team member “kills” another one, it’s called a teamkill. For instance, sometimes a player from another team spawns on their opponent’s team and proceeds to (while wearing friendly colors) annihilate as many of his now “team mates” as possible, in order to engender a win for his team of allegiance, which at this point is the “other” team. Though this might seem to be a plausible ruse, infiltration of the enemy’s army, it confuses the game, and upsets the players, so it is something that is frowned upon in general by the BF 2 community. Another, more insidious purpose for teamkilling is to grab one of the many vehicles available to players in the game, which are scattered across the playing map. Some of these are tanks, armored personnel carriers, helicopters and jet aircraft. Far and away, but not solely, the vehicle most teamkilled for is the jet. The next would be the attack helicopter. It’s simple, really. A player sees another player is just about to grab a plane, when player A was just hoping against hope he would get to fly the plane, so instead of waiting for another, player A shoots player B, then grabs the plane for himself. This, too, is frowned upon by the BF 2 community. Some servers even have an auto-kick script employed to boot a player after a certain amount of teamkills. It must be said here, there are various accidental teamkills, which can occur when the fighting gets hot, and confusing. Yet, these are supposed to be forgiven, according to the majority of BF2 players. (Should a player be teamkilled, when this option is turned on by the server admin, a choice appears to that player whether to forgive the player that teamkilled him, or not. Not forgiving a teamkill results in a point penalty.) Should the auto-kick not be on, admins exercise the power to boot, and even ban from their server, anyone engaging in “excessive teamkilling.”
So, there are three major things an admin is supposed to be overseeing; teamkilling, cheating and abusive language. And, of course, since these servers are rented by private individuals, though accessible by the public, these private individuals by and large feel they have the right to operate their servers as they wish. In order to exercise some oversight themselves, Electronic Arts offers what is called the “ranking” of a server. This allows the server to add statistical data to a players “account” which amounts to an elaborate scoring system. Failure to obey EA guidelines in this regard can result in a server losing its ranked status, and can even result in the people running the server having their license to run it revoked, no longer allowing them to function in this capacity. Has this become complicated yet? These are the rules, specific to gameplay, published by EA in a sticky string at this address:
http://www.bf2rankedservers.com/forums/
1. GLOBALLY ENFORCED RANKED SERVER RULES
d. Server admins may not change any game settings defined as standard for ranked servers (ticket ratios, server password, round time, etc.)
e. Server admins may not explicitly or implicitly (by actions) enforce restrictions on vehicles or weapons that players can use while on your server (e.g. knives only, aircraft prohibited except for clan members, etc.)
f. Server admins may not explicitly or implicitly (by actions) enforce restrictions on roles or kits that players can use while on your server e.g. Commander, Squad Leader, Spec Ops, etc.)
h. Players may not use or exploit game mechanisms to artificially boost their scores ("stats padding") and Server admins may not knowingly allow or encourage this activity on their servers.
2. EA OFFICIAL PUBLIC SERVER RULES
These are rules that EA official server admins enforce to maintain friendly, disciplined servers and are in addition to the global rules defined above.
a. You may not use any offensive or sexually explicit language in chat or voice mode. Not adhering to this rule will result in a warning followed by a kick or ban.
b. You may not use foul or slanderous language involving race, gender, sexual preference, religion or creed. Not adhering to this rule will result in a warning followed by a kick or ban.
c. You may not deliberately hinder your own team by Team-killing, destroying friendly vehicles or assets, or acting in such as way as to cause team mates unavoidable deaths or team-kills. Not adhering to this rule will result in a warning then kick (for wounding or damaging) or an immediate kick or temporary ban for deliberate kills.
d. You may not display abusive behavior towards administrators. If you feel that you have been treated unfairly, you may lodge an appeal on the official forums /ticket system (http://www.bf2rankedservers.com/).
Not adhering to this rule will result in a warning followed by a kick or ban.
3. LOCAL (PRIVATELY RENTED) SERVER RULES
These are rules that are not enforced upon EA's public servers but may be in use upon privately rented servers. These rules are decided by the administrators for those servers and as long as they do not contradict any global rules enforced by EA are considered valid for those servers.
Examples of valid local rules *could* include:
- No artillery fire or bombing runs on main (uncapturable) bases.
- No prolonged or sustained attacks on main (uncapturable) bases (i.e. spawn camping).
