Powerlord

Highlander tournament requires any servers that are used for matches to be locked.

I posted the complete map lineup in the Social Group btw.

Week 1 games MUST be scheduled before Monday, September 27, or your team will be auto-assigned a game date. Groups appear to be largely the same as before, but now you can see which games you need to schedule on the Group Fixtures page. For the two OCR teams, the games you need to schedule are these: Team Overclocked Remix: Versus Hoodoo U Think We Are? on cp_dustbowl and pl_upward OCAD and the Immaculate Breasts: Versus Saucy Turtles on cp_dustbowl and pl_upward Oh yes, I forgot to mention... the map lineup has apparently changed for the competition. I am adjusting the Highlander server's default map and cycle to compensate. Long story short: gravelpit is no longer present during the Group phase and Freight was pulled from the competition completely; Dustbowl replaces Gravelpit and Granary replaces Freight.

Updates to Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source and Day of Defeat: Source have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include: Source Engine Changes (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2) - Optimizations to multi-core rendering - Removed -heapsize command line argument. Some detail: This command made sense in Half-Life 1’s memory manager. The current engine manages memory in a way that doesn’t need it specified. Under some circumstances, specifying a non-optimal heapsize causes crashes and/or reduced performance - Fixed an exploit that allowed people to send fake VAC messages to clients This is a client-only update, so the server was not updated.

Question: Should I bump the Highlander server player count to 28 so that the 5 reserve members for each team can spectate?

BLU crashed again this evening. I'm not sure why, but I manually restarted it. It also crashed with an auto-restart yesterday. Edit: Also, if you're on the server when it crashes and you can contact FireSlash or I (via IRC or IM), please let us know the server crashed so we can restart it.

I think someone from your team has to schedule them on the ETL website. I'm assuming you have to face off against each of the other teams (at least) once. Also, admins, I made some new notes about the Highlander server on the admin forum. This is because some teams may not trust that the server auto-executed the config files on map change, so it has instructions on what you need to do for each map type. The only one that requires multiple commands is KOTH, because of its special rules. However, no KOTH maps appears until the ladder matches start after the group matches are finished. I also made sure our tournament config files were up to date.

There's going to be a config change to the highlander server shortly. As strange as this sounds, the ETL league admins say that Highlander tournament servers SHOULD NOT have highlander mode on, but rather it should be enforced by the teams themselves. This is due to issues with players disconnecting mid-match and replacements not being able to change to the class that got dropped.

Provisional Groups Team Overclocked Remix is in group 207, versus Hoodoo U Think We Are? and Ugly Gamers Like You. OCAD and the Immaculate Breasts is in group 153, versus Lazytown Regulars and Saucy Turtles. Edit: Also, I ran out of free item slots yesterday and had to craft some things. So, of course, I got another Cloak and Dagger immediately after (well, same session as) I combined two together, after losing a Huntsman because I had no free inv space to put it in. I was trying to avoid crafting items due to Polycount most likely having recipes to craft the new community weapons.

Servers were restarted again after I disabled the server's autoupdate feature. Valve forgot to update the client and server version number, and the master servers are sending MasterRestartRequest messages, which cause auto-updating servers to restart after every map change. With auto-update off, it just prints an annoying message in the server console: "Your server needs to be restarted in order to receive the latest update." Edit: Jason Ruymen from Valve says a fix for this is on its way, so expect another TF2 patch today. Edit 2: Another patch, another restart. Things are working normally again.

I'll restart it as soon as it finishes updating... a new update just got pushed. A required update to Team Fortress 2 is now available. The specific changes include: Engine (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2): - Fixed clients locking up while attempting to load the game and re-enabled signature checking. Team Fortress 2: - Fixed a case where some items would display an empty string for their name. Edit: As of now (21:38 UTC / 5:38pm EDT) all servers have been updated and restarted. Edit 2: Valve may have botched this update, as all servers appear to be receiving "MasterRestartRequired" messages regardless of version.

