55 replies to this topic

[blinkin]

Justin Xang Allard, on 03 January 2013 - 07:57 PM, said:

since mwo is not malware or a virus, turning off the alt f4 functionality in this game would have 0 "windows security" issues.

list of other "windows shortcuts"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126449

you still misuncerstood me. the issue is not that this program might cause security issue. the issue is you will be fighting with windows security which will inherently cause issues.

and still you ignore most of my post.

my main issues were:
i personally think this is an incredibly idiotic idea. alt f4, alt tab, ctrl alt delete, and other options are sometimes your only recourse when a program has a major error of some kind. i would rather not have to always resort to hitting the power button on my computer any time the program fails.

this whole thread is about treating the symptom and not the core issue. the core issue is a major flaw in how disconnected players are handled.

many of these players could just as easily be reaching over and unplugging their internet connection.

i never talked about powering down the machine, if i had then you might have a point but i was talking about the physical plugs on the computer.

again this thread is about treating the symptom and not the core issue. this treatment is likely to cause several issues and solve nothing.

Edited by blinkin, 03 January 2013 - 08:42 PM.

[Havyek]

EmGooser, on 02 January 2013 - 01:07 PM, said:

As a developer myself, you can "catch" the event and stop it. That is how other applications remove the functionality. However, I like the alt-f4 command, it allows a quit one key stroke method to close the game. I think someone got tricked into pushing it and is a little sore about it.

Either troll somewhere else or work on your reading comprehension, then come back and contribute.

If your application crashes legitimately, rarely will ALT+F4 work, you'll need to CTRL+ALT+DEL and either force the application to close, or stop the process.

Keeping ALT+F4 in simply for the sake of convenience is not a valid answer.

[juxstapo]

+1. Get annoyed at the trolling big time.

[IceSerpent]

BDU Havoc, on 04 January 2013 - 06:37 AM, said:

Either troll somewhere else or work on your reading comprehension, then come back and contribute.

If your application crashes legitimately, rarely will ALT+F4 work, you'll need to CTRL+ALT+DEL and either force the application to close, or stop the process.

Keeping ALT+F4 in simply for the sake of convenience is not a valid answer.

Uhm, dude, you need to work on your reading comprehension. What EmGooser said is absolutely, 100% correct and has nothing to do with freezing / crashing applications whatsoever.

[Havyek]

IceSerpent, on 04 January 2013 - 08:41 AM, said:

Uhm, dude, you need to work on your reading comprehension. What EmGooser said is absolutely, 100% correct and has nothing to do with freezing / crashing applications whatsoever.

Great.
This post wasn't about how convenient ALT+F4 is or is not. It's about removing/blocking it from the active application so as not to be abused.
The ONLY valid reason to use the ALT+F4 command is to close the application in the event that it stops responding properly. Not to close the running application because you don't want to be killed or are too lazy to hit ESC, QUIT, YES.

[canned wolf]

IceSerpent, on 04 January 2013 - 08:41 AM, said:

Uhm, dude, you need to work on your reading comprehension. What EmGooser said is absolutely, 100% correct and has nothing to do with freezing / crashing applications whatsoever.

No one here got "tricked" into alt f4ing. The discussion is about an abuse of a windows function to prevent your kill stats from reflecting your actual death count.

Blinkinn brought up physically disconnecting your ethernet connection because that is the way systems like this have been abused in the past.

There are an infinate number of ways I can disrupt the signal between myself and the MWO server if I choose to. Removing alt f4 will solve nothing and punish people who use it legitimately. The Netcode is fairly stable at this point, calling a disco a death will solve the problem.

[IceSerpent]

BDU Havoc, on 04 January 2013 - 08:57 AM, said:

Great.
This post wasn't about how convenient ALT+F4 is or is not. It's about removing/blocking it from the active application so as not to be abused.

How in a world can you "abuse" closing an application? If you are talking about intentional disconnects, disabling alt+f4 won't fix anything - it's equally easy to power cycle the router or yank the network cable out.

Oh, and the post you quoted had nothing to do with convenience/inconvenience, but rather about how to disable it from a technical point of view - reading comprehension is definitely in need for some improvement.