- No using the Transport Helicopters to take flags (Blackhawk whoring or flag hopping).
- No impersonating clan members.
- No using C4 on jeeps or other fast moving vehicles to take out other vehicles.
I lifted this from the FAQ provided by EA on their page where people may lease server space:
Q. Are there rules of conduct to be observed?
A. We are not here to police this community. However, no cheating or abusive behavior by the gamers who have purchased this service or the members of their clan, team, squad, guild, etc. will be tolerated. We expect gamers from the BattlefieldHosting.EA.com to be honorable in conduct and in sportsmanship. All customers are expected to abide by EA's Terms of Service at all times.
To prepare this article, I have played on hundreds of servers for hundreds of hours. I’ve, variously, played as a good, honest team player who just wants to have fun, a mischievous troublemaker with a foul mouth, an over-officious jerk telling everybody what they should be doing, and often times, just as the player I am when I’m trying to advance in the game for the sake of my own score. I have attempted to provoke admins to some kind of action through my own misdeeds. I have tried to elicit action against people committing infractions on servers, and I’ve remained neutral and merely observed what was going on. I’ve hurled obscene epithets onto the chat screen. I’ve used formal English in the chat screen. I’ve not used the chat screen at all. This in an attempt to run the gamut of possibilities while trolling for reactions just to see what bites. Often times I’ve gotten one. Often times I haven’t (at least from admins.) I’ve played on servers with no admins, running automatic devices. I’ve played on heavily administered servers where the powers that be let nothing slip past them, and I’ve played on servers run by clans. (Clans as an entity in this story will be elaborated upon further.) In so doing I believe I’ve managed to see a wide range of the goings-on on these servers and a wide variety of actions and reactions. I’ve tried not to make observations using my own idea of what is fair. However, that sort of objectivity isn’t ironclad. I tried is the best I can say. Personally, obscene language doesn’t offend me if it’s used well. Racist language does, however. Cheating doesn’t offend me either. Though, I’d rather it didn’t happen, I understand there’s always one in every crowd. Life is too short to let them upset, so I don’t.
It wasn’t long after embarking on this project that I began to realize there isn’t really an enforcement mechanism in place which is borne by much of an authority. These servers are rented by private individuals. (A look at EA’s server rental page reveals the monthly fee for a 64-player server is $512.) Players play for free. Should someone not like how a server is being run, they always have the option of leaving and signing-on to another server. Server operators, on the other hand, expect to have a certain sovereignty over that which they have shelled-out the bucks. “Nobody’s going to tell me how to run MY server. Grumble. Grumble. Grumble.” A glaring problem is the fact that “admins” are recruited, and work as volunteers, in the main. It’s unreasonable to expect the one renting a server to be able to watch all the admins all the time. So, even if an admin is being unfair, using the ops authority to arbitrarily kick and ban players, the one renting the server cannot truly be blamed for these actions. There’s this large gray area looming here. Without the benefit of screenshots, and things actually being said in the chat function and winding up on record, there’s only one person’s word against the other that anything occurred at all. Though, anecdotes teem, telling stories of outrageous behavior by admins, and players alike. By and large, considering the number of servers up and running, and the number of players playing on them, I began to realize these flare-ups must be seen as isolated incidents, and not a prevailing trend requiring much drastic attention.
I chose to wind down my “research” and begin compiling my notes just today (Jan. 30.) I signed-on to one last server, in a blasé fashion as though it were a chore, and not expecting to find much of any note. We’re playing Gulf of Oman. It’s hairy and one team is losing by a bundle with time running out. As I enter the game it says on the screen suddenly, “60MAW Astralman…” my ID “…has initiated a map vote…” I did no such thing. All I did was run to some down arty and try to repair as much as I could before the round ran down. I didn’t have time to type into the screen, “I didn’t initiate a map vote!” The vote was for Karkand (yet again), so it had no chance to win. But, I thought it was odd. Over the time I’ve played the game, I’ve been hit for teamkills while standing perfectly still having done nothing at all. I’ve also been penalized for team vehicle damage when I was nowhere near a vehicle the entire round. This is obviously a server side glitch of some sort. Things like this are bound to get a rise from players, who would then question the veracity of any admin function on that server. I haven’t researched the “whys” of this, because it’s not the subject of this piece. However, one has to wonder how much these sorts of things contribute to the general impressions players have developed toward this admin function.
