INX Gaming Tutorial – Setting and Managing Mani Admin Plugin

This tutorial will be helping you to set up Mani Admin Plugin using our Panel, not manually. So for dedicated customers, unless you have our panel installed on your box, I’m afraid you can’t use this tutorial.

Right, lets get down to business. Lets login to the panel. Once logged into the panel, make sure your game server is online. Once logged in, we need to go to ‘Mod Central’. Once there, you should fine a page like this. Now, you will see that Mani Admin is the top option, this is kept up to date on the latest version. Click Install. It may take a while to insatll, once done, you will be presented with this page. As it suggests, restart your server. If there are people playing on your server and you don’t want to disturb them, you can click ‘Go Back’ and wait for the map to change. Once you click on ‘Restart Server’ You will be told when the server has been restarted. Now click on home, check the status of your server, it will proberbly say offline, don’t worry, refresh your page every 10 seconds or so and it should change to ‘Online’. If it doesn’t come back ‘Online’ within 5 minutes, please try the ‘Fix Me’ Button. If this doesn’t work, please contact INX Technical Support.

Now, Mani Admin should be installed on your server, we are going to use HLSW to check. As you can see, it has been succesfully installed and running.

Now, if you know how to edit Mani, you can stop here. If you need to know how to -

  • Set Up Admins
  • Add Adverts

You need to continue. Firstly, we will set up admins. To do this, we need to go to the ‘File Editor’. and you need your steam ID. To get your Steam ID, type status in console while connected to a server. Then find your name, next to it, the will be somthing like this. STEAM:_0:0:12345. In ‘File Editor’ we need to find adminlist.txt, but it will proberbly be written as adminlist.txt.old, this is what were going to look for. This file is about 3/4 of the way down the page. Once you have found the file, click ‘Edit’. You will be presented with a blank page, fill it in like this. Now let me explain it. Name it somthing as a backup, so if you make a mistake in the future, you can go straight back to one that works. Enter your steam ID without the STEAM:_ , once that is done, if you have a few admins, you might want to name the Steam ID’s so you know who’s they are. Like I have done, add a few spaces and use //, this means Mani won’t read it. Now restart your server for the changes to take affect. To use Mani amin, you need to type “admin” in console.

Adding Adverts. This couldn’t be simpilar. Again, we need to use ‘File Editor’. The file we need is adverts.txt. As above, click ‘Edit’. You will be presented with this. Edit the file how you like, starting with a colour in ‘{}’. Now Save the file and restart the server.

This is the end of the tutorial.

Hope This Helps!

Posted in Tutorials | 4 Comments

INX-Gaming Tutorial – Setting up a Clan Website

Due to popular request, I am writing this tutorial. This tutorial will be ‘Setting Up A Clan Website, Using Webspell CMS ‘, I may release some other CMS’ tutorial that people can use.

If you need to know how to setup your free INX Web Hosting click here.

If you need to know how to use FTP, please use this link.

Right, lets get to business. Firstly we need to download the CMS, the link you need is here (I will try to keep this link updated as much as possible but this may not be the latest version.) Now that we have the CMS downloaded, we need to upload it to our web hosting. We will use ftp for this, as there are a lot of files. The details you need for FTP are:

FTP Host : Your free sub-domain.

FTP User : Your FTP Username (Usually your Control Panel Username).

FTP Pass: Usually the same password for your INX Control Panel.

Once you have logged in, you should have something that looks like this. Now to show the CMS, the files must be in the public_html folder, so double click on it. Now lets upload them to the site. This can normally be done by a simple click and drag. So open the folder you downloaded, extract the files, and select all, click and drag on to the server. Now go may yourself a cup of tea and eat some biscuits as this takes a while. Once that is done, you should now have something looking like this.

*If your FTP looks like this, then your on the right track. Now we need to chmod some files (Give Permissions). I will teach you how to do one file and then you can do it to the list of files than you need to do it to.

