f13.net

Just ordered a smaller server for TF2. Well, faster than this one because of upgrades. Anyway, we'll probably run UT2k7 and such on it as well.

Anyway. Bat Country, Teamspeak, etc will get moved over there.

Any suggestions?

RAPTORJESUSMETAPLACETOO HEHARHRHAHRHARHAR.

(http://www.serverspy.net/bin/hmon/72.167.40.67:27015/41/image.png)

Suggestions on what?

Edit: Your avatar looks less menacing w/out his bat.

Recommendations for the server name?

Bat Country Presents: The Live Gothic Shaved Ewok Sex Show.

Wait, lets keep it classy..

Bat Country Presents: The Live Gothic Shaved Ewok Sex Revue

sb.exe server

House of Bruce

schild's pr0n palace

As long as the tagline is "Racism Required", I'm happy.

ETA?  Also, I'm assuming it's possible to have server side code that enables members of the community to join and boot someone who isn't F13.net off?

As for a name, how about something that will have the server always full?

People don't shop for servers based on names, they do it based on ping and current players!

And then once they've narrowed it down they base it on name!

Server is coming along nicely, should be ready in a couple hours.

Schnell, schnell!

Oh and MORE NAMES.

Right now it's like 'F13.net's TF2 Bats ahoy!' or something of its ilk.

Don't make me name it!

MeatSpace Alpha Test

I'm partial to MeatSpace.

But something like Sausage Festival might work for the originally stated purpose.

Srsly, I like "Bat Country".  Nice and short.  Won't ever get cut off in the server browser.

But if you feel the need to be more creative than that, my vote is with 'The Live Gothic Shaved Ewok Sex Revue [Racism Required]".

If the server name screams "I'm loaded with douches" there is no ping awesome enough to drag me in.

You actually read the server name?  How quaint.

ETA:  Oh, and I vote for "All Aboard the Man Train" for server name.

I agree. I completely avoid servers with names like "le3Tz0rs sErver of t0t4l h4x". Or DEATH KILL HOUSE KILL GUILD DIE KILL.

"F13.net - Bat Country TF2" sounds good to me. "LOLSHICLDS HOUSRE OF PWNAGE" and the like, eh.

This whole Bat Country Hunter S. Thompson shit is played out.

Meatplace is my vote.

We've been doing the Bat Country thing long enough that it passed Played Out and doesn't even register as something that can be played out anymore.

F13's House of Lmaonade

Server is up.

F13.net's Racist TF2 Server

for now.woooooo.

Getting ready for work right now, but this will be my weekend project   :rock:

That was a hell of a lot of fun, thanks for the server.

Yea that was great last night.  I played until I was seeing double because I was so tired.  Thanks for hosting :)

Only thing that will kick more ass than this is admin privies and autojoin scripts.

What is an autojoin script?  You mean like an autoexec.cfg?

Right now there are no admin plugins for TF2 no will there be until a month or so after Orange Box is released.  Apparently Valve updated the SDK for plugins so no current ones work with TF2, and they are not planning on releasing the SDK until sometime after the release so they can test it out or whatnot. I've also read that people have been seeing stuff in Orange Box that may hint that Valve has a robust admin tool already in Orange Box just waiting to be activated.

I'm more than happy to give f13ers admin privileges, we're all mature enough not to go banning random people for no reason from what I've seen.

I LOLED

Reserve slots plzkthx.

Let it be known that the sorry display I put on tonight was not me.  I let my friend Roger play for a bit, and he is essentially incompetent when it comes to gaming in general.

That is all.   :-D

You can come up with a better excuse than that.

I could, and that's why you should believe this one.

Seriously, Al and I are playing Guitar Hero, and Roger's playing a medic.  He's running around with the medic's syringe gun and asks me, "How do I heal?"  I tell him, "it's the number 2 key".  Keep in mind that this is someone who's played Half-Life, so I think he should be good to go.  Nope.  He gets out the medic's healing gadget and still can't get it right, so he goes back to the syringe gun and tries to play like he's a goddamned soldier or something.

Just plain sad.

ETA:  I nearly lost my shit when he healed an enemy spy and MrHat sent a tell, "Gulp, heal our guys, and not the enemy."

You should keep him around,Gulp.

He brings the lulz.

I broke down last night and picked up some orange box goodness so I could check out the TF2.  Can't seem to locate the f13 server.  Pity there isn't, so far as I can tell, a way to *search* for specific servers...

sort by name. look for "f"

Are you in the f13 community?  More often than not, we're playing on the server

14 ping ftw.

As soon as we can kick people, let us know. That fucker spamming voice was annoying as all hell.

Playing on the server now.  Not sure why I couldn't locate it earlier.

-Q

It was great fun playing with you all last night and thanks for the info on changing names. I wonder why theres no console in TF2 though.

There is, settings > advanced > enable developer console.

All other HL-based games work the same way.  It's just never on by default, so you have to remember to turn it on whenever you install a new one.   :-P

I will just let you know, if you see some one with my name, and he sucks. Then that IS me. Well, if Im playing any class other than medic. I seem to make a decent medic.

Oh, don't get my earlier post wrong, I do suck.  It's just that there are degrees of suckitude.  I don't aimlessly wander around and get my self killed.  I move forward with a purpose and get myself killed.

All of a sudden my ping to the server is abysmal. I was at ~300 ping earlier. Of course that didn't stop me from being in the top 3, but it was horrible to see the ping so high. It evened off to ~150 just before I left. I might have to look into my router settings.

I still manage to snipe the everloving shit out of people, even with a 80+ ping.

Yeah, sniping people jumping down from the battlements in 2fort? Still Awesome, especially when they're disguised spies.

Don't be afraid to join the f13 server if it's empty. Twice now I joined it by myself and it takes absolutely no time to get it filled. Just this afternoon, it was just Squirrel and I and within 10 minutes the server was full. Good stuff.

Yeah, there were six on last night when I logged in and it was full or close to within the round. At this point I'll log in with only a few people because I'm still learning maps and classes.

I guess I'm going to be one of the HPBs on this one, I was 105-120 all last night. That's like my old 56k modem playing UT. I'm not one to cry 'latency!', but I know at least two or three deaths were directly due to a bit of it. Sucks because I'm on a pretty unused fat cable subnet that's normally very zippy (upstate ny).

I think it entirely has to do with where the server is, Sky. I'm in Southern Ontario and I was hitting high pings, but previously at sub 100 ping.

We seriously need reserve slots as soon as some kind of Mani plugin comes out for TF2. Waiting for slots because the server is full of pubbie-tards is bullshit, and sometimes both Ookii and Schild are asleep. :(

Or just make more admins for now?

Ahem, to be fair, schild and ookii are paying for the server. >_> Though we may put up a link to solve this.

Hey, I'm not the one stopping this.


What is this link business, I have no idea what this is.  We'll just get pagers and you can hit us up like drug dealers.

I meant people can give us money if they have complains. Your innate ability to trust people with admin powers is, in a word, ridiculous.

Given the past most of the people here have had with websites, I'm pretty sure most would agree.

But yes, we need reserved slots which is unfortunately not in the cards atm.

I would think anyone here with a Green or light blue name would have earned that, no?

I don't care either way...I just shoot things.

Blue or green name aside, link me so I can get on when I want. Canadian dollar is almost 1:1. NAME YOUR PRICE SCHILD! NAME IT!

What can I say. I'm a control freak. it keeps shit in check.

Lol @ 10 dollars a month for admin privs.

20 dollars get's your name written in the motd.txt.

And for the bottom bargain price of 50 dollars you can change the 'mp_friendlyfire' svar on the fly.  Tired of people shooting all their teamates looking for spies?  Now they'll all kill each other!

I was thinking $20 a month will make sure "_balls" doesn't get appended to your name.

/queue joke about paying $20 a month to make sure "_balls" DOES get appended to your name.

You can create your own server, go in as the offensive side with a scout and run around by yourself finding everything as you complete the objectives.

And you also can literally create your own server in which to screw around, should be one of the options in the TF2 menu.

I like the server, but it is ALWAYS full. And at most I have seen 3 other f13 people in a match with me.

Most I saw was 16.

It's usually full when I want to hop on, but I find if I turn on the auto-join thing it usually doesn't take more than a couple minutes to get in. People almost always leave at the end of a round.

Euro?

Thing is full everytime i try to connect. Im more of a primetime U.S. kinda playa though.

I play in late US prime, and it's almost always full of pubtards, with 2-6 F13 at varying times. My usual wait is around 10 minutes, unless I'm lucky and catch it at the end of the round.

Here's the solution (note I don't program):

Someone write a script that checks a database for a value, if it's 1 then it random kicks someone who doesn't have [f13] in front of their name from our server, whereafter it changes the value to 0.

Then we have a magic button that changes the value in the database to 1, it delays this for a minute though so people can turn their autojoin on.

Now that was easy!


Or just wait a month until 3rd party plugins come out.

0/24 on server and can't login. Getting a 'can't verify steam id' error msg.

Instead of whitelisting anyone with [f13], it'd be nearly as trivial to scrape the f13 steam community page and use that as the whitelist. 

Community is invite-only, so you can't spoof that as easily as you can change your handle.

- Q

(http://www.serverspy.net/bin/hmon/72.167.40.67:27015/41/image.png)

Also added to the first post.

Working on it, although the Steam ID problem is client based too, so if nobody is on the server first try and selecting 'change user' in steam, and relogging back in.  We were troubleshooting this serverside for a bit, and it turned out it was client side for our tester.


And we have a winner, I expect the program by tomorrow.  Also make sure it works with the console in a detached screen.

Try again.

Sorry for the post spam, too many energy drinks!

Anyway you forgot the best part, top 20!

rank	name	rating	total score	time played
1	Samril	1.7482	200	03:10:40
2	-[3hK]-AzNxDiVin!tY	1.7089	228	03:42:22
3	tripticon	1.6953	306	05:00:50
4	Dranlo	1.5654	291	05:09:49
5	wrench	1.5278	165	03:00:00
6	f13_Miasma	1.4585	168	01:35:59
7	FreshFruit	1.4213	231	04:30:52
8	FBS	1.3939	144	02:52:10
9	[F13] Strazos	1.2862	457	09:52:10
10	IntruderII	1.2764	212	04:36:49
11	Neth	1.2554	151	03:20:27
12	El BeezNeez	1.2073	132	03:02:13
13	BiG 10	1.2053	124	02:51:27
14	Dark Messenger	1.176	185	04:22:11
15	DoomGerbil	1.1749	288	06:48:31
16	[f13] a grue	1.1706	126	02:59:23
17	Samwise	1.1236	115	02:50:35
18	Molasses	1.0978	190	04:48:27
19	][aRa][ dEath	1.0589	102	02:40:32
20	Ookii	1.0527	326	08:36:06 It's outdated though, and to think I took the time making it a table in bb code!

No I didn't. The top 20 in TF2 is going to be counted completely differently. Captures, etc. Kills don't matter. Jiggly's not in the top 20 and I know for a fact he's beaten entire teams in minutes going flag and point hopping.

NEED A NEW MATH SYSTEM LULZ.

I didn't even make top 20? :/

How did you make a table? I generally just use [ code ] for fixed font...

Those three grid buttons when you post do all the magic.

Total score includes caps and such.


Clearly, the rounds I dominate as a sniper are balanced out by the times I screw around as a pyro or some shite.



And for the love of god, why can I not change my tag to use a lowercase f in-game? http://steamcommunity.com/id/strazos (http://steamcommunity.com/id/strazos)

Woohoo, Spray and Pray baby!

HEAVY,  SPRAY,  PRAY.

(heavyvoice)YOU DID WELL!(/heavyvoice)

But yeah, the table really can't always capture people who change the course of rounds. It's not always about straight up kills/destruction. The spy who takes out three sentry guns, paving the way for the massive assault. The medic who keeps half his assault force alive and is somehow not knifed into oblivion. The scout who spends his entire time getting behind enemy lines and making damn sure those enemy medics never make it to the front. The pyro who denies a doorway for a good two minutes because no one likes running through gouts of flame.

But the snipers, backstab-spies and heavies, they sure do rack up the kill points.

I know I've seen Schild turn a round around almost singlehandedly and still end up towards the bottom of the scoreboard.

I had this same problem.  Change your in-game name to something totally different, save.  Then change it lower case [f13]strazos, save.  For some reason, it won't save the changes if all you do is change the case of one of the letters in your name.

Yar, thanks.


Also, I'm not really harping on the k:d ratio. Fuck, mine sucks half the time anyway. Besides, a good sniper can also change the course of a round, particularly with defensive  chokepoints.

By defensive chokepoints, he only means Dustbowl Part 3. Hur hur hur.

Gravel Pit has some nice spots as well.


Dustbowl, all 3 parts, is just great for sniping.

Had to post this.  First time I've had three bits of myself all land in the frame.

(http://img463.imageshack.us/img463/971/ultragibnq7.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)

True beauty.

At the moment, the server should be running 2Fort and Dust Bowl only.  Do you all want Gravelpit and Well rotated back in? Hydro isn't an option, it just... sucks.

Hah. I currently have no recollection regarding what map is which.

Seems like the map list broke on the server again. What a pain in the ass.

I could do without Hydro, but I have no problem with all the other maps. I personally think 2fort is maybe my least favorite. Both sides run like 4 engineers and its fuckin lame.

Nah, it's fun because it's compact and you're always near the fight.

2fort is up and down for me.  I've had some fun times on that map so far, but it sure can get bogged down at times.  For some reason Samwise wading in as Heavy and waddling back with the intel for the win in overtime last night was highly amusing to me.  And I got my first actual intel capture as Scout, I think by pure luck, but it was enjoyable anyway.

- Q

Ok, question for schild / ookii :

My friend is trying to put up a server...

FRIEND: hmm
FRIEND: it is going
FRIEND: thats what i don't understand
FRIEND: it runs on port 27015
FRIEND: if u telnet to it on port 27015 its open
FRIEND: but in tf2 it says the server isn't responding
FRIEND: i don't know why the fuck it isn't


Did you guys have to do anything special or run into any issues with your server. Thanks in advance :)

Oh, word, here's the answer: Tell him to play on ours.

Edit: Kidding. I don't actually know the answer to that. I'm not useful with serverly things.

It says that when the server is full. I donno if it's a bug or what, but it'll say 'server full' else where on the screen and then 'server not responding' at the bottom of the same screen.

I don't think I have ever played Well.  2fort, when it's good it's good.  I don't have any love for Hydro but I have only been on that map by myself.

