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Night Stalker
Operations Director
Senior Operations
Lead Systems Admin
Engineering
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| 04-13-2012 09:37 AM / profile
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With the tournament being a success, I turn to you, the community, to help us in getting the Gun Game ladder going again.
Tell us what was working, what is not working, what could be changed, different maps, etc.
Please let us know as this is important to us.
Thanks
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Night Stalker
Operations Director
Senior Operations
Lead Systems Admin
Engineering
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| 04-17-2012 09:24 PM / profile
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Bumping this thread. We are still looking for ideas.
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Spiked
TWL Member
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| 04-18-2012 12:39 PM / profile
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At the risk of likely being banned, I can't help but feel compelled to give you some sort of response, as I believe all people are entitled to a response of some kind.
It would seem to me, that this question has been asked repeatedly over the past couple of years and all of the answers have always been along the same lines. In addition, all of the people who have pointed this out in the past have been banned, had their posts deleted, or simply swept under the carpet. It is as if (I believe many of us feel this way) the same question is being asked repeatedly in the hope that a different answer will arise, and it appears that no one wishes to give a falsified answer, but is also reluctant to give a past answer for fear of the previously mentioned outcomes.
Perhaps I'm wrong, in which case I would hope that this post has an opposite effect and spurs people to post genuine responses to Night Stalker's question in order to simply prove me wrong.
So in summary, if this post is not followed by more, you can likely assume "same as previous answers" or this post WILL be followed by informative and rational responses, in which case, please dismiss mine with the wind.
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Captain Squarepants
TWL Member
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| 04-18-2012 02:13 PM / profile
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Spiked,
By all means, please express your concerns and idea's as you feel will help this community. Your post will not be deleted nor will you receive a ban as long as the post is conducted in a mature manner. If truth hurts feelings then it is what is it but the only way we can move forward and show that TWL is committed to this community is to take what you guys have to say and put that to good use. I can't promise that all idea's are issues will be resolved but you can be assured that all post will be reviewed and idea's/issues will be discussed. TWL doesn't expect to have the GG ladder full with teams within a week but we are trying to begin the process of trying our best to make it a fun and exciting experience again.
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Spiked
TWL Member
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| 04-18-2012 03:45 PM / profile
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........
I'm going to try very hard not to effectively say "go read the last few threads on this topic".
Start over.
Clear out all of the rules and files, and archive the css part of the forum (archive, not delete).
(I do want to add though that the entire site needs an update, but I won't go into that one AGAIN and realize you guys have limited reign)
The rules themselves are extremely rarely changed and yet new teams still find errors, mistakes, and inconsistencies every few months. That's just embarrassing and diminishes the perceived reliability of the staff.
Your aim should be to rebuild trust, and dependability while attempting to raise maturity and respect in the players. I think that about summarizes all past issues and complaints. It really does come down to players not being mature and respecting each other, or TWL itself.
I'll take a minute to clarify. When you join a match and take a quick look at player steamids, it is so very common to see player names not on the team list and steamids that are not properly set in TWL. It's a total pain in the ass that stems from lack of maturity and respect. You can make the argument that I am taking it all too seriously, but it's a predetermined match, that in itself makes it somewhat serious. How about we all start respecting everyone else's time? Now I know that's not something that the staff can easily enforce, but the point here is to encourage better behavior by example. If the rules aren't even consistent enough to refer to for debates, why would anyone be consistent in their name from match to match?
It's all about leading by example and promoting a better environment/community mentality. That's step 1.
Personally, I'd like to see an anti-cheat system of some dependability, but I also understand the problems in this area. Instead, I'd like to recommend that staff take some time to better understand how addons and plugins work on SRCDS and create a rigid rule set for what may and may not run on a match server. You can't prevent every cheat, but there is a lot that can be done with server-side plugins in the form of cheating, and this also comes back to creating a more rigid, respectable, and professional environment.
As part of the initial "clean up" I'd also urge you to go over the stickies in the CSS forum. They are sorely out dated. Good communication is the #1 key to restoring or building any community.
