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December 2, 2002
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There is a now a server-side update on the evenbalance site
which addresses the problem below.
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December 1, 2002
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More Punkbuster Problems
The latest version of punkbuster is kicking both WolfTV and GTV after 5-10min with the error
"Time Out trying to Update PB Client" (regardless of the pb_sv_specname settting). So yes I
know about this problem, but there is
_nothing_ I can do about it, that is in the hands of evenbalance. If this bug has inconvenienced you,
make a post about it on the evenbalance
forums or email bugs@idsoftware.com.
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November 25, 2002
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Ever wanted to see into the future? Imagine the
things that could be done, bets that could be won, tales that could be spun. Well now WolfTV CAN see into the future!
And what does it use this amazing power for? To make me millions of dollars? NO! Something far more important; it peers into the future to
pick the best person to spectate. Its called the RipCam. Never again will you miss seeing that 3 kill grenade, or
6 bodies being blown apart by a well-timed panzer.
This is something I've always wanted to write, its now possible because of rhea and his new
MultiView code in OSP, which transfers all the necessary
information from the server.
This server-only release brings WolfTV upto protocol 60, so its compatiable with 1.4. The .cfg
has changed to include the tv_ripcam cvar.
FonFon.
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November 9, 2002
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Punkbuster Problems
It seems that the Quake 3 Punkbuster and GTV do not get along. As most of you know
Punkbuster was designed in such a way that GTV is kicked off the server every
two minutes for "too many re-initializations". The proposed solution required rcon
and changing a cvar to match the name of GTV. After some discussion with evenbalance
this was modified to matching a prefix of the name, eg "GTV-" (and it works now
although their readme is not updated as I write this). The setting to rcon or
place in your .cfg files is:
set PB_sv_specname "GTV-"
Unfortunately, since "GTV-" is not the Punkbuster default, admins will still need to have
rcon to the server if this is not set. I'm not sure why GTV needs to be controled by Punkbuster in this
way, as its not a security risk, and can not be used to cheat because of the delay.
Thankfully for all the admins and viewers out there rhea proposed a solution which does not require rcon.
The next versions of OSP will set the default value of pb_sv_specname to "GTV-". I
encourage other mod authors out there to do likewise if GTV is used with your mod (UT, WFA, etc.).
WolfTV for 1.4 is in the works. It should include a little something to make the admin/camerapersons
life a bit easier...
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October 22, 2002
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GTV 3.0d and WolfTV 1.0b are now up on the download page.
GTV 3.0d is compatable with Q3 1.32 and protocol 68. Both contain new DNS information
so I'd recommend that everyone upgrade their servers. People who want to watch
dont need to download anything.
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August 27, 2002
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Quakecon is over, and looking back was a very interesting experience. Running GTV from a LAN envrionment
presented a whole new set of challenges, but things were mostly smooth and the numbers
were very good.
About 4,000 people watched the finals, and about 22,000 different people watched
GTV and WolfTV at some point over the weekend. Here is a screenshot of the q3 numbers during the finals.
The z4/fat match eariler in the day was also huge, with about 2,500 watching.
From a technological standpoint, the server power and bandwidth required to broadcast to 4000 people
is truely awesome. Thanks to speakeasy, clanbase, and
everyone else that helped mirror and admin, these people made it possible for everyone to watch. I'm also impressed that q3 is still very much
alive after 3 years, and in my opinion the spectator quality of Quake 3 1vs1 just cant be beat. There were probably more people watching q3 than playing during peak
times :)
And finaly it was cool meeting everyone in my spare seconds when not busy with gtv,
the OSP and Zone Stats guys (Hi rhea!), citizen, fray-doh, and countless other people I didnt know well beforehand
but was pleased to meet at the event. The atmospehere at Quakecon truely was unique, everyone was open and friendly,
and made it a great event.
FonFon.
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August 12, 2002
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GTV 3.0c and WolfTV 1.0a are now up on the download page.
There are a couple very important new commands for spectators in these versions. gtv_nextview
and gtv_nextgame replace gtv_watch and should be easier to use.
