tourney with prize money

Sabarai · Post by **Sabarai** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 1:22 pm

not only in toronto, but how about amsterdam or utrecht??? that'd give me ownage ping ^^

ishAdmin · Post by **ishAdmin** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 2:45 pm

eggcozy wrote:I'm in. I get internet on saturday ... hope I'm in time.

You've got time. I can only do this on a weekend, and I'm not free this weekend. So it will be next at the earliest. When I work out the details, I'll post stuff about it here and on my website, including a paypal link etc.

Actually, I could use some advice on how to manage a tron tournament, as I've personally never done it before. I was thinking of asking those who are eliminated to switch to spectator mode, so they can continue to watch. Is the honour system good for this?

But also, since I run this dedicated, can I run the dedicated server interactively? I.E. in the foreground? And if I do that, can I issue commands to it? If nothing else, I'd like to be able to SAY some stuff, like who has been eliminated etc. I'd like to have some warm up matches, and officially start the tournament when everyone has been logged in for at least one match of the warm up. So, if I could officially state when tournament matches begin, that would be good. Also, if I have to, can I kick a player in 2.6?

And I will practice all these actions beforehand so I don't noob the tournament to death.

/dev/null · Post by **/dev/null** » Wed Nov 17, 2004 4:27 am

If I can dig up 5 bucks im in.
Also, what OS are you running, you should be able to load the program from a prompt and use it interactivly

Post by **Lucifer** » Wed Nov 17, 2004 6:06 am

ishAdmin wrote: But also, since I run this dedicated, can I run the dedicated server interactively? I.E. in the foreground? And if I do that, can I issue commands to it? If nothing else, I'd like to be able to SAY some stuff, like who has been eliminated etc. I'd like to have some warm up matches, and officially start the tournament when everyone has been logged in for at least one match of the warm up. So, if I could officially state when tournament matches begin, that would be good. Also, if I have to, can I kick a player in 2.6?

And I will practice all these actions beforehand so I don't noob the tournament to death.

Here's what I suggest you start with, during your practice runs. And do it far enough in advance that the master server list won't be an issue.

Armagetron (2.6 should do this too, I don't think it was a change in 2.7 but could be wrong) automatically tries to bind itself to the first port. If it fails, it tries the second port, and so on until it finds an available port in its range of ports. So you keep your regular server at its regular niceness, you might also renice it to like 5 or higher or something during the tourney. That way, people who see it on the master server browser will go to it and play it like normal.

This isn't the good bit.

So you create a new config and data directory for the tourney. You should be able to just copy what you've got, but I'd clear out the var directory so Armagetron will automatically track won rounds/won matches for the tourney. If you can keep your tourney rules in such a way that you can just use the regular stat files to determine a victor, then you're in good shape.

I'm not yet at the good bit.

Then you ssh into the box and run it. If you telnet into the box, the telnet daemon will time out (learned this the hard way when I was baby-sitting champions). Timeouts shouldn't happen with ssh. It's my experience, anyway, that ssh doesn't timeout a connection, it could just be my settings. When you run armagetron from within your ssh client, you'll have access to the console. You'll see all the chat and stuff, and you can use commands like "say", "kick", and so forth. Just like you have in your everytime.cfg file "kick Player 1", you can kick people from the console. *ALL* config commands are available from the console.

I'm not at the good bit yet.

So you do that for awhile. When you're satisfied with your results, a day or so before the actual tourney, you go into your tourney server's config files and set "BIG_BROTHER" to 0 so it won't report to the master server. In fact, I'd run it once before trying to make sure that it won't report to the master server later on. Then set it to 1, make sure it has a unique name (like "ish tourney test server") or something, so people will come in and play it while you're testing. Then you can experiment with kicking players and get acquainted with the console.

THEN, aha, this is the good bit. The good bit is this:

A day or two before the tourney, you email all the players with your IP address and the port number, and instructions on how to use "custom connect" to connect to the tourney server. You give them the IP address and port of the regular server and invite them to try that a few times before the tourney to make sure they know what they're doing. You also make sure to remind them what the correct port number is for the tourney server (which can be any arbitrary port, thanks to the config file) and to make sure their custom connect settings will be pointed at the right port. You might even run it for a day or two without reporting to big brother so that players can test and make sure they can connect to the actual tourney server. Then reset the tourney server stats right before the tourney itself.