How we ChMOD a file is like this. Long into cPanel and go to File Manager. If it comes up with a popup, just say ‘OK’. Now you should see all the files you just uploaded using FTP. There will be a file called install. Were going to chmod this file. Click on the file and then go to the top of the browser, there will be a key with the words, ‘Change Permissions’ click this. There will be a pop up that comes up. Tick the two boxes that are unchecked on the boxes on the popup, make sure that the number say 777. Click OK, you have successfully, CHMOD’ a file to 777. Now you need to do it to all these files.

admin/bannerrotation.php
admin/countries.php
admin/gallery.php
admin/games.php
admin/partners.php
admin/ranks.php
admin/rubrics.php
admin/smileys.php
admin/squads.php
admin/static.php
admin/styles.php
admin/update.php
demos.php
demos/
downloads/
html/
images/articles-pics
images/avatars
images/banner
images/bannerrotation
images/clanwar-screens
images/flags
images/gallery/large
images/gallery/thumb
images/games
images/icons/ranks
images/links
images/linkus
images/news-pics
images/news-rubrics
images/partners
images/smileys
images/sponsors
images/squadicons
images/userpics
install/step06.php
myprofile.php
partners.php
sponsors.php
tmp/
upload.php
usergallery.php

To go into a directory file, e.g. admin/ double click the picture of the file.

Some of these files may already be CHMOD’ to 777. Just leave them as they are. Now that this is done, we are ready to install. To Install you need to go to http://yourfreesubdomain.inx-gaming.co.uk/install/index.php.

You should now be confronted with a page that looks like this. If not go back to the * and try again. Now we need to setup a MySQL Database. To do this, we need to go to the MySQL Wizard. This is about 3/4 of the way down your main cPanel Page. Once there you should get a page that looks like this. First we need to create a Database. Fill in the new database field with a sensible name like cms, then click ‘Create Database’. Once that is done, we need to create a user. Pick a suitable username and a strong password. Then click ‘Create User’. Now we need to add the User to the Database. This is done by selecting the Database and Username from the Drop Down Menu. Once you have both selected, click Submit. This will bring you to a page asking what privileges you want to give the Account, select All Privileges Then click, ‘Make Changes’. You will now have your MySQL Database and MySQL User.

Now lets get back to installing the CMS. Lets go back to http://yourfreesubdomain.inx-gaming.co.uk/install/index.php. Click Continue, then read through the Terms and Conditions. Accept if you wish to, if you don’t please do not read on. Once you have accepted. You should get a page saying, ‘ Please enter the url where webspell should be installed
http://195.242.236.16′ If so, click Continue. Now Scroll down to the bottom of the page, if in green you have the words, ‘Successfully done!’ Click Continue. Make sure, New Installation is selected and click Continue. Now you will need to fill in the MySQL Data, the data should be like s:

Host Name: localhost MySQL User Name: Your username, then the name of the User (E.g gsdemo_cms , if you did what I suggested earlier) MySQL Password: YourMySQL User password.
MySQL Database Name: Same as the username, Your control panel username first then the Database name. Leave MySQL Table Prefix as it is, (webs_)

Now you need to fill in the Admin data. Make sure you know this as you can’t edit your CMS without it, make sure the email is valid.

Now we do as it says, we need to delete the install file and CHMod the file back to 644. We can do this via cPanel file manager again. To delete the install file. Click on it and click delete. To change the permissions to 644, do as we did earlier, but change the number manually to 6 4 4.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial. I will release another tutorial for editing the CMS soon.

If you have any Problems please email me.

INX-Gaming Matt

Matt@inx-gaming.co.uk

www.INX-Gaming.co.uk

Posted in Tutorials | 5 Comments

Take an IT Course, earn £60k per annum…OMFG

Are you fed up of feeling undervalued in the workplace? Hate the sound of that alarm?


Yep! :D

Well, like OMFG, did you know you can earn £60k in IT

Reaiillyyy, like how?

Take a course with <insert random IT training company here> and take your career path the right way

Like jeezomfg, the evil government. They’ve been conning me with the promise of a pension scheme. I’m going into IT.

FFS, you *cannot* go into IT. You cannot take a course and magically be this brilliant programmer. The computer Christ. It doesn’t work like that, you misleading capitalist, pigs.

From my own example. My dad was always into computers. Our first computer was an Amstrad CPC 464. At the age of 6-7 I started playing around in BASIC.

10 CLS
20 PRINT OMFG I CAN PROGRAM
ME

From that I move onto the best ‘PC’ of all time, the Amiga. To Amos. I did lose my way there, and indeed realised in later years, I was cack at programming.

I consider myself intermediate in IT skills. Intermediate; there’s so many people I know that are just so much more smarter, and make me feel IT illiterate.

I personally find these idiotic TV adverts insulting.

You cannot learn IT in a course.

The cretins that peddle these courses demonstrate just how valuable they are with their marketing ignorance.