My only request is that we remove the 'capture the intel' map form rotation - whichever map that is, I hate that one.

That's 2Fort.

The list of famous and loved multiplayer maps basically goes like this:
1. DE_Dust (Counterstrike)
2. Deck 17 (UT)
3. 2Fort (TFC/TF2)
and then, sometimes but not always, 4. Facing Worlds (UT)

What are we, a bunch of sheep?

Maybe I'll like it better later, but I really like the map set where you have to defend your control points and then swap sides to try and capture the control points.

Edit: De_Dust *does* rule.

de_dust is a horrible map. It is the most popular CS map, though.

Like I said, when 2fort is good, it's good.  If both side just turtle, it's boring.  One side has to cowboy-up and hammer their way into the intel room, which produces lots of fun.

you totally need to put Hydro on there so I can get my achievement! it is vitally important! PARLEY

I don't care much for 2fort.  I think I just hate the fact that when I say over voice "don't go around the corner, you retarded heavy. I've got uber in 5 seconds", they go anyways. And the turtling, it can get to the point where the teams consist of 4 demos, 4 engineers and some snipers.  It just seems when you're on 2fort, it seems LONG. 

When you do Dustbowl, it doesn't seem long enough.  Which one is the 3 spawn point one with the largish towers? Is that gravelpit?

I don't care for either of the 5 capture and hold maps, especially granary.  Those can get really lopsided really easily.  Plus, too many scouts.

The 2/3 point capture or defend maps are really my favorite aspect of this game.  The fighting is fast, hectic and constant.  Yay.

You rang?

Amen to that. 

Hell yes rotate em back in. Well = bad ass.

I woke up this morning and the server was on hydro, I have no idea why.

I say we put ALL the maps in, including hydro.

Sure, all maps FTW!

You won't want hydro after you've played it.

until then it's the shining apex of design, suck my ignorance!

Of course, it could just be Ookii doesn't want to figure out why the maps keep getting rotated back in - hydro really is that boring.

If schild hates it, I probably like it. It is the way of things.

and 2fort, no matter how old and respected...is a turtlefest.

See your avatar?

Try getting good at it. Can break down any turtlefest in fairly short damn order.

I don't really like the TF2 implementation of 2fort. You'd think the shrunken size of the map (compared to, say, 2fort4 from QWTF) would make the action go faster, but no, it just means it's that much easier to turtle up. Dustbowl and Gravelpit are luv (when the teams are at least semi-balanced and you're not getting rolled in 30 seconds flat). Granary can be fun sometimes, but not as often as it's come up on our server.

I think I played hydro once on a pubbie server. I wouldn't mind having it back in for a few days, so we can all get sick of it, and then go back to a 24/7 dustbowl/gravelpit rotation.

Hydro is quite fun, especially with lots of people.  I personally think we should get rid of 2fort, rarely does a team win the map unless they are incredibly stacked.

For the record, I'm already a bad ass heavy. You cant do shit with one, even with medics, if you are facing multiple fully upgraded turrets and fuckin spamming demomen. Even in uber mode the fuckin turrets just bounce your ass back while homo with a wrench laughs at you.

I've tried coming up with tactics to beat the room of death in the corner there, but noone seems to give em a shot. Please, since you obviously have broke one of these turtlefests before with a heavy, explain how. 4 guys can pretty much camp that spot brutally. They also have the two little holes to drop down behind and rape your medic or others. 1 route into a base (not counting scouts double jumping and soldiers rocket jumping, who get owned by one of the 4 fully upgraded turrets upstairs anyways) makes for turtling. Its the way of things.

Actually, I've broken turret fests with a scout. Granted, it can take more than 1 trip. But I can probably make 3 in the time it takes a heavy to walk over there.

SS or it didn't happen ;)

Not worth bitching over, from my personal experience 2fort can become boring. More often than not in fact. I look at who is on my team and see 4 engineers and go......grrreeeeaaaaatttt

I've had good times on all the maps.  Hydro and Well are the two that I would miss the least.

Would it be possible to do an "uneven" map rotation so that you get all the maps, but some maps more often than others?  Like dustbowl -> 2fort -> gravelpit -> granary -> dustbowl -> 2fort -> hydro -> well?

It would be cool to have all of the maps back in rotation. 2fort and gravel pit are great and all, but the others are pretty damn entertaining as well.

As for breaking the turtlefest, it's all about having a constant flood of soldiers/demos/scouts coming in through their sniper perch. If you always come in from below it is a piece of cake to hold down the ramp room forever. A medic can stand below and heal them up on the ledge. One or two good spies can also crack any amount of turtling.

We could do that with mapcycle.txt.

That cycle makes sense, dustbowl then 2fort and then x, x being equal to hydro, well, granary, or gravelpit.

/n00b

What's turtling?

/n00b

Being overly defensive, you know, how turtles retreat into their shell.  In fighting games it's someone who blocks everything, in TF2 on the 2fort map it's engineers and their rape cannons guarding the intelligence.

Ookii you have to stop posting forever, I keep thinking of gigantic breasts

edit: nevermind, parser found no faults

 :hello_kitty_2:

That means you've been staring at my Steam Community profile, it's far too small as an avatar on the server.

Scouts cant deal with well placed, fully upgraded turrets. Maybe three of em might have a chance.

Im talking real turtling here guys, not half assed. 4 engi's, a few demos, a medic maybe, soldier or 2, heavy......your theories goto shit in practice because you need a real organized push. And try asking on voice or TS to 'all wait in X spot so we can gather and push'

I wish I could just demonstrate the situation im talking about, and have seen a couple of times. 2 spies would be completely raped and most likely wouldnt make it up the stairs. Anywhooooo

Admin changes the map.

Maybe we can do an all-heavy push into 2fort, couple medics to keep things from getting too messy. I tried playing a spy for a bit last night after goddamned Col Mustard killed me for the 100th time (though rtrd was my only Nemesis of the night...and I got the revenge kill!). Turns out I suck at spy. Not enough bouncing explosives.

Asking me to wait in spot X is kinda useless because I'm still learning the maps :)

Last night I was like, oh...that ninjascout just jumped out of a little well, cool...where does this go? Oh, right over into the enemy base! Cool.

So your complaint is that if they have 10 people all focused on defense it shouldn't take more than three people on offense to crack through them?

As long as your offense is as coordinated as their defense is, you shouldn't have any problems.  If their entire team is really on defense like that, it frees up your entire team to do wacky offensive shit like build up forward bases in their upstairs.

Of course, if you're a group of unorganized mongoloid lemurs playing against a group of coordinated beings with opposable thumbs, then yes, you have no chance.  But go play an MMO if you don't like that, eh?

My point is the game is capture the flag. You shouldnt be fuckin turtling anyways.

And no, you couldnt build up a forward base due to the insta pwn turret and sniper buddy. The 10 guys on defense always have the advantage of

A. Turrets
B. Closer Respawn
C. I HAVE THE HIGH GROUND
D. Resupply Room
E. etc

And the required *effective*  coordination on D is, grab a demo or engi. The required coordination on offense is asking a lot more.

Just got the game today, is the server down or am I getting fucked over by Euro/NA splitting ?

Server isn't down, but it's empty.

Half of playing capture the flag is preventing the other guy from capturing your flag.  If not for that aspect they might as well just take all the weapons out.   :wink:


You don't build the forward base up in sight of their turtle shell.  Duh.  You build it up just out of range while your dudes provide covering fire.  Then you negate their "closer respawn" advantage by setting up teleporters.  Then you nade-spam them to death while they all cower together in convenient blast-sized clumps.

They can. I took out at least 4 last night. Capped the flag afterwards too. Scouts are civilization.

Ok, fine I'll just lern2play


Anyways, ill be sure to invite you guys to fix some turtle situations I have run into, cause its just as easy as you say :)

I think the biggest problem is coordination of the offense.  People tend to kinda go solo.  The built-in voice chat is pretty great -- just needs somebody to take charge and organize stuff a bit.  I'm certainly not the leader type, but I'm happy to work with other people and try to be part of a bigger solution.

Hell, I expect a lot of spies would be less effective if teams coordinated more and were more aware of things like "hey wait, why's he over here when he's up front doing X"...

- Q

so uh, TF2 updated and now I can't join any servers because they have "outdated" protocols. :|

It gives the helpful and informative dialogue box:

'disconnected'

edit: plus a bit of gray on gray text

Update the server, nards.

Same. :(

There was a TF2 update today. Most servers are not updated. Therefore, you will be playing with yourself tonight.

Would money donated to TF2 hosting mean we'd see a faster response time on trouble tickets?

Or do we have to pay for premium telephone support?

I'd paypal over some money to help offset the cost

BTW, did the server get updated?  I couldn't play last night.  Same message as other people got about the protocol thing.

Sorry I fixed it this morning, too busy watching House and Boston Legal, TV IS BACK.

In that vain I've created a forum user named ServerSupport, if you pm him magic packets get sent to the f13 batcountry phone, the end result is shit getting done.

Now get a Visa/Mastercard friendly donation button and we are all good.

All in favour say AYE

Thanks, man.

(http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m60/mmss3z/d1/03.jpg)

Ayup. Aye. Si. Oui. Yes. Yar.

That counts as 6. Unanimous decision.

Could always use the Amazon donation system:

http://zme.amazon.com/exec/varzea/subst/fx/help/payor-faq.html/058-6467890-9296040

I have a robust paypal account from dealing with arcade companies. A button will get done tonight.

As a note: Any money donated will go towards f13's servers. None of it will be used for anything else. If there's enough to pay it off for a few months. That's what'll happen. If there's enough to get an extra server to migrate f13.net (the website) to a dual core machine, that's what'll happen.

Latest Post: "Re: 4th Edition D&D anno..." (Today at 03:28:27 PM)
View the most recent posts on the forum. 
Total Members: 2033
Latest Member: Eldin
 

 :-o

Either he was removed promptly or you sir just made a well placed joke. I don't know which.

Button will be added, probably to the bottom of the forum, later tonight. Now! Oxycodone!

I lol'd

OK that's funny. I'd still give him $$$ even if he takes it to the Bahamas. (Europe? I forget.)

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=10984.0

Donation information.

I might donate if there was something besides DUSTBOWL and 2FORT

/wrists

Just kidding, thanks for hosting it either way :)

I don't know why it's Just Dustbowl right now. That stuff is going to get tweaked over the next few days though.

Do we get special wallpapers or autographed photos of you for donating a certain amount?

 :inluv:

If you really want that, maybe it can be worked out.

It's creepy though.

CREEPY!

I want a signed authentic (with certificate) Yegolev T-shirt!

I don't know why I got stuck as [unknown] last night.

That happened to me as well.  Took logging out (and losing my spot for 45 minutes /shakefist), then logging back in.

And I'm so bad at TF2 that it makes baby Jesus cry.

It's dirty right now.  Once I get it clean, I'll send you a photo.

Does my donation at least get me out of a grief title the next year or so?

Those two are not related functions.

You should be asking if you donation gets you a grief title for a year.

So Schild, will you make the server not autokick people over 250 instead of 200 if I send you moneys? Or you can make me the exception instead. that would be fine. (I seem top be around 206-225 usually, but I have no problem exploding you or anyone else.

/Points and laughs at the lagger!!!

I was on the high side for a bit last night, I remember a couple 160s coming up, though I was usually at my normal 115 :( I did have a couple issues with some stuttering at a few points, mostly at one particular map start on dustbowl things were shimmying around pertgud.

The falling through the earth upon death last night was fun.
Getting shot in the ear over and over by Strazos was less fun.

I felt like a fluffer for an amateur porno last night I got eye shotted by Strazos so many times.  If I walked beyond a wall, BAM!!! [f13]Strazos <symbol for headshot> [f13] Snakecharmer

I think I got a kill last night.

I also had four people simultaneously DOMINATING me in one game.

That Dragoon guy last night was brutal.  Also, I think they need to turn off friendly damage during setup.  Getting 2 non-retarded medics on your team was a guaranteed easy cap of the first node.  Of course, it's always funny to get the one medic that wonders why you keep sticky bombing yourself.

I would greatly appreciate any advice on how I can detard myself as a medic.



Hopefully my machine won't overheat tonight and I can prove just how mediocre I can be.

Note to demomen: three sticky bombs is too many. But funny. Woops.

Sorry about splattering everyone with my gore. Really.

Even with demoman's limitations, I still find it a very fun class to play. I jumped in as a heavy for a few minutes when someone was making the call for them on defense, but I do much, much better as demoman. My four lives as heavy and two as engineer were just messy. I might try some other stuff, but I know my comfort zone. And that's bouncing grenades off people. I also vacillate between turtle and rambo. I suck but I play for fun! At the very least I can usually be a good distraction.

I think everyone that donates should get part of the cyst.

Seriously.

Have the hospital give it to you in a jar after surgery and then slice it up and send it out.

hey I just created a limited-run Schild Fan Vomit Bag, any takers? for when you need to accessorize excess excrement.

I think it was Eldeac who was playing a demoman and on one of the maps he managed to bounce all his stickies right onto the starting platform where team red charges capture point A, he got lucky and that was the one we had decided to attack.  The blast door roles up and the whole team is looking at a dozen red sticky bombs, KABLOOM, I'm pretty sure he took out almost the whole red team at once :cry:.

Thants the thing, Nelson. I don't appear to be lagging at all from my end, and nor does anyone else when I am killing or being killed by them.

 

Azazel, f13 people with over 200 ping will not be kicked. Don't worry about that.

Yeah, just make sure you actually have [f13] in your name.

Though, I'm thinking Ooki's (?) idea of making a solid list server-side would be best.

Excellent. I'll throw you some moneys when I get paid. Shooting people in the face is so much more meaningful when they're not total stranger jackwads.

Ok, how many of you cunt swabs are down for a F13 romp on our server today? Say... noonish?

And FYI this thread is being monitored. If you are spotted reading this thread, then that is considered your RSVP.

Good day.

EDIT: Could always make it a bit interesting and make one game a week a money game for server donations. Say 5 dollar donation each for the losing team on a first to five 2fort?

Things that helped me (I don't play medic that much, and I probably still count as a retarded medic, but anyway)...


Healing injured people powers up uber charge twice as fast.

Where possible, tell your teammates to injure themselves during setup time, you can almost reach uber charge out of the gate while you wait to attack on Dustbowl and Gravelpit.

Remember you have a melee weapon. (Actually, this goes for almost everyone)

If the person you are healing wanders off somewhere without cover for you, you have to stay back and let him disconnect, let him know why you disconnected on voice channel.

Getting to ubercharge is important, that means not dying is important.

