Re: [hlds] TF2 Stats Service
There is no doubt that PS and hlstatsX are good stats applications - but I would make this observation: if software developers backed away from developing new applications simply because there were already competing products, we would all be using Wang 1200 Word Processors. This is an admin-oriented listserv and for the most part, admins generally don't care much about fixin' stuff that ain't broke. This does not mean that the availability of a new application with new and innovative features will not gain a following. I put together a very modest application which provided crash protection. There were certainly other workable alternatives already out there. I recall more than one posting on this forum that went along the lines of Well, I use bat files and srvany and that works perfectly, but good luck anyway. But, I threw in a few features that the other solutions didn't offer (dynamic declarative game configuration, multiple game support, email notification, etc.) and found that I soon had a respectable user base. Frazer From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ricky Smith Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2008 10:15 PM To: hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Subject: [hlds] TF2 Stats Service Hey everybody, I apologize if this isn't an appropriate place to ask this, but I've been toying with creating a unified stats service for TF2 (and possible more Source games, depending on my response). I already have an application written that is collecting log file information (everything I think I need to generate stats data) and it's been running on my clan's server. I would like to know if there is any real interest in *another* stats service? Even if it's made to be free? Does anyone have any input as to things that people are looking for above the hum-drum stats? Would any of you be interested in allowing me to collect data from your servers (I wouldn't need access, just a simple config change)? If this isn't the best place to ask these questions, please help me out and tell me where might be. Thanks! Ricky (aka [FLASH]DigitallyBorn) ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] TF2 Stats Service
This is very true, but pointing out the good features of what is available is only going to help him develop something that stands out... On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 5:40 AM, Frazer Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There is no doubt that PS and hlstatsX are good stats applications - but I would make this observation: if software developers backed away from developing new applications simply because there were already competing products, we would all be using Wang 1200 Word Processors. This is an admin-oriented listserv and for the most part, admins generally don't care much about fixin' stuff that ain't broke. This does not mean that the availability of a new application with new and innovative features will not gain a following. I put together a very modest application which provided crash protection. There were certainly other workable alternatives already out there. I recall more than one posting on this forum that went along the lines of Well, I use bat files and srvany and that works perfectly, but good luck anyway. But, I threw in a few features that the other solutions didn't offer (dynamic declarative game configuration, multiple game support, email notification, etc.) and found that I soon had a respectable user base. Frazer From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ricky Smith Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2008 10:15 PM To: hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Subject: [hlds] TF2 Stats Service Hey everybody, I apologize if this isn't an appropriate place to ask this, but I've been toying with creating a unified stats service for TF2 (and possible more Source games, depending on my response). I already have an application written that is collecting log file information (everything I think I need to generate stats data) and it's been running on my clan's server. I would like to know if there is any real interest in *another* stats service? Even if it's made to be free? Does anyone have any input as to things that people are looking for above the hum-drum stats? Would any of you be interested in allowing me to collect data from your servers (I wouldn't need access, just a simple config change)? If this isn't the best place to ask these questions, please help me out and tell me where might be. Thanks! Ricky (aka [FLASH]DigitallyBorn) ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] Suggestion: Independant PFF Voicecom channel
Pointless, people can still mic-spam without using voice_inputfromfile -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dustin Wyatt Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 10:59 AM To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list Subject: Re: [hlds] Suggestion: Independant PFF Voicecom channel This sounds like an awful lot of work for a very small minority of people. I can honestly say I've NEVER seen (heard?) anyone on my sever trying playing music for a shared experience. There's already an SM plugin (http://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?t=72227) that blocks use of HLSS and HLDJ (works great!), making this even less of a priority, I'm sure. On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 2:55 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As you know, a lot of people use the VoiceCom Play-From-File feature (Heretofore refereed to as PFF) to do things like play music and prerecorded sounds with the assistance of tools like HLSS and HLDJ. While many people find this annoying, others rather enjoy it. Unfortunately for everybody, the sound files used must be converted to a low-quality wave file and altered to prevent distortion, and are played back through the general VoiceCom system. My suggestion is actually quite simple and would improve enjoyment for all players across the board, with the notable exception of people who play the game for the sake of causing others grief. Step 1: Add a second VoiceCom channel. The current voice channel should be renamed to reflect it's status as a sub-channel, such as VoxChan, and this second one should be titled something like PFFChan. Step 2: Force any audio that's played from a file to be broadcast over PFFChan, and any audio from a system input to be broadcast over VoxChan Step 3: Allow people to selectively mute entire channels so that they can (if they so choose) listen exclusively to people talking, to exclusively file-based content, to everything, or to nothing at all. Allow servers to block PFFChan and/or VoxChan via a setting, just as servers can block VoiceCom now. Step 4: Add support streaming precompressed files (MP3 and OGG formats would likely be best), since precompressed files have a much higher quality to bandwidth ratio. This allows for full-quality sound for far less bandwidth. (Limiting it to 96kbps would be acceptable) Step 5: Increase flexibility of sound options to allow players to adjust the three-way balance between the two channels and the game as they see fit. The following are optional, but recommended: Option 1: Support for media information (ie: ID3) so that players could be easily informed as to the source of a file (Via overlay, menu, or HUD message). Option 2: Local buffering options to prevent skips, drops, or desychs in playback. File playback is not as time-sensitive as voice, and so a local buffer could protect against sudden lagspikes or short periods of lessened bandwidth. Although the ability to manage these files in game would be convenient, there are actively maintained third-party packages that would be quickly retrofit for this task. Benefits: *Easier server administration: Many servers disapprove of PFF, but encourage the use of VoiceCom. These servers are often faced with transient players who make use of the PFF feature, often resulting in the admins being forced to take action against them. Blocking PFFChan on a server would preemptively stop most such events. *Increased Difficulty for Griefers: If PFFChan is blocked on a server, then griefers would need to use either an awkward hardware solution or a virtual soundcard driver/software package. *Increased PFF Audio clarity: Currently PFF is limited to 11khz 16bit mono sound, which quite frankly is horrible. Since compression takes far more CPU time than decompression, and is by it's very nature a time/memory trade-off, you can get far better quality for the same bandwidth without increasing CPU load by simply streaming precompressed audio instead of compressing streamed audio under heavy CPU load. *Decreased Bandwidth Consumption: As corollary to the above, the bandwidth consumption is less per quality for precompressed audio than for real-time compression. A carefully chosen KBPS limit would allow both vastly improved quality and reduced bandwidth. Here's a crude flowchart showing the key differences between the current system and the one I propose: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v247/Baikasu/voicecomflow_MkII-1.gif ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the
Re: [hlds] Suggestion: Independant PFF Voicecom channel
I myself, would love a Team Voice and All Talk Voice seperate of each other, that is my biggest gripe, i love playing tf2, but some love all talk on, and some love it off, i prefer off.. thx. -Original Message- From: Spencer 'voogru' MacDonald [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent 7/23/2008 11:07:15 AM To: 'Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list' hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Subject: Re: [hlds] Suggestion: Independant PFF Voicecom channelPointless, people can still mic-spam without using voice_inputfromfile -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dustin Wyatt Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 10:59 AM To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list Subject: Re: [hlds] Suggestion: Independant PFF Voicecom channel This sounds like an awful lot of work for a very small minority of people. I can honestly say I've NEVER seen (heard?) anyone on my sever trying playing music for a shared experience. There's already an SM plugin (http://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?t=72227) that blocks use of HLSS and HLDJ (works great!), making this even less of a priority, I'm sure. On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 2:55 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As you know, a lot of people use the VoiceCom Play-From-File feature (Heretofore refereed to as PFF) to do things like play music and prerecorded sounds with the assistance of tools like HLSS and HLDJ. While many people find this annoying, others rather enjoy it. Unfortunately for everybody, the sound files used must be converted to a low-quality wave file and altered to prevent distortion, and are played back through the general VoiceCom system. My suggestion is actually quite simple and would improve enjoyment for all players across the board, with the notable exception of people who play the game for the sake of causing others grief. Step 1: Add a second VoiceCom channel. The current voice channel should be renamed to reflect it's status as a sub-channel, such as VoxChan, and this second one should be titled something like PFFChan. Step 2: Force any audio that's played from a file to be broadcast over PFFChan, and any audio from a system input to be broadcast over VoxChan Step 3: Allow people to