Powerlord

OCR RED is now set with no map timelimit. However, it is currently possible to change the map to something else via a vote... please don't do that. Edit: Reserved Slots should now be fixed on BLU, but I need to restart RED yet.

What about the Saxton Hale Mask, which you have to craft for an achievement? It's the only one I'm missing achievement wise. P.S. Demo Charge n' Targe plus Skullcutter is handy for the unusual metal achievement. P.P.S. Something's currently wrong with reserved slots and/or the server's player count. It's reporting 23/24 slots used when all 24 (plus the bot) are on, plus it's not letting reserveds on even then. Edit: According to SPUF, to get the Saxton Hale hat, you need to craft together all 9 class Masks. Edit 2: There's an updated version of the extension out Reserved Slots rely on. I'll install it soon (it'll likely crash the server if I change it while people are playing).

BLU and RED should be coming back online now. RED is still the old RED, though. I'll probably make a copy of it soon so I can set it up for the Halloween maps. I need to either way for Sunday's event.

Question: Would anyone complain if we switched RED to a 24/7 Halloween server for a few days, alternating between Mann Manor and Harvest Event?

A required update for Team Fortress 2 is now available. The specific changes include: Engine (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2, HL2:DM) - Removed the rate limit for the "status" command when entered into the server console. - Fixed an exploit that allowed people to send fake server messages to clients. - Significantly improved engine vertex compression (large reduction in per-model memory usage). Team Fortress 2 - Added TF2Maps.net Art-pass contest winners: - Mountain Lab - Mann Manor - Halloween 2010 Event - Mann Manor is haunted by the Horseless Headless Horsemann. - Random gift drop in Mann Manor. - 4 new Halloween achievements. - Added new Halloween hats. - Added a new Halloween weapon. - Added Gift Wrapping of gifts to the store. - Added Custom Description tag to the store. - Added the community created "Swamp Theme" assets, so all maps can use it: - See http://swamp.tf2maps.net/ for full details. - Updated cp_coldfront with the latest changes from the community creator (Icarus): - Improved visibility on last CP. - Moved second CP slightly closer to the attacker's side. - Added cover for players queuing up the health pack on the second CP. - Improved clipping on the zig-zag ramp to middle CP. - Teams that capture the middle CP are now awarded with faster spawn times. - Added a health penalty to the Rocket Jumper. - Added the Sticky Jumper for Demomen to practice jumping. - Fixed the Sandvich charge meter. - Fixed glows not drawing correctly when using antialiasing on some computers. - Improved the checks that trigger mp_scrambleteams_auto. - Added console commands to initiate trades directly (cl_trade/cl_trade_steamid) to help people running trading servers. tl;dr: Second Annu-Hell Scream Fortress Hauntdead Halloween Special with 4 new achievements, new hats, and weapon. Also, Artpass update. Moutain Lab and Mann Manor will be added to our votelist immediately after the server finishes updating. RED's default map is being switched over to Mann Manor.

All three of those are fairly low popularity hats... generally considered the worst of their class hats (well... Trophy Belt is actually the least popular Sniper hat, but Panama is a close second), although that would change if they could be crafted into a Towering Pillar...

New TF2 Blog entry: Couldn't ya see the bloody bombs? Basically, it's another contest, but this time to fill in the bleeps in Meet the Demoman. They're giving out awards for best clean entry, best not clean entry, and most accurate. Edit: I'm surprised they haven't made a recipe to combine Backbiter's Billycock, Scotman's Stovepipe, and Professional's Panama to make Towering Pillar of Hats.

As I recall, the recent ones have been: WAR Update, Engineer Update, Mann-conomy Update...

I was hoping Valve would start the Halloween event earlier this year, but apparently not. Valve started it on October 29th last year, the last Thursday before Halloween. I ran through November 10th last year.

Note that returning players who don't yet have Wrath can also get a different trial account type.

When I do play, I'm a casual player... the catch is that I dislike doing raids (well... 20+ man raids) even back before BC came out. 10 man might not be so bad, I dunno.