.. That's it for now. It's easy to make a huge list of recommendations, but it's rather difficult to analyze that list yourself and group it into achievable goals with the power available.
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awpt1x
TWL Member
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| 04-19-2012 01:24 AM / profile
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Originally posted by: Spiked
In addition, all of the people who have pointed this out in the past have been banned, had their posts deleted, or simply swept under the carpet.
WE STAND STRONG!
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Night Stalker
Operations Director
Senior Operations
Lead Systems Admin
Engineering
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| 04-19-2012 08:44 AM / profile
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Originally posted by: Spiked
........
I'm going to try very hard not to effectively say "go read the last few threads on this topic".
Start over.
Clear out all of the rules and files, and archive the css part of the forum (archive, not delete).
(I do want to add though that the entire site needs an update, but I won't go into that one AGAIN and realize you guys have limited reign)
The rules themselves are extremely rarely changed and yet new teams still find errors, mistakes, and inconsistencies every few months. That's just embarrassing and diminishes the perceived reliability of the staff.
Your aim should be to rebuild trust, and dependability while attempting to raise maturity and respect in the players. I think that about summarizes all past issues and complaints. It really does come down to players not being mature and respecting each other, or TWL itself.
I'll take a minute to clarify. When you join a match and take a quick look at player steamids, it is so very common to see player names not on the team list and steamids that are not properly set in TWL. It's a total pain in the ass that stems from lack of maturity and respect. You can make the argument that I am taking it all too seriously, but it's a predetermined match, that in itself makes it somewhat serious. How about we all start respecting everyone else's time? Now I know that's not something that the staff can easily enforce, but the point here is to encourage better behavior by example. If the rules aren't even consistent enough to refer to for debates, why would anyone be consistent in their name from match to match?
It's all about leading by example and promoting a better environment/community mentality. That's step 1.
Personally, I'd like to see an anti-cheat system of some dependability, but I also understand the problems in this area. Instead, I'd like to recommend that staff take some time to better understand how addons and plugins work on SRCDS and create a rigid rule set for what may and may not run on a match server. You can't prevent every cheat, but there is a lot that can be done with server-side plugins in the form of cheating, and this also comes back to creating a more rigid, respectable, and professional environment.
As part of the initial "clean up" I'd also urge you to go over the stickies in the CSS forum. They are sorely out dated. Good communication is the #1 key to restoring or building any community.
.. That's it for now. It's easy to make a huge list of recommendations, but it's rather difficult to analyze that list yourself and group it into achievable goals with the power available.
Spiked,
Thanks for your input. I do agree that in the past with old senior management things were done differently but now with new senior management in place, we strongly believe in listening and working with the community to make things right. We also encourage people to volunteer and become an admin to help us with stuff like this. Some people know more about game play, some about server configs and plugins and some just have general knowledge of the game. So by having people with all kinds of knowledge in place, it helps us a lot to move forward.
Wiping the slate clean for the GG ladder is a possibility. As for the rules, it would help us if we knew exactly where the loop holes are, what works, what doesn't, etc.
Same things for the maps and the play process. does Best of 3 work or would it be better to go to one map only?
Also, I've been informed that with CS:GO there will be an AC program in place. I have yet to have the official word on it thought.
Originally posted by: awpt1x
WE STAND STRONG!
Awpt1x, I know in the past with management there were some issues between them and you with some things that were done and said. I'm not looking to continue that route with you. I'm not a huge fan of the whole "trolling" or accusing someone of doing it. I prefer to have those people step up and work with us by telling us what's working and not working.
I'm more of a fan of step up, tell us the problem and propose possible solutions.
Thanks
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Captain Squarepants
TWL Member
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| 04-19-2012 09:42 AM / profile
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Here are my thoughts and hope this clears something’s up a bit.
