AAO25.com
Assist => Feedback & Suggestions => Topic started by: hype on Wednesday, February 26, 2025, 16:45:42 PM
-
Admins, if you're going to use your own discretion to just ban people from the client, not everyone in the community is going to view punishments as being fair. The easiest way to go about this is to stop banning anyone (other than cheating) and let server admins decide what to do. This was the way it was done with the live version of AA.
If it's too much of an ask for you to restrict some of your power, can you please develop a set of rules for the game itself? Currently, there is no consistent basis for how you ban anyone outside of cheating.
Example: Bumpy consistently uses racial slurs and is extremely disrespectful to many people, yet no action is ever taken against him and his 10 accounts. On the flip side, joe gets banned for using a real name, even though the person who had their name used said to unban him. This can be seen as playing favorites.
Edit: And since joe is such a controversial subject, even without using him as an example the issue of using admin discretion is still present. If you're going to ban for speech, provide a set of rules so there is a clear delineation of what is allowed or restricted.
-
agreed
-
Firstly, to address the obvious—this post is clearly referencing a specific individual who has been banned from the game. It is extraordinarily rare for someone to be banned from Assist in 2025, especially for reasons other than cheating.
Secondly, as we've stated previously, we're not sitting around and monitoring in-game chat logs. If you notice someone using slurs, engaging in targeted harassment, or any similar behavior, you can PM evidence to anyone on the team and it will be reviewed and discussed. The priority is to maintain a welcoming environment for all players—both new and returning.
It is also important to mention that, without getting into specifics, there can be many underlying reasons why someone was banned and why a ban hasn't been lifted. Alex has already shared some additional insight in the other thread but even so, there is more to be taken into consideration than may meet the eye.
Lastly, implementing a code of conduct, community guidelines, or something to that effect, certainly couldn't hurt. However, I’d wager that the vast majority of players have nothing to worry about and would find limited value in guidelines that would likely boil down to: don’t cheat and try to show at least a basic level of respect for others in this community.
Perhaps some others can chime in with their opinions but what I've outlined above is my own.
-
Well Said HellBoy
-
Just echoing what Hellboy said, we have no ability to monitor in-game chat. If you see something, please report it. Joe has been posting vile shit in the shoutbox, which we can see. If you have any issues of players harassing others in-game please take a screenshot and report it.
As much as some of the player base would like to believe otherwise, AA2 is and always was meant to be enjoyed by everyone. Nobody should feel unsafe or harassed for simply playing a game.
Edit: And since joe is such a controversial subject, even without using him as an example the issue of using admin discretion is still present. If you're going to ban for speech, provide a set of rules so there is a clear delineation of what is allowed or restricted.
As Hellboy said (in much more professional terms than I will use here)
Just don't be a fucking asshole. That's it. Do not harass others, do not use slurs. Is this really needed to be specified? This is basic human decency and if you can't follow it you have much bigger problems than being banned in a 20 year old game.
-
Just echoing what Hellboy said, we have no ability to monitor in-game chat. If you see something, please report it. Joe has been posting vile shit in the shoutbox, which we can see. If you have any issues of players harassing others in-game please take a screenshot and report it.
As much as some of the player base would like to believe otherwise, AA2 is and always was meant to be enjoyed by everyone. Nobody should feel unsafe or harassed for simply playing a game.
As Hellboy said (in much more professional terms than I will use here)
Just don't be a fucking asshole. That's it. Do not harass others, do not use slurs. Is this really needed to be specified? This is basic human decency and if you can't follow it you have much bigger problems than being banned in a 20 year old game.
You use shoutbox as an example, yet the same person I mentioned (bumpy) talks shit in there, and numerous people have previously posted in that shoutbox what he has said in-game. Where's the concern on that one?
Firstly, to address the obvious—this post is clearly referencing a specific individual who has been banned from the game. It is extraordinarily rare for someone to be banned from Assist in 2025, especially for reasons other than cheating.
I used a recent and controversial ban as an example. Additionally, you both casually omitted the part where the "victim" said joe didn't need to be banned.
-
I will entertain this thread as if this was a genuine interest in fairness rather than a specific interest in getting an individual unbanned (which it clearly is).
Others have already covered the visibility aspects of this. So I'll try to focus on the standardization.
I think you're right. There could be more transparancy regarding behaviour related bans. While we do have a TOS (https://aao25.com/forum/assist-support/current-tos/) to cover the very basics, it is rather vague (as these things tend to be).
With that said, I'd wager a guess you can't probably list many players that have seen behaviour related bans. Especially permanent ones. And that should go to show how seriously we take this responsibility.
But the problem is, you can't easily take these examples as a line in the sand because (most likely) you weren't there for all of the referenced behaviour. And hell, some of the behaviour may not even have been referenced publically. Perhaps that is part of the problem (I don't think so, but the community sentiment may differ).
There's a great saying where I come from: "kus viga näed laita, seal tule ja aita". I suppose the rough translation being "If you see a problem, help fix it"
We are a community after all. And community guidelines should reflect the values of the community. So if you think you've got the ability to help get things rolling, then please do so. If we keep the process of creating these guidelines open to the community, they're far more likely to actually voice the viewpoint of the community.
