Topics

1

Bot Drop / Bot or not?

« on: March 14, 2021, 05:02:55 AM »

Was spectating someone named "Pumpkin Lips" on the DM server yesterday. It seemed they actively avoided picking up hitscan weapons (railgun, machinegun, etc.), but when they did get them, once they focused on someone, the crosshair movement looked sorta bot-like.

Here's a demo of them on DM1. It's kinda boring, and you have to wait a bit to get to what I'm talking about, but check it out if you want to give your two cents.

The first time happens when he has 6 frags, and he respawns in the sewer/mg. He gets MG and his crosshair movement seems really jerky, but still very precise. There's another time when he's got 10 kills where it looks more suspicious (also with MG). He's kinda erratic with movement in general, but it just looked odd to me.

It's not a smoking gun necessarily, but it might be worth putting more pairs of eyes on it to judge. Perhaps it's a bot with a really low fov setting.

2

dm / Please consider implementing spawn farthest on the DM server

« on: February 25, 2021, 09:07:06 PM »

Lately, perhaps my biggest source of frustration on the DM server has been the fact that you can kill someone, survive by the skin of your teeth, and that person can respawn literally at your feet, reclaim the weapon that dropped from their previous life, and you now have to kill them twice (and this can happen repeatedly). That, or like on DM4, you can respawn at GL 3-4+ times in a row after death, and meanwhile your opponent respawns at yellow armor, or somewhere else much closer to the action, or to good weapons, and this can give them a huge advantage in a tight game. It would be great if the reason I lose a match isn't because the spawn gods saw to it that it wasn't in the cards for me to win that map, but because my opponents played more skillfully than I did.

Spawn farthest is only an issue when it's a 1v1 situation, and if you know anything about the DM server, the chances of that happening are slim to none. It would be nice to know that anybody that dies by yellow armor on DM4 is getting booted to GL (or wherever they end up when dying in that area). This way all death penalties are equal, and there's no need for irrational feelings of having the cards stacked against you or whatnot.

Also, so many times I am setting up for some jump, and as I'm hop hopping toward the box or whatever, someone will randomly spawn in my way, breaking the flow, and again creating more frustration (with the spawn mechanic).

Spawn farthest is perfectly fine for FFA, and is better than the randomness of whatever is being used now.

Also, can we get a REAL 1-second (or whatever) spawn protection? Sometimes there's literally nothing. I don't see the benefit of the randomness.

PS - I believe I brought this up not too long ago, and I was directed to another thread, but I don't know where that is now. If a poll is suggested, that wouldn't work because 90%, if not more, of the people who play on DM don't appear to visit the forums at all, or at least with any regularity.

3

Quake / How many hops from tastyspleen.net are you?

« on: February 25, 2021, 04:26:40 PM »

At a DOS prompt (type cmd in the Windows run box, or in search, then click the "command prompt" app), type the following:

tracert -d tastyspleen.net

How many hops is it for you?

4

Jump & Trick Demos / Useful/fun DM6 jump - Ambush person getting quad

« on: September 23, 2020, 09:43:42 PM »

This is probably not new, but I can't remember seeing anybody doing it in game. Kinda useful, though would probably take some practice to get reliably.

Edit: The jump uses the bottom little box that can be used to jump up to chaingun, along the wall there. Instead of jumping towards chain, you double-jump towards the quad area, and you can get on top of the little moving wall and can be above whoever happens to be using the ladder to leave the quad area.

5

Science / Medical News Depository

« on: July 30, 2020, 01:03:30 PM »

"Experimental Blood Test Detects Cancer up to Four Years before Symptoms Appear"

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/experimental-blood-test-detects-cancer-up-to-four-years-before-symptoms-appear/

From reddit:

I actually work with these tests and it's the new big thing in cancer detection. Cell-free DNA detected in the blood plasma can be collected. When cells die off they release DNA into the bloodstream, having a half life of around only 30 minutes. Very, very short. If you have a small tumour, well-connected to the blood stream, the cells will die at a higher rate. That higher rate of cell death, via apoptosis or necrosis will increase the levels of cell-free DNA in your blood plasma. That's the first sign. Then if you create a targetted panel of genes to cancer, you can match up your cell-free DNA to detect mutations being given off.