The currently situation between the community and TWL is one of bad past experiences and lack of communication between each other. I would go as far as to say at one point it seemed to be one sided in favor of TWL. Your thoughts and comments have merit and I agree with the majority of what you have stated. At one point I personally didn't want anything to do with playing, posting or interacting with anyone or anything that was part of TWL. I was involved with the same forum ban as you were and felt it was not justified considering we both were trying to get our points across.
Today, the current TWL staff is not the same staff nor do they follow the same “ban happy/TWL way or no way” outlook on how TWL should interact with the community. This staff is truly interested in what the community has to say and how we can improve the relationship between both parties. Unfortunately, a lot of the changes have happened after the influx of players moved on to other games thus here we are with very little activity within the CSS community.
At the end of the day, your post or threads created will not be deleted like in the past (unless they are way out of control or the verbiage is completely out of line) and you will not get forum banned for stating your opinions on the matters at hand.
Lastly, the current TWL staff for CSS is more than willing to act on suggestions that can improve all competition. We need the help of this community to get this done and we are willing to earn the trust back as we are aware of the past experiences. I’m sure there is a broad range of things that can be improved on but we also have to take small steps to move in the right direction. Please be specific in your ideas and way to improve on as this will help us narrow down issue to come up with workable solutions.
I encourage anyone that feels they can help TeamWarfare by apply for a position or volunteer some time as NightStalker has stated in his post. Being a well rounded group can only help this gaming community and move it in the right direction.
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Spiked
TWL Member
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| 04-19-2012 02:16 PM / profile
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Night Stalker...
There is more to it than fixing the loop holes. Rewrite it. It won't take more than a couple of hours on a Saturday and will prompt people to actually re-read it.
If done well, it's a great start to everything I have suggested to get things back on track. (both sides; twl and the players)
.....
There are no shortcuts on a long road; just many, many steps to take.
Post edited by Spiked at 4/19/2012 2:17:17 PM
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Juvix
Commissioner
TWL Contributor
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| 04-23-2012 04:14 AM / profile
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Originally posted by: Spiked
Night Stalker...
There is more to it than fixing the loop holes. Rewrite it. It won't take more than a couple of hours on a Saturday and will prompt people to actually re-read it.
If done well, it's a great start to everything I have suggested to get things back on track. (both sides; twl and the players)
.....
There are no shortcuts on a long road; just many, many steps to take.
Acknowledged. I believe Nightstalker is working on this
----
Kind Regards,
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JediMasterAlex1138
TWL Member
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| 04-27-2012 02:04 PM / profile
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I concur with Spiked on nearly everything he said, especially regarding the rules. They absolutely need to be rewritten. I've had direct experience with several inconsistencies in the rules that have not been addressed (particularly one having to do with teamkilling in the screenshot round). I'd also like to add that the appeals process is woefully inefficient and needs to be streamlined considerably. I'm glad that Defiant and others seem to be gone, so maybe new admins will be more competent. I've had appeals drag on for months, which is obviously unacceptable.
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Spiked
TWL Member
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| 04-30-2012 10:45 AM / profile
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We gave up on appealing anything after the first one, lol. It's a terrible process that I chose not to bring up b/c it really needs to be updated to a more automated process which would fall in line with the site itself needing an update.
I hope to hear news of progress on the previously mentioned work soon >.>
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Night Stalker
Operations Director
Senior Operations
Lead Systems Admin
Engineering
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| 05-02-2012 05:50 PM / profile
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We are moving forward and making progress into the changes of the gungame ladder.
We have determined what changes we wanted made to the game play and are in the process of having things done. Monday will be working with us on getting things working properly.
We will also be going over the available maps to see what their is out there. If you have any map suggestions, other then the current maps, please let us know and we will look at them.
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Spiked
TWL Member
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| 05-03-2012 11:11 AM / profile
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/me rage quits
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Night Stalker
Operations Director
Senior Operations
Lead Systems Admin
Engineering
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| 05-03-2012 12:03 PM / profile
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Originally posted by: Spiked
/me rage quits
Spiked, feel free to contact me in IRC to discuss any concerns you have.
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Spiked
TWL Member
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| 05-03-2012 01:14 PM / profile
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No, I won't.
