The Unimportant Announcement Thread

[14bit]

Entries from last year's 72hr Jam have been moved from the "72hr Jam Entries" download category to the "Previous 72hr Entries" download category. If you are looking for an entry made last year, it's there now! This is to make room for those who have done the Jam early, as well as the inevitable flood of new Jam entries once the main Jam begins.

 

[Idolon]

You may now update your 72 Hour Jam entries. If you've noticed that the Recent Threads list on the front page was completely destroyed by a flood of old posts, it's because we've approved all of the 72 Hour Jam entry updates that have been held in the queue for the last month. We apologize for taking so long to get around to this.

Note that updates will still get held in the queue, but we'll be approving them as they come in until someone is available to turn the moderation queue off. EDIT: Updates should now go through automatically.

 

[Idolon]

We're starting a new major contest soon. Ideally we will be starting in about a week. If you're thinking about starting a payload or payload race map, maybe hold off for a bit.

 

[Muddy]

If you're thinking about starting a payload or payload race map, maybe hold off for a bit.

oops

 

[14bit]

Once again, entries from last year's 72hr Jam have been moved to the "Previous 72hr Entries" download category. If you are looking for an entry made last year (or any year before), it's there now! This is to make room for those who have done the Jam early, as well as the inevitable flood of new Jam entries once the main Jam begins.

Additionally we'll be starting the next major contest very soon, so you might want to hold off starting any new, non-mvm maps for the time being.

 

[14bit]

The "Streams" tab has been removed from the top of the site. The forum addon we used for streams broke a few years ago due to API changes from Twitch and YouTube, and the newest version of the addon requires a significantly newer version of the forum software than what we are running. Because of this, we're hiding it for now!

If you still need to access the (broken, non-functional) streams page, it's still alive at https://tf2maps.net/streams/ for the time being.

 

[Startacker!]

All of the recent (2018-2020) showcase map threads have been moved to the Map Showcase subforum.

 

[14bit]

PASS Time maps now have a class limit of 3 players per class on both servers following the discovery that they can, in fact, be enabled in PASS Time.

This is to bring the mode in line with the rest of the modes we test where class limits are always on. If this turns out to be a mistake, we'll unlock the limits again.

 

[14bit]

VIPs and higher can now change class limits and enable/disable Mannpower mode through the "Convar Settings" section of the /admin menu.

This new class limits option does not work for changing the class limits in PASS Time, as it uses different variables to determine class limits.

 

[nesman]

Time for a nice post since I forgot to do this a while ago.

Valve updated the SDK and changed how a2s works. This broke a few things.

• Fixed broken plugin that pings discord users and removes maps from the list.
• Mecha-Engineer also got an update which adapted to the new server queries.
• Sourcemod was updated.
• Sourcepython was updated.
• All sourcemod plugins were updated.
• Fixed demos not being automatically uploaded to the demos site.
• FIxed competitive servers.
  • Updated sourcemod.
  • Updated sourcepython.

Unrelated to valve breaking things.

• Adjusted how gscramble balances teams.
  • Reverted this change after we studied the outcome and proved it worsened test quality.
• Added prefixes to chat to better distinguish who is part of the staff team.
• Gold stars now have access to the needed tools to run a competitive test.
• Updated the map rotation (this was a while ago).
• RTV was removed.
• Extended the waiting for players time to allow for the server to populate to reduce the first round being unbalanced.
• Gscramble now scrambles before the first round to try and balance teams.
• Cleared out some space on the servers so maps can be uploaded.
• Sourcemod was updated again after screamfortress being released as there was a bug introduced that broke a few plugins.
• Sourcepython was also updated after screamfortress due to a server crashing bug being introduced.
• Added the ability to turn alltalk off on the servers to the admin menu.
• Added the ability to turn mannpower on in the admin menu.

There are some other Quality of Life things I am forgetting to add. If I remember I will edit this post.

 

[nesman]

Cleared out gameserver drives.
Updated servers to latest sourcemod & plugins to fix a few bugs:

• Feedback plugin wasn't connecting to the database.
• Feedback round would crash the server.

Zeus added more storage on the site.

 

[nesman]

• Added some new tabs to the navbar on the site along with their respective pages.
  • Rules & Info
  • Map Testing
• Updated the Map Testing page.
  
• Added Social Media Module to the home page and forum page.
  
• Updated some plugins on all the gameservers.

 

[nesman]

As requested we now have an Instagib category under non-standard. https://tf2maps.net/downloads/categories/instagib.57/

 

[nesman]

Fixed the US imp and EU imp server from not switching maps when there are no players.

• This made it so there were excessively large demo files being uploaded and other srcds jank.
• Server switches maps every 10 minutes now with 0 players on the server and disables when someone joins.

Added !calladmin to all servers.

• This gives us the steam ID's much quicker so please us this
• Please don't abuse. You'll get banned for it.

 

[nesman]

Added sourcebans. https://www.tf2maps.net/bans/

• This makes it easier for tracking and cross-server banning.
• You can view the site later on through the Rules & Info tab on the navbar.

 

[14bit]

Once again, entries from last year's 72hr Jam have been moved from the "72hr Jam Entries" download category to the "Previous 72hr Entries" download category. This is to make room for those who have done the Jam early, as well as the inevitable flood of new Jam entries once the main Jam begins.

 

[nesman]

• Added commands to the CVAR menu for !admin.
  • Toggle random crits.
  • toggle alltalk.
  • class limits.
  • mannpower.
• Alltalk is off by default now. Allows for better team coordination and more accurate gameplay.
  • Hosts can turn alltalk back on through the !admin menu at the start of each map.
  • Alltalk is on during waiting for players, end of round, 10 seconds into the next round, and feedback round.

 

[14bit]

Fixed download images not showing up for 72hr Jam entries

 

[nesman]

Oh yea I fixed sourcebans, feedback site logins, and a lot of other things too.

 

[nesman]

Over the past couple of weeks/days myself and others on the staff team have been drafting together a survey meant to gather information about our game servers and how they are used, both from the perspective of players, mappers, and administrators. The results of this survey may influence future changes made to our map testing system, though this is not guaranteed. This survey is anonymous unless you tell us. Please take 10 or so minutes of your time to fill out the survey... and be nice.

Any questions feel free to DM me. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfw7MzpBLw6FwJ9jFzvfbL2hy9V8v0FfNEikCu0HIjFVn1AwQ/viewform