Patrick Deupree
Gearbox Software | Programmer | Aug 1, 2000, 15:26:38 (ET) | pdeupree@gearboxsoftware.com
Login: pdeupree Name: Patrick Deupree
21 minutes 9 seconds idle
Plan:
August 1, 2000
--------------

One of our level designers jumped into a server today and noticed that the
clipping distance on his CTF map wasn't set to what he had defined in the
map. In doing some research, we found that it's possible to set the server
console variable "sv_zmax" in the server.cfg file, even though trying to
change it from the console says that this value can't be reset in a
multiplayer game.

Our outdoor maps in CTF typically have a distance of 8192 set because, well,
you can see that far in the map. Setting the distance down to 4096 can
impare the gameplay a bit (not to mention it just looks very odd). So, if
anyone has this variable set in their server.cfg file they might want to
remove the setting and just let the CTF maps set it their way.

Playing with that clipping distance set so low reminded me of playing some
of the older racing games on console systems. heh heh.

July 24, 2000
-------------

Well, the linux server for Opposing Force is finally out there in public
release. It's been a long process on that thing. We had it working with
Half-Life 1.0.1.6 a while back, except for the WON checking. This became
a nightmare since the Half-Life linux server is compiled using Redhat Linux
version 5.2 so that it will be compatible with both that, and later versions.
However, the WON linux libraries were compiled with Linux 6.2. So, I could
never quite get them to work right together. Then we started getting the code
for Half-Life 1.1.0.0 and my time was spent on converting over to that,
plus getting the CTF stuff working. After all of this was done I revisited
the Linux version and found a way to make the WON stuff work right, so
we had a fully working version at that point. However, I'd since been
making some changes for our 1.1.0.1 patch, so rather than release the Linux
version and patch it 2 weeks later, we just held off.

So, after all too long a wait, it's finally out. We've had it running here
at the office for quite a while, and I had even been incorporating some of
the bug fixes and changes into the public Linux server here to test them out.

We've released 2 versions of the linux server. To be honest, I'm counting on
the fact that anyone who downloads them knows what they are doing since I
didn't include a readme file. The basic instructions are simple. If you
download opfor_i386.so.gz, it's basically just the shared library. This is for people that don't want to download a 35 meg file, and would rather just copy
the Opposing Force resources from the CD. Just copy the file into the "dlls"
directory and unzip it.

The other file (opfor_linux.tar.gz) is everything you need to run an
Opposing Force server. Just copy it into your HL dedicated server directory,
then unzip the file. After that just run:

tar -xvf opfor_linux.tar

And it will create the gearbox directory with all the stuff you need in it.
Then just run:

./hlds_run -game gearbox

and you'll have a dedicated server running.

In addition to the linux server, we've released a new patch that should
address most all the problems people were having with both the single player
game, and the CTF games. We've had some pretty lengthy games against the
Sierra QA guys with probably 16 or more players in them, and things were
pretty stable.

We've even added 2 notable new features to the game. When browsing over the
player with the crosshair, I've added the ability to see the health and shield
energy of anyone else on your team, or anyone in the game if you are a
spectator. We've also added a stats screen at the end of the game that is
pretty cool. It covers basic info like who had the most kills, who held on
to a powerup for the most time, etc.

So, hopefully everyone will have fun playing this now. We've had a blast
playing it here at the office, and you can often find a few of us out
there playing on the public servers. Personally, I was a huge fan of the
original Quake CTF and quite a few of us would play that religiously when
it first came out. I've had a lot of fun with our mod since it's heavily
based on the old Quake CTF.
Gearbox Software...
Randy Pitchford 2004/04/13
Brian Hess 2003/12/17
Sean Reardon 2002/10/09
Robert Selitto 2000/12/04
Landon Montgomery 2000/08/09
Patrick Deupree 2000/08/01
Brian Martel 2000/08/01
Rob Heironimus 2000/04/26
John Faulkenbury 1999/12/01
 

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