Currently, trying to admin and play the game is mission impossible.
The moment everyone knows your name everyone wants to be your friend. The moment you explain to them you're not their friend and you kill them when you try to play the game, it's admin abuse.
The moment you throw on your invisible armor, your name is right above your head, and your footsteps are heard. Hackers toggle and rule breakers stop breaking the rules, making it extremely difficult to catch people.
If you want to run a server that people like while being able to catch hackers, you have to run modded because Vanilla just does not provide admins with the tools they need. You will spend over 50% of your time on fruitless ghost hunts if you try running vanilla.
Buying a server so you can play the game without hackers becomes pointless when you have no anonymity and will be accused of abuse simply because you won a firefight. The game becomes unplayable for admins who refuse to abuse.
So I'd like to finish this by asking the question in the title, but in a different manner. Will admins be able to play the game on the servers they pay money for while being effective and anonymous?
I hear you bro. Current Rust has almost no helpful tools for admins. Even using hacks would be more helpful to an admin than RCON, at least you can fly and move silently that way... :(
Just recently [URL="https://twitter.com/RustUpdates/status/491212754754490368"]Garry added spectator mode for Experimental[/URL], although he says it's for debugging I think that it should eventually become a tool for admins.
[QUOTE=Outer Heaven;45475354]snip[/QUOTE]
Your experiences are discussions of Legacy are they not? There are none of these controls and they don't work (Or fail to work) in any of the ways you explain on Experimental, as they're simply not at that point of development yet. Yet you posted this in experimental, and didn't really do any research to the subject before asking these questions. Which isn't so bad, I understand not wanting to research such a meager subject when you could just ask a question in a public forum.
So I'll try to answer this with anyone reading understanding I'm not representing anyone rather than just my own opinion, which happens to be...
In the event that invisible armor is added again, and you do need to spend active time monitoring hackers and ghosting around your server, this is already a degree of abuse from the admin perspective as they're being permitted to witness information they would not know as a regular player. So you are abusing the moment you try to administrate and play at the same time. The solution? Anticheats that require virtually no input, your only job will be to respond to calls, not to actively monitor your population. But what does this mean at this point in development? It means no, you can not literally play as a normal player and administrate in parallel. That's just the reality of it, you're abusing just by being active in hacker prevention. You have to tone down and become a hacker response. And as for that, it will be your responsibility to remain anonymous. You don't talk to people, you don't interact, you just ghost in ban(or don't) and ghost out. Never tag your messages with your name, and be discreet as hell. Then you won't garner adminattention, and you can just play like a normal player. Invisibility wouldn't even be necessary (but it would be nice, and invisible nametag as well) if you had teleport locations around key map points so you could just quickly navigate around and not accidentally teleport infront of other players. Anyways, all that aside, have you ever tried just ignoring people who complain lies? "omg admin abused me" doesn't hurt you, does it?
Edit: I just want to add, that I play on servers where admins ghost around and observe the population, and play as well, and I'm totally okay with that. But people will complain about what I mentioned above, reasonably so. You don't really have a counter argument other than that "I pay for the server, I want to play, and you don't want hackers, deal with it!" You have to learn to ignore the masses when you stand on a podium infront of them. They are not constructive or intelligent as a crowd. Talk to people on personal levels out of the eyes of the entire server if you want some real perspectives on issues. Not as many people care as you think do, when one player screams in server chat that you're abusing because you killed him. Loudest =/= majority
[QUOTE=leminlyme;45475697]they're being permitted to witness information they would not know as a regular player.[/QUOTE]
This is called meta information. If you pay for a server, you have the possibility and the right to access this meta information whenever necessary. You could also parse the player save or the map save and extract so much information from it. Did you know in the current legacy version, you can export your map as JSON and extract all door codes that are used? No need to have admin commands doing that.
[QUOTE=leminlyme;45475697]So you are abusing the moment you try to administrate and play at the same time.[/QUOTE]
Actually, you are abusing once you decide to use the meta information as a player. DnD or other pen'n'paper players will know how this works.