This method, should it continue to prove good, will help cancer screening. Many tumours can't be imaged until they are big enough, or a biopsy may be too difficult or dangerous to take.

https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/i0mec2/experimental_blood_test_detects_cancer_up_to_four/

6

Quake / R1Q2 vs Q2Pro vs Yamagi vs ? - What are the advantages/disadvantages of each?

« on: June 26, 2020, 12:51:30 PM »

Refer to the title, essentially.

I use R1Q2, mainly because I recall it being "better" or supposedly the best client. I don't know if that's true, or what that's based on - it's just what I've used for quite a while now.

Is there any difference between R1Q2 and Q2Pro regarding physics, or net code, or game play? I'm not really concerned about aesthetics, as far as making things prettier (though I do like better visibility), I'm more interested in performance-related differences.

So anyway, is there any reason, other than just "it's what I'm used to" to choose one over the other? I noticed a few TDM'ers were all using Q2Pro recently, and I was curious if that's just a coincidence, or is there something behind that choice (performance-wise).

Also, why is Q2Pro in the default download package in the Quake II Starter here? Why not R1Q2?

PS - What's Yamagi? I just found that through some searching - I had never heard of it before. Any performance reasons to use it over any other clients?

7

Quake / Anybody else getting crazy packet loss on the DM (or other) server lately?

« on: April 27, 2019, 12:07:49 PM »

I get it periodically. For hours it'll be buttery smooth with not a single red line shown on netgraph. Then, there'll be periods where it's like the attached image. Is that on my end, or is that possibly a tastyspleen issue?

8

Quake / Replacing the rocket/grenade splash damage animation/graphic

« on: April 18, 2019, 08:28:41 PM »

The rocket and grenade splash is a constant smokescreen preventing me from seeing what's going on behind it. I guess you could argue that it's part of the game, but I find it really annoying. I think I replaced it years and years ago with something that was mostly gray sparkles or something like that. It didn't obstruct the view nearly as much anyway.

Does anybody use one of these or know how to install it? It's been so many years since I've fiddled with a .pak file.

9

Quake / Any setting to make spawning upon map rotation quicker?

« on: April 15, 2019, 09:31:03 PM »

While on the DM server, I often get the impression that most people are loading up the next map quicker than I am. I frequently end up telefragging someone else when the map loads up (indicating that they were on the pad before me), and I often spawn hearing other people already collecting weapons, or otherwise seeming to be moving around and being active quicker than me. My ping is fairly low (upper 30s), Quake 2 is running on a fairly quick SSD, I'm on an i7-6700K processor (plenty quick for a twenty year-old game), etc., etc.

So, is there a setting I can fiddle with that might help this? Is this something to do with the number of hops to the server or something? Anything I can check into to see if I can tweak to speed this up?

10

tastyspleen.net / Auto-forward when server is full - is this possible?

« on: March 16, 2019, 05:17:10 PM »

Is it possible to be auto-forwarded to the classic server when one tries to connect to the DM server and it's full? Is this something that you'd be OK with, quadz? If this isn't possible, or isn't something you want to see happen, is it possible to give them a message like, "DM server full? Try the "classic" server instead!"

The goal is twofold: One, to give players an alternative when the DM server is full (which happens semi-frequently it seems), and also to increase the population on the classic server. I imagine many (if not most) players that play on the DM servers, and the other popular servers, don't come to the forums, so they simply join the most-populated servers as returned by their server browser (like the one that comes with the Q2 starter kit here). If classic gets DM overflow, then the hope (for me) is that it'll have more-consistent activity. I've heard from a  few players on the DM server that they would like to play on the classic server, but it's always empty.

11

Quake / Thank you, quadz!

« on: September 02, 2018, 04:37:12 PM »

I'm feeling very appreciative right now. When did the tastyspleen servers originally go online?