Using ubercharge in a meaningful way is important. It's worth doing a bit of cat herding on the voice channel to get everyone ready for a charge.




Timezone?

Lets say Noon west coast. 3 eastern.

One note on that, demomen don't need to do anything clever to bounce the stickies in there, we can conc jump into any of the tunnels to the starting area, lay the minefield, then just blow it as we see you emerge.

imo, the exit from those tunnels also needs a blast door, but until then, make hay while the sun shines.

Let me clarify on the idea of the once a week money game...

This is basically to help Schild and the guys pay for the hardware we all spend way too much fucking time on. Like I stated previously, something like each person on the losing team paypals the server fund a 5 spot. Due immediately upon "You Fail." Only 1 money game a week. The worst anyone can come out is down a fiver.

It's money well spent, an amount anyone can afford, and even the smallest amount of cash adds an all new meaning to any competition.

Can you dig it?

Bah.

Damn you valve! Damn you to hell!

I like the idea of the money game. BUT!

We'd need to set up a server that's passworded for f13 folk. Maybe we should set up a 16 spot server for that this weekend. I'll look into it!

Heh, maybe we could even have 2 captains pick teams....

Now That would be interesting.

Woohoo, a game that I won't be picked last on! Eat that, high school!

I call Jigglypuff.

Doh! I'm *still* going to be picked last.

- Q

It should be a cross between the dodgeball field and the NFL Draft, with double the corruption.

So Schild and who for captains? Rasix, Sam or WAP mebbe?

Have a draft day and make the pick results public for the ultimate humilitation. See, now we're getting somewhere.

32 Player Server? How did you do that? I was under the impression that 24 was going to be the max. I can't imagine 32 people on one map!  :-o

There are quite a few 32 v 32 servers on the list now.

(it's 64 ppl per map remember!)


In practice, the end result is a shit load of stalemates, or wins for the defence,

Someone hacked the Linux server binary, you can do 32, 64, 128.... but apparently 64 and up is very unstable.

When I'm blowing myself up pre-match, heal me and be thankful for the free uber heal. Believe me, I don't need all 40 sticky bombs to start the match.  If you see a soldier just standing around, tell him to start exploding his feet. 

Otherwise, use corners and other level features to keep yourself alive while likely sticking to glue on a heavy (or demo/soldier).  Using an uber on a soldier or demo-man is often advantageous when rushing turret spots.  You can also use uber for some ultra-cheesey dustbowl caps.  Keep moving though, scouts and especially spies will see you as a free meal.

The range and arc of the syringe gun can be just awesome if you can get it down.  You can take down a turret from relative safety in some situations.

Ubercharging a pyro is where it's at now (for me, anyway)... especially when the opposing team has like 50 scouts, ie. granary. It's also extremely nasty for storming A and B in gravelpit. (turrets are generally placed near the capture point, which is inside flamethrower range)


-- Z.
"burninating the countryside!"

Good stuff, thanks.

I think that I learned a lot from just playing and observing those who seemed to look like they knew what they were doing.  More than anything, knowing the layout of the maps is what helps.  At first I was just getting luck-kills, and now I can put a bit of planning into them.  My twitch skilz aren't great, so knowledge is power.

I took a break from medic because its not fair to any team for someone to be learning the ropes in that crucial position.  Perhaps when I know the maps better.  Spy is hella fun, although with the new and improved pyro, not so much.  Spy is very useful for getting revenge kills on snipers.  Engineer is a lot of fun even if I hate myself for playing one - I love the feeling of setting up that exit portal in a sentry nest behind enemy lines and watching the team roll in.  Guilty pleasures.

Reverse spy and medic there. If you don't know how to play, I'd start with medic. I'd rather an incompetent medic on my team than an incompetent spies.

Well, I did start with medic, went to engineer, spy and sniper as situations required.  Perhaps its time to revisit medic with the knowledge imparted here.  Usually I just play whatever the team is lacking for a particular map.

Hmmm, I just took a decently equipped 3 year old Dell server out of production.  If I wanted to serve some TF2 on it does the linux variation make noticably better use of resources (ie is there enough bang for the buck to make it worth the hassle)?

Keep doing that - you don't need to stick to particular classes, and playing them all will probably give you a better appreciation of what the rest of the players are trying to do.

Oh our server (2GB of Ram, dual core whatever) it's 60-70% on the CPU when full (32 of 32), and it uses up about 12% of the memory.

That said the binaries are unoptomized, beta, and compiled for a 486.  When the game finally launches and they come out with the i686 binaries things will probaly be better, so I'd say go for it, what do you have to lose!

Gah, one of my few breaks from work and none of you mongrels are on =P

I'm thinking of looking it up and join in for a game to own you noobs  :-P

Wonder what my ping would be like though.

Anyway to get dedicated f13 slots? It's always full when I want to play!  :tantrum:

Write a plugin/monitoring program other that Beetle Fart's TF2 admin monitoring system.

plays really good until 200 ish. some are saying it plays good above that. really it is a very good game for a beta. although i have to agree that pyro is a bit too strong at the moment. But understand.  Schild as a scout will blow you away before you get a shot off. (scouts are overpowered as well but it takes great skills to make that work).

Can you explain how he does it?  Is it the double jump on the head?

Circle-strafing and bunny-hopping have their place, but the best scout trick is to run away screaming "MEDIC!", circle around, and come back in from the other direction.  If you're lucky your opponent will foolishly be trying to follow you to finish you off (that's where screaming "MEDIC!" comes in) and you can put a few point-blank shots in his back while he's trying to figure out where you went.  On some of the maps (Well especially) you can pick up enough health packs along the way to be back at full health into the bargain.

Need to chop that team max back down to 14 a side or something....server started to act wonky at 16 each.

The maps get too crowded at that size anyway.  12v12 is the upper limit of what they can handle IMO.

Played medic the majority of last night and broke my previous record for assists quickly.  Good advice all.  I learned the value of just running the hell away, too.  Especially as a medic, since saving half a bar of uber is better than starting over.  And never stop moving.  Snipers love seeing a medic standing tall and still.

I've played with various sized teams and have found that 8 - 12 people per team seems to be the most fun. Unless Valve is coming out with some larger maps with more control points and more paths through the maps  (i.e. teams have to split up and defend multiple areas) I can't really see the fun in 16 people on one team.

I have to agree. 32 is ridiculous. Half the time 1/3 of both teams are whatever class is overpowered at the time.

It seems as of late it's a trade off between having players on your server or having one that is less than 32 people.  We could bump it down to 24 but then the server wouldn't fill up as full or as fast, unfortunantly I don't think we have enough F13ers yet to sustain the server.

Oh the other hand it's nice that it's 9:30am in Arizona and 29 people are playing on our server.

32 players sucks, it really doesn't matter if it fills up fast if the games aren't fun.

This. 2fort with 6 engineers on a side is ridiculous.

32 players isn't so bad if you are playing Well and Granary the whole time.

Mind you, I dislike Well and Granary, so I'm not a great judge.

I've seen half decent games on hydro as well.

But 2fort, dust, gravel, (aka the-good-maps) suck donkey balls with 32 or more players.

12 v 12 would be good. The forts are crackable with 16 a side, but it sure is ugly.

I would say the only map that truly suffers is 2fort. I've been in REALLY fun gravel and dust games with 16 per side, but never any really fun 2fort games (besides yesterday when I kept backstabbing Straz).

The key to 2fort is capping classes, but that won't be happening for awhile yet.  Maybe removing it so you don't play it every three maps is the key, but I don't think we should lower it from 32.

We could always start a second server with fewer people if you want, I believe we have the processing power.

It's fun when you're sniping to the degree that one of the better opposing players has to forsake everything else to gun for a single opposing player, instead of doing other things.   :evil:


I mean geez, we wouldn't have this problem if your team wasn't half-filled with dullards that stood around. Or engineers that thought they could counter-snipe. With a shotgun.

CTF_MACH? What the hell? That's not on my system and it's on the F13 server with Nix and Schild all alone.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=10930.msg348879#msg348879

Since the bump up to 32 I've noticed that people just seem to be deathmatching instead of trying for any of the map objectives. Last night I cleared point B on gravel several times long enough to cap it, only to have 10 people circle strafing around at the bottom of the ramp waiting for more red guys to come out. 2Fort has just become a nightmare. 

24 might mean less people, but the quality of player seemed to be much better before. Also, quite a few people seem to be taking the server name literally. You guys should make me an admin or peacekeeper. I promise to rule with an iron hand of justice cushioned by a velvet glove of compassion and understanding.

On that note: Please to be making more admins. So many pubtards running around and I'm getting sick of setup exploiters on a few maps. Something about being popped through a hole you can barely see that really pisses me off.

How can you exploit by setting up?

On that note Racist server is back down to 24 right now, I also made a custom map server at ts.f13.net:27036 with floodzone, blitz, and mach.

On dustbowl, if you're defending, you can shoot through the far right gate on the right side. I remember trying to setup a turret as an attacker once and I got flamed by a pyro.

You can lob grenades at people during setup on Well also. Not sure we can really do anything unless someone is really being a jerk about it.

BTW, I don't know if this has been said explicitly, but any mod/admin here has TF2 admin powers.

Well, I know that, but the whole pyro through tiny hole you can barely see bit is a pain. Especially with them being overpowered right now.

If you go to Steam's forums it's a known bug they'll fix at some point, both flaming through the gates, and people jumping up to enemy's entrance gates on levels like gravelpit.

What's up with the level rotation?  I thought we wanted to keep crap like granary off the table.. not have it twice in three maps.

I tend to instinctively avoid chain-link fences that have angry-looking men with flamethrowers standing right on the other side of them.  Call me paranoid.

I am with you. That just seems like asking for trouble to me.

If anyone is having issues with exploiters or retards, just holler in game and one of admins can kick. It is nice and easy to do  :-D

On that note- what key is it to talk to team and general in text? I always use voice, but there were a couple times last night I wanted to say something in text but was too busy to dig through the options to find out. Yes, I am lazy. Sue me.

"y" for general, "u" for team.

Gracias.

Personally, I love the far right (from offensive view) on the first dustbowl map. If people follow my instruction and don't show themselves on that side, defenders tend to ignore at the start.

Talk about easy kills...

So, what's the best way to tell someone that a legit F13 person needs to have a slot opened?

Friends mentioned that every map that wasn't Granary was switching over really quickly for their liking.

Is it set to switch on 2 rounds/map most of the time or just plain map time limits?

Is it necessary to have lazytown not timed?  Two-hour stalemates are not fun.

CP_LAZYTOWN IS THE DEVIL

Modders need to learn how to put time limits on their maps. :|

Is that a quirk of the SDK for TF2 not being released?

cp_wolf is also the devil, but at least it eventually ends.

ctf_mach is my favorite of the custom maps so far, mainly because I'm a big CTF whore and it's not an entirely shitty map.  HOWEVER: that sniper hidey hole needs to be made less recessed so you can rocket jump into it.  And the inside of the bases need more landmarks so you can tell what part you're in and what direction you're moving at any given time.

It's a quirk of the person not knowing what they're doing.  Cp_wolf has timelimits in place and is a custom map, granted most of the maps I grab are still in their beta state.

There are a bunch of new maps different servers have, but it doesn't look like we're going to put them on Disco Party yet as schild has deemed them 'not up to snuff'.

I took lazytown off, I figured it was something I did when I adjusted mp_timelimit as lazytown looked like it was cycling correctly, turns out people were just winning it, which causes the map to finally change.

I sure hope someone remakes the jailbreak map. It'd be perfect for the new assault style. We will have tons of new, official maps when it's released tomorrow, right?

HA! That was funny.

It might be just bad luck, but when picking a server, I've ruled out the f13 server because it was playing Granary an unnatural number of times.

One day I will understand the wtf the point is of Granary. But I expect I will be driving a flying car first.

cp_wolf sucks.  We should remove it.  I like that gameplay style but the map is sloppily done.  Any cap says "final point is being captured". I've yet to see the offense win due to it mostly being a sniper whore map and B being a cakewalk to hold.  It's needs to be about half as large as it currently is.

Granary is ass.  It's a boring map and only seems to serve the purpose of giving people practice with the scout.  Take it out. Well is good enough for the odd person that enjoys the 5 cap game.

My favorites are still dustbowl and gravelpit.  Just fantasticly fun, although gravelpit can be a mixed bag at times.  I've got to think the map switching aspect of the server is a bit buggy.  Thing plain skipped over dustbowl a few days ago straight back to 2fort.   :x

Agreed.

I agree, get rid of cp_wolf and cp_lazytown, they're both poorly-balanced, rank-amateur efforts at best. ctf_blitz is okay, but a bit on the long side and ugly to look at, ctf_mach is quite good.

I wouldn't mind seeing cp_granary disappear either.

I have no idea what's making the mapcycle go all wonky and play granary a lot, sorry I haven't been on over the past couple days.

We're also confusing Disco Party with Ivory Tower, the former being a custom map server and the latter being our normal server to which I though cp_wolf might be nice to add.  I'll remove wolf from Ivory Tower, but in terms of Disco Party I think we need to keep mach (even though there is a mach2 now, and now I see you like mach in the first place) and wolf on it (which I like but haven't played extensively), and I've already removed lazytown from it for the time being.

I just restarted Ivory Tower so hopefully the mapcycle works, here it is:

cp_dustbowl
cp_gravelpit
cp_dustbowl
ctf_2fort
cp_well
ctf_2fort

I also think it's worth thinking about bumping Ivory Tower to 32 people again, and giving more f13ers admin powers.  People tend to play more on servers with admins on all the time, I think it makes them feel safe or something.

Why not stick the second dustbowl after the first 2fort or well?  2fort/well/2fort could make for a lot of stalemates.


No and yes. 

Folks like bhodi, Prospero, Nix, bob and Strazos seem to be on a lot and could make decent admins.  Any mod here has the ability to kick folks, and I do have the overlay enabled when I play.   

On disco party, it's just about being able to change the map. In general, being able to IM someone on steam and request a kick to open a slot up would be helpful as well. I've noticed we do have a little following, non-f13 people who have friended the server and tend to play on it a lot. And [corp]s have begun to show up, as well.

Get better then :-p

That's not an adequate response with pubbers playing.

Though it's irrelevant - who knows how many maps drop tomorrow at midnight.

Pffft.  At least people are starting to win at 2fort.  Didn't ever see that much.  It's just perhaps not a great idea to have a cycle of maps clustered together that have the possibility of no one winning (2 of only 3 where this can happen).  Could drag things down a bit. 