If you want to spend years learning about computers and how they work, fine. Great, welcome aboard to geek land.

If you want to go on a course and become an overnight pro VB programmer, (or more commonly, OMFG I CAN USE OFFICE!!!!11) and bore me with how great you think you are with computers and the internet, go do one, thicky.

Posted in Random thoughts | 5 Comments

JACK THOMPSON is becoming DISGRUNTLED! EVERYBODY TAKE COVER!

We’re in trouble team.

I don’t envy the people at Rockstar: thank God it’s them not us is all I can say. They’ve really overstepped the line this time! Not only have they been encouraging craven violence by releasing a game where it’s possible to run people over, but now they’ve included a mission where you can kill an attention seeking lawyer whose only crime was to speak out against all the fireballs that Mario players have been throwing since the early 90s.

I wasn’t going to buy GTA4 on release (they haven’t made any really dramatic improvements in game play since GTA3 in my opinion, and it’s just not as interesting as Saints’ Row was), but I’m more likely to having read about a mission which indicates Rockstar North’s sense of satirical humour. No I didn’t buy Bully or Manhunt, I’m not going to, and I’m not touching Manhunt 2 with a bargepole. But if the rest of GTA4 is going to have that flair to it then I may just have to.

The most interesting point he makes (no, it’s not to be taken seriously) is when he claims that his physical safety is threatened by this.

It’s not; Gamers the world over love him too much. And those that hate him can take their time over killing him without needing to ever meet him.

Here’s to Rockstar North’s programmers, graphics artists, audio artists, mission scripters and asset integrators. Here’s to the unsung heroes: their mission and gameplay testers. Here’s to the well-used legal team at Rockstar North. And here’s to their designers; may good coffee forever sustain their satirical fires.

Above all, here’s to Jack Thompson, for providing the games industry with something that is increasingly rarely used: new material to base games on. May he continue to produce this for many more years to come. He will. He takes himself too seriously not to.

- John

Play nice. Nice and dirty ;)

Posted in John | Leave a comment

Jesus uses INX

Jesus uses INX apparantly. I was happy to assist with one of his technical problems on livechat just now.

Jesus: I have nails in my feet and hands what should i do?

You are now speaking with Oliver Warburton of Sales.

Oliver Warburton: Hello Jesus

Jesus: hi

Oliver Warburton: have you asked the Romans to remove them?

Jesus: yes they said they are not prepared to

Oliver Warburton: damn how mean

Jesus: i know i really don’t know what to do

Oliver Warburton: What about Mary Magdelene?

Oliver Warburton: Could you possibly do one of your miracles to distract those Roman meanies, while she runs over to help?

Jesus: she has no head :-S

Oliver Warburton: Bummer

Oliver Warburton: What about asking help from the almighty himself?

Jesus: do you think i should ask my dad?

Oliver Warburton: Yeah, that’s what i was going to suggest JC

Jesus: ok i’ll ask and let you know

Jesus: yes he has done that now

Jesus: thanks for your help

Oliver Warburton: My pleasure

Oliver Warburton: Do drop in on the temple btw

Oliver Warburton: I have heard from Peter that they are setting up stalls and gambling again, the infidels

Jesus: not my problem am done with that shite im trying to go cold turkey

Oliver Warburton: Don’t blame you

Oliver Warburton: Well go and have a glass of blood personfication on me

Jesus: you must have one boring job if you have the time to talk to me

Oliver Warburton: If you fancy popping over later I have a wealthy resource of water you are more than welcome to turn into wine

Jesus: i’ll think about it

Jesus: i don’t like using my powers to get lashed

Oliver Warburton: I realise it must seem a b****r sometimes, but think of all you’ve done for us all

Oliver Warburton: You have to let your rather long hair down once in a while

Jesus: i know that bread and fish was bloody expensive

Jesus: it was Hovis aswell

Jesus: well i need to go i’m afraid Mary has swallowed her tongue again

Oliver Warburton: I won’t ask how she managed that. I still need to catch up with her about the whole bloodline thing

Jesus: i told her not to take them E’s because she just cant handle them

Jesus: see you later Oliver, btw don’t ask for more it will wreck your life

And with that Jesus left.

Posted in Random thoughts | 3 Comments

Why I HATE Gears of War!