I just read an interview from last month about TF2... apparently Valve completed a Meet the Medic back in 2008 but wasn't happy with it? It's also been implied that TF2 will have a new beta starting sometime soon. Don't be surprised if we set up a beta server just to see what's new. Also, Valve is lambasting Microsoft over its update/DLC policies, citing that as the (current) reason that the 360 version hasn't been updated. The same PC Gamer article that Kotaku sources implies that Valve may actually update the PS3 version of TF2 (which was ported and updated by EA). Edit: Cable repair guy was here and gone. The upstream signal was on the low side, requiring more power to send signals... was requiring +55dBmV (max is 60), but after he worked on the amplifier across the street, is now 46dBmV. Not sure if I'll be able to play tonight to see if that fixes things, as I have a ton of homework assignments due today and tomorrow nights.

Did anyone link to the song this was responding to? If not: Spy Romance Also, speaking of Lady Gaga and TF2... (which I believe has been played on our server before over voice chat)

I was under the impression that it had already started, but I can't say for sure. Also, if any of you guys have seen me whinging about lag on TF2 in the past week or two, I've called tech support and they're sending someone out on Friday afternoon to take a look. I used my laptop to connect directly through my cable modem and had the exact same problem, so I can eliminate the router, switch, and desktop as potential problems. P.S. My laptop doesn't play TF2 that well with the default graphics settings. I'll have to look up that low settings config sometime, or manually turn down settings.

Weird, I copied it directly from the other version of the MOTD, and I thought they were on that one already. Edit: Well, they are now. Edit 2: Don't forget that Highlander teams need to take screenshots of the scoreboards at the end of each round, plus one of the console's status screen. In addition to recording demos.

I got bored while I was working on a paper for a writing class, so I updated the Highlander server's map cycle and MOTD. Edit: I'm updating individual map configs, as we didn't have the official stopwatch config before.

New TF2 update today. It's supposed to prevent clients from loading server plugins (like SourceMod) to prevent cheats and fix more TF2 stats stuff. The specific changes include: Source Engine Changes (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2) - Disabled clients loading server plug-ins unless the plug-ins are signed by Steam or the client is running in insecure mode. - Added a checkbox to the Options->Audio dialog to control muting the audio when the game window is in the background. Team Fortress 2 - Fixed another bug in the Steamworks internal stats reporting. - Updated the localization files. BLU and RED have been updated and restarted, Highlander is still updating as I type this and will be restarted when it finishes.

Yeah, about that... didn't Valve nerf it so it only does crits in air if they were thrown into the air by an explosive? At a guess, their own rocket for a rocket jump counts for that...

Another minor TF2 update today. All 3 servers have been restarted. Yeesh, isn't this the third update in a week that says it fixes stats tracking?

Valve moved a second master server from one IP to another. RED, Highlander, CS:S, and L4D2 have been restarted, but BLU is actively in use. I will restart it later. Since each game server is connected to two master servers, it should remain connected even if it has the moved one's old IP address. Yes, you can. Although I was under the impression that it defaulted to the time you created the event, so if you created it in the afternoon, it would default to PM.

Now if only they'd fix the Simple Disguise Kit's Team Change key, I'd be happy.

A required update for Team Fortress 2 is now available. This is also an optional update for Counter-Strike: Source. The specific changes include: Dedicated Servers (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2) - Fixed a case where servers would lock-up while writing .dmp files. Counter-Strike: Source - Fixed some minor smoke grenade bugs. I'll be installing this soon, but the TF2 update has a higher priority and will be installed first.

A required update for Team Fortress 2 is now available. This is also an optional update for Counter-Strike: Source. The specific changes include: Dedicated Servers (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2) - Fixed a case where servers would lock-up while writing .dmp files. Team Fortress 2 - Fixed a bug in the Steamworks internal stats reporting. I'm installing now and will restart servers when it's finished.

All servers (TF2, CS:S, and L4D2) have been restarted to accommodate an HL2 master server IP change.

Latest update was another false alarm (caused by CS:S updating). I restarted the servers just in case, though, as it updated the server's steam client library. Edit: Whoops, no, there was one update that affects TF2: Source Engine ( TF2, DoD:S, CS:S ) - Fixed hang when typing "map" twice in the console.