Breaking the promise of silence here...Your suggestion is absurd sir. Running batch files to a master?...done. Forcing restarts during rush hour?...ignorance of your client's service pattern. With auditory and popup notifications from the announcements list we've optimized our client's experience to the best of our ability. The rest of your suggestion we have in play. What you fail to see here is that the other day was a MANDATORY, UNANNOUNCED update. There has been no recent rhyme or reason to their weekly updates lately and they come at any given time or day. Our method works flawlessly until they break stride and run down a dirt path.
Between their being no notice and killing every Linux server on the face of planet Earth how can you stand on your soap box and judge us from afar when, as you say, you never continued your path as a GSP. You may run a hand full of servers on your end and I, for one, respect your opinions on subjects you've posted about over the years. In this case however you suggest we interrupt normal game play JUST in case Valve doesn't do their job as we've gotten used to. When Alfred leaves there needs to be a secondary to AT LEAST announce mandatory updates to this list if not for any issues related to HLDS/SRCDS. Ultimately there are many flaws in the way Valve does things related to the server files. Allow me to highlight the most significant. Incomplete testing of the major OS distributions, lack of announcements to the organizations that make their product thrive, and COMPLETE lack of documentation. I understand your point of view here but as you are not "in the business" and you don't see what we do here or on what scale you lack the vision of supporting clients in this game under the present conditions. Obviously we have all of our ducks in a row on both OS platforms as that is our responsibility. What is lacking is the acknowledgement of Valve's responsibility to the groups that their clients simply could not do without. The flamers of posts like mine liken to tree-huggers trying to save the woodlands. Step out of your little world (no offense intended) and look at things from afar. You'll find accuracy and wisdom in what I've said irregardless of the manner in which it was originally delivered. Rayne -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of StealthMode Sent: Saturday, December 24, 2005 2:46 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [hlds] unannounced updates In regards to no windows autoupdate feature... Any GSP (using winblowz) worth a grain of salt have created batch files that are processed to run daily. Just to make sure there wasn't an update and to update servers if indeed there was an update. These batch files are set through task scheduler and executed automatically (as well as a server reboot to reduce lag). I see a minority of gsp owners on this list complaining. Perhaps that is because the majority of gsp owners now how to check for updates. Also, it is a known fact between 8-10pm est is when these updates are usually released. Again any GSP worth a grain of salt has taken steps to "check" for these updates. No offense Rayne, but if you ARE that lazy that you do not have a batch process for checking for updates yet, I think you are way behind in the game as far as the gsp business goes. I have been running and updating hl and hl2 mod servers for 6+ years now and I can tell you first hand. It does not take a rocket scientist to craft a batch file to check for updates. Here is a cycle you COULD consider. Batch is task scheduled to perform at 2000 and 2200 hours to a master folder, if there is an update it will download related mod's your gsp carries into this master folder. Now this is where you must get off your butt a little. The owner then takes and copies each mod's set of files into any clients setups. Once all mod's are taken care of in this manner, a master reboot is done (I use firedaemon) and guess what? All of your servers are up to date. With the exception of the linux debacle last week (yeah autoupdate feature did not help them much) it has been relatively smooth updating a game server. I did run a gsp for a while, but lacked the time to devote to it to see it grow. Numerous updates were ran and applied to my clients. To no ill effect. You could take the process above and automate it almost with some clever batch work (EG: copy and pasting of downloaded files into client directories and rebooting). Making it completely autonomous. In fact if you spent half as much time crafting batch files as you did typing that post to the list, you would have been done already. Sorry for the behavior to others in this list. I am just sick and tired of the haters around here flaming valve for their (the flamers) incompetence. Especially ones who claim to run a gsp who have no clue as to how to automate the update process. So get off the bash wagon already and learn how to run a gsp. In parting, in regards to the recent "lag". The game is evolving, your hardware requirements are going to evolve too. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year everyone. Happy Holidays to those that don't celebrate Christmas. -StealthMode _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