selectively mute entire channels so that they can (if they so choose) listen exclusively to people talking, to exclusively file-based content, to everything, or to nothing at all. Allow servers to block PFFChan and/or VoxChan via a setting, just as servers can block VoiceCom now. Step 4: Add support streaming precompressed files (MP3 and OGG formats would likely be best), since precompressed files have a much higher quality to bandwidth ratio. This allows for full-quality sound for far less bandwidth. (Limiting it to 96kbps would be acceptable) Step 5: Increase flexibility of sound options to allow players to adjust the three-way balance between the two channels and the game as they see fit. The following are optional, but recommended: Option 1: Support for media information (ie: ID3) so that players could be easily informed as to the source of a file (Via overlay, menu, or HUD message). Option 2: Local buffering options to prevent skips, drops, or desychs in playback. File playback is not as time-sensitive as voice, and so a local buffer could protect against sudden lagspikes or short periods of lessened bandwidth. Although the ability to manage these files in game would be convenient, there are actively maintained third-party packages that would be quickly retrofit for this task. Benefits: *Easier server administration: Many servers disapprove of PFF, but encourage the use of VoiceCom. These servers are often faced with transient players who make use of the PFF feature, often resulting in the admins being forced to take action against them. Blocking PFFChan on a server would preemptively stop most such events. *Increased Difficulty for Griefers: If PFFChan is blocked on a server, then griefers would need to use either an awkward hardware solution or a virtual soundcard driver/software package. *Increased PFF Audio clarity: Currently PFF is limited to 11khz 16bit mono sound, which quite frankly is horrible. Since compression takes far more CPU time than decompression, and is by it's very nature a time/memory trade-off, you can get far better quality for the same bandwidth without increasing CPU load by simply streaming precompressed audio instead of compressing streamed audio under heavy CPU load. *Decreased Bandwidth Consumption: As corollary to the above, the bandwidth consumption is less per quality for precompressed audio than for real-time compression. A carefully chosen KBPS limit would allow both vastly improved quality and reduced bandwidth. Here's a crude flowchart showing the key differences between the current system and the one I propose: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v247/Baikasu/voicecomflow_MkII-1.gif
Re: [hlds] Suggestion: Independant PFF Voicecom channel
This would be nice. There are SM plugins that implement this, though I haven't tried them out yet... On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 10:30 AM, William Stillwell - KI4SWY [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I myself, would love a Team Voice and All Talk Voice seperate of each other, that is my biggest gripe, i love playing tf2, but some love all talk on, and some love it off, i prefer off.. thx. -Original Message- From: Spencer 'voogru' MacDonald [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent 7/23/2008 11:07:15 AM To: 'Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list' hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Subject: Re: [hlds] Suggestion: Independant PFF Voicecom channelPointless, people can still mic-spam without using voice_inputfromfile -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dustin Wyatt Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 10:59 AM To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list Subject: Re: [hlds] Suggestion: Independant PFF Voicecom channel This sounds like an awful lot of work for a very small minority of people. I can honestly say I've NEVER seen (heard?) anyone on my sever trying playing music for a shared experience. There's already an SM plugin (http://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?t=72227) that blocks use of HLSS and HLDJ (works great!), making this even less of a priority, I'm sure. On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 2:55 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As you know, a lot of people use the VoiceCom Play-From-File feature (Heretofore refereed to as PFF) to do things like play music and prerecorded sounds with the assistance of tools like HLSS and HLDJ. While many people find this annoying, others rather enjoy it. Unfortunately for everybody, the sound files used must be converted to a low-quality wave file and altered to prevent distortion, and are played back through the general VoiceCom system. My suggestion is actually quite simple and would improve enjoyment for all players across the board, with the notable exception of people who play the game for the sake of causing others grief. Step 1: Add a second VoiceCom channel. The current voice channel should be renamed to reflect it's status as a sub-channel, such as VoxChan, and this second one should be titled something like PFFChan. Step 2: Force any audio that's played from a file to be broadcast over PFFChan, and any audio from a system input to be broadcast over VoxChan Step 3: Allow people to selectively mute entire channels so that they can (if they so choose) listen exclusively to people talking, to exclusively file-based content, to everything, or to nothing at all. Allow servers to block PFFChan and/or VoxChan via a setting, just as servers can block VoiceCom now. Step 4: Add support streaming precompressed files (MP3 and OGG formats would likely be best), since precompressed files have a much higher quality to bandwidth ratio. This allows for full-quality sound for far less bandwidth. (Limiting it to 96kbps would be acceptable) Step 5: Increase flexibility of sound options to allow players to adjust the three-way balance between the two channels and the game as they see fit. The following are optional, but recommended: Option 1: Support for media information (ie: ID3) so that players could be easily informed as to the source of a file (Via overlay, menu, or HUD message). Option 2: Local buffering options to prevent skips, drops, or desychs in playback. File playback is not as time-sensitive as voice, and so a local buffer could protect against sudden lagspikes or short periods of lessened bandwidth. Although the ability to manage these files in game would be convenient, there are actively maintained third-party packages that would be quickly retrofit for this task. Benefits: *Easier server administration: Many servers disapprove of PFF, but encourage the use of VoiceCom. These servers are often faced with transient players who make use of the PFF feature, often resulting in the admins being forced to take action against them. Blocking PFFChan on a server would preemptively stop most such events. *Increased Difficulty for Griefers: If PFFChan is blocked on a server, then griefers would need to use either an awkward hardware solution or a virtual soundcard driver/software package. *Increased PFF Audio clarity: Currently PFF is limited to 11khz 16bit mono sound, which quite frankly is horrible. Since compression takes far more CPU time than decompression, and is by it's very nature a time/memory trade-off, you can get far better quality for the same bandwidth without increasing CPU load by simply streaming precompressed audio instead of compressing streamed audio under heavy CPU load. *Decreased Bandwidth Consumption: As corollary to the above, the bandwidth consumption is less per quality for precompressed audio than for real-time compression. A carefully chosen KBPS limit would allow both vastly improved quality and reduced bandwidth. Here's a
[hlds] valve, some feedback?
Most likely there will be a patch and make some of this more worthless then it already is, but since its been kinda quite the last few days i thought what the heck. No its not beating a long lost dead horse...well maybe a small poke. A while ago valve made mention about delisting servers that are bypassing the custom tags. Now i am not wanting to start a huge thing again on if there should be tags or what not, but i am more wondering on why valve gave out a kind of idle threat then does nothing with it. You look on the lists and there are a bunch of servers that are bypassing it. Is there going to be any actual enforcement here or something else you guys are just giving up on it? I would like to hear some feedback from valve about some bug fixes that i had brought up in the list before. most that have been there since long long ago that also seem to have been ignored. Can we get some information on these things? ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback?
it is a shame that this crap called custom tab still exists ... -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of SakeFox Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2008 12:31 AM To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list Subject: [hlds] valve, some feedback? Most likely there will be a patch and make some of this more worthless then it already is, but since its been kinda quite the last few days i thought what the heck. No its not beating a long lost dead horse...well maybe a small poke. A while ago valve made mention about delisting servers that are bypassing the custom tags. Now i am not wanting to start a huge thing again on if there should be tags or what not, but i am more wondering on why valve gave out a kind of idle threat then does nothing with it. You look on the lists and there are a bunch of servers that are bypassing it. Is there going to be any actual enforcement here or something else you guys are just giving up on it? I would like to hear some feedback from valve about some bug fixes that i had brought up in the list before. most that have been there since long long ago that also seem to have been ignored. Can we get some information on these things? ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback?
i know this is a touchy subject with a lot of people. I am hoping not to start this issue back, but kinda hard to talk about something they said without bringing some of the issue back. I personally like the custom tabs, but everyone has there own ideas for it Andreas Grimm wrote: it is a shame that this crap called custom tab still exists ... -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of SakeFox Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2008 12:31 AM To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list Subject: [hlds] valve, some feedback? Most likely there will be a patch and make some of this more worthless then it already is, but since its been kinda quite the last few days i thought what the heck. No its not beating a long lost dead horse...well maybe a small poke. A while ago valve made mention about delisting servers that are bypassing the custom tags. Now i am not wanting to start a huge thing again on if there should be tags or what not, but i am more wondering on why valve gave out a kind of idle threat then does nothing with it. You look on the lists and there are a bunch of servers that are bypassing it. Is there going to be any actual enforcement here or something else you guys are just giving up on it? I would like to hear some feedback from valve about some bug fixes that i had brought up in the list before. most that have been there since long long ago that also seem to have been ignored. Can we get some information on these things? ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback?
