Zandronum

Competition in Doom is not a growing entity, but a shrinking one. The IDL is dead, competitions on this port struggle to finish with even the most active players, and most people have moved on with real life or play LoL now. I asked a lot of people on what they wanted to see that would make them play Doom once again and put all those ideas into this single project that I bring forth today. I have tested with 35 people so far, with only positive comments from everyone.

Or maybe you're a mod player and don't care about competitive, but there is also great news for you too! Read on to see what features are coming to a server near you!


Topics:

• Account System
• Registering
• Gameplay rules
• New client

Account System

The new server uses an account system for people to connect. You register in #priv on irc.zandronum.com via IRC and after approval, your account is ready to connect to any server! It's an extremely easy process to do. It just requires.

- IRC connection
- Valid email (for your nickserv account, if you already have one skip this step)
- Some kind of proof you are who you are

The reason we need proof that you are who you are is because of idiots like Shadowfox that cause THIS. Zandronum right now is struggling with this person who goes around hacking in every server. He spoofs names to get into servers and then does his damage. As you can see, nothing can really ban all the VPN's he uses, but this account system will lock him out.

We make sure that the person registering is a valid person and not him. If you're a ZDaemon player, you better be able to login to your ZD account and have at least one voucher of a valid person. If you're a new mod player who wants to try out competitive, make sure you have someone in the mod scene who can vouch for you because we have no way of knowing if you're a griefer or not. At worst, any grief accounts that do get approved will just be disabled, so it's no loss overall.


Accounts track your stats

This is the part everyone loves.

Your account has tracked stats. That means all your kills, games, results are stored in a database shared among multiple servers. This is a prototype for what you may see in the future on many zan servers if successfully implemented. Mod players may like this because the data persists after the game (and this works with demos).



You can type 'stats' in console to see your stats at any time:






At the end of a CTF game, your stats are also made known to everyone (so you can see how you did)




All these results are saved in a database and will be automatically displayed on the website when I get around to finishing the website.




Registering

Registering is easy:

1) Join #priv on IRC
2) Type: register <yourname>
3) Respond to the PM with a password

And shortly an admin will approve you. The bot will tell you the instructions on how to connect. Like Grandvoid, your connect pass is:
name:pass
The one you registered with.





Server clusters

Right now the server clusters are all owned by me. The locations are:
- Chicago, Illinois, USA
- United Kingdom
- New York, USA


When I iron out all the bugs and feel ready, I will open up the project to any server hoster to use. Right now this is in the beta and I'm still trying to fix any bugs that come up.





Gameplay Rules

Right now CTF is only operational, if it works out and enough people want it, I will expand it to duel. So far though:

1. 3 v 3 for now (4 v 4 may be allowed in the future, but stats will not register for 4v4)
2. 10 minute games
3. Two teams only
4. No overtime
5. Disconnecting mid game (or timing out) nullifies stat recording, but applies an Elo ranking punishment to the disconnecter!

The games are based off of Elo rankings now. Winning will increase your Elo ranking. Losing will decrease. For those familiar with the algorithm (it's really simple if you google it), you can see that ties can actually cause you win or lose a few points. For example, if you tie with someone with a higher Elo, it means you are at their skill level, and you will get a boost from it. The opposite is true for high players that tie with low Elo players.

If you mess around in games and disconnect a lot, you will have your account suspended. This is meant to be a place where people can compete.

There is a randcaps feature that picks people who have not played yet. Therefore on these servers, you will always be able to play. I originally made a random team scrambler, but I put it on hold until I have more patience to fix the bugs with it. Randteams is a classic private CTF method that has worked out fine in the past.




New Client
This gets better!

There is a new client that adds new features to make your gameplay experience much better. European and high ping players will notice their shots connect better, and it has a lot of features pulled from the latest Zandronum to help you play better.

Such things that you may find interesting are support for gaming mice, override colors, clientside puffs, and a bunch of server side unlagged things I've done to make the experience bliss.

You can download it in #priv. The source code is also available for those who want to compile their own versions in the topic as well. By using the new client (I've let Torr know about it and he's okay with it), you are helping Zandronum development by testing out features that have been put in the engine. There will be bugs, like right now you can't alt+f4 to exit. I'm sorry. I haven't pulled everything yet.








Are you interested in competitive now and don't play normally? Check out #priv and we can talk. I look forward to seeing you in game!

Best thing to happen to Zandronum's competition

So Zandronum isn't falling like economy ;) GJ water!

THANK YOU BASED GOD


This will eventually have mod support, right? Now I have a reason to resume work on Mercenaries.

Catastrophe wrote: Best thing to happen to Zandronum's competition

This ^

This has a lot of incredible potential, I'm looking forward to seeing more of this system in effect and to play a lot more games on this.

Watermelon wrote:

1. Disconnecting mid game (or timing out) nullifies stat recording, but applies an Elo ranking punishment to the disconnecter!

I partially agree to this... while it's a neat system for dealing with trolls/ragequitters it doesn't make much sense to "punish" people unwillingly disconnecting, as is the case for someone timing out. Then again, disabling the penalty for timing out cases would stimulate trolls to exploit that and leaving avoiding the "punishment", so I guess it's better to handle this as it's already handled after all.

Anyway great job with the project

For those of you who are wondering, yes, the upcoming Zandronum account system will be integrated into this eventually.

Yes great work Water! I also hope in time we see Duel rankings :)

Wait so you can store player names?
*__* this is the feature that I was waiting for flappy lost soul

Amazing work dude!

Neat idea. but the way the stats are set up could lead to games being played differently. Example, desire to rack up the right hand column stats could potentially birth a lot more rocket spam

Good Job

Well welly well welly well well. After hearing about this after Shadowcocks came back, I had assumed this'd come much, much later. Buy hey, it's here now.

I have a question though, I know that at the moment it's only for competitive, but when you said the stuff about mod players, does that mean server clusters hosting mods will get it too? That'd kinda be odd since mods really don't count for anything, cept maps because you know, maps.

This looks great. Can't wait to try it out when I get the time. Well done Water.

Sweet Baby Jesus With A Party Hat.

Suicide Slim wrote: Well welly well welly well well. After hearing about this after Shadowcocks came back, I had assumed this'd come much, much later. Buy hey, it's here now.

I have a question though, I know that at the moment it's only for competitive, but when you said the stuff about mod players, does that mean server clusters hosting mods will get it too? That'd kinda be odd since mods really don't count for anything, cept maps because you know, maps.

This is a prototype to show that zandronum can be successful for storing data outside of the client.

If the idea works, this means it can be applied to more than just competitive. Right now the competitive player base is active and gives me enough people to do this with.

Interesting feature, will motivate me to play a bit more competitive. Thanks!

Watermelon wrote:

Suicide Slim wrote: Well welly well welly well well. After hearing about this after Shadowcocks came back, I had assumed this'd come much, much later. Buy hey, it's here now.

I have a question though, I know that at the moment it's only for competitive, but when you said the stuff about mod players, does that mean server clusters hosting mods will get it too? That'd kinda be odd since mods really don't count for anything, cept maps because you know, maps.

This is a prototype to show that zandronum can be successful for storing data outside of the client.

If the idea works, this means it can be applied to more than just competitive. Right now the competitive player base is active and gives me enough people to do this with.

I just wanted some assurance, thanks Water.