VanillaTF2

Arie — Last week, we at FakkelBrigade allowed a couple of people to test our new community warserver reservation system.

Based on their feedback a few features were added, most importantly the ability to download the stv demos and server logs after the match.

Because of the succesful test, the system is now available to everyone with a steam account. Simply log in with Steam on the server reservation website and book a server.

Arie — And now a message from our sponsor….

Ever needed a server because your own was down/broken/too-slow-for-highlander? Ever bothered me or another server owner about it?
Well now you can arrange it yourself.

Simply go to the site, log in with steam and reserve a warserver for that day.

For now it’s free and in closed beta, if you want access, email me: needaserver(at)fakkelbrigade(dot)eu

nTraum — Having played around with my weenie gameservers lately, I’ve stumbled upon some interesting things you can do to make your gameserver suck a little less. Free fastdownload and two enojoyable plugins is what I want you to get introduced to in this post.

Free fastdownload for everybody!

Fastdownload in action

I agree with you, this title sounds like a scam at first glance, but it really isn’t. You probably already knew that the lovely guys from http://fakkelbrigade.eu have their site where you can directly download tf2 maps from (check out the menu on the right side). What you probably didn’t know is that you can use the exact same site to provide fastdownload on your gameserver. Adding this line to your server config is all you have to do:

sv_downloadurl "http://fakkelbrigade.eu"

Awesome.

Read on…

Hildreth — Welcome to part two of my three part article series documenting and reviewing the calendar year of 2011 in the world of competitive TF2. I would like to apologies to the Aussies, Africans and Asians for not really featuring you in these articles but I prefer to focus on the two main scenes which I actually know a something about. Anyway without further ado, I present to you the months of May to August of this year.

TL:DR – TF2 dies, gets born again and we have an awesome LAN.

Hildreth — 2011 was a great year for me personally; being the year of the ‘panda’ in the Chinese calendar – might have made that up, it could be a smaller animal with a likeness for orange vegetables – and has been one of the most eventful years, dare I say ‘THE MOST’ eventful year in our competitive scenes history. We have had the biggest LAN to date, TF2 going Free-2-play, launch of a new casting organisation and many, many great matches. It has also been a year of doubt and controversy. The slogan ‘TF2 is dead’ being printed on TF2 discussion boards everywhere and still being typed by many there has been dispute and frustration over unlocks, LANs and growth in the TF2 scene. There has been more gossip, controversy and drama than you’ll ever see on Maury. TF2 has changed – rising stars of TF2 have gone ’pro’, old pros have gone on the Brink of losing interest and leaving the scene. Coverage has changed and developed with new people writing articles, making videos, volunteering to cast or stream and hell we have even seen a new game mode start to become accepted in Team Fortress 2. To start it off I found a gem of an old-fashioned TF2 rant/commentary by  Foster with an actual positive outlook for 2011 and to steal a quote from it made by  Darn:

“Unless TF2 gets a proper LAN tournament in 2011, it will be the last year.”

Make of that what you will.

It’s been a long year. I intend to go over it month by month highlighting the memorable matches, the big dramas and the key events that defined our scene this calendar year. To avoid a TL:DR fest I will split it up into 3 parts, one to release now, one of New Years Eve and the last part in 2012. I would like to apologies to those who do not follow the Gregorian calendar, if for example you are Jewish please re-read this again in 9 months.

I’ve expressed my fascination by Fakkelbrigade before, and If you think I’m biased, you’re probably right. It’s not just that 2 of the members are close on- and offline friends of mine – but it’s the fact that they are currently one of very few teams I consider to be giving something back to the community. The work with providing TF2 with non ddos servers and relays is just the start of it. You’ll find few (or none) with as good of a track record on being timely, respectful and fair to their opponent and playing their best every time they enter the field. Respect.

You can read more of that (+ biased info) in my previous Cadred piece about the team.
Luckily, Greg has written a proper article about FB and TT – Cadred.

As of today, Fakkelbrigade finally takes their first steps in the the world of Multigaming Organizations. Their new partner: Team Thermaltake. It’s been a long time coming, and when these guys finally get the ink out, you know it’s not just for anybody. The once humble band of brothers who started off in an internet café downtown Utrecht slowly started letting go of its geographical roots, gaining a steady momentum towards the top. With 4-8 generations of players on their back, their latest roster is currently looking set to make an impact on the top end, this upcoming season.

The team is currently signed up for ESL and ETF2L leagues and are set for attending i42 this upcoming April 22nd – 25th. They will also be playing the ESH finals this coming Tuesday against “Byte’s team”.

Read more for lineup, statement and info
- Torden

For the past couple of months, the European TF2 scene has been under attack of a rather old DoS exploit that exists in all servers running the Orange Box engine. The script kiddie floods the server with bogus requests for the server and player info. Responding to these requests takes about 4 times as much bandwidth and much more CPU power than asking for it. This makes it possible for a single attacker to take down a gameserver.

You don't have to be Neo for this attack

Over the past few weeks Ronny of nice-servers.com and I have worked on solutions for this problem. First I’ve created a whitelisting system, blocking all access to a gameserver except for trusted IP addresses. Meanwhile Ronny worked on a more friendly solution, and today we present the script that has kept our gameservers safe for now.

It works by limiting the amount of player and server info request that can be sent to the gameserver per second. This way an attacker can’t overwhelm the gameserver with these requests. We currently limit this to 20 request per second per server, but you might have to experiment with upping/lowering these values for best results. The only side-effect of this solution is that the server will not be visible in the server browser during an attack, but you can still connect to it normally through the ‘connect’ command in console.

If you’re one of the few people that operates a Linux dedicated server, you can implement this fix yourself by using our script. If you’re renting a gameserver from a GSP, you’ll need to contact the GSP and request that he implements our fix or a similar solution.

It’s important to note that this fix doesn’t prevent players from being attacked directly. It’s therefore still very important for players to make sure their IPs aren’t known to the attacker. The easiest way for an attacker to find out your IP is for him to hop on to Quakenet and check out your clan’s channel. By default an IP will show up using a simple ‘whois’ on the person being targeted. Please use ‘//mode $me +x’ (for mIRC users) to hide your IP on Quakenet.

View/download the script here: pastie.org

Cheers,

- Arie
FakkelBrigade

- Ronny
Nice Servers