TF2 Level Design Tutorials and New Level Coming

In addition to setting up a TF2 server I have decided to try creating some custom maps to play on it.  Like with the server tutorial I will be documenting how things go and the steps to take upon completion.

This announcement is to serve as a notice to anyone who reads this, but mainly as a method to actually get me to follow through on it.

Setting Up a TF2 Server: Managing Kicks and Bans

This tutorial will go into how to manage kicking and banning players.  Kicking often needs to be done simply to make room in a crowded server for the regulars and sponsors.  Banning is often required for cheaters not yet permanently banned by VAC security and players who harass the players with obnoxious mic spam.

Banning can help keep servers healthy because one person can easily ruin the game for everyone else.

The Ban Hammer

There are a number of simple console commands which can be used in the administrative console in order to manage bans and kicks.

In console, use the command status to get a list of all players and their SteamIDs and IP addresses.

In all cases, time specifies the duration of the ban or kick in minutes.  To ban a player permanently use a time of 0 minutes.

Kicking


kick time steamID - Where  SteamID is the unique SteamID of the player.
kick time playername - Where playername is the name currently being used of the player on the server.

Banning


banid time steamID - Where  SteamID is the unique SteamID of the player.
banid time steamID kick - Where  SteamID is the unique SteamID of the player.  This will ban and kick a player in one action.

If a player has multiple accounts but only one IP then you can do an IP ban.  I recommend sticking to typical bans except in select specific cases.

filterban status - Turns IP bans on or off.  Status can be set to 1 for on or 0 for off.  Unless you are too worried about rampant moderators there is no reason to set it to off.
addip time IPaddress - Where IPaddress is the IP address of the player.


Removing a Ban

removeid steamID - Removes a ban.  steamID represents the players Steam ID.
removeip IPaddress - Removes a ban.  IPaddress represents the players IP address.

As far as I can tell, there is no method to reduce a kick or ban so be careful when handing them out.

Setting Up HLDJ

Ever been playing TF2 when that one douche joins the server and decides to put his mic next to his speaker playing really low quality and staticy rap music?  And yes, it is always rap music.

Don't be that guy.  If you are going to spam people in games, make sure you do it right.

HLDJ is a rising star and becoming a popular alternative to HLSS.  I already did a quick tutorial on HLSS with the promise of putting up an HLDJ tutorial later.

HLDJ is very similar to HLSS in its function, but HLDJ adds a good bit more to the mixture.  The primary function is to allow the user to play amusing sound clips or just music from their library.  Sometimes it is used to heckle or even harass other players, but in an ideal world it is to have fun times with people who try not to take the game too seriously.  It does share a key problem with HLSS and that is the inflexibility of audio files, forcing conversion to WAV files. 

Set Up

1. Go to the hldj downloader page here and simply download the file most suited for you.
2. Run the set up, creating a folder somewhere you'll remember to hold onto files.
3. Set up a hotkey you know you wont use.  A lot of servers these days use all the Function keys to browse their music library and vote for new maps.  Just use the Delete key since it wont be used for anything else.  

Straightforward right?  Much easier to use than the somewhat contrived method HLSS uses that requires you to modify it for each game, and to modify settings within the games themselves.

The program should now look something like this:

The program interface is rather simple and you should be able to figure it out by just playing around with it.  The fourth button down on the right is what manages audio conversions.  That's right, the program natively has the ability to convert audio.  Just a word of warning hitting the play button will also boot up the game.

Audio Conversions

Maybe you never had to use HLSS but audio conversion was incredibly annoying.  It required booting up and running a separate program to convert every audio file.  With HLDJ, you have the ability to convert whole directories.  Thats right, instead of booting up dBpowerAMP for each file you can easily convert whole folders.  

In Game

In game you can still interact with HLDJ.  Just enable the console, triggered by the tilde "~" key.  

Enter "la" or "listaudio" in the console to bring up the audio list.  Now simply navigate and then hit the Play Audio Key to get things started.

