Team Fortress 2 Update Available 21/08/2010

A required update to the Team Fortress 2 has been.  Please run hldsupdatetool to receive the update.  The specific changes include:

- Fixed bug with holiday date computation that turned on Birthday Mode a few days too soon.

Want your own TF2 server?

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Updates to TF2, CSS and DODS 18/08/2010

Required updates to TF2/CSS and DODS are up now.  The specific changes include:

Source Engine Changes (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2)

- The mat_hdr_level, r_rootlod, and r_waterforceexpensive settings are now saved in the user’s config file.

- Fixed clients being able to connect to servers with spoofed SteamIDs.

- Fixed a bug where some video configurations could get reset by restarting the engine.

- Fixed materials compiled into a map not being loaded correctly if they’re in the root materials folder.

- Fixed a case of uneven performance on multicore machines.

- Fixed point contents not respecting detail brushes. This fixes a bullet penetration bug in some community maps.

- Fixed clients being able to spam servers using the ai_set_move_height_epsilon, mission_show, and sv_querycache_stats commands.

- Audio fixes:

- Reduced overlap in the sound timing code.

- Fixed a case where audio could skip.

- Fixed voice communication getting corrupted while playing on a Mac.

- sv_pure 2 now protects the game_sounds files in the scripts directory.

CSS Server

- Fixed prediction errors that were causing greater weapon inaccuracy (bullet spread) on client than server.

- Made the bomb the primary target of a +USE command.  This fixes a problem with objects placed around the bombsite interrupting defuse attempts.

- Fixed the ‘skating’ behavior that could occur when a bomb planting attempt was aborted.  Also fixes the resulting out of sync hit boxes.

- Fixed bug in which a player who crouched rapidly and repeatedly was seen as stationery by other players.

- Fixed problem in which the sound of a reload that was occurring when a player was killed persisted into spectator mode, making it sound like a reload was taking place near the spectated player.

- Gave chat interface priority over scoreboard to reduce conflict between the two.

- Increased size of HUD icons.

- Fixed bug with env_hudhint that caused problems when its value was greater than 255 characters.

- Made the message of the day screen dismissible by hitting ENTER.

- Fixed servers not being able to set sv_hudhint_sound.

- Gun sounds now match up with the framerate dependent sound timing, and fixed the framerate dependent jittering bugs.

- Stats:

- Fixed an issue that could cause loss of player stats if network connectivity was lost briefly, just after launching the game.

- Fixed an issue that caused the favorite weapon to display incorrectly on the stats summary page when a player achieves the most kills with a knife or grenade.

- Made newly-earned achievements and stats immediately update in the achievements and stats panels instead of showing stale data.

- Improved the font on the achievement toast.

- Community Requests:

- Added cvar sv_enablebunnyhopping, defaulted to 0. ( A value of 1 autotags the server with “bunnyhop” )

- De_dust and De_dust2 updated.

- Fixed several exploits.

- Fixed collisions on crenellation and domes.

- Fixed minor visual glitches.

- Adjusted HDR settings.

- Removed dust clouds.

- Added console variable cl_hudhint_sound.

Team Fortress 2 server

- Added server ConVar “sv_max_usercmd_future_ticks” which prevents clients from running usercmds too far in the future.

- Added missing Mac intro movie for cp_coldfront.

- Fixed “Hit ‘%disguiseteam%’ to Toggle Team” string and code so they’re not hard coded to ‘e’ and ‘-’.

- Fixed servers trying to validate backpack positions in inventories.

- Fixed clients validating inventories other than their own.

- Fixed item selection HUD elements showing un-acknowledged items, which resulted in items in invalid backpack positions.

- Fixed players not always getting “recent damager” credit for player suicides.

- Fixed the weapon selection menu not displaying properly when using hud_fastswitch and lastinv at the same time.

- Updated Engineer startup music.

- Updated localization files.

- Updated Pl_ThunderMountain

- Clipped off sticky outcrops for smoother movement

- Clipped various exploit ledges

- Increased environment ambient exterior light level

- Stage 1

- Fixed hole in respawn room brushes in RED spawn

- Shifted respawn times to favor BLU by two seconds

- Stage 3

- Clipped rocks off by BLU’s spawn exit that leads to building B (allowed Snipers to snipe the entire area)

- Removed embedded displacement (building B interior roof)

- Removed rogue clip brush from building A balcony

- Updated Plr_Hightower

- Fixed players building in the RED spawn room.

- Fixed players building on the back window decks of the barns.

- Fixed players getting on the satellite dish platform.

- Fixed players building on the elevators.

- Reduced the ammo packs in the barns down to small ammo packs.

- Increased the hill speed modifier to 1.2 (up from .95)

- Fixed explosion particle effects playing in the skybox.

- Mine cart “window” collision fixed.

- Upped Scout-loop health to large.

