[Potato Uno]

Just a heads up to TF2 server operators that the mandatory GSLT system is coming our way.

First email:

Originally Posted by John Shoenick Hey everyone, I wanted to give a heads-up about some upcoming changes to the way server accounts work in TF. In an future update, we are going to be introducing features that will only be available to game servers that have a registered game server SteamID, via the Game Server Login Token (GSLT) system. This system has existed for some time, but is currently only used in TF for persistent favouriting in the server browser. It has also gained some more restrictions recently that you should be aware of. - Game server accounts are tied to an owning Steam user account - This Steam account must not be currently community banned or locked. - This Steam account must not be limited. - This Steam account must have a qualifying registered phone. - Game servers that violate the community guidelines for the game they are hosting may have their access suspended or revoked. - Game server account suspensions or bans also apply to *all* other game servers tied to said Steam user More info and management tools are here: https://steamcommunity.com/dev/managegameservers For TF specifically, being free-to-play, access to some upcoming features may eventually depend on the qualifications the owning Steam user account. So, while creating dedicated individual user accounts to own individual game servers is possible, it may lead to an increased burden in the future. We recommend game server accounts be registered to the Steam account of the acting server owner -- GSPs should require clients to provide their own tokens. This change will allow us to have a greater level of confidence in game servers, by making it easier to revoke access for bad actors and better tying game servers to their owners. The increased persistence gives us many more opportunities to assign trust to community servers, and to provide them access to features that would otherwise be too open for abuse. It also provides a much better mechanism for dealing with abuse than the current IP-ban system that is both less effective and more painful for server providers that share IPs between clients. We will have more information once we are ready to begin rolling out these features, but I wanted to send this heads up such that current admins and server providers can look into integrating this support into their setups. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns and I will try to address them, - Neph

Second email:

Originally Posted by John Shoenick While spoofing ownership of econ items remains against community rules, TF has a client-side system to mitigate this and it is not currently a widespread issue. We are not currently planning on adding any new restrictions on custom gamemodes etc..

[AeroAcrobat]

>This Steam account must have a qualifying registered phone.
This is new to me because I never bothered to give them my phone number
So, is this already a requirement or something upcoming?

Would be cool if there is simple way to check if I met all requirements.

status command gives me:
account : logged in

So I'm good?

Currently it says:

Account Requirements Your Steam account must not be currently community banned or locked. Your Steam account must not be limited. Your Steam account must have a qualifying registered phone. Your Steam account must own the game for which you are creating a game server account. Your Steam account may create 1000 game server accounts.

• source: https://steamcommunity.com/dev/managegameservers

[dedimark]

Hello guys

Store by Zephyrus
tf2items_giveweapon
tf2items
tf2idb
tf2attributes
tf2x10

it`s allowed Yes? or need to be enable "FollowCSGOServerGuidelines" "yes"

Thank you

[psychonic]

Originally Posted by dedimark it`s allowed Yes? or need to be enable "FollowCSGOServerGuidelines" "yes"

That has no effect on games other than CS:GO.

If you're not attaching visible econ items, attaching econ particles to items that can support them (ie, unusual particles to hats, community sparkle to weapons), or changing weapons skins and/or quality on stock weapons, then you're probably fine.

Strictly speaking, you're also not allowed to give a player any weapon that they don't own, but since those shown up invisible by default and with many custom modes relying on that behavior, I don't foresee them cracking down against it.

I have confidence that this won't become a huge fiasco like it did with CS:GO. The current TF2 team seems much more understanding of the server op community.

[psychonic]

Originally Posted by AeroAcrobat >This Steam account must have a qualifying registered phone. This is new to me because I never bothered to give them my phone number So, is this already a requirement or something upcoming? Would be cool if there is simple way to check if I met all requirements. status command gives me: account : logged in So I'm good? Currently it says: source: https://steamcommunity.com/dev/managegameservers[/LIST]

It hasn't been told whether or not those requirements were actually enabled for TF2 GSLTs yet. If you want to check to be sure, you can download the CS:GO dedicated server files (app 740) and generate a CS:GO GSLT (app 730) from the same Steam account and see if it is able to log in.

