----- Original Message -----
From: "John Gibson" <[email protected]>
To: "'Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list'"
<[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2009 11:16 PM
Subject: Re: [hlds] Required Killing Floor Server Update Released
>
> Thanks for the feedback Steven and I completely agree with you. This was
> a one time thing we did to address the issue we had with less proactive
> server hosts than yourself as well as an issue where a development
> version of the server's ini files got released before they were cleared
> for broad distribution. Essentially we had about 70% of the servers put
> up by server admins on the first day using the defaults (you know those
> servers that said "Killing Floor Server") that were incorrect. Fans were
> getting really angry that all the servers were Easy/Short.
Understood, documenting the changes and making it clear how the updated
defaults are applied would be the best solution to this in that case :)
> We do use an inherited config system, in a sense that KillingFloor.ini
> will always inherit its settings from Default.ini. The problem was, that
> while we were still testing the server builds, the non-final version of
> the server got shipped and announced to the HLDS list. Thus the
> Default.ini settings were wrong, and even if we updated the Default.ini
> (which we did), all the servers had already inherited the wrong settings
> (including some non gameplay changing settings that were causing servers
> to not show up right in the browser). And our inherited ini system will
> not override KillingFloor.ini unless an admin deletes it and starts over
> Thus we had to do the one time force update to get everyone up to the
> official release version of the ini settings in their Default.ini and
> KillingFloor.ini.
I think your misunderstanding my use of inherited config system. I believe
what your talking about there is a template system not an inherited config
system, which is why you had the issue. In a true inherited config system
you would only have the changes in the file the user edited so things like
player count, server name etc.
Don't get me wrong I know your just working with how the engine was designed,
just pointing out some design changes in this area could make things much
easier for you and for admins. As I'm sure you'll appreciate there is a hell
of a lot of stuff in the current config which will never or should never be
edited.
If you up for a challenge I can give you a full spec / list of all the issues
in the UE config system for the version your using.
> I'll once again apologize for the headache this caused, and let you know
> this won't be done again.
>
> One final thing though, please please please do NOT do this:
>
> [ROFirstRun]
> ROFirstRun=9999
>
> That will definitely cause problems in the future as that setting is
> used by the engine not only to update ini settings but also do some
> other things behind the scene in the engine when versions change.
> Messing with that number will almost certainly cause with a server at
> some point when we update in the future.
Unfortunately from a GSP point of view its the only way to ensure that
future updates dont break things. If you want to discuss this off list
give me a shout, but suffice to say we had exactly the same issues with
Epic's UT3 and in the end they understood the issue and provided a few
nice command line options to prevent this "auto upgrade" and other
things breaking in a commercial environment.
Regards
Steve
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