The last thing Valve wants to do is get in a war with the mod writers over this. Every TF2 update will include a patch to the delisting code, and every mod update will include a patch for that. I'm a server admin. I don't know what the tags are. I don't know how to use them. I don't care. I run a game server for people to have fun. My server run's Beetles Mod for administration and reserved slots. I have custom maps, but not in my regular rotation. If the server is switched to one, you'll be able to download it lickity split from my redirect. I see no need for tags in my case. If you're running a 24/7 or party mode or omg supar low gravity or whatever server that can mess with people's stats, achievements, etc., just list it in the damned server name. As for tags/stats/etc I'd be more than happy to see Valve do away with the custom tags entirely and just give us more robust filter options, and the option to reset our stats. Ideally, you'd be able to reset individual stats and achievements, and track stats over all time, month, week, etc. Sure, that kind of stat tracking is more suited to a mod/plugin, but those would only catch data from one server/group of servers, and you wouldn't see them when loading. The way Valve handled stats seems to have been shortsighted. When someone first gets into TF2, they see their stats at each map load and can see their progress, and it's interesting. It encourages you to try out other classes and do better. After a few weeks/months, you're basically staring at the same bars. Stats don't age well. A lot of people complain about custom servers avoiding the tags because they can ruin their stats. A lot of people want to reset their stats because of this. I'm willing to be there are also a lot of people who would like to reset their stats just because they'd like to get a picture of how they're doing now that they're experienced with the game. Stats would a lot more fun for me if I could reset them (keeping my unlocks/achievements!) and play for a week or two from a blank slate. If we can't reset our stats, let us reset our stat displays. Think of it as an odometer versus a trip odometer. Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:31:02 -0400 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Subject: [hlds] valve, some feedback? Most likely there will be a patch and make some of this more worthless then it already is, but since its been kinda quite the last few days i thought what the heck. No its not beating a long lost dead horse...well maybe a small poke. A while ago valve made mention about delisting servers that are bypassing the custom tags. Now i am not wanting to start a huge thing again on if there should be tags or what not, but i am more wondering on why valve gave out a kind of idle threat then does nothing with it. You look on the lists and there are a bunch of servers that are bypassing it. Is there going to be any actual enforcement here or something else you guys are just giving up on it? I would like to hear some feedback from valve about some bug fixes that i had brought up in the list before. most that have been there since long long ago that also seem to have been ignored. Can we get some information on these things? ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds _ Use video conversation to talk face-to-face with Windows Live Messenger. http://www.windowslive.com/messenger/connect_your_way.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_Refresh_messenger_video_072008 ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] Suggestion: Independant PFF Voicecom channel
Indeed, check out the team-only/all-talk SM plugin here http://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?p=648899 On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 2:30 AM, Dustin Wyatt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This would be nice. There are SM plugins that implement this, though I haven't tried them out yet... On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 10:30 AM, William Stillwell - KI4SWY [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I myself, would love a Team Voice and All Talk Voice seperate of each other, that is my biggest gripe, i love playing tf2, but some love all talk on, and some love it off, i prefer off.. thx. -Original Message- From: Spencer 'voogru' MacDonald [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent 7/23/2008 11:07:15 AM To: 'Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list' hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Subject: Re: [hlds] Suggestion: Independant PFF Voicecom channelPointless, people can still mic-spam without using voice_inputfromfile -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dustin Wyatt Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 10:59 AM To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list Subject: Re: [hlds] Suggestion: Independant PFF Voicecom channel This sounds like an awful lot of work for a very small minority of people. I can honestly say I've NEVER seen (heard?) anyone on my sever trying playing music for a shared experience. There's already an SM plugin (http://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?t=72227) that blocks use of HLSS and HLDJ (works great!), making this even less of a priority, I'm sure. On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 2:55 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As you know, a lot of people use the VoiceCom Play-From-File feature (Heretofore refereed to as PFF) to do things like play music and prerecorded sounds with the assistance of tools like HLSS and HLDJ. While many people find this annoying, others rather enjoy it. Unfortunately for everybody, the sound files used must be converted to a low-quality wave file and altered to prevent distortion, and are played back through the general VoiceCom system. My suggestion is actually quite simple and would improve enjoyment for all players across the board, with the notable exception of people who play the game for the sake of causing others grief. Step 1: Add a second VoiceCom channel. The current voice channel should be renamed to reflect it's status as a sub-channel, such as VoxChan, and this second one should be titled something like PFFChan. Step 2: Force any audio that's played from a file to be broadcast over PFFChan, and any audio from a system input to be broadcast over VoxChan Step 3: Allow people to selectively mute entire channels so that they can (if they so choose) listen exclusively to people talking, to exclusively file-based content, to everything, or to nothing at all. Allow servers to block PFFChan and/or VoxChan via a setting, just as servers can block VoiceCom now. Step 4: Add support streaming precompressed files (MP3 and OGG formats would likely be best), since precompressed files have a much higher quality to bandwidth ratio. This allows for full-quality sound for far less bandwidth. (Limiting it to 96kbps would be acceptable) Step 5: Increase flexibility of sound options to allow players to adjust the three-way balance between the two channels and the game as they see fit. The following are optional, but recommended: Option 1: Support for media information (ie: ID3) so that players could be easily informed as to the source of a file (Via overlay, menu, or HUD message). Option 2: Local buffering options to prevent skips, drops, or desychs in playback. File playback is not as time-sensitive as voice, and so a local buffer could protect against sudden lagspikes or short periods of lessened bandwidth. Although the ability to manage these files in game would be convenient, there are actively maintained third-party packages that would be quickly retrofit for this task. Benefits: *Easier server administration: Many servers disapprove of PFF, but encourage the use of VoiceCom. These servers are often faced with transient players who make use of the PFF feature, often resulting in the admins being forced to take action against them. Blocking PFFChan on a server would preemptively stop most such events. *Increased Difficulty for Griefers: If PFFChan is blocked on a server, then griefers would need to use either an awkward hardware solution or a virtual soundcard driver/software package. *Increased PFF Audio clarity: Currently PFF is limited to 11khz 16bit mono sound, which quite frankly is horrible. Since compression takes far more CPU time than decompression, and is by it's very nature a time/memory trade-off, you can get far better quality for the same bandwidth without increasing CPU load by simply streaming precompressed audio instead of compressing streamed audio under heavy
Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback?
Apart from the fact that it took me a while to realise the custom tab was there when it was first implemented, my main issue with it is that it is STILL not in the out of game, steam server list. I think the tags should still be there, but instead of shunting the servers off to the custom tab where no-one looks, allow them to be searchable via filters. If something like this was happening instead of the custom tab arrangment, we wouldnt be trying so hard to circumvent this in the first place. The fact is, if your on the custom tab, people dont come. On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 9:01 AM, Blood Letter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The last thing Valve wants to do is get in a war with the mod writers over this. Every TF2 update will include a patch to the delisting code, and every mod update will include a patch for that. I'm a server admin. I don't know what the tags are. I don't know how to use them. I don't care. I run a game server for people to have fun. My server run's Beetles Mod for administration and reserved slots. I have custom maps, but not in my regular rotation. If the server is switched to one, you'll be able to download it lickity split from my redirect. I see no need for tags in my case. If you're running a 24/7 or party mode or omg supar low gravity or whatever server that can mess with people's stats, achievements, etc., just list it in the damned server name. As for tags/stats/etc I'd be more than happy to see Valve do away with the custom tags entirely and just give us more robust filter options, and the option to reset our stats. Ideally, you'd be able to reset individual stats and achievements, and track stats over all time, month, week, etc. Sure, that kind of stat tracking is more suited to a mod/plugin, but those would only catch data from one server/group of servers, and you wouldn't see them when loading. The way Valve handled stats seems to have been shortsighted. When someone first gets into TF2, they see their stats at each map load and can see their progress, and it's interesting. It encourages you to try out other classes and do better. After a few weeks/months, you're basically staring at the same bars. Stats don't age well. A lot of people complain about custom servers avoiding the tags because they can ruin their stats. A lot of people want to reset their stats because of this. I'm willing to be there are also a lot of people who would like to reset their stats just because they'd like to get a picture of how they're doing now that they're experienced with the game. Stats would a lot more fun for me if I could reset them (keeping my unlocks/achievements!) and play for a week or two from a blank slate. If we can't reset our stats, let us reset our stat displays. Think of it as an odometer versus a trip odometer. Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:31:02 -0400 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Subject: [hlds] valve, some feedback? Most likely there will be a patch and make some of this more worthless then it already is, but since its been kinda quite the last few days i thought what the heck. No its not beating a long lost dead horse...well maybe a small poke. A while ago valve made mention about delisting servers that are bypassing the custom tags. Now i am not wanting to start a huge thing again on if there should be tags or what not, but i am more wondering on why valve gave out a kind of idle threat then does nothing with it. You look on the lists and there are a bunch of servers that are bypassing it. Is there going to be any actual enforcement here or something else you guys are just giving up on it? I would like to hear some feedback from valve about some bug fixes that i had brought up in the list before. most that have been there since long long ago that also seem to have been ignored. Can we get some information on these things? ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds _ Use video conversation to talk face-to-face with Windows Live Messenger. http://www.windowslive.com/messenger/connect_your_way.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_Refresh_messenger_video_072008 ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds -- Chillidog Systems - Re-inventing the wheel for the sake of all humanity! ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback?
