Hi folks,

I'm working on putting together a page for Galt's Gulch servers. I have a simple site up right now, but wanted some feedback on what would be beneficial. I don't want to duplicate what's already out there, but feel that the community could benefit from this.

Things I'm looking to implement:

basic server stats - how do they get the info on http://delight.vapor.com/serverlist.php?

map repo mirror, much like the one made available by divVerent. May even be a direct mirror of that, if desirable?

Maplists for each server

Suggestion box

What else would you all like to see? Keep in mind that I'm a novice coder except for bash. My php-fu is weak, but getting better all the time.

should probably give URL of site as of now: http://gulch.mshade.org/

John Galt wrote:should probably give URL of site as of now: http://gulch.mshade.org/

I'm going to start a clan named GGG - the Galt's Gulch Gang.

coolest bunch on the block!

To have makes stats, enable sv_logscores_something, then you'll be able to parse your logfiles in an artful way!!!

some suggestions, we played ctf_basementctf awhile ago and people liked it.
irrationally zealously, I've never seen such affirmation for a map before.
well, it is well-textured.
maybe add that to the maplist?

also, qstat makes giving current server status stupidly easy, could be nice to integrate

and recently on the forum someone suggested raising the maxrate, don't know whether that would be bad or not, it could be (bad, that is)

and also it would be lovely to have a 'mute' vote like RBi, I guess that's just an alias?

and linking to opensource.org? Nexuiz is more freee than open source.
A more appropriate URL would be http://sex.com/sex/form.html

and maybe more graphics, I'd like to see a picture of an asshat, preferably an animated gif.

Taht is all

Porn is bound to show up, so I'll skip the link to sex.com

I've added basementctf to the maplist, I always liked that map anyway. Might be a bit crowded, though.

Thanks for the logging suggestions, those are most helpful. I'll be looking into qstat as well. Anything that can help parse the log files will be good

Thanks, Dave.

Dave!

John Galt wrote:Dave is bound to show up, so I'll skip the link to sex.com

It's worth a visit for this golden double-entendre:

"sex.com: all ways on your mind"

Brilliant.

If you're going to start tracking stats, could you follow the de facto convention of ignoring players who precede their names with

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^4^2

as is done on RBI and DCC?

Sure - is that essentially an opt-out ?

Yeah.

Thanks.

I don't recall if you have auto balancing for CTF, but would prefer to have it off. I like to manually balance by switching teams if one has a huge lead. This might mean an uneven number of players but a more even skill match.

Hopefully, that would mean I would switch to the weaker team. I've been in a few games where I was the weak link though. In that case, I could always switch to the winning team to weaken them.

AceOfThumbs wrote:I don't recall if you have auto balancing for CTF, but would prefer to have it off. I like to manually balance by switching teams if one has a huge lead. This might mean an uneven number of players but a more even skill match.

Hopefully, that would mean I would switch to the weaker team. I've been in a few games where I was the weak link though. In that case, I could always switch to the winning team to weaken them.

He does have auto-balance on (or did) and I'd prefer it off as well. I'd much rather change sides and help out the underdogs than completely destroy them...well, most of the time.

nexbender wrote:

AceOfThumbs wrote:I don't recall if you have auto balancing for CTF, but would prefer to have it off. I like to manually balance by switching teams if one has a huge lead. This might mean an uneven number of players but a more even skill match.

Hopefully, that would mean I would switch to the weaker team. I've been in a few games where I was the weak link though. In that case, I could always switch to the winning team to weaken them.

He does have auto-balance on (or did) and I'd prefer it off as well. I'd much rather change sides and help out the underdogs than completely destroy them...well, most of the time.

While that would be nice, what happens far more often is that players switch to the winning team.

I usually run my servers with auto balance off for this reason. Often one very skilled player can only be challenged properly by 3-5 moderate/noob players.

Yeah, I'm mostly concerned with the pwnage of one team or another. While the current balancing leaves much to be desired, I think it's better than the n00b effect of joining the winning team.

Is there any way to tune the auto balancing? Perhaps allow 1-2 more players on a losing team, etc?

John Galt wrote:Yeah, I'm mostly concerned with the pwnage of one team or another. While the current balancing leaves much to be desired, I think it's better than the n00b effect of joining the winning team.

The "n00b effect" is a null effect. How many n00bs does it take to keep up with a skilled player? I can't count that high. They travel predictably and/or in packs like soccer moms at Wal-Mart - there isn't even a point in killing them unless they are directly in your way. So a bunch of n00bs come over to my team, which happens to be winning - so I switch to the other team and cap some flags to even it up, then pick on the traitors a bit just for good measure.

Whereas with auto-balance on, it's a PITA when, say, Sullivan gets on, plus there's enough of the cannon fodder for us not to realize we were put on the same team, so we spend a bit completely pwning our opponents. Then I realize what's happened and go into spectate, ask a n00b to change teams, then rejoin on the other team so it's more evenly matched - if one of them gets a clue and does switch, which isn't often enough actually. And frankly most of the time that's too much hassle and/or we just space it until the match ends and everyone groans that it was completely uneven, I apologize, Sullivan LOLs, clowns eat children, etc.