I am about to do the unthinkable. I am about to utter ghastly words of sacriliege, the likes of which have never been heard before. My blasphemous cries will rouse anger, hatred, and condemnation from the entire world. I will be shunned by the gaming community. I will be flamed as an enemy by my entire 360 friendslist. I will become an outcast by my public declaration of hatred of Gears of War.

“Wtf!?” you cry. “It’s the most awesome Third Person Shooter out there, and one of the best 360 games!” Those I cannot disagree with. But if you’d have just been on a 4 man team that dropped to a 2 man team when the turncoat buggers discovered that the other 4 players play like world champions (I mean how else could they do that with the shotgun?) you’d feel the same way too. If this happened twice in a row, you’d be up in arms.

Now I am no n00b. I am on chapter 4 of insane difficulty of the campaign, which I think merits itself. I can active reload, and roll out of harm’s way at precisely the right moment, throw frags accurately and get the odd headshot. I also once on XBox Live took out the entire opposing team using only my chainsaw (yes I was trying for the achievement).

The problem with Gears of War’s Live games is that there’s no balancing. You can get put on a team of first timer French people (nothing’s worse than being on the losing team if you can’t tell your team mates that it’s because they’re n00bs) against a team of 4 professionals who spend their after-school lives doing this instead of homework. Gears of War Live should be redesigned to include a ranking system, and a redistribution system for if 2 players on one team leave. In fact, why not a team redistribution system between rounds regardless of dropouts? Although I realise that that would decrease variety, give the more skilled players a challenge, and make it less frustrating and addictive for the rest of us…

I’ll finish this rant later. Right now I’m off to try to get the Down with E.P.I.C. achievement.

John

Play Nice ;)

Posted in Game Reviews, John | 3 Comments

So the beta Orange box has been released. Hurrah! whoopee! Great. No, er wait. Why STEAM, insist on putting the games in a folder called “orangebox” when we load the server files? It doesn’t keep in with our file structure. It makes no sense. It’s irritating. Please change the full release back as normal, where game folders go into the srcds folder. It’s easy :)
/me gets off his orange box

We have a pre-order page for Team Fortress 2 servers. Unfortunately the usual instant setup, and marvellous instant availability we like to offer isn’t on offer yet. Hopefully it’ll be only a couple of days for STEAM to pull their cyber finger out.
Team Fortress 2 servers are available in Windows only. Here we go again. Again, this seems daft. Why are beta’s so increasingly ‘BETA’! Linux servers out number Windows servers two to one. Give us what we want, I say, damnit!
Why? Because generally Linux offers far better performance than “point and click” Windows. I love my Linux, me. To use Linux and to use it well, you have to have a clue. With Windows (sorry all those Windows (majority) GSP’s out there) but any old fool could do it. Point click….point click….type….click click….’har har lol I’m a server genius, lets start selling some cs source servers to some n00bs’

Give me a few pints and I could handle Windows. Actually, no, I’d need some class A drugs and a team of cheer leaders to lower my standards that far.

Rant over, just next time STEAM, us educated GSP’s like using Linux. Windows we do not like. And yes, your beta could have been betta.

And as soon as TF2 is on linux servers, we will have a jolly good session :)

/Olly publishes blog post and closes Internet Explorer.

Posted in Random thoughts | Leave a comment

A couple of new games to play with

Autumn’s always great fun for new releases. And wow, we’re spoilt for choice at the moment. Having tested, we’ve added a couple new releases to the website, and to the panel. You can switch to these games immediately on the panel if you are current customer, or add a new order if you want! Go on… ;)

The first game we’ve added is Warsow. Not exactly new, no. Take a look at our Warsow game servers page for some more detailed info on the game itself. We were asked to test this by a customer and it seems to run fine. Very popular it seems for competitions and the likes.

The second game we’ve added is the appetite wetting Team Fortress forever. We’ve added a FF gaming servers page for it, naturally. I’m not sure how Fortress Forever is going to take off, given Team Fortress 2 is out very shortly. Not the best timing, but hey, it’s free. Switchable on the panel, so why not give it a go this weekend?

I’m currently suffering with the flu, so I am going to go and die in the corner with some lemsip and Bioshock on my 360.

Olly

Posted in Game Servers | 1 Comment

Team Fortress Forever – a pretender to the throne?

Here at INX-Towers, we’ve got a bet going.

We all know Enemy Territory Quake Wars is going to be big this summer. Without getting too carried away, I’ve got a few games I think will pip it to the post of Summer king. It takes me back to A-Level history. 14th-16th century history, no less. Think of Counterstrike Source as Louis XII of France. A true warrior king. And France, the long living giant, set for the gallows as the proletariat hang the game dry. Is Counterstrike a game that will live for ever more, but ultimately doomed to disappear.

