Piku

I don't believe I ever played with Way, but it's always tragic to lose someone to depression.

My sympathies for everyone who knew him.

A quick input from a non-admin, I have been playing CSS on GC for two years now and love it. I enjoy CSS but like playing with GC members more. I think you guys are on the right track with slowly getting more gc community events going. You will always have some that are in it for the game but I think most people get on the GC server for the people. Where else can you get AWPed by M2, get shot in the face with a TMP by FirstMonk, get a "nice job" comment from Dragonfire or laugh their behinds off listening to Goofus Maximus's comments. That being said regarding the game itself I will put in my two cents (I am sure most of these have been noted earlier):

 

1.) Map rotation is too limited (how many times can we play dust 2 and mill? I see you guys are currently looking at addressing that)

2.) Players who insult others need to be permanently banned regardless of whether they are an admin or who they know

3.) A better job needs to be done to balance teams to make games more competitive, maybe it is just me but there seems to be an increase of blowouts over the past few months (for example if four of the best five players are on the same team, someone move to the other team to help balance it...I know this subjective but most of us recognize who the best players in the server generally are)

4.) Initial Inertia....I think there is a tendancy for people to not join unless there is a number of people in the game (8+ usually). I am not sure if there is a concrete way to address this other than encouraging people to jump in when they can even if it is for a short time. Another option would be to increase each sides bots by one or two, maybe that will give some incentive for people to join when the server has few people in it.

5.) Experiment with a few more theme nights? Of course it may take more admins but obviously custom maps night is a big hit. Perhaps a hour/two hour gun game slot, no scope slot, etc. Maybe a fun CSS GC season tournament? Have some teams of six or eight, make sure it includes all level of players, not necessarily "the best on the server" and make sure the teams are somewhat balanced. Have it be more of a fun activity instead of super competitive (although there will always be some competitiveness). Kind of like what we did at fragfest this year for example. Just throwing some ideas out there...

I agree with everything here except one thing. There should not be more bots. If 6 people are on, I'd rather play 3v3 without bots, than 4v4 plus a bot on each team.

That's my own personal preference though. I think the focus should be on getting people to want to play on the server, not how can we draw unsuspecting people to join

the server.

here's the full maplist. pick your 20 and post back (keep in mind you can't have the same two maps in one rotation):

 

 

Just from the list above (there are other good maps not already on the server):

 

cs_italy

cs_office

de_aztec

de_boston

de_cbble

de_contra

de_cpl_fire

de_cpl_mill

de_cpl_strike

de_dust

de_dust2

de_inferno

de_losttemple_pro

de_nightfever

de_nuke

de_piranesi

de_port

de_prodigy

de_scud

de_season

de_siena

de_tides

de_train

de_vegas_css

de_villa

 

These, of course, would need to be re-ordered. Just took from the order you supplied.

Also: Add a gungame night. Maybe Sunday? Or, how about a gungame hour, or hours? You could change up the map rotation daily.

One quick edit here: People are going to inevitably whine about de_dust, or prodigy, militia, etcetc. The easy way around this

is to shorten the rotation by a few maps, and change up a few of the positions daily. For instance, have the 3rd map on the

rotation rotate between prodigy, dust, militia. That way you see these maps less frequently, but they still get played and thus

help to make the more popular maps, separated by more filler.

You might also consider making the maps rotate faster. People are less inclined to leave a map that isn't their favorite

if it's going to change relatively quickly.

here's the full maplist. pick your 20 and post back (keep in mind you can't have the same two maps in one rotation):

 

Just from the list above (there are other good maps not already on the server):

cs_italy

cs_office

de_aztec

de_boston

de_cbble

de_contra

de_cpl_fire

de_cpl_mill

de_cpl_strike

de_dust

de_dust2

de_inferno

de_losttemple_pro

de_nightfever

de_nuke

de_piranesi

de_port

de_prodigy

de_scud

de_season

de_siena

de_tides

de_train

de_vegas_css

de_villa

These, of course, would need to be re-ordered. Just took from the order you supplied.

Also: Add a gungame night. Maybe Sunday? Or, how about a gungame hour, or hours? You could change up the map rotation daily.

i could only find the current rotation and this one from like last january:

 

de_dust2

de_season

de_cbble

de_losttemple_pro

cs_italy

de_cpl_mill

cs_office

de_inferno

de_nuke

de_cpl_strike

 

ok, i maybe changed it a little, but is that a reasonable starting point? also disabled voting...i think.