I took a break from playing Quake 2 at some point in 2011 or 2012, I believe, and came back for a bit, earlier this year. Around March, I was caught off guard in finding myself somehow interested in playing Q2 again. It was so nice to see that, even after being gone for 6+ years, the tastyspleen servers are still alive, and there still seems to be a reasonably-healthy playerbase playing daily.

I want to say thank you to quadz for everything you do to keep these servers up and running, and for free (to the players) no less. I've gotten so much enjoyment playing Quake 2 over the years, and a huge aspect of that has been the accessibility of the tastyspleen servers. I really can't say thank you enough.

Have you ever thought about making a little blurb on the history of these servers? For a game nearly 21 years old at this point, it would be kinda cool to have just a small bit of info about this server (when it started, if it was thought it would still be around after all these years at that point, where it's located, something about the community, etc.), as it might just be the most-active community in all of Quake 2 that's still around. I'd have to think that's true, at least for non CTF or Action Q2 (if those mods are still alive and well).

12

Quake / Is it possible to intentionally lag your client?

« on: March 10, 2018, 10:24:18 PM »

I just started playing again last night (03/09), and I've noticed a few players that are almost constantly warping around, as if they're experiencing packet loss, or some sort of recurring lag spike. This makes them very difficult to hit, as their movements aren't in any way predictable. From their point of view though, I'm not sure if they are experiencing this lag, as they still seem to maintain their target without apparent issue during these lag spikes. One player, Whipl@sh, was doing this warping thing, and when I expressed my frustrations at trying to hit him because of it, it seemed to come as a surprise to him. This gives these players a pretty huge defensive advantage, but it doesn't really appear to affect their offense necessarily.

So, is it possible that some of these players are doing this intentionally, for that defensive advantage, via some program or whatnot? I am not attempting to accuse anyone of trying to bend or break the rules, I'm just curious if this is even possible.

13

1337 Frag Demos / Another mid-air rocket, youtube link included

« on: June 26, 2011, 03:45:00 PM »

This is probably the coolest looking one I've done.  Make sure you switch to 720p.  If anybody knows how I can make the link default to 720p, please let me know.  Taken probably a week or so ago.  Full demo of that game included in case anybody wants to see it in-game.  Pretty nice flick rail at frag #20.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Atfn3UOtUuM&hd=1

14

Bot Drop / Way too many people insisting I'm a cheater lately... a couple demos

« on: June 23, 2011, 01:32:45 PM »

Two people (at least) in the last 24 hours are adamant that I am cheating.  One is Mudkip (who I think might be Razer) and the other is Tycho.  For one, I think if you're going to go overboard with accusations, you shouldn't be allowed to alias.  So I would like to know who these 2 people actually are, if that's ok.  I've attached 2 demos of me as "proof" that I bot/wall/etc., apparently.  I'd like to use AC to prove I don't hack (because I feel better when I see others using it, tbh), but I get the occasional crash with AC + R1Q2 (which I made a thread about, found HERE), so I have opted not to use it, hoping my 10? years on these servers, and the reputation myself and my clan have, were good enough for those to vouch for my legitimacy.

Attached are 2 demos of FFA DM, the first on DM1, and the 2nd on DM2.  DM2 is probably more "bot-like", if you can call it that.

Anyway, please download these demos, analyze them, and let me know if you think there is "proof" that I cheat.  My intentions are to have a thread to reference in the future that I do not.  I'd like to hear some different opinions.

15

1337 Frag Demos / Now TWO mid-air rockets from DM2. 2nd one is MUCH better.

« on: April 07, 2011, 04:36:50 PM »

This is a shot I try for a lot, but timed it right this time (and have been actually recording demos lately).  Was pretty funny I think =)  This is the entire map demo.  The frag in question is frag #16.  I also hit a pretty sweet rail at frag #4, and also have an amusing self-kill at #7.

Feel free to edit it if you want.

I added a 2nd mid-air rocket.  Really nice one actually, but I didn't get a kill from it =(  It comes when I have 17 frags if you wanna timescale and skip forward.

Video link for the mid-air rocket from the 2nd vid -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAlucv-i9pQ