Bleh, it's your dime technically.  Of course, I go on vacation the same day the orange box releases.   :cry:

Unfortunately at the moment it's hard to gauge a single fucking thing because as games drag on and people die more, everyone clicks on easy mode and just goes pyro and it all because hell. Sucks. They need to fix it.

According to the developer commentary what you see is what you get. I don't think we're getting any more Valve made maps for awhile. I caught in an interview they have another CTF map coming and they are looking to re-add the VIP maps once they figure out how to deal with sucky VIPs.

I would love to be wrong about this though. Here's for hoping.

I'm going to second the 32/32.

Hell, even the custom should be 32/32 just to make sure people are always playing.

I miss the Ivory tower, but like hell I"m going to be the one to populate it!

Take flood off too, seriously.

I figured since Disco Party was full all the time people liked flood, from what I hear I guess they just endured it for 25 minutes.

When we had 32 people we were very close to having the server populated for 24 hours.  Though nowadays Disco Party seems to be populated for about 16 hours a day.

Who cares about it being populated ALL the time though?

Man, it's not driving traffic to f13.

It's not even a good advertisement for f13.

32 is too many for most maps, plain and simple. It goes from fun to clusterfuck in .4 seconds.

Well, atm I'm humming "All by myself".

Someone should stick the server IPs into the Steam community site.

Someone being Schild, of course. I didn't even know about this alternate server.



Personally, I'd be happy with a server that played mostly Dustbowl, with some other stuff mixed in Occasionally.

It may not drive traffic to the site, but it managed to get me to stop lurking after a couple of years.
Just wanted to say thanks for hosting the server. It's nice to play with some names I recognise from reading the forums, even if they'd have no clue who I am, as opposed to total unknowns.

Oh and flood sucks. Just drags on and on and on and...

If you want to drive traffic, you need to make the F13.net part more obvious when you come onto the server.

I'm sure mods after release will help a bit.

I'm not sure if all y'all have access to game logs, but if you could ban U[A]T Dan and then hunt him down and cut off his nads, that would be great. Damn heavy weapons guy exploiters.

Yeah, I still suck at the game so maybe it's sour grapes but pyros seem a little beyond the pale. Hell I kill 4-5 people easy when I play a pyro. That's a sure sign something is a bit off.

Oh and on the Dan dude mentioned above - he was moving like a scout and shooting a heavy. Seemed odd.

 Samwise owned me soooo many times I though I might have to send him a gift card or something. Bastage.

It was nice to see some of the [corp] people last night. Ray has now taken Strazos spot as "most likely to shoot me in the face at a distance"

Both servers were sitting empty early in the evening, once we got 4 people on they snowballed and filled up quick.

Another new map, generally the ones people pimp on Valve's forums are a little better.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=608456 (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=608456)


(http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/5962/ctfpowerhouse001ss9.jpg)

EDIT:

Oh lookie a post with all the custom maps listed, looks like they have pictures of them too:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=606962 (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=606962)

I'd let Steam run any time my desktop is on just for this reason. I know what it's like to wait for a slot to open up. I can't count how many times I've probably fucked Bhodi up messaging him to see when the map is rotating.

Having our own server makes the game much more fun. Now I just cant wait for UT2k7.

2 weeks til beta :) :) :) :)

Added a couple maps to Disco Party, removed Floodzone, upgraded mach to mach2, and got the updated version of lazytown (hopefully the client realizes the sizes are different downloads the new one, the bugs are fixed).

Where's the IP for Disco Party?

Under the members list on the steam community page in the announcements area.

It's hard to shoot you when we're on the same team.  :-P

Looks like lately the server has been crashing after map changes, this has to be in correlation with the update when OrangeBox was released.  I couldn't troubleshoot last night for a number of reasons, but should be able today.  I need someone to join Ivory Tower and play it long enough to change maps, which should hopefully crash the server.  Please PM me if this happens so I can snatch up the logs all quick like and digest them.

Done and done.

For the time being servers are going with one map 24/7, of course until we find out the source of the crashing.

So I found my old steam account through the account finder thingy and apparently I had CS:S. Went ahead and bough TF2 even though I never really liked TF1 -- the reviews are stellar so far. When are ya'll usually playing?

Okay I deleted a bunch of stuff and redownloaded it, someone try to crash the server again.

Piece of cake. I'll do it with my eyes shut this time!

Okay it's still crashing, does anyone have privileges to post at SteamPowered.com's forums?  I'm still awaiting activation, and I like to post during today before the weekend so people see it.

PM me if you do, I'll send you what to post.

I just played a quick match with only myself and won (go figure). The server then reset with a new game without any problems. I couldn't do that last night so something seems less broken.

Well that certainly is a good sign!

Ok it's still crashing, the map has to CHANGE for that to happen.  I'll change the timelimit to like 5 minutes for testing.

I deleted and updated a bunch more shit, the next step is a clean purge and redownload.

The server timed out at the end of the match, and when I tried to reconnect, seized up steam entirely.


Seems fairly borked.

Are you still running custom maps? My test server is rotating fine with just the default map list.

Not on Ivory Tower, I'm just going to do a total fresh install of srcds, but right now both servers are full!

Server is working again, woot!

Drunken gamer shall test this server. 

Need more people to log on late night. Blah.

I tried, ping was 133?  You guys also were full.


And BTW, OMFG Nerf Spies already.  :-P

Play a Pyro and just shoot everyone a bit.

I'm waiting for this to turn green.

No kidding.  I LOVE playing the Spy, it's my most successful class, but it is trivial to counter them.  The only time I'm ever effective is if the
opposing side is too busy and not paranoid enough.

You talking about 'CreepingDeath'?  I fucking hate good spys.

I hate spies that "back"-stab me in the face.

I've noticed since non-beta launch, I get backstabbed in the face much more often. Last night it was particularly frustrating as I'd just set him on fire.

I've noticed since non-beta launch I crash like every 10 minutes.   Gets very frustrating especially when the server is full so much.  Seems related to my old video card drivers but when I use the newest ones the game doesn't run at all.... oh the joy of ati drivers. 

I admire a good spy, lord knows I don't have the knack for it.  Backstabs to the face do suck though.

The new Omega Drivers are out, don't be lazy, it takes like 20 minutes to install.

cl_cmdrate 101
cl_updaterate 101
rate 25000

in console.

I updated to new drivers to stop the damn thing nagging me. Shadows are now all kinds of fucked up and it crashes every half hour or so.

You can't win.   :-(

Did that last night, reinstalled several times and when I should get the TF2 loading screen I get kicked to desktop.  Back on old drivers and it loads up.  Even tried ATI's drivers and those gave the same results so I'm back on old Omega drivers for the foreseeable future. 

That would work except we run a 33 tick server, so it essentially doesn't change much.  I'll try to upgrade the server to 66 tick soon, but I'm not going up to 100 tick because it's pointless.

Can someone explain The Tick?

Edit: For proper reverance.

(http://apple2.org.za/gswv/a2zine/GS.WorldView/v1999/Sep/Jpegs.for.Your.IIgs/The.TICK.Thumb.up.jpg)

Oh we shouldn't do that until it's changed, it would make people with higher end machines mad at me prematurely.  Ignore the tick before I change it, it's not important.

So, uh, based on you response, it's some sort of skill-leveler?

Basically, it's to compensate for people with shitty connections and/or shitty machines. (http://www.valve-erc.com/srcsdk/general/multiplayer_networking.html)

In other words. Ookii is compensating for himself, even though we don't want people with either shitty connections or shitty machines playing.

We're going to rename it the Ironic Rate. He wants it at 66 Ironics Per Second.

Edit: Most recent update disabled 100 tick rate as an option. Also, I'm not seeing a reason to update to 66.

As someone playing on a shitty machine I find this to be offensive... perhaps I'll take my awesomeness to a different Racist Server.

At higher tickrates, essentially, you become easier to hit.


It seems clan use 30 in UT and 33 in Source stuff when they're playing seriously. As ping and computer speed effect what the server knows about your location. Also, 66 takes about 75% more processing time on the server. There's really no reason to upgrade downgrade.

I don't even know where to begin.

Then begin at the beginning and don't just change things willy nilly. Give a reason to up the tick rate.

Ok.  That makes sense sort of, so it does level the playing field for people with weaker machines, as well as let the server run smoother?

So then, if the server is fixed at XX tick rate, everyone on the server is forced to the same tick rate right? So then, how come this arguement came about in the first place?

Not really. I can still be running at 120fps and Ookii can be running at 10fps. But if the tick rate is high enough, we'll both be receiving more accurate data. I'll still only be updated on server information 66 times a second though. Basically, Josh gets more accurate data at the second his frame flips over, despite being on a machine with a crap framerate. Basically, it makes it easier for him to hit me, and harder for me to hit him. Mostly because at any given time, the person with the lowest framerate has the hardest time knowing where he, himself, is - but has the exact location of other players at any given frame.

I have a keen interest now in learning how MMOGs account for this. (Another topic, another time).

Awesome.  I learned something today.  I knew my 5 hour procrastinating stint on Mondays are good for something.

No, not really.

Then explain it and stop wasting time prancing around it. I'd like to be wrong but signs don't point to that.

Very educational thread so far. I'm also interested in understanding why, and if, you're wrong. I'll be trying the F13 server tonight with my awesome framerate, ready to be crit-hit all over the map :)

As to MMOs, and I certainly wouldn't even qualify as a newbie on the tech side, but as I understand it, a lot of this is controlled by the global clock using the same concept of tic but at a much slower rate. Servers send info out to clients at intervals, independent of framerate, which is why you get such similar behavior (invisible buildings blocking you, people getting hit before being rendered in their location, etc).

Schild, sweety, don't run a 33 ticrate server. Please.

We have been.

Now if I'm wrong, someone explain why. All I'm doing is parroting shit on other clan sites.

double it and you improve server muscle tone while scaring away feeble players. [f13] HUAH!

Hmmm, you know, all these vague allusions to technical knowhow without actually spilling the goods could make a guy suspect that nobody in this thread actually understands wtf tick does.

(I don't, btw).

Ok, quick reply because i have to shower and head to uni, but whichever "clan sites" you've been listening to, don't. They are horrible and bad, and horribad.

Server refresh rates control the rate at which information is updated to and from client machines. A server updating at the maximum possible rate is preferable to one updating at less than maximum, because it offers equal opportunity to all connected clients to (potentially) have optimal performance as near to server level as possible (in terms of hit detection and player movemenet rendering) - as long as their connections can handle 100-level refresh rates without suffering choke and loss (use net_graph 1 through to 5 i think in Source to display this).

If you are running at an artificially symied 33 ticrate you are essentially forcing everyone connected to use dial-up rates (defaul Halflife rates are 30/20/9999... circa 1999), despite the fact that their connections can actually handle much higher levels of data access.

This is without going into the synchronicity between client/server refresh rates and hit rego on automatic weapons in Valve games. Short story is, run your updaterate/cmdrate as close as possible to your fps, which should in turn run as close as possible to the server's. Which is why 100 ticrate servers are a good idea.

How is that different from saying 33 tick rate is handicapping people w/ good connections and computers?

(http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/6768/kaneclapwy9.gif)

I suspect it's that he used words like netgraph, choke, and synchronicity.

As you should be aware, explanations amoung our people can never be considered adequate without such things.

So, wait, I was right?

Thanks.

Wrong


Wrong


Wrong

Thanks for the explanation. I will kick you in the shins when you get home. Right in the goddamn shins.

Ookii you're a god damn nay sayer....

As someone playing from the east coast and on an average PC (at best), I vote against a 100-tickrate server. Not sure I'd like 66 either, as I'm pretty sure I can't maintain 66 fps in hot fights, at least at my current settings.

Well, an experiment could always be made. It might be better, might not.

You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.

I'm sorry, but i am having a little difficulty in following your line of though. You want to artificially limit anyone with a decent system and a good connection, in the name of providing a 'fair' environment for those that don't?

If i understand correctly, i can see merit in this notion; but since neither you nor i (correct me if i'm wrong) possess clear data on how many people playing on the f13 server are capable of sustaining a steady 100 or near-100 framerate, i don't see how you can argue against upgrading on that basis alone.

Certanly not me ...

I just want to get on the F13 server. Both full every time I've looked. Steam doesn't seem to have a queue/waiting-list function either. Would love to have the latter with decisions made either by an online admin or by code they set.

Lotta work though.

There's a knob you can turn to set it to either notify you when a slot opens or to auto-join.

Join your random server, bring up the steam overly, select the f13 server, select join when a slot becomes avail, and then hide the overlay. Sooner or later, while you're playing, you'll hear a sound and your game will freeze as you join the f13 server.

Or just IM any mod who is online, and we'll open up a slot.

Remember you have to SPAM join, you're usually not the only person wanting to join.

Just do this.

Gets you warmed up too.

Ooh, nice. Gonna check that out.

In other news, the Steam overlay works nicely with WoW too, if you launch WoW from Steam. Wouldn't recommend that for low-ram systems. 26mb process is still 26mb (though less than some freakin' IM clients). But the cleanliness of the overlay is nice.

The thing I hate the most about the Spy is the sapper ability which forces an Engineer to babysit his equipment on many if not most maps. The Engineer is far less fun to play in TF2 compared to the earlier versions. I don't mind there being another counter for sentries but not at the expense of ruining another class.

Er, I think engineers have always been expected to stay near their constructions. In TF and TFC, you had grenade spam so your sentry was always in danger from basically every class.

Though you suggest that the engineer is far less fun to play, obviously it isn't for most people since engineer is the most popular class based on the percentage of people who play them on various maps. You practically have to beg people with "I don't think we need 4 engineers on offense".

What they said about Auto-Join.

Also, it seems several other clans have found our server. Every time I have joined over the last few days there is usually 3-5+ members of another clan playing on the server. Not that I mind really, but it sucks when you get stuck on the team that the clan isnt on, with the Demoman who doesnt know that when he is glowing bright blue and shiny he doesnt need to run and hide in a corner.

I don't mind the engy having to babysit his constructions to some extent, but I do wish the sapper was easier to remove (like one wrench whack instead of two or three).  Or that there was a delay before the spy was able to throw on new ones.  Or that they worked more slowly.  Or that the engineer had a better gun so that he could kill obvious approaching spies before they were able to plant the sapper and start dancing.  Or maybe the sentry could shoot at disguised spies if the engy looks at them and says "Spy!" in the voice menu.  (I have it bound to my F key.)

I played Engineer quite a bit in QWTF and I never felt as tethered to my equipment as I do in TF2 even with all the grenade spam back then. If I remember correctly only the Soldier's nail grenade could take out a fully upgraded turret in one application and only if it was dropped close enough.

