What to do when Steam Community is hosed

So tonight was another one of those "scheduled maintenance" periods for Steam.

Funny how they never announce them ahead of time. And who the hell would schedule it for 7-10pm EST. That's prime gaming hours. How about 3am. Not many east coasters playing then. Check out their graph

Steam stats

We kinda had a game going but were in the middle of a VS map (BH4) rather than at the first map. The server also had voting disabled. Which kind of makes sense since voting in a versus server to change maps can sometimes change the game type to co-op.

To connect to a server without a lobby or invite, bring up the developer console (the ~ key). Type in openserverbrowser

This will bring up an old school server menu. I went to the history tab and picked a VS server that had no one on it. Once I was in that server I could send invites to my friends. Some couldn't get the invites so they had to connect directly to the IP address of the server.

To do that, type this in the console

connect IP:PORT

To find that info out, someone already in the game can type status in the console.
This will list the servers IP and PORT. If the PORT is 27015 you don't have to enter it at the connect. That's the default port.

The only drawback to doing it this way is that the servers are public and random people will start connecting. We can politely ask them to leave (or tell them to F-off like Nova did) to make room for our friends.

Nova and I both tried to bring up our own dedicated servers. His was a VS but only allowed 4 people to connect. Mine on the other hand wouldn't allow anyone but me to connect . I was connecting through the servers LAN IP which tied up port 27015 and blocked WAN connections for everyone else. I've since fixed it. If someone else wants to help me debug my server let me know and we can test it further.

smuggler wrote:

The only drawback to doing it this way is that the servers are public and random people will start connecting. We can politely ask them to leave (or tell them to F-off like Nova did) to make room for our friends.

for the record (to avoid sullying my pristine reputation) he was asked nicely a number of times by smuggler.. then began talking back.. at the time i thought it was smug's server.. so yes i told him quite sharply that he could fuck off on his own or be kicked..

sorry if my brashness shocked you smug..
i prefer dealing with idiots sharply =)

on a more positive/productive note i am posting my server start command line and server.cfg maybe someone could take a peek to find out why more players were not able to join.. keep in mind once the server was running it kicked a line to the console saying the max players allowed was 14 *shrug*

srcds.exe -console -game left4dead +ip “12.34.56.78” +hostport 27015 +maxplayers 8 +map l4d_hospital01_apartment.bsp

Code:

just whacking this shit because it didnt work.. no need to confuse.. as well the command line above is incorrect.. wrong map

That Vs server that you had going was REALLY fucked up for the Infected. Monkey and I were bitching that we couldn't spawn anywhere within like a mile of the Survivors (like we were always too "close" to Survivors to spawn and had to go really really far to spawn)...it was rather odd.
And Nova's server was kind of weird in that the Infected couldn't see the places where they could climb up buildings. All in all, it was a fucked up night.

I am not a server expert, I actually know very little about them, but all the reading I have done suggests to keep your server.cfg short and simple. I am quite sure the bulk of that file is redundant and probably not needed. (I.E. resetting default settings)

The example found on a wiki i was reading is a fairly common length, and includes some of the more often used settings.

http://wiki.clanservers.com/index.php/HL2:L4D#Sample_Recommended_server.cfg



Here is the server.cfg that I wrote up when I was testing out the DS stuff a while back. Hope it helps.

Code:

//==================== GENERAL SERVER SETTINGS ====================

//exec banned_user.cfg // Execute banned list of user names
//exec banned_ip.cfg // Execute banned list of user ips

hostname "eXile L4D Server" // Server Name
rcon_password "exiled" // Set remote control password
motd_enabled 1 // Show the Message of the Day

sv_voiceenable 1 // Team Talk
sv_alltalk 0 // All Talk
sv_region 0 // US East Coast
sv_lan 0 // Disable LAN
sv_unreserve // Clears any Lobby Reservation for this server
mp_disable_autokick 1 // Disable Autokick


sv_cheats 0 // Allow cheats on server
// z_difficulty Hard // Difficulty of the current game (Easy, Normal, Hard, Impossible)


//==================== PRIVATE SERVER SETTINGS ====================

sv_password "exiled" // Password to server

//sv_steamgroup 634461 // eXiled Steam Group ID
//sv_steamgroup_exclusive 1 // Do not connect to matchmaking. Removed sv_unreserve, private servers should use sv_steamgroup_exclusive now.

sv_allow_lobby_connect_only 0 // Allow game in progress connections, not just lobby connections

//sv_search_key "exiled" // restrict search to only dedicated servers having the same sv_search_key.
//sv_tags "=XIL=, =XiL=, -XIL-, [XiL]" // Used to provide extra information to clients when they're browsing for servers.


