Been awhile

Its been awhile since I posted, the servers are doing OK, we need people to bring them up in the mornings and that isn't happening with out me, I think we should look to expand upon on member base with players who play in the AM, that might help get the server up and going.

Server #2

We had a problem where server #2 stopped working for a about 2 hours last night, the issue seems to have been a networking one, the server stayed up it just wasn't connecting to the outside world, as soon as it did i started getting the log in HLSW so, I know it didn't restart, other wise I wouldn't have been getting the log.

Other then that things are pretty neutral at this point, we're holding our ground, not gaining, but not losing.

been ages

Its been ages since I updated this thing;

Here's the skinny, we're doing alright, people are starting to buy slots we've got both servers settled. We had to use Beetlesmod as something in Sourcemod is causing crazy lag issues, other then that nothing is really new at this point.

SQL Database

For some reason admin is getting screwed up between the 3 different servers, some people have no admin on one server and too much admin on another server, it is very odd, and I am having problems pinning it down, computers shouldn't act this way. :-P

Team Fortress 2 Custom Server Tab

When Valve made the changes to TF2 to list any servers which made changes to the core game play settings on the custom browser tab they screwed a lot of servers, those servers seen a sharp drop in traffic.

The way it worked was with a new cvar called sv_tags, what would happen was if you had short spawn time you would get the sv_tag “nomorerespawntime” and you would be listed in the custom server tab and face a massive drop in players. There is a tag called “increasedmaxplayers” if you server has more then 24 players.

There are two ways around this, one remove the settings that caused the tag, a lot of people don't want to do this, many people like short spawn time or playing w/ more then 23 other people. The other way is to use addon software for the server that obscures the tags. Both Beetlesmod and SourceMod can do this. We run SourceMod on both servers.

Our Gold Rush server is 28 slots with normal respawn time, our 2fort server is 32 slots with 5 second respawn time, both servers are listed on the Internet tab and get lots of traffic. So much traffic in fact that we are considering adding a 3^rd server for custom maps.

What Valve should have done was added more filters to the Internet tab and used the sv_tags in such a manor as to filter the results, instead of putting people in a tough spot, by either playing by the rules and getting no traffic, or using hacks to get listed.

Fatty fun

Look at them Fatties!

Slacking

I've been slacking on the updates here.

Well, aside from The Bunny event things are going well, #2 is still a problem, but, it seems to be getting better. Our #1 server is ranked 113th in the 94th percentile. Gold rush seems to be fairly popular at this point, we're not having a problem keeping that server up. The 2fort server has a problem when the lag strikes, the server will lose people and die out, if it weren't for the lag that server would be doing much much better.

What we're thinking about doing is running a server out of Arcanus' house, he has fiber so it shouldn't be a problem, he has a quad core box w/ 3gb of ram, so that shouldn't be an issue, we just need to set it up so that we can get some remote control over the box, no one wants to sit and baby sit a PC all day. We would like to run this off of the server edition of Ubuntu, we'll need Andrew to figure out a procedure for this work though, we won't have the same pretty web interfaces that we have with the paid hosting, we'll have to do all this stuff the hard way with the command line, unless Mister Ubuntu Certified can figure out a way to set that up.

We've also added some more people from the 352nd and have a lot of pubs who wish to join us, so things are going fairly well for us as a whole.

126th

We've moved up to 126th place for the #1 server, we're considering adding a 3rd server at this point as well. So we are doing pretty good. I think we'll do fairly well moving forward from here, The Mommy is kicking ass and taking names now.

We should all have a say...

"We should all have a say" the bunny says, to which i should have replied you do, we have a Team Speak and forums, try using them, but I didn't say that. I spent a good deal of time debating The Mommy tonight on direct voting and compulsory voting by the rank and file members.

I have no problem with people having an input, they already do, most of them just don't use it, and I really could use it at times, but, not enough people use the forums or TS to even approach any sort of voting. It is left to the Senior Admin's and Admins to gather as much info as they can and make an informed descion. This is the way it must be, members do not get a direct vote on who should be senior admin, in fact to do so would create a major point of confrontation. However senior admin will not ignore the thoughts of the members when voting on such things.

I got the double edged sword here, gooser says we're too slow to act and the mommy wants some form of direct voting by the members, which would really slow things down even more, so no, i don't think direct voting is the way to go.

