Herman, please don't crash the server

[FreekS]

Sorry Eric, i take issue with this. Its clear from the thread that Herman did not deliberately crash the server but tried to start a session on a server open to anyone in the community (Tony announced the server himself). The server crashed in the same way with 4 people doing the same thing. I feel Herman was unfairly insulted/accused in this thread and of course could not reply.

So i feel your official warnings are somewhat one-sided.

Freek

[TonyE]

Freek, try as you might to rewrite history you weren't the one observing the server when Herman was at work and it is quite clear what Herman was doing.  That he was there at all is disappointing, being banned and all.

[mikmykWS]

I'd address the bug and if running on a windows server you can probably block antics like that there instead of relying on the forum. Forum posts are just used to put a show on in other places [:)]

Just a suggestion.

[rich12545]

I don't know. I've always liked Herman. When he was on the forum and someone had a question, he was always the first one to help. The amount of time he's devoted to helping others is incredible. It's a shame he couldn't keep out of trouble and got banned.

But afaik being banned from the forum doesn't ban you from the server. Even if he was debugging or whatever on the server, how can anyone read his mind and know for sure he was trying to crash the server. Personally I would have given him the benefit of the doubt and communicated with him to find out what he was doing before posting in public.

That's just my opinion fwiw. Please, no flames.

[mikmykWS]

ORIGINAL: rich12545

I don't know. I've always liked Herman. When he was on the forum and someone had a question, he was always the first one to help. The amount of time he's devoted to helping others is incredible. It's a shame he couldn't keep out of trouble and got banned.

But afaik being banned from the forum doesn't ban you from the server. Even if he was debugging or whatever on the server, how can anyone read his mind and know for sure he was trying to crash the server. Personally I would have given him the benefit of the doubt and communicated with him to find out what he was doing before posting in public.

That's just my opinion fwiw. Please, no flames.

That's a good question Rich.

If you're hosting a server though you're not just providing service to Herman so you've got to make sure it remains up. The sensible thing to on the tech side is to block the troublesome incoming connection causing the problem and on the people side email the user letting them know why and when they can expect to have service again. So Herman's informed but the guys that are trying to play the game aren't having their games ruined. If Herman is causing the problem he'll likely stop if he want to jump on to play again.

Sound like a better approach?

[Hertston]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

The above quotes are very close to crossing that line as well.

So is addressing a public forum post to, and taking a snipe at, somebody whom you know can't respond IMHO. Particularly when the evidence of malice aforethought, at least as presented here, is not exactly convincing.

ORIGINAL: tactician93612

I personally consider Herman a true Harpoon devotee/fan. What possibly could
he have done to deserve such ill fate?

Likewise. I know nothing little about this p*ssing context beyond the fact it exists, has for a long while, and that - face facts, folks - both sides have behaved like spoiled children on occasion, as evidenced by their posts. I DO know, though, that Herman was a hell of a lot more helpful than anybody else to new players who came to and struggled with ANW when first released by Matrix, such as myself.

[TonyE]

ORIGINAL: rich12545
It's a shame he couldn't keep out of trouble and got banned.

No doubt, but he couldn't and he did. You can look at my posts here and at HarpGamer even after Herman was banned and see that there is only one more effective and desirable tester I've ever had the joy of working with. Unfortunately Herman couldn't keep out of trouble .

[Erik Rutins]

Hi guys,

I kept my mind open on Herman for a long time and even got him "unbanned" a few years ago, but it became clear to me that he had a larger agenda. I'm not going to get into all of that here, where Herman can't respond, but he was banned for violating clear forum rules and we'll leave it at that.

As far as what happened on the Server, I don't think we can know that Herman was trying to crash it, but based on personal experience I'll take Tony's word for the fact that what he was observing was not just normal player behavior. I'm sure Herman still reads these forums, so I'm sure he got Tony's message.

With that said, I completely agree that the server should be stable and resistant to crashing and there's clearly more work to be done there, which I'll discuss with Tony and Don to see what we can do.

Regards,

- Erik

[erichswafford]

I agree with the devs on this one...

[Vincenzo_Beretta]

"Clearly, if..." "Should someone..." "I heard that... and I think that..." and so on. If there is something I learned from the whole "Herman vs. the World" saga is that, for "the World" the burden of proof is an abstract concept. The very title of this thread has never been changed, even if a lot of people suffer from the same problem even when Herman is not around.

Anyway, of all days, this is in absolute the worst one to bring out this kind of stupidity - which is what saddens me the most.