That's just another thing that's wrong with how things are done around here. Problem? Let's just discuss it behind closed doors so no one knows about it... can't be tarnishing our already crappy image, now can we?
My 'problem' is that you come and ask for input CONSTANTLY. This is the very definition of insanity, admins and staff ask for input on how to make things better and never act on any of it. The fact that it continues to be asked is true insanity.
That aside, I took time to give honest feed back and offer up NEW insight and very reasonable suggestions. The response? The equivalent of "no, thanks, instead we're going to make some random changes to game play and not really discuss them here. thanks to everyone who participated... moving on now."
That about sums up what's taken from your post. We were given a post over a week ago that someone was working on revamping the rules, something that was genuinely suggested here as a first step solution. Over a week and no progress or status updates and then we get this sudden "oh we're going to do SOMETHING but not really discuss it and yeah".
It's absolutely ridiculous. You want to know what's wrong with TWL? THIS THREAD. It sums it up perfectly.
Communication is so damned important to ANY organization of ANY kind and yet, with it being so important, TWL epicly fails at it.
My rage quit comment may have been unhelpful and useless forum filler, but I honestly had no other words to express the emotion I felt reading your post except for maybe "facepalm".
I'm simply done. I have stuck around, I've checked the forums DAILY despite not having even played CSS let alone in a TWL event for over a year just to genuinely try to be a helpful part of this community because I recognize that I have skills that may some day be useful.
You want suggestions or help improving things? Send your staff to therapy to work out your communication issues.
- Peace
EDIT:
In case it wasn't already clear; map selection and gungame game play are not what's wrong with any of the TWL ladders -.-
Post edited by Spiked at 5/3/2012 1:16:36 PM
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Night Stalker
Operations Director
Senior Operations
Lead Systems Admin
Engineering
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| 05-03-2012 08:54 PM / profile
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Spiked,
I agree with you but you must also consider that this place is on a volunteer basis. My staff and myself do have lives outside of TWL and I can't keep them from that. That being said, I have spent enough time with Captain Squarepants from RAC who does play Gungame more then me and with Monday who created Gungame itself. We are also looking to get League up and running at the same time and a few other things that need to be completed.
Straight out answer... I've given a deadline of June 1st to have everything up and running. And to be honest, I would like to have it done before.
As you said, start over and wipe the slate clean. That's exactly what we are doing. A news post will be released soon indicating the closure of the ladder. We have identified and made changes to the game play of gungame in what we think will make things more competitive and will require better strategy on behalf of the teams.
We did have a set back in the rules but are working on it. Now you mentioned that there are loop holes in the Gungame rules and that they need to be fixed. I, personally, do not play Gungame therefor identifying there loops holes may be difficult for me. I encourage you to point them out and suggest how it be corrected so these problems can be fixed.
Building trust and communication is important but will take time to rebuild. We are committed to start building that trust again but the community needs to also. A general e-mail was sent out last night about players entering their IDs properly. Players need to use due diligence. I will send out a e-mail about it.
As for an ACS, I'm not aware on plugins/mods/ACS server side using SRCDS but it's worth looking into. I will see what can be done but this will take time to fully understand, comprehend and implement properly.
As for the stickies, I'll go over them.
I am open to working with the community but all I ask in return is some time and some patience. My staff and I are here to work for the community and with the community, not against the community. I know everyone wants answers and results immediately and we are trying to achieve them. Sometimes we just need to take more time and get it right instead having to patch things up constantly.
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Captain Squarepants
TWL Member
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| 05-03-2012 11:42 PM / profile
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All, I have play Gungame for a long time and agree things have not always went in the favor of the community. I agree with you spike on alot of things but to be honest, I think the changes that will be coming are well overdue.
If there are rules that are not correct, please please identify them. The problem that I have seen in the past was one of team agreeing to do things that were not within the rules yet happened anyways. Please keep in mind that some of the rules are set but if a match is played and no one dispute it, we are not aware of them happening. This is nothing we can control. This has to happen on the community side not allowing certain things to happen.