So I'd call upon anyone that's (actually) interested in the fairness of the action the Assist admin team takes to come forward and voice their opinion.
Though do please do so in the following manner:
- Each separate point to address in the guidelines in a separate paragraph
- Each paragraph starts with a bolded phrase / sentence to summarise it
- Each paragraph continues a longer body of justification and description of the point
Topics that could be of interest:
- When does behaviour / speech become harassment?
- What metrics should be used to classify a message threatening?
- What metrics should be used to classify a message embarassing?
- Where is the line for untolerated hate speech?
- What is the level of offensive language that should be allowed?
Things to bare in mind while trying to answer these questions:
- 25Assist is not the US government. Whether you're from the US or elsewhere, we can take action on speech / behaviour that would be protected by the US' first amendment (which protects citizens' speech from being suppressed by the government)
- We have an international community. Different countries/cultures have different values. Yours is not more correct than someone else's
- The whole point of a community guidelines is to show the viewpoint of the community, not an individual
I find these questions incredibly hard to answer. But I'm sure others in the community are better suited for the task.
-
Most of the Assist admins are rarely on the servers to see what going on in a day to day basis. Hellboy and Bart being the exception and even then not so much recently. Screenshots do not always provide a complete picture of what is going on, either for or against a potential violation. There is a big difference between friendly in game banter and repeated unsolicited targeted abuse, tk's, threats of violence, etc... How to you find the right balance between the two?
Now with that said, most of the time these types of issues could and should be handled at the server level. It's only when the individual takes it to the community at large with the same repeated unsolicited targeted abuse, threats of violence, etc... in the chatbox / forums that he/she is looking for a community response and that is when the Assist admins could and should get involved to see if this is a community issue that needs to be addressed. One exception to this would be doxing which should probably be handled differently as it was in a recent case.
On a side note: one of the things I like about Gunny as server admin is he has the ability to take a lot of shit and just chew it up and spit it out. So when he has an objection to someone or something I respect that. I thing he should be made an assist admin personally cause he is on all the time and sees what is going on.
#GunnyForAssistAdmin
-
!Engineer!
What kind of nonsense is this to you?
We don't need another assist admin, especially a moron like your friend..
#GunnyForAssistAdmin
-
Respectfully, I think you are missing the point of why I suggested what I suggested.
Just to name a few points..
A good and effective admin needs to actually be active in the server(s) and community on all whole and he in my opinion checks that box.
Another good quality an admin must have is the ability to not over react to a situation or simply ban or otherwise discipline people based on what mood they are in. Again I feel he checks that box.
Furthermore whether I am his friend or my friendliness with him is irrelevant .
-
I agree with those few points but we don't need a single assist admin anymore! (ESPECIALLY MORON)
So far, so many smart people have passed who played every day and had the knowledge to change something in aa2 and never became assist admins!
Today we don't have an assist admin who can bring the most common 203 back into the game (except for possessed who doesn't want to mess with it, hasn't played for years and is the only one who can do something), so we have assist admins who only keep the peace in aa2!
-
[--]except for possessed who [--] hasn't played for years
I'll just leave you with the link:
https://aatracker.net/player/%3D%5DFEC%5B%3DPossessed
and the quote from it:
Last Tracked: [AATracker.net] Community Server - SF Extraction - (01/08/2025 03:22:58)
-
..I saw him sign up for aa2 a few times but I didn't see him play..
-
I agree Eng. He's the only one always, On line with me . So I really know, How he is . Number 1.
-
@General, would it be more effective to make a point as to why my suggestion for Gunny was unfounded rather than to throw unnecessary insult towards him. Your of an age similar to me so I would ask you is this how adults of our age group talk to each other? Would you call him an insult in person for no reason?
I always do my best to treat others with respect even when I disagree with them and that concept has served me well in life.
If Teddy and the other admin create strict rules here would your insult be over the line and grounds for disciplinary action? I mean it was an unsolicited insult that was uncalled for.
I am not suggesting that any action be taken against you for your comment but just showing how difficult it is for Admins to moderated online content. Even Meta and X are all over the place on this over the years.
Questions to ponder over.
-
What do you know about unwanted insults that are not justified?!
By writing about insults I see that you haven't watched shotbox for a long time..
Where were you before to see the person in question insulting and what he writes..
Disciplinary action haha, we are not in communism anymore lol!!!
Assist admins should know something and all players should respect them for their reputation, behavior, etc., not just choose who likes which player so they can be an assist admin..lol
I will not expand the topic on unnecessary nonsense..
We don't need new assist admins who don't know anything about programming, improving aa2!
We have enough assist admins for what we need!
P.S
Respect to you too but don't think too much
-
To answer Hpye's original question, I don't think any precise rules are needed.
Be kind to each other and respectful as you would want to be treated. Joke around but understand there may be consequence if you repeatedly go to far and this community finds what you are doing as offensive. You all know what is socially acceptable and don't act like you don't. Act like you would as if you were in front of that person. Know when you cross the line and be man or woman enough to say sorry when you do or think you did.