//==================== SERVER LOGGING ====================

log on // Enables logging to file, console, and udp < on | off >.
sv_log_onefile 1 // Log server information to only one file.
sv_logbans 1 // Log server bans in the server logs.
sv_logecho 0// Echo log information to the console (very noisy when set to 1, not recommended)

Thanks for the run-down Smuggler, Ocean, Nova. I got Smugglers PM to connect via an IP address, but after I joined, only LitFu$e was there, and he left right after I got in. Unfortunately, there was some drama going on at home that had to be dealt with and I subsequently had to go afk for about 3 hours. By the time I came back, it just wasn't worth staying up.

I'm happy to hear some people were able to get a tiny server going, although it sounds like it still had some bugs (ie: Faith and spawning distances).

ok i am trying to tighten this up quite a bit..
first off based on what faith said about him and monkey and the no ladders it popped something in my brain.. the map.. my command line was running the campaign map instead of the versus map.. so with that fixed and the removal of the no human zombies line based on this link i believe it should be good to go.

Code:

command line:
srcds.exe -console -game left4dead +ip “12.34.56.78” +hostport 27015 +maxplayers 8 +map l4d_vs_hospital01_apartment.bsp

Code:

hostname "the eXiled L4D Server " // this is your server name as shown in the server list
sv_password "" // your server password. a pair of double quotes means it is not set and anyone can join
setmaster add 68.142.72.250:27011
setmaster add 72.165.61.189:27011

// start rcon settings
rcon_password "xxxxx" // your rcon password to log into the dev rcon console or HLSW rcon console
// end rcon settings

sv_voiceenable 1 // Team Talk
sv_alltalk 0 // All Talk
sv_region 0 // US East Coast
sv_lan 0 // Disable LAN
sv_allow_lobby_connect_only 0 // Allow game in progress connections, not just lobby connections
mp_disable_autokick 1 // Disable Autokick

log on // Enables logging to file, console, and udp < on | off >.
sv_log_onefile 1 // Log server information to only one file.
sv_logbans 1 // Log server bans in the server logs.
sv_logecho 0 // Echo log information to the console (very noisy when set to 1, not recommended)

I would delete the second set of set master lines. Redundant.

Also, add in the sv_steamgroup 634461 line

That way it will show up as a Steam Group Server from the L4D main menu.

smuggler wrote:

I would delete the second set of set master lines. Redundant.

Also, add in the sv_steamgroup 634461 line

That way it will show up as a Steam Group Server from the L4D main menu.

oh right.. didnt see that..
re: the steamgroup thing i wanted to trim it down first to the bare minimum and then begin adding other stuff.. i'll likely password it so only those invited can join as opposed to it being found in the steam list.

The password part is broken too. The first night I set up a server, me and Monkey were playing. Lugburz was able to join without knowing the password.

Ok so Lugburz and I just tested out a work around to let us start a lobby and connect to a specific server.

I setup my L4D server with

sv_steamgroup 634461
sv_steamgroup_exclusive 1

This means no random people could connect.

I then set up a Versus Friends-Only lobby and as lobby leader entered this into the console:

sv_cheats 1
ms_force_dedicated_server 68.1.179.68:27017

When I chose start game it connected to the IP of my server.
Don't worry cheats were off since that's a server setting.

This would give us exclusive control of the server. It will also allow the server owner to force the map to be Death Toll or Dead Air in Versus.

It would be the co-op maps but it may be something fun to try out.

smuggler wrote:

Ok so Lugburz and I just tested out a work around to let us start a lobby and connect to a specific server.

I setup my L4D server with

sv_steamgroup 634461
sv_steamgroup_exclusive 1

This means no random people could connect.

This being the case, it would be key to get everyone affiliated with the XIL group who needs it so no one is left out. Would it stop people who are not affiliated with XIL being invited into the server?

smuggler wrote:

This would give us exclusive control of the server. It will also allow the server owner to force the map to be Death Toll or Dead Air in Versus.

Odds are there might not be "climb points" throughout the map, but those are hardly a problem if only for the smoker class. My friend Atticus has said that she's run Dead Air and Death Toll in VS and said it was a blast, but that it was done through a method similar if not the same to yours Smuggler. I'd love to give this a shot! Care to test it out?

Lugburz wrote:

This being the case, it would be key to get everyone affiliated with the XIL group who needs it so no one is left out. Would it stop people who are not affiliated with XIL being invited into the server?

i am pretty sure this is only relevant with regards to it showing up in your friends list.. as for connecting the lobby leader is in control of the server he is connecting to.

Nova wrote:

Lugburz wrote:

This being the case, it would be key to get everyone affiliated with the XIL group who needs it so no one is left out. Would it stop people who are not affiliated with XIL being invited into the server?

i am pretty sure this is only relevant with regards to it showing up in your friends list.. as for connecting the lobby leader is in control of the server he is connecting to.

Would the lobby leader then have to have membership in the steam group? Smuggler mentioned that it won't let pubbies into the server while it sits idle. If a pub player knew the details on how to connect, could they use it themselves or would the server still require a check against their steam group membership?