Post by **Tank Program** » Wed Nov 17, 2004 6:39 am

[quote="Lucifer"]"BIG_BROTHER" to 0 so it won't report to the master server./quote]I hate to be a spoil sport, but that's not the command that affects reporting to the master server... That command is the one for collecting client data on what gfx, etc, they're using.

Code: Select all

TALK_TO_MASTER 0     # set this to 1 if you want this server to be known
                     # on the internet

is the one you want.

ishAdmin · Post by **ishAdmin** » Wed Nov 17, 2004 4:32 pm

Thanks lucy and tank. I was planning on doing a lot of that. You've pointed out a couple of things I hadn't thought of.

As I'm running 2.6, there isn't any chat, but I can hang in there as a spectator for see that.

Telnet is forbidden on my server. For the obvious security reasons. SSH will time out *if* nothing is going between the connection. As long as I'm receiving data at my end, it will stay connected.

When I'm running the tourney, I won't be running any other game at the same time. And I will use a secret port and not report to the master server. I'll also do the bulk of what you suggested. Clearing the stats before the tourney stats is a good thing, but I'd also like a snap shot of each match end, what everybody's points were. I could manually copy the players.txt file, but I'd like something more automatic. If this is too complicated, I might have to change how I wanted to run the game. I.E. instead of eliminating the lowest score at the end of each match, have a longer match and the top score wins. I don't like that format though.

One more thing I just thought of. Can I be interactive with the game *and* also log the game output to a file? I could always parse that data to rebuild the standings for each match end.

Also, can I switch a player to spectator mode in 2.6? OK, I can kick him, but can I take him out of the game play without kicking him?

Post by **Lucifer** » Wed Nov 17, 2004 4:35 pm

ishAdmin wrote: One more thing I just thought of. Can I be interactive with the game *and* also log the game output to a file? I could always parse that data to rebuild the standings for each match end.

2.6-specific questions I can't answer, I've only used the 2.7 server.

Bash magic will probably get you this last bit, but I don't recall off the top of my head how to do it.

ishAdmin · Post by **ishAdmin** » Wed Nov 17, 2004 4:36 pm

thanks, I'll look into that.

Post by **Tank Program** » Wed Nov 17, 2004 5:17 pm

ish, have you ever looked at scorelog.txt? it contains well, a score log, including the points at the end of a round...

ishAdmin · Post by **ishAdmin** » Wed Nov 17, 2004 7:34 pm

Tank Program wrote:ish, have you ever looked at scorelog.txt? it contains well, a score log, including the points at the end of a round...

Well, DUH!

Nope, forgot it existed. Reminds me of the time I went to the hardware store and bought a saw. Came home to put it away, and found one just like it already there that I bought the year before and forgot all about.

It could be worse, I kooda useta bin smart.

Pirate · Post by **Pirate** » Wed Nov 24, 2004 10:58 pm

bump.. so whats up, is this thing happening?

ishAdmin · Post by **ishAdmin** » Wed Nov 24, 2004 11:19 pm

It will happen, but I have a fire I have to put out. Big customer, big project sorta stuff. And then I'm going to upgrade to a new server. (This is actually easier than upgrading every single piece of software, and then watching my control panel break).

So, what I'll do is have the tournament when I get the new server *before* I put any websites etc. on it. We'll get to enjoy an empty server running only Armagetron in a data centre, maybe even with the firewall off.

I will keep everyone posted on the timing of this. First I have to finish my current project. Then I have to order the server and install armagetron on it. I will notify everyone, let it run for practice, then have the tourney. And then I'll promptly overload it again so we can all enjoy lots of lag like normal. Actually, I fully expect a fair amount of lag even with an empty server. It will be interesting to see.

Stay tuned ...

Pirate · Post by **Pirate** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 1:06 am

bump, im not giving up on this idea yet.

ishAdmin · Post by **ishAdmin** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 2:46 pm

me neither.

It just has to wait for my upcoming server juggling. Work is getting in the way of that.

root down · Post by **root down** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 5:21 pm

me neither.

It just has to wait for my upcoming server juggling. Work is getting in the way of that.