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August 10, 2002
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The largest north-american LAN, Quakecon, begins in 5 days! The top RtCW teams and
Quake 3 duelers from around the world will be attending to compete for $100,000 in prizes.
I cant wait to see a rtcw finals between abuse and inf, or Zero4 go up against
fatality in q3 (yes those are my predictions :). Lucky for me I'll be at the event
to watch them. For those of you not attending, start praying to the GTV gods now.
... just kidding. The GTV and WolfTV will be flowing like water down the Grand Canyon.
I'll be spending my time at the event running the broadcasts and keeping things smooth and stable.
Many other people will be helping to make this the largest broadcast to date. More details will
be announced in a couple days on the quakecon site.
There will be a new GTV and WOLFTV server released tomorrow night. The GTVProtocol will change,
so server operators should upgrade. People just planning to watch do not need to download
anything new.
FonFon
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July 10, 2002
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The Eurocup Quake 3 LAN finals begin tomorrow. I'll be running
the main GTV, and preparations have been ongoing to make this the largest GTV broadcast ever. Join #eurocup
on QuakeNet or #gtv on irc.enterthegame.com for server IPs
and status.
In preparation for the eurocup there is a new GTV server release. You can get GTV 3.0b from the
download page.
The CAL finals went very well sunday night. About 700 watched the
doctors and abuse go at it on assault.
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July 7, 2002
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WolfTV Server Released
I've released version 1.0 of the WolfTV server. Both Win32 and Linux/FreeBSD flavours are available on
the download page. As always thanks to
id software for their support of GTV/WolfTV (check out their newly redesigned webpage!).
The CAL super sunday starts a 4pm EDT today, and culminates at
10pm EDT with the invite finals between abuse and the doctors. Join us in
#gtv on irc.enterthegame.com where tvaddict will be announcing WolfTV server IPs. If the planets
are alligned and the GTV gods are favourable we will be trying to sync the WolfTV and
TSN (#tsn) shoutcast tonight.
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July 1, 2002
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The wolftv client was released last night. Murk-Smegma wrote up a nice little webpage
that answers the most frequently ask questions, and has step-by-step install instructions.
You can download the client .pk3 from:
hugi.is
planetquake.de
Clanbase
gamerstv.net
About 300 people were able to watch on the speakeasy server last night.
The response was overwhelming, I expected 200-300, but I'd estimate 400-500 were trying to watch. Due to some problems with
chaining and cdkeys, we were not able to fit everyone in.
So the server release is going to be delayed for a few days until I have a chance to
test it again. The CAL open disivion finals
are set for tuesday night. See you then :)
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June 29, 2002
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Wolftv will be released tomorrow!
Join #gtv on irc.enterthegame.com sunday night for a small release party. The wolftv client
should be out around 7:30pm est, download locations to be announced. If everything goes well
the CAL invite matches for the night will be broadcast.
The east division final between dr and cK starts around 8:30 est, and abuse vs wSw around 10pm est. Wolftv
server IPs will be announced by tvaddict (see below) in #gtv as they come up (there will be a
speakeasy server for sure).
The wolftv map contest closed on monday, it was a tough decision, but congratulations to
ScrotcH for submitting the winning map. Thanks to everyone
who submitted a map for the contest. ScrotcH's map will become the waiting room map for wolftv, and will
be part of the client release tomorrow, so you'll have to wait till then for a look :)
There have been quite a few requests asking when matches will be broadcast. To help with this, I
spent a bit of time learning tcl, and now #gtv has a new bot. tvaddict will announce
any active gtv or wolftv servers in #gtv (servers with more than 5 people on them).
-FonFon
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June 23, 2002
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Just a reminder, the wolftv waiting room map contest ends tomorrow (Monday June 24) at midnight.
You can submit your map by emailing to me at whiteheb@yifan.net.
Thanks and good luck :)
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June 3, 2002
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Lots of news today...
First off, as many people have suspected I'm working on Wolf-TV. So y'all can stop
bugging me now! Wolf-TV will be very similar to GTV, and is mostly a merging of the two
codebases. With one noteable difference: rtcw has no test_bigbox!