One time on TF2 2fort one engineer wanted to take a smoke break so he set up a sentry in the Intel room and put his character on auto attack with the wrench. Against a cloaked Spy an AFK Engineer doing that is basically as effective as a non-AFK player since the best strategy if a cloaked Spy saps your turret AFAIK is to repair the turret. Repairing means you might die but your turret will likely survive and will kill the Spy if he attacks you. If you try and find the cloaked Spy you will almost certainly lose the turret unless you get a lucky shot off and you might die as well.

Of course you could have a Pyro with you guarding your equipment but that means you have all the Engineers stuck next to their equipment just in case the Pyro misses *and* you have a Pyro with the fire button held down just to counter sapping Spies.

And, with all that, engineers are still the most popular class and sentry guns are still too powerful.

I can sap and knife before the engineer can repair it if the eng is doing nothing but repairing the sentry, or play the sapping game over and over again while the engineer tries in vain to repair his sentry. You can also sap and fire the gun twice at the sentry; The real lifesaver is a second person who notices what's going on.

Then again, spies are supposed to beat engineers since they are the only ones who are effective against turrets.

Where does it say that the Engineer is the most popular class?

Except for soldiers.  And demomen.  And heavy/medic combos.  And anyone who has a shotgun and is good at corner-strafing.  And pretty much anyone else if it's in an open area.

I wish they'd publish stats. It's a rare day when you have two engineers or less on any server, though.

Yes, any class can take out a sentry gun given the right conditions, but with an optimum setup and an engineer+dispenser behind it, only the demoman's sticky bombs and a spy has any real chance.

Edit: Unless of course it's 3 vs 1, or two soldiers firing at the same time versus 1. Sentry guns chew up heavy+medic combos on their own; engineers can repair them faster than the heavy can damage it unless they're at point blank range.

You guys with the F13 tags are shameless team stackers, at least whenever I poke my head in.

Yes, but I could argue that the opposition is better off with me on the f13 team.

If the spy can spam sappers then he will take out your sentry even if you are repairing it.

All you have to do is kill the dispenser and then the engy.  A bit tough with a heavy, but a soldier's rockets make it almost trivial.  The sentry gun's main role at that point is buying someone else on your team enough time to charge in and take out the attacker from the rear.

If the engineer is literally AFK, he can also plant a sapper and have enough time to backstab the AFK engineer before the sapper is off.  The good spies are the ones who can do that against a non-AFK engineer.  Which is why I think it wouldn't be bad if sappers were a little easier to remove.  The damn things have more hit points than the spies do.

Heh, it's boring as hell but having a Heavy camp at a dispenser and hold fire can totally decimate stupid attackers.

A soldier can still tear that to pieces by rocketing the dispenser first (the heavy's strength is in sustained fire over a longer period of time, so the soldier completely owns him if he can pop in and out), but yeah, a heavy with a dispenser is generally better than a sentry.

It really depends on the range. Last night I killed 4 or 5 soldiers in a row, without a dispenser, because the range was close enough I could chew them up. If they stay away I'm pretty much toast. The trick is making sure you have the high ground on the soldier. As Star Wars taught us, he who has the high ground magically wins.

Remember, I'm talking about an optimum setup, maximum range where either the sentry gun itself is shielding the engineer and the dispenser behind him both, and not backed by a wall, or in an area where the sentry gun itself is the only thing that can be seen (up on a ledge, or built in a doorway where the engineer and dispenser is covered behind it). On the first, you end up having to fire a rocket beside the turret and angle it correctly so it explodes in the right place, beside the engineer.. All this while possibly getting fired on when you poke your head out a bit too far. On the second, you're fairly boned and need a spy or a demo to take the nest out.

Both are dangerous since you aren't fighting in a vacuum. A sentry works best when paired with an additional defender that can fire at you from within the sentry's arc of fire... you try to close or follow him behind a corner while he heals, you get sentrowned.

I'd like to see a screenshot of this optimum setup you speak of.  I can't picture a spot on any of the maps where there's only one angle to shoot at a gun from (necessary for the engy to hide behind it) AND there's no wall behind there AND it's not possible to shoot at the gun from outside its range AND the spot is someplace that people might actually want to attack.  On most maps it's hard enough just to satisfy the last two conditions.

Agree that sentries are non-trivial to kill if the engineer is working with another defender, but it's hard to make the argument that sentries are in any way "too powerful" (your words exactly) if their efficient operation requires two players to be nearby and alert at all times.

It's true you often can't achieve optimum all the time, the hardest thing is not to have a wall behind you.. Unfortunately, rarely possible to avoid it. What you *can* do, however, is either position against a wall or beside your turret in such a way that to see you or fire over your head into a wall they would have to go deeper inside the turret's arc.

A good example of that would be the 2nd area on those tug-of-war maps on the opposite side of the cap point where there's the pipe that goes to the underwater area. I know you've seen me set up in there; you're protected from rockets by your dispenser on one side, but on both sides the turrets get several shots at the solider before he can even see you -- this generally spoils their aim, even when at first glance it seems untenable.

There are several examples I can think of where you are simply out of sight and unable to be hit... in 2fort, in the ramp room, people cannot see the engineers from below, nor can they damage you if you've got a sentry on the grate (it's still dangerous because of demos). In the 5 cap point tug of war, in the middle area with the cap point on a raised platform and cargo containers, you can climb up the ramp, put a dispenser against the inside wall, and plant a turret facing outwards. There is no way to get to you except from behind; of course they can still fire rockets at your sentry but you can repair just as fast as a single solider damages it (and sometimes two, if the rockets are timed badly). The same goes for putting the sentries on the cargo containers themselves; You can't be seen from below, and they can only lob rockets at your visible sentry from within it's arc of fire (you place it in the center, facing the cap point, on the edge -- you can't see it from behind or from the sides at all)

There are several good sentry areas on the assault-type maps; the one in the room of the first cap point is a terrific one -- the doorway is small enough that rockets will hit your sentry, and the only real way to assault that position is underneath, up the stairs.

Unfortunately, I can't fill in the names of the maps mentally, but I'll start taking screenshots starting tonight -- I need to help budding engineers place their sentries anyway...

Efficient operation requires 2 players to be nearby and alert only when protecting against the classes that can counter sentries (spies, demomen). I'm trying to, I guess, convince people (and you) that any other class (including soldiers, including a hw-medic combo) stands no chance against a well placed sentry if there's an engineer hiding behind and repairing it... and I feel that's overpowered.

As schild is fond of pointing out, sentries in the ramp room can generally be destroyed by any class from below.  Shoot between the stairs, pyro-flame through the catwalk, etc.  And the engy is pretty exposed in most of those spots, so he tends to die while repairing his gun if the attacker is a soldier or a pyro.  The only exception I can think of where the engy can hide in any way is the top of the steep staircase, and a sentry in that spot can be destroyed at range by anyone who can jump up to the battlements (scouts, soldiers, demomen).


I've never had a sentry on the grate pose any sort of threat to me as a soldier whatsoever.  It's ridiculously easy to rocket, and the grate room is tightly enclosed enough that the engy usually eats a rocket even if you aren't aiming at him specifically.  The grate also provides enough cover from the sentry itself that scouts can run right by without getting hit, IIRC.


If the dispenser is against the wall, it's trivial to kill.


As fond as I am of that tactic, putting them up high like that makes them easily snipable, since they're visible from a long distance away.  ANY class can demolish a sentry that has a LOS to it that's further than its firing range.


You're talking about the second stage of Dustbowl, right?  I'm fond of that one too, but the last few times I've tried it I get demolished by hails of rockets from outside.  The cover that the doorway provides works both ways by limiting the sentry's arc of fire and allowing soldiers to rocket pretty much the entire room.  Doesn't take more than a couple of salvoes to destroy the dispenser and blow me into giblets.  (Of course, in an ideal world this buys your teammates time to hit him from the other direction, but providing a distraction of a few seconds is something that just about anyone can do.)

One thing that annoys me, as a sniper, is the hitmap of the sentry; it tends to ignore shots to the rocket pod, and you're unable to shoot through the "open space" in the sentry, such as through the ammo belt loop, or between the legs of the sentry.

If the hitmap was more precise, taking out engineers would be a lot simpler.


It's not team stacking when we're not a clan, and some people are....not as experienced with the game.

We're not a clan?  Holy shit, there goes my sense of validation!

Finally got some time in on an f13 server tonight, mostly as a medic. I've never played TF2 (or TF for that matter) before so it is all new to me. I really liked it and I think I did an ok job for my first time playing. Hope to spend a lot more time getting used to the medic.

Was a lot of fun, thanks guys!

I don't mind having to babysit the equipment much, but there are some maps where that is more fun than others. Granary for one, it makes sense given how the checkpoints are laid out. Also one of those custom maps (looks like Legos). Basically, any map where holding a critical point is a fulltime job for some.

Had a lot of fun the other night where we had three Engineers on two turrets and three Dispensers, bouncing around healing that stuff while the Pyro was keeping the Spies off our back.

I got tired of waiting for Valve to fix the "missing vtex.dll" bug and downloaded a VTF editor (VTFEdit).  Attached are the two tags I've made so far.  To use them, put them in this folder:

  team fortress 2\tf\materials\VGUI\logos

and put another copy of them in:

  team fortress 2\tf\materials\VGUI\logos\UI

Then you can do the "Import" thing from in-game and it'll add the imported texture to your tag list. 

If you want to make your own, make a 256x256 image in the image editor of your choice, use VTFEdit (http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/index.php?p=40) to convert it to VTF format, and follow the instructions above.  256x256 seems to be the perfect size; anything smaller will get upscaled and look grainy (I need to do a new version of that Batman tag for that reason) and anything larger will get rejected because it's too big.

You can also make tags in CS:S and copy them over, if you don't want to use the vtf editor.

n00b question, but.. what's "team stacking"?

Same as a premade stack in a BG in WoW. Basically, knowing that all the decent players are on one side and joining anyway. It's not generally noticeable, except when clan tags are involved.

Everyone who's in 'the know' joining blue when the game starts.

Or it could be described as f13ers, freshfruit, bladeweaver, and dannyb on the same team, which happens more often than not.

Wow, I played on a non-F13 server for the first time since I actually figured out how to play the game, and... the caliber of player on the F13 server is just so much better.  Wow.

And moi.  :)

The custom and Ivory Tower are the first servers I look for.  I have more fun playing with you guys (and the corp crew) than I do on a random pub.  Like Ooki said, the caliber of people is just that much better here.

What's the deal with Jfish people?  I hear he's a cheatorz.

The only cheating I've seen Jfish do is 4 rocket jumps in a row, landing at full health. Either there's some timing to it that avoids damage, or he's a haxxor.

Jonus kept backstabbing me in the face last night, but I think that's just the vagaries of timing. Fucking spies.

Yeah, that's definitely cheating.

Well, according to the dirtbag shitcock asshats at planetmayhem, as of Saturday, the following hacks work undetected in TF2:

Seren1ty aimbot (7.0) Instant max-damage snipe shot
Enemy Radar
Super-fast shooting sticky grenades
Various 'color the enemy loud' mods
Toggleable damage immunity.
'make all players glow through the walls'

they're invading my motherfucking.

Bah.  Let's not get paranoid now...

Well fuck. That would explain last night.


Seen that also. Not on f13 though.

I can see the enemy radar being used a lot. I notice there's a lot of people who just whip around and start lobbing shit at me as a spy. Even disguised. The worst part is I've watched them and they don't do it to anyone else. No tinfoil hat, but it's odd.

I'm honestly going to go and download and use these at some random pub server, the best way to detect these things is to use them yourself for an hour, then they're easy to spot.

This is why I like to play on the F13 team; I can mitigate their advantage and make the game more fair with my 1337 non-skilz.

Or /kick.

Maybe it's the scaredy-cat in me, but I wouldn't do this.  If Valve *does* manage to track any of these cheats, you may find yourself banned4life.

Yeah, might not be such a good idea.  Of course I could un-VAC one of our servers and allow cheats, that would work.

I'd still be scared. I've heard rumors of people being nailed for just having the cracks installed, although they were purely rumors.

I say we just start booting people on mere suspicion. Like our own little Gitmo!  :evil:

For the record, I'm the one who said something to Ookii.

Now, I'm not saying Jfish is or is not cheating. Never having used cheats myself, I wouldn't necessarily know what to look for....

That being said, I was the only f13 person on the other evening, and a bunch of the pubbers were complaining about him; I too was somewhat annoyed by his antics, but at first I just wrote it off as skill. Anyway, I then proceeded to spec him for the better part of an hour.

Now, I did not notice his health ever go up automagically. A lot of the time, he had a pocket medic with him, or just ran back for health. And sometimes, he would just die. But, I did notice something odd with his rocket jumping....

He's either the best rocket jumper I've seen yet in TF2, or he's macroing. I'm going with option 2. I would hazard to guess that he has the macro bound to his fire button, because even when firing normally against a target, his model would be jumping around like a spaz. That's the most I was able to come up with; his rocket shots were fairly accurate, but as is the nature of the weapon, not unbelievably accurate. At best, I would say Jfish is a dishonest player; I've always loathed macros such as this.



Oh, and I didn't know about the sniper cheat. I've never used it, if anyone is wondering (feel free to waste time specing me  :-P)...though, it would explain some of the bullshit snipers I get tagged by every now and then.


PS; Any word on making additional admins beside Ookii and Schild?

Some of the pre-Steam 3rd-party cheat detectors did work by looking for incriminating file names (whether or not they contained anything dangerous or were doing anything while the game was running).  I accidentally got myself banned from a server once because I'd missed some random OGC config file (entirely innocuous on its own) when wiping it from my system.  Oopsie.

I suspect VAC goes by what's in memory rather than what happens to be lying around your hard drive, in which case that wouldn't happen.  Then again, I don't think I'd want to risk it.

Maybe...

 :awesome_for_real:

EDIT: All mods on f13 are admins on TF2.

What the hell sort of macro would do that?

It would be fairly trivial to write a rocket jump macro that aims your view down, jumps, and fires with a single button press (not something I would consider cheating in any way, btw, any more than binding "build a dispenser" to a key press would be cheating), but there's no reason having such a macro would do anything to your normal attacks; if you bound that macro to your fire button you'd just end up shooting your own feet off all the time.  It sounds more like he just likes to jump around a lot.