[QUOTE=leminlyme;45475697]It means no, you can not literally play as a normal player and administrate in parallel. That's just the reality of it, you're abusing just by being active in hacker prevention.[/QUOTE]
I kinda agree, however there are exceptions to this. Not every admin is a player who decided to buy a server, some admins are admins by heart and know how to handle this meta information. But unfortunately, most admins don't.
[QUOTE=leminlyme;45475697]And as for that, it will be your responsibility to remain anonymous. You don't talk to people, you don't interact, you just ghost in ban(or don't) and ghost out. Never tag your messages with your name, and be discreet as hell.[/QUOTE]
This is suppression of information which I think makes players automatically think of admin abuse. If you have nothing to hide, better show all the world everything you do, then they can have actual reasons to trust you as an admin. I'm not sure if hiding yourself would make things better in this case.
[QUOTE=leminlyme;45475697]Anyways, all that aside, have you ever tried just ignoring people who complain lies? "omg admin abused me" doesn't hurt you, does it?[/QUOTE]
It doesn't hurt admins, it hurts the community. So does blurting out "hacker" when there's no hacker. If people read about it, they will think it's a fact and leave. This is cancerous.
[QUOTE=leminlyme;45475697]But people will complain about what I mentioned above, reasonably so. You don't really have a counter argument other than that "I pay for the server, I want to play, and you don't want hackers, deal with it!" You have to learn to ignore the masses when you stand on a podium infront of them. They are not constructive or intelligent as a crowd. Talk to people on personal levels out of the eyes of the entire server if you want some real perspectives on issues. Not as many people care as you think do, when one player screams in server chat that you're abusing because you killed him. Loudest =/= majority[/QUOTE]
Unfortunately, this is full of truth, especially if you don't have a system that can show players what is happening, what you're doing as an admin. But there's no argument in the world that could provide perspective on how you use meta information. Except, of course, you stream and record all your gameplay, which then gives all other players access to meta information about you, which makes it unbalanced again. It's always a back and forth.
Rust is very prone to admin abuse. One can argue that the admin paid for the server and can do whatever they want, and I'd agree. But if you actively promote no admin abuse for your server, you simply can't use any meta information if you still want to play on your own server. But there's nothing to calm to dumb crowd down if someone thinks they saw you abuse when you didn't. There will probably never be a solution to this.
[QUOTE=Gachl;45505545]snip[/QUOTE]
My only solution is having a bot do the work. If hacking becomes such a difficult task that people don't just go on any random shithead forum and download a hook or exe or anything, and boom they're l33t hackers, then the necessity for in your face administrating will decline to managing chat like I think I said above, and occasionally warping to deal with a real shithead.
Also just my opinion and counter points, I've never seen a game or server massively succeed without turmoil when they put everything on show. Restricting information has never been something I liked or advocated, and when I ran 50player minecraft servers which were a right hell with FTB mods, it was not easy to manage the players at all. But I tried to be in their face and let them know everything I did, and play at the same time. It really cripples the admin, the scrutiny and lies and dumb bs that crops up. I would never do it again, if I'm running another server I'm going to be a ghost and play on a different account. What the players think or say will be far more devalued when they have no one to direct their non evidence at.
[QUOTE=leminlyme;45505577]It really cripples the admin, the scrutiny and lies and dumb bs that crops up.[/QUOTE]
Yea, as an admin you gotta be a cynical bag of shite that despites all humans to cope with it, at least that's how I feel. I've been hosting and administrating servers for over 12 years now and I know exactly what you're talking about :P
[QUOTE=Gachl;45475678]Just recently [URL="https://twitter.com/RustUpdates/status/491212754754490368"]Garry added spectator mode for Experimental[/URL], although he says it's for debugging I think that it should eventually become a tool for admins.[/QUOTE]
Garry's Friday devblog clarified that at the moment, anyone can spectate in Experimental, but this will "probably" be just for admins eventually.
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