- Updated Pl_Upward

- Fixed respawnroom entities not reaching the floor of split-level spawns

- Fixed griefable fence facing BLU spawn near RED base

- Added BLU high flanking route at RED base

- Added health & ammo along BLU flanking route at RED base

- Sealed BLU base left exit with block bullets brushes

- Extended clip between C and BLU spawn to prevent sticky jump spawn camping

- Fixed non-clipped non-solid railing in RED base

- Fixed kill brush in middle spawn not extending to the ceiling

- Put a block bullets brush on grate below middle spawn

- Fixed some high micro-ledges accessible to sticky-jumpers

- Community Request

- Added “item_pickup” game event for ammo/health packs.

Jason

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CSS Servers update

A required update to Counter-Strike: Source is now available. The specific changes include:

- Fixed a possible memory corruption on player disconnect, likely the cause of windows dedicated server crashes
- Adjusted scoreboard layout for 5:4 screen resolutions (1280 x 1024)

To update your CSS server, please hit the update button.

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CSS Servers update

A required update for Counter-Strike: Source is now available. Please run hldsupdatetool to receive the update. The specific changes include:

- Fixed ragdoll bug with cl_ragdoll_physics_enable 0 and cl_minmodels 1
- Changed voice stealing of entity/channel pairs to only allow one overlapping delayed sound (improves CS gun sounds)
- Fixed overlapping sounds causing a slight remaining echo on ak47
- Fixed phantom clan tags appearing for players who didn’t set one

To update your CSS servers, please run the update button.

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CSS server update 27/07/10

A required update for Counter-Strike: Source is now available. Please run hldsupdatetool to receive the update. The specific changes include:

- Fixed new weapon firing integration causing some guns to over-fire on single taps
- Fixed a couple of cases where machine guns could skip slightly with enough lag
- Fixed c4 explosion pre-caching
- Added precise audio timing fixes for client-side prediction
- Increased the tolerance for skip detection in client side audio to prevent sound dropping out due to client clock drift
- Completed work on clan tag strings validation

Jason

Want a CSS Server?

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Firearms Source Servers Available to Rent!

We have teamed up with our freinds at firearms-source.com to offer Firearm Source Servers and also provide a mirror service for all of our UK gaming folks.

So report in Freshmeat! Now’s the time you choose your arsenal and get ready for battle

Quote by DysPatch, Development Lead

Below are some images from the game.

Demonstrations of some of the awesome weapons from in game.

All images and video remain the property of their respective creators and owners firearms-source.com

You can download the client files from the following links.

Firearms source client EXE

Firearms source client ZIP

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Game updates July

There are updates avaiable for the following games over the last 72 hours, Team Fortress 2 servers, Left 4 Dead 2 servers, CSS servers and CS 1.6 servers

21/07 – TF2

An optional update for Team Fortress 2 is now available.  Here are the specific changes:

Server Browser:

- Fixed the server browser not saving filter settings properly.

Team Fortress 2:

- Fixed a speed exploit related to benchmarks.

- Fixed Parasite hat not being posed correctly on class loadout panels.

- Fixed a level change crash.

Jason

21/07/2010 – L4D2

Updates to Left 4 Dead 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Left 4 Dead 2

- Added additional protection for critical files

- All add-on files will be loaded when connecting to a Non-Official server regardless of game mode

- Only approved custom maps will be loaded when connecting to an Official server

- Player’s can print the contents of the consistency list with “cl_print_consistency_list”. If the server has sv_consistency disabled, the user will be notified when they attempt to print the list

- Improvement to Hammer load times

22/07/2010 – CS 1.6

A beta update to the Counter-Strike 1.6 dedicated server is now available.  To access the beta, run the update command with “-beta hl1beta”.  The specific changes include:

- Potential fix for svc_bad network errors (thanks to Sorin)

Jason

22/07/2010 – L4D2

The Linux dedicated server for Left 4 Dead 2 has been updated.  The specific changes are:

- Fixed Linux dedicated server crash when path to dedicated server installation included uppercase characters

Jason

23/07/2010 – Counter Strike Source

A required update for Counter-Strike: Source is now available.  The specific changes include:

- Added Steam Clan Tag support ( Set yours in Options->Multiplayer->Advanced )

- Added new achievement “CLAN WARFARE”: Win a match of at least 10 players where the entirety of each team is composed of a single clan.

- All weapon fire rates now tuned to match their pre-update, tickrate 100 equivalents. (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1368659)

- Added automatic server tagging for some server convars ( “mp_startmoney”, “mp_friendlyfire”, “bot_quota”, “sv_nostats”, “sv_allowminmodels” )

- Fixed some issues for players who were experiencing stat corruption.

- Fixed several server crash exploits.

- Fixed server commands “sv_disablefreezecam” and “sv_nowinpanel” not working on dedicated servers.

- Adjusted some DX9 shaders to look more like their DX8 counterparts, e.g. flashbang effect.

- Community Requests:

- Fixed entity I/O messages “OnPlayerPickup” and “OnPlayerUse”.

- Restored UTF-8 support in the console.

- Added env_hudhint entity, for use in custom maps (The allplayers flag must be set for the hint to work in Counter-Strike.)

- Added client convar “sv_hudhint_sound” to turn off emit sound for hud hints.

- Restored the “cl_minmodels” client convar.

