Archive for the ‘Game Servers’ Category

Left 4 Dead 2 Demo Servers

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

I think I’ve managed to set up a forked L4D2 Demo dedicated server with 10 instances, though I’m not yet sure if it works or not. If you have access to the demo and are a PRC member, please try the following IP addresses:

  • 87.117.228.64:27015
  • 87.117.228.64:27016
  • 87.117.228.64:27017
  • 87.117.228.64:27018
  • 87.117.228.64:27019
  • 87.117.228.64:27020
  • 87.117.228.64:27021
  • 87.117.228.64:27022
  • 87.117.228.64:27023
  • 87.117.228.64:27024

Happy L4D2 demo playing!

Note: to use these servers on Demo Night, please put the following in your autoexec.cfg:

mm_dedicated_force_servers "87.117.228.64:27015,87.117.228.64:27016,87.117.228.64:27017,87.117.228.64:27018,87.117.228.64:27019,87.117.228.64:27020,87.117.228.64:27021,87.117.228.64:27022,87.117.228.64:27023,87.117.228.64:27024"

This will grab you the first free server available. You can find this file (or you may need to create it) here:

C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\left 4 dead 2 demo\left4dead2\cfg

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New 18-way Super Versus 16-way UNREST

Monday, October 5th, 2009

Yesterday we scheduled, in a very impromptu manner, a match of 16-way versus. I quickly setup a server using the UNREST mod, but we found that it changed too much of the game (crawling survivors for one) and we couldn’t get it to work with more than 16 players, ending up with 2 spectators.

So I was playing around today and I think I’ve found a better mod, L4D Super Versus, which increases the team slots and optionally plays with tank HP, medkits, and horde size. So, we now have an 18-way versus server in true PRC style:


This server cannot be joined from a lobby, you can only join using connect 87.117.228.63:27019 from a console. The server is set up as 9v9 and in addition to the standard plugins from the other servers has much larger zombie hordes, additional healthpacks for the extra players, increased tank HP, and parts of the CEVO config (mostly to guarantee tanks).

UPDATE: I’ve had to go back to using UNREST since Super Versus unfortunately has quite a few issues. UNREST isn’t perfect in many ways, but it works and it works well, so we’ll stick with it.

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New Server: PRC EU #4 – CEVO + ProMap

Saturday, September 26th, 2009

I’ve set up a new L4D server, by popular demand, that features both the CEVO Config (minus Ready Up) and ProMap as well as the usual mods found on the other 3 servers (early tank fix and Ghost Tank plugin). Enjoy!

Posted in Game Servers | 2 Comments »

Network Trouble – All Clear

Friday, September 25th, 2009

Last night, the network that this server sits on was having a lot of trouble. There was random packet loss throughout the evening getting worse and worse over time, so I took the decision to shut down the L4D servers to prevent disappointment.

Apparently a Cisco router had a bad memory leak which caused lots of trouble, though emergency maintenance which should have take 45 mins to fix the problem dragged into the early hours of the night as the updated software version created a whole new world of hurt.

Everything appears to be fine now, and the L4D servers are all back up and running again now.

Update: The network trouble is far from over. The ISP that provides the connectivity is having major trouble with its networking equipment and connectivity is still shaky at best. The L4D servers have been shut down for the moment until things get better. Sorry folks!

Update: The network is now much more stable and the servers are back up. However, I’m told to expect a little more downtime later on in time for a final fix for things, so please beware.

Update: The ISP has now given the all-clear, so things should be completely back to normal. Phew.

Posted in Forums, Game Servers, Site | No Comments »

Hunter Pounce Records

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

Lockwolf pointed me at an interesting plugin called L4D Pounce Record, which records all hunter pounces that give damage (e.g. damage on impact) to a database. We thought we’d set it up for some fun, so there’s now a PRC Hunter Pounce Leaderboard.

We’ve made some minor changes to the plugin so it records some more details like Steam IDs and what server the pounce was made on, but we haven’t yet changed the web page to use any of this info yet. Enjoy!

Posted in Game Servers, Play Responsibly Club | No Comments »

New US (East Coast) Server

Saturday, September 19th, 2009

Lockwolf is very kindly renting a Left 4 Dead server in New Jersey, USA for our American members to use. This is an official server, so uses the PRC SourceBans and HLstatsX installations.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Lockwolf for doing a sterling job setting up the forum, as it is now a great place for community members to hang out and communicate outside the usual chat room we use to organise games.

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Server Downtime Tonight (16th Sep)

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

Update: The server has now moved and everything is back up and running. It was down from 23:40 to 00:50.

The server that hosts this web site and the PRC L4D serversis being moved to a new facility tonight between 22:00 and 05:00 tomorrow. The server will go down at some point between those times and should be down for less than 2 hours, although the game servers will be unavailable until some time later in the morning.

Posted in Forums, Game Servers, Site | No Comments »

Server Instability – Now Fixed (Really!)

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

It looks like when I installed HLstatsX on the L4D servers, we hit an instability in the Source Dedicated Server engine that causes crashes on level load. I think this is fixed now, but I’m keeping a very close eye on the servers and know what to change to fix it.

There appear to be a few serious bugs in srcds_i486 (the Source Dedicated Server binary), including a memory corruption / use after free() problem (the L4D “glibc bug”) and a race condition triggered by the logaddress_add command. In fact my server crashes seem to be fixed by moving that command from somewhere in the middle of the server.cfg file to right at the end. Let’s hope that’s the end of the segfaults which screwed up so many games over the past couple of days!

Update: My fix didn’t actually solve the problem, so I’ve had to disable HLstatsX on the three servers for now. Sorry folks!

Update 2: I’ve re-enabled HLstatsX now.

Posted in Game Servers | 2 Comments »

HLstatsX

Monday, September 7th, 2009

I’ve configured HLstatsX Community Edition to gather stats on how people are doing on the three Left 4 Dead servers that I run. I’ve made sure that all the annoying popup messages are disabled so you don’t get spammed during the game, though I’ve left the join messages enabled which show others your ranking when you join. Enjoy!

Update: I’ve had to disable this for now. Sorry folks!

Update 2: I’ve re-enabled HLstatsX now.

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SourceBans

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

I’ve finally got round to setting up a banner and MOTD on the three L4D servers I run for the group, and I’ve also set up SourceBans to make managing server admins easier. This also means that users that get themselves banned while playing on any of the servers will be banned from all the servers at the same time. Currently we have no bans, and I hope it stays that way, so this is just a preventative measure.

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