i wouldn't say that if your on the custom tab that people don't come. I have played a quite a few custom tab servers and they are thriving just like before. The way i look at it is that valve set down these rules. like them or not they are the rules that valve gave us. They gave a punishment if you broke them however valve fails to enforce them. The people that are cheating the system are hurting the people that are following the rules that were given to them. When it started the big issue was on increased maxplayers and at the start they had to modify server files to do this. Now if i modify files on my stuff i get vac banned but yet people that did this with the servers got no punishments. I find that highly unfair. Latter on they found another way around it, but still the issue was still there. Just because you don't agree with the new rules doesn't give you the right to break them. let the flames begin chillicane wrote: Apart from the fact that it took me a while to realise the custom tab was there when it was first implemented, my main issue with it is that it is STILL not in the out of game, steam server list. I think the tags should still be there, but instead of shunting the servers off to the custom tab where no-one looks, allow them to be searchable via filters. If something like this was happening instead of the custom tab arrangment, we wouldnt be trying so hard to circumvent this in the first place. The fact is, if your on the custom tab, people dont come. On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 9:01 AM, Blood Letter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The last thing Valve wants to do is get in a war with the mod writers over this. Every TF2 update will include a patch to the delisting code, and every mod update will include a patch for that. I'm a server admin. I don't know what the tags are. I don't know how to use them. I don't care. I run a game server for people to have fun. My server run's Beetles Mod for administration and reserved slots. I have custom maps, but not in my regular rotation. If the server is switched to one, you'll be able to download it lickity split from my redirect. I see no need for tags in my case. If you're running a 24/7 or party mode or omg supar low gravity or whatever server that can mess with people's stats, achievements, etc., just list it in the damned server name. As for tags/stats/etc I'd be more than happy to see Valve do away with the custom tags entirely and just give us more robust filter options, and the option to reset our stats. Ideally, you'd be able to reset individual stats and achievements, and track stats over all time, month, week, etc. Sure, that kind of stat tracking is more suited to a mod/plugin, but those would only catch data from one server/group of servers, and you wouldn't see them when loading. The way Valve handled stats seems to have been shortsighted. When someone first gets into TF2, they see their stats at each map load and can see their progress, and it's interesting. It encourages you to try out other classes and do better. After a few weeks/months, you're basically staring at the same bars. Stats don't age well. A lot of people complain about custom servers avoiding the tags because they can ruin their stats. A lot of people want to reset their stats because of this. I'm willing to be there are also a lot of people who would like to reset their stats just because they'd like to get a picture of how they're doing now that they're experienced with the game. Stats would a lot more fun for me if I could reset them (keeping my unlocks/achievements!) and play for a week or two from a blank slate. If we can't reset our stats, let us reset our stat displays. Think of it as an odometer versus a trip odometer. Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:31:02 -0400 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Subject: [hlds] valve, some feedback? Most likely there will be a patch and make some of this more worthless then it already is, but since its been kinda quite the last few days i thought what the heck. No its not beating a long lost dead horse...well maybe a small poke. A while ago valve made mention about delisting servers that are bypassing the custom tags. Now i am not wanting to start a huge thing again on if there should be tags or what not, but i am more wondering on why valve gave out a kind of idle threat then does nothing with it. You look on the lists and there are a bunch of servers that are bypassing it. Is there going to be any actual enforcement here or something else you guys are just giving up on it? I would like to hear some feedback from valve about some bug fixes that i had brought up in the list before. most that have been there since long long ago that also seem to have been ignored. Can we get some information on these things? ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list
Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback?
good idea On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 7:24 PM, chillicane [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Apart from the fact that it took me a while to realise the custom tab was there when it was first implemented, my main issue with it is that it is STILL not in the out of game, steam server list. I think the tags should still be there, but instead of shunting the servers off to the custom tab where no-one looks, allow them to be searchable via filters. If something like this was happening instead of the custom tab arrangment, we wouldnt be trying so hard to circumvent this in the first place. The fact is, if your on the custom tab, people dont come. On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 9:01 AM, Blood Letter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The last thing Valve wants to do is get in a war with the mod writers over this. Every TF2 update will include a patch to the delisting code, and every mod update will include a patch for that. I'm a server admin. I don't know what the tags are. I don't know how to use them. I don't care. I run a game server for people to have fun. My server run's Beetles Mod for administration and reserved slots. I have custom maps, but not in my regular rotation. If the server is switched to one, you'll be able to download it lickity split from my redirect. I see no need for tags in my case. If you're running a 24/7 or party mode or omg supar low gravity or whatever server that can mess with people's stats, achievements, etc., just list it in the damned server name. As for tags/stats/etc I'd be more than happy to see Valve do away with the custom tags entirely and just give us more robust filter options, and the option to reset our stats. Ideally, you'd be able to reset individual stats and achievements, and track stats over all time, month, week, etc. Sure, that kind of stat tracking is more suited to a mod/plugin, but those would only catch data from one server/group of servers, and you wouldn't see them when loading. The way Valve handled stats seems to have been shortsighted. When someone first gets into TF2, they see their stats at each map load and can see their progress, and it's interesting. It encourages you to try out other classes and do better. After a few weeks/months, you're basically staring at the same bars. Stats don't age well. A lot of people complain about custom servers avoiding the tags because they can ruin their stats. A lot of people want to reset their stats because of this. I'm willing to be there are also a lot of people who would like to reset their stats just because they'd like to get a picture of how they're doing now that they're experienced with the game. Stats would a lot more fun for me if I could reset them (keeping my unlocks/achievements!) and play for a week or two from a blank slate. If we can't reset our stats, let us reset our stat displays. Think of it as an odometer versus a trip odometer. Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:31:02 -0400 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Subject: [hlds] valve, some feedback? Most likely there will be a patch and make some of this more worthless then it already is, but since its been kinda quite the last few days i thought what the heck. No its not beating a long lost dead horse...well maybe a small poke. A while ago valve made mention about delisting servers that are bypassing the custom tags. Now i am not wanting to start a huge thing again on if there should be tags or what not, but i am more wondering on why valve gave out a kind of idle threat then does nothing with it. You look on the lists and there are a bunch of servers that are bypassing it. Is there going to be any actual enforcement here or something else you guys are just giving up on it? I would like to hear some feedback from valve about some bug fixes that i had brought up in the list before. most that have been there since long long ago that also seem to have been ignored. Can we get some information on these things? ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds _ Use video conversation to talk face-to-face with Windows Live Messenger. http://www.windowslive.com/messenger/connect_your_way.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_Refresh_messenger_video_072008 ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds -- Chillidog Systems - Re-inventing the wheel for the sake of all humanity! ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list
Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback?
*Dons a pyro outfit.* SakeFox wrote: i wouldn't say that if your on the custom tab that people don't come. I have played a quite a few custom tab servers and they are thriving just like before. The way i look at it is that valve set down these rules. like them or not they are the rules that valve gave us. They gave a punishment if you broke them however valve fails to enforce them. The people that are cheating the system are hurting the people that are following the rules that were given to them. When it started the big issue was on increased maxplayers and at the start they had to modify server files to do this. Now if i modify files on my stuff i get vac banned but yet people that did this with the servers got no punishments. I find that highly unfair. Latter on they found another way around it, but still the issue was still there. Just because you don't agree with the new rules doesn't give you the right to break them. let the flames begin chillicane wrote: Apart from the fact that it took me a while to realise the custom tab was there when it was first implemented, my main issue with it is that it is STILL not in the out of game, steam server list. I think the tags should still be there, but instead of shunting the servers off to the custom tab where no-one looks, allow them to be searchable via filters. If something like this was happening instead of the custom tab arrangment, we wouldnt be trying so hard to circumvent this in the first place. The fact is, if your on the custom tab, people dont come. On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 9:01 AM, Blood Letter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The last thing Valve wants to do is get in a war with the mod writers over this. Every TF2 update will include a patch to the delisting code, and every mod update will include a patch for that. I'm a server admin. I don't know what the tags are. I don't know how to use them. I don't care. I run a game server for people to have fun. My server run's Beetles Mod for administration and reserved slots. I have custom maps, but not in my regular rotation. If the server is switched to one, you'll be able to download it lickity split from my redirect. I see no need for tags in my case. If you're running a 24/7 or party mode or omg supar low gravity or whatever server that can mess with people's stats, achievements, etc., just list it in the damned server name. As for tags/stats/etc I'd be more than happy to see Valve do away with the custom tags entirely and just give us more robust filter options, and the option to reset our stats. Ideally, you'd be able to reset individual stats and achievements, and track stats over all time, month, week, etc. Sure, that kind of stat tracking is more suited to a mod/plugin, but those would only catch data from one server/group of servers, and you wouldn't see them when loading. The way Valve handled stats seems to have been shortsighted. When someone first gets into TF2, they see their stats at each map load and can see their progress, and it's interesting. It encourages you to try out other classes and do better. After a few weeks/months, you're basically staring at the same bars. Stats don't age well. A lot of people complain about custom servers avoiding the tags because they can ruin their stats. A lot of people want to reset their stats because of this. I'm willing to be there are also a lot of people who would like to reset their stats just because they'd like to get a picture of how they're doing now that they're experienced with the game. Stats would a lot more fun for me if I could reset them (keeping my unlocks/achievements!) and play for a week or two from a blank slate. If we can't reset our stats, let us reset our stat displays. Think of it as an odometer versus a trip odometer. Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:31:02 -0400 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Subject: [hlds] valve, some feedback? Most likely there will be a patch and make some of this more worthless then it already is, but since its been kinda quite the last few days i thought what the heck. No its not beating a long lost dead horse...well maybe a small poke. A while ago valve made mention about delisting servers that are bypassing the custom tags. Now i am not wanting to start a huge thing again on if there should be tags or what not, but i am more wondering on why valve gave out a kind of idle threat then does nothing with it. You look on the lists and there are a bunch of servers that are bypassing it. Is there going to be any actual enforcement here or something else you guys are just giving up on it? I would like to hear some feedback from valve about some bug fixes that i had brought up in the list before. most that have been there since long long ago that also seem to have been ignored. Can we get some information on these things?
Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback?
indeed you are correct, valve set us up the rules (sic) The problem we have in this country is all the major telco run server opertions have instaspawn servers and none of them end up in the custom tab, wether they are running a plugin version of instaspawn or disableresapwntimers 1. And the custom tab may have only 20 or so servers on it at any one time. hopefully i managed to avoid creating a flame war over this. Certainly dont want to create that bullshit we had here 2 weeks ago. On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 11:01 AM, Jake E [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: good idea On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 7:24 PM, chillicane [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Apart from the fact that it took me a while to realise the custom tab was there when it was first implemented, my main issue with it is that it is STILL not in the out of game, steam server list. I think the tags should still be there, but instead of shunting the servers off to the custom tab where no-one looks, allow them to be searchable via filters. If something like this was happening instead of the custom tab arrangment, we wouldnt be trying so hard to circumvent this in the first place. The fact is, if your on the custom tab, people dont come. On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 9:01 AM, Blood Letter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The last thing Valve wants to do is get in a war with the mod writers over this. Every TF2 update will include a patch to the delisting code, and every mod update will include a patch for that. I'm a server admin. I don't know what the tags are. I don't know how to use them. I don't care. I run a game server for people to have fun. My server run's Beetles Mod for administration and reserved slots. I have custom maps, but not in my regular rotation. If the server is switched to one, you'll be able to download it lickity split from my redirect. I see no need for tags in my case. If you're running a 24/7 or party mode or omg supar low gravity or whatever server that can mess with people's stats, achievements, etc., just list it in the damned server name. As for tags/stats/etc I'd be more than happy to see Valve do away with the custom tags entirely and just give us more robust filter options, and the option to reset our stats. Ideally, you'd be able to reset individual stats and achievements, and track stats over all time, month, week, etc. Sure, that kind of stat tracking is more suited to a mod/plugin, but those would only catch data from one server/group of servers, and you wouldn't see them when loading. The way Valve handled stats seems to have been shortsighted. When someone first gets into TF2, they see their stats at each map load and can see their progress, and it's interesting. It encourages you to try out other classes and do better. After a few weeks/months, you're basically staring at the same bars. Stats don't age well. A lot of people complain about custom servers avoiding the tags because they can ruin their stats. A lot of people want to reset their stats because of this. I'm willing to be there are also a lot of people who would like to reset their stats just because they'd like to get a picture of how they're doing now that they're experienced with the game. Stats would a lot more fun for me if I could reset them (keeping my unlocks/achievements!) and play for a week or two from a blank slate. If we can't reset our stats, let us reset our stat displays. Think of it as an odometer versus a trip odometer. Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:31:02 -0400 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Subject: [hlds] valve, some feedback? Most likely there will be a patch and make some of this more worthless then it already is, but since its been kinda quite the last few days i thought what the heck. No its not beating a long lost dead horse...well maybe a small poke. A while ago valve made mention about delisting servers that are bypassing the custom tags. Now i am not wanting to start a huge thing again on if there should be tags or what not, but i am more wondering on why valve gave out a kind of idle threat then does nothing with it. You look on the lists and there are a bunch of servers that are bypassing it. Is there going to be any actual enforcement here or something else you guys are just giving up on it? I would like to hear some feedback from valve about some bug fixes that i had brought up in the list before. most that have been there since long long ago that also seem to have been ignored. Can we get some information on these things? ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit:
Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback?
I think the problem is valve set up the rules without thinking much about them, or more obviously, how the community would react to being forced to have to adapt to these changes when there's really no reason to. And a lot of people pay good money for their hosted servers, I don't think Valve should be moderating the servers people put up and start punishing people for something that doesn't really matter either way, I especially hope they don't think they should as well. And to think this whole custom tags argument bullshit could be done with once and for all by adding an All Servers tab. chillicane wrote: indeed you are correct, valve set us up the rules (sic) The problem we have in this country is all the major telco run server opertions have instaspawn servers and none of them end up in the custom tab, wether they are running a plugin version of instaspawn or disableresapwntimers 1. And the custom tab may have only 20 or so servers on it at any one time. hopefully i managed to avoid creating a flame war over this. Certainly dont want to create that bullshit we had here 2 weeks ago. On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 11:01 AM, Jake E [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: good idea On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 7:24 PM, chillicane [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Apart from the fact that it took me a while to realise the custom tab was there when it was first implemented, my main issue with it is that it is STILL not in the out of game, steam server list. I think the tags should still be there, but instead of shunting the servers off to the custom tab where no-one looks, allow them to be searchable via filters. If something like this was happening instead of the custom tab arrangment, we wouldnt be trying so hard to circumvent this in the first place. The fact is, if your on the custom tab, people dont come. On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 9:01 AM, Blood Letter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The last thing Valve wants to do is get in a war with the mod writers over this. Every TF2 update will include a patch to the delisting code, and every mod update will include a patch for that. I'm a server admin. I don't know what the tags are. I don't know how to use them. I don't care. I run a game server for people to have fun. My server run's Beetles Mod for administration and reserved slots. I have custom maps, but not in my regular rotation. If the server is switched to one, you'll be able to download it lickity split from my redirect. I see no need for tags in my case. If you're running a 24/7 or party mode or omg supar low gravity or whatever server that can mess with people's stats, achievements, etc., just list it in the damned server name. As for tags/stats/etc I'd be more than happy to see Valve do away with the custom tags entirely and just give us more robust filter options, and the option to reset our stats. Ideally, you'd be able to reset individual stats and achievements, and track stats over all time, month, week, etc. Sure, that kind of stat tracking is more suited to a mod/plugin, but those would only catch data from one server/group of servers, and you wouldn't see them when loading. The way Valve handled stats seems to have been shortsighted. When someone first gets into TF2, they see their stats at each map load and can see their progress, and it's interesting. It encourages you to try out other classes and do better. After a few weeks/months, you're basically staring at the same bars. Stats don't age well. A lot of people complain about custom servers avoiding the tags because they can ruin their stats. A lot of people want to reset their stats because of this. I'm willing to be there are also a lot of people who would like to reset their stats just because they'd like to get a picture of how they're doing now that they're experienced with the game. Stats would a lot more fun for me if I could reset them (keeping my unlocks/achievements!) and play for a week or two from a blank slate. If we can't reset our stats, let us reset our stat displays. Think of it as an odometer versus a trip odometer. Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:31:02 -0400 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Subject: [hlds] valve, some feedback? Most likely there will be a patch and make some of this more worthless then it already is, but since its been kinda quite the last few days i thought what the heck. No its not beating a long lost dead horse...well maybe a small poke. A while
Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback?
The real reason Valve did this, as I understand, is the following. (With the 25+ slot servers, anyway.) Valve's system requirements on their game are based on a maximum of 24 players in one game. When you have a server with 32, that's a maximum of 32 player models on-screen rather than 24. That's a total of 8 more player models possible on screen. When you think about it, it's not much, but you're adding stress to the systems the game is being run on, and it does reduce framerates. Valve gets support tickets about client's games not running well on 32 slot servers and has to spend time (and money) on trying to respond to tickets where the system requirements are being overdone by 32 slots rather than 24, and trying to convince the client that it's because they're playing on a 32 slot server rather than a 24. Also, players would send in tickets about other silly issues that were placed in by server admins. To combat these useless tickets (and complaints,) Valve put out a system on their master servers that blocked all servers larger than 24 slots. A workaround (in SourceMod) was quickly made by server operators to get around the block by Valve, and server owners of these larger slot servers complained to Valve so much that a compromise had to be made. Thus, the custom tab system was born. Again, server owners went up in arms about the system, and another plugin was made to get around the system. So, you can thank the original 32 slot server operators for your custom tabs today. tgnwells wrote: I think the problem is valve set up the rules without thinking much about them, or more obviously, how the community would react to being forced to have to adapt to these changes when there's really no reason to. And a lot of people pay good money for their hosted servers, I don't think Valve should be moderating the servers people put up and start punishing people for something that doesn't really matter either way, I especially hope they don't think they should as well. And to think this whole custom tags argument bullshit could be done with once and for all by adding an All Servers tab. chillicane wrote: indeed you are correct, valve set us up the rules (sic) The problem we have in this country is all the major telco run server opertions have instaspawn servers and none of them end up in the custom tab, wether they are running a plugin version of instaspawn or disableresapwntimers 1. And the custom tab may have only 20 or so servers on it at any one time. hopefully i managed to avoid creating a flame war over this. Certainly dont want to create that bullshit we had here 2 weeks ago. On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 11:01 AM, Jake E [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: good idea On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 7:24 PM, chillicane [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Apart from the fact that it took me a while to realise the custom tab was there when it was first implemented, my main issue with it is that it is STILL not in the out of game, steam server list. I think the tags should still be there, but instead of shunting the servers off to the custom tab where no-one looks, allow them to be searchable via filters. If something like this was happening instead of the custom tab arrangment, we wouldnt be trying so hard to circumvent this in the first place. The fact is, if your on the custom tab, people dont come. On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 9:01 AM, Blood Letter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The last thing Valve wants to do is get in a war with the mod writers over this. Every TF2 update will include a patch to the delisting code, and every mod update will include a patch for that. I'm a server admin. I don't know what the tags are. I don't know how to use them. I don't care. I run a game server for people to have fun. My server run's Beetles Mod for administration and reserved slots. I have custom maps, but not in my regular rotation. If the server is switched to one, you'll be able to download it lickity split from my redirect. I see no need for tags in my case. If you're running a 24/7 or party mode or omg supar low gravity or whatever server that can mess with people's stats, achievements, etc., just list it in the damned server name. As for tags/stats/etc I'd be more than happy to see Valve do away with the custom tags entirely and just give us more robust filter options, and the option to reset our stats. Ideally, you'd be able to reset individual stats and achievements, and track stats over all time, month, week, etc. Sure, that
Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback?
