I am doing some part-time adminning for a website that a group of friends has started. We are extremely new at this, but have recognized that what we know is a tiny part of what we don't. We are currently using ModernRcon as our only administration software, other than the stuff provided to us by our server host.

I was hoping that some of you out there would have some suggestions for additional software that we might need plus some suggestions for what you use for administration. modernrcon lets us keep track of who is playing, message them with warnings, etc., and kick or ban players as needed. but we need to be in the game to keep watch for violations ( we only want to keep marty and noob toobs out -whatever else you do is fine, but its amazing the number of players who take marty and noob toob as their first two lines of offense and defense). I know that we can use punkbuster to disallow certain dvars, and even have seen sites that appear to be able to read your perks when you play ingame. Being fans of tweaking, we dont want to restrict dvars except for the cheat dvars (and the hosting company has that built into the server config), but we do want to be able to keep our game clean and even without too much toil and trouble. Right now, we have to spot somebody who is flaunting the rules, and go into modernrcon to warn him several times, then finally to kick him. Plus, if the game gets sizeable, it is tough to use normal speccing to keep up with the fouls.

Any suggestions would be appreciated, including websites where we can learn to do a better job of policing our site. Other than keeping marty and noob toobs out, we want the site to basically be fun to play on. We dont want to be the heavy hand of the federal government, but on the other hand we dont want to invite mayhem to the point that players cant play their best.

thanks

Bugz

Hey Bugz,

I'm pretty sure all us Server Admins are in the same boat.

There are a kaleidoscope of RCON tools out there but all are limited to the capabilities of RCON in the game.

There are only 2 options that we found when administering our servers. We have always run a Bolts Only server and preventing users from using semi's, marty's, bolt-nades etc was damn nearly a full-time job. Eventually we gave up and went for a bolts-only mod and that worked great. More of the professional crowd joined the server and are regulars on the box.

Mods are really easy to set up and get running and there are many mods out there that allow you to customize your server to the rules and weapons you want. It's a trade off and you have to decide what works for you best. As far I'm aware, there is no way to auto-admin your server without either modding it or writing the dvars into punkbuster.

If you're looking for more info, you can always check out fpsadmin.com The guys there are all server admins and would be able to help you achieve what you're looking for.

thanks, sinex. I have been to fpsadmin and am trying to learn the ins and outs of doing a good admin job. I think that writing in the weps and perks that we want would work, but the guys want to keep it a ranked server, which means we have to allow all weps and perks officially, and just keep hassling folks to stop the ones we dont want. Right now we have so little history that we cant be sure of the direction to take, so I guess our best bet is to just keep searching for the best way to run our server to our specs. I will probably have to haunt the fpsadmin site, and just buckle down and do the hard work of manually policing the site. We are getting a steady flow of players, and are beginning to see return players who like to play without marty and tubes, so maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel. There always seems to be a player or two who is willing to help us find the odd marty or tube that we miss, so that is a good sign. it is just that we are very new and want to do the best we can for our site and our guests.

If you do want some assistance from players you trust to be mods, you could set up a limited AG-RCON tool for them to use to assist in moderating the esrver. We gave our Junior Mods an RCON tool that only allowed them to change maps, game-type and kick players.

Another option is turning on Voting with a 75% weight and if most of the server feels that a certain individual should be kicked then they can vote-kick him.

Also, learn the RCON console commands so you can manage your server from within game without having to switch over to the tool. I almost never use a tool anymore since I'm so used to the console commands now.

Best of luck with it....it gets easier.

Sinex

Good advice. Do you advise that we go to a different rcon tool? we are using modernrcon cause it is free and pretty simple to operate, but it is a pain to bounce back and forth between that and the game. Voting is not set up right now. we have a lot of foreign players who dont seem to understand english ( at least they ignore my demands that they stop marty and toob ) so voting might not accomplish it, but it is def something to look at doing.

If you know where i can find a list of the rcon commands, please advise. I will attempt to learn and use them ingame. much more efficient than using them as I am currently doing.

I appreciate your help and ideas. Any more you care to share with me will be very welcome.

bugz

Hey Bugz,

There are literally millions of console commands but these are the ones that are used most regularly.

Here is a list of Call of Duty : World at War Rcon Commands.

/rcon login [RCONPASSWORD]
Login to remote rcon.

/rcon kick [NAME]
Kicks a player by name from the server. (Will issue a temp-ban time-limit aswell)

/rcon kick all
Kicks all players from the server.

/rcon onlykick [NAME]
Kicks a player by name from the server. (They would be able to log back in without waiting)

/rcon onlykick all
Kicks all players from the server.

/rcon clientkick [ID]
Kicks a player by client id from the server.

/rcon banUser [NAME]
Bans a user by their ingame name. Writes their GUID to ban.txt

/rcon banClient [ID]
Bans a user by their client number. Writes their GUID to ban.txt

/rcon tempBanUser [NAME]
Kicks and temporarily bans player by name from server.

/rcon tempBanClient [ID]
Kicks and temporarily bans player by client id from server

/rcon unbanuser [NAME]
Unban every player banned with [name]. If you want to unban a single player whose name appears more than once, you should edit "ban.txt" manually.

/rcon map [mapname]
Loads the map specified by mapname.

/rcon map_rotate
Loads next map in rotation set in sv_maprotation.

/rcon map_restart
Reloads the map.

/rcon fast_restart
Restarts the map.

/rcon serverinfo
Shows the current server's settings.

/rcon systeminfo
Shows the current System Information.

/rcon status
Displays info of all the players on the server.

/rcon exec [FILENAME]
Executes a Server Config File (located in your server's main directory)

/rcon writeconfig [FILENAME]
Saves a Server Config File

/rcon say
Post a console message to all players.

/pb_plist
Lists the GUIDs of players on the server.

/pb_alist #
Lists the Aliases of whatever number you choose from the command above.

/rcon map mp_seelow
Change map to Seelow, or whatever map you want

/rcon restart
Reloads the Map

/rcon fast_restart
Restarts the Map without reloading it

That should be enough to get you started.

Some more console commands can be found here at CoD-TV:
http://callofduty5.tv/custom_pages/console_commands.php

Thanks. I went to the fpsadmin site and started reading up on setting up and using rcon. I think im going to have to play around with it a little to get used to it. I am not the chief admin on the site, so I will have to talk the real admin into letting me putz around with rcon while i am learning it. We have tried to forward a port to modernrcon to let us look at chat, but it steadfastly refuses to let us. If we can do that, we would be a step in the right direction while we get our situation stabilized. We also need to get a couple of private slots for the gamesite so that we can admin without taking player slots and advertising that we are there. when either the chief admin or i appear on the scene, the mob seems to magically become less unruly but when we have to log off to sleep or eat, i am sure the fun starts again. We are planning to upgrade our setup slowly, but your suggestions have already opened up a way for us to do the job more efficiently.

2 words....smurf account!!!

I'm currently using Modern Rcon for my gameservers,which has all the features you could possibly need,map changing,and kick,ban etc on the fly.
Only downside to this is there's no game overlay,so you have to alt tab out of game,which can be annoying at times.

If you run on a dedicated box, or have a spare database sitting around(from your clan's website, for example) you can set up the B3 Bot. http://www.bigbrotherbot.com/forums/ which allows for certain in-game administration functions. Not sure if your host provides direct support/integration for it, you'll have to ask them.

I personally use HLSW for server admin purposes. Same issue, though, you have to alt+tab out of game and back to use it. Morkeye is a wonderful language administration tool that can be configured to welcome individual players and you can use it to kick for foul language as well. Agrcon mentioned in an earlier post in this thread is just a more updated version of modern rcon.