W:ET Admin Basics

Read and study the W:ET Admin Guide carefully. It contains everything you need to know when dealing with rule breakers in order to keep the atmosphere on our servers enjoyable for everyone. Following the guide will guarantee that you are never in the wrong as an admin so it’s a good idea to learn what’s written there. You also need to be familiar with the rules we have on the server, they can all be found on the W:ET Server Rules page. It’s also worth noting that our rules are not set in stone and some can be open to interpretation. Below are a few extra things that should be more than helpful for our admins.

Our Golden Rule

Sometimes you can solve a situation with ease, but you may find that you’ll need to use certain commands when dealing with troublemakers. With that in mind, remember this: If a problem can be resolved with a verbal warning, why use any commands? If a problem can be resolved with a warning command, why mute? If it can be resolved with a mute, why kick? If an issue can be resolved with a kick, why ban?

We encourage our admins to try to speak with people before issuing commands, especially if they aren't repeat offenders. Everyone can sometimes get lost in the moment or have bad days with things happening in real life, so on many occasions establishing contact with the person to reason with them is the better solution and also helps develop a mutual respect. This also ensures nobody's ego gets hurt as commands like !warn, !mute, !kick which can be seen by everyone can often agitate the player more - especially if they believe its unjust and extreme, so we always try to use them as a last resort.

Balancing Teams

A big part of being an admin is making sure the teams are balanced and keeping the game fair. Admins and trial members should be the first to move to even the teams if they can. Use idle moments such as when you’re waiting to respawn and when you’ve just left a fight to check the teams with the Tab key. Sometimes a team might have 2 or 3 more players and the game can still be fair, try to focus more on the quality of players if you can. There are a few other ways check and they’re listed below.

• Holding Tab brings up the teams, you can see how many players are on each team. Let’s say there’s 15 players on Allies and 13 on Axis. At first glance it looks like the teams are unbalanced but typing /scores in console can show the full story. The scores command brings up 2 tables, one for Allies and one for Axis. Each row shows a different player and each column shows statistics. The columns from left to right are: Players, Kills, Deaths, Suicides, Team Kills, Efficiency, Game Points, Damage Given, Damage Received, Team Damage Given, Team Damage Received and Score. The main ones to look out for are Kills, Deaths and Efficiency.
• Some of our servers use n!tmod and silEnT mod. Both of these have other ways to check team balance. The silEnT mod uses Kill Rate (KR) and Player Rate of Win (PRW). You can toggle which of these are displayed by tapping Tab twice, the team average for these statistics is at the top of the scoreboard. While these both have their downsides, they can still give a good indication of balance. For N!tmod the scoreboard shows the kill to death ratio of each player meaning you don’t have to check the console for scores as much.
• When holding Tab you can also see a number in square brackets at the top of the scoreboard (if you have XP showing). This number shows how much XP the team has earned since the start of the map. For example, Allies could 450 XP and Axis could have 1000 XP. This shows that Axis are overpowering Allies and something should be done about the teams.

Shuffle

1. It is recommended to use shuffle roughly 20-30 seconds into the warmup. This way most players are connected and players still have at least 10 seconds to choose a class.
2. The only time you should shuffle after a warmup is when teams are extremely unbalanced like 15v7 or when scores are something like 500 to 100 kills and no one is moving. Using putteam would take too long to balance and people will get impatient and leave.
3. Never shuffle during intermission (after a match has ended). Most players want to check their scores and a lot of people leave before the start of the next match so shuffle during the warmup of the next map instead.
4. Don’t keep penalizing players for changing teams. Not everyone wants to play on the same team all the time and a couple of people will move. So long as their moving doesn’t affect balance, like when 2 players swap teams with each other, there’s no need to be uptight about it. If you think that their moving will affect balance, feel free to move them back to their original team after the shuffle. It’s fine if they go spec after this and wait for a spot on the team they want to go to. The point is to let people play as they wish but most people should enjoy playing on either team.

Trouble Players

Use Your Wit - Not Your Commands

Make sure you keep an eye on the general and team chat when you’re on the server. It’s important to be watchful because the earlier you see a problem arise, the quicker it can be dealt with. You can always open up the console to check what’s happened when you’re waiting for respawn if you miss anything. Here’s an example of something that could happen on the server.