why allow a game to have 32 player slots if it only supports 24 ? 2008/7/24 Cc2iscooL [EMAIL PROTECTED]: The real reason Valve did this, as I understand, is the following. (With the 25+ slot servers, anyway.) Valve's system requirements on their game are based on a maximum of 24 players in one game. When you have a server with 32, that's a maximum of 32 player models on-screen rather than 24. That's a total of 8 more player models possible on screen. When you think about it, it's not much, but you're adding stress to the systems the game is being run on, and it does reduce framerates. Valve gets support tickets about client's games not running well on 32 slot servers and has to spend time (and money) on trying to respond to tickets where the system requirements are being overdone by 32 slots rather than 24, and trying to convince the client that it's because they're playing on a 32 slot server rather than a 24. Also, players would send in tickets about other silly issues that were placed in by server admins. To combat these useless tickets (and complaints,) Valve put out a system on their master servers that blocked all servers larger than 24 slots. A workaround (in SourceMod) was quickly made by server operators to get around the block by Valve, and server owners of these larger slot servers complained to Valve so much that a compromise had to be made. Thus, the custom tab system was born. Again, server owners went up in arms about the system, and another plugin was made to get around the system. So, you can thank the original 32 slot server operators for your custom tabs today. tgnwells wrote: I think the problem is valve set up the rules without thinking much about them, or more obviously, how the community would react to being forced to have to adapt to these changes when there's really no reason to. And a lot of people pay good money for their hosted servers, I don't think Valve should be moderating the servers people put up and start punishing people for something that doesn't really matter either way, I especially hope they don't think they should as well. And to think this whole custom tags argument bullshit could be done with once and for all by adding an All Servers tab. chillicane wrote: indeed you are correct, valve set us up the rules (sic) The problem we have in this country is all the major telco run server opertions have instaspawn servers and none of them end up in the custom tab, wether they are running a plugin version of instaspawn or disableresapwntimers 1. And the custom tab may have only 20 or so servers on it at any one time. hopefully i managed to avoid creating a flame war over this. Certainly dont want to create that bullshit we had here 2 weeks ago. On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 11:01 AM, Jake E [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: good idea On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 7:24 PM, chillicane [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Apart from the fact that it took me a while to realise the custom tab was there when it was first implemented, my main issue with it is that it is STILL not in the out of game, steam server list. I think the tags should still be there, but instead of shunting the servers off to the custom tab where no-one looks, allow them to be searchable via filters. If something like this was happening instead of the custom tab arrangment, we wouldnt be trying so hard to circumvent this in the first place. The fact is, if your on the custom tab, people dont come. On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 9:01 AM, Blood Letter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The last thing Valve wants to do is get in a war with the mod writers over this. Every TF2 update will include a patch to the delisting code, and every mod update will include a patch for that. I'm a server admin. I don't know what the tags are. I don't know how to use them. I don't care. I run a game server for people to have fun. My server run's Beetles Mod for administration and reserved slots. I have custom maps, but not in my regular rotation. If the server is switched to one, you'll be able to download it lickity split from my redirect. I see no need for tags in my case. If you're running a 24/7 or party mode or omg supar low gravity or whatever server that can mess with people's stats, achievements, etc., just list it in the damned server name. As for tags/stats/etc I'd be more than happy to see Valve do away with the custom tags entirely and just give us more robust filter options, and the option to reset our stats. Ideally, you'd be able to reset individual stats and achievements, and track stats over all time, month, week, etc. Sure, that kind of stat tracking is more suited to a mod/plugin, but those would only catch data from one
Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback?
the only started allowing 32players when they opened the custom tabs and said that all increased players will be put into that. the main reason they did it was to stop people from modifying the server files and using the other work arounds. Its probably a way for them to ignore player stats from them servers on there main stats page so it dosn't have misinformation, but thats just my thought Craig Collinson wrote: why allow a game to have 32 player slots if it only supports 24 ? 2008/7/24 Cc2iscooL [EMAIL PROTECTED]: The real reason Valve did this, as I understand, is the following. (With the 25+ slot servers, anyway.) Valve's system requirements on their game are based on a maximum of 24 players in one game. When you have a server with 32, that's a maximum of 32 player models on-screen rather than 24. That's a total of 8 more player models possible on screen. When you think about it, it's not much, but you're adding stress to the systems the game is being run on, and it does reduce framerates. Valve gets support tickets about client's games not running well on 32 slot servers and has to spend time (and money) on trying to respond to tickets where the system requirements are being overdone by 32 slots rather than 24, and trying to convince the client that it's because they're playing on a 32 slot server rather than a 24. Also, players would send in tickets about other silly issues that were placed in by server admins. To combat these useless tickets (and complaints,) Valve put out a system on their master servers that blocked all servers larger than 24 slots. A workaround (in SourceMod) was quickly made by server operators to get around the block by Valve, and server owners of these larger slot servers complained to Valve so much that a compromise had to be made. Thus, the custom tab system was born. Again, server owners went up in arms about the system, and another plugin was made to get around the system. So, you can thank the original 32 slot server operators for your custom tabs today. tgnwells wrote: I think the problem is valve set up the rules without thinking much about them, or more obviously, how the community would react to being forced to have to adapt to these changes when there's really no reason to. And a lot of people pay good money for their hosted servers, I don't think Valve should be moderating the servers people put up and start punishing people for something that doesn't really matter either way, I especially hope they don't think they should as well. And to think this whole custom tags argument bullshit could be done with once and for all by adding an All Servers tab. chillicane wrote: indeed you are correct, valve set us up the rules (sic) The problem we have in this country is all the major telco run server opertions have instaspawn servers and none of them end up in the custom tab, wether they are running a plugin version of instaspawn or disableresapwntimers 1. And the custom tab may have only 20 or so servers on it at any one time. hopefully i managed to avoid creating a flame war over this. Certainly dont want to create that bullshit we had here 2 weeks ago. On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 11:01 AM, Jake E [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: good idea On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 7:24 PM, chillicane [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Apart from the fact that it took me a while to realise the custom tab was there when it was first implemented, my main issue with it is that it is STILL not in the out of game, steam server list. I think the tags should still be there, but instead of shunting the servers off to the custom tab where no-one looks, allow them to be searchable via filters. If something like this was happening instead of the custom tab arrangment, we wouldnt be trying so hard to circumvent this in the first place. The fact is, if your on the custom tab, people dont come. On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 9:01 AM, Blood Letter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The last thing Valve wants to do is get in a war with the mod writers over this. Every TF2 update will include a patch to the delisting code, and every mod update will include a patch for that. I'm a server admin. I don't know what the tags are. I don't know how to use them. I don't care. I run a game server for people to have fun. My server run's Beetles Mod for administration and reserved slots. I have custom maps, but not in my regular rotation. If the server is switched to one, you'll be able to
Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback?
thats a fair point On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 12:07 PM, Cc2iscooL [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The real reason Valve did this, as I understand, is the following. (With the 25+ slot servers, anyway.) Valve's system requirements on their game are based on a maximum of 24 players in one game. When you have a server with 32, that's a maximum of 32 player models on-screen rather than 24. That's a total of 8 more player models possible on screen. When you think about it, it's not much, but you're adding stress to the systems the game is being run on, and it does reduce framerates. Valve gets support tickets about client's games not running well on 32 slot servers and has to spend time (and money) on trying to respond to tickets where the system requirements are being overdone by 32 slots rather than 24, and trying to convince the client that it's because they're playing on a 32 slot server rather than a 24. Also, players would send in tickets about other silly issues that were placed in by server admins. To combat these useless tickets (and complaints,) Valve put out a system on their master servers that blocked all servers larger than 24 slots. A workaround (in SourceMod) was quickly made by server operators to get around the block by Valve, and server owners of these larger slot servers complained to Valve so much that a compromise had to be made. Thus, the custom tab system was born. Again, server owners went up in arms about the system, and another plugin was made to get around the system. So, you can thank the original 32 slot server operators for your custom tabs today. tgnwells wrote: I think the problem is valve set up the rules without thinking much about them, or more obviously, how the community would react to being forced to have to adapt to these changes when there's really no reason to. And a lot of people pay good money for their hosted servers, I don't think Valve should be moderating the servers people put up and start punishing people for something that doesn't really matter either way, I especially hope they don't think they should as well. And to think this whole custom tags argument bullshit could be done with once and for all by adding an All Servers tab. chillicane wrote: indeed you are correct, valve set us up the rules (sic) The problem we have in this country is all the major telco run server opertions have instaspawn servers and none of them end up in the custom tab, wether they are running a plugin version of instaspawn or disableresapwntimers 1. And the custom tab may have only 20 or so servers on it at any one time. hopefully i managed to avoid creating a flame war over this. Certainly dont want to create that bullshit we had here 2 weeks ago. On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 11:01 AM, Jake E [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: good idea On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 7:24 PM, chillicane [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Apart from the fact that it took me a while to realise the custom tab was there when it was first implemented, my main issue with it is that it is STILL not in the out of game, steam server list. I think the tags should still be there, but instead of shunting the servers off to the custom tab where no-one looks, allow them to be searchable via filters. If something like this was happening instead of the custom tab arrangment, we wouldnt be trying so hard to circumvent this in the first place. The fact is, if your on the custom tab, people dont come. On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 9:01 AM, Blood Letter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The last thing Valve wants to do is get in a war with the mod writers over this. Every TF2 update will include a patch to the delisting code, and every mod update will include a patch for that. I'm a server admin. I don't know what the tags are. I don't know how to use them. I don't care. I run a game server for people to have fun. My server run's Beetles Mod for administration and reserved slots. I have custom maps, but not in my regular rotation. If the server is switched to one, you'll be able to download it lickity split from my redirect. I see no need for tags in my case. If you're running a 24/7 or party mode or omg supar low gravity or whatever server that can mess with people's stats, achievements, etc., just list it in the damned server name. As for tags/stats/etc I'd be more than happy to see Valve do away with the custom tags entirely and just give us more robust filter options, and the option to reset our stats. Ideally, you'd be able to reset individual stats and achievements, and track stats over all time, month, week, etc. Sure, that kind of stat tracking is more suited to a mod/plugin, but those would only catch data from one server/group of servers, and
Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback?