 

was:

 

de_cbble

de_cpl_mill

cs_office

de_losttemple_pro

de_inferno

de_dust2

de_season

cs_italy

de_nuke

de_aztec

I'm not sure you need to disable voting entirely. Allow rockthevote so that if everyone totally hates the map it can

be switched off of. Also, the map rotation above is basically what's in place. Add in 10 or so more, and spread out

the server populating maps (dust2, aztec, etc).

Having admins on that are willing to change maps manually to things that aren't often played will also help. If you've

got 20 players on that have been playing together for 3 or more maps, if you change to something that isn't viewed as

the best map in the world, they probably won't disappear, and it will break up the monotony of playing dust2, season,

mill, nuke, losttemple, in that order over and over.

should i pick 20 maps at random, or do you have specific input? the maps that i used to know to be popular aren't cutting it anymore.

Rotate in some of the maps that come with a default server installation. Some of them aren't all that 'popular', but if people are on and

playing, people aren't going to leave just because one map isn't their favorite. Every map can't be de_dust2. People aren't

on because there's 5 maps rotating and no one is on. Also keep (and add more) the cpl maps. They're well-done maps.

I don't think I've seen anything other than dust2, cpl_mill, season, office, or aztec run on gc in the last couple months, with the

obvious exception being custom map night. The vegas map has come up a few times. It's not a bad map.

guys, the points in this thread apply to everyone, including board members. i'll back up justified actions.

 

piku, i appreciate your input, but how is "go to the forums and make a map recommendation" a long and drawn out process? not everyone can change the map rotation, so posting in the forums makes sure those people can see it and act on it.

It is a long drawn out process because that's how it's been handled. My point was not that people shouldn't go to the forums and

make map recommendations, it was that the map rotation needs to be fixed *now*, and not wait for 20 recommendations, and have

back-and-forth dialogue, etc, etc. Just get on there and fix it.

Of course, none of this will apply to Lunk who is the first to acknowledge that he cannot be banned and that we should just deal with it or go to another server.

That's basically what I've done, and what several unnamed have done as well. Cheers!

You cannot have a 'gaming community' that isn't moderated and left to the dregs like Lunk. I'm not left

wondering why the server is empty all the time.

The map rotation is garbage. It's disheartening to hear 'go to the forums and make a map recommendation'.

If you're going to have this long, drawn-out process of updating the map rotation, make the rotation be

20 maps instead of 5. Even 'bad' maps have their place in a rotation just to break things up. If you

enact a vote system, 90% of the players are going to vote for the same 5 maps every time. Move through

a larger rotation with voting only occurring occasionally.

I have a dedicated server up. l4d.nanners.org. It's search key is gcftw.

If you're gC, and want rcon, let me know.

fitday eh? sounds interesting, i'm gonna check that out!

Yeh. It has a nutritional database included so you can find common foods with

all their nutritional information attached. It has all kinds of charts, goal monitoring

programs. It will even tell you how many cals to eat daily in order to achieve your

goal, etc.

Pretty neet stuff.

1. de_inferno

2. de_airstrip

3. cs_militia

http://www.msdnaa.mtu.edu/ this is what my school offers. i would think you could find a similar program at your college but maybe i am wrong.

 

 

Yeah, I had assumed they would. But nothing like that. Its just a little community college.

I tried the school Library and bookstore and neither could help. Nothing on their site either. Ill try student services next just in case, but doesnt look good.

Anyone seen any more offers from MS or anything for it?

Here's a real response: Use OpenOffice

It's an open source version of everything Microsoft Office does, and it's pretty. It's funded by Sun Microsystems.

Hey. I checked and I can't get any real good deals thru my college ( Office 07 Pro for 199...yay n stuff).

Does anyone know any other legit way to get a serious discount as a student?

thepiratebay? Serious discount!

Check out paypalsucks.com

They're in the business of stealing money.

Been watching some of these workout threads for a bit. Figured I'd post some info.

I've been working out regularly for the better part of three years. Before that, I had

been jogging six miles a day five days a week, but after moving stopped doing that

since I didn't have any nice country roads to run on any more, and I'm not a big fan

of jogging in public places.

Currently, my workouts consist of an hour or two of weight training and core training.

My maximum bench is 180 right now, not really trying to get much bigger than that.

I keep my bar curls at around 75. Do around four different shoulder excersizes

between 20 and 35. I switch muscle groups daily, and try to hit the gym five days

a week. I have a weight training buddy too, so we can push our limits and be spotted

without paying a trainer for this.