Quote

The ONLY valid reason to use the ALT+F4 command is to close the application in the event that it stops responding properly. Not to close the running application because you don't want to be killed or are too lazy to hit ESC, QUIT, YES.

Nope, alt+f4 doesn't work on non-responding apps half of the time. It's just a convenient shortcut for closing an application.

canned wolf, on 04 January 2013 - 09:01 AM, said:

No one here got "tricked" into alt f4ing. The discussion is about an abuse of a windows function to prevent your kill stats from reflecting your actual death count.

Hmm...I am not so sure. If you think about it, why in a world would I give a broken dime about other player's death count or my own kill count? The idea that certain folks got tricked into hitting alt+f4 "to enable 3rd person view" and are upset about it seems much more plausible.

Quote

Blinkinn brought up physically disconnecting your ethernet connection because that is the way systems like this have been abused in the past.

There are an infinate number of ways I can disrupt the signal between myself and the MWO server if I choose to. Removing alt f4 will solve nothing and punish people who use it legitimately.

Completely agree with this part.

Edited by IceSerpent, 04 January 2013 - 11:28 AM.

[EmGooser]

BDU Havoc, on 04 January 2013 - 06:37 AM, said:

Either troll somewhere else or work on your reading comprehension, then come back and contribute.

If your application crashes legitimately, rarely will ALT+F4 work, you'll need to CTRL+ALT+DEL and either force the application to close, or stop the process.

Keeping ALT+F4 in simply for the sake of convenience is not a valid answer.

When an app truely crashes the OS will pop up and prompt you to end task.
If the app crashes to desktop then there is no need to alt-f4 (as in the app forced itself to close, not really a "crash")
If the app is frozen, yes then you have to ALT-CTRL-DEL to end the task

However, I like alt-f4 for the following.
1. I have the 4 FPS bug
2. I am already dead and want to close it

Yes in both of these cases you CAN hit esc and then click, but why not just ALT-F4, it is faster. You can also leave in the Esc and click exit in the UI. Having many types of ways to do something in a UI is better because it is more user friendly as long as it does not get to cluttered.

If you are worried about people "Disconnecting" to prevent a death, they can still put an event catch to signal the server that they left in that way. Then they can record that as a death for all I care. The only way to prevent the game from not sending that would be to unplug the network cord or the app itself did crash or freeze. (they are not the same thing btw). I would bet you money they are actually doing that already because if they didn't the server would have the time out from the client when someone did use the exit button or alt-f4.

Something else to note, did you know the Alt-F4 command is EXACTLY what end task tries to do before it halts the thread? End task only does an OS thread kill if it cant get the application to respond to the Alt-F4 request.

Please don't assume that it is a troll, again I make windows applications for a living. There is a lot more going on behind the video output you are seeing that can be taken advantage of to help prevent not getting a kill on your little score board that is SO important to you. A lot of things that would NOT limit functionality and usability like you are asking for.

Edited by EmGooser, 04 January 2013 - 12:34 PM.

[blinkin]

IceSerpent, on 04 January 2013 - 11:27 AM, said:

Nope, alt+f4 doesn't work on non-responding apps half of the time. It's just a convenient shortcut for closing an application.

Hmm...I am not so sure. If you think about it, why in a world would I give a broken dime about other player's death count or my own kill count? The idea that certain folks got tricked into hitting alt+f4 "to enable 3rd person view" and are upset about it seems much more plausible.

when a program fails any number of methods to solve it might fail to work, i would prefer we not arbitrarily remove one on purpose.

regardless of what you believe there are many people out there who do see their KD as a mark of pride. i would prefer to have other ways to measure player skill, but that is something for another thread.

most of these players disconnect right after their mech has been crippled or right before an obvious killing blow is about to be struck. their KD is saved and the rightful victor is denied XP and cbills.

this thread is not about players who disco at the beginning of the match or players who disconnect after that stupid joke is made. this problem became rampant right after repair and reload was removed, because now there is no penalty for letting your mech die in a match.

although this exploit may provide skilled players with a steady source of disco newbs to feast upon, when they implement the pilot skill mechanics. all of these pilots who are faking high scores will be put in matches with players who actually earned high scores. i get warm fuzzy feelings when i think about how the disco newbs will be brutally beaten by skilled players over and over again.