So... Wolf-TV needs a fancy waiting room map. I'm looking for a creative map maker to
create a waiting room map for Wolf-TV. However, if there is more than one submission this will be
treated as a contest. The map will be used as a place for people to spectate (sit) in the waiting
room while they wait for the next match to be broadcast. So the contest will be to create a map that:
- The most important aspect of this map will be how it looks, entiries that look exceptional can bend
the requirements below a bit. The map should be visually stunning or interesting or creative
or in some way make it very suitable for a waiting room. It dosnt have to look like a doctors office!
- FPS does not matter, 20 on an average computer would be fine.
- The map is one room.
- Everyone spectating in the waiting room is fixed at the same point and looking in the same direction,
so only one side of the map needs anything in it (the "back" is never seen).
- The map should be 1.5MB or less in size (including related files, textures, shaders, etc). The goal here is to
make the map fairly quick to load.
- The map is for Return To Castle Wolfenstein (not Q3).
I figure this will be fun for some mappers, since the normal constraints on mapping do not apply. The reward for you
is having many people (5000+) download your map as part of Wolf-TV. The contest will close on June 24, three weeks
from now. If you have any questions feel free to contact me.
And finally, the BBC published an article
today on Quake 3 competition and spectating. It's very cool to see the mainstream media reporting on this stuff.
Wolf-TV is software which allows 1000s of people to spectate Return To Castle Wolfenstein competetive matches live
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May 15, 2002
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GTV 3.0a Released
We'll call this one 'GTV 3.0a the release I never thought would happen'. However
it looks like the size of GTV servers keeps going up, with 200 people on a single
server becomming common. This release fixes a few annoying things related to having
that many people watching (and spamming) on a server. The awaiting gamestate problems
are fixed, and client numbers are displayed each time a person chats making those ________
oh so much easier to kick.
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February 10, 2002
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GTV 3.0 Released
Yep, its here. After about two years of development, GTV has
reached a point where its stable, has enough features, has undergone through
testing, and is ready for an official (non-beta) release. Thanks to everyone
out there that has contributed to the testing and growth of GTV. With special
mention going out to; id Software
without whose contributions GTV could never have been as stable as it is today.
Tal of Clanbase and a|citizen
of speakeasy who have provided invaluable
testing of GTV.
Click the download link to download the GTV 3.0
SERVER for Win2k/NT, Win9x, Linux, and FreeBSD (there is no client required).
Check out the readme and change log for GTV 3.0.
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January 28, 2002
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I'm working towards releasing GTV 3.0 in a week or so. Yep, thats a final non-test
non-beta will-work-perfectly version :) Have a look at the
temporary changelist/readme, anything
missing?
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January 14, 2002
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The Eurocup 4 finals
went down this weekend. I had a great time running GTV, and it
was exhilarating watching it make a number of firsts:
We actually managed to get GTV and shoutcast in sync for many of
the matches, something I had thought was impossible until now. What an
experience; watching the matches and listening to Godsmurf do a
great job on the mic. The people must have loved it too, this was probably the
largest Quake 3 broadcast
ever... I'm not sure, there have never been reliable numbers (screenshots)
posted anywhere before now. About 4000 people had a look at
the webpage to get IPs for GTV this weekend.
Throughout the very heavy testing this weekend we only found a couple
bugs. Raal put up a 300 person GTV and it was full about 5 min later,
so I think there's a problem in my load-balancing code :) And you
cant remove a password with rcon, which bit me during the KIT
finals. So basically everything worked perfectly and I'll be releasing
a final version of GTV soon!
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January 8, 2002
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First Post! (of the new year)
The Eurocup 4 finals are comming up this weekend. It should be a great
weekend for all the GTV watchers out there. GTV IPs will be available on
quakenet #eurocup, and on the front page as always. The last semi-final
game reached 450 viewers, and this weekend could go over 1000! If you plan
to help mirror I updated the dev files
section to test4.8, grab it.
You can get more information about the finals at http://eurocup.clanbase.com
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December 21, 2001
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GTV is now upgraded to work with point release 1.31. Download it from the
dev files section.