Also, what quality defines a superhuman rocket jumper?  Either you get off the ground or you don't.  As long as you aim at your feet (i.e. STRAIGHT DOWN) instead of a little bit in front of your feet and you jump a little bit before you fire, you go up.  The hardest part is starting your jump from the right place, and a macro isn't going to help you with that.

(edit) Oh, I get it, the macro handles the "timing" involved in jumping and shooting.  Meh.  That's not the part most people screw up.  Doesn't even seem worth macroing.

Disclaimer: This script most likely does not do what Straz was saying earlier.  Thank you for your time.

I was thinking of a macro that would get the timing down for the player. Possibly correcting their view after they jump for them.

Also, I thought he was a pretty good jumper because, on granary....you know that outdoor area between points 1 and 2, and between 2 and 3? He could traverse most of that area in a single jump. Never seen it done before.


Also, he was causing an obscene amount  of havoc in DB. I'm not sure what jumping does for hit detection, but for whatever reason I had a hell of a time hitting the kid.

EDIT: Like I said, I didn't notice him getting health back unnaturally, or not taking damage at all...

Then again, I was watching mostly on Granary....he caused way more trouble on DB.

Isn't that what all Soliders do all the time?

You know those people in MMOGs who have to jump on the spot even when you are sat about waiting for the group to get together? They're the people who grow up to be TF2 soldiers.

So, is this what I'm doing wrong when I play soldier?  I can't rocket jump worth shit.

My vacation completely destroyed my already pathetic skills.  Goddamn I'm bad right now.

It sounds dumb, but really, the big thing is aiming directly at your feet.  Here is the step by step rocket jumping guide:

1) Pull your mouse toward you until your crosshairs stop moving down.
2) Jump.
3) Shoot.

You can have as big of a gap between 1 and 2 as you like as long as you don't mind not being able to see where you're going.  I usually start pointing at my feet when I'm about two seconds from liftoff.  The gap between 2 and 3 should be about as long as it takes you to say "Hup!"; the key thing is to have the rocket blast go off when you're travelling UP, not DOWN.  For best results you want it to go off right at the apex of your jump, but it doesn't matter that much.

Unrelated to the rocket jumping/haxxoring discussion:

PLEASE for the love of god take Orange off of the map rotation. It's awful awful awful awful. awful.

-Sutro

Yea, we're planning on it.

Oh, yeah. Reason #483 I dislike online gaming: cheaters. Ruined BF2 (well, combined with smacktards).

VAC is pretty good at stopping cheaters. All of the listed cheats will probably be wrecked before we could get around to banning people.

I've been seeing some really fucked up stuff with demomen recently.

You gonna elaborate there chief?

Super fast sticky grenade shooting seems to be reality at this point.  Saw a few players shooting those out faster than seemed possible.   Saw some sketchy pipebomb jumping also.  May have just been a macro with that one, but it was on the run (without really pausing to shoot) and they flew farther and higher than any soldier I've seen.

The sticky bombs do launch you waaaaay the hell farther than the rockets do.

The stickies can be launched pretty dang fast if you don't need to get them very far.  And yes, sticky jumping done right will just about put you into orbit.

I think what you saw was people getting better at demomen.  I'd have to see what you are talking about as far as fast stickies but I can (or: could before my vacation) lay down three (all you usually need...ed?) pretty quickly.  For the record, I'm not much of a pipebomb jumper, I tend to kill myself on the landing.

You guys sound like you know what you're talking about so I think I'll stick to my n00b servers for now.

If you do see me, I'm likely going to be under my old Quakeworld alias of Deadloss - that being about the last time I ever played MP games of this sort. 

You should just join the f13 server. Playing with people who know who use in game chat makes you learn REAL FAST.

We don't yell at you for any reason other than love though.

Play on our servers, it keeps the out derelicts.

And you'll get good fast.

We need to rename the Ivory Tower.

It's about as appealing as dead fish.

F13's Server for Dead Fish.

F13's Server for Kids Who Can't Read Good

You can yell.  I'm deaf.


And a mute.


Also blind and fingerless - which explains a lot about my playing style. 

Also, I don't read too good. 

Let's post really fast back to back!

F13.net's Pro Rape-a-thon
F13.net's Boinker's Paradise
F13.net - Medic! Medic! Medic! Medic!
F13.net's - No AWP/Auto - WRONG GAME
F13.net's Ye Olde TF2 Server
F13.net's TF2 Server/Pet Grooming
F13.net's Server - FREE ADMIN POWERS* *not really
F 1 3 . N E T ' s   T F 2   S E R V E R - Long Name Edition

F13.net's Boinker's Paradise + F13.net - Medic! Medic! Medic! Medic! =

f13.net's Boinker's Paradise (Medic! Medic! Medic! Comeon Doc!)

F13.net's - Medic! Boinking Paradise

Kind of weak.

F13 Pre-CU SWG Emulator (TF2 Edition)

f13's Suspiciously Tart Lemonade Stand
f13's Kitty Cat Tarpit Massacre
f13's Fat Chicks Only
f13's Hobbling For Dummies, part 1
f13's Olde Tyme Vasectomy Parlor

F13's Server With No Custom Maps, 16-Person Teams, Zero Respawn Timer, Or Other Shit That's Gay

f13's scrimaplooza

Then kick anyone who asks to scrim.

F13.net - Confidently Unilateral Neutral-Terminal Server.

You could also just grab a meta line from a porn site.

f13's Vader Pics
f13's Hip Hop Emporium
f13's V1/-\GrA 4 U
f13 - We do what we must because we can

Jesus. That's awesome.

Here's some:

f13.net: Now contains less than 3% natural ingredients.
f13.net always wins at rock paper scissors. ALWAYS.
f13.net: It's the cunning and manipulative! It can only be killed underwater!
f13.net has slain the mighty lag-beast. Thrice.

Ahh.  A perfect recruit for Team Red!  Otherwise known as Team Red-shirt and Team Pants-on-head.  Join me in having twice as many deaths as kills!

The last FPS I regularly played multiplayer in was Marathon II in '96.  :cry:

f13's Bovine Fornication Simulator
f13's Companion Cube Sanctuary
f13's Airport Bathroom Stall Sting
f13's Hide The Habanero Marathon
f13's Involuntary Gender Reassignment

F13 - ZOMG TEAMSTACKERS Edition
F13 - GRANARY 24/7 Scouts Only
F13 - We Support Everything You Hate
F13 - Secret Magical Hellgate Retail Patch Emulator

Since Portal's on the brain..

f13 - The weighted companion cube and you.
f13 - So delicious and moist.
f13 - These points of data make a beautiful line.
f13 - For the people that are still alive.
f13 - There's science to do.


f13 - Every day is Caturday.
f13 - Morph ball acquired.
f13 - Wii hate SWG.

f13 - Not an Aperture Unstationary Platform.

f13 - Just keep on trying till you run out of cake
f13 - Don't mention the star war
f13 -  :awesome_for_real:
f13 - We see what you did there
f13 - Weighted Companion Server
f13 - meh
f13 - Yesterday's mistakes, Today!

f13 - Helping you help us all
f13 - Invading your motherfucking
f13 - Usefully cynical dromedary

F13's Katsak featuring Mike Rowe

F13's Axe Lords Featuring Gorgazon’s Mischief

f13.net <Insert Amusing Slogan> Server
f13.net Ironically Named Server

Racist Server worked well, for a while. Then the cuntfaces invaded.

edit: Oh, and suckering me into alt-tabbing makes baby jesus cry. ctd suxxors

f13.net Companion Cube Murderers

F13.net Ladyboy Teamstack Power-Hour
Not Stephen King's F13.net
F13.net Ate My Balls!

For schild-

F13.net's 24x7 Pyro Cookout



And Nix, I will one day learn to play a spy and stab you in the cock. One day!!!

Was it just me, or was tonight filled with asshats?

Only on your team.

I'm also seeing cheaters everywhere; It's frustrating to not know whether they've got the skills, got really lucky, or are really just watching your approach through the wall. I hope VAC picks up on all the big ones soon.

That Dondi guy kicked alot of ass. I spectated a few rounds on him, and he seemed legit.

The team I was on was full of Mouthbreathing Asshats with a particular fondness for screaming, singing, heavy breathing, reciting looney tunes catch-phrases and generally giving humanity a black eye over their microphones.


I gave up and played NCAA 07 instead.

Feel free to steam msg one of the admins if someone is screaming, yelling, singing, or otherwise ruining your fun.  I wouldn't put up with that shit on my team, so if they're on yours, toss one of us a message, and we'll give em a swift kick the fuck outta the server.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29RE0blCV84

FYI, I'm a spy.

lol

Yeah, I spec'd Dondi for a while as well. The only thing I noticed is that if anyone was a spectator, he stopped getting kills. And one fucker who's name eludes me got continual crits with his pyro.

And one sniper kept shooting me through walls. Either weird lag or cheating. He sucked so bad in every other respect, it could have been luck the 4 times it happened.

All in all, it pissed me off enough to play something else.

Might as well post this here as well...

I'm starting a third TF2 server to test out the Mani Plugin, having not done this before I want to work out the quirks before our servers fill up, which is generally around 4-6pm PST.  If anyone gets off early today or is not working and would like to help me test the server (and has Windows Live Messenger), I'd greatly appreciate it.

Heh, after playing and experimenting with the demoman.. I just needed to learn2play.  Was able to reproduce most everything I was seeing.  Easier to pipebomb jump than rocket jumping even.

I really didn't notice anything I'd consider cheating except perhaps phil being a cockmunch and torching a sentry through a wall.  :-D

Last night was OK when I played except for the major crash we had on gravelpit with everyone getting booted.  Had some really really awful players on last night though.  Holy shit.  Some asshats but at least they kept their commentary to general chat and off voice.  The  team stacks can get bad at times (nice practice though), but at least Sam was nice enough to switch over to red at a point in dustbowl.

Ya, I've been trying to not stack too bad lately.  But sometimes, you want to win a round, you know?

So, after what? 3 weeks or so, I dont suck quite so much anymore. That makes me happy. I can contribute to my team winning with more classes than Medic now. I got pretty good with the Soldier and Pyro, and decent with the demoman and engineer. I am still horrible with the spy though.

I was playing the custom map server the other day, and there was almost no clan people on it, and I was just destroying people as the Soldier. It was really fun.

What gets annoying to me is when a bunch of people from another clan join our server, and they all stack one team, and just obliterate everyone. Now, I know people with [f13] tend to stack, we are not a clan, and our skill levels vary wildly.

GO BLU!

I like it when other clans stack on the server. I wish it would happen more often.

I just wish they'd stack the other team.

Ill bring my guys over one night if you dont mind doing some kicking to get us on. I doubt we'll wanna wait 40 min. Convo me sometime on Steam.

I just always click Red at the start of the map now.  Since most of the stackers go blue, this tends to work out well as far as me not feeling dirty for steamrolling a bunch of newbs.  And it means I get to hear Fruit and Schild cry about these damn pyros incinerating their motherfucking.   :-D

Heh, it's not cheating if I'm exploiting a legitimate game mechanic.  And I suck so hard at pretty much every other class that I think I deserve a little bit of win every now and then.

I seem to be the first to join maps, so I just random and let the cards fall where they may. It does heighten my enjoyment when I get angry messages from schild; it makes being a spy all worth it.

I always hit random unless I am late joining a game and one team is shorthanded. I take my beatings like a man and bitch about my team on chat, like a REAL gamer.

lol

It must get old when I'm in the losing team , always hearing the same shit from me on voice...

"I guess I'll have to run medic again since NOONE ELSE WILL"

"Hey engis, for the 15th fuckin time....PUT UP A TELEPORTER"

"Do we REALLY need 3 snipers (on Well)?"

I take my beatings for awhile, but after about fifteen minutes of asshattery I generally switch teams and beat their heads in with a fire axe. I'm happy to lose because the other team was awesome. I'm less tolerant of losing because three of my teammates think it is fun to play bat tag in the spawn room for the entire round.

Yeah, I'm an unlikable cockbag on chat when my team is doing stupid shit.

Yeah, I'm an unlikable cockbag.

Is it a bag full of cocks or is it a bag made from cock?

Those aren't mutually exclusive.

Also, if people are playing bat tag in spawn while you're losing, or AFK, or whatever, and an admin is on, say something.  That's why kicking was invented.

I kept reading it as unlickable.

Still not mutually exclusive.

I say we turn all-talk on and just be obnoxious assholes with HLDJ.

Or wait for schild to show up drunk and then turn on all-talk.

Not gonna happen. I hate all talk.

So it would just be Team Blu that you chose to punish.

Bad engineers almost annoy me more than bad spies. Both equally goddamn useless.  Really awful players seem to pick those two by default.

"WHY DID YOU PUT A TELEPORTER UP THERE?"  "So I could get to my turret faster!" /fail

"Move your stupid turret, we already have that cap point."

"Ohh awesome, no dispenser."

Nothing I hate more than trying to defend a point as a heavy and running out of ammo.  While there are three engineers running around NOT building dispensers behind me.

Being accused of cheating is slightly annoying.

Newb snipers on my team drawing attention to my spot is infinitely more annoying....FFS, snipe from somewhere else.




Also, I seem to be able to get the in-game steam UI to work. At all. Any ideas, or is my PC somehow too gimp to just do it?

Or the infamous Sudden Death "OH! Super! You put up a turret before a dispenser..."

You hate fun.

Indeed. All talk is awesome.

Too many engineers in sudden death, period.

That's why it soldier/medic combos are so godly during sudden death.  It's amazing how fast a turret farm will go down when there aren't any "real" combatants around to protect it.

Oh my new favorite guy....Name was Mike Tyson. He ran around as a Heavy with his fists out the whole time.

I'm soooooooooooooooo glad I am an admin over on our 'guild' server now :)

Sudden Death is stupid. Or more specifically the CP and CTF scoring systems are broken. Dumbest change Valve made to the game. Also the new patch nerfs Engineers in Sudden Death -- their buildings explode when they die now.

Ha the created of cp_castle_b3 emailed me personally today to tell me he updated the map... who does that??

I was touched.

Why are the scoring systems broken? Points in games don't mean shit if you don't win. It's merely a record of your kills, captured points, and buildings destroyed. And yea, of course the new patch nerfs engineers. Not like a turret without an engineer is much of a threat anyway...

I don't care about my points, but that's not what I'm referring to.

In a CTF game if you have 2 caps to their 0 caps you should win the game when time expires. But you don't. Cause Valve are a bunch of fucking retards. In a CP game where both sides can cap points if you hold the most points for the longest you should win. That's how QWTF/TFC/BF2 and tons of other CP games work. Ties are fucking bullshit in those sorts of game types.