[Shlkt]

Alt+F4 is just a shortcut for sending the WM_CLOSE message to the application. Developers can choose to ignore the message if they want. For example, if press Alt+F4 right now (click click) then Firefox just warns me that I have multiple tabs open and asks me if I'm sure I want to close them.

Also, note that the Task Manager's "End Task" button is not the same as "End Process". The "End Task" button tries to close the application normally first (by sending the WM_CLOSE message), but the "End Process" button immediately terminates the process without attempting a normal shutdown.

As for the original question... IMO a disconnect should count as death. That's how most competitive games work, precisely because people on the Internet are jerks. StarCraft 2, for example, counts any disconnect as a loss.

Yeah, yeah... there are bugs which cause people to crash. It's not a disaster if your precious beta stats are occasionally affected.

[Chief Justice]

Sorry folks, but removing the alt-f4 method to quit the game fast is just a common method in medicine: You treat the symptoms, not the cause.

So what is the cause?

Well, i can only speak for myself, but for me there are two situations i use this method to quit the game.

1. Ragequit, because the matchmaker put me into a disorganized group again(sometimes even with idiots who shot me in the back, just to try out their stupid new weapons), against a well working team on the other side.

Solution? A better matchmaker, which is in development -> no alt-f4-block neccessary.

2. Annoyed quit, because i hate the map. Seriously, i hate the river city map. The thing is just to crowded with obstacles and stuff, so slow and very resiliant mechs have the advantage, because the faster mechs don't have enough room to make use of their superior maneuverability. From time to time i quit via alt-f4 as soon as i get enough, bumb into another building and get screwed by the Atlas who eats me for lunch now.

Solution? Make the maps you like to play or not want to play selectable. -> I don't know if thats even considered yet.

Treating the symptoms and not the cause is stupid, IF you know how to treat the cause.

I've been killed many times, but most of the time, the enemies deserved the kill, and i don't deny them that. But if the circumstances are as i stated above, i just want it to end without regard for the kill.

So my advise is: Work on the cause, not the symptoms!

[Justin Xang Allard]

blinkin, on 03 January 2013 - 08:41 PM, said:

you still misuncerstood me. the issue is not that this program might cause security issue. the issue is you will be fighting with windows security which will inherently cause issues.

and still you ignore most of my post.

my main issues were:
i personally think this is an incredibly idiotic idea. alt f4, alt tab, ctrl alt delete, and other options are sometimes your only recourse when a program has a major error of some kind. i would rather not have to always resort to hitting the power button on my computer any time the program fails.

this whole thread is about treating the symptom and not the core issue. the core issue is a major flaw in how disconnected players are handled.

many of these players could just as easily be reaching over and unplugging their internet connection.

i never talked about powering down the machine, if i had then you might have a point but i was talking about the physical plugs on the computer.

again this thread is about treating the symptom and not the core issue. this treatment is likely to cause several issues and solve nothing.

the program modifications would only remove the functionality of alt f4 from the mechwarrior online window and not any other window, or affect any security program. you would still have all the other windows keyboard shortcuts to use. including ctrl alt delete. because all the other ways to close programs take far longer than hitting alt f4 there would be no need to take them out. only alt f4 is a problem. so adding a few lines to code would be far easier than writing pages of code to deal with the issue. then testing and fixing issues that were broken by it. It would need to be done in a major patch where it would get well tested. otherwise you would get disconected anytime your internet slowed or paused, international players would randomly be disconected in matches and there would be major discontent anytime there was much packet loss.

im not saying what you want should not be done. im saying that if its not tested extremly well it may make mwo into a ghost town.

my main issues were:
i personally think this is an incredibly idiotic idea. alt f4, alt tab, ctrl alt delete, and other options are sometimes your only recourse when a program has a major error of some kind. i would rather not have to always resort to hitting the power button on my computer any time the program fails.

you would only have alt f4 not working in the mechwarrior window. so all those other options are still valid.

this whole thread is about treating the symptom and not the core issue. the core issue is a major flaw in how disconnected players are handled.

i have no problem with people who accidentally disconected before the match and show as disconected. what you propose would have their mechs in game for people to get points off of for free.

many of these players could just as easily be reaching over and unplugging their internet connection.

