It is once again the 25th of a month and that means the new Reality Contact! Its hot from the oven!
With the vacation in between it means we have one or two fewer articles than your used to. We still hope you'll enjoy reading it.
This month we welcome RealPlay as a new sub-editor. Thats right! Hobbnob finally got himself a personal sla..uuuhm assistant.
Like always, if you want to be featured (be it with words or art) in the magazine feel free to contact: Hobbnob or Cyberzomby. It really is that easy.
Have fun!
Reality Contact Edition 8!
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UKrealplayER666
- Posts: 551
- Joined: 2009-02-22 16:33
Re: Reality Contact Edition 8!
Naiiiccceeeeeeee
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Wicca
- Posts: 7336
- Joined: 2008-01-05 14:53
Re: Reality Contact Edition 8!
0.8 Can we start using PR versions after this? As in 0.85 etc 
Xact Wicca is The Joker. That is all.
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Acemantura
- Posts: 2463
- Joined: 2007-08-18 06:50
<---
cyberzomby
- Posts: 5336
- Joined: 2007-04-03 07:12
Re: Reality Contact Edition 8!
SEXY! I would soooo love pictures as evidence!acemantura wrote:is it weird that I print these out?
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Mj Pain
- Posts: 1036
- Joined: 2008-05-07 21:18
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Zyco187
- Posts: 381
- Joined: 2010-03-11 19:46
Re: Reality Contact Edition 8!
great mag keep em coming!!!
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hobbnob
- Posts: 997
- Joined: 2009-05-12 18:23
Re: Reality Contact Edition 8!
Lol I really didn't have much part in this month, good to see the team working so independantly now well done lads
@Acemantura: Pics plz
@Acemantura: Pics plz
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Tartantyco
- Posts: 2796
- Joined: 2006-10-21 14:11
Re: Reality Contact Edition 8!
Due to some errors in the editing process of which I was not informed regarding the "Server Adminning" article, I will post it here in full.
Server Admining, why you suck at it, and why you should stop doing what you're doing.
When I was first approached about writing this article, he requested that it be about the hardships of server administration. My reply was simple, and as subtle as a slightly inebriated rhinoceros; I don't think that admining is hard, I just think that most people suck at it.
Myself, I have helped administrate and moderate several servers over the years, the last one being the PRTA server for several months during its start-up phase, but my most extensive experience was with the Reality Teamwork server, a somewhat short-lived server, due to external drama, which nevertheless managed to become one of, if not the most popular of the PR servers, and one that provided players with some of the best gameplay experiences in the lifespan of the PR mod. It was the first server to enforce the use of mumble, it was the only server to truly enforce teamwork, and it was notorious for its strict -some might say callous- admin policies. Despite its success, most of the lessons learned from it have been forgotten, much to the loss of current server admins.
When Space first set up the server he intended it to be a server that promoted the teamwork aspect of the game above all else, and with that in mind a new approach had to be taken in regards to the administration policies of the server. On other top servers the role of the admin was seen very much as a peacekeeper, someone who acted to ensure that the rules were followed, and little else. On not-so-top servers one would scarcely see any admins at all. Having played PR since early 2007 I had experienced servers of all flavours, and I had started to identify the flaws in admining policies, the errors in reasoning behind them, and was very inclined to influence the policies of the RT server, which spurred me on to apply for a moderator position there. As the team was selected it was made clear by Space that a new approach had to be made, that we would be able to influence the policy-making to a substantial degree, and that trying out new things was encouraged; the slowly forming group of admins and mods embraced this enthusiastically, and this latitude given by Space to us is the big reason why the server took off so fast, and provided such excellent gameplay.
So, what is it that we did over at Reality Teamwork which was so drastically different from other servers? I would say three things; we intervened in gameplay decisions, our few rules could be expanded based on common sense, and we would act instantly on issues that arose.