Bad engineers are much worse than bad spies, IMO.

Eh? Feels a little dramatic to me. I kind of like the idea that when things tie, everyone's a loser.

Because they are. Winners win before the clock runs down.

How is capping the flag more than the opposing team a tie? That makes absolutely no sense at all except in Valve's bizarro world. I can sort of understand the brain-damaged CP system since they are trying to dumb down the game as much as possible and apparently the standard CP scoring system is just too much for their target audience to handle.

I'm sure, somewhere, in their lack of documentation, you can turn off sudden death.

But even then, the goal is 3. Or 2 or whatever you set it to. My opinion?

We should set 2Fort to one cap to win on Ivory Tower.

Goddamn that would make it frantic fun.  Problem with anything more than one is after one team gets it once, one or both teams go straight into Turtle Mode.

Also, why do you think Valve is insulting you? I think their target audience is people who want to have fun, not people that give a shit about scoring systems.

I think setting it to 2 in 2fort and Mach2 would be better than 3. Nothing more depressing than a long 2fort match, where you finally get the 3rd cap, and the map rotates. To 2fort.

Seems to bring out the worst turtling instincts.

I really think we need to revisit the map rotation.   Granary, Well, and 2fort in a row is pretty brutal. It's an hour and a half before you get back to the style of gameplay IMO most prefer.

Granary
Dustbowl
2Fort
Gravelpit
Well
Dustbowl

As is, it's a sad moment when you finish dustbowl and you know you're not going to get back to it or gravelpit before you have to go to bed. 

Btw, is dannyBstyle someone you know, schild?

That would make it Dustbowl, Granary, Dustbowl. If you wanted to double up Dustbowl (and leave out Hydro) better to have something like

Granary
Dustbowl
2fort
Well
Dustbowl
Gravelpit

Yep. Another godaddy employee. So is whitebandit.

That would work.

Ask dannyBstyle if he's hacking :) that flamethrower of his seems to do more damage than anyone elses!

How do pyro crits work? Maybe it's something I'm missing.

Holy fuck this kid is annoying. Last night after most of the admins left he was constantly yelling random shit in to the mic, and talking nonsense. At one point I had to yell at him to shut up cause he was just screaming shit like "nananannanan gabagabagabagab slaba slaba slaba slaba slaba na na na na la la la la la".

Not to mention the voice chat sounded like the VN boards. "Hey you, I hope you fucking get cancer and die", "No, I hope YOU get cancer and die, or catch aids".

Pyros get a sort of ubercrit. Basically for 2-3 seconds from every charge, it's a perm crit flame. Visibly there's no difference. It's total total bullshit.

Danny is not hacking. Not to slight the guy, but it's neither his style nor easy enough to do (like most gamers, laziness overwhelms the urge to track that shit down). He'd rather just jump in and play.

To be fair, I make fun of the balls on his mom's face all day.

The comments dont bug me that much at all, it was the screaming random shit in to the mic, and never shutting up that annoyed me. I mean, going on and on and on about random shit interspaced with gibberish noises. It was like some one let their 12 year old add kid stay up way past his bedtime, and gave him a IV of pure sugar for about 3 hours then let him loose on our server.

Also for those of you who I was talking to last night, where I said I liked the map that was like 2Fort but the base was smaller. I think it was Mach2 I was talking about. Its basic design is like 2Fort, with 2 bases, and they have an open space in between them, also with sewers connecting them. But since the base is smaller, it leads to much more fast paced game play, and its much harder to turtle vs a strong offensive push.

I wish more people would play on the custom map server, but its been empty for the last 3 days when I have logged on.

Crits happen more frequently the better you're doing.  The other night I was able to ambush a 3-man squad from behind and kill them all without any crits going off, but from that point on until I died, EVERY hit was a crit.  It's like the "MULTIKILL" and "GODLIKE" from UT, but instead of the announcer complimenting you, you do double damage.   :-D

Wait, WHAT?! Are you fucking kidding me? Seriously?! Holy shit, it's like the easy button just got a smaller, similarly colored 'hand of god' button on the side. I have GOT to try this out. I did NOT know this.

And you think I'm "JOKING AROUND" when I complain about pyros.

Yea........... I'm not.

How long until the crit 'recharges'? I assume you can't spam it on and off to reset the timer..... right? RIGHT?

You'll be complaining about how uber soldiers are after I get done raping your face Sunday.

Wherein the raper becomes the rapee? Because I'm going to shove a bat right up your ass.

I think you're misunderstanding....the crit is not something you can control....it just happens from time to time...

But, the pyro flame being what it is, one tick of crit flame would be useless, so...when you crit as a pyro, if you keep the flame on, every tick for 2-3 seconds or so is a crit. There is no "recharge."

Wrong. It's not every 2 or 3 seconds. It's every 15-30 seconds, but it lasts for 2-4 seconds.

It will kill anything in it's way dead. It's like the burst crit from Heavies chaingun.

Or the soldier's crit rockets.  I love those things.   :heart:

Wait a second, those glowie projectiles are what do the crit damage ...  :-o

 :awesome_for_real:

I find I get them more when I'm down to low health, but I may be trippin.

I seem to die to random crit rockets more than anything else.

Random crit rockets are my anti-sniper.  What's yours?

I find a sniper rifle makes a decent anti-sniper. I don't find it much use for anything else though.

A flame and an axe make the best anti-spy.

Dressing up as a sniper is my anti-sniper.

you guys are all too good--I'm getting burnt out after only a few games (pun'd). loads of fun though! :awesome_for_real:

Fun stuff tonight. And Freshfruit is banned from competition... ;)

And the same applies for any continuous fire weapons, most obviously the heavy, but also shit like the sniper SMG.

Crit periods happen randomly (influenced by how well you are doing), and last a few seconds, and every shot in the period is a crit.

You can't (afaik) get more crits by stopping firing and starting again or any crazy nonsense like that.

I thought the SMG had the same rules as the rile; head shots are crits.

Wrong.

Bioshock is my anti-sniper.

Incidentally, with the sniper rifle, head shots are always effectively crits, but non-headshots can also be crits.

I swear, TF2 is going to drive me to invent a way to punch someone in the crotch over the internet. Fucking engineers that build teleports that are useless, disensers at the home point on Granary at the start of the match, and spies will be the first targeted.


Consider yourselves warned.

I'm under the impression that Engineers are overpowered. On defense maps I'm constantly working people over and over. Perhaps my competition sucks?

Yes, it does, a lone spy can absolutely wreck an engie or two (if they don't suck).  Now, throw a pyro in there with a dispenser for some everlasting torch goodness, and you CAN get some seriously tough fucking setups.  But, for the mostpart, most people suck.

Even the toughest pyro+sentry+dispenser setup can be thoroughly raped by one demoman lobbing grenades from behind cover.

True, and a heavy/medic combat can destroy any embankment, but 2x engies+2x pyros are a pretty fucking tough bubble to break.

Fig 1.1



You can clearly see from the above picture that pyro+disp+sentry will induce motherfuckering.

(http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/6655/chart1rq6.jpg)

Yes. You are right.  :awesome_for_real:

Shit I love charts.

Talking of demomen and sentries, I feel the need to share...

(http://img451.imageshack.us/img451/7955/mfdemomanjr1.jpg)

Obviously, this is the second cap point on part two of dustbowl.

Seriously, I can stand there and fling death over the roof aiming right behind the tower for hours. Idiots still insist on standing there no matter how long you do it for.

Note to defenders : Mind your pattern recognition skillz. If grenades land on you while standing in the same place over and over, don't stand there any more.

/end Public Service Announcement.

I usually lob the grenades from over by the big rock, just around the corner from the big gun emplacement.  I'll have to try your way sometime.

As a defensive engy at that point I've taken to putting my sentry out on the platform instead of covering the point directly.  It dies a lot, but it keeps demomen from setting up shop and molesting your last lines of defense with impunity.

Thanks, Eldaec.  It's the first helpful or intelligible thing anybody's said to me all day.

I do that as well, if eldaec's way works (and catches on among demos) it will be almost impossible to defend that point.

I've tried it and haven't gotten any results.  As far as I can tell my grenades just land on the roof.  Hard to tell since you can't see where they're going, but with all the crap that's usually over in that area I'd expect at least one kill after unloading all my grenades in that direction with varying arcs.

If you want to play grenade games, you can angle grenades up through the L shaped entrance upstairs in 2fort to explode in front of their exit. This used to be a lot more useful than it is now, since grenades no longer explode on contact after the first bounce. Before the patch, you could destroy anyone trying to go through that exit...

They certainly do go over, if you want to convince yourself, just stand looking down the tunnel underneath the building, and shoot them over the roof, you'll be able to see them land at the opposite end of the tunnel, the trick is in not having them land either way too far back, or on the building to the right.

And as you say, figuring out the angle while being unable to see the landing spot.

Oh, if someone could set me on the exception list, my ping seems to spike above 200ms from time to time  :grin: :grin: :grin:

For the first time I was booted for the 200 ping. EXCEPTION TO BE HAVING PLEASE!  :pedobear:

No exceptions for Dirty Canardians.  :vv:

Don't be mad. I had nothing to do with the strong Canadian dollar. HONEST! :awesome_for_real:

Comparing your currency to the monopoly money used by Americans does not make it 'strong'.

Ok - would like sharing advice on strategies for attacking third part of dustbowl?  Was on an offensive team that made it through to this but couldn't even take the first checkpoint.  Helm was damn good as a demoman (well, far better than anybody else there) and it felt at times like I was leading the charge - as a fucking medic!  So what approach should we be taking?

I always assault the first part as a demoman -- start by lobbing grenades into the window of that little fort area.  Once you stop racking up kills there, it's because all the reds have died or fled in terror, so you can start focusing on the ones charging in from the right.  Carpet that area with stickybombs, and detonate whenever someone runs across.  This will slow their reinforcements to a trickle.  At this point your teammates shouldn't have much trouble pushing forward and capping the point.  (If there are a lot of sentries you should take a break from your carpetbombing duties and deal with the sentries -- if they're in a difficult spot, like up on that stupid ledge, get a medic to keep you alive while you play peekaboo to get 8 stickies up there.)

The last part... well, in all the rounds we played last night, we never took it, so I can't help you there.   :grin:

One demoman, hiding to the left, can defend the second cap point just about indefinitely.   You get a clean view of the cap point obscured from any sniper, soldier or heavy.  Most people will be so euphoric upon reaching the cap point that no one will bother to kill you, even after to detonate your pipebombs there.  Then continue to lob, lob, detonate until your screen is filled with the names of dead enemies.   A scout/medic combo may be able to take the point ubered before the demoman can wait and detonate.   People really should just kill the damn demoman though.

But, it only comes down to that if the attacking team can make it past the sentries, snipers, back attacking pyros, etc.  It's a really fun map for defense. Offense tends to feel like futility, especially if your team sucks.

Back attacking pyros are the devil.  I ended up going engy and covering the sewer entrance with a sentry just to put a stop to that shit.

I really fucking hate that map...

Here is how you win the last stage:

1.  Get a teleporter + refuel in the Lhand building and sustain a push from there without ever getting ub3r'd or flushed out by a straight rush.

2.  Get a teleporter + refuel in the Rhand building + clear any sentries w/ a bead to the walkway (if you don't do that the building is worth dick).

3.  Get a teleporter + refuel in the sewer and harass the hell out of them from there while not dying much, get an uber rush down the center to clear the sentries then hit them hard from underneath and pray.

Seriously though, I've never won that last stage against competent players without one of the following usually you need two:
-pushing the front lines almost to the cap point.
-double uber rush that hits them just at the right time.
-rediculously good sniper/spy/demo who basically fucks up their heads.

I dislike the ability for medics to charge their ubers while safely inside spawn areas.

I usually only do that off the bat on Offense, especially when there are turret placements from hell to bust. I don't think it's cheap or anything, but it still takes a good while to fill and that's time that I'm not on the front lines keeping people alive.

I personally think this is the key, time the rush so after the ubers have knocked most everything out (any sentries in side buildings usually are up though, easy to miss in all the chaos), the rest of the team rushes forward to clear everything else out.  Having a good spy helps a lot with dealing with any forward turrets, but building sentries too close equals an easy target for any ubered pyro rushes.

I just wanted to say thanks for putting up the server. It's one of the better ones, with consistently above average players.

Well, often you'll get odd-manned out because blue is always stacked like crazy, but that's 75% of the fun I guess.

When does our server get updated? Apparently my newly patched client is uncompatible with the rest of the fucking Internet.

Whenever Ookii wakes up?

Correct. Sorries.

It's actually easy to update but I don't have access to that machine. In the srcds_l directory type (cut and paste):

./steam -command update -game "tf" -dir .

You may have to run it a couple of times if the steam client has to update itself first.

Neg. You have to mess with mani_admin before you do that. I don't know shit or fuck about it. :| Probably a big mani_admin update coming out soon about it considering the SDK update.

Oh okay, NM then.

It's fixed.

Engineers earn points for teleporter?

Yea, and before this patch you could TP yourself back and forth for massive points, I once had like 40 teleports in a round and racked up 31 pts off TPs alone   :awesome_for_real:

They mentioned that on the GFW podcast last week. And I was going to try it at some point. :cry:
I noticed that uber stats thing. Got credited with 6 ubers, when it was more like 2 or 3.

Oh man, I didn't know that.

So, I wandered around the interwebs to find a compatible server last night. I FINALLY found one. Suddenly, FreshFruit shows up and joins the other team, and then proceeds to stab me in the rectum every time I pause for a nanosecond. NERF SPIES KTHX.


Btw- I didn't realize how good the average player on our server is compared to the pubs. Jesus.

lol WAP, go above 1:1?    :awesome_for_real:

LMAO! I think FF killed me 5 times for every death I suffered from the other team, so he screwed me statswise.  :uhrr:

And if you become good at sniping, he'll show you how good he is at assfucking you non-stop.


It's actually pretty annoying.

So does anyone play our wonderful server anymore?  It looks like we have all moved on to newer games.

I'd love to revisit it, but until we get some new maps, I'm pretty burned out playing the same 3 over and over again.

That, and there are so many single player games on the list to play.

Playing the fuck out of TF2, HG:L being a broken piece of shit has helped.  I'm mostly on Medick's Madhouse (bay area), good server, all chat (lulz) & high level of competition = 4tw.  The f13 server is often empty but I've gotten some games in it at random times.

There really haven't been any good 3rd party maps to shake out.  Castle is considered one of the best and many people hate it, myself included.

