Getting Up To Speed

[Pilo T]

It's been a long, LONG time. I remembered Tremulous after watching Starship Troopers today with my room mates. I'm interested in giving it another shot, but first I'm wondering if problems have been resolved. Problems like the ones that made me stop playing about 3 years ago.

For those of you who are wondering what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the griefing and hacking that dominated servers back when I played last, and about the lack of effective methods of kicking or banning players.

The game that really turned me off of this game was one of the best matches I've played in any game ever. But that's also why it turned me off. I found a post I made 3 years ago that gives a brief summary of the game and the problems that undid all the intensity and adrenaline.

Yeah, I don't understand why these people want to do it. Like... the lamers I can understand, but I had a game going the other day. It lasted an hour and 3 minutes and it was really intense. It was transit and the humans got massacred by a lightning strike. I didn't load the map properly so I had to reconnect and when I got in the last spawn that I had come out of was getting overrun. I always spawn as a constructor (luckily), so I took my construction kit and ran. I could tell from the console messages that my team had been slaughtered where they stood as I escaped. I built a reactor, a spawn, an armory, and some turrets under the train near the corner (to stay out of Alien sensors as long as possible; I was only delaying the inevitable). My team came back and we built a base real quick. One player, Sniper, ran away from our base. When he gave the signal I deconned the reactor and he rebuilt a more established base. The rest of us then started deconning everything else as quickly as we could. I died as I deconned the last turret as we were overrun by some marauders and a dragoon. We respawned in a tight little area where Tyrants have a very hard time attacking. We got ourselves together and prepared for smaller aliens. We were holding them off and we got a little over confident. Me and a few other guys strayed into the area that was in Tyrant range (unaware that they'd reached Stage 3 through the 2 massacres we went through), and one of them came as a tyrant and completely destroyed us. Eventually WE managed to get to Stage 3 and we turned the tables. We found their base under the train (helmets), and I built a repeater, a spawn, and an armory on top of the train. We quickly destroyed their base, but some grangers got away. They set up somewhere else. This is when the game was like "holy shit this is intense!". I hadn't died in a while, but I finally got killed in a small ambush (I thought I'd found their base, but it was just a large pack of aliens in the big spiral staircase... I still don't know why there were so many of them there). Just then I'd realized there were no spawns. Turns out we had no reactor as well. I was wondering why I hadn't heard a warning that our reactor was under attack, and then someone said that someone from the other team had switched and deconned our base. Our remaining BattleSuits fought long and hard, but committed suicide when they were forced to use their blasters against the entire alien horde (who now had a complete base somewhere else). It could have been an even better game then it was, with a much better ending, but someone had to go and decon the entire base. I don't understand why someone would do that to win, though, cause it's not like they were just trying to piss us off (unless they'd just gotten there maybe, but then why would they switch teams? Why wouldn't they just take out the Alien base to piss people off since that's the team they started on?). I dunno, whatever the case, that was the best game I'd ever played and it could have been far better, so I really think this decon for the win thing needs to stop.

http://tremulous.net/forum/index.php?topic=960.msg8792#msg8792

tl;dr:
Can players be banned by IP now?
Does griefing still run rampant on servers?
Are there any other problems easily and frequently caused by players looking to ruin the game?

If the game is more secure and more fun for people who actually want to play the game, then I'm definitely gonna have to give it a redownload as soon as I get back home for the summer. Hopefully this is the case because Tremulous is a sick fucking game.

[FreaK]

Yes the game is more secure now, griefers can't touch a server with admins on it ( or admins that know what they're doing) because the tools the admins have will fix it.

If they decon, a simple !pause and !revert will fix that.

Hope to see you playing tremulous again

[gimhael]

Also you can register your name with a "GUID" on many servers, which prevents other players to log on with your name and nade the base 5 times in a row by accident. You'll have to download a client that supports this, though.

[Pilo T]

Cool. Thanks for the quick responses guys.

While I'm at it, I might as well ask. Have there been any major gameplay changes in the past 3 years? New abilities or weapons or anything? New maps hopefully?

[Ryanw4390]

Can players be banned by IP now?
Yes

Does griefing still run rampant on servers?
There are still other players that are going to tick you off (bleeders, blockers, etc.) but they don't ruin the game at all. Any sort of deconning can be reverted immediately.

