TF2 Newbs (Team Fortress 2) Blog

So yesterday there was quite a bit of lag on #4, after being alerted I hopped on and saw that indeed, lerp was going into the yellow or orange, the color is hard to tell on my screen. Anyways, I contacted the hosting provider and they offered me a solution, move to a newer better machine on a faster connection. YAY! But wait…. You have to change ips (again). :( Sad Cakes for all.

So, I could choose between keeping the ip:port we have, and get reports of lag that I can’t do much with (except open a ticket) and all they’ll tell me to do is move, OR get to start from scratch as far as favorites/history goes and try to advertise the new site.

I chose the new machine. But, I had a really GOOD idea. Rather then wait until some future date where it became a problem, I also asked that they also move #7 (since so far it hasn’t got a huge following). They graciously did, and even left the other ones up for the night so I can try to tell the users whats up. I thought this was very nice of them.

So what does this mean to you? It just means that we all need to add the two newer machines to your favorites, the previous #4 and #7 go byebye tonight/tomorrow so better to be prepared, then to be like ‘wtf – where everyone go?’.

The new addresses are:
69.12.37.3:27015 Newbs TF2 #4 (24/7 2Fort) [Octo-land]
69.12.37.14:27015 Newbs TF2 #7 (Rotation) _NOCRIT_ [Devil Link]

Hopefully they stay at these new addresses for a long time, because I for one am tired of having to beg people to change to a different server, or to ask them to favorite new servers. =)

Oh, in other news #1, #2, and #3 may or may not be going away, I thought they were dead dead, but then it got postponed, and now may have been completely taken off of the table. Be aware that those machines do sometimes get a little laggy, but they do have a solid following so they do fill up quickly.

Oh, also I’ve been keeping track of which people start up servers, so don’t think your efforts are going unnoticed, I’m just saving up kudos to unleash all at once.

-octo

Respawn times are one of those necessary evils of the world, well unless you want a more death match style game, but I don’t think games like Counter Strike and Team Fortress 2 are aiming for that sort of pure dm style. I personally think Valve handled the respawn times pretty well overall. Not everyone agrees with it though, take this recent player for example:

Why is the respawn so long on this server? Just to be annoying?

Unfortunately, its not my sick cruel sense of humor which drives the respawn time to seem ‘so long’. I think I might even put in a trigger where ‘respawn’ and ‘long’ in the same sentence sends a message to the player saying ‘blame valve’.

I don’t blame valve though, I compliment them for the intelligent design of the respawning system. Like all good things, the parts I hate about the respawn waves also are the parts I love about the respawn waves. Generally it all comes down to if I’m doing the dying, or the killing.

Let me do a big massive quote from their blog post:

Respawn waves occur on regular intervals, based on the map settings. Most of our maps use a 10 second respawn wave time. That 10 seconds is then modified by the map state, generally reduced for the team that controls the most capture points. Each team’s respawn wave time is then scaled down if the team has less than 8 players in it, to a minimum of 5 seconds if team has 3 or less players in it. When you die, you are assigned to the respawn wave after the next one. So if the respawn wave time is currently 10 seconds for your team, you’ll respawn somewhere between 10 and 20 seconds from your death.

So, if you kill someone, they have to wait for a little bit, then they get to spawn with other people who died around the same time as them. This allows the soldier/medic combo that got mowed down by a heavy to spawn at the exact same time, and try to get back into the action together.

Now the bad part of this is that if you die RIGHT as a wave happened, you get bumped into the wave AFTER the upcoming one (which could land you with a 20 second respawn) – a portion of this respawn is ate up by the kill cam, but thats a completely different topic.

Very soon after Valve released TF2 the admin mod and sourcemod plugin folks hurried and added options for faster spawn, they accomplish this a variety of ways, either altering the map (or now server mp_) respawnwavetime or subverting the entire wave system and instaspawning, or simulating a delayed spawn (player dies, count 10 seconds and spawn). These servers appear to outweigh the stock servers, at least in popularity. This causes some confusion since the average player does not know the mechanics of the respawn system.

Now, the next question I usually get is ‘well why are they stock on your servers’. On the Newbs 2Fort servers they will likely always be set to stock for 2 reason:

1) Due to our server name, we do attract newer players, I firmly believe that new players should get a feel for the game as it came, and then if they prefer faster times they can find a different server to fit their needs. Its a lot harder to get used to a long wait than a short one.

2) The respawn wave is perfectly timed for 2fort intel runs. You kill a guy in courtyard, grab the intel, he spawns just in time to kill you at the top of spiral/straight. I actually enjoy this on both sides, since I know damn well they’ll be there when I got the intel, and I bank on it when I’m trying to defend as I get a little adrenaline boost while waiting in spawn to run out and set up an sg.

Hopefully that helps explain why the respawns seem so long.