[Powerlord]

Originally Posted by psychonic That has no effect on games other than CS:GO. If you're not attaching visible econ items, attaching econ particles to items that can support them (ie, unusual particles to hats, community sparkle to weapons), or changing weapons skins and/or quality on stock weapons, then you're probably fine. Strictly speaking, you're also not allowed to give a player any weapon that they don't own, but since those shown up invisible by default and with many custom modes relying on that behavior, I don't foresee them cracking down against it.

John Schoenick / Jill has already said they wouldn't be cracking down on that.

[friagram]

Originally Posted by Powerlord John Schoenick / Jill has already said they wouldn't be cracking down on that.

Time will tell, but if tf follows the progression of cs, it will happen. With the competative mode and newer game modes... Let's just hope they don't add in matchmaking and XP. And if they do, make some option where we can opt out of that pool like with the quickplay thing.

[friagram]

Originally Posted by psychonic That has no effect on games other than CS:GO. If you're not attaching visible econ items, attaching econ particles to items that can support them (ie, unusual particles to hats, community sparkle to weapons), or changing weapons skins and/or quality on stock weapons, then you're probably fine. Strictly speaking, you're also not allowed to give a player any weapon that they don't own, but since those shown up invisible by default and with many custom modes relying on that behavior, I don't foresee them cracking down against it. I have confidence that this won't become a huge fiasco like it did with CS:GO. The current TF2 team seems much more understanding of the server op community.

Do you have any idea how common it is to modify econ items and add particle/killstreak effects to weapons (freak fortress?), or edit weapon attributes to balance them.

It would help if they released a list of exact things they do not want so we can remove any related stuff...

[psychonic]

Originally Posted by friagram Do you have any idea how common it is to modify econ items and add particle/killstreak effects to weapons (freak fortress?), or edit weapon attributes to balance them.

Unlike what the sensationalist title of this thread implies, using a GSLT will not be mandatory. It was explicitly stated by the email that "some upcoming features may eventually [depend on a GSLT]". It's very possible that those features wouldn't even necessarily apply to heavily-modded servers like that anyway.

There's no need to freak out ahead of time based on speculation.

[Potato Uno]

Originally Posted by psychonic Unlike what the sensationalist title of this thread implies, using a GSLT will not be mandatory. It was explicitly stated by the email that "some upcoming features may eventually [depend on a GSLT]". It's very possible that those features wouldn't even necessarily apply to heavily-modded servers like that anyway. There's no need to freak out ahead of time based on speculation.

Originally Posted by John Shoenick This change will allow us to have a greater level of confidence in game servers, by making it easier to revoke access for bad actors and better tying game servers to their owners. [...] It also provides a much better mechanism for dealing with abuse than the current IP-ban system that is both less effective and more painful for server providers that share IPs between clients.

If you say it will not be mandatory, how can they accomplish this goal? Bad actors and abusers can just use the anonymous steam ID system and keep evading the less-effective IP ban system. Unless by abuse they meant quickplay abuse, but you can still report fake data to the master server even while being out of all the matchmaking/quickplay nonsense. They will not change anything if they don't make GSLTs mandatory across the board (and there is no word about quickplay either).

The "depend on a GSLT" is inferring to the person who owns the GSLT token of the servers, not if you own a GSLT or not. e.g. They may release a feature that only TF2Maps.net can use (and all servers registered under tf2maps can use) but nobody else can, even if they own a GSLT and have a clean record. (Somewhat similar to how only mann up servers can award loot drops for MvM and campaign contracts only work on official Valve servers - they likely have some special GSLT recognized by the item server.)

That's how I view it at least. Regardless, going by csgo, and reading the requirements of an account, it's pretty safe to assume it will be mandatory. However, whether it will be as harsh as csgo's system is still unknown (doesn't look like it so far).

Originally Posted by friagram It would help if they released a list of exact things they do not want so we can remove any related stuff...

Originally Posted by John Shoenick We will have more information once we are ready to begin rolling out these features, but I wanted to send this heads up such that current admins and server providers can look into integrating this support into their setups.

Play the waiting game (I know I am).