Ban Time

[WRB852]

Basically when you try to join a server that you're banned from, it displays how much longer you're banned.

[Ad Bot]

[Switch-Blade]

Yesh, this would be a good feature.

[Zenthos]

Don't get banned.
On the other note, sometimes you get banned for accidents.

IRL: Hi I want a clock in my jail cell that tells me how much time I have left in prison....

[Radial543]

IRL: Hi I want a clock in my jail cell that tells me how much time I have left in prison....

would be very useful...

[GingerJoe]

IRL: Hi I want a clock in my jail cell that tells me how much time I have left in prison....

would be very useful...

20 years remaining

[Zerosan]

There just should be a little message screen:

You are banned on this Server.
Reason: blablablablablablablablabla
Time: Permanent

or for the time, a two value time left system:
 - possible displays:
 seconds
 seconds and minutes
 minutes and hours
 hours and days
 days and weeks
 (>4 weeks) months and days
 years and months (when more than 4 weeks)
 years and weeks (when less or equal 4 weeks)
 
and directly below that the date when the ban will be over.

yeah, sorry, complex ;) but very comfortable.

[Ephialtes]

I think you can only have a limited string length for a disconnection message. For example, when it returns the you are banned message, all the server sends is "BANNED" or something, and the client writes it's own message for this eventuality.

[Zerosan]

well, that's not fully true :)
The server initiates a normal connection first, you could send the message as a client command and then issue the disconnect.
And even if this fails, it would be possible to just relay all ban messages to a webserver that globaly handles the ban messages and bans.

[Ephialtes]

I'm reasonably sure the server can't send commands to the client before the client connection has been accepted. It can only return a short reason string with the disconnect packet to be interpreted by the client such as "CR_SERVERFULL" which would denote the server being full.

A web server would be an impractical solution for this sort of thing - a server hardly wants to upload numerous bans and reasons to a web server. There would also be a 2-4 second delay upon disconnection for the related ban data to be pulled off the web server to the client.

It just seems to me like an awful long way to go for a gimmick. People should know why they're banned in the first place, at any rate.