As many players who cheat live with their parents, many of these would need to get up, go to the connection and unplug it, wait, then plug it back in. adults simply buy programs to cheat if they are cheaters. This brings up other issues they are working on...........

i believe you are just one of those people that must be correct no matter what.

[Ricama]

MoadDib, on 02 January 2013 - 01:56 PM, said:

There are much easier ways to fix this than trying to get them to disable the Alt+F4 command, which may not be an easy fix nor would it prevent the practice, users would just find another way to force the game to close (as was pointed out earlier). here are some simple & elegant fixes that would end the practice by making it fruitless.

1) They can keep your mech and pilot profile active in the game despite a disconnect for around 1 minute. This way if you have a discon or crash when you're loading in you wont receive a death for your efforts, however if you discon in combat, your mech will stand there and get shot to death while still giving the other team their just rewards.

2) If a player discons, destroy the mech giving the kill credit to the last pilot to damage the discon pilot. If no damage was done, no kill is rewarded, but you can't just DC seconds before death to grief the other team.

Or maybe you could be shoved back into the match when you reconnect, and if you're mech is still alive you get to pilot it. The important part is it's not a choice and no timeout, the only way to get out of a match early is to leave it through the interface, anything else and you get put back into the match. This solves the problem without horribly punishing legitimate DC's, since if you get your client back up and running fast enough you can keep playing.

[Justin Xang Allard]

Ricama, on 04 January 2013 - 06:42 PM, said:

Or maybe you could be shoved back into the match when you reconnect, and if you're mech is still alive you get to pilot it. The important part is it's not a choice and no timeout, the only way to get out of a match early is to leave it through the interface, anything else and you get put back into the match. This solves the problem without horribly punishing legitimate DC's, since if you get your client back up and running fast enough you can keep playing.

i like that idea....

[IceSerpent]

blinkin, on 04 January 2013 - 12:31 PM, said:

regardless of what you believe there are many people out there who do see their KD as a mark of pride. i would prefer to have other ways to measure player skill, but that is something for another thread.

That's irrelevant - they can be proud of their KD ratio or of their collection of beer cans, it doesn't affect the rest of us in any way.

Quote

most of these players disconnect right after their mech has been crippled or right before an obvious killing blow is about to be struck. their KD is saved and the rightful victor is denied XP and cbills.

So, an obvious solution would be to have dc'ed mech count as normal kill for the victor with appropriate XP and c-bill bonus, right? Yet for some reason, OP didn't sugest that - they decided to QQ about alt+f4 sequence itself.

[blinkin]

Justin Xang Allard, on 04 January 2013 - 06:16 PM, said:

the program modifications would only remove the functionality of alt f4 from the mechwarrior online window and not any other window, or affect any security program. you would still have all the other windows keyboard shortcuts to use. including ctrl alt delete. because all the other ways to close programs take far longer than hitting alt f4 there would be no need to take them out. only alt f4 is a problem. so adding a few lines to code would be far easier than writing pages of code to deal with the issue. then testing and fixing issues that were broken by it. It would need to be done in a major patch where it would get well tested. otherwise you would get disconected anytime your internet slowed or paused, international players would randomly be disconected in matches and there would be major discontent anytime there was much packet loss.

im not saying what you want should not be done. im saying that if its not tested extremly well it may make mwo into a ghost town.

my main issues were:
i personally think this is an incredibly idiotic idea. alt f4, alt tab, ctrl alt delete, and other options are sometimes your only recourse when a program has a major error of some kind. i would rather not have to always resort to hitting the power button on my computer any time the program fails.

you would only have alt f4 not working in the mechwarrior window. so all those other options are still valid.

this whole thread is about treating the symptom and not the core issue. the core issue is a major flaw in how disconnected players are handled.

i have no problem with people who accidentally disconected before the match and show as disconected. what you propose would have their mechs in game for people to get points off of for free.

many of these players could just as easily be reaching over and unplugging their internet connection.

