Made some changes to the server that I'm sure you'll all love/hate/feel indifferent about!
I added 2 new custom maps:
koth_watermill (after seeing it in a Saxxy entry and thinking it looked decent) and
cp_antiquity (after someone posted a video run through of it here a couple weeks ago).
I re-enabled the pre-game scramble since I feel like it makes the games slightly more balanced. I also disabled the normal TF2 auto-balance (wherein first person to die gets switched) and enabled gScramble's autobalance on a trial basis. What does that mean? When an autobalance is needed it won't switch: Medics, Engineers that have buildings, anyone who's helped with the objective recently (capped a point, defended the cart, etc.) or the top 3 players of either team.
Looking at someone's spray now shows who sprayed it for all users. Additionally, admins can spray any other player's spray using the admin menu. They can also remove sprays that are inappropriate and take action against the person who sprayed it (slap, kick, ban, etc.) from the same menu.
Big changes for map voting:
- There's a warning sound before a vote
- There's a 15 second countdown before the vote starts
- Custom maps are labeled with "(Custom)" whenever they're part of vote.
- Map vote options only appear in slots 4 and higher so you shouldn't accidentally vote unless you're playing spy or engineer
- If the difference between the top 2 voted maps isn't big enough there will be a second runoff vote with those two maps as the only option
I added a melee-only plug-in. Admins can toggle melee only off or on at any point. It can also be called up in a vote by any admin.
I know there have been problems with garbageday, swiftwater and cranetop making clients crash. I deleted all of my maps, went through every custom map on the server 1 by 1 and allowed it to download straight through TF2 to make sure all of the maps were working correctly. Doing this I only garbage day made me crash. I re-uploaded it to the server and that fixed it. All custom maps
should be fine now.
I've added 6 new admins:
Baha, Inkwell, Borgnine, Speculawyer, Forkball & Spaceboy
For new admins, (and those who just don't remember)
bind a key to "sm_admin".
Also for admins: I know there have been a couple of instances with cheaters on the server. Generally what they'll do is run a script that takes a random player's name and adds a character that TF2 doesn't display after it. Remember, when you're on the player admin menu there will be a number next to the player name, that number is based on the order in which they joined (higher = late joiner). You can also get the same info (as well as their STEAM id) by typing
status in the console. I've also added plugins that let you rename other players as well as ban players who are no longer connected to the server (this way you can kick them before banning to get them off the server more quickly).
Of course, if there's every any issue with the server you can just get in contact with me. i'm usually near my computer most nights. Just send me a message if I'm on Steam.