There are additional basic commands that can be used.  These are all ripped from the manual that comes with the game but I'll post them for reference.

Basic Commands:

• "hldjn", "hldjp", "hldjr" - loads the next / previous / random audio file.
• "hldjca", "hldjcd" - displays the current audio file / directory in console and on-screen.
• "hldjsca", "hldjstca" - displays the current audio file in public / team chat.
• "hldjsq", "hldjqa" - stops HLDJ and quits the current game / quits both.
• "hldj", "hldj1", "hldj2", "hldj3" - displays quick-start guide / commands list / help / advanced help

These let you navigate quick and easily.

Summary

As a long time user of HLSS, after playing around with HLDJ just a little I was instantly converted.  HLDJ is pretty easy and lets you put in a whole lot more without having to worry about running out of free keys to bind .

Speaking of key bindings, I do plan to do a quick tutorial on managing key bindings and shortcuts later but for now you can just use the useful tutorial that is part of the current manual. 

Grabbing Expired Domain Names

I recently lost a domain that I had held onto for quite some time.  I had expected the registration to have been lost quite some time ago but it managed to stay active for much longer than I expected.  This is chiefly because domains do not expire quite when they are set to.

I am now considering grabbing a domain which is already owned.  Before I just placed a backorder for it I looked up the technicalities behind it and found that I could save a lot of money for not jumping on the domain right when it was supposed to expire.

A brief visit to Whois will let you know who controls the domain and when it is set to expire.  Check here first for some basic information.

How Domains Expire

Domains simply do not expire when they claim to, instead their expiration date is is the start of their expired status.  Typically there is a 40 day grace during which the current owner can simply renew the domain as per usual.  Now after this grace period the domain enters into a redemption period.  

At this point the initial owner will incur a fee in order to renew the domain.  The length of the redemption period and the fee associated with it will vary from host to host.  If there is no renewal in this phase, then the domain will  go into the deletion phase.  At this point the domain cannot be renewed and will be up for grabs at the end of deletion. 

Grabbing the Domain

Now then, after all that time, lasting in total about 75 days, the domain will be put up for grabs.  Now, when exactly the domain becomes available again cannot be certain and there is no guarantee that you will be the one to grab the domain.  If the domain is desirable enough, then other people will likely want it as well.  

A number services can can allow you to go into the race for the domain.  It is possible to snag the domain on your own, but if other people want it and are using services like GoDaddy, then they will get it.  There are a few popular services that are all worth looking at.  The more you try the better your chances will get, but the more expensive the process will get.  

The Services

Snapnames is one to look into for sure.  The benefit to Snapnames is that they have an exclusive partnership with Network Solutions, which is a rather popular service.  The partnership allows Snapnames to have first say on newly available domains hosted by Network Solutions.  If the domain was is held by Network Solutions, then it is a pretty safe bet to use Snapnames.

Snapnames will charge you $60 flat for the domain, but if multiple people are competing then this can cause a bidding war to begin.  In all honesty, this is the trend that I hope will continue with some of the more popular domain hosts, wherein they allow people to bid on the domain instead of trying to randomly pick it up by chance by investing in a large number of services.  

Pool is presently the most popular service and considered by many to have the best success rate.  Pool also charges $60 as an opening bid for the domain.  After they successfully grab the domain Pool moves onto a second phase of the purchase even if no one else was initially interested in the domain.  

Pools second phase involves a secret bidding war that lasts three days.  In this stage you wont even know how many people you are competing against.  You could simply be bidding against yourself.  If there are multiple bidders, the top two, as well as everyone involved in the bidding war who was within 30% of the top bidder enter phase three of the bidding war.  Each party in phase three has a one day open bid over the domain.  

Pools method is a little bit shady, but because of how reliable they are, and how popular they are, they can get away with it.  The method makes them a lot of extra money, but is unreasonably frustrating for the buyers.

