Server Suggestions

[HappySticks™]

I have been thinking about various things that I would like to see happen on the TF2 Trade Servers over the past few days or so and below is a list of them thus far.

Ability to view your GameMe rank.
Often, I find myself alt-tabbing out to a browser in order to view my GameMe rank, stats, etc. Not an expert on coding, so not sure if it is even possible but I would assume it to be similar to the !bp command although it would be like !rank via chat.

Ban the baseball bat for Scout.
Very much the same thing as the pan which has been removed from the servers. Often times, users just constantly beat and beat and beat these things against whatever. It becomes very annoying and distracting especially with the sound that it produces. Many, including Tick Tock Man have talked about removing it from the servers.

Remove the Headless Horseman's ability to free roam on #4.
I would like to see it stay inside the boxing ring just like all the other servers that spawn it because unless you stay in spawn, or roll godmode you are most likely going to get killed by it. Quite a few on that server have already bitched about it and it really gets on my nerves whenever it spawns.

Make the [Premium] tag more visible.
Right now the tag is black I think and really cant be seen depending on the lighting within the server. I personally cant afford premium because I lost all 38,000 credits I had saved up but it would be nice if those current premium users can be acknowledged a little better.


I will add to the list as I think of more. Feel free to post questions, comments or concerns below.

 

[nb]

I would also like something added to the servers:

-Trade Chat - This May sound stupid, but wouldn't it be easier to see actual trades in the trade server chat? I get that there is premium with colours and such.. But trade chat helps separate the trash/other talk and the actual trades.

-Spy-Crab Chat - Similar to the Trade Chat suggestion, this will help make spy-crab call outs in chat much more easier. I know I would find this very useful because of ban reports, doing spy crabs, and watching spy crabs, in which I can easily find the spy crab chat.

-Allow trade offer links - I know the rule of no posting links in chat, but could there be an exception for trade offer links? And just to make sure it's not a phishing link.. Add something where it can highlight the legit, steam/valve verified links so that people (even newbs) know that it won't lead to a bad link.

-Auto-detect chat spam - if someone is chat spamming, and there is nobody on the server to report, then this thing would stop the chat spammer. I have no idea how this would work, I am just giving a suggestion.

That is all for now.

 

[DARKLY | Pixar's Ham]

There's actually a few plugins that will temporarily mute you if you post more then 2 messages in a set amount of time. It'd be easy to implement, but people with a crapton of stuff to sell might get accidently silenced.

 

[14bux]

It'd be hard to ban a stock weapon, keep in mind many players are F2P. Still have no idea why they're here. Also, I don't have experience coding plugins, but I'm fairly certain it'd be extremely difficult to code the trade offer detector. I've seen servers with a spam detector, though. Good ideas guys, keep em rollin.

 

[DARKLY | Pixar's Ham]

I honestly don't want to see the HHH in the boxing ring anymore, although it not moving at all is less annoying, people who want to actually box ( #1,#4,#3 ) will be disturbed every 5-10 minutes by the HHH.

 

[14bux]

HHH is good for new players to get the item and cheivo on, but it really doesn't need to be as frequent. Can he be spawned by RTD, out of curiosity?

 

[Stan Radner]

It'd be hard to ban a stock weapon, keep in mind many players are F2P. Still have no idea why they're here. Also, I don't have experience coding plugins, but I'm fairly certain it'd be extremely difficult to code the trade offer detector. I've seen servers with a spam detector, though. Good ideas guys, keep em rollin.

Not really. You could do this:

!tb = [Buying]
!ts = [Selling]

For example: !ts Craft Hats would output this in the chat [Selling] Craft Hats

All you would have to do is make a plugin that simply applies one of those two tags depending on what trade command was typed.

 

[DARKLY | Pixar's Ham]

What I meant was for it to be moved to a separate area, so we can actually box. :c

 

[zackychuu]

Ability to view your GameMe rank.

Sounds good, there may already be a SourceMod plugin available.
Have you tried looking?

Ban the baseball bat for Scout.

No, the pan is obnoxious and loud.
If we wanted to start banning based on just being annoying on repetitive use, then maybe we should ban all Miniguns?
Ever sat in spawn while 5 heavies are spraying and standing at a dispenser? Annoying, but bearable compared to the pan noise.

