We are recruiting for some additional moderators / administrators, specifically for our FoF server

• Already play Fistful of Frags (FoF) some.
  
• Already have been playing somewhat regularly on our FoF server.
  
• Not a poster of racist, antisemitic, homophobic, transphobic stuff, or other hate-speech.
  
• Not already banned from any of our servers. You can check here[sourcebans.weaselslair.com].
  
• Some familiarity with SourceMod[www.sourcemod.net] is helpful, but not required.
  
• Some familiarity with SourceBans[sbpp.github.io] is helpful, but not required.
  
• Know how to use a web-browser. Required for accessing our SourceBans system[sourcebans.weaselslair.com].

• Do not be a prick.
  
• Do not abuse your moderation / administrative super-powers.
  
• Do not force players to do stuff - sometimes they just want to hang-back and socialize or otherwise not play as expected.
  
• Do not go crazy spamming custom sounds.
  
• Assist other players with using FoF and/or server-specific features (e.g. how to disable/re-enable custom music, etc.).
  
• Watch-out for people posting racist, antisemitic, homophobic, transphobic stuff, or other hate-speech - and take the appropriate action (likely gag / mute / silence them in-game or using SourceBans).
  
• Watch-out for cheaters, hackers, exploiters, griefers, etc. - and take appropriate action (likely at least temporarily ban them in-game or using SourceBans).
  
• Escalate whatever you do not know how to handle to Weasel, preferably via Discord[discord.gg].
  
• Vote-up or otherwise promote various posts (videos, etc.) on Steam, regarding our FoF server.

• Ability to gag / mute / silence players.
  
• Ability to kick / ban players.
  
• Ability to force a map change.
  
• Ability to initiate various votes.
  
• Ability to play some extra custom sounds.
  
• Ability to impress all your Internet friends! (both of them!).

• Join our Discord server[discord.gg].
  
• Reply to the existing pinned FoF-related post in the "Recruiting" channel of that Discord, including a link to your Steam Profile.
  
• Wait to hear-back. It might be a few days before you hear anything back.

I created a new dedicated game-server forFistful of Frags (FoF).

The full details are available on the Steam Discussions area, using this link:

FoF "Seasonal" server details

The current seasonal music selections played on a scheduled basis are included below. You may opt-out of hearing the music in-game by using the !soundoff command. This will disable future music playback for you. However, any track already playing will continue until its end.

• All I want for Christmas (by The Dirty Boyz)
  
• 2-Live Christmas (by 2-Live Crew)
  
• Merry Mother-♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Christmas (by Easy-E)
  
• Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo (by Mr. Hanky)
  
• Christmas in Hollis (by Run-DMC)
  
• Christmas in the Ghetto (by C-Murder, Ft. Master-P)
  
• Chrstmastime in Hell (by Satan)
  
• Yellow Snow (by Bob Rivers)
  
• Christmas with the Devil (by Spinal Tap)
  
• Police Stop My Car (by Bob Rivers)
  
• Carol of the Bells (from South Park)
  
• Christmas Wrapping (by The Waitresses)

It is beginning to look a lot like ... pre-holiday maintenance!

Various things will be up and down numerous times over the next few days as we get ready for Holiday-themed configurations, etc.

Mostly, this applies to the TF2 server.

PS: The stats / ranking system is down indefinably. Do not hold your breath waiting for that to be up again.

For the last few years, we have been using an outside stats/ranking service known as http://www.gameme.com. They were a commercial service that grew out of the over-wall "HLStats" family of stuff. It was a good solution, since it did not require hosting another database and web-site for the stats/ranking system.

Unfortunately, http://www.gameme.com has announced to their customers, that they are effectively shutting-down their operation in the near future. Here is a quote from their "admin" page:


Consequently, we are in the process of setting-up our own "HLStats" system. The latest version I could find was HLStatsX:Community Edition (aka "HLStatsX:CE"), from about five (5) years ago, from this GitHub[github.com],

So, the code is a bit old, but everything basically seems to still work.

Work is in progress to reconfigure each of our game-servers to be attached to our own HLStatsX:CE system, instead of http://www.gameme.com.

As a consequence, all stats/rankings are effectively reset to zero.

The base starting points has been changed from new players starting with 1000 points, to starting with 1 point (I never liked that 1000 point thing!), along with a few other setting tweaks.

The URL for the new HLStatsX:CE system will be:
http://hlstats.weaselslair.com

Please note that work to convert each game-server from one stats/ranking system to the other, i still a work-in-progress.

In particular, in-game prompts for stats/ranking information may not work correctly at the moment. Also, I am still working on tweaking how bots are treated in the system.

PS: Sometime on October 1st 2024, I will "reset" any stats on the new HLStatsX:CE to zero as the "official" start of that system for a new/clean month.

For anyone interested in setting-up their own game-servers ...

I just finished a new free-to-use and easy-to-use system for setting-up, hosting and managing dedicated game-servers on Linux (specifically Debian family Linux distributions).

• New (v2) guide on Steam:
  Weasel's Game-Administrator / Server-Manager (wGASM), for Linux - v2
  
• New (v2) content on GitHub:
  Weasel's Game-Administrator / Server-Manager (wGASM), for Linux - v2[github.com]

• Detailed instructions for preparation and installation in the guide.
  
• Easy-to-use script, to prepare Debian Linux for the system. It installs all required packages, offers to create the unprivileged user, offers to install Webmin[webmin.com], etc.
  
• Easy-to-use script, to install the system under the unprivileged user. It downloads the stuff from GitHub, puts it in the expected folders, offers to install SteamCMD for you, and offers to download and install the latest "Stencils" archive.
  
• Some moron-detection to prevent you from running things under the wrong Linux user (i.e. do NOT run game-servers under root, etc.)
  
• Configuration options are driven by a text-based configuration file.
  
• Server details, game-types and other data stored in easy-to-edit plain-text and tab-separated-value (TSV) files.
  
• No requirement to know how to use SteamCMD yourself - it does it all for you!
  
• Supports 30+ games on Steam!
  
• Of those, 10 have been fully tested and included in the examples.
  
• See the guide for the full list of games that "should" work and "tested" to work.
  
• Optional integration with Webmin[webmin.com] to operate everything in a web-browser!
  
• Even the Webmin[webmin.com] stuff is driven by easy-to-edit plain-text files.
  
• Minimal Linux experience required (know how to access with SSH, enter commands in the shell, not much else).
  
• Minimal system requirements (2+ vCPU, 2+GB of Memory, 100+GB Storage) - how much depends mostly on what games you are hosting.
  
• Minimal access requirements (SSH access, seperate root (or privileged sudo-enabled) and unprivileged game-servers accounts).
  
• Supports creating and using "Stencils" (canned-configurations) that maybe be "Painted" onto (applied to) game-servers - making setting them up quicker. Examples are available for the 10 tested games.
  
• Little (if any) script editing required - maybe just for scheduled cron jobs if you're into that.
  
• If you want to setup scheduled cron[en.wikipedia.org] jobs to do maintenance (scheduled backups, graceful automatic updates, and automated health-checks), there are functions for that you can schedule for that!
  
• Inexpensive support! ("best effort")