On a different server that same day I spawn on the carrier deck at Wake Island, and there’s a player, duke_is_gay, shooting up his own team’s jets and helicopters with the aft gun while intermittently typing, “rofl” in the chat screen, (rolling on the floor laughing.) Demands that he be kicked by an admin flood the screen. Nothing happens. A player initiates a kick vote. (An option in the game is a player can do this. If a percentage of players vote yes, the player is booted.) Not enough votes are tallied. Another kick vote. Not enough votes, again. Meanwhile, an enemy jet blows the gun to bits. Duke is dead. Well, during this he blew the chopper I was riding into bits, killing me. It was so obvious what was happening, the USMC commander ordered an attack on this deck gun. I managed to get into it before duke respawned. When he did, he came running for the gun. I shot him to pieces with it. A medic ran over and revived him, so I shot him again. The medic revived. I shot. Meanwhile, seeing the attack order “sword” still hovering over the gun, the rest of the team began to attack ME! This was going to run to some absurd level, but a Chinese jet bombed the deck and the gun, ending the whole episode. I think this is an example of the goings-on serious players see more frequently than they’d like, and another reason there’s somewhat of an uproar over server admins. Rather than respawning after dying in the gun, I was booted for excessive teamkilling, having killed duke four times. I couldn’t sign back on for a minute. So, I waited. When I reentered, I was again immediately booted for a minute for excessive teamkills. (I was just following orders, sir!) The auto-kick feature handled the situation in that fashion, which really didn’t handle anything at all. For the rest of the game, this duke_is_gay was the object of unsuccessful kick votes. I ended up with five points for the round. I never checked to see how in the red I was after the four teamkills I freely admit I committed against a player causing havoc for his own amusement, preventing my team from launching its jets, and helicopters.
However outrageous this event was, it doesn’t typify the average boot/ban incidents which are lore on BF2 forums. This one comes close. On Bamboo Commandos (IP 85.236.101.9:56767), Dragon Valley Map, I drove an armored personnel carrier (APC) to the ridge overlooking the USMC carrier. From there, I fired a few rounds into the carrier’s aft gun. Obviously, an admin was sitting in the gun, because clearly before his name was -=BC=-. I blew the gun to pieces, and he immediately booted and banned me for life. The rule I broke here was attacking a red-circled flag, or an uncappable base. However, as I was positioning myself, I saw he was using the gun to fend off constant jet attacks on the carrier, which is the same offense. However, the pilots of the jets had -=BC=- before their names, as well. Why did he boot/ban me, and not them for breaking the same rule? The likelihood is they were fellow clan members, and the other “offending” players were kicking-in somehow to pay for the server, or clan loyalty had come into play. This can be seen as the “it’s my server, I’ll do what I like,” phenomena. It doesn’t violate anything I could see in the EA global rules, and EA clearly states they don’t enforce rules on private servers, but is this a private server if they’re listed on the IP table at the game’s opening? I couldn’t find any literature defining this. However, it would seem it would be public, or it would at the least be password protected. If such is the case, the admin was clearly applying an arbitrary use of authority for personal reasons. It can readily be seen how this could be a source of confusion for players. Bamboo Commandos have their clan’s web address on their server notes as you enter. To find “the rules” they’re using, one need only Alt+Tab out of the game, and launch a browser. Go to the site, and read before entering the server, or before spawning into the game. Though, to defend themselves against any charges against unfairness, the site operators would see this as an easy thing to do. However, do they have the same opinion when they’re playing on other’s servers? Commonly, players don’t exit the game to read server rules. It is assumed, and rightly so, the rules are universal and unalterable. Though this isn’t accurate, maybe it should be.
Another incident involved two violations at the same time. These are of another sort more frequently found. However, the outcome of this led to a pleasant exchange and a new acquaintance who provided me with some materials so I could provide more information for the purposes of this article. This was a better experience than players usually have in similar situations. This happened on BFSupreme’s server (IP 70.86.74.18:56767), also a clan server. Again, it’s Dragon Valley. I spawn at the power station. Immediately two members on my team, sporting clan tags, began firing on me. I waited until my lifeline was in the red, then I shot one dead. The second guy killed me. I get a team damage penalty. I respawn, the same thing starts up again. I had to assume the “red letter” bug was in operation here. (There’s a bug in the game that shows friendlies in unfriendly colors resulting in unintentional teamkills.) However, I’m researching admin practices, so I decided to use “level-2 language,” and said something to the effect of (fuzzy memory,) “If you jackasses want to play teamkill, I’ve got all night.” I went on, heading for the Chinese airstrip to help recap it. After a pause of about a minute, I get an admin admonition about language in the chat function. “Subdued enough,” I thought. “No overreaction here.” The map plays out without further incident. We move on to Oman.