To those who say they don't have a say in things, I say this, use the damn forums, and let your voice be heard. I have made changes to the server at the request of members before, remember, the squeaky wheel gets the oil.

Slacking

I've been slacking on the updates I think. The 352nd is pretty much offline, but, we blew past them in the rankings, we're at 133rd and in the 93 percentile. We're doing fairly good on the donation front for the month as well. We are considering adding a 3rd server, mainly because the 2nd server is not doing all that well, its better then it was though, I am going to take a look at the rates and see what is going on, I just used the numbers Andrew came up with and never gave them much thought.

I got to do a post on spawn times, why the 1st server is normal and the second is short respawn, a number of people have asked me about that. I shall do that in a bit...

Update - 145th

There was an update to server version 1.0.2.6 at some point today, so both of the servers weren't listed, we should be back to normal now both servers are v1.0.2.6 (Linux, Dedicated, Protocol 14) and v1.0.2.6 (Windows, Dedicated, Protocol 14).

We made it up to rank 145 dispite being mostly delisted for the better part of the day.

149th

We're moving on up, our rank as of today is 149th. I updated sourcemod on server #1 today, fixed the spraytrace, now i can see who sprayed the boobs on the wall. We should have a very good day in the rankings, we shall see, we could very well pass our most hated rivals today.

Rank 182nd

We are ranked 182nd just 50 spots behind 352nd's texas, its basic math, we have more slots so we have the upper hand, but still, we're doing damn good. We broke the 90th percentile too!

Our 2nd server finds its self starting out in the rankings at Current Rank: 1534th (15th Percentile)

Not too bad, I got the sql working and now bans and admins are shared between servers, we can run 5000 servers all with sourcemod and share bans and admins between all of them, which makes like much easier on us.

Full... both of them!

Both servers are full as I am typing this, that is totally awesome, #2 seems to be having a few issues with lag spikes, but I am sure we can work on that, I don't have reserved slots working on #2 either, I didn't get that far yet, I am not too sure we are going to keep beetlesmod, if sourcemod can work and we can get sql working with sourcemod, I would rather keep using sourcemod as it is the better admin mod.

This is totally cool!

Rank 242nd

We've climb to 242nd, we are in the 87th percentile, for those who care we are 102 places away from over taking the 352nd's Texas server. Gravity bong #1 is ranked 198 in the 89th percentile.

We have fully entered the fray with all possible effort.

The server still isn't acting right, its like it isn't reading the config files correctly or something, I don't know, we'll wait and see if others report the same problems.

changes working well

The changes are working out very well at this point, we're running 27 slots with one hidden so that people can login with a reserved slot. We are selling those for 2.5 per month and have had a few takers.

We are giving deep thought to a 2nd server, perhaps 33 man, w/ one slot hidden so that players with reserved slots can get in, we will see how we do on funding.

I hope that any 2nd server would be hosted in the NY area and run 2fort, if not 24/7 then w/ a mix.

Things are going very well for the server.

GoldRush

Well, after having to reload the server and reinstall everything, we got goldrush working, most of our plugins are back and working, I think I am going to set a cycle of gravel pit/dustbowl/goldrush with a 3 round limit, we shall see.

The server is acting odd and it isn't just us, so I am going to have to wait and see before I do anything else, always with the waiting...

We're ranked 281 today.

Wild Morning

I had a pretty wild morning, there is an exploit in the wild that adds bots to your server and crashes it, I installed a sourcemod plugin that should stop that from happening, there doesn't seem to be a plugin for mani or bm, so those servers could be in trouble.

BBB - Big Blonde...

This is our graph for the 28th of April, I'll say no more.

Ugh

It didn't work out, the server emptied on 2fort, I should have went w/ what i knew, people were added on gravel pit and left on 2fort, as soon as Arcanus sets up that server in his house we will run it 2fort 24/7 32 man stress test until then, if someone says 2fort I will rip their head off.

2fort

2fort is working out pretty well, the server has been full for the most part, we've jumped to 342nd in the rankings, we're doing pretty well now it seems.

2fort - 2nd server

In the interest of stability I am resolved to let our 1st and currently only server ride with the settings we have on it. I can not complain about 22+ players for 14+ hours a day. However once we figure out who is going to donate and how much per month, we can start planning for a 2nd server and as it is greatly demanded this 2nd server should run 2fort 24/7 with a short respawn time.

