TF2 Dedicated Server Rant

Where to start with this one…

I just spent the better part of 2 hours trying to configure a dedicated TF2 server with the Beetle’s Mod admin plugin… what appears to be the only functioning admin plugin out there worth a fuck for TF2.

And you know where I’m at now?  FUCKING NO WHERE.  I have given up, deleted all the server files, and told Steam to get fucking BENT for having absolutely shit support and documentation on how to configure a fucking server.  And on top of that, an even bigger fuck you to whatever assclown pieced together that piece of shit known as Beetle’s Mod.

First off, installing the TF2 dedicated server on a plain machine with out Steam on it is a royal fuck in the ass.  Go ahead and try and figure it out with out googling and reading through other forum posts.  I dare you to.

You won’t get far.

For the sake of not going on for an hour here, lets say that by the love of something you have actually installed the “HLDS Update Tool” and you have some how managed to figure out the command to install the TF2 dedicated server.  After it downloads around 2gb of files it leaves you with a connection reset message on exit, leaving you to wonder if this hack-fuck thing actually worked or not.  So you navigate to the folder you told it to install to and find srcds.exe  It has a nice pretty icon, so you double click it to fire up the dedicated server console… but guess what?  NOTHING HAPPENS!  That’s right.  Not a fucking thing.  SRCDS is actually a COMMAND LINE dedicated server.  There is aboslutely NO GUI to this thing, so all administration has to be done in config files placed randomly throughout the large directory tree it has created, or through commands in the console winow… good fucking luck figuring those out.   Steam has aboslutely no documentation on this, at least none that I could find.  It’s like some trade-secret or something.

You know…  for being one of the best multiplayer PC games to come out in several years, it has got to have the absolutely WORST dedicate server set up I have ever seen.  Seriously… 10 years ago playing Unreal Tournament, it’s dedicated server came with a kick ass web interface to it!  They could do it 10 years ago, there is no fucking reason why we can’t do this in 2008.

So anyway, if you figure out the command to start that asshole is srcds -console -game tf +maxplayers32 +map ctf_2fort then you’re doing alright.

But chances are you will actually want a nice way to be able to actually ADMINISTER the server once it’s up and running, right?

Well, supposedly Bettle’s Mod does this for you, but I have no clue because I NEVER COULD GET IT WORKING.

I’m not a moron here.  I know my way in and out of a Windows system, but this was fucking ludacris.  All documentation for Beetle’s Mod is literally 5 years old, and so out of date that the commands in the documentation NO LONGER WORK!  I spent 45 minutes trying to figure out why the plugin wasn’t loading when I started the server because in their own documentation it says to use “empy_version” to check to see if it’s loaded, and it wasn’t working for me.  I eventually came across some obscure post on their forums saying the command is actually “beetlesmod_version”.  So once I got it running, I entered my steam ID in it’s configuration file to grant my self admin rights and loaded it up.  I joined in and issued the @menu command and nothing happened.  Yup… the server just ignored me.  I spent at least another 1.5 hours trying to get this working.  I tried everything including a tool called Beetle’s Configuration System… but it appears to be as equally undocumented, undeveloped, and unsupported, as Beetle’s Admin, and the server itself are.

I’m not alone either.  There are countless posts of people asking for help with this dog turd, and no one seems willing to help.  Either no one actually knows how to use this thing, or they all suffer from the god syndrome that they are better then you and if you can’t figure it out on your own, then you can’t run it.

About a year ago I actually had a working server, using Mani’s Admin, but over time and TF2 updates, Mani’s Admin broke and I could never get that server install working again, even after trying to remove Mani’s Admin shit.  And don’t kid yourself, I spent MANY hours getting that one to ever run right.

So here I am… a broken hollow shell of a TF2 server admin.  I have given up all hope of getting it to run right, and I think it’s fucking sad.

It is seriously pathetic that the best multiplayer game to come out in years is tainted by an absolutely horrid dedicated server system, and even more horrid administrative options.  It is absolutely disgusting.

Steam, why can’t you do this right?  Do you NOT want people to run servers for your games?  Is this part of some master plan to make things incredibly difficult for others to do?  If so, why?

It’s just not worth my time to spend hours and hours setting this thing up that would maybe be used at a LAN party once or twice… although not likely.

Jesus christ, where’s the Tylenol?