A very common attitude, among players and admins alike, is that playing on a server should be ?fun?, and that strict and interventionist admin policies somehow disrupt that "fun". What exactly it is they mean by the word "fun" is never quite explained, it is just this word that is thrown about when they do not know what else to say. The problem you encounter here is that what is "fun" to an individual might not translate as such to the team he?s supposed to be part of, and what different individuals consider "fun" is most often miles apart. Therefore there is no unifying idea as to what "fun" is, making the pursuit of "fun" doomed to failure. What is a unifying element though, is the mod itself and its objectives; teamwork, a proximity to realism, and large-scale warfare. Those ideals, however, cannot be reached without some form of intervention on the part of server admins. Most servers simply restrict their intervention to a collection of rules, often highly specific and limited in scope, which are meant to guide players towards those ideals. If that doesn't happen there is no means of recourse for the admins or the players. This was one of the first things we tackled on RT by allowing admins to directly intervene if individuals or squads were not assisting their team in a positive manner. For instance, if a squad was sitting on a completely uncappable flag two flags up, or were attempting some imagined spec ops flanking of the enemy by creeping around the edge of the map while the rest of their team was being pushed back by the enemy, we could intervene then and there by kicking or time-banning the SL or the squad in its entirety, hoping that whoever took over as SL was more team-oriented, or removing people who were wasting server slots so that more competent players could join the server. Did that result in much "fun" for that squad or SL? Probably not, but it did result in a better gameplay experience for the rest of the team who no longer had the strain of a non-functioning squad eating away at their manpower. Had the flanking or uncap-camping been a team decision we might not have intervened, but if squads "went rogue" then intervention was the likely result. We also kicked players if a CO or SL requested it, often without any reason given to us if we knew and trusted the player making the request. What was important was that the punishment came swiftly. The net result of this policy was that actions like that by players were extremely rare, because everyone knows when they're doing something bad like that, and when they're actually faced with immediate consequences of their actions they avoid doing it.
As for server rules, our original list was not all that different from most other servers, although it did evolve somewhat over time. What was different though, was what I refer to as the Principle of Common Sense. This meant that we were enabled to adapt our rulings to the situation and map at hand. Take baseraping, for instance; most servers do not allow it, but they also often make their rules too specific or admins follow the letter of the law, so to speak, too closely. The RT rule was basically "No baseraping", and what exactly was considered baseraping was left up to the discretion of the admins, based on common sense. Someone sitting outside the enemy main killing vehicles as they drive down the only exit, but a considerable distance away from the actual main, are technically not baseraping, and on many servers this is allowed because the rules either do or do not specify a certain area which is considered the base, either making baseraping shots directly into the main or some radius outside of the main. The problem is that maps are different and each requires a different approach, something specific rules cannot address. On the RT server we decided based on common sense and this basis meant players could easily identify what actions would incur the malice of the admins themselves without the need of some expansive set of rules. If you thought something was wrong it probably was. Again, the result was less of that disruptive behavior.
Finally, and most important, was the idea that negative behavior be taken care of immediately. It is a well known trait of human beings that a short or small penalty given immediately is more effective than a long or big penalty to come sometime in the future. We learn by experiencing cause and effect, but most servers have a rather extensive bureaucracy where actions have to be examined and any decision is often made long after the fact. It is often also important for the admins to directly be able to observe an act in order for them to act on it. This means that reporting minor, often apparently irrelevant, negative behavior is rarely cost-effective to the player, and as such it is allowed to go on unpunished, building up until it actually has a severe effect on gameplay, but with no means of identifying the underlying cause for admins to do anything with. Someone taking a supply truck for transport and/or discarding it, someone building a FOB in an undesirable location, someone stealing a kit, etc. On its own the action seems negligible, but it all adds up. On most servers these actions are rarely reported and more rarely are these reports acted upon. The inadvertent effect of this is that these actions are condoned, and as such these small pinpricks constantly disrupt gameplay for the team because someone thought that intervening in such behavior would be too interventionist, destroying the ?fun? that these disruptive individuals have at the expense of the team. On RT these people were dealt with immediately, we trusted our player base to provide accurate reports of negative behavior, and as a consequence we were able to negate most of it before it added up to disrupt gameplay.
So, without any extensive and unnavigable set of rules, without any increased workload on the admins as the deterring effect removed most of it, and by putting the team before the individuals, the Reality Teamwork managed to become one of the best and most popular servers, despite breaking pretty much every established rule of server administration.
My imparting thought is this: As a server administrator you should not attempt to achieve some vague and unattainable "fun" factor, you should attempt to provide the gameplay experience that the mod developers intended. People do not play PR to have "fun", people play PR because it promises, and often delivers, unparallelled teamwork, realism, and large-scale warfare, and if you manage to have that on your server, that is when people will actually have fun playing on your server.
Server Admining, why you suck at it, and why you should stop doing what you're doing.
When I was first approached about writing this article, he requested that it be about the hardships of server administration. My reply was simple, and as subtle as a slightly inebriated rhinoceros; I don't think that admining is hard, I just think that most people suck at it.
Myself, I have helped administrate and moderate several servers over the years, the last one being the PRTA server for several months during its start-up phase, but my most extensive experience was with the Reality Teamwork server, a somewhat short-lived server, due to external drama, which nevertheless managed to become one of, if not the most popular of the PR servers, and one that provided players with some of the best gameplay experiences in the lifespan of the PR mod. It was the first server to enforce the use of mumble, it was the only server to truly enforce teamwork, and it was notorious for its strict -some might say callous- admin policies. Despite its success, most of the lessons learned from it have been forgotten, much to the loss of current server admins.