I also did Muay Thai for quite some time. My core is pretty solid from that.

After work I do cardio for an hour or so on my elliptical. I'm fortunate enough to be

a partner in a company that paid for a pretty sweet workout room. I've got a bowflex

xtreme, a bike, gym quality elliptical, sat tv, mini fridge and free weights all on a padded

floor in an air conditioned room.

I take in around 180-200g of protein daily, and I maintain (not load) creatine powder during building phases.

FYI, if you hate your protein shake, I HIGHLY recommend you try Sci-Fit's chocolate milkshake

flavor. It's TASTY. I actually look forward to my protein shake, and my gf's kid likes to drink

it as a flavored drink. I've gone through a lot of protein shakes. This one also has no aspartame in it,

and has additional amino acids that help the body to use the protein. It's like 230cal/serving (2 scoops)

for 60g of protein.

I also add in three weekly core trainers with 20lb dumbells: 12 squats each leg, 12 burpees (with the dumbbells),

12 pushup thrusts (not sure what it's called), and 5 minute jumpropes done twice without stopping. Stole the jumprope from Muay Thai.

Best 5 minute cardio ever. This whole routine takes 15 minutes tops.

I tend to eat around 2kcal per day, but this varies depending upon building/cutting phases. Im highly against

any aids such as Hydroxycut and Lipo-6 types, but I have tried them and found them to be very uncomfortable.

History of my dedication would be that when I was younger, I was in excellent shape. Set some track records

for my area, played baseball, very active. Later on, my mom had job problems, started coming home every

night with McDonalds and the like. I didn't realize i could even gain weight. Got up to around ~300 from 160

and realized I had to make a change. Spent the next 3 years after that getting back into shape. Had a few falls

here and there, but for the most part, I've maintained a healthy lifestyle.

You guys look like you're really doing well. Keep it up!

PS: If you're interested in monitoring intake/output, FitDay is a really nice program for this. Google it.

I used it for around a year.

Can't get CSS to load, keeps giving me the error above; right before it would normally join the server. Crysis also has an issue where the game flickers in and out.

 

I have tried to fix this by; performing windows updates, updating directx, and installing updated videocard drivers. Nothing has worked, I even ran 3dmark06 to make sure it was a graphics card issue.

 

any ideas would be appreciated.

 

thanks

Have you tried forcing it to use a lower D3D level than 9? Look on the steam forums for how to select a different D3D version.

Steam added some D3D10 support in the most recent update. Potentially could have caused other problems.

piku - i'll pay you what i pay dropbox to set that up for me.

 

(i pay them $0)

heh. I was just noting that 'dropbox' isn't dropbox, they're TortoiseSVN and a Mac SVN client as well.

Heh. They're using a repository system for this. You can set this up yourself without paying for their service.

I have this for my systems too with a subversion repository. The extra feature I get doing it myself is that I have

revisions. For instance, I have my counter-strike files on there. If I make a change to my config, that config

gets an automatic version number. If I decide I want to go back, I can go back to the old revision just by reversing

the last change by revision.

In fact, that green checkbox icon, is a Windows subversion client's icon meaning a file is up to date. They either

stole it, or licensed the software. It's called TortoiseSVN.

Eh! I had a disk failure and had to replace my SATA drive. I should be back up and around later.

Fortunately my networked storage array has mostly everything stored on it so I just hafta re-install applications

and re-populate their configuration files from my storage array.

Anywhoo.

imo .. hitting someone in spawn with a smoke = ok, purposely throwing a smoke at a player while engaging an enemy and disrupting gameplay = not ok

In my own defense, it was like 5 seconds into a round of office. Technically, I guess, CTs could have rushed hall, but unlikely, and no one

was, at toss time, being engaged.

I do understand your position however.

Just happy to be unbanned!

unbanned

 

you hit me 2 rounds in a row in the head with a smoke in long hall when i bought 2 awps, how was i joking around about it? I had just joined the server for 5 minutes

Ar. Well, to be perfectly honest, I had had a few drinks. I must have been throwing them at the wrong person by accident.

My apologies, Sir, and thank you for the unban.

I was playing around 12am CST, messing around and tossed some smokes at a fellow teammate.

No one complained or warned me. I realize that this can be considered a bad thing, but I was having

fun with someone and it wasn't messing up anyone's game.

I'm not sure who even banned me, but what I was doing surely did not warrant a ban, and the

person I was doing it to was joking around about it too.

gcftw is the only CS:S server I play on and I would be happy to apologize if need be.

My steam id is 0:1:5403981