Remove the Headless Horseman's ability to free roam on #4.

Pretty sure this is a map feature and I doubt there is much we could do other than changing the map for one where the HH is still rather than mobile.

Make the [Premium] tag more visible.

A Black premium tag sounds horrible...so I agree with this.

-Trade Chat

Not really a strong enough case for this. I could see the potential of Premium users complaining that there is not much point too their premium colours etc.
I've seen some servers using trade chats and they are rarely used...Regular chat wins out all the time with the odd person in 15 using trade chat.

-Spy-Crab Chat

Could be useful, but could also be abused in some way.
Any chance of an already existing plugin anywhere? Have you looked?

-Allow trade offer links

Myself and Gatherix have spoken about this a fair bit, it was suggested to me via steam chat that we implement some kind of command where someone could be taken to another users trade offer page..
The only issue is that the links can be changed, and to utilize it to it's fullest each user would have to log into their Steam Client Browser, every single time they loaded TF2. Quite tedious.
As for just allowing the links in regular chat, I'll leave that up to discussion.

-Auto-detect chat spam

The biggest issue I could see with this is with people like myself.
I type quite fast while on the servers, sometimes I will have anywhere up to 4 messages per chat rotation while either talking to someone regularly or as an Admin.
Now sure we could disable the feature for Mods/Admins, but imagine the complaints when a staff member posts 3 trade messages in a row with no issue, then a regular user does it and gets muted?
I'll leave this up to discussion, but I can see issues with it myself.

 

[Gatherix]

I have been thinking about various things that I would like to see happen on the TF2 Trade Servers over the past few days or so and below is a list of them thus far.

Ability to view your GameMe rank.
Often, I find myself alt-tabbing out to a browser in order to view my GameMe rank, stats, etc. Not an expert on coding, so not sure if it is even possible but I would assume it to be similar to the !bp command although it would be like !rank via chat

GameMe uses its own internal system to identify players rather than using Steam ID's. As such, there's no way (to my knowledge, I haven't researched it) for a plugin to figure out the player's ID in GameMe (unless there's an API available which, again, I'm not aware of).

Ban the baseball bat for Scout.
Very much the same thing as the pan which has been removed from the servers. Often times, users just constantly beat and beat and beat these things against whatever. It becomes very annoying and distracting especially with the sound that it produces. Many, including Tick Tock Man have talked about removing it from the servers.

Personally, I wish the pan wasn't banned, so I'm not the one to try and convince about that sort of thing. Decision's mostly up to Zackychuu and/or the other Admins.

Remove the Headless Horseman's ability to free roam on #4.
I would like to see it stay inside the boxing ring just like all the other servers that spawn it because unless you stay in spawn, or roll godmode you are most likely going to get killed by it. Quite a few on that server have already bitched about it and it really gets on my nerves whenever it spawns.

As Zackychuu said, that's entirely integrated into the map; only way to change it is to edit the map. If you can find a different version of the map or someone to edit it, send me a message with the new map and I'll take a look.

Make the [Premium] tag more visible.
Right now the tag is black I think and really cant be seen depending on the lighting within the server. I personally cant afford premium because I lost all 38,000 credits I had saved up but it would be nice if those current premium users can be acknowledged a little better.

The black color was actually just temporary while I was debugging stuff, and since there were more important things to fix when it released, I never got around to changing the tag color. Expect that to change soon.

-Trade Chat - This May sound stupid, but wouldn't it be easier to see actual trades in the trade server chat? I get that there is premium with colours and such.. But trade chat helps separate the trash/other talk and the actual trades.

Wouldn't solve the problem you're referring to; I assure you that many, if not most, players wouldn't bother using the command prefix, or would never learn about it anyway. At that point, it serves no purpose other than confusion and devaluing Premium. With the added difficulty of having to moderate it against abuse or misuse, which is impossible to do when no staff is present, it won't be happening.

-Spy-Crab Chat - Similar to the Trade Chat suggestion, this will help make spy-crab call outs in chat much more easier. I know I would find this very useful because of ban reports, doing spy crabs, and watching spy crabs, in which I can easily find the spy crab chat.

Possible, though the problem of abuse/misuse is still present. Finding a different method of implementation would likely be needed.