- Added server convar “sv_allowminmodels” that allows them to prevent clients from using “cl_minmodels”.

- Added a button to Options->Multiplayer that allows players to reset their in-game stats.

- Note:  Due to the nature of stats corruption, it is not possible to automatically fix all types of stats (such as weapon statistics reflecting usage of the wrong weapon).  Players who suspect their stats are incorrect and wish to start fresh may want to use the new stat reset feature.

Jason

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Alien Swarm

As we know that Alien Swarm was released on Monday and myself and Olly were quite excited on Tuesday morning to get this up and running and everything was going really well until this:

[gssimon@INX-236-135 srcds_l]$ ./start.alienswarm: ./srcds_run: /bin/sh^M: bad interpreter: No such file or directory

So had a Google around the error and found that it was todo with a Linux textfile being corrupted by being opened in notepad so used a Linux command to fix it and its still broken.

So I looked through the HLDS Linux mailing list and found this in it:

Upon further investigation, the Alien Swarm dedicated server has not been released for Linux. We shipped some of the Linux files by accident.

M.

Then:

That doesn’t sound good, “by accident”? Will we be getting Linux files tonight?

Jim

Just to confirm:

Sorry if I wasn’t clear. Alien Swarm is not currently supported on Linux.

M.

So we can chalk another mark on the wall for another botched Steam release!

Stay tuned when we hope to have good news soon….(well this is Valve time we are referring to)

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Team Fortress 2 Update Available 20/07/2010

A required update for Team Fortress 2 is now available.  The specific changes include:

Team Fortress 2

- Added a Parasite hat to celebrate the release of Alien Swarm (http://www.alienswarm.com/)

- Fixed a client crash when opening the backpack while running in a language other than English.

- Fixed not being able to pick-up buildings in Arena mode.

- Fixed an exploit that allowed team kills with Wrangled sentries.

- Fixed a bug where teleporters could be given more than their normal amount of health.

- Fixed old demos with different data tables thinking the SourceTV player entity was burning.

- TF Bot Changes

- Improved performance of bot computations that are done when a point is captured, a round starts, or a checkpoint reached.

- Fixed Engineer bot infinite build-destroy behavior loop regression

- Fixed Medic bots losing their charge if they touch a resupply cabinet

- Fixed a crash due to having multiple types of bot systems running in-game simultaneously

- Fixed bot behavior issue resulting in bot pile-ups near level 3 teleporter entrances

- Bots no longer consider sapped sentries a dangerous threat

- Bots will not try to navigate through enemy spawn rooms (unless they have won the round)

- Bot Engineers will avoid building teleporters on steep slopes which can hinder teammate movement

- Added tf_bot_pyro_always_reflect cvar. Set to 1 to make Pyro bots always reflect projectiles, regardless of difficulty level.

Jason

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Game server updates from steam again

Required updates for Team Fortress 2, Day of Defeat: Source and Counter-Strike: Source Beta are now available.  Please run hldsupdatetool to receive the update.  The specific changes include:

GameUI
- Fixed the desktop resolution not appearing in the list of valid resolutions when using windowed-mode.

Server Browser
- Fixed a crash caused by leaving the server browser open while playing.

Engine
- Added client/server version check on client connect.
- Fixed a crash caused by hitting ctrl-alt-del while playing.

Counter-Strike: Source Beta
- Added sv_disablefreezecam cvar to turn off the freezecam on a server.
- Added sv_nonemesis cvar to turn off domination/revenge on a server.
- Added sv_nomvp cvar to turn off MVP stars on a server.
- Added sv_nostats cvar to turn off stats on a server.
- Added avatar images to the scoreboards.
- Added stats report to scoreboard to show whether a server has stats enabled or not.
- Fixed achievement tab so it now updates at the time you earn an achievement.
- Fixed bug causing achievements to be listed as earned in July 2009.
- Fixed issue where you couldn’t chat during intermission.
- Fixed player stutter while moving in water.
- Fixed player stutter when running into other players.
- Fixed issue that caused footsteps to play when walking.
- Fixed miscellaneous consistency, spelling and grammatical errors in the string tables.
- Fixed grenade velocity problems.
- Updated a few audio effects.
- Updated scoreboard
- Changed layout to make it more readable.
- Changed scoreboard opacity to make the action behind it more readable.
- Supports Unicode and lowercase letters.
- Grayed out the names of dead players.

Team Fortress 2
- Added community submitted deathnotice icons for the community submitted weapons.
- Changed the deathnotice text color to use black instead of white when the local player is involved.
- Fixed domination/revenge messages not using team colors for the player names.
- Fixed an issue where sequences with an activity weight of 0 never get selected.
- Updated Koth_Nucleus:
- Changed side spawn exits to prevent sniping from inside the spawn door.
- Fixed graphical glitch on platform floor.
- Fixed blue-colored models in RED area.
- Updated Tc_Hydro:
- Added respawn time advantages when a team begins to cap any point.
- Resets when the cap progress resets.
- Fixed various nobuild and playerclip issues reported by the community.
- Removed logic that reduced spawn times based on roundtime.

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