   Player1: WTF WHAT IDIOT JUMPED IN FRONT OF MY PANZER
   Player2: I did it. Don't play such a gay weapon if you don't want that to happen, noob.
   Player1: You should speak running medic faggot. **** off.
   Player2: Lol, stfu noob

Now would be a good time to intervene. Keep in mind that a single line of bitching is okay but when you see an argument like this arise, it’s not that hard to kill it before it escalates. Don’t mute, don’t threaten to mute. Instead, just say something that will make both players realize that arguments like these are pointless. Something like ‘Chill out guys, it’s just a game’ should work most of the time. Feel free to use !warn if talking doesn’t work out, if that doesn’t work either, mute for 10 minutes. It’s important to talk first and use commands only when that fails. We want our servers to provide everyone with a positive experience.

Don’t Overreact When You Get Insulted

This is the internet, insults aren’t a rare thing to see. Add to that the stress of losing a game and eventually someone’s going to take their frustrations out on you. This could be a known troll or a regular player who just lost their temper. Either way, try not to respond too harshly. If it is a troll, then they know that they can get to you and will carry on doing whatever they did that got a negative response from you. If it’s a regular player they may actually apologize to you the next day – it’s happened more often than you’d think. The best way to deal with situations like these is to try defusing the situation. Sometimes simply ignoring what they said is the best way to go. Other times reminding them that we’re just here to have fun is enough. Just be sure of yourself, there’s no reason to be offended by a random player.

Spectating

You can see a lot more as a spectator than playing but try to find a good balance between sitting in spec and playing the game. Keep in mind that the game’s supposed to be fun for everyone – including you. There are times when you’ll need to go spec to watch for rushers or trouble makers but with experience you can still handle these situations while playing. While in spec you can also have some nice conversations with regulars and if you see someone who you think could make a good admin, you can also recommend that they apply. The /follow command is quite helpful when you need to spectate and you have their name or player ID. A partial name can be used on all mods except for Jaymod, this is where the !spec command comes in handy but it only works on players with an admin level less than or equal to yours.

Console

Quite a lot of admin work requires familiarity with the in-game console. By default the key to bring up the console is ` (the key below escape). Below are some useful shortcuts and commands to make thing easier for you.

• Ctrl + ` - This brings up a smaller console of 3 lines of messages, allowing you to see more of the game and still be able to use commands. This is particularly useful when watching a player from spec.
• Alt + ` - This brings up a full screen console. This is a lot more useful when taking screenshots of text in the console.
• Ctrl + Home - Takes you to the very start of the console, skipping every message.
• Ctrl + End – Takes you to the very end of the console and is a lot faster than having to scroll down.
• Ctrl + Mousewheel – This moves you up and down the console a lot faster than scrolling with just the mouse wheel or by using Page Up and Page Down.
• /Clear – Removes every message in console. This can also be done by pressing ‘ctrl + alt + L’ while the console is open.
• /Players – Displays a list of players on the server with their team, ID, name and connection settings such as rate and max packets.
• /Team [B,R,S] {0-4} – Moves you to a selected team, usually faster than going through the limbo menu. B, R and S represent Allies, Axis and Spectator respectively. Instead of these letters you can also type the team name. You’ll automatically join as a soldier unless you specify a class with the numbers 0-4. In order, these numbers represent: Soldier, Medic, Engineer, Field Ops and Covert Ops. For example, /Team R 2 will spawn you as an Axis Engineer.
• /+Scores – Functions the same as holding tab, useful for taking a screenshot of teams and XP. Press tab again to close the scoreboard.
• /Serverstatus {IP} – Displays various information about the server you’re connected to or, if given an IP, displays information about that server instead. Useful things to look at here are timelimit and sv_uptime which are the how long the current map lasts and how long the server has been online respectively. This command also displays a list of players, their XP and ping.

Condumps, Demos and Screenshots

Admins should be familiar with all 3 of these and know how to use them effectively. It’s worth noting that when creating any one of these, you can force them to a folder of your choosing so that you keep your mod folders clean. If the folder doesn’t exist one will be created. Examples are included.