Rank 375th

We're ranking 375th baby, we're moving on up. I'd like to thank everyone who plays here, we couldn't do it w/o you.

cp_badlands

cp_badlands is not the best map to run I think, those guys had it on and the numbers were not going well.

slots are working

Thanks to a lot of hard work slots are now working. thanks go to Katana2050.

The deal is that those who have slot access need to type into the console connect 8.9.30.210:27015 when the server is full this will get you in.

We should have the website up on a new host soon enough as well, which would be awesome, the other one just wasn't cutting it. This way andrew and arcanus can upload files to the web server that can be downloaded in game, ie custom maps.

Server #2

I setup a server inside vmware to try and figure out why a few things aren't working, this isn't going to work the whole system runs too slow. The other problem is getting a list of all the plugins that Andrew had installed, I'll need that to install them on the test rig, I am starting to wonder if all the wacky stuff we wanted to do is still going to happen, or if we should strongly consider going back to beetlesmod.

We just got the server up around 1PM.

Status

We can now fill the server and keep it full for the better part of a day, now we move on to figuring out why sourcemod isn't working the way we think it should, we are planning to setup a 2nd server to mess around with, so as to keep the main server online. I'll keep you updated.

Settings

Limiting the server to 24 and removing the short respawn to clear the sv_tags seems to be the correct decision as the server has been filling up w/ ease today.

The reason for removing the short respawn and limiting the max players is so that we end up on the normal server tab which brings in the players.

So the question is, short respawn and half full server or long spawn w/ full server?

Voted

Thus far I haven't posted anything of a personal nature to this blog, but, for this post I will.

Today I voted for Obama, I am in Pennsylvania's fifth congressional district, damn good feeling.

Should get the server going

I've been busy today and the server isn't up, I should try and bring it up I think. I am thankful for the players we have, but, I wish they could try and bring it up on their own at times. :-P

*EDIT*

I tried:



I can't do it alone.

The Sorrow and Impact

The Sorrow and Impact make this a lot of fun with just a few people in the server, we had a blast with 6 people online, those two are damn funny.

Bandwidth used

2008-04-04	196.7809 MB
2008-04-05	0.0000 MB
2008-04-06	248.4327 MB
2008-04-07	35.2995 MB
2008-04-08	235.2114 MB
2008-04-09	206.3755 MB
2008-04-10	114.4201 MB
2008-04-11	247.8035 MB
2008-04-12	177.0083 MB
2008-04-13	54.3746 MB
2008-04-14	15.5312 MB
2008-04-15	300.5036 MB
2008-04-16	63.9899 MB
2008-04-17	17.7061 MB
Total: 1913.4373 MB

As you can see it isn't all that much, barely 2gb for about 2 weeks, the hosting plan is at 6TB per month and expands by 40GB per week, so we have a ways to go before we start to worry.

Custom Maps

How do we get custom maps on the server? -Arcanus

Will sir, we have to upload them to two places, all the custom files are downloaded from a web server in order to speed up the downloads and not effect those in game. First the bsp file gets uploaded to orangebox/tf/maps/ on the server, then we compress that into a bz file, I use 7zip for this.

The compressed map in the bz file form is then uploaded to my web server hosted by dreamhost found at http://apollo.theageofhonor.com/

I have to mirror the folder structure found on the game server, so my file listing looks like this:

http://apollo.theageofhonor.com/orangebox/tf/maps/

Any custom files we have must be on the web server; one map has a custom texture found in:

orangebox/tf/materials/walls/

This also has to be mirrored on the web server, we also have custom sound files hosted there as well:

orangebox/tf/sound/quake/

The setting in the server.cfg file that lets us do this is:

// Download Settings //

// Allow clients to upload customizations files
sv_allowupload 1

// Allow clients to download files
sv_allowdownload 1

// Maximum allowed file size for uploading in MB
net_maxfilesize 100

//URL to download files from
sv_downloadurl "http://apollo.theageofhonor.com/orangebox/tf/"


I hope this helps someone.

EDIT:

The web server isn't my web server, I just steal space on it, it is hosted by Drocket.

legend

I am a legend!


