Official Servers

[Phytotron]

I just can't be bothered to break down every post made on this page, and as Lucifer said, this isn't really the thread for deciding definitively what these official servers will look like, physics-wise, anyway. However, I do want to quickly comment on Monkey's last comment, since it hadn't been mentioned explicitly to that point. I strongly suggest that any official server should not have a CYCLE_DELAY any lower than 0.08. Personally, if this were my game, I would hard-code it at 0.1, but as it isn't I have to recognize the reality of stupidly low CYCLE_DELAY (and the abuse thereof with multibinding) throughout this game.

So, I think 0.08 is low enough for a newbie to notice that people can make turns tighter than ordinarily humanly possible (and then ask about it and learn about stupid damn multibinding), but without that low delay being such a cheap advantage against said newbies or others who only turn as humans rather than letting the game do the work for them.

And yeah, high rubber should be entirely omitted from these servers. Even what many of you newer players consider "low rubber" (which isn't at all) is plenty for newbies to recognize there's some sort of hidden force there that keeps them from instantly derezzing on a wall. We shouldn't be encouraging higher values as standard, though. It should be seen as the aberration it is.

[Durf]

And yeah, high rubber should be entirely omitted from these servers. Even what many of you newer players consider "low rubber" (which isn't at all) is plenty for newbies to recognize there's some sort of hidden force there that keeps them from instantly derezzing on a wall. We shouldn't be encouraging higher values as standard, though. It should be seen as the aberration it is.

^ this is the kind of prejudice I'm talking about.
Racing has high rubber (and is sometimes necessary for the function of the game type).
Fast Track's acceleration changes "how much rubber you have". It's lower than you think in relative comparison; not to mention all the other servers with more unique settings (including melodious tron, the map editing server, and other experiments I've done).

Just because ONE of THOUSANDS of settings is higher than the default (or what you expect/want it to be), doesn't make the settings "broken". And like I said, it takes time to find the specific configuration of all the settings that make a game type actually viable.

Even if high rubber gameplay was completely broken, there's still the possibility that a large group of people will enjoy it regardless (we're not all haters).
Saying that any/all settings with a higher rubber setting is prejudice - and overall more harmful than anything.

Like I said, I don't expect you to understand, but that doesn't mean others wouldn't. Just because you don't like (seemingly ALL) high rubber servers, it doesn't mean that others are so limited in that same way.

[sinewav]

Hey guys, let's all try to get back on topic. Can we make a list of things needed to get this idea off the ground?

One concern I have is, if a server is to be included in the distribution there needs to be a way to cleanly reset any settings it changes. Adding INCLUDE settings.cfg at the beginning of every custom.cfg is one step in that direction, but I think it is important to keep custom settings out if they can't be easily overwritten with default values.

Also, there are already a couple configs already distributed with the game (breakfast, fort_soccer, teamsumo). How about someone host these as-is right now? We can start testing the branding and moderation and see what happens. How hard would it be to create a proof of concept build that switches between breakfast and the default local game?

Regarding branding, Arma has none. Not even colors. Will servers in the browser simply say "OFFICIAL" in white text? Clearly, official servers need to be part of a managed subculture to avoid spoofing. It doesn't seem like it would be difficult to create that subculture now with the configs already included with Arma.

[Ratchet]

Like I said, I don't expect you to understand, but that doesn't mean others wouldn't. Just because you don't like (seemingly ALL) high rubber servers, it doesn't mean that others are so limited in that same way.

Please do everyone a favor and remove yourself from this productive (so far) thread. You're back to making ignorant statements because others don't share the same viewpoint as you.

"I don't expect you to understand"

Get over yourself already.

Also, agreed sinewav. We could put together a CFG containing settings that all servers should contain (perhaps regarding access_level and such things). Sort of like a ladle CFG

[Lucifer]

I just can't be bothered to break down every post made on this page, and as Lucifer said, this isn't really the thread for deciding definitively what these official servers will look like, physics-wise, anyway. However, I do want to quickly comment on Monkey's last comment, since it hadn't been mentioned explicitly to that point. I strongly suggest that any official server should not have a CYCLE_DELAY any lower than 0.08. Personally, if this were my game, I would hard-code it at 0.1, but as it isn't I have to recognize the reality of stupidly low CYCLE_DELAY (and the abuse thereof with multibinding) throughout this game.

I used to run it at 0.1. I always liked that. I was pleased when Fortress adopted it.

[Lucifer]

To reiterate, for those who can't stay on topic (Durf!), this topic is about working out the technical feasibility and whether or not any code changes have to happen (They do, guaranteed), and if so, what they are.

Until people start putting up servers and saying "This is what I think an official server should be", we have absolutely nothing to go on.

So let's not argue about physics here and focus on setting up the network of servers. We'll start with several proof-of-concept servers, and then I will ask people to put up servers they'd like to work with.

Before you get your panties in a wad over that, keep in mind that when I ask, I'll be asking for what amounts to a rough draft, not a finished server (and I don't expect to have finished servers).