Now, at Oman, I watched a player on my team set this fabulous C4 tank trap. I was hunkered down behind a building. It looked so good, I sat and watched to see how well it worked. It was great. He blew a tank, with a loaded APC, along with two snipers who were hoofing it toward their intended positions. Quite impressive, so I typed into the screen using his ID, “dark_knight scores tonight! GOOD SHOT!” I was immediately booted for using racist language; saying the word “nig”. As you can see that letter combination occurs twice in the chat message, “kNIGht” and “toNIGht.” So, I dropped into their website, found and registered on their forum. There I saw a string; Appeals if You’ve Been Banned, or words to that affect (memory again.) I typed-up my observations and offered them a chance to respond, promising it would be included in this article. The next day, I got this reply (which I thought was very professional, and diplomatic):
Stephen,
The word filter is funny. I have been kicked for saying assault. We have
had people get kicked for that, we explain that its the "ass" in the word
and that they need to careful. Usually it leads to a laugh, shake of the
head in acknowledging that the system is not perfect, followed by a
standard return to gaming.
It was just a kick, not a ban.
As far as admin supervision on the server, its pretty good here. We have
many admin and may types of admin of which I only have power to kick or
ban. Higher ups have the ability to change configurations of the server.
The admin system is very structured here.
Earlier in the day I kicked 4 people who had more than 7 TK's with no
kills and large neg scores
-1 Admin PB ServerMessage [01:52:35] KICKING!!!
JohnPickles for Team Killing!
-1 Admin PB ServerMessage [01:52:42] KICKING!!!
killenspree1967 for Team Killing!
-1 Admin PB ServerMessage [01:52:57] KICKING!!!
[ZEBRA]Rake for Team Killing!
-1 Admin PB ServerMessage [01:53:08] KICKING!!! =SBC=
XxiTwound for Team Killing!
41 =BFS= I.I.Abeita 1 Global [01:53:11] What's
with all the INCREDIBLY stupid TK'ers tonight?
-1 Admin None ServerMessage [01:53:15] *** WARNING: =BFS=
I.I.Abeita, your language is unacceptable. Please keep it clean.
Notice Abeita on MY TEAM was also warned for the same thing you did. We
aren't exempt from these rules, lol.
How do we know when TK-ing is an issue?
Usually someone types "is there an admin here," usually a few times
because when we are in-game playing, we don't always see the text the first
time, (too intent on killin' someone.) Sometimes people join our squad and
VOIP tell us. Sometimes we see it ourselves. (I have another screen name I
play under without tags if I think there are problems). Sometimes we see
it in the client. The BF2 client is another piece of software you have to
Alt-Tab to get to and can look at scores and TK's.
OK so in your situation, or in one similar he kills you and in retaliation
you kill him, in the client I see your score and the number of TK's......
how do I tell who the bad guy is.....
(I then received a second e-mail which contained this):
Here is a guy we banned not 5 minutes ago. 15 Tks.
FYI this is what we see in the client.
I’d never seen this before. That’s quite a lot of information in table form for someone to have to track the activities which occur on the game servers. Trying to monitor this, as well as play the game, must be quite a chore! He was kind enough to provide me with the set of rules his group established to govern their admins:
Rule Numero Uno is that all Admins must read this. We do not abuse our
admin powers. We supervise the game. We don't play games with kicks/bans
on the server. Treat others as you would want to be treated.
2. Be prepared to exit the game at any given time. Your main priority is
to admin.
3. All admins must be able to use TeamSpeak in order to admin at BFS. If a
player who was banned from BFS comes on our TeamSpeak, any admin present
should make an attempt to determine who the admin was that banned the
player. That admin should then instruct the player that they must go to
the BFS Forums and follow the posting rules. They need to also advise the
player of the ID of the admin who imposed the ban. If no admins are on TS,
then players there can tell the player to go to the Forums and simply
post. [edit by Will]
4. You must have a login and password. To get that, please contact me -
Will.