As many players who cheat live with their parents, many of these would need to get up, go to the connection and unplug it, wait, then plug it back in. adults simply buy programs to cheat if they are cheaters. This brings up other issues they are working on...........

i believe you are just one of those people that must be correct no matter what.

ok if you intend to insult me then i guess i must drill into your skull how much of a moron you are.

that plug that is miles away from their computer? did you know that the other end also exists on the computer itself? mine is currently 2 feet away from me. should i clock how long it takes me to reach over and pull it out. my guess is less than 2 seconds. all of that information that goes in and out of your computer goes through that plug, so if you unplug it then the information stops. are we learning things yet?

many computers also utilize an interesting little device called a power strip. most power strips have a built in on off switch that can immediately cut power to any devices attached like computers or routers. this on off switch can be very effectively opperated by using a persons big toe. to put it into terms you can understand: it is like an alt f4 that turns off your whole computer except it is one switch instead of 2 keys.

you should also stop reading things that are not there. i said: the core issue is a major flaw in how disconnected players are handled. i proposed absolutely nothing. i pointed out that this problem extends well beyond your weird obsession with two keyboard keys, and that we should focus on fixing the root of the problem instead of removing a keyboard command.

removing alt f4 will fix NOTHING AT ALL. you will get a day (maybe) of normal play until they move onto a new way to quit matches rapidly, like flipping off that nifty power strip device i described above.

you are trying to slap a bandaid onto an amputated limb. and yes i do have to be right when an idea is this thoroughly full of fail.

vv you should talk to Ryvucz you and him would make a great match.
http://mwomercs.com/...__fromsearch__1

Edited by blinkin, 05 January 2013 - 01:44 AM.

[blinkin]

IceSerpent, on 04 January 2013 - 08:27 PM, said:

That's irrelevant - they can be proud of their KD ratio or of their collection of beer cans, it doesn't affect the rest of us in any way.

i get the point you are trying to make, but at the moment it does effect us. when they run away like that it denies pilots the XP and cbill rewards that they should be getting. i have been robbed of several kills this way and seen many other players robbed as well. if it were just KD ratios i probably wouldn't care too much, but they are also taking away well earned XP and money.

So, an obvious solution would be to have dc'ed mech count as normal kill for the victor with appropriate XP and c-bill bonus, right? Yet for some reason, OP didn't sugest that - they decided to QQ about alt+f4 sequence itself.

i completely agree. although i think bringing back repair and reload would be a much better solution that would also solve many other problems, but i will leave that for my MWO economy thread.

[Chief Justice]

Again, remove the problems that lead to the alt-f4-reaction.

Removing this functionalty changes nothing.

They will find a workaround or they won't play any longer, if they get even more pissed.

It's sad that most threads here start with a real problem, but instead of looking at the cause, and suggest solutions that would fix the problem not the symptoms, they complain about the symptoms and want an aspirin for that.

[pjnt]

Really? Aren't you people trying to cure a symptom and not the illness?


People quit games because there is a meaningless stat they put in high regard. Get rid of the stat.

People quit because they feel they can cheat death. Any disconnects should not remove your mech from in game. (I know some get dropped by the server. Who cares, we don't pay repair bills and if there is no K/D stat it makes 0 difference).

People quit to **** other players off. With the above 2, you get the exp and cash for the kill and the other guy, who is the arse, goes away.


Problem solved.

Added. Competitive teams that are trying to sync up use this too. I've dropped into games against 0 opponents Fix, community warfare options.

Edited by pjnt, 05 January 2013 - 03:33 AM.

[Allekai]

people who do this should earn "Dishonor" points.. something that they can't get out of that makes doing this worse than upsetting their KDR... either that or just make the timeout for disconnect something like 30 secs or 1 min.. that way they would still be recorded as a kill.. and not rob the rewards for the other team