Re: BW TFC Servers ... Lack of Decals!

[old.[FMD]Stu_Granger]

I have been in communication with a few BW TFC'ers who have complained that DECALS have been switched off in BW TFC. Basically instead of their spraypaint "logo", a bunch of dots appear to other players.

On the OLD version of BW TFC, decals were allowed to be viewed by all. This used to be quite FUN, to see what decals other players were using and to have a weee laugh.

We'd appreciate spraypaint "logo" decals to be turned back on. I believe there is enough power in the new BW TFC server equipment to handle this without much trouble.

I look forward to hearing if BW TFC server admin will do this.

With thanks

[FMD]Stu_Granger

P.S. Could you please switch all BW TFC servers to 20 minute games ... it gets rather boring if you have to play 30 minutes on a crap map.

 

[old.bee]

ill look into it stu,

but I need more than just your opinion...I need more feedback from other players so please anyone who plays on the TFC servers could you add your comments here or somewhere on this board.

cheers

Mr.Bee

 

[old.[FMD]Mr_PsYcHo]

WHAT DO WE WANT

CUSTOM DECALS

WHEN DO WE WANT THEM

NOW!

------------------
Mr_Psycho waz ere!

 

[old.Kez]

WHY DO WE WANT THEM?

BECAUSE WE'RE LAME!



erm, ignore me, I don't give a fook

[This message has been edited by Kez (edited 22 July 2000).]

 

[old.[FMD]Stu_Granger]

Kez, it doesn't make much sense why you would bother responding to this post ... you don't play BW TFC.

With thanks

[FMD]Stu_Granger

 

[Deady]

Decals would be nice.

If they try to fob you off with the 'Decals crash the server' trick - tell them they dont know what they are talking about and demand to put decals on.

 

[old.bee]

ive e-mailed benny about it and ill know in a short period

dp has a bug..so we could be changing one of the maps..ill keep you informed

deliverance will be updated due to a small bug as well

[This message has been edited by bee (edited 23 July 2000).]

 

[old.bee]

Should be working by tomorrow

 

[old.Kez]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by [FMD]Stu_Granger:
Kez, it doesn't make much sense why you would bother responding to this post ... you don't play BW TFC.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Is there any reason I can't tho?
So I don't play HL anymore, I can still hang about like a lingering smell thankyou.

 

[old.bee]

a misunderstanding between benny...decals WONT be turned on due to it crashing servers.

sorry...but thats the way it goes.

 

[old.[FMD]Stu_Granger]

Do you know that for a fact?

With thanks

[FMD]Stu_Granger

 

[old.bee]

well...they know alot more about running servers than i do...and if he says it crashes them...then it crashed them.

 

[old.[FMD]Mr_PsYcHo]

Well why don't we do a test???

Allow decals on TFC 4, give it a week and see how many times it crashes(if it even does).

I trust if they do crash, they automatically restart, or could restarting the server pose a problem.

PLEASE PLEASE PLASE allow decals!!!

thanks

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Mr_Psycho waz ere!

[This message has been edited by [FMD]Mr_PsYcHo (edited 24 July 2000).]

 

[old.DrChris]

OK, here's the exact problem...

Decals are uploaded to temporary files and then added to the main custom.hpk file. They're then read from custom.hpk and sent to the clients as needed.

We have four TFC servers running on fergus from the same install directory. As far as I can tell there isn't any file locking performed on updating/reading the custom.hpk file and occasionally it gets corrupted because of this, at which point HL crashes. Since they're all reading the same file, all four servers crash and 64 players (potentially) get booted from the server.

Now, I know the solution to this would be to run each HL from it's own directory, but that would require applying patches four times, etc, etc and right now it's easier for us to turn off decals (which don't add anything to the game play). It's quite probable that we will start running the HL servers this way in the future, but for the short term, decals are staying off.

Hope that made sense,
Chris.