SALAD wrote:An account system is an attractive feature for players looking into a game. It's something that they are used to and they expect from online games.
To some players, an account system is an attractive feature when looking into a game. It's something that some players are used to and what some players expect from online games. FTFY
SALAD wrote:I speak from personal experience when I say this. Players are not likely to be willing to use external services. I mentioned that in my previous post.
<sarcasm> Yes, you are completely right. And since there is no auth system in game now no one is talking to anyone unless they are in game</sarcasm>
SALAD wrote:Having the account system integrated into teeworlds would allow players to keep in touch with your buddies and your clan simply.
For example: You promised your teeworlds buddy you'd play some ddrace with him tonight, but forgot that you have to study for a test. Shoot him a message saying "Hey man I won't be able to make it on tonight, I expect to be able to pop on tomorrow! I'll give you a shout when I do."
Nothing is preventing me from doing it now. Actually I always have IRC and Pidgin running so to communicate with others through those I don't have to start TW which saves me one extra step.
SALAD wrote:Also my understanding of KISS is adding new features, but not making too complicated to induce confusion upon new players. The game must be easy to pick up and hard to put down.
Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying it's easy to implement an account system. What i'm saying is that implementing a account system is a really good idea.
If TW would be getting an auth system wtih KISS philosophy there would be no chat involved there since the primary reason most games have accounts is to prevent cheating and permaban people who manage to get cheats working. Also it's not only not easy, it's expensive too. Auth servers are by their nature a lot easier to DDOS so it would have to run on a separate machine from the master server and preferably on a separate network. The sysadmin would have to keep an onsite and offsite backup so we don't loose the db every time a disaster strikes. In order to keep the server uptime above 90% a mirror server might be required. An SSL or other certificate might be a good idea so that just kicks up the cost of the server up by about $100 or more. It's not just a few lines of code that are required here. I'm pretty sure that if devs would decide on going with the auth server idea the donation banner would make a comeback.
SALAD wrote:EDIT: Not to mention, people with weak computers (Since teeworlds is a low memory game, it's a common for people with low memory to be drawn to play it) lag with external messaging clients open. I especially used to lag with steam open and since steams accounts is the closest you can get to having an account system in teeworlds, it's kind of a bummer when you lag while using it.
I have never in my life heard someone say "I should turn off [insert IRC client here], it's eating too much memory/bandwidth. You can auth an account on Quakenet so you know that people are who they say they are, the official TW channel is already there so that's convenient, YemDX recently started #teeworlds-na for organizing games with North American players so that's pretty cool, you can do PMs there and open a channel for your clan. It's all free and its eating almost no memory or bandwidth.