On another note, I changed some cvars that deal with AFK/dropped players. sv_timeout Default value: 65 Our value: 300 Description: How long in seconds after a client stops responding to messages before said client is dropped. NOTE: The client continues sending packets even if the player is spectating/idling. In other words, this has NOTHING to do with idling players, but players whose network connection has dropped or game has crashed. Change: Reset to 65. Rationale: The client times 30 seconds after the server stops responding. Even 65 seconds seems extreme, as clients will have disconnected by then. 300 seconds (5 minutes) is ridiculously long. sv_idlemaxtime Default value: 3 Our value: 5 Description: How long in minutes before the server considers a player to be idling. This is not affected by admin flags, as it is not controlled by Sourcemod. Change: Reset to 3. Rationale: To discourage idling. sv_idledealmethod Default value: 1 (Move players to Spectator) Our value: 1 Other possible values: 0 (Do Nothing), 2 (Kick player) Description: What to do when the above time is reached. Note: In mode 1, if they are already spectating, it will then kick them. This is not affected by admin flags, as it is not controlled by Sourcemod. Change: No change. Rationale: Because Brushfire would complain if I changed it. That would be Medic chaining. Uberchaining is when two medics both have normal Medi-gun and Ubersaws... one ubers the other, who attacks other players with the Ubersaw, and then they switch roles... basically trying to create a chain of Ubers that never ends.

I normally don't trade while playing. The few times I have, it's been done in less than 30 seconds.

I have no problem with people trading. I have a problem with people sitting there for 4-5 minutes straight doing it. I treat them just like any other AFKer and kick them, but will escalate it if they reconnect and start doing it again.

So, I just spotted this on Kotaku Making Team Fortress 2 Hats Turns Out To Be Very Profitable Up to $47,000 in three weeks!

Technically, they have. However, only to clarify it. Up until yesterday, it just said "No hate speech" which I expanded to "No hate speech, including excessive swearing and insults." at the same time I removed Rambo from the admin list. TECHNICALLY, I overstepped my bounds there by making said change without consulting the remaining admins, but based it on the opinions expressed on the admin board about this subject.

Restarted BLU a few moments ago because it wasn't accepting connections. It appears to be working correctly since restart, though.

By the way, when they say "Made most tools tradable." they mean "made keys tradeable."

BLU and RED are both in the middle of restarting. I'm guessing that's FireSlash's doing, as I'd already updated them and was trying to update Highlander (before restarting all 3) when I noticed BLU and RED were both down. Something's munching a lot of CPU processing power (or disk read/write) on the server right now (*coughmincraftservercough*), which is slowing down the game servers startup. RED and BLU should be up now, Highlander is now restarting.

I usually quote the notes as soon as they go out to the hlds_linux mailing list. Yeah, they didn't post them today.

Well... most of them anyway. A few general tips: 1. Anyone on either team could be an enemy Spy. (Spies will piss you off until you learn how to deal with them.) In addition, when a Spy dies, you can't assume they're actually dead unless you saw them cloak or decloak (thanks to the Dead Ringer)... and even this isn't reliable thanks to the L'Etranger gun they can use to recharge cloak. Attack allies that are acting suspicious (ally with full health running away from a combat zone, ally placing sappers on allied sentry guns, etc...), as they may be spies. 2. If you see your allies all fleeing or hanging back from going around a corner, don't rush around it yourself... there's probably sticky bombs, a sentry gun, or enemies right around the corner. 3. A good starting class is Medic... keeping in mind that your secondary weapon is the heal beam, and that when it reaches 100% charge, right-click will make you and the person you're healing invulnerable for 8s (or is it 10s?). Medics are one of the (if not THE) most important class in the game. Other good starting classes: Scout (for the speed), Soldier (for damage), Pyro (for close-range damage, also less likely to get attacked by Spies) The hard part is not getting spotted between the decloak and stab. Since it still takes 2 seconds to decloak, you're extremely vulnerable during this time. Sentries, on the other hand, won't attack you until about halfway through the decloak. I've been circling strafing unguarded level 3s to sap them lately. Actually, it's more like 3. DR drops you down to max 40% cloak when you decloak early, and with +15% per hit... and you continue to recharge as you go.

It also lets you catch up to fleeing classes. However, it makes you even worse than you already were versus Scouts, Heavies, and Engineers due to bullet vulnerability.

None of the guns go "well" together with the Eternal Reward. That's just its drawback for insta-disguise backstabs. All the sets have some drawback for having the complete set. There's a reason that the Sniper, Scout, and Soldier sets have no minuses on the set itself. Having said that, even in the Pyro set, the Degreaser goes a lot better with the Axtinguisher than with the Powerjack.

QFT 10 char limit

Third, I think... but yeah. Didn't they also patch this like a year ago? I wonder if Mann-conomy broke it again or something.