When Space first set up the server he intended it to be a server that promoted the teamwork aspect of the game above all else, and with that in mind a new approach had to be taken in regards to the administration policies of the server. On other top servers the role of the admin was seen very much as a peacekeeper, someone who acted to ensure that the rules were followed, and little else. On not-so-top servers one would scarcely see any admins at all. Having played PR since early 2007 I had experienced servers of all flavours, and I had started to identify the flaws in admining policies, the errors in reasoning behind them, and was very inclined to influence the policies of the RT server, which spurred me on to apply for a moderator position there. As the team was selected it was made clear by Space that a new approach had to be made, that we would be able to influence the policy-making to a substantial degree, and that trying out new things was encouraged; the slowly forming group of admins and mods embraced this enthusiastically, and this latitude given by Space to us is the big reason why the server took off so fast, and provided such excellent gameplay.
So, what is it that we did over at Reality Teamwork which was so drastically different from other servers? I would say three things; we intervened in gameplay decisions, our few rules could be expanded based on common sense, and we would act instantly on issues that arose.
A very common attitude, among players and admins alike, is that playing on a server should be ?fun?, and that strict and interventionist admin policies somehow disrupt that "fun". What exactly it is they mean by the word "fun" is never quite explained, it is just this word that is thrown about when they do not know what else to say. The problem you encounter here is that what is "fun" to an individual might not translate as such to the team he?s supposed to be part of, and what different individuals consider "fun" is most often miles apart. Therefore there is no unifying idea as to what "fun" is, making the pursuit of "fun" doomed to failure. What is a unifying element though, is the mod itself and its objectives; teamwork, a proximity to realism, and large-scale warfare. Those ideals, however, cannot be reached without some form of intervention on the part of server admins. Most servers simply restrict their intervention to a collection of rules, often highly specific and limited in scope, which are meant to guide players towards those ideals. If that doesn't happen there is no means of recourse for the admins or the players. This was one of the first things we tackled on RT by allowing admins to directly intervene if individuals or squads were not assisting their team in a positive manner. For instance, if a squad was sitting on a completely uncappable flag two flags up, or were attempting some imagined spec ops flanking of the enemy by creeping around the edge of the map while the rest of their team was being pushed back by the enemy, we could intervene then and there by kicking or time-banning the SL or the squad in its entirety, hoping that whoever took over as SL was more team-oriented, or removing people who were wasting server slots so that more competent players could join the server. Did that result in much "fun" for that squad or SL? Probably not, but it did result in a better gameplay experience for the rest of the team who no longer had the strain of a non-functioning squad eating away at their manpower. Had the flanking or uncap-camping been a team decision we might not have intervened, but if squads "went rogue" then intervention was the likely result. We also kicked players if a CO or SL requested it, often without any reason given to us if we knew and trusted the player making the request. What was important was that the punishment came swiftly. The net result of this policy was that actions like that by players were extremely rare, because everyone knows when they're doing something bad like that, and when they're actually faced with immediate consequences of their actions they avoid doing it.
As for server rules, our original list was not all that different from most other servers, although it did evolve somewhat over time. What was different though, was what I refer to as the Principle of Common Sense. This meant that we were enabled to adapt our rulings to the situation and map at hand. Take baseraping, for instance; most servers do not allow it, but they also often make their rules too specific or admins follow the letter of the law, so to speak, too closely. The RT rule was basically "No baseraping", and what exactly was considered baseraping was left up to the discretion of the admins, based on common sense. Someone sitting outside the enemy main killing vehicles as they drive down the only exit, but a considerable distance away from the actual main, are technically not baseraping, and on many servers this is allowed because the rules either do or do not specify a certain area which is considered the base, either making baseraping shots directly into the main or some radius outside of the main. The problem is that maps are different and each requires a different approach, something specific rules cannot address. On the RT server we decided based on common sense and this basis meant players could easily identify what actions would incur the malice of the admins themselves without the need of some expansive set of rules. If you thought something was wrong it probably was. Again, the result was less of that disruptive behavior.
Finally, and most important, was the idea that negative behavior be taken care of immediately. It is a well known trait of human beings that a short or small penalty given immediately is more effective than a long or big penalty to come sometime in the future. We learn by experiencing cause and effect, but most servers have a rather extensive bureaucracy where actions have to be examined and any decision is often made long after the fact. It is often also important for the admins to directly be able to observe an act in order for them to act on it. This means that reporting minor, often apparently irrelevant, negative behavior is rarely cost-effective to the player, and as such it is allowed to go on unpunished, building up until it actually has a severe effect on gameplay, but with no means of identifying the underlying cause for admins to do anything with. Someone taking a supply truck for transport and/or discarding it, someone building a FOB in an undesirable location, someone stealing a kit, etc. On its own the action seems negligible, but it all adds up. On most servers these actions are rarely reported and more rarely are these reports acted upon. The inadvertent effect of this is that these actions are condoned, and as such these small pinpricks constantly disrupt gameplay for the team because someone thought that intervening in such behavior would be too interventionist, destroying the ?fun? that these disruptive individuals have at the expense of the team. On RT these people were dealt with immediately, we trusted our player base to provide accurate reports of negative behavior, and as a consequence we were able to negate most of it before it added up to disrupt gameplay.
