Buggy

This!

It's just as confusing (or not) as the existing IDs. Except for the part where they're non-persistent You have a point about unreadable names. Making everyone choose a latin name is a possibility too, of course. Another possibility is not displaying names at all, only IDs/codes/what have you. You don't see drivers' names written on their vehicles IRL. So, realism. A foreign name written in Latin characters might still not be terribly readable or meaningful. This is an international community. Instead of confining it to ASCII and designating any characters as foreign, you can use a standardized code and let the names be as diverse as they're now. IMO, being a simulator of a profession the game would benefit from this. Don't forget, you could encode VTC memberships in the IDs (e.g. "1ST1".."9STZ", "1ER1".."9ERZ" while independent players get something like "KL12").

You get it now don't you? This is why I didn't propose numeric IDs but combinations of letters. Four letter IDs give you 26**4 = 456976 combinations. Four letter-or-digit IDs give you 36**4 = 1679616 combinations. It's easier to remember "H9QJ" than "463268" or "C00lCr3at1v3Driva" right? Does this scheme remind you of anything in the real world? That would be license plates (not exactly applicable to players) and call signs. And you don't have to restrict peoples' choice of names too much.

Seems like reverse engineering two ets2 binaries instead of one -- a huge waste of time.

Yes they are able. But the notion that even when they're wrong it's still good for everyone... wow!

This (permanent names) is one of the ways to implement that suggestion but isn't exactly what's proposed in that topic.

Yeah doesn't matter how you call it. Just an alphanumeric ID assigned by the server. I could say "license plates" but those should be assigned to trucks, not people. ID usually implies sequential numeric ids = boring and less practical.

Having chat timestamps in a foreign timezone seems confusing, better have local time there if any. +1 for displaying the official server date and time somewhere on the screen at all times -- that is sufficient for international coordination and video recordings.

Imagine each VTC getting a uniquely recognizable set of call signs (which can't be forged by trolls) so you wouldn't need to put the VTC tag in your name.

This isn't how programming works.

Also, "running as administrator" is a bad habit and you should be reluctant to do it just to play a game.

I say, enough with Steam IDs. Ets2mp has its own accounts system now. I suspect the admins don't find dealing with 64-bit Steam IDs very convenient.

This isn't guaranteed to work. And could take a lot of time. I suggest a better way here: http://forum.ets2mp.com/index.php?/topic/1351-introduce-player-call-signs/ -- actually use the new account system. Once again, the Steam "username" is not a username, it can be changed freely and AFAIK Steam doesn't store an unlimited history of changes.

They act on the offline users all right: http://forum.ets2mp.com/index.php?/topic/1248-reporting/ Also, if a rammer quits while you're typing the report and someone else gets the same id they had, you're going to post a wrongful report.

Ah, steam id. After the account system has been implemeted, steam ids should stay hidden under the hood. The requirement to publish you steam id in order to appeal a ban is jarring. It's private. So an account is identified by email right now. Not good for posting on a forum either. So how do you identify players? There's a choice between permanent usernames and some permanent server-generated ids. I believe having call signs is more or less in the spirit of trucking. The current ids system does seem pointless but it predates the accounts sytem.