5. Do not share your login with anyone. If you do and are caught, your
admin privileges will be revoked. You must take responsibility for your
admin privileges.
6. Do not lift any bans unless you are confident that you are lifting the
ban of the player who should have his/her rights restored. If you are
unsure, ask Al or River what to do.
7. Any Admin can recommend a person for Admin, but the final decision will
be decided by a min. of 3 Senior Admins.
8. Any Admin that quits BFS out of anger etc., then returns, will be put
on a month probation period before Admin privileges are reinstated.
We do not promote profanities at BFS. I don't want BFS admins posting
profanities on either server.
We do not allow racist, bigotry, religious slams, etc. type of comments on
either server. Anyone posting such should be immediately warned and or
kicked. That is why you are admining on the server. There is zero
tolerance for this type of garbage. If they come back and repeat it, ban
them.
So, I’m still here, looking for a villain. He went on to provide excerpts of the verbal abuse his admins have to endure, and I’m here to tell you, the villains are beginning to look like certain players. The old saw, “There’s one in every crowd,” appears in my mind and I have to recall the many people we see day-to-day that just don’t seem to know how to behave in public. I thought when I began this, I’d wind up with a list of servers to avoid because of on-going arrogant server amin practices, but this list hasn’t appeared! Sure, clan servers will likely be tilted toward the clan. Grabbing screenshots, the IPs and names of the offending admins will bring action against them by EA if they’ve violated their terms of agreement. Yet, it’s beginning to look like that old saw even applies to the crowd of admins. I’ve had such cooperative responses from all the websites I contacted for clarifications, that I’m convinced that in the main they’re honorable people trying to live up to the spirit of the game, but they aren’t immune to the one, or two, bad apples slipping-in under their screens. After looking into this subject as long as I have, before reporting a server to EA, I’d go to the offender’s website and lodge a complaint there. See what kind of response you get. Use an e-mail address for the response. (Don’t get involved with a flame war on their forum board.) If your well-documented, legitimate gripe is given short shrift, then blow the whistle on them. From what I’ve seen, you’re likely to get a good response from the lowest level of management. I’m not saying everything is peaches and cream. There are servers that deserve to get their tickets yanked, just not enough to make a list here that wouldn’t look like nit-picking.
To close this I’d like to relate just one more incident. I signed-on to a server with the Eliot-Ness.org banner, a group I’ve usually found relatively trouble free. There are several servers sporting this banner. This particular one is run by Battleforce (IP 85.236.101.60:1706). Their address is in the UK, and I’ve usually had nothing but good experiences on European servers, the UK especially. However, such was not the case here. The map was Sharqui Peninsula. I’m sniping from a roof in a good spot so I could spend time reading the chat text. Suddenly amid the more routine stuff, I see this exchange:
Player: admin, I was teamkilled for a chopper. Kick “player’s ID”.
Admin: nope, he’s admin, too.
This, of course is a clear violation of the EA Terms of Agreement, and a license-yanking offense. Yet, I was taken by how carefree and relaxed the admin was in his response. Naturally, I hung around to see what developed. No argument flared up. The map played out. Another map begins to load. Suddenly the score table for that map appears. All scores are zero, but the first three on the player list, in alphabetical order, received medals! Medals for a ZERO score! Another map begins to load. The same thing happens. Three more medals are awarded, one to each of the same three people; 2 gold, 2 silver, 2 bronze. The server starts, then dumps three more maps, before settling on the sixth; Karkand (naturally). So, I found myself some cover to hide from my own teammates, (inside an APC near the gas station), and signaled the admin in text, “Admin Admin.” Then, I typed into the screen, “I’m writing an article for publication about unfair admin practices.” The admin responds, “We couldn’t help it with the maps. The server got screwed up.” I replied, “It wasn’t that. It was an admin teamkilling for a chopper on the last map.” The admin who had done the teamkilling chimes in, "We don't care who you write for. Write what you want. Who cares about your opinion, anyway?" I respond, "Believe me, I don't need anybody to tell me what to write." I then added, "just facts, no opinion." The admin became conciliatory and said he told his people to lay off the stupid stuff. He also said he'd booted the TK-er, but, then the TK-er had more to say. Well, let these two screenshots tell the rest:
