Hello everyone,
The opening of DM server is not news to most I presume, but not for all and also is it not known by all what we have accomplished now and wish to accomplish in the near future. Here is your answer.
A couple of weeks ago, Reaver and I were curious what TT would have fixed for DM server in our glory days. Reaver patched the server to run server side TT and we found it was compatible with our version of the old DM server. We hosted a couple of games and to our great surprise the server actually filled up a few minutes after being hosted. We gave it some thought and poked our inactive clan mates a bit to see if there was still a player base possible for this. There was. This all + the fact we could rent a server capable of handling DM server for 55 USD a month we decided to continue with the plan. Reaver would revise all the maps, and I would work on the new entertainment bot with the new knowledge I gained about scripting since I last made a bot. In our quest to make the best DM server Renegade has ever seen we had help from the Exodus staff and some people outside of Exodus, and before I say anything else I wish to thank the following people:
Special thanks:
Arnyswart - for helping us get a server @ Core Networks. Thank you Arny, we would not have had this cheap ass server with good tech support if it wasn't for you! Many thanks mate!
DethDeath - for providing us the OS we run on the box, and helping out with the technicalities when setting it up. You're kindness is very much appreciated, thank you double Dee!
Cunin - for too many things, but amongst the biggest; installing the OS via some weird ass java thing (MKV) and even updating windows and what not, and making a super cool ranking script for the entertainment bot. Thanks Cunin!
Ethenal - for helping us with the plugins, the brenbot and the entertainment bot scripts. Thanks dude, I really appreciate all the time you have put into this. You've been a great help. Thank you Ethenal.
I would also like to thank Iran, for making a 5 min wait after suicide before suiciding again SSGM plugin. Although the plugin does not work right now (which I suspect is because of something on our end) we wish to thank you for taking the time to write it. Thank you for that.
Further more I wish to thank everyone who has been playing on the DM server while it was in its early beta stage and reported bugs to us. You're all awesome people.
Why this name?
The name of the server was just a funny moment between reaver and I. We already made a Nitro server, so the next one should be a Turbo server, we reasoned. Because we ran TT (Tiberian Technologies patch)and were making all sorts of new tech things, the name Turbo Technologies was mentioned. We both liked the ring it had to it, roles well out of ones mouth, and it also will spark curiosity amongst the players who see the name and may help them decide to check it out. I think it has done that.
What did we accomplish up to now?
The maps:
Reaver is revising all the maps and making a few new ones (surprise surprise, I can't say yet). We aim to have everything server side. As soon as TT becomes mandatory we may consider to make it so people need to download something before they can play (i.e. visibility fixed maps). The maps will be improved to ensure "fair" game play. I.e. certain maps will not have an obelisk gun, or an orca/apache. Maps will be made so people can find their way out of special spawns if they don't know what to do there (teleporter). There will be hidden teleporter secrets that will take you to tugged away stashes filled with goodies. We only tell a bunch of people how to get there, and we will change them as soon as they become a problem
And best yet, you spawn as a random character. This includes the civilians and mutants from the missions. The place where a certain kind of character spawns might be related to their role in the missions. Kane and Lock will likely spawn at the AGT/Obgun spawns. Gunner will spawn in the Barracks on M00_Tutorial, and mutants will spawn near a tiberium field, etc. The TurboBot:
The TurboBot is the entertainment bot that provides most events ingame with a host message, a sound for all to hear, a sound for 1 player to hear, a private message to a player or automated qkicks and bans for abusers or cheaters. It might do more. At this point it is by far my most complicated creation ever when it comes to scripting. It is scripted to trigger the above things on certain events. A lot of messages are randomly picked from a list. So when you kill yourself it will no longer be "killed their dumb selves" but any number of randomly picked cheaky ass comment. It will report on special kills, like C4 kills and weak weapon kills. Currently the following weapons will trigger a complementary event: pistols, mendoza flamethrower, AI repairgun, Reck-0-Matic 2000 (long story), reconbike, cargo truck, and all the C4 (proxy, remote, timed). The TurboBot essentially uses the BrenBot interface (the IRC channel) and uses that to trigger events. It also comes with a bunch of new commands. The commands need to be used from ingame in general chat (F2). You can use a partial nickname (so when player is -DM-reckneya the word reck would probably suffice).
!fun commands
!marry <nick>
!divorce <nick>
!expose <nick>
!pwn <nick>
!afk
!kickme
!back
!di (displays a random Dutch insult or joke prompted as if said by you)
!troll commands:
!sue <nick> <reason>
!find <nick> <what you want to find of them>
!give <nick> <what you want to give them>
!mark <nick> <what you want to mark them as>
!extras commands:
!time (shows the current time)
!date (shows the current date)
!day (shows the current day)
!site (shows exodus site)
!irc (shows the IRC which forwards to exodus irc)
!ts (shows the TS3 which forwards to exodus ts)
!english (when people are talking in a foreign language, it shows the specific rule about that)
!suicide (when people are suicide abusing it shows the specific rule about that)
!request command:
!request (kill, moderator, teamchange, reckneya, reaver11, credits, kick, date)
Most these commands do essentially nothing. They won't stick like a !n00b tag. It will only trigger a combination of funny messages and sounds. It's just for funs and nothing else. I encourage you to try them out. They're hellafun!
The BRenBot:
BRenBot is the server regulator. It allows us admins and mods to control the game while in the game, or in IRC. We can see who killed who using what. We can send messages publicly and privately. Also does it allow us to kick and ban players. Nothing new there. The BRenBot also has a plugin feature and many plugins are available for download. Plugins can be changed to better suite our taste. That's what we did.
Jukebox plugin:
The server now has a (fixed) Jukebox plugin with 23 renesongs in the list. I am still perfecting it, whenever I hear a song play a second too long or too short. Eventually it will be just perfect. The music really sets the atmosphere better.
Ranking plugin:
The ranking plugin ranks by military decorations, which you can achieve by the following:
- Per 5 enemies killed +1 military decoration
- Per 1000 points scored +1 military decoration
- Per 3 heavy enemy vehicles killed +1 military decoration
- Per 100 repair points (repping teammembers or their tanks) +1 military decoration
Also, per 10 deaths you will loose 1 military decoration. And since you can also get minus score points (for killing a vehicle that was last occupied by yourself or a teammate) it might also deduct that from your military decorations, though I have yet to see someone receive -1000 score. Your military rank will be based upon the amount of military decorations you have achieved. Thanks to Ethenal, this rank will also show ingame on your character, where it normally only says private or MVP!! This is the ranking tree:
««unranked»»
-999 to -0 = Civilian Resistance
0 = Civilian
««level 1 - Enlisted Soldier»»
1 to 49 = Recruit
50 to 99 = Private
100 to 199 = Private First Class
200 to 299 = Specialist
««level 2 - Non-commissioned Officer»»
300 to 449 = Corporal
450 to 599 = Sergeant
600 to 749 = Staff Sergeant
750 to 899 = Sergeant First Class
««Level 3 - Non-commissioned Officer»»
900 to 1099 = Master Sergeant
1100 to 1299 = First Sergeant
1300 to 1499 = Sergeant Major
1500 to 1699 = Command Sergeant Major
««Level 4 - Noncommissioned Officer (Special)»»
1700 to 1899 = Sergeant Major of the Army
««Level 5 - Warrant Officer»»
1900 to 2199 = Warrant Officer 1
2200 to 2499 = Chief Warrant Officer 2
2500 to 2799 = Chief Warrant Officer 3
2800 to 3099 = Chief Warrant Officer 4
3100 to 3399 = Chief Warrant Officer 5
««Level 6 - Commissioned Officer»»
3400 to 3799 = Second Lieutenant
3800 to 4199 = First Lieutenant
4200 to 4599 = Captain
««Level 7 - Field Officer»»
4600 to 4999 = Major
5000 to 5499 = Lieutenant Colonel
5500 to 5999 = Colonel
««Level 8 - General Officer»»
6000 to 6999 = Brigadier General
7000 to 7999 = Major General
8000 to 8999 = Lieutenant General
9000 to 9999 = General
««Level 9 - General Officer»»
10000 to 11999 = General of the Army
««Level 10 - Super Hero»»
12000 to 999999 = Chuck Norris
And for the people that are just not so good (f.e. die too much) I made the -1 to -99999 the "Civilian Resistance"
Wish list:
Recommendation:
This is something we only have on paper. Ethenal is helping us out with this. What we want is for the recommendation system to change appearance. We still want to have recommendations for k/d, #kills and # score, and also will BRenBot recommend for every 5 heavy vehicle kills and repairing like a bitch (unlikely to happen on DM though). But we don't want that to be called "recommendations." In stead we want to keep our scenery and call them "honorary medals." The ones that stand loose from official ranking decorations, like purple hearts and alike. Also, we want to change the !rec <player> <reason> command to reflect on this a bit, by changing it to !promote <player> <reason>. More pro in my opinion. The same goes for the !n00b <player> <reason> command, which at this point is nothing less but an insult that stays. Anyone can do it, and it is unprofessional. It only makes sense to change it into !demote <player> <reason>. If all this works the BRenBot will prompt at the start of each map <player> was awarded an honorary medal for best k/d / most points /most kills and will also prompt how many honorary medals a player has achieved at player join. The !tp command (team player) which shows the number of recs achieved by the current people in the server will then also be changed to !medals or or !hm (honorary medals) or something along those lines. Again, Ethenal is looking into that and it is something we want, but don't have yet. I hope Ethenal can figure it out
Veterancy
Also, something we have on our wishing list is a veteran plugin. This means that the more you achieve, the more veteran points you will gain for a specific map. To make sure it doesn't get confusing like it did on st0rm, we will change the titles to Soldier, Officer and Commander for example. These aren't military ranks but field ranks. We could also set it to advanced, veteran and elite. Something along those lines, I think you get the drift. Iran is working on a public version of it. The highest level would be able to use !weap and !char commands and might have other privileges. We will probably edit the plugin, because someone who reaches the highest level is likely to be good already. Making them better even will unbalance the game and we want to prevent that. But it's still going to be fun.
I hope to see you on the server and I hope this project to be fruitful for Renegade as a whole and specifically Exodus as a community and -DM- clan as one of its native inhabitants
LET THE FRAGGING COMMENCE!!
