Some thoughts/problems with the Zombie Server

[Bob]

Hi Guys, Hi Zero,

finally i made it to register (i'm a lazy dude). Most of you guys that play on the Zombie Server should know me as ᴮᵒᵇ.
I've been watching the changes this server went through in the last months and I wonder why it's so dead these days...
Since I'm from Europe, i know that you guys are still working/sleeping when it's day here, but like a year before, the Server used to be full of Players most of the time. I had a few months break in between so i may have missed something? What happened? Why did this server become so dead?

I had a couple of conversations with other players that are willing to do their best to help get this server popular again. As seen on other Servers, good and active admins do a lot to keep Players stick with the servers, maybe i will order admin myself one day, but where did all the good dudes go?

I tried some alternative Zombie Servers when Ibis was empty, but it's not the same. IBIS is unique and i've never seen a server with that kind of nice, sick and funny faggots Never had so much fun playing CSS.

@Zero: I was online when you made some changes a few days ago, and i see you're working on it But there are still a few things that have to be fixed:


- Ranking

still does not work (for me), i get errors when i type "rank" or "place"


- Poor Map Selection (We talked about that - You said the other Maps will show up when there are enough players)

However, i still can nominate them when i type "nominate map_name" into chat, but the maps won't show up in the vote then. Is there a way to change this? This would be helpful for people like me to change to a popular map when i'm alone on the server and this will attract more players then.
Also, most of the big maps are playable with 4 Guys, which often works better than with 20 noobs Especially in maps with boss fights (Boss' HP is multiplied with the total of Human PLayers - Hard to destroy when 30% are shooting the Zombies instead of the boss...) Maybe it would be good NOT to limit maps to a min. amount of players because i had so much fun in the past playing thru the epic maps with 2 or 3 really good guys!!!!
Your decision, but the availability of all maps never has been a problem to me...

I will do a list with new good maps (you told me to post them here) as soon as i find the time


- HP-Based speed:

What's the Idea behind this? I can say, i win 80% of rounds when i spawn as Mother Zombie, but it has become harder. And it's annoying when you almost break through the cade(zm)/defense line (ze) ,the guys have to reload and i'd be able to kill them, but i'm too slow now because i'm almost dead...


- Jetpack

Some like it - some don't. But i remember my favourite Server (long long time before ibis). They also had jetpacks, but it didn't reload and only lasted for 3 seconds. I like jetpacks, i don't need them so i don't care too much but i wanted to share the idea. 3 Seconds is enough to get to some special places without the possibility to glitch too much example: death star escape - get into secret weapons room, or get on some roofs in other maps, or just make an emergency jump to not get bitten by a zambi.

Just think about it. (maybe add a command like you did before with the !party mode)

Errors

There still is this problem with missing "props" (<- is that the right word?). The Error happens randomly and most of the time it does not directly affect gameplay. Most of the time, some destroyables just are not there (Doors in Shroomforest and stuff...) but sometimes the leafes (shroom) won't move, today there was no escape Butterfly at all (happened once only), the snail at the traffic light was missing once (so the map did not continue).... This are just a few examples, but there are many bugs like this in most of the maps.

To me, it looks like a problem with a plugin. But i'm not too experienced with server stuff at CSS.



These are my thoughts so far, i will add more if i got some...

Greetings!!!

Bob

(i hope my english skills are not that bad, sorry for any typos)

[ZERO]

Thank you for sharing! I am working to improve the zombie server so please continue to share any ideas and issues you have on the server!

- Ranking:
I fixed this issue this morning.
- Poor Map Selection:
Please let me know what maps you would like to have added to the all player count selection and I will add them
- HP-Based speed:
The idea with this was so that zombies would need to actually work together somewhat to win. If you use your HP nade you can rapidly regen 10% of your hp very fast. The intent was to help humans when there is a ton of zombies but clearly on low player counts it is too much of an issue. I will need to read over the formula I use to calculate speed but it is possible that I could scale the effect based on the number of total zombies alive. This way the effect is how it is now only when there is a ton of zombies like 20+ and the effect is very little to nothing when there is very few zombies. Would reprogramming it to work like that solve the issue or do you think people will just complain anyways when we get a bunch of zombies?