Townidiot: in tf2 i saw you as a legend but i didn't wanna say it
Townidiot: until now

That made my day... and really, I don't think I am that good. :-)

No more

I am weary of the fighting, Rabbi may sue for peace, but anyone who wish to play here shall have the right to do so and anyone who wish to join us shall also have the right to do so.

Alpha is an idiot

Alpha:

Apollo tried take over 352nd, I killed that off.

Well, I guess I have to reply to that one, my question here would be, what about Maxta? What would I have done with him? Would he have gone along with this 'treason'? I would have had to of turned on Maxta to pull of a feat like that and I wouldn't have done that then, nor would I do that now. Maxta and I remain friendly and on good terms.

Further; he goes on to state that the reason that the 352 is losing players is that we are stealing them. A few of the 352 have crossed over and no doubt a few more will, but, he can not blame us for his missing and other wise poor staff and mis configured server. We are only putting up half the number of players that they are on a good day. However we are growing where they are shrinking.

The rumor I hear now is that smoke eater is running things over there, he is yelling at people for playing on our server, and I should send him a postcard for that one, it is just driving people our way. I guess Alpha should act quick and kill off smoke now that he seems to be the one running things.

Filled it again

After a pretty poor Sunday, we filled the server Monday night, at some point we'll put a few of these together back to back and have it filled 2 nights in a row...

New maps

We're running Gravel Pit and Dustbowl, we will see how that works out, today wasn't that good of a day, we need a more stable player base.

Server Problems

The server hung again tonight, at the end of a match, I am doing a full backup, we'll do a fresh install and then I will restore every thing, well, not every thing, just what we need, the point being, we don't know what we need so i am ripping the full server and will have to reinstall the sourcemod, then upload the files we made changes to... this is crap I think, I do not know why the server is hanging.

When the server hangs, it won't respond to commands to change map, you have to login to the control panel on the website to reboot the server, which is a pain in the ass, until we can fix this the sr admin will have to keep an eye out...

Banned!

Word has come down to me that 352 is now banning anyone w/ our tag on, more then anything else this seems to be rallying people to our cause, thus far we have taken no action, we still have many friends in the 352 and as such will not ban anyone whom logs into our servers with that tag, everyone is welcome to play with us even the leadership of the 352.

More Pics

The last 5 are pretty good:

Sorrow Kicking my butt

I said I would get these up and here they are.

Full again

Filled the server today, it didn't last too long, but we are getting there.

Empty!

Well, not really, its just that we don't have enough of a player base to run 20+ online 7 days a week, we got about 14 online around 3 to 5PM and I guess that is good enough...

Filled!

I set a goal for 16 on this weekend and we filled the server 24/24 baby!

What is it going to take?

I keep getting asked, what is it going to take to get this server going, it's going to take people who want to play w/ them selves everyday, it is rather boring, but, we can muster about 14 people online for about an hour a day. So to those who keep asking what is it going to take, just play, try to have some fun and play. :-P

Nascar Wreck

Impact

Impact has joined us, we're slowly going here now, our team numbers are low, but we do have active regular players, just going to take a bit of time, we'll gun for 16 people online tomorrow.

Go here my readers

http://drocketville.myminicity.com/

Pics

Few grabs from in game

Slowly

We are slowly adding players, we can get a most 14 online for about an hour a day, it's going to be a long road, but, at this point, we're doing fine.

Upon Futher review

It seems that the gravity wasn't the only thing keeping us earth bound, the server wasn't VAC secure, I fixed that and we managed to hit 11 players online, thats a record by 4,. It's still tough going, I hope things will start to slowly improve. Our numbers are climbing slowly, and this seems like it will take a lot of time, we'll see where we stand at the end of april, I would like to hit 20 concurrent people online by then and perhaps 250 total people on hlstatsx.

Gravity is holding us down

We seem to think now that the gravity is holding us down, so, we went a head and set it to 650, I am pretty sure we'll adjust that to default rates soon enough. It looks like this is going to be slow going, we're pretty much in line wit how everyone else went, we just need to get a good player base.

Go Team!

Still nothing

There isn't a public reply to Maxta's email from Alpha, Arcanus' is on top of that.

We're over at http://www.teaminterro.com/ now some come check us out.

Maxta's Email

This is Maxta's email to me on the ban:

Hey.

