Ideas for changes to dedicated server

[KaRRiLLioN 0]

I'm sure there are plenty of suggestions about dedicated server changes, but I'm wondering if some of these might be possible to help all of those players who don't know or can't remember the commands.

First and foremost, I would like it so that admins can "force" start a mission. In other words if someone is "yellow" because they haven't hit ready or whatever, an admin should be able to drag them into a slot and then proceed whether they have "greened up" or not just like with a hosted server. I cannot tell you how many games have been held up because of this. I know that I could just kick a person, but sometimes people have run to the bathroom while waiting on a game or something and I'd rather have them playing than kicking them just because they didn't show up until 2 seconds after I booted them. I'd also like to start the mission from the briefing screen regardless of whether everyone has "Greened up" or not. With the hosted if you do this and someone is still red, it'll give you a warning. Can't this be done for dedicated?Also, is it possible to put in a "Disable All AI" button for the admin that would force all AI to be off for both teams so you don't have to sit there and wait for someone on the other team to figure out they're the ones who need to disable the AI?

These above items are really important IMHO.

Now here's some things that aren't vital, but if implemented would be EXTREMELY helpful.

What would be cool is something that made voting for missions and admins etc. easier as well. For example instead of having to remember all of the commands, simply type in "#vote" in the chat box and then a menu with numbers or something would come up. The menu would be like:

1. Vote for new mission

2. Vote for new admin

3. Vote for restart

4. Vote to kick player

5. Etc.

Then a player would simply enter a number of what they wanted to do, and pressing 2 for example would list the players on the server, or pressing 1. would list the available missions on the server. It would also be really nice if you could see the current results when you entered this screen, i.e. you press 1. and it shows the available missions with a percentage of the vote each has along with the total % neccesary to change it, etc. or if you select vote for new admin and you can see which players have gotten what percentage of the vote and how much more someone needs.

I just think that this would really simplify the process a lot and then you wouldn't get so many incomplete elections or people having to type out explanations. Another good thing is that many people have no clue what the names of the missions are for voting because the names are like CH_Take Town(2-20). Voting for admins is much the same when you have people with funky stuff in their names like =YAY= BOnkers*Fitzgerald*{ELitE} or something like that.

It seems like this would be possible to implement since most of the functions that would power it are already coded into the server.

Anyway, I think the dedicated server has come a LONG way since 1.2 and I can't wait to see more improvements in the future!

[Psycho1 0]

Those are excellent ideas, it would really cut down the amount of waiting we have to suffer when someone doesn't green up.....which is the case almost every time, lol.

I like the disable all AI option too, no more worrying about whether the other team disabled AI or not.

[sergeant rock 3]

These are all fantastic, well thought out suggestions KaRRiLLioN. Let's hope BIS/Codemasters is listening....

[tlx 0]

Yep nice ideas. *bump*

[rekrul 7]

And please make all server.cfg variables avail by admin #-commands (or atleast Password=, and AdminPassword=). E.g. #password=MyPassword.

I would also like a #ban command much like the kick command only it kicks the player, then adds him to the ban file. If a ban-file is not present, it will create one. I don't think I'm the only one administring a remote server.

I guess this is more of a bugfix rather than feature, but when a human disconnects or times out in the game and becomes AI, please remove his name. If you don't watch the text like a hawk, or if you have the memory of a goldfish like me, I tend to belive he's still there.

Another thing is for ppl who join. It's not that fun to sit and watch the playerlist. Making them see some of the action would be great, but I guess this demands major rework and/or more server lag?

Also, Kar's suggestion is a must. As of now, MP seems more focused on playing with your friends than host a public server for anyone to join.

And ofc, the eternal nag for better netcode.

-Rekrul

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

The menu could be implemented in the menu top right. So when you type #vote it comes up in the upper right (like radio commands). And you can simple choose through the various commands and use backspace to rewind the menu.

I think that would be the easiest, right?

[rekrul 7]

Btw, re. my idea to change vars with #commands, this should ofc not apply to voted admins!

Edit: Also I didn't mean that this should change the .cfg file only temporarly for the server until it's restarted or an #init is ran.

-Rekrul

[KaRRiLLioN 0]

Exactly, just like most other games with dedicated servers out there, any command changes that are made while the server is up do not write the changes to the .cfg file. Now I think some of them do have the option, but changing it during play would be nice but not essential, I suppose.

[nyles 11]

Splendid ideas, had some of those by myself already. IMO a must-have implementation. BIS please comment on that.

btw: Greetings from the Action Half-Life community KaRRiLLion

[Angry Radish 0]

All I want right now, is The ability to enter commands directly into the Ded-Server console, and Logs. W/those two, we could work on the OFP version of adminmod, and really start making ded-servers more playable. That way, we wouldn't need to hack together ingame menus, we could just as easily have the admin prog parse the logs and perform commands, etc...

Ahh..

I can dream, can't I?

[suchey 0]

console commands...for sure

[KaRRiLLioN 0]

You're correct, of course, Radish. If we could gain that ability then we could create mods to do anything else we wanted without having to rely on BIS to program in a bunch of other stuff. Direct input into the console and such would really open up the possibilities.

I've run a lot of different dedicated servers and I'm kinda spoiled by being able to chat with someone on the server through the console, heh. That was when I was running an AQ2 server on my workstation at work even while I was working on it. =)