Okay I know I haven't played in ages (and can't see when anymore because apparently no one won this game before 2011... nice that winners page >.>) but am I the only one that thinks this entire idea is fucking nuts?
Players with the ability to ban other players... even players with the ability to vote to ban other players is ludicrous and you all know it. The problem with games like this isn't the cheaters as much as it is the creators not doing anything to minimize the effect of cheating. I know that isn't going to be a popular opinion but most of you know it's true. I've won this game, all aspects of it, I've won TopShift too on more than one occasion for both so even though I don't know the current games I do know the premise and I know how Crescent and Raymond think (who is Kao? I could have sworn Cres was his first name?... getting old) or at least how they used to think and it's always been more reactionary than proactive.
You can't be reactionary about cheaters because by the time you do something the damage is done. In game mods is still reactionary but it's a dumb way of doing it.
Does anyone remember Raymond private messaging people in game to see if they were bots? I'm sure Jason does roflmao... you do remember that right Jason?
Now I am well aware there will always be cheaters no matter what you do, and that people is the fact that everyone is overlooking. They will always exist the goal is to MINIMIZE their impact to the point where they're no longer relevant or the advantage isn't worth the hassle of doing it.
So what is the answer? Simple. Ask the players what they feel the biggest problems are with cheaters and how they benefit from doing what they're doing. Then sit down and go over each problem one by one analysing the game mechanic that allows it to be an advantage and adjust the mechanic accordingly. Don't give me any shit about too much work or changing the game too much, if the plan really is to take this to Facebook then this needs to be solved before that or MC will become another piece of crap also ran on that platform. I've seen the old source code to MC and I know that Crescent is good enough to implement the changes necessary if he's given the right direction.
Stop reacting to the problems, fix them. I've been around this game since 2004 and that is a direction I've yet to see tried.
In game mods... forget this idea before you start it, it's a bad one and I can't believe I am the first person to actually notice.