Just spoke to Alpha.

This is what led to your ban. Apparently 4 or 5 people or so people complained that you were going around saying you were the new leader of the 352nd since people werent around. Since Alpha was playing Pirates, Big_B was never around, and the others were away, and i guess since i started playing Company of Heroes. I know i havent played TF2 for 4 or 5 days now, but i havent play COH either much, iv been out.

And apparently telling people that i was your bitch and i was wrapped around your finger.

Your blog says you have no idea about why you were banned, but Alpha says that you know why you were, and Big_B spoke to you.

I wasnt on and i havent heard anything from anyone, but spoke to Alpha about it, since i wasnt on and i dont know what happened and whether this is true or not, but either way.....even if it was (which im not saying it is), i dont see how that is so because iv never favoured you nor anyone in this clan, i treat everyone the same.

Also another thing that contributed to your ban was your association with Andrew, we all heard the rumours Andrew spread and had people complain and sent some people ino panic about it with Alpha not being around.

Hope this explains anything you were curious about.

----

I do not have a public reply as of yet, however, most of you have heard a private one and sent kind words.

Clan Exit

I seem to have been tossed from the clan by Alpha for what reason I do not know; however as I have grown tired of typing what went down this is what happened:

23 March, 2008 2100 Hours Est. I watched part 3 of John Adams which ran til 2210, I started talking to Andrew when he told me I should get on Texas, at around 2220 I checked the TS to learn I had been kicked by Alpha at 2121, upon trying to log back in I found that my IP had been banned, sometime around 2140 Andrew asked me to check the TF2 servers, which I did, only to find I had been banned from them as well.

I had played for only an hour at most during the day it was pretty unremarkable, I took no admin action at that time, I played as sniper for about 1/2 hour, that was the last time I logged in.

I do not know what Alpha's reasons were, nor do i hope for much of one from him.

We will see what happens moving forward.

Maxta's TS Guide

Maxta has done a TS guide, I thought I would post it here. This is pretty accurate for registering with the server.

The Spray Guide

So I said I was going to do a post on how to do a spray, there are a few ways to do it, if you have a 256x256 jpeg you can import that from within the game. However if you want some transparency you're going to need to do a bit of work.

You'll need either GIMP or Photoshop and VTFEdit.

So fire up your image editor of choice(but what follows is for Photoshop) and do the following:

1. Create an image w/ a backround color made up of R 128 G 128 B 128

2. Create a new layer on top of this and put whatever you want on this layer erase anything you do not want from this layer as well.

3. You'll want to select only what you've drawn on the top layer to do this locate the layers pallete in the lower right hand side, press CTRL and click the top layer;

4. Then on the channels tab click the button to “Create Alpha channel from selection”

5. Then Flatten the image so you have only one layer.

6. Now Save the image as a TGA file; making sure the Alpha Channels is checked.

Now open VTFEdit and do the Following:

1. Goto File>Import and import your TGA file

2. In the dialog box that opens uncheck Generate Mipmaps, leave everything else as is, but make sure Alpha Format reads DXT5; hit OK

3. Confirm that the transparency works by going to View>Mask which will show you the Alpha map preview.

4. Save the File and remember where you saved it, we'll need to place it in two spots.

Place the File in the following locations

• \Steam\SteamApps\igor72982\team fortress 2\tf\materials\VGUI\logos\

• \Steam\SteamApps\igor72982\team fortress 2\tf\materials\VGUI\logos\UI\

That means you place the VTF file in the logos folder and the UI folder which is a sub of the logos folder.

Once that is done you'll fireup TF2 and go into the options, once there goto the Advanced tab and select your spray, now just press T when in game and presto.

Custom Spray

Even though the 352nd servers have custom sprays turned off currently I went a head and made a custom spray seen here on the right, this is from the 2fort classic map, I'll toss up a guide on how to do custom TF2 sprays later on.

Welcome to Apollo's 352nd/TF2 Blog

I've created this blog to keep a log of the stuff that is going on related to me, the 352nd clan, and Team Fortress 2. I'll more then likely post other stuff and might use this space for the 352nd Podcast as well.

I hope to update this often and not trail off as I have been known to do. So check back for some updates.

P.S. Yeah the 352nd site is still down, it is being worked on(I think.)