More Powerful Servers: Phase 1

[Baker]

ProQuake Dedicated Ex Server 1.00: addresses many server weaknesses and adds flexibility. External .ent support for CTF, rcon attempt blackouts per ip address (3 rcon failures = no more tries for a while), a word filter to make the environment more clean, enhanced IP masking for the option for anonymous play, the option to only allow talking for those with frags, better logging, RQuake support, anti-wallhack. Someone could port it to Linux if they choose. Download + Source. Also has the option (sv_full_invisibility 1) to make invisible players (i.e. ring of shadows) entirely and absolutely unseen. The .exe size of the server is rather microscopic because everything not related the server has been stripped out entirely (no rendering, sound, cd, console code, ..).

Phase 2: An even more robust dedicated server with live stats, universal muting/warning, anti-proxy will likely be running on server that is close to being ready that wicked lord and myself are setting up. The live stats thing has been time consuming but is nearly done (the server live feeds the stats every 15 minutes +/-).

[Syluxguy28O3]

thanks for the hard work!

[monoz]

let me know when its ported to linux, although it seems like you won't be doing that. 80% of the server community wont be able to use this - shamck/crctf/hdz,etc...

[Baker]

thanks for the hard work!

Ya know, this stuff was remarkably tediously absolutely boring and killjoy to code. On the fun scale, probably a -24 on a scale of 1 to 10.

The stats thing, the global mute/warn/ban ---- I don't like bans (I think many people have noticed I don't like the ideas for talking at all) --- boring beyond imagination. No matter what I say here, nothing is going to make this kind of infrastructure exciting.

That is part of the problem though, we don't have the right kind of infrastructure right now. We saw this a ton when someone who gets scapegoated a lot exposed this kind of vulnerability again and again.

But that someone wasn't the problem we had the problem before too. And it was bad then. We just hadn't noticed it so much because no one wants to get their hands dirty with this kind of thing.

To get things turned out, the swampy environment has to get cleaned up.

A ton of players get Quake on steam, but the current status quo --- could you really recommend Quake to, say, 10 Facebook friends (I don't like Facebook, but is beside the point).

If you can't recommend this game online to friends because of various Scoffers, Wolvs, Rage Quitters, trash mouths ... we might as well write it off to the dust bin. And maybe it could end up there anyway.

Except --- I think there are 2 things going on:

1. Some people like Wolv used to be funny as hell, entertaining and a blast to interact with in the forums. I think the negative morale affects everyone and makes people worse than who they really are because people are sick of "losing". I get that. It takes a strong stomach to look at some of the social problems this community has and say with a straight face that you think it can be fixed.

2. However, I know the number of true troublemakers is actually a very small percent. Combined with the fact that annoying peoples currently get to do whatever they please (resulting in everyone left being annoying, I mean what choice is there? When in Rome and all that ...) we also are confronted with the fact that most of the servers mods --- when you step back --- suck.

Think of it, compared to where you can connect and start playing, we have polar opposites. CRMOD was made for matches --- it wasn't meant to be the only way to play DM.

Yet, because of server neglect, it is the only DM-capable mod (until sometime next week). But it doesn't offer instant action, it wasn't made for instant action.

And at the other end is RuneQuake. Slot Zero was a hardcore player ... he started his own server so he had a place to play that he could never be banned and had several mauler badasses in his clan including at least 2 competitive (like for-real) DM players. He had to newbie-ize RuneQuake to compete against a popular server. RuneQuake used to be DM with a little more spice (double damage, half damage, etc. and maybe find a slow lithium grappling hook if you are super-lucky) to a free hook, gas-grenade, radiation fest. Slot Zero originally ran a super-conservative slow paced server where the "tough guys" could all DM, rocket jump, aim, knew the maps. But faced with competition against another server running his own mod modified, he had to change it.

I guess I am saying, there is no middle ground in this community right now.

And we suffer for it. So no one is "happy" with the status quo. I don't blame them.

[Baker]

let me know when its ported to linux, although it seems like you won't be doing that. 80% of the server community wont be able to use this - shamck/crctf/hdz,etc...

I suck at Linux. I really do.

But we have 57 servers for maybe at the absolute most 20 players online.

The source is available. I get my hands dirty. I am not a Linux user --- no matter how much other people DEMAND I become one.

I get my hands dirty. R00k gets his hands dirty.

But if I don't use YOUR operating system, I'm a jerk and being inconsiderate?

Really? That's some horseshit. I'm just saying. In 20 minutes, you could port half of this to Linux using a diff program. I documented everything.

NO, I am not a bad guy because I don't use your operating system.

No, I will not "let you know" when someone ports it to Linux. You could port most of what I've written easily in far less time than the better part of 2 weeks I've spent working on it.

But I won't do it for you. I think I do enough. You want the last 10% --- do it yourself. I did the HARD work coding this stuff. If you choose to not do the easy work, that's on you.

I'm not 10 people.

[monoz]

wow you turned into a prick pretty quickly for absolutely no reason. For all the talk about changing the culture of quake, this will do absolutely nothing for it since wicked lord is the only active servers that uses windows.


who said I thought u were bad guy? obviously putting words in my mouth. All I have ever said is that will do nothing to fix the culture of quake if its not universally applied.

[R00k]

Tremor has a working 3.90 linux makefile as long as your machine has all the require libs. Could be easily used with 4.90. And as small a footprint this little server is u can run easily more than 1 server per box.

HDz box is windows. CRCTF.com, Tremors, RuneQuake are linux boxes...

