We now have a Steam Chat Bot!

[Fantaboi]

Going to have to give an unfortunate update on VBot.

VBot's core discord library no longer works with Discord, this has been an issue on the horizon for a long time and the prime reason I started working on the new VBot. Unfortunately the solution to update the library isn't possible, as VBot also runs using Mono which isn't compatible with Async tasks (which the new library does solely).

For these reasons i'm going to have to go back on my eta of 48 hours and can't give a definite time-frame. There's a bit of a process of determining both long and short term solutions for this and deciding which are worthwhile/possible to implement.

Until then, i'll do my best to give progress reports both here and on the discord

 

[Fantaboi]

Big update:

It works. Instead of using a library for the connection to discord, I used what I had learnt from work on VBot-Rust to remake a bare-bones solution. There are some limitations and improvements that mirror how VBot-Rust will function.

Some changes however:

• VBot no longer has presence in chat, VBot instead uses webhooks and API Commands that don't require it to 'exist.' Kinda like an 'as a service' thing if that makes sense.
• VBot only reads and responds to messages in the 'bot' channel. This is to ensure that no errors that occur may flood or disrupt the chat.
• VBot no longer sends private messages, instead it'll post the message to the 'bot' channel.
• Admins have no extra privileges in the discord. If admin actions need to be taken they'll need to be done in the steam chat room.

 

[Fantaboi]

VBot is shutting down for the next 24 hours. Currently it uses way too much CPU and it runs the risk of me getting suspended from the VPS.

 

[Fantaboi]

Big update for the port and improvements:

• People in the staff, server mod, silver staff, administrator and senior staff roles now have admin permissions in the bot.
• Links no longer will produce previews
• Messages that previously would be private messages now instead will tag the user before the message.

Pretty proud of these improvements and hope this helps out a ton with the issues that have been occurring and will better take advantage of the Discord platform

 

[Fantaboi]

So, small update:
Fixed a bug relating to !maps not displaying each map in a new line.

Now to give an update on the 'remake' of VBot. Initially this redesign was aiming to remove the dependency on using a discord C# library, however with the recent switch-over this dependency has been removed already. Because of this as well as my life getting a bit busier, i've put the remake on hold for now as I work on other projects. I'm unsure when or if i'll get back to it, but if it becomes feasible to implement it i'll definitely begin posting updates about it here.

 

[Pocket]

Today we ended up with a map in our imp that was fullbright (which turned out to not be as big a problem as we thought, but more on that elsewhere). Anyway, I know that it's possible to check for things like that by examining certain data areas in the file, and I'm wondering if it would be feasible to program a tool that inspects maps to check if they

• Don't have lightmaps
• Make use of non-stock assets that haven't been packed (perhaps by repurposing some of CompilePal's code)
• Have env_cubemap entities but do not have any cubemaps built

and then set up the bot to run all submitted maps through the tool and reject any that are unsuitable for testing.

 

[Fantaboi]

That would require a lot of effort for quite a bit of output, i've got other projects so I'm not really up for taking it on board personally. Feasibility wise, not sure, but sounds doable.

 

[Fantaboi]

So, recently there's been a few updates:

1. The update command will now allow for maps which don't change their name (Thanks to @monster860 for the pull request )
2. The bot will make sure to delete the first map of an imp once the playercount is large enough

So basically want to confirm properly that I have no intention of working on the 'remake' of VBot anymore. With other projects I find more important taking up my time alongside Uni, the current working state of the bot doesn't necessitate an update (which would also require rigorous testing).

Anyways, happy mapping!

 

[Fantaboi]

Ok update time!

• Fixed a bug that made some urls retrieved parse incorrectly, (e.g !vdc mapper's reference). Thanks to @Pdan4 for the bug report
• Made some changes to the webserver's backend, which will improve overall stability

 

[Fantaboi]

Extra:
-Fixed a bug related to depreciated discord channels
-Added high-and-low-contest channel to channels vbot responds to

 

[Fantaboi]

So, here's an update:

• VBot will now ignore more errors. This may lead to unexpected behaviour but will help ensure uptime
• Added !runscripts for admins. This lets bash scripts be added and ran to vbot. The first i've added is reboot.
  
• The command would be: !runscripts reboot.sh
• This reboots the server VBot is hosted on. The server will also now automatically load VBot.

I'm a bit busy with Uni / competitions at the moment, so i've tried to just add some essentials that have been needed for a while. Hopefully if the website or functionality goes down !runscripts reboot.sh will be enough for helping manage VBot for now.

As i've mentioned in the past, I would like to discuss having VBot be moved onto tf2m servers, to help staff manage it better.

Happy mapping!

 

[Fantaboi]

Oh yeah.
Turns out !active should be replaced with !serverquery

 

[Kube]

Fanta you're the best! Running bash scripts through VBot, that's not only useful but neat.

 

[Fantaboi]

Hi all, this is primarily directed to staff.

Soon I'll be posting a zip file for running VBot and also the current configuration for VBot so it can be run and managed by staff. I'll also update the guide on GitHub that will assist running it.

I am hoping this week I can relinquish VBot to the staff at TF2Maps. This has been something I've wanted for a while as I've pretty much exited the community, and I would like TF2Maps to be self sufficient with VBot (alongside freeing server space for my newest chat bot). Of course I'll be able to pop in and help where needed.

 

[Fantaboi]

Hi All.

VBot is ready to be deployed onto another server, i've been able to determine the necessary commands to build and compile on linux, and have the configuration files ready to be sent. I can't post all of them here as there is sensitive information, but most configuration and documentation updates have been placed on the github page.

@drp or other server maintainers, i'm waiting on your message for how we can proceed