Enom is another popular service which only charges $30.  The twist with them is that they will devote more resources the more that an individual pays.  How much more likely you are to grab the domain, and how much more resources they devote is hidden.   The way it functions, its essentially like the bidding war begins even before they manage to grab the domain.

Cross Your Fingers

At this stage in the chase all most people can do is hope that they get the domain and to hope that if they do get it, that they will not have to deal with Pool.  Aside from using all three services, there is not really anything that can be done to help your chances.  You can try investing in less popular services but they will likely not help your odds too much.  

If you do end up having to deal with Pool remember that typical eBay rules apply during the final stage so go ahead and wait until the last moments of the auction to try to outbid your opponent.  

Setting Up a TF2 Server: The Basics

This is part one of a series of tutorials I plan to make involving creating a dedicated Team Fortress 2 server. I plan on using an obsoleted machine to run this myself and hopefully by the end I will have a fun and creative server.

The following tutorial will help you set up a strict vanilla server. That is to say, this is what setting up a bare bones basic server is like.

Installation

1) Download Steam's HLDSTOOLUPDATE tool from the Steam page here.

Install the program to wherever is most desirable.  Personally, I feel that just sticking to the root C drive is easiest since it is easy to find and shortens the length of the commands you need to run.  

2) Now you need to obtain all the files for the dedicated TF2 server.  To do this, you need to create a .bat file containing one short line.  Let's assume you installed HLDSTOOLUPDATE to c:\tf2server, the line would look like:

c:\tf2server\hldsupdatetool -command update -game tf -dir c:\tf2server

If you put the updater somewhere else then just change the two path names.

Now just run the .bat file and wait.  It will start downloading the 1.8 Gb file so sit back since it will take awhile.  

If the update tool fails just run it again and again until it seems there is nothing left to download.  This may seem frustrating but it is the easiest way to make sure you get everything. 

Set Up

Now you need to configure all of the files for use.  To do, download this very small server.cfg file I put together.  It only contains the basics for running a server.  If you want to edit it or just check it out you can easily boot it up in notepad or as I always prefer, notepad++ and check everything out.  Most of the settings have a short description with them.

There are a more complete list of server commands here in case you want to add anything, but it may require a little digging because there are a lot of them.

Execution

To start your server you just need to know how many players you want and what map you want to use.  Keep in mind that in vanilla TF2 the max players possible is 24.  

Now just run the command: 

c:\tf2server\orangebox\srcds.exe -console -game tf -hostport 27015 +maxplayers 24 +map cp_dustbowl

Go ahead and change the bold parts to suit your preference.  Just make sure that you only use official maps for now as those are the only ones you will have.  Also remember to change the file location if you used a different path.

Blogspots Updated Editor is Great

After finding out about Blogspot's updated editor I had to delete one of my old posts ranting about how terrible the WYSIWYG editor.  The greatest thing about the new editor is that you can actually stretch the whitespace being used to compose, a feature once reserved oddly enough for just the HTML editor.

Now they just need to start using color tags and I might have to stop writing all my posts in Notepad ++.

You can find the updated editor in settings towards the bottom of the Basic tab.  The feature is so useful I cannot see how it is not set as the default.  Even putting in pictures becomes much easier.  And even better, changing picture sizes actually changes what size they are.  A novel concept I know.  Of course you still cannot resize objects to an exact pixel width and height, or change the borders or padding.

My favorite part of it though, and the part most useful to me, is that the Preview button gives a real preview.  Before I had problems with images being too big and not realizing it until after I had posted it.  That meant that after I thought I had finished a post, I would have to go back and resize all the images.

Time to resize some images.

Hopefully Blogspot continues to make useful improvements for the future.  It is nice to have free bandwidth, so hopefully the restrictions become less of a bother. 

Self Righteous E-Peen post

What things matter most to nerds?

Games:

http://www.steamcalculator.com/id/iam413x

Music:

Am I missing anything?

Still One of My Favorite Videos

This is still one of my favorite vids.



For those of you that don't get it, the video is parodying this speed test video done by Google.