As has been mentioned in previous news updates, we’ve been working hard on a standalone FBG plug-in for both Public Servers and the Match servers which will be utilised for the upcoming release of the new Battles.
This is a particularly exciting development for us as it will provide benefits to the whole FBG community across the board: casual players, clan players, public server admins and match server admins and we are only a couple of weeks away from release!
So what goodies do we have in store? Read on...
•
In-game player registration. Players will no longer have to disconnect from a game-server to register with FBG. Instead, they’ll be able open the in-game browser, register and instantly verify. When they close CS:S a new FBG Account and Profile will be setup and waiting for them, already gathering their stats.
•
Anti exploit/ abuse monitoring. The FBG plug-in will monitor server settings and identify incompatible settings or mods. It will then disable FBG from those servers or issue warnings of the problem. We understand how important it is to maintain the integrity of the medals, badges and stats and keep cheaters and exploiters out of the community. This is an area that we will continuously develop going forward. Further more, server admins and owners will receive clear notification of why FBG isn’t running if it stops which will help us to resolve server related problems a lot faster.
•
Vastly increased performance, security and reliability. The plug-in has been developed purely in C and C++ to ensure extremely fast execution and processing of data during rounds will be kept to an absolute minimum. The plug-in interacts with FBG very differently to the current system and has been designed to be very reliable and ensure players will always get the medals they have earned.
Data will be sent from the game server to the FBG servers when the load on the server is at it’s lowest. This increases efficiency and will remove the need for the game engine constantly stream data logs to FBG. Game servers with multiple CPU cores will see a big boost in performance as all operations will be threaded to ensure the game engine is never held up.
Game servers will be able to use the central FBG servers to complete any complex calculations so there will be no load put on the game server CPU.
This is an area where FBG really stands out compared to some other stats plug-ins which can cause lag spikes from large databases stored locally or use unthreaded operations that hold up the game engine until they complete. All player stats are stored in the central FBG servers that does all complex processing and CPU heavy tasks such as sorting. Only the stats for the players currently connected to the server will be