Are there any other problems easily and frequently caused by players looking to ruin the game?
The only time I've had ruined games lately is playing on the Unlimited Buildpoints server with an Extreme SD vote called when my team was about to win the game, otherwise nope.

Have there been any major gameplay changes in the past 3 years?
I think sudden death was around three years ago, but instead of at the end of the game its more towards the middle, like 30 minutes in. Also during SD Armories, Med Stations, and boosters can be rebuilt.

New abilities or weapons or anything? New maps hopefully?
Lots and lots of new maps:

http://mercenariesguild.net/downloads

[Baconizer]

I haven't been around for 3 years, so I don't know what things were like back then. But I can tell you that I, personally, have had little trouble with griefers. Of course they pop up every once in a while, but most of the times their annoyances are temporary, and you won't see them again.

The biggest problem I have is people who have no idea how to work on a team (or how to do anything else, for that matter), will not respond to anything, and won't talk. Stay away from crowded servers, and that's not much of a problem.

In general, the Tremulous player community is one of the best ones I've been a part of.

Hopefully you won't have so much trouble this time.

[UniqPhoeniX]

On servers with good admins there is almost no griefing ever, and as said, deconning can easily be reverted.

Also during SD Armories, Med Stations, and boosters can be rebuilt.

What can be rebuilt depends on the server.

There are no official gameplay changes released afaik except the Tremulous Development Servers where changes for 1.2 are being tested. The server side has been updated a lot (features, bugfixes, tho not gameplay).

For GUID which allows registering your usename on servers and getting admin, get either MG client or TremFusion client.

[Demolution]

When you do get settled you might want to check out the Mods and Mapping areas. A lot of new things have been introduced in three years, such as HUD's, and other smexy things to tickle your interests. Also, check out this topic specifically to see random shots of maps that have been introduced since '07.

It's nice to see old timers coming back to Trem.




P.S. I believe some thing's wrong with your signature code.

[player1]

P.S. I believe some thing's wrong with your signature code.

The initial "[" is missing. iirc, they were all dropped during the switch to SMF. Most of them have been fixed by now, but accounts which have been idle for say, three years, still have that anomaly.

@OP: like Demolution sed: welcome back

[Bissig]

Cool. Thanks for the quick responses guys.

While I'm at it, I might as well ask. Have there been any major gameplay changes in the past 3 years? New abilities or weapons or anything? New maps hopefully?

There are three types of servers these days:

1. More or less Vanilla Trem with some very minor tweaks
2. Medium tweaked servers with mostly Vanilla Trem features and a few changes
3. Totally out of whack servers that seem more like an RPG or totally fucked up item properties

[David]

Other interesting news includes lots of new devs; a failed coup that regrouped as a fork (TF); conspiracy theories about a successful silent coup (MG); lots of good maps, and a bazillion crap ones; the advent of no-name and box-name servers and r1ch's attempt to get rid of them that got him fired; t-shirts for sale; lots of work on 1.2; two admin systems, tjw's has now won and has a million features; the mostly end of deconers, to be replaced by admin-abusers; the advent and mostly end of aimbots; the unlagged wars (eu likes lag, us doesn't); lots of new (still mostly un(officially)released) features; tons of forum drama over who gets to be a mod, and the general demise of these forums as a decent place.

Got to be a ton more than that, but I can't remember most of it.

We need an official tremulous history keeper.

[player1]

i vote for u

nice wrap up

[khalsa]

I vote the wiki is where it should go and you all do it. GOGOGO

[bacon665]

That is sort of the purpose of a wiki.. that and to put the job of keeping it up to date on the communitys shoulders and not one person

[Ivancool]

3. Totally out of whack servers that seem more like an RPG or totally fucked up item properties

Or sports games...

Football!


Obstacles race

[Baconizer]

Obstacle Course can be fun sometimes.

As for football: I don't like football, but I bet that using Dragoons would make it a lot more entertaining. What server may I find this on?

[Ivancool]

Obstacle Course can be fun sometimes.

Yes, mission one is very creative and unique.

As for football: I don't like football, but I bet that using Dragoons would make it a lot more entertaining. What server may I find this on?