[MH]

Much as Baker said it in a somewhat prickly manner, he does have a point. He's decided to focus on his core job here which is to provide a sample working implementation of this functionality. He's decided to build that sample implementation on and for the platform he knows best. Beyond that, well, the source code is there, it can be studied, it can be ported, but he's leaving that part as an exercise for someone else to do. Just because Baker himself has decided to not do it, it doesn't prevent anybody else from picking it up and making the port. Which is kind of one of the points of open source.

[bluntz]

Well I for one thank you

[Mindf!3ldzX]

wow you turned into a prick pretty quickly for absolutely no reason. For all the talk about changing the culture of quake, this will do absolutely nothing for it since wicked lord is the only active servers that uses windows.


who said I thought u were bad guy? obviously putting words in my mouth. All I have ever said is that will do nothing to fix the culture of quake if its not universally applied.

Someone will do it, and it might be that everytime he's released something lately you keep nagging him about immediat linux support failures. I don't know how to compile in linux, Phenom and Crow might be able to do it. Can you do it? Who can do it? That seems more important than bitching it isn't already done.

Thanks to Baker regaurdless, hehe! Very much a transitioning point in 2012.


How about this EXTERNAL ENTITIES support for CTF. This to me sounds like ,say,as example, any map without flags could have flags added anywhere in a given map. Do I understand this correctly?

[R00k]

This is exactly correct

[Baker]

wow you turned into a prick pretty quickly for absolutely no reason. For all the talk about changing the culture of quake, this will do absolutely nothing for it since wicked lord is the only active servers that uses windows.


who said I thought u were bad guy? obviously putting words in my mouth. All I have ever said is that will do nothing to fix the culture of quake if its not universally applied.

Monoz, you know --- I should have written that differently.

To some extent, I was venting the frustration --- that doesn't involve you --- that "no matter what I do" someone always brings up some platform.

In particular, this often involves Linux. Crap like "no 64 bit build?" or "what about ". Furthermore, past efforts to support Linux have yielded people questioning me about Linux intricacies and things I don't know --- which the expectation I am some sort of Linux expert.

Furthermore, some efforts I have made to make code easy to port to Linux versions have sometimes been dismissed with the "gee if you don't do it for me, it sucks" attitude. This is limited to Linux really, I have had PSP users dump that on me too.

This has given me a very negative bias against Linux on a whole.

And I marked everything I changed in quakedef.h plain as day not to impede Linux but to make the changes very portable.

I was wrong to vent that on you, I was coding all night and dead tired. I hope you accept my apology.

Regarding the few Windows servers --- at $7 a month, the UGS Windows servers can strategically be placed several places and for very little.

[Baker]

How about this EXTERNAL ENTITIES support for CTF. This to me sounds like ,say,as example, any map without flags could have flags added anywhere in a given map. Do I understand this correctly?

Sometimes you have to "fix" maps --- Phenom and I had to do this for the Dredd server (missing/broken intermission cam for CAx which requires one or not enough spawn points and CTF is huge on entities ...).

One way is to pollute the map by recompiling it and this evil incarnate. The better way is to throw a .ent file in maps folder and that is used instead.

No muss, no fuss and doesn't create a rogue version of a map.

Thanks to Baker regaurdless, hehe! Very much a transitioning point in 2012.

More than you know. The stats thing really needs a unique id. I cracked that last night (3 major complicating factors).

The first one was backwards compatibility (check! Works backwards compatible with all ProQuake compatible clients so that means Qrack too. Maybe DirectQ and if not with easy modification). Second, cannot be "stolen" or impersonated unwillingly (check!) --- like you can share your config on accident and not be compromised. Third, that the server can't actually know your id (why? Potential evil server operator problem.).

Live stats is a pain in the arse, plus I have a list of 8 important server administration enhancements I still need to code (name abuse, a color change exploit that even affects CRMOD and I had it used against my team once to ruin a game --- and I'm still mad about --- so yeah I get rage-quitters --- at least the feelings).

[Baker]

Going for the triple post --- since ... surprise I've been coding all night for the upcoming server with Wicked Lord so hopefully we can have everything right + quality stats on day one (I'm try please Bruce or something maybe?) ....

Some people think it is Baker plus Captain America, the Red Skull, Joseph Stalin, Hugo Chavez, Lex Luthor, Adolph Hitler, Steve Jobs, Chairman Mao, Paulie Shore and Linus Torvalds sitting around writing this code.

Except that isn't like that.

Windows is like Java. Code it once, runs everywhere [if you are keen to listening to MH. And I am ]. The Mac is mostly like that. Linux isn't like that all. Linux is a super-major pain in the arse to support, really. I worked on coding a new Linux ProQuake for Lerster about 2 years ago and stopped after 10 days --- it was so much damn work and Linux is the opposite of, say, MSDN (awesome documentation, complete, thorough, accurate) --- because at the pace of working through all the trouble, I projected it would take 3 more weeks and just to support the version of Ubuntu I had (which was 32-bit, so when I was done, all the 64-bit people would hate my guts. Quite a shitty reward for all that effort, so I said F that. I didn't have a 64-bit machine at the time ... so I couldn't even do 64-bit).

I can write a super-major-mega-incrediassloadous amount of code in 3 weeks. But with Linux, I'd be fighting 57 flavors and library versions of probably 3 or 4 major components and settings. And for what? Maybe 10 people? And then they'd bitch that I sucked at their flavor? That's just flipping crazy! And rather than waste all that time --- and "Linux" *always* changes, I realized I would rather code. And that's what I plan to do.

Code.

Portage isn't what I plan to do. I'm good at coding. Mastering Linux, by necessity I have to leave that up to others that are more specialized in the task. I only have so much time --- I have to use it for what I am good at.

/End explanation

[Spike]

Don't worry Baker, if you were exclusively a Linux user, you'd have all the windows users complaining at you instead. Queue mac users in 3... 2... 1...