Condumps

A condump saves all text that is currently visible in the console directly into a file. This is very useful for copying stuff like finger information over to the forums. If you add ‘.txt’ to the end of the condump name, the file will become a txt file and can be opened with Notepad. If you forget to add the ‘.txt’ to the end then Notepad won’t separate the lines properly, this can be fixed by using a program such as Notepad++ or Wordpad. By default a condump is saved in the base mod folder of the server you are playing on. For instance, if you’re playing on Jay1, the condump is saved in the Jaymod folder (\Wolfenstein – Enemy Territory\Jaymod). You can change this by putting the name of a folder and a forward slash before the name of your file, examples are given below.

• /Condump Jay1/ETPlayerA.txt – Saves a txt file named ETPlayerA in a folder called Jay1 (\Wolfenstein – Enemy Territory\Jaymod\Jay1).
• /Condump ABC – Saves a file with no extension named ABC in the mod folder of the server you’re on at the time.

Demos

A demo is a .dm_84 file (or .dm_82 for ET 2.55) that saves the movement of all players that are on the server when you’re recording. You can press F12 to start a demo or use one of the commands below.

• /Autorecord – This functions the same as F12 and records a demo with a name like '2011-01-26-161741-et_beach.dm_84'. The format is: YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS-Mapname.dm_84.
• /Record TestDemo – Records a demo with the name TestDemo. You’ll find this in the demos folder of the mod you are playing on at the time of recording.
• /Demo TestDemo – Opens a demo with the name TestDemo. You must choose the right mod when you launch ET to view it. Make sure you don’t use this instead of the Record command or you’ll disconnect from the server.

Demo Viewer

If you need to review a demo we recommend you download DemoViewer, created by the clan friend SunLight, it is a far more convenient way to watch demos recorded by ET. A link to download this program can be found here. The download comes with a readme file that explains how to use all of its features including rewinding playback and improved shownormals.

Screenshots

A screenshot takes a picture of what you’re seeing on screen. By default these are stored in the Screenshots folder of their respective mod. By default F11 will take a screenshot. Below are some other ways of taking some with examples.

• /Autoscreenshot – This functions the same as F11 and saves a jpeg file with a name like ‘2011-01-26-161741-et_beach.jpg. The format is: YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS-Mapname.jpg.
• /Screenshotjpeg TestFolder/TestSS – Saves a jpeg image named TestSS in \Wolfenstein – Enemy Territory\Mod\Screenshots\TestFolder. If no name is given it’ll be saved as shot0000, shot0001 etc.
• /screenshot Test – Saves a .tga file named Test in the screenshots folder. If no name is given it’ll be saved as shot0000, shot0001 etc.

Cvars

As an admin you’ll probably be asked how to change certain settings so it’ll help to be familiar with a few Control variables (Cvars). Here are a few that get asked regularly:

• /cg_atmosphericeffects [0, 1] – Toggles rain and snowfall.
• /cg_drawfps [0, 1] – Toggles the in-game FPS counter.
• /cg_fov [Value] - Sets your field of view, most servers lock this to 90-120. A lower values makes the game ‘more zoomed in’.
• /cg_lagometer [0, 1] – Toggles the lagometer.
• /cg_muzzleflash [0, 1] – Toggles your gun’s muzzle flash.
• /cl_maxpackets [Value] – Changes the max number of packets sent. It’s recommended to set this to 100 to make sure no connection issues occur.
• /com_maxfps [Value] – Changes the maximum FPS to the value given.
• /r_gamma [Value] – Changes the in-game brightness without having to go through the menu.

You can find a full list of Cvars here.

If someone needs help boosting their FPS, link them to this topic. If it’s a new player the most common fix is to use ‘’’/r_primitives 2’’’.

Referrals

Recruiting is an important aspect of being an admin to grow our community and support maintaining the many servers. During the recruiting process, an admin can personally invite a player they think would be a strong candidate for the application process and become their referral. The more referrals a player has provides others some insight in what kind of player they are.

When a player moves forward and submits an application – they are required to list any referrals. It is mandatory to confirm your referral. By confirming your referral, it shows management your involvement as an admin, applicant is not using your name without your approval and the reasoning behind your referral of that particular player – making it easier for management to accept the player’s application.