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December 4, 2001
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Released TEST4a, which fixes a small bug which caused connection problems for
some people. Everyone should upgrade.
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December 2, 2001
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Test4 is here! Its been a while since the last GTV release, but as you can see
from the change log I've
been hard at work FIXing and ADDing :) Thanks to some incredible foresight
by a programmer at id, this release contains a feature called redirection.
Redirection means (for most people): you only have to connect to one gtv server,
no matter how many are up, you will be redirected to one with spots free. It also means
servers are load-balanced with an equal "percentage" of people on each server,
making for smother viewing.
Highlights for this release:
- Large event support: chaining, automatic redirection
- Requested commands: gtv_silent and gtv_nospeech
- Cool (experimental) command: gtv_freemove, allows free movement in demos and games
- CPU use guidelines cut in half
GTV 3.0 (non-test) is very close. This may be the last test release unless I
decide to do demo-editing, instant replay or stuff like that. See you after
xmas, untill then I am owned by exams.
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November 30, 2001
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GTV reached two million viewing-minutes today during the EC4 quarter final match
between shuuk and unreal. Almost brought a tear to my eye, *sniffs*
In other news, GTV Test 4 will be released this weekend, just gotta do that most
enjoyable of tasks: update the readme.
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October 7, 2001
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GTV 3.0 Test3 Released
WELL, I decided I couldn't let two whole weeks go by without a gtv release, that would
be like a cucumber sandwhich without the peanut butter. So whats new? A bunch of
optimizations, GTV should now be much smoother to watch, and use a little less cpu. Also
added a couple of convenience things like gtv_autoWatch.
This version saw some heavy testing during some eurocup games today. With 100
people watching for about 4 hours I'm satisified there are no known crash bugs in
this version. The 3.0 (non-test) release is getting pretty close, with just support for
chaining and a couple more optimizations left to be done.
In non-GTV news, I wrote up a little util I find pretty cool. Look at the
Projects page.
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September 27, 2001
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Quake 3 1.30 was released today, and yes, GTV works with it!.
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September 23, 2001
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GTV 3.0 Test2 Released
Yes another release already! GTV has seen a lot of testing over the past 9 days. So this version
should be fairly bug free BUT ITS STILL A TEST. This version adds a some new features and changes
the way some things work. Yes, you might even have to do that most painfull of
tasks and read the readme. One thing not
mentioned directly in the change log is the ability to
strip teamchat from a demo, which was added after requests from a couple of online
leagues.
CPU Use: We did some testing of CPU use during the Plaything 2 finals last night.
Turns out that CPU useage is higher now
than with previous versions, and you might have to take that into account when
choosing a maxclients. Also the linux versions
seem to be running substantially faster than win32, so if you have a choice run linux.
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September 20, 2001
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Wanted to do a quick update on the status of GTV. Things have been moving quickly,
if feels like a month since I last posted. Thanks to everyone how has been contributing
to GTV by reporting bugs, you guys are the shiznit! GTV Test2 is in the works, and
should be released sometime this weekend. It fixes all reported bugs and adds a few
new things... GTV has been making the rounds on news sites, got linked
on Blue's and
Redwood's a couple days ago.
I'm wondering if there's any interest in development builds in-between "official" releases?
Email me or catch me on irc if you'd be interested in this.
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September 14, 2001
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GTV Public Beta Released
GTV lives more!
Like a bad team killer in urban terror it just keeps coming back. You can
grab GTV off the downloads page. I'm looking for active
feedback on this version, so if you find any bugs or have sugesstions for features
please send them in!
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August 23, 2001
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GTV lives!
Its a pleasure to announce the return of large-scale live spectating to Quake 3, GTV is back in development!
Thanks to help from Fred Nillson, Robert Duffy and others at id software, GTV will be made compatible with the
current Quake 3 point release, and all future releases. Work has already begun on programming and features
such as the server list at www.gamerstv.net, demo playing and recording, and the waiting room. GTV, software
which allows 1000s of people to watch Quake 3 matches live, will enter beta testing soon.
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