-Allow trade offer links - I know the rule of no posting links in chat, but could there be an exception for trade offer links? And just to make sure it's not a phishing link.. Add something where it can highlight the legit, steam/valve verified links so that people (even newbs) know that it won't lead to a bad link.

Seeing as the link rule is mainly to prevent phishing, I can try to write a plugin that allows links pointing to certain domains based on a whitelist, Steam Community being one of them. Might not see it on the server for awhile, even if it's approved, but we'll discuss it.

-Auto-detect chat spam - if someone is chat spamming, and there is nobody on the server to report, then this thing would stop the chat spammer. I have no idea how this would work, I am just giving a suggestion.

Already present, actually. Making the message interval threshold any longer risks blocking legitimate posts. And regardless of where the threshold is, it's easy enough for a spammer to write a script to auto-post anyway.[/quote]

 

[Tick Tock Man]

While I think the idea behind Trade and Spycrab chat is cool - don't see it as being a reasonable addition - a few people would use it, a few would abuse it - the rest would ignore it.....

As for bat, most any weapon spammed can be annoying - so this argument would have equal merit or lack thereof applied to most items... (still damn glad the pan is banned though)

As for links - if they are allowed in any form there will be endless arguments as to why player #1's link is fine and player #2's is not - I think for simplicity's sake just an all out ban on links is the best option. Players still have the option to trade anyone they want to share link with and post it there....
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New suggestions: (Please note that Gatherix has his hands full for some time with ironing out the new store system, as well as addressing the DB issues we have had of late - most if not all of the suggestions will have to be added to the bottom of the Fix-It list, after getting what we already have working smoothly. So even if it's a fan-fucking-tastic suggestion, you will have to have a little patience before we see it in action.)

Have Friendly Mode kill you when you try to take it off. As of now you can resize mini, go friendly and force your way into enemy spawn - where you can engage in killing sprees and toggle Friendly back on when being attacked.....I have no problem with being able to get into enemy spawn, but the toggle for Friendly to allow killing and then invulnerability invites abuse in my opinion. Another option might be a cool-down timer on the toggle like we see with !rtd or store "Effects" function.

Melee-only vote option - certain staff (maybe just Admin to limit it's usage) having the ability to put the melee only option to a server-wide vote.

Friendly Fire - server-wide mayhem vote - this is not only great fun, it also offers the possibility of a new server game - Last Man Standing, for this work as envisaged, respawn would have to be disabled until completion of event, or until Admin ends event.

 

[Stan Radner]

SteamRep Checker: https://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?p=1514234?p=1514234

I had used this on a few of my TF2 servers and a few of the ones I was staff on had also used this.

Monoculus Spawner: https://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?p=1584688?p=1584688

 

[zackychuu]

Have Friendly Mode kill you when you try to take it off. As of now you can resize mini, go friendly and force your way into enemy spawn - where you can engage in killing sprees and toggle Friendly back on when being attacked.....I have no problem with being able to get into enemy spawn, but the toggle for Friendly to allow killing and then invulnerability invites abuse in my opinion. Another option might be a cool-down timer on the toggle like we see with !rtd or store "Effects" function.

Fully agree with this. Would stop any exploits that people seem to use a lot.
Turning it off = insta-kill sounds good to me.

Melee-only vote option - certain staff (maybe just Admin to limit it's usage) having the ability to put the melee only option to a server-wide vote.

Maybe, would like to hear some opinions from server regulars or any others to see if this would actually be liked/used.

Friendly Fire - server-wide mayhem vote - this is not only great fun, it also offers the possibility of a new server game - Last Man Standing, for this work as envisaged, respawn would have to be disabled until completion of event, or until Admin ends event.

No.
I accidentally toggled a FF vote once, it just turns into mayhem.
Constant spawn killing by your own team, not able to even leave the spawn or do anything constructive with your time.
It's a nice idea but it wont go the way you're intending it too.

SteamRep Checker: https://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?p=1514234?p=1514234

We do use a SteamRep checker, I think SteamReps own. If this one isn't that one?
If a person has a Scammer tag while trying to connect, they are auto-banned from the servers for a week.

Monoculus Spawner: https://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?p=1584688?p=1584688

People did seem to like the challenge when we were able to spawn monoculus, but it was always a little buggy with the command.
Could be handy? Leave it up to a vote.