Or to take it from another angle, the argument for auto-balance is based on the fear of what n00bs will do if it is disabled. The argument against auto-balance is based on the trust that the experienced players, given the power, will regulate (alone and by consensus) the fairness and challenge of matches.

Or, worst case scenario with auto-balance on: Bender wins, Sullivan wins, mkzelda wins, and the four n00bs on the other team have that just-raped feeling and often quit out in frustration, seldom to return. Worst case with auto-balance off: n00b wins, n00b wins, n00b wins, n00b wins, and Bender and the bots lose, but Bender doesn't care - at least with auto-balance off the n00bs had the (taken) option of joining the winning team, thus shoring up their poor egos and usually ensuring they will stick around for another match, so Bender has someone to shoot at besides the stupid bots.

In conclusion (holy crap I'm long-winded today), John: please disable auto-balance for the weekend and see how it goes. If I'm wrong, I eat some crow (with BBQ sauce, please); if I'm right, everybody will be happier and I can say "told ya so told ya so" for years to come.

Auto-balance unfortunately does more harm than good. The real balancing problem lies in the initial teams and there is no solution to ensure an initial balance. All the "auto-balance" does is essentially guarantee that if it's uneven to begin with, it will remain so until the next map.

There is a progressive way to deal with players that constantly switch to the winning team.

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]say "please stop changing to the winning team"

]say "hey <name>, really, knock it off, you're ruining the game"

]say "ffs, <name>,  stop fucking switching to the winning team every match... it's not all about winning, you lame shit"

}say "um, <name>, do you even speak english?"

}say "ok, who speaks german?"

]say "bah, fuck this";vcall kick #...

You could host a bind file on your website with those and similar vituperative remarks. How's that for a feature request?

Xeno The Blind wrote:All the "auto-balance" does is essentially guarantee that if it's uneven to begin with, it will remain so until the next map.

Exactly! Thank you for explaining in one sentence what I couldn't manage in four paragraphs!

nexbender wrote:

Xeno The Blind wrote:All the "auto-balance" does is essentially guarantee that if it's uneven to begin with, it will remain so until the next map.

Exactly! Thank you for explaining in one sentence what I couldn't manage in four paragraphs!

Point taken, gentlemen. Bender, thanks for your passion. Xeno, thanks for your eloquence.



I'm turning off autobalance on CTF. Let's see how it goes.

John Galt wrote:I'm turning off autobalance on CTF. Let's see how it goes.

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA, OUR DASTARDLY PLAN WORKED!


Um, I mean, cool.

Xeno The Blind wrote:

John Galt wrote:I'm turning off autobalance on CTF. Let's see how it goes.

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA, OUR DASTARDLY PLAN WORKED!

^ Disturbed minds think alike!
mwuahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha etc

Thank you, John!

bender, xeno, thanks for taking the baton and running with it. If you haven't seen my poll about team balance, please have a look and place your vote there.

http://www.forums.alientrap.local/viewtopic.php?t=2320

I want to see if there is a consensus about manual balancing, so I feel justified in my crusade.

Another big item on my server wish list is another non-hook CTF server. Galt's Gulch CTF is usually packed and I can't get a decent ping anywhere else. If you could manage another CTF or go beyond 18 players, that would be very cool.

Hey, is there a place we can go to donate to the Gulch project?

AceOfThumbs wrote:Another big item on my server wish list is another non-hook CTF server. Galt's Gulch CTF is usually packed and I can't get a decent ping anywhere else. If you could manage another CTF or go beyond 18 players, that would be very cool.

Hey, is there a place we can go to donate to the Gulch project?

^What he said. I'd like to help cover the cost, too, since for the time being I am not going to pursue hosting myself.

Oh, and F that the hooky-hooky CTF crap! Ditch the hook and turn it into a standard CTF server. Please!

And as long as I'm typing somewhere, anyone have any comments on the auto-balance disabled this weekend? I only got in a few matches because I'm still trying to find the cause of a glitch, but I had a good time switching teams when it got unbalanced (F6 is your friend).

http://gulch.mshade.org/

There is a donate button in the lower left corner.

It's through paypal , I just made a donation


Thanks For the great servers!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks, vomit That was unexpected.

There is indeed a donate button there. I'm looking into getting up another CTF server. The hook server has its fans, and it's a mere 10 slot affair. It crashes frequently and eats way more CPU than the non-hook server, though. I need to look into tuning it.

If I can get CPU time down on the hook server, we can look at another regular CTF. I don't want to increase slots on CTF as I think then it'd just be far too crowded. It gets pretty crowded as it is on some maps

Thanks again for the support guys.

AceOfThumbs wrote:...or go beyond 18 players...

I think that 18 is already pushing it a bit for ctf games.

Just my 2¢.

I agree. That's why I'm hesitant to ratchet that up at all.

John, my name is coming up in your stats as ������ - any chance you can fix up the character conversion or regex it from ������ to *BENDER* or something? Oh well, it made it chuckle.