Add to that how much 2fort & hydro suck and basically all I play is dustbowl & gravel pit, throwing in one of the 5caps (granary is so much better damn it) for color.

I do hope they add more maps or FSS sucks less sometime soon.

I still play alot but the F13 server is always empty now and the last couple of times I tried to join it, it was giving me connection errors and just timing out on me.  Wasn't even sure if it was still working.

I'll be back on as soon as my fricking house is unpacked. I hate moving. Thank god I don't have to do it again for a very long time.

TF2 is floating back up to the top of the list.  It still has to fight HL2Ep2, but that won't last.

Whores. This game completes me.

I told you we'd all be doing other things by now.

No one listened!!

But ya, I basically built my new computer and forgot to put the F13 stuff on my list.  But everytime I check my friend's list, everyone is scattered :(

IMO, d/c the Ivory Tower, keep Custom Maps but put Dustbowl on there, put UT3 on the box when it comes out.

I check the f13 server first every time I load up TF2, but like many it is always empty.  I haven't had my fill of TF2 yet so I will continue to check.

I was mostly only logging on to play our organized stuff, and playing SP stuff in between.

I join the server whenever someone's on and it's not a custom map.  Guitar Hero has been eating a fair amount of my gaming time but I still squeeze in a few TF2 rounds whenever I can.

Someone made a CTF map that pwns 2fort, its called something v3 I think.  But yeah finally a good map that deserves a piece of the rotation.  Castle is debatable, I'm still not a fan but as people learn the map it becomes a little less boring and a little more annoying.

I say we make a point to get together and frag each other over the holiday weekend, just as our forefathers did with the aboriginals back in the day.

Everybody I game with who didn't join a TF2 clan has pretty much quit playing the game for more than 1-2 hours a week.

Like one of my friends - he's got 28 hours as heavy, 14 hours as engineer - 3.7 hours played in the last 2 weeks.

I'd suggest you guys round up some people and join one of the once a week leagues. It's pretty fun so long as you stick to 7vs7 or 8vs8. 6vs6 attracts too many CS wannabe-pro-gamers.

Here's a few:

http://tf2.tfleague.com/ (http://tf2.tfleague.com/)
http://www.teamwarfare.com/ (http://www.teamwarfare.com/)
http://www.ironglove.com/ (http://www.ironglove.com/)
http://www.sta-league.org/ (http://www.sta-league.org/)

TFLeague plays on Thursday nights. TWL is the 'defender picks the time' as it is now. I've been playing Sunday nights there. IGL is Sunday nights, and STA is on Tuesday.


There are even a few places that are going to do "Highlander" leagues. Highlander is 9 vs 9, where you have one of every class. It's quite fun.

So the game would be a fifty year long simulation of how disease wipes out native Americans?  :awesome_for_real:

That would probably increase my K/D ratio.

We should do something tomorrow(tonight) on the server...   :awesome_for_real:

I killed the server for now, GoDaddy made upgrades and we were on old hardware (yea, they made updates like a week after we got it) + people weren't playing. :(

I'll be playing in a few weeks. Like, when Christmas starts and brings my holidays with it. Till then, I'm fucked.

Yeah, nobody played on the server basically for two weeks, it was fun while it lasted though!

That would explain it. I looked for it last night and nada.

So all of those donations were for what, exactly? A gay trip to the Bahamas? or a new collection of games?

Not that I donated or anything.

It's either going to go to the main f13 server or we'll the second one if people actually show enough interest to need one.

The first 2 months of that second server came out of pocket.

Though I shouldn't have to justify a single, goddamn thing to you.

Hookers and blow.

Oh god how could I forget hookers and blow.

Did you know money doesn't go far on those two items?

Nope, you don't need to say anything about it to me, because I didn't (or wouldn't) give money. The people who did donate money probably would want to know though.

Me, I just wanted the chance to shoot or BONE SAW people from here.


You working at GoDaddy probably should've gotten a cheaper hosting price, or something. At the very least they should've given you the upgrade, if you couldn't just go and do it for the server yourself.



This I can believe.

You are talking out of your ass. There are 4 other godaddy employees who post on this board including the one who I purchased the server through (to get commission to put back into the second server). I used the maximum coupon price available. No, this isn't the land of milk and honey where dedicated servers grow on trees. But it's readily apparent that you have exactly zero idea of how a hosting company works, particularly one of the (if not the) biggest hosting company in the world. To give you an idea, when I'm not on the clock, I'm treated like any regular customer. It's customer service roulette to get good help and it's even more obnoxious since I can't walk up to the people that actually do the hosting shit.

But please, postulate more, and just assume I didn't take advantage of every single possibility I could with the servers. That'll make you seem really, really cool.

Wow you suck a great deal of cock...

For myself, I donated a little. Played horribly and not often or long. Enjoyed myself hugely and do not regret the donation. If it is not used for TF2 I am willing to bet it will find another use. I am more than willing to encourage our little community to explore other outlets and media.

Oh god how could I forget hookers and blow.

[/quote]

The blow made you forget all the fun you were having? Best Disco Polka Party... ever.

Actually, by the time I picked up The Orange Box, you guys were all getting high on Hellgate. Now I play on the Christian CS server. Players are so polite there!

And I play on the 4chan party van! I guess we cancel each other there. Well, I play on other servers too, depending on latency. Right now, I'm just wishing for maps.

Edit: I donated, and I secretly hoped the donations would be used for hookers and blow or whatever else would make schild happy. Hookers and blow wouldn't make me happy, for instance. I want to swim in money; crumpled one dollar bills, I think, should do the trick. Someday I'm going to build a big concrete money bin, fill it to the brim with crumpled bills, and go swimming.

I honestly think I played the game way too much when it came out, I haven't had a real desire to fire up TF2 in about 3 weeks or so.

I'll probably jump back into it in a couple months, it seems it needs to 'evolve' a little first - whether that be better maps or plugins that change gameplay modes.

Playing on the 4chan server is epic, epic lulz. Really, it is just that funny. Especially when people say, "no micspam plz."

Is the 4chan server all-talk or team-talk?  Also what is the ip so I can favorite it.  I have to go at least once for the sprays if nothing else.

 :hello_thar:

Just look for 4chan, that's the first part of it so just look in the numbers when you sort by name. It's all-talk, generally with a mod playing nothing but sound clips and music constantly, while random people join and bitch about the noise and get ridiculed. Often people will be shooting walls and having a good time. The server is pretty much the opposite of a serious team scrimmage, you might even say the server is serious business. It's definitely an experience.

4CHAN PARTY VAN (INTERNET HATE MACHINE!)

69.90.34.58:27015

I would never bookmark such a thing.

There's a pretty good instant spawn server (using beetle mod) that I use to warm up with. I'll dig up the IP when I'm home tonight.

 :mob:

Instant spawn ==  :heartbreak:

also

Double crits ==  :heartbreak: or maybe  :pedobear:

Instant spawn + 4chan PARTY VAN! =  :pedobear: for reals.

Is 4Chan the new F13 server?  We should have a team night there this week.

lol

I play on /v/idya's server...the party van sucks.

There are two new maps.. the first is an amusing melee-only map.
(http://www.filedump.net/dumped/meleeringking00061196621592.jpg)

The second, well, only images can describe something like this:
(http://www.filedump.net/dumped/harbl11196621761.jpg)
(http://www.filedump.net/dumped/harblhotel00031196621672.jpg)
(http://www.filedump.net/dumped/harblhotel00041196621686.jpg)
(http://www.filedump.net/dumped/harblhotel00051196621698.jpg)

Bravo to them.  If you're going to make an ugly-ass custom map you might as well go all the way with it.   :awesome_for_real:

It's the TF2 version of their Second Life home -- it's intentionally meant to be as garish as possible.

Like I said...   :awesome_for_real:

How does that smiley apply? I think it's more like  :rock:. And a little  :dead_horse:

I could be wrong though.


And for those of you that read this thread who haven't been to the 4chan server, you should, at least once. Kinda like Disney or something.

Their server reminds me of Toontown from the end of Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

I would suggest a f13 play-along somewhere for fun tonght but I'm going to be rebuilding my computer and cleaning parts and generally not having fun tonight, so perhaps Thursday?

After 9 eastern I'm good to play.

I just reloaded XP.

How does Steam and such play with a fresh reload of Windows? Do I need to reinstall all the games and such?

Doubt it, probably just find the steam.exe file and run it.  May need to download the steam installer just make sure you reinstall in the same directory.   I am assuming you didn't wipe the drive that has your steam install of course :)

I gained new appreciation for Steam after getting my most recent computer.  Installed Steam in about two minutes, clicked "Install" on about 30GB worth of game, and went to bed.  Woke up and it was all there.   

:oh_i_see:

So even if you did wipe the drive that your Steam games are on, it's trivial to get em back.

Yeah, that is a beautiful thing. It would be nice if there was a service that would cover all my software that way.

I had a problem where I couldnt play any of my steam games because it was telling me I had another copy of it running.  I tried everything I could think of, & the Steam forums/self help area was worthless.  I had to uninstall Steam & reinstall it.  I thought I had the games backed up but it didnt detect 'em & I had to re-download them... which sucked.

Thats enough for me, let's all boycott steam!

Did you try, you know, ending the task?

Ending the task!?!?!?  Had only that revelation occured to me prior to the removal & reinstallation of the app!

Nerf, I appreciate your support, but all is well.  I got everything up & working.  I hope this message reaches you prior to mass organization against Valve occurs.  Please, call off the dogs.

God damnit, I just ordered 2 dozen attack rhinoceri and a herd of nerds seething with rage over your injustice.  What am I supposed to tell them now?

Sorry but your grendl is in another castle?

Maybe its just a retarded mutant-baby with a sensitive external eardrum?

So now that I have the Orange Box, is this server switched to something else or just down?

Just down. There was no reason to pay $100+ a month after the thing had been empty for 2+ weeks.

So....

Are there any servers that people generally frequent for TF2?  Or any that you'd recommend?

I'm with Haemish and Johnny Cee. Where do you all play? Or did the fun and shiny wear off already?

I usually play on a 24 hour Dustbowl/Gravel Pit server with fruit, mkvenner, and dannyb. Well, when they're around. I do not remember the name of it.

I still play daily but can't remember the names of my favorite servers.  I usually try to join someone thats in a game on my friend list though.

I play on any server that doesn't have any custom shit and has a ping under 70.  I've got a few of them favorited but can't remember the names now.

I play on Medick's Madhouse server(s), Bay Area, all-talk, some custom maps but a good rtv contingent so we only play them when we feel like it.  It had a very high overall quality of play back before everyone got tired of TF2 having no fucking maps.  Now its above-avg but sometimes one team is obviously the nub team.

I like it enough that I've come close to buying a reserved spot for $10 a couple of times, its a great server and I'll post the ip when I'm at home.

4Chan Party Van!

I play on Medick's Mad house too, but mostly you can find me on one of theville.org's servers. They have a few that are 24/7 Dustbowl but they'll occasionally change the name mid-game and fire up Gravel Pit.

My clan's server is on the internap backbone and located in Chicago if you guys want to just jump on there randomly. It gets seeded pretty quick. I ping 60ish from SF, guys ping 50ish from Seattle, 40-60 from Canada, and for some reason 3 guys ping 10ms from DC.

tf2.qf.cx

Okay:

1.  Insta-respawn servers make the original maps suck balls.  There's almost no way to take alot of those maps if the defenders immediately respawn.  Really makes a suicidal pyro rush on Dee annoying,  since they immediately respawn at their last flag.

2.  What's the deal with jumping when firing the rocket as a soldier?  I started doing it tonight, and all of a sudden I'm murdering people left and right.  Is it just increasing your height from the ground meaning you're more likely to land a rocket directly at someones feet,  or some wierd TF2 mechanic?

3.  There's a pile of shittily designed maps floating around.  Waaay too many sniper heaven maps.

Yes.

Here are the medick server IP's you'll find me in them if I'm on TF2...

8.6.3.213
8.6.15.135
8.6.15.84

The biggest shame of the f13 server disappearing, for me, is that it actually allowed me to play with you people.

That's also why I donated for it. I don't have a huge resentment for the server being taken down after I only got to play on it a few times and the monies going to keep the board afloat, but it doesnt give me warm fuzzies either, since I donated for a different cause. (I'd have donated again seperately for the board, but hey thats where my TF2 money went, so hey..)

BTW, the donation box - "All Donations Go to Second Server. 56% There!" I'm sure it's been explained at some stage but I missed it. What does it mean again?

Well, when we hit enough for the second server, we'll decide to either use it for f13's next box or for a game server.

Again, the ONLY reason the f13 server was taken down is because it was empty for 2 weeks. A good server for games costs between $110 and $130 a month for me. That's at a 25% discount. If someone donates $120 and says put up a games server, we'll put it up. Not trying to tell you to do that, just saying, paying for a dead server is stupid. Unless someone else wants to be silly like that.

Also, there are no linux binaries for zombie panic yet.

Makes sense, and like I said, I don't have a huge resentment. It was just that I got to play at the start over a couple weeks, then work got busy, then when it cleared up the server was gone, so I only got to play like 8 times or so.

So (not knowing how they charge or by what time amount) would it work to have an occasional f13 server for a weekend here and there for different games depending on what people are playing /willing to play for a weekend or other short bursts?

Like one weekend: TF2.
2 weeks later: Zombie Panic.
2 weeks later: CoD4
2 Weeks later: something else..

etc.

The bigger problem with that is that it's a shitload of work for the admin (Ookii).

It's month by month (or 35% off for the year).

meh, just pay costs for another year. There's nothing that we really gain by owning our own server that we can't have by invading someone elses.

It IS pretty fun to have F13 server reunions on other people's servers.  But the last time I tried it, we got our asses handed to us but good.

The only problem playing on other people's servers is the inability to kick douchebags who cheat and grief.  Well for the people who had kicking powers on f13's servers that is.

We use http://www.nfoservers.com/ for a 20 slot pub plus vent and it's about $85/mo FWIW.

Yeah but for about 25 more bucks a month we have the full server which can run 2 or 3 24 slot servers plus vent and have full root access.

If we charged people 85 a month for a 20 slot server I bet we could fit 4 in our server, every 20 slot server would be 27.50 in actual server costs would garner 57.50 in profit per server which would be 230 total profit a month.

Not a bad business idea!

You all pay too much for way too little.

Edit: What Ookii said.

No.

I ping 40ms from SF. Nucks ping 40-60. Guy in Mexico pings 75. DC guys ping 10 for some reason, and NY/mass guys ping 25.

You get what you pay for.