- Jetpack
We turned on jetpacks just during "warmup" periods as a way for users to mess around. I worry about having them on normally because they can easily be used to exploit maps. What I have been considering is adding a sprint feature (yes this also might play with your thoughts on the hp-based speed) that humans and zombies can use to get a speed boost for a few seconds that has a cooldown.

Errors
The props and materials of a map are packaged directly in the bsp. If your seeing errors usually the map is missing those files and was packaged incorrectly (problem only map maker can solve) or perhaps the files are not loading on your system (client side issue). Issues where a boss does not load correctly are bugs in the map itself and are something only the map maker can fix. Now perhaps a glitch in an unrelated plugin could possibly cascade into a map side glitch but that is extremely unlikely. Regardless I will continue to check the error logs in the sm folder and reprogram any plugins as to ensure that nothing is every tossing errors to begin with.

[ZERO]

OK I could apply a 0.025 scalar to the hp speed which would have the effect of making is so that the speed scale when there is 20 zombies alive is 50% less than current and when there is only 5 zombies the speed scale is 87.5% less than current. In that your min speed would be 50% faster or 87.5% faster than currently under this math.

I will get this programed and I think it will resolve the issue you are having.

[ZERO]

The requested changes to hp based speed have been programed and will take effect next map.

[Bob]

The props and materials of a map are packaged directly in the bsp. If your seeing errors usually the map is missing those files and was packaged incorrectly (problem only map maker can solve) or perhaps the files are not loading on your system (client side issue). Issues where a boss does not load correctly are bugs in the map itself and are something only the map maker can fix. Now perhaps a glitch in an unrelated plugin could possibly cascade into a map side glitch but that is extremely unlikely. Regardless I will continue to check the error logs in the sm folder and reprogram any plugins as to ensure that nothing is every tossing errors to begin with.

No, it's definetly server-side and happens in maps that ran perfectly in the past... Unfortunately i don't remember when these problems began.

[ZERO]

Like I said issues of things not loading in the map are literally the map. Newer versions of the map fix bugs but also can create new ones. It is possible the issues you are having are with a new version of the map that has new bugs. I will check to see if there is an updated version that has the latest bugs patched.

Here is the links to the actual maps and the place to report glitches to the map maker directly:
http://gamebanana.com/maps/186471

http://gamebanana.com/maps/186967

I verified that we do have the latest versions.

[$Money$]

Bring back Preds

[ZERO]

They are back on zm maps.

[Bob]

No, these bugs came up suddenly and in many maps! I really don't think it's a map issue. Half an hour ago, i played ze_parking and the c4 on top of the Vans (where you have to escape through the ceiling) was not there. And it's the same Version as we played a year ago.
Problems could have started 6 - 12 Months ago but i'm still not sure... Could have been around the time you added the time grenades (?)


20170313211038_1.jpg


Maybe another player will remember when these bugs started to appear...


By the way, there is a newer, better version of ze_parking with some big changes like new weapons and bugfixes: http://gamebanana.com/maps/159159

And Sandstorm (just played it for 5 Minutes on another server)
http://gamebanana.com/maps/193554

Can you please leave the old one on the Server until we know that the new one is good


Some other maps i like:
http://gamebanana.com/maps/46921 Rooftop 1

http://gamebanana.com/maps/155206 Grand_Boat_Escape_v1_9

And a map i'd like to try:

http://gamebanana.com/maps/154256 HL2 escape

[ZERO]

I will get those added. That is very strange about the bomb missing. The only thing I could think of is that those objects are entities that could be getting killed by a mod but it should toss an error if and when that occurs. I will pour over the logs some more and see what I can back trace.

If you can find anything reproducible like if on map xyz you do something and that causes the bomb to go away ect let me know.

Also for reference I did just patch a bug with the time nades that was causing an error today, the change is noted on the discord server.