This should not be that difficult to follow.
-
I was away for some time, but back again. Some travel for work lately made me not being able to be online a lot.
I can be short: the points that teddy wrote are right, we could make something like this.
On the other hands, there is only one! case of someone banned due to this behaviour after several warnings.
Next to that, I agree with Engineer. Common sense in how to behave and act towards others like you would want to be threated already helps a lot.
-
Admins, if you're going to use your own discretion to just ban people from the client, not everyone in the community is going to view punishments as being fair. The easiest way to go about this is to stop banning anyone (other than cheating) and let server admins decide what to do. This was the way it was done with the live version of AA.
If it's too much of an ask for you to restrict some of your power, can you please develop a set of rules for the game itself? Currently, there is no consistent basis for how you ban anyone outside of cheating.
Example: Bumpy consistently uses racial slurs and is extremely disrespectful to many people, yet no action is ever taken against him and his 10 accounts. On the flip side, joe gets banned for using a real name, even though the person who had their name used said to unban him. This can be seen as playing favorites.
Edit: And since joe is such a controversial subject, even without using him as an example the issue of using admin discretion is still present. If you're going to ban for speech, provide a set of rules so there is a clear delineation of what is allowed or restricted.
I retract what I just said before
""" Go play Tetris """. ""AA is a mans game"""
-
To answer Hpye's original question, I don't think any precise rules are needed.
Be kind to each other and respectful as you would want to be treated. Joke around but understand there may be consequence if you repeatedly go to far and this community finds what you are doing as offensive. You all know what is socially acceptable and don't act like you don't. Act like you would as if you were in front of that person. Know when you cross the line and be man or woman enough to say sorry when you do or think you did.
This should not be that difficult to follow.
I think this sentiment is correct. But there is nuance that a lot of people seem to miss.
Like I've said before, we're an international community. And as such, many have different cultural backgrounds. Which means different tolerances for certain activities. I don't think anyone is saying you can't joke around with your friends / people you know. I'm pretty sure I call Bart a hacker every time I see him online - I know he can take it :) ! But I don't do that with people I don't know.
I guess the TLDR would be: don't assume that other people have the same tolerance for "trash talk".
PS: What do you do when you assume?
-
I think this sentiment is correct. But there is nuance that a lot of people seem to miss.
Like I've said before, we're an international community. And as such, many have different cultural backgrounds. Which means different tolerances for certain activities. I don't think anyone is saying you can't joke around with your friends / people you know. I'm pretty sure I call Bart a hacker every time I see him online - I know he can take it :) ! But I don't do that with people I don't know.
I guess the TLDR would be: don't assume that other people have the same tolerance for "trash talk".
PS: What do you do when you assume?
It's the people that trash talk that don't like it when shit is talked back.
Every one talks shit in game, if they say different there full of shit..........
O btw calling RPG "s Chinese Rockets that's racist roflmfao, some are not made to play this game .....
-
"You make an ass out of you and me"
Classic Odd couple scene when Felix is questioning the witness
https://youtu.be/LfvTwv5o1Qs
-
You use shoutbox as an example, yet the same person I mentioned (bumpy) talks shit in there, and numerous people have previously posted in that shoutbox what he has said in-game. Where's the concern on that one?
I used a recent and controversial ban as an example. Additionally, you both casually omitted the part where the "victim" said joe didn't need to be banned.
Then show us. If we've missed something bad by all means call us out. We can only act on what we actively see and we can't see everything. You should absolutely expect us to do better just as we expect everyone to be better. This isn't some us vs them, we're all AA players and we all want this community to thrive.
On another note, we don't give a fuck if the "victim" says a player should be unbanned. We observe behavior and act accordingly.
It's especially troubling when I received many complaints from the victim and now all of a sudden they want to walk is all back? Nah. We looked at the behavior and decided it was worth a ban. We also discussed a second chance but his antics in the shoutbox made it apparent he hasn't changed.
-
we don't give a fuck if the "victim" says a player should be unbanned.
If you read my comment ! This is what I said ..
I really don't thing you are . Your just dying to come back and cause more problems. How can someone so rude change ? Me personally I would never have you back . You made my game play so uncomfortable. Since you been gone , I'm doing much better not having someone call me pathetic. But it's not up to me . And a lot of people really don't like you . Sorry. I forgive you, Because I'm a real good person. And it's a game . So whatever.
So please a liittle respect !! I Also said . Unban him in the shout box . If you do ! Gunman and Play have admins . So they can ban him form the servers ... I hate BS .
-
I havnt been able to play much of late and my gaming is during early evening and not late Uk time as I like to sleep for another days work!
That aside I cant really see what the issue is apart from the continued baiting and insult throwing on the Shoutbox . Its a very small minority but surely they can be removed from the Box and then the servers by Admin , Maybe just ignore them or have Admin programe a block function into the game chat that allows players to block words communicated by selected others from a list > Cant be too hard to do?
Anyway peace and Love And PIPELINE is the Only Map to PLay on Heartbreak Ridge , No map changes , No whining , It is what is is .