Enter ET Pro: The Enemy Territory competition mod brought to you by Bani and Rain. If you're unfamiliar with the general concept of a 'competition' mod, let me give a brief summary. Most games come off the shelf with the bare minimum of administrative capabilities, i.e. kick, ban, map restart, and the like. However, when it comes to intense league and ladder play, things often get, well, intense.
Potentially devastating problems and issues can creep up during your crucial matches that just arent a factor in any old run of the mill pub. To ensure maximum fairness, balance, and organization, the modding community of any popular game will often step up to the plate and make things right. Often popular and serving their purpose well, it's a wonder game developers don't pay more attention to this and try to implement similar systems themselves.
So what, then, does ET Pro bring to the table? Simplicity, order, and bug fixes lots of them. All of this takes place on two separate levels: client and server side.
Beginning with the latter, ET Pro offers a variety of new variables allowing for deep customization. Per-map configurations can be created to ensure any preferred settings on any given map. For example: to improve frames per second, the server might have "forcecvar r_drawfoliage 0" set in its configuration file for the Radar map. Server administrators also have increased control over the Skills and XP systems: The amount of experience points required to move up in rank can be changed, and the default skills a player begins with can be tweaked as well. Additionally, enabling b statsaver will allow a player's XP, skills, medals, weaponstats, team, class, and weapon selection to be saved in the event of any disconnects, a common complaint. Similarly, b_xpstopwatch will allow the aforementioned items to be saved across both halves of the stopwatch map, and then reset again upon a map change. Or if you prefer, simply disable the skill system entirely for completely balanced play.
With so many different ladders out there, trying to keep on top of the individual rules and regulations of each can become mind-boggling. To remedy this, included is an easily executed config file for each individual ladder, be it TWL, STA, CAL, or the like. This feature has been implemented into the pre-existing referee system, and can relieve many a potential headache. This is arguably the best feature within ET Pro, and would easily hold its water as a mod in and of itself.
There is much more, though! Administration is never an easy task to handle alone. So naturally, you need some help -- but maybe you don't feel like just handing out the rcon rights to just anyone. Thus you have Semi-admins, each with their own separate levels of administrative power that you define. These tiers exist independent of each other; that is to say, each has its own set of accessible commands as well as its own password. For example, level 1 might be able to simply restart or change the map, level 2 can mute, kick, or shuffle teams, and level 3 can ban players and change the game-type. Server admins also gain more control over the maximum number of heavy-weapon users per team. Want to disable panzerfausts entirely, and only allow one MG42 gunner per side? You can make it so.
Several more server side variables are available as well, allowing you to exercise control over such items as the end-round intermission time, player shoving (a new feature which allows you to get those pesky door blockers and laggers out of your way), a multi-view option which allows one, as a spectator, to watch over multiple teammates at once (a la OSP), and a whole lot more.
When it comes to client side options, ET Pro delivers practicality at its best by allowing users near-complete control over the look of their screen. Personally, I get easily frustrated and find my blood pressure steadily rising due to the obtrusive nature of the chat, and other text messages littering my interface. ET Pro offers the ability to alter the delay, fade and stay time of any obituaries, objective notifications and so on, making things seem much less complicated.
Alternate heads up display configs are also available, allowing the player to rid of the completely useless character avatar and clean up the screen a little. Also, several HUD items are now clearly organized such as the obituaries, now color coded dependent on the type of death, a new connection interrupted icon, which appears over the head of lagging players, and an improved class-scripting system (a simple /class classname primaryweapon# is all that's needed).
Its pretty easy to see why ET Pro has been selected as the official tournament modification for TeamWarfare, among others. Its relative ease of use and practical nature allows for competitive play to be that much more accessible. Bugs within the mod itself are few and far between, with most already repaired in time for the next release (version 2.0.4). And with the number of stock etmain bugfixes present, its insane to play the game any other way.