Here is a collection of comments made on one of the servers, over the past 2 months:

Wow thats a long respawn
Why is the respawn so long on this server? Just to be annoying?
long respawn
longest respawn timer ever
man the respawn is WAY too long on this server >.<
nggaaaaaaaaaaa long respawn :oP love it
long ass respawn
jesus - could respawn take a little longer?
long respawn time ftl
damned long respawn times
very long respawn times
respawn is too long
wtf. god dang. this server has long respawn. i dont remeber it being this long.
why the long respawn time?
damn respawns are to long
that was a long respawn, yeesh.
such long respawn time T-T *cry*
long respawn times
these respawns times arnt long enough
respawn time takes too long
holy shit long ass respawn time
dammit david i hate this long respawn time
y does it take so long to respawn
takes too long to respawn
respawn is too long lol
uggg hate this long respawn
damn long respawns
i hate long respawn times
And why is respawn time sudenly so long?
gah! long respawn
Fuck this long-ass respawn >_<

We’re seeing big changes with the Newbs servers as of late, here’s the scoop..

Headshot + Grey Devils Server: Incentives are being offered for those who help to make this new server stronger. A rotation server that has a few tweaks for your slaughtering pleasure.. Crab battle sound effects during melee, Crits are off, FF at the end of the round WITH crits, Sudden death melee rounds, rock the vote.. Couple of tricks with the Newbs stamp of approval : ) 72.51.44.144 check it out.

Donations/Engineer Corps: I’m sure some of you have noticed some changes with the forums. Those who create content, and donate to keep our servers running strong are recognized on the forums and on the HLXStats. There’s a lot of developments in this area, so stay tuned.

Honorz on the forums: Honorz awarded to players who exhibit extreme abilities are now visible under your avatar on the forums. Thanks to octo’s pro coding skills.. Expect a lot more honorz to come.

and that’s what’s up.

Jib.

What it is?! its time for some well deserved bloggage.

-We’re currently looking for more people to start the servers in the early AM. Doing so not only makes you a badass.. It could earn you a reserved slot. : )

-Octos working on a ton of new stuff for the site. Any user generated content would be much appreciated. If you don’t have some.. nows a good time to make some right?

-And last but not least, just wanted to let you guys know lions are going to the playoffs this year and I might even say the divisional championships. NFL opening day w00t.

ah.. i feel better
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SCREENSHOTS

Nothing a few stickies can’t fix (smettbo)

wait a minute.. where’s gggly at again? (grey dev)

HALLO (steven)

nomnomnom

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h0norz!

Ahh yes.. Feels like we’ve visited this topic before but this ones a little different. We did Honorz Octo and Golden Marmoset for their ability to be a teamplayer.. Sacrificing and such. This Honorz vote is in honor of the players who Organize, Verbalize, and Materialize.. offensive strategies (it rhymed.. okay?) So yea. the guy yelling SPY BEHIND YOU SPY BEHIN… damn. he’s team’n it up alright? This guy (or girl.. ) Is known for keeping things in order, letting teh team know they are sucking the big one because they are composed of 5 spies and 4 snipers. This guy may be on the mic, sayin ‘hey. it’s about time we stopped turtling.. and smashed these pansies’…
Well.. they don’t HAVE to say that.. that actually sounds like something I’d say so.. you get the drift. And by the new style of honorz votes (since we have so many badass people to consider) we went off the nomination system. So all of these people were nominated by someone else (or themselves??)

OctoDhd	10 (10.9%)
Kain Phalanx	11 (12%)
Scott Eats Bullets	7 (7.6%)
Koansrus	6 (6.5%)
DOA b0n3s	4 (4.3%)
Grey Devil	4 (4.3%)
Dingo	10 (10.9%)
Chodesweat	1 (1.1%)
Zapfacid	5 (5.4%)
Hal Jordan	9 (9.8%)
Mr Hanky	3 (3.3%)
Dondi	3 (3.3%)
Major Dewar	1 (1.1%)
Aristotle	5 (5.4%)
Orsa	0 (0%)
Jackapples	1 (1.1%)
Bulldog	4 (4.3%)
YOU’RE ALL SPIES	4 (4.3%)
CroutonMagilicutty	1 (1.1%)
TracerHawk	2 (2.2%)
(D.O.A.) Sodapopinski	1 (1.1%)
LeeTagger	0 (0%)
iMouse	0 (0%)

Congrats to Kain Phalanx, Octo, and Dingo for recieving the honorz of Teamwork!11

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Whats h0t

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RPOTD

fail

BE FAMOUS

-JiBlet

Have you spent the past 10 months wishing you could make a funny short movie starring a cast of happy Team Fortress 2 Characters? Nope, me neither – Just kidding ;)   But now that I have read this spiffy new face poser tutorial by TF2 Newbs own [MLW] Maj. Cottonmouth for beginners I’m starting to get a lot of ideas on things I’d like to see done :)

Major Cottonmouth’s tutorial takes you step by step through the entire process of creating a simple short animated short that is well within all of our reach.

The tutorial consists of 49 (or is it 50?) pictures with helpful ‘click here’ style notes to make the process as easy as possible for first timers.   So if you have a little bit of time, and are able to read – check it out, create your own machinima, and drop me a line to have it showcased on our website / blog (the video section is coming very soon).

Big ups to Maj. Cottonmouth.  I can’t wait to read the next one in the series.