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khgw.DeFiaNT
TWL Member
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| 05-04-2012 09:05 AM / profile
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Originally posted by: JediMasterAlex1138
I concur with Spiked on nearly everything he said, especially regarding the rules. They absolutely need to be rewritten. I've had direct experience with several inconsistencies in the rules that have not been addressed (particularly one having to do with teamkilling in the screenshot round). I'd also like to add that the appeals process is woefully inefficient and needs to be streamlined considerably. I'm glad that Defiant and others seem to be gone, so maybe new admins will be more competent. I've had appeals drag on for months, which is obviously unacceptable.
Admins would be more competent if they get trained properly to begin with right off the bad and not months in. It all starts from the top, the experience I had was not getting trained and then being asked to train new people without most of the training myself.
This is another aspect of TWL that needs to be improved in my opinion.
I don't know how long I was CM but when I stepped down I still had not had training yet I take the blame. I have no problem taking the blame.
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Spiked
TWL Member
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| 05-04-2012 11:58 AM / profile
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Originally posted by: Captain Squarepants
I agree with you spike on alot of things but to be honest, I think the changes that will be coming are well overdue.
They may very well be, but you missed the point. You came and asked the community to communicate with you, and in return you give us a blank statement saying some random misc changes are coming.
Personally, I'm going to take that blank statement as if you are adding an option to GG to slay a whole team if any friendly fire occurs. Ofcourse this probably isnt' what you are doing, but do you see the point here? You ask for specifics and you give vagues.
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Spiked
TWL Member
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| 05-04-2012 12:06 PM / profile
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Originally posted by: Night Stalker
Spiked,
I agree with you but you must also consider that this place is on a volunteer basis. My staff and myself do have lives outside of TWL and I can't keep them from that.
You volunteered knowing that, either you have time to do it or step down.
Originally posted by: Night Stalker
That being said, I have spent enough time with Captain Squarepants from RAC who does play Gungame more then me and with Monday who created Gungame itself.
That's not even accurate.
Originally posted by: Night Stalker
As you said, start over and wipe the slate clean. That's exactly what we are doing. A news post will be released soon indicating the closure of the ladder. We have identified and made changes to the game play of gungame in what we think will make things more competitive and will require better strategy on behalf of the teams.
Changing how GG game play works has nothing to do with reviving CSS ladders. This will fail. People still play GG as it is now, but they don't play TWL GG.
Originally posted by: Night Stalker
We did have a set back in the rules but are working on it. Now you mentioned that there are loop holes in the Gungame rules and that they need to be fixed. I, personally, do not play Gungame therefor identifying there loops holes may be difficult for me. I encourage you to point them out and suggest how it be corrected so these problems can be fixed.
The loop holes are not in the Gungame part, they exist in the 8-10 pages that is the "rules" listed on this site. Read it, you will find several inconsistencies and errors regardless of GG or ladder CSS.
Originally posted by: Night Stalker
Building trust and communication is important but will take time to rebuild. We are committed to start building that trust again but the community needs to also. A general e-mail was sent out last night about players entering their IDs properly. Players need to use due diligence. I will send out a e-mail about it.
There's currently no way to even correct an invalid entry. Telling us to "fix" them ourselves isn't exactly going to work.
Originally posted by: Night Stalker
As for an ACS, I'm not aware on plugins/mods/ACS server side using SRCDS but it's worth looking into. I will see what can be done but this will take time to fully understand, comprehend and implement properly.
You misunderstood entirely. These were 2 separate points that are slightly related.
1) an ACS would be a huge step in getting ppl back on here
2) regardless of 1, there are steps that can be taken with srcds plugins or ES scripts (that twl can require as part of the server setup) that can watch for server-side plugin cheating (such as health loss mitigation, or client-side rate tweaking)
Originally posted by: Night Stalker
Sometimes we just need to take more time and get it right instead having to patch things up constantly.
MOTHER-BLEEPING THIS ^^^^^^^^^^^
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