The future is even more exciting, with Bani and company planning a plethora of new features, including server side demo recording, a web-based admin interface, automatic server updates, and even an ET TV feature. Though those features may not show up until down the road, its clear that at present day, matching and even pubbing alike have much to gain from using ET Pro. Download ET Pro here
Written by Adam Intrepid Bryant
Potentially devastating problems and issues can creep up during your crucial matches that just arent a factor in any old run of the mill pub. To ensure maximum fairness, balance, and organization, the modding community of any popular game will often step up to the plate and make things right. Often popular and serving their purpose well, it's a wonder game developers don't pay more attention to this and try to implement similar systems themselves.
So what, then, does ET Pro bring to the table? Simplicity, order, and bug fixes lots of them. All of this takes place on two separate levels: client and server side.
Beginning with the latter, ET Pro offers a variety of new variables allowing for deep customization. Per-map configurations can be created to ensure any preferred settings on any given map. For example: to improve frames per second, the server might have "forcecvar r_drawfoliage 0" set in its configuration file for the Radar map. Server administrators also have increased control over the Skills and XP systems: The amount of experience points required to move up in rank can be changed, and the default skills a player begins with can be tweaked as well. Additionally, enabling b statsaver will allow a player's XP, skills, medals, weaponstats, team, class, and weapon selection to be saved in the event of any disconnects, a common complaint. Similarly, b_xpstopwatch will allow the aforementioned items to be saved across both halves of the stopwatch map, and then reset again upon a map change. Or if you prefer, simply disable the skill system entirely for completely balanced play.
With so many different ladders out there, trying to keep on top of the individual rules and regulations of each can become mind-boggling. To remedy this, included is an easily executed config file for each individual ladder, be it TWL, STA, CAL, or the like. This feature has been implemented into the pre-existing referee system, and can relieve many a potential headache. This is arguably the best feature within ET Pro, and would easily hold its water as a mod in and of itself.
There is much more, though! Administration is never an easy task to handle alone. So naturally, you need some help -- but maybe you don't feel like just handing out the rcon rights to just anyone. Thus you have Semi-admins, each with their own separate levels of administrative power that you define. These tiers exist independent of each other; that is to say, each has its own set of accessible commands as well as its own password. For example, level 1 might be able to simply restart or change the map, level 2 can mute, kick, or shuffle teams, and level 3 can ban players and change the game-type. Server admins also gain more control over the maximum number of heavy-weapon users per team. Want to disable panzerfausts entirely, and only allow one MG42 gunner per side? You can make it so.
Several more server side variables are available as well, allowing you to exercise control over such items as the end-round intermission time, player shoving (a new feature which allows you to get those pesky door blockers and laggers out of your way), a multi-view option which allows one, as a spectator, to watch over multiple teammates at once (a la OSP), and a whole lot more.
When it comes to client side options, ET Pro delivers practicality at its best by allowing users near-complete control over the look of their screen. Personally, I get easily frustrated and find my blood pressure steadily rising due to the obtrusive nature of the chat, and other text messages littering my interface. ET Pro offers the ability to alter the delay, fade and stay time of any obituaries, objective notifications and so on, making things seem much less complicated.
Alternate heads up display configs are also available, allowing the player to rid of the completely useless character avatar and clean up the screen a little. Also, several HUD items are now clearly organized such as the obituaries, now color coded dependent on the type of death, a new connection interrupted icon, which appears over the head of lagging players, and an improved class-scripting system (a simple /class classname primaryweapon# is all that's needed).
Its pretty easy to see why ET Pro has been selected as the official tournament modification for TeamWarfare, among others. Its relative ease of use and practical nature allows for competitive play to be that much more accessible. Bugs within the mod itself are few and far between, with most already repaired in time for the next release (version 2.0.4). And with the number of stock etmain bugfixes present, its insane to play the game any other way.
The future is even more exciting, with Bani and company planning a plethora of new features, including server side demo recording, a web-based admin interface, automatic server updates, and even an ET TV feature. Though those features may not show up until down the road, its clear that at present day, matching and even pubbing alike have much to gain from using ET Pro. Download ET Pro here
Written by Adam Intrepid Bryant