So, without any extensive and unnavigable set of rules, without any increased workload on the admins as the deterring effect removed most of it, and by putting the team before the individuals, the Reality Teamwork managed to become one of the best and most popular servers, despite breaking pretty much every established rule of server administration.
My imparting thought is this: As a server administrator you should not attempt to achieve some vague and unattainable "fun" factor, you should attempt to provide the gameplay experience that the mod developers intended. People do not play PR to have "fun", people play PR because it promises, and often delivers, unparallelled teamwork, realism, and large-scale warfare, and if you manage to have that on your server, that is when people will actually have fun playing on your server.
Make Norway OPFOR! NAO!
It's your hamster Richard. It's your hamster in the box and it's not breathing.
It's your hamster Richard. It's your hamster in the box and it's not breathing.
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karambaitos
- Posts: 3788
- Joined: 2008-08-02 14:14
Re: Reality Contact Edition 8!
wheelman, sorry but you have the worst sense of humor EVAR
There is only one unforgivable lie That is the lie that says, This is the end, you are the conqueror, you have achieved it and now all that remains is to build walls higher and shelter behind them. Now, the lie says, the world is safe.? The Great Khan.
40k is deep like that.
40k is deep like that.
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cyberzomby
- Posts: 5336
- Joined: 2007-04-03 07:12
Re: Reality Contact Edition 8!
Tartan as you can read on the bottom of your article, part 2 will be released next month. It was to big to put in all in one go.
If you keep your post here we probably won't publish it next month as people can read it here. Your choice
If you keep your post here we probably won't publish it next month as people can read it here. Your choice
Last edited by cyberzomby on 2011-09-25 15:44, edited 1 time in total.
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Tartantyco
- Posts: 2796
- Joined: 2006-10-21 14:11
Re: Reality Contact Edition 8!
I am fully aware of what it said at the bottom of the article, but there was absolutely no reason to cut it off(It's not as if you're printing the thing), and cutting it off there just makes the article pointless. It was done without any input from me, and the result is just silly.cyberzomby wrote:Tartan as you can read on the bottom of your article, part 2 will be released next month. It was to big to put in all in one go.
If you keep your post here we probably won't publish it next month as people can read it here. Your choice
Make Norway OPFOR! NAO!
It's your hamster Richard. It's your hamster in the box and it's not breathing.
It's your hamster Richard. It's your hamster in the box and it's not breathing.
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RC_Slacks
- Posts: 18
- Joined: 2008-09-23 00:10
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Smiddey723
- Posts: 901
- Joined: 2010-03-27 18:59
Re: Reality Contact Edition 8!
i read that first line in the editorial twice and then looked at what i was doing.
shit. you are psychic
shit. you are psychic
.:2p:.Smiddey
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cyberzomby
- Posts: 5336
- Joined: 2007-04-03 07:12
Re: Reality Contact Edition 8!
The length of articles has nothing to do with printing. People online have short attention spans, and that was the reason to cut it up in smaller bite size chunks. Thats the style of Reality Contact. Small easy to read articles. Thats as far as I want to go in it here. Feel free to talk to Wicca, Hobb or me if you want to talk about it more. Although I doubt you will.Tartantyco wrote:I am fully aware of what it said at the bottom of the article, but there was absolutely no reason to cut it off(It's not as if you're printing the thing), and cutting it off there just makes the article pointless. It was done without any input from me, and the result is just silly.
I removed it and uploaded a new one without the article, if you feel that its pointless.
Last edited by cyberzomby on 2011-09-25 16:41, edited 6 times in total.
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TheComedian
- Posts: 677
- Joined: 2011-01-08 13:46
Re: Reality Contact Edition 8!
You should spice things up a bit. I just don't have the patience to read through a wall of text.
[img]http://www.realitymod.com/forum/uploads/signatures/sigpic52084_1.gif[/img]
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cyberzomby
- Posts: 5336
- Joined: 2007-04-03 07:12
Re: Reality Contact Edition 8!
thx for the feedback. We've been trying to find a solution on that. The new design was one of the things. Where possible we're adding screenshots and artwork. Although we're low in that every month. Theres just some articles that make it hard to just add in random screenshots that don't contribute to the article. Those will always be a little bit wall of text.
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Acemantura
- Posts: 2463
- Joined: 2007-08-18 06:50