 

[Tick Tock Man]

No.
I accidentally toggled a FF vote once, it just turns into mayhem.
Constant spawn killing by your own team, not able to even leave the spawn or do anything constructive with your time.
It's a nice idea but it wont go the way you're intending it too.
.

As I said, in order for this to be feasible, it would need to be by vote so no one is taken unawares, and respawn would need to be disabled for duration of the FF - thus eliminating any repetitive spawn killing by your own team.....somebody has to be last man standing in each spawn, and they would have to fight it out in the common area.
This would of course have to be an admin controlled event (hence the need for the admin to initiate the vote) - and be of limited duration.

Of course if you just turn FF on and leave it mayhem will ensue, that's not what I am suggesting. I have done this event in the past on CSS servers, and as a controlled event it is both manageable and pretty damn fun.

 

[Stan Radner]

As I said, in order for this to be feasible, it would need to be by vote so no one is taken unawares, and respawn would need to be disabled for duration of the FF - thus eliminating any repetitive spawn killing by your own team.....somebody has to be last man standing in each spawn, and they would have to fight it out in the common area.
This would of course have to be an admin controlled event (hence the need for the admin to initiate the vote) - and be of limited duration.

Of course if you just turn FF on and leave it mayhem will ensue, that's not what I am suggesting. I have done this event in the past on CSS servers, and as a controlled event it is both manageable and pretty damn fun.

You could simply make an area where friendly fire is allowed instead of having server-wide chaos. Have an extra area in the Plaza where friendly fire is allowed and then someone could build a teleporter or you could teleport them to you via commands.

That way the people who do not want to participate can stay on the server and not worry about being forced into something they don't want to be a part of.

 

[Cmp™]

Of course if you just turn FF on and leave it mayhem will ensue, that's not what I am suggesting. I have done this event in the past on CSS servers, and as a controlled event it is both manageable and pretty damn fun.

I agree with Tick here. Gatherix turned on FF in Blue spawn on plaza a couple days ago. The only rule was melee only. Otherwise, it was fair game. And we had a lot of fun. Of course, there were a couple asshats that kept pulling out miniguns, but they were dealt with pretty quickly.

 

[Tick Tock Man]

You could simply make an area where friendly fire is allowed instead of having server-wide chaos. Have an extra area in the Plaza where friendly fire is allowed and then someone could build a teleporter or you could teleport them to you via commands.

That way the people who do not want to participate can stay on the server and not worry about being forced into something they don't want to be a part of.

I do not believe you can create a FF area for the map - you can limit what weapons or slot actions are used - but I do not think you can selectively toggle FF by map coding...

Anybody with mapping experience care to weigh in here?

I agree with Tick here. Gatherix turned on FF in Blue spawn on plaza a couple days ago. The only rule was melee only. Otherwise, it was fair game. And we had a lot of fun. Of course, there were a couple asshats that kept pulling out miniguns, but they were dealt with pretty quickly.

Agreed, in order for this work you would need to limit all but melee weapons - at least as an organized server function. That and respawn temporarily disabled would force the inevitable outcome of 1 player left from each side.

 

[Stan Radner]

I do not believe you can create a FF area for the map - you can limit what weapons or slot actions are used - but I do not think you can selectively toggle FF by map coding...

Anybody with mapping experience care to weigh in here?

You could possibly use a plugin where you define an area in the map and set a configuration. So you could set one area where as soon as a player enters it they now have weapon restrictions, respawn restrictions (or they just respawn in the normal map spawn), and friendly fire is enabled. I'm not sure if such a plugin exists at the moment or if it does then I'm not aware of it.

 

[Tick Tock Man]

Weapons limitations are common, as are no kill areas, however I do not believe that you can code into a limited area of the map the ability to redirect the player targeting system, that functionality is controlled by the server config, and is generally server wide.

At any rate, I am pretty sure it would be far simpler for implementation and use to just have a server wide limited-duration event, which could be activated on all servers if desired without the need to try config a different plugin location setup for the 5 different maps currently running on Darkly Servers....

 

[14bux]

I still think the servers should have Halloween enabled. Draw in some people and I- I mean we can show off Halloween stuff.