X SERVER  (Stadium_b1 map)

[mooseberry]

pass.

[Hendrich]

X SERVER

I stopped there.

[bacon665]

LOL xserver is fun.
it takes forever to finish a game but its well worth it.
On the normal servers aliens get killed with a couple shots, base is dinky and its rarely fun without 12 people

[mooseberry]

ok.

[your face]

tx4inpoot

[Demolution]

Focus.

[Baconizer]

X SERVER

I stopped there.

As did I. 

LOL xserver is fun.
it takes forever to finish a game but its well worth it.
On the normal servers aliens get killed with a couple shots, base is dinky and its rarely fun without 12 people

You, sir, are not worthy of the name "bacon."

[Asvarox]

nukes, rant with 1500 hp and blaster dealing 400 dmg?

pass.

As for Football (tremball), it's on "R Tremball CZ" server

[Ellohir]

You forgot to name the "little contributions" like the Tremstats (a website with players and maps stadistics) and ServerStatus (a website to see players connected "live"), the dynamic MapRotations that change maps depending on the number of players connected... I don't know, there are lots of good stuff around there.

[kevlarman]

the dynamic MapRotations that change maps depending on the number of players connected... I don't know, there are lots of good stuff around there.

those were in 1.1 (see the manual), it just takes reading the source code to figure them out.

[David]

Also the server status pages pre-date tremulous.
And like I said, I missed a lot.

[Urcscumug]

I'm guessing you're not exactly a newbie, but it's probably worth mentioning the Wraths Newbie server. I think the server itself was around 3 years ago as well, but in August last year it sprouted a dedicated newbie server, complete with layouts, bots, lesson matches, newbie-friendly policy and admins, the works.

[floww]

yeah the old servers have still problems with kicks you just can change your name and avoid kick or stuff like this.

its about the server you need to find a trustful server with good admins.

[Paradox]

Problem is, now most of the griefers have become server owners, and run things like X, A, etc, which ARENT the trem you used to know.

[bacon665]

IMO X is better.
Games last longer, you have more build points and a large variety of maps.
alot of servers aside from x,m,and l(did i forget one?) only have the maps that are distributed with trem.
Yes it means you have to download a map, but does anyone really server hop? i usually only play three or 4 servers.

[Paradox]

Not to mention that X has:
Fucked up qvm, but no real additions, just shit in tremulous.h
Dumbass admins, that would make even the griefiest server of yesteryear look bad.
Population made entirely of 12 year olds.

[Asvarox]

I'd accept x,m,l servers if they remove their [][][][][][][][] so I wont listen "I was playing on a strange server yesterday, everyone was nuking map and blaster 1 hit everything".

[bacon665]

Blaster doesnt have one hit kills on everything.
and if you use tremfusion it eliminates the [][][]'s

[Asvarox]

1) Yes, it only does 400 dmg each shot.
2) like 99,9% of players DON'T use Tremfusion. I don't play at X because I know what kind of crap I can find there. But players that are really new to Trem join X since it has a lot of players and [][]. And it's crapness won't make newbs enjoy trem.

[bacon665]

What crapness? its easier to play there then it is on a pure server.

[your face]

It's been discussed, usually new players would like to enjoy default gameplay first, before getting bored and goofing off.

[bacon665]

whats with the "lolwut" server.
some dude had me helping him in !devmap and gave me level 5 admin. then i came back the nextday and me and this dude was exploring paint8 (was first time either of us used it) and we were banned from the console with "shut up bro"
the forum it gave for ban appeals is bogus, so i gave up on that changed names and was playing one of the obsticle courses with talithius and creeping death. console dude comes back strips my admin then bans creeping death and changes map to acts : /

[David]

So play on a decent server then >_>.

[mooseberry]

Lol, bot dissed letter servers. 

(P.S. Sorry for responding to bot, but that was pretty funny.)

[fleash eater]

I haven't been around for 3 years, so I don't know what things were like back then

you should be praising god. it used to be HORIBBLE

[rotacak]

I think that biggest changes are in modded servers like tremx (weapons, buildables, aliens, upgrades), arcade (powerups) and R Funserver CZ - passive buildings, look how can look atcs base:

[your face]

wow awesome.