Then there’s Battlfield 2. Let’s not include Battlefield 2142. Battlefield 2 the Charles of Burgundy. The queer shaped chin on the face of online gaming. The fantastic game with amazing reaching power, but limited from growing to its full potential by the ranked farce.

Quake Wars, the Henry VIII. Glamorous, revolutionary. Pushing back the boundaries. We hope not ridden with syphallis. This will be a big game no doubt, but what else is there to challenge the big three.

Roll up the first online-gaming equivalent of Perkin Warbeck, a pretender to the throne. Team Fortress Forever. Reviving an old, oldie (a kind of Henry VII). Will it be enough to challenge at the top? Will the game fill servers and fill the coffers of the game server providers coffers?

Call of Duty IV, a different direction. A revolution in the tradition of COD based war games. It has to big. Will the dedicated server files be released on time, and without restrictions? Not like the problems with Medal of Honour Airbourne. One member on INX-Forums claims that a week long delay on server files is going to kill the game. It’ll never take off. Are they wrong?

Which is going to be the biggest game this autumn? And what will be the biggest surprise outsider?

Let me know.

And Mrs Lee, 7 years on and I still remember my A-Level history. Impressed?! :)

Posted in Game Servers | 1 Comment

Enemy Territory Quake Wars

Unfortunately I don’t bring any good news in this blog post. In fact, it’s the news I was expecting, and dreading bringing you for a while. For this moment in time on release, we won’t be able to offer you Enemy Territory Quake Wars servers. I had a hint this would happen when we weren’t chosen to host the beta servers.

It’s a huge shame because we were going to offer you, our thousands of game server players, the chance to switch instantly to the new game on release via our custom control panel. We will however, be offering the unranked version hopefully on release. So it’s not all that bad…I guess.

So why weren’t we chosen? We tried to work with the developers from the start, but we feel it was quite apparant that two other GSP’s had already got in. I think we were too late, although this isn’t really confirmed or know.

From what I’ve seen so far, there are two definite providers, although I can’t confirm this. You can probably guess the first provider. We’ve a lot of respect for them. They are a large gaming community and deserve the reward of hosting the game. The other provider host Battlefield ranked servers (shock). Other than that they are relatively small. They must have had something special :)

So for now guys, we’ll keep working on this, and work on what we need to bring these to you. In the meantime, please support the games we’ve been hosting for the last 5 years. The games such as Counterstrike that don’t seem to have these unfortunate limits.

We think we should be able to host Quake Wars ranked servers:

  1. Lets look at Counterstrike Source. Look how many branded servers we host. Try a search on game-montitor.com. Type the other competitors in. It’s tiny in comparison. Counterstrike Source is the biggest and most popular FPS around. We must be doing something right? We are literally huge in terms of how many game servers we host. According to game-monitor, twice as big as one of those that we believe has been chosen to host Quake Wars ranked.
  2. A custom control panel. Not something rented, or bought off the shelf. Our own, customisable and made for our customers every whim.
  3. Friendly and active community that’s growing rapidly.
  4. Top ranking for gaming search engine phrases.
  5. A proper business. So many providers are run from bedrooms. We’re a fully audited and long established UK LTD company. We’ve been doing this shizzle for five years now.

I’ve spent those 5 years working my arse off to grow INX from our own personal funding. No daddy-loans. Everything we have is paid for. Long hours, blood and sweat. We’ve got to such a huge size now that it’s quite shocking at times when I consider. So I do find the fact we’re not hosting Quake Wars servers a bit of a shock, and moreso a big big disappointment.
We would really make a go of hosting this game.

Unfortunately it is Battlefield ranked servers all over again and it is a shame the publishers do not seem to have fully listened to the gaming community.

I am biased, I know! However, I think it’s of huge detriment to not allow a gaming community and provider of our size not to host this game. Thousands would have switched on release. They won’t now. All those potential gamers lost.

We all wish the developers and the game in general the best of luck. I’ll certainly be playing it this autumn. I just hope they’ll rethink their policy and let INX host ranked servers. So we can see the game grow as big as it deserves. And not go the same way Battlefield has.

Would you like to see INX host Quake Wars servers? Please leave your comments below.

Posted in Game Servers | 5 Comments