Black Ops - are you in?

[Blunt]

Black Ops will be released on the 9th Nov and looks like it's going to be a biggie:)
The dedicated servers are going to be rentals (like BC2).
We have to start thinking about whether we are going to support the game and get a server.
It is a CoD franchise and therefore it would fall into our section, and I'd like to keep the same admin team (and maybe add a few from the regular players when the game gets going)
Therefore, it would be handy to know how many admins are going to purchase the game on release, and if you're happy to be admin on Black Ops.

Any info on admin tools etc. that you find, or any thoughts, ideas (or questions) that you have will be gratefully recieved.

[lionheart]

Yea I'm in, going to get it for release, not decided where from though Steam seems a bit expensive to me.

[TeaLeaf]

Advance work on admin tools is certainly a good idea - check the gameservers.com forums for discussion and options perhaps?

Same admin team is not a problem, makes it an easier transition.

We can certainly have a server at launch, but is this to replace COD4 or as an addition?

We also need to figure out and post very quickly the clan tag situation.  Is it going to be the same as COD4?  If it is then we need to post it and also get forum sections up and runnning in time for the launch.  

Re the server:

Gameservers.com are the only supplier and based on the current maximum slot server would cost approx Ã,£27.62 per 3 months (18 slots ranked).  There is talk of the maximum being upped to 24 slots for ranked servers (you can currently get 24 for unranked, but I presumed you would want ranked), but nothing official yet afaiaa.  

If you want the server set up then say here and I'll get it sorted and running ready for launch day.  Server would be London based so pings should be fine.

[Blunt]

well there doesn't seem to be many people voting option 1 atm. I think the price is putting people off.

If we do decide to get a server for 3 months, I think we should keep CoD4 server going for at least the first month.
we should then be in a position to see whether BO is taking off in the community or not.

Re Clan Tags, I think the CoD4 tag was due to game constraints not allowing -=[
If this is the case with BO then I would suggest the same tag as Cod.
however, if the game allows the full wings I think we should go with -=[dMw]=- but we will only know this after release.

[TeaLeaf]

I think price might be putting people off, but there will still be a good chunk of people who will have bought the game and be looking for a server to play on.  I have spoken to Penfold about it and he is in agreement that we just set up a server anyway - for Ã,£30 what have we to lose?  If you're happy to run both then say so and we'll pre-order the game server and set up the forum sections etc.

At the end of the day it's not a large cost to try out a new game.  If it becomes nothing more than a public server after a few days, so be it.

[Blunt]

Sounds good to me:D

I'm sure we'll have enough admins from the community to look after this, and it's not like we're rushed off our feet with CoD4 atm.

[target]

I will probably get the game and I'm happy to continue to admin, however with my work at the moment being around is a bit hit or miss

[TeaLeaf]

Black Ops server ordered for a 3 month period ($42.61), so we'll go live with it on launch day.  Blunt, can I ask you to organise an announcement please (or get one of your well-trained minions to do it!).  We can promote any post to an article to increase it's visibility I think.  Please include details of the tag too so we do not get a BC2 situation developing!

Thanks.

[Snokio]

Getting the game from Amazon, so should get it on release.
 
Re the admin tool, looks like Rconmax will support BO:
 
http://www.rconmax.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=686.0
 
Interesting to here though:
 
"From what we have read the Ranked servers are going to be quite restricted as to what the admin can do / manage, where as the Unranked servers should allow the admins a high level of control so we have ordered and Unranked server for us to use during or development and testing.
(If we have any spare time we may play on it too.) In the interest of saving on the development costs we do not intend to rent a second server (Ranked) for testing the limited functionality so we will be looking for support from some of our long standing supporters" - 20 Oct 2010
 
When is the question though, I'll have a look and might be able to pull a favor or two and find out what other people are using.

[Snokio]

Some admin sites to keep an eye out incase they develop something in the near future:
 
B3Codrcontool: http://www.cod-rcontool.com/
Modern Rcon: http://www.filefront.com/11879649/ModernRcon-v0.8/
miniAdmin: http://www.fpsbanana.com/tools/2101
RconMax: http://www.rconmax.co.uk/lns/
[AON]: http://www.airdaleops.com/
Cerberos: http://www.cerberos.org.uk/
 
Edit: been told there is no 3rd party admin tool atm, there is talk of an existing one working, but there will be an in-game tool for kick/ban but nobody yet knows if its a cut down rcon/console or menu system.

[BrotherTobious]

Sorry to say guys I am on of the sitting on the fence, I have a feeling it gonna be like MW2, but I hope to be proved wrong so will see what happens.

Also sorry not been around much on the Mondays, but rl and Arma 2 taking most of my time

[target]

Well, I won't be on the server until christmas but I'll be there