they didnt allow the game to have 32 slots. Those servers are using a hacked server library to allow more slots On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 12:12 PM, Craig Collinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: why allow a game to have 32 player slots if it only supports 24 ? 2008/7/24 Cc2iscooL [EMAIL PROTECTED]: The real reason Valve did this, as I understand, is the following. (With the 25+ slot servers, anyway.) Valve's system requirements on their game are based on a maximum of 24 players in one game. When you have a server with 32, that's a maximum of 32 player models on-screen rather than 24. That's a total of 8 more player models possible on screen. When you think about it, it's not much, but you're adding stress to the systems the game is being run on, and it does reduce framerates. Valve gets support tickets about client's games not running well on 32 slot servers and has to spend time (and money) on trying to respond to tickets where the system requirements are being overdone by 32 slots rather than 24, and trying to convince the client that it's because they're playing on a 32 slot server rather than a 24. Also, players would send in tickets about other silly issues that were placed in by server admins. To combat these useless tickets (and complaints,) Valve put out a system on their master servers that blocked all servers larger than 24 slots. A workaround (in SourceMod) was quickly made by server operators to get around the block by Valve, and server owners of these larger slot servers complained to Valve so much that a compromise had to be made. Thus, the custom tab system was born. Again, server owners went up in arms about the system, and another plugin was made to get around the system. So, you can thank the original 32 slot server operators for your custom tabs today. tgnwells wrote: I think the problem is valve set up the rules without thinking much about them, or more obviously, how the community would react to being forced to have to adapt to these changes when there's really no reason to. And a lot of people pay good money for their hosted servers, I don't think Valve should be moderating the servers people put up and start punishing people for something that doesn't really matter either way, I especially hope they don't think they should as well. And to think this whole custom tags argument bullshit could be done with once and for all by adding an All Servers tab. chillicane wrote: indeed you are correct, valve set us up the rules (sic) The problem we have in this country is all the major telco run server opertions have instaspawn servers and none of them end up in the custom tab, wether they are running a plugin version of instaspawn or disableresapwntimers 1. And the custom tab may have only 20 or so servers on it at any one time. hopefully i managed to avoid creating a flame war over this. Certainly dont want to create that bullshit we had here 2 weeks ago. On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 11:01 AM, Jake E [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: good idea On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 7:24 PM, chillicane [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Apart from the fact that it took me a while to realise the custom tab was there when it was first implemented, my main issue with it is that it is STILL not in the out of game, steam server list. I think the tags should still be there, but instead of shunting the servers off to the custom tab where no-one looks, allow them to be searchable via filters. If something like this was happening instead of the custom tab arrangment, we wouldnt be trying so hard to circumvent this in the first place. The fact is, if your on the custom tab, people dont come. On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 9:01 AM, Blood Letter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The last thing Valve wants to do is get in a war with the mod writers over this. Every TF2 update will include a patch to the delisting code, and every mod update will include a patch for that. I'm a server admin. I don't know what the tags are. I don't know how to use them. I don't care. I run a game server for people to have fun. My server run's Beetles Mod for administration and reserved slots. I have custom maps, but not in my regular rotation. If the server is switched to one, you'll be able to download it lickity split from my redirect. I see no need for tags in my case. If you're running a 24/7 or party mode or omg supar low gravity or whatever server that can mess with people's stats, achievements, etc., just list it in the damned server name. As for tags/stats/etc I'd be more than happy to see Valve do away with the custom tags
Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback?
Not anymore of course, its allowed and with a few work arounds available there will always be 32 slots. - Original Message From: chillicane [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list hlds@list.valvesoftware.com Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 7:22:14 PM Subject: Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback? they didnt allow the game to have 32 slots. Those servers are using a hacked server library to allow more slots On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 12:12 PM, Craig Collinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback?
This text seems oddly familiar. Copy paste from last debate on custom tags? Spencer 'voogru' MacDonald wrote: Not this bullshit again. The custom tab has to be scratched, all servers should be displayed by default. Players should then be allowed to filter tags they like or do not like. If a player learns to use tags, great. If they don't, they see all options. This is what's important, if you by default HIDE 'custom' servers, the majority of the players who don't care will never see the so called custom servers. The whole tag system is flawed, let's say I run a 24 server without fast respawn. No tags are added by valve without any kind of mods manipulating the tags. But I add a grapple hook for all players. What server operator in their right mind would voluntarily add a tag that results in their server effectively being delisted? NOBODY. And then what is valve going to do about that? Are they going to come tell server ops hey you HAVE to list tags. Is valve going to hire a bunch of people to look for servers to make sure they aren't modded? Doubtful. In its current implementation server operators have an incentive to avoid tags, if all servers are shown by default with their respective tags, server operators would have an incentive to SHOW their tags. It's basically saying hey! Look what we got!, but if players don't see this by default, it will be worthless. How hard is it to understand this? Valve probably realized their mistake and might be correcting it. At least I hope so. The custom tab will be an eternal cat and mouse game between server operators and valve. Valve can very easily solve the problem and make everyone happy just by having the servers all visible by default. Players who want custom, can find it. Players who want vanilla, can find it. Players who don't care or don't know what they want, or don't know how to use the filters, have all options shown to them so they can make their mind on the fly. If you go to a restaurant and the waiter gives you a menu, and without you knowing, there is two different menus, but they give you the standard menu, chances are, very few people will ever ask hey what's on the other menu Also, increased_maxplayers is probably one of the stupidest tags ever. It's like a bag of peanuts with the warning: Warning: contains peanuts. Like players can't tell it's a 32 player server without reading the tags. - voogru. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of SakeFox Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 9:57 PM To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list Subject: Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback? Well just because you pay for your servers doesn't give you rights to do whatever with there programs. Valve has been good about allowing people to modify there games, but i can see there point in what they are doing. They want people that are getting into the game to be able to play it as it was created and not with modified settings. There not limiting anyone from running there servers how they want. They are just looking at how new people experience the game. Now the game was designed for 24players in a server, so if you have a 32 person complaining about balancing issues in a game, that information is kinda scewed because the game is not played as intended. I really didn't want to create the bullshit from a few weeks ago either, however i think it was a few months ago, but since no one else has been calling Valve out on there short comings and completely ignoring issues with there games I thought I might as well start somewhere. This really wasn't intended to start the flame back up, but thought it to bring this bit up of there idle threats first and get it out of the way since its the most touchy of things. tgnwells wrote: I think the problem is valve set up the rules without thinking much about them, or more obviously, how the community would react to being forced to have to adapt to these changes when there's really no reason to. And a lot of people pay good money for their hosted servers, I don't think Valve should be moderating the servers people put up and start punishing people for something that doesn't really matter either way, I especially hope they don't think they should as well. And to think this whole custom tags argument bullshit could be done with once and for all by adding an All Servers tab. chillicane wrote: indeed you are correct, valve set us up the rules (sic) The problem we have in this country is all the major telco run server opertions have instaspawn servers and none of them end up in the custom tab, wether they are running a plugin version of instaspawn or disableresapwntimers 1. And the custom tab may have only 20 or so servers on it at any one time. hopefully i managed to avoid creating a flame war over this. Certainly dont want
Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback?
I dont see whats wrong with that warning, im allergic to peanuts, and you never know, i might pick up a bag of peanuts and not realise that peanuts have peanuts in them and when i check for the warning label, its not there! On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 12:20 PM, Spencer 'voogru' MacDonald [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Not this bullshit again. The custom tab has to be scratched, all servers should be displayed by default. Players should then be allowed to filter tags they like or do not like. If a player learns to use tags, great. If they don't, they see all options. This is what's important, if you by default HIDE 'custom' servers, the majority of the players who don't care will never see the so called custom servers. The whole tag system is flawed, let's say I run a 24 server without fast respawn. No tags are added by valve without any kind of mods manipulating the tags. But I add a grapple hook for all players. What server operator in their right mind would voluntarily add a tag that results in their server effectively being delisted? NOBODY. And then what is valve going to do about that? Are they going to come tell server ops hey you HAVE to list tags. Is valve going to hire a bunch of people to look for servers to make sure they aren't modded? Doubtful. In its current implementation server operators have an incentive to avoid tags, if all servers are shown by default with their respective tags, server operators would have an incentive to SHOW their tags. It's basically saying hey! Look what we got!, but if players don't see this by default, it will be worthless. How hard is it to understand this? Valve probably realized their mistake and might be correcting it. At least I hope so. The custom tab will be an eternal cat and mouse game between server operators and valve. Valve can very easily solve the problem and make everyone happy just by having the servers all visible by default. Players who want custom, can find it. Players who want vanilla, can find it. Players who don't care or don't know what they want, or don't know how to use the filters, have all options shown to them so they can make their mind on the fly. If you go to a restaurant and the waiter gives you a menu, and without you knowing, there is two different menus, but they give you the standard menu, chances are, very few people will ever ask hey what's on the other menu Also, increased_maxplayers is probably one of the stupidest tags ever. It's like a bag of peanuts with the warning: Warning: contains peanuts. Like players can't tell it's a 32 player server without reading the tags. - voogru. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of SakeFox Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 9:57 PM To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list Subject: Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback? Well just because you pay for your servers doesn't give you rights to do whatever with there programs. Valve has been good about allowing people to modify there games, but i can see there point in what they are doing. They want people that are getting into the game to be able to play it as it was created and not with modified settings. There not limiting anyone from running there servers how they want. They are just looking at how new people experience the game. Now the game was designed for 24players in a server, so if you have a 32 person complaining about balancing issues in a game, that information is kinda scewed because the game is not played as intended. I really didn't want to create the bullshit from a few weeks ago either, however i think it was a few months ago, but since no one else has been calling Valve out on there short comings and completely ignoring issues with there games I thought I might as well start somewhere. This really wasn't intended to start the flame back up, but thought it to bring this bit up of there idle threats first and get it out of the way since its the most touchy of things. tgnwells wrote: I think the problem is valve set up the rules without thinking much about them, or more obviously, how the community would react to being forced to have to adapt to these changes when there's really no reason to. And a lot of people pay good money for their hosted servers, I don't think Valve should be moderating the servers people put up and start punishing people for something that doesn't really matter either way, I especially hope they don't think they should as well. And to think this whole custom tags argument bullshit could be done with once and for all by adding an All Servers tab. chillicane wrote: indeed you are correct, valve set us up the rules (sic) The problem we have in this country is all the major telco run server opertions have instaspawn servers and none of them end up in the custom tab, wether they are running a plugin version of instaspawn or
Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback?
Spencer 'voogru' MacDonald wrote: *snip the extra stuff that repeats what people already said* Players who want vanilla, can find it. Ummm.. No. That's the problem. We can't. ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback?
I guess you didn't read my full post. The system I'm prosing (1 tab with tag filters), would allow players who want vanilla to be able to find it easier than it is now. - voogru. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Leonard L. Church Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 10:41 PM To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list Subject: Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback? Spencer 'voogru' MacDonald wrote: *snip the extra stuff that repeats what people already said* Players who want vanilla, can find it. Ummm.. No. That's the problem. We can't. ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds ___ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback?
Thank you for taking the time to enunciate what I'm sure many other server admins - myself, included - think about this subject. Ryan On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 7:20 PM, Spencer 'voogru' MacDonald [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Not this bullshit again. The custom tab has to be scratched, all servers should be displayed by default. Players should then be allowed to filter tags they like or do not like. If a player learns to use tags, great. If they don't, they see all options. This is what's important, if you by default HIDE 'custom' servers, the majority of the players who don't care will never see the so called custom servers. The whole tag system is flawed, let's say I run a 24 server without fast respawn. No tags are added by valve without any kind of mods manipulating the tags. But I add a grapple hook for all players. What server operator in their right mind would voluntarily add a tag that results in their server effectively being delisted? NOBODY. And then what is valve going to do about that? Are they going to come tell server ops hey you HAVE to list tags. Is valve going to hire a bunch of people to look for servers to make sure they aren't modded? Doubtful. In its current implementation server operators have an incentive to avoid tags, if all servers are shown by default with their respective tags, server operators would have an incentive to SHOW their tags. It's basically saying hey! Look what we got!, but if players don't see this by default, it will be worthless. How hard is it to understand this? Valve probably realized their mistake and might be correcting it. At least I hope so. The custom tab will be an eternal cat and mouse game between server operators and valve. Valve can very easily solve the problem and make everyone happy just by having the servers all visible by default. Players who want custom, can find it. Players who want vanilla, can find it. Players who don't care or don't know what they want, or don't know how to use the filters, have all options shown to them so they can make their mind on the fly. If you go to a restaurant and the waiter gives you a menu, and without you knowing, there is two different menus, but they give you the standard menu, chances are, very few people will ever ask hey what's on the other menu Also, increased_maxplayers is probably one of the stupidest tags ever. It's like a bag of peanuts with the warning: Warning: contains peanuts. Like players can't tell it's a 32 player server without reading the tags. - voogru. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of SakeFox Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 9:57 PM To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list Subject: Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback? Well just because you pay for your servers doesn't give you rights to do whatever with there programs. Valve has been good about allowing people to modify there games, but i can see there point in what they are doing. They want people that are getting into the game to be able to play it as it was created and not with modified settings. There not limiting anyone from running there servers how they want. They are just looking at how new people experience the game. Now the game was designed for 24players in a server, so if you have a 32 person complaining about balancing issues in a game, that information is kinda scewed because the game is not played as intended. I really didn't want to create the bullshit from a few weeks ago either, however i think it was a few months ago, but since no one else has been calling Valve out on there short comings and completely ignoring issues with there games I thought I might as well start somewhere. This really wasn't intended to start the flame back up, but thought it to bring this bit up of there idle threats first and get it out of the way since its the most touchy of things. tgnwells wrote: I think the problem is valve set up the rules without thinking much about them, or more obviously, how the community would react to being forced to have to adapt to these changes when there's really no reason to. And a lot of people pay good money for their hosted servers, I don't think Valve should be moderating the servers people put up and start punishing people for something that doesn't really matter either way, I especially hope they don't think they should as well. And to think this whole custom tags argument bullshit could be done with once and for all by adding an All Servers tab. chillicane wrote: indeed you are correct, valve set us up the rules (sic) The problem we have in this country is all the major telco run server opertions have instaspawn servers and none of them end up in the custom tab, wether they are running a plugin version of instaspawn or disableresapwntimers 1. And the custom tab may have only 20 or so servers on it at any one time. hopefully i managed to avoid
Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback?
actually the subject of the email was not about the custom tabs, but it seemed to have gone that way, but hopefully it will get back on track to where it was Ryan Mannion wrote: Thank you for taking the time to enunciate what I'm sure many other server admins - myself, included - think about this subject. Ryan On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 7:20 PM, Spencer 'voogru' MacDonald [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Not this bullshit again. The custom tab has to be scratched, all servers should be displayed by default. Players should then be allowed to filter tags they like or do not like. If a player learns to use tags, great. If they don't, they see all options. This is what's important, if you by default HIDE 'custom' servers, the majority of the players who don't care will never see the so called custom servers. The whole tag system is flawed, let's say I run a 24 server without fast respawn. No tags are added by valve without any kind of mods manipulating the tags. But I add a grapple hook for all players. What server operator in their right mind would voluntarily add a tag that results in their server effectively being delisted? NOBODY. And then what is valve going to do about that? Are they going to come tell server ops hey you HAVE to list tags. Is valve going to hire a bunch of people to look for servers to make sure they aren't modded? Doubtful. In its current implementation server operators have an incentive to avoid tags, if all servers are shown by default with their respective tags, server operators would have an incentive to SHOW their tags. It's basically saying hey! Look what we got!, but if players don't see this by default, it will be worthless. How hard is it to understand this? Valve probably realized their mistake and might be correcting it. At least I hope so. The custom tab will be an eternal cat and mouse game between server operators and valve. Valve can very easily solve the problem and make everyone happy just by having the servers all visible by default. Players who want custom, can find it. Players who want vanilla, can find it. Players who don't care or don't know what they want, or don't know how to use the filters, have all options shown to them so they can make their mind on the fly. If you go to a restaurant and the waiter gives you a menu, and without you knowing, there is two different menus, but they give you the standard menu, chances are, very few people will ever ask hey what's on the other menu Also, increased_maxplayers is probably one of the stupidest tags ever. It's like a bag of peanuts with the warning: Warning: contains peanuts. Like players can't tell it's a 32 player server without reading the tags. - voogru. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of SakeFox Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 9:57 PM To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list Subject: Re: [hlds] valve, some feedback? Well just because you pay for your servers doesn't give you rights to do whatever with there programs. Valve has been good about allowing people to modify there games, but i can see there point in what they are doing. They want people that are getting into the game to be able to play it as it was created and not with modified settings. There not limiting anyone from running there servers how they want. They are just looking at how new people experience the game. Now the game was designed for 24players in a server, so if you have a 32 person complaining about balancing issues in a game, that information is kinda scewed because the game is not played as intended. I really didn't want to create the bullshit from a few weeks ago either, however i think it was a few months ago, but since no one else has been calling Valve out on there short comings and completely ignoring issues with there games I thought I might as well start somewhere. This really wasn't intended to start the flame back up, but thought it to bring this bit up of there idle threats first and get it out of the way since its the most touchy of things. tgnwells wrote: I think the problem is valve set up the rules without thinking much about them, or more obviously, how the community would react to being forced to have to adapt to these changes when there's really no reason to. And a lot of people pay good money for their hosted servers, I don't think Valve should be moderating the servers people put up and start punishing people for something that doesn't really matter either way, I especially hope they don't think they should as well. And to think this whole custom tags argument bullshit could be done with once and for all by adding an All Servers tab. chillicane wrote: indeed you are correct, valve set us up the rules (sic) The problem we have in this country is all the major telco run server opertions have instaspawn servers and none of them end up in the