The concern has been raised that if official servers change their settings, we'd like the local game servers to reflect that. A simple RINCLUDE should help that along a lot, and that adds some obvious requirement to official servers. In terms of research, I'm not advanced enough to determine how to work that out, it's simply worth mentioning now because it's come up.

But even without that, we've got plenty of time to come to some sort of agreed upon final 0.4 settings for these servers so we can bundle their settings in the release. And they'd have to stay at those settings for some time after the release, but we do expect some divergence at some point.

[vov]

Last stuff about physics here, I promise: There is this. It contains some stuff mostly from past servers, and it works on servers (and clients) that change settings a lot. If some of these in current or altered form are attractive enough to be on a standard/official status then go nuts with it. Would need to be made fully local too.
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@sinewav: There is a config_rotation command, it works just like the map_rotation that AoT-Racing had. You could easily switch up settings every match (or every few matches) with that. Piece of cake.

The one issue with settings.cfg is there is some netcode stuff in it, as well as resource_repo_... settings. The needed structure for servers that change them would be then:

Code: Select all

# resets
include settings.cfg
include server_netsettings.cfg #  server_info.cfg can probably be that.
# custom stuff below

There's also a slightly uglier reset here. It's manually done and also accounts for sty+ct stuff but it's worked for everything I've done with it so far.

About official servers in general, what about some nice helptexts about how to play and maybe tips? /help and /teach are terribly underused commands right now in my experience.

[sinewav]

@sinewav: There is a config_rotation command, it works just like the map_rotation that AoT-Racing had.

Thank you, I am aware. I used it for AoT MAZE-A-TRON, which was the first exclusively single player game with levels here in Armagetron. If this official server business takes off (and I have time) a remix of this server is in order.

About official servers in general, what about some nice helptexts about how to play and maybe tips? /help and /teach are terribly underused commands right now in my experience.

Agrees 100%

[/dev/null]

Ill put it this way,

The old setting made a shit ton of gods and great people. High rubber has made maybe two or three people worth a ****.

[/dev/null]

If we want people to enjoy tron, jackass tron wont do the trick.

[Phytotron]

"Hi, I'm a multibind bashing, high rubber, dogfight, CTF player, and welcome to Jackass Tron."

[Monkey]

I agree with something that Lucifer said in another thread but it's more suited to this thread so I'll post about it here.

I believe that we must have "official" servers of all levels of difficulty if we want to keep people permanently in the community. Why? Well, "official" servers should be there to provide a great playing environment and once players' skills improve they will naturally want to try more difficult servers. Most of these players (assholes excluded) will still want to play in a great playing environment. The idea that once players are good enough they don't need to be playing in official servers is wrong. Personally speaking, I would like to play in official servers most of the time.

In order for this to work, we need some kind of difficulty rating system for servers that is simple for users to understand (slightly more than what we have in 0.4 at the moment); I'm thinking of having something like four or five different levels of difficulty (beginner/intermediate/advanced/expert). I'm guessing that the master browser list could be altered to encorporate this?

[Lucifer]

I believe that we must have "official" servers of all levels of difficulty if we want to keep people permanently in the community. Why? Well, "official" servers should be there to provide a great playing environment and once players' skills improve they will naturally want to try more difficult servers. Most of these players (assholes excluded) will still want to play in a great playing environment. The idea that once players are good enough they don't need to be playing in official servers is wrong. Personally speaking, I would like to play in official servers most of the time.

Um, while that's not exactly what I meant, I happen to agree 100% with what you're saying. I'd agree more than 100%, but that's mathematically impossible and only posers do that shit.

Yeah, official servers should server a variety of difficulty levels. I agree with that so much, I mean, I can't even say how much I agree with that.

The question to me is how do we provide that without having Just Another List of Random Servers for Users to Pick.

Also, there's another part of the topic that you sorta bring up, and we've all sorta discussed, but I guess it's the white elephant in the room.

What happens when a player wants to explore past these servers?

We've been assuming that they're on their own, and on the level of implementation, that's how we have to deal with it, but we all know damned well that's not what we want to do. We want to send these users off to the wilderness with good hopes, and we want them to come back with positive experiences, or we want them to stay in the wilderness because they found a place for themselves.

Right? That's what we want?

Another role these official servers will play is simply "how do you expect a game server to be run?". Yes, individual server operators can do whatever the **** they want, there's no argument about THAT.

But if we're trying to promote particular attitudes, and we're creating servers to do that, AND we're having a higher player retention rate on those servers, then the other servers will hopefully follow the lead. They might have differences of opinion and do a few things different, but in general, the attitude we express with these official servers will be expected from other servers.

So these servers will take a leading role. Their admins will be automatic leaders in the community.

I had other thoughts, but I'm kinda drunk, so I won't go into those until I've thought them through when not drunk...

[Word]

So, are you going to make these servers point people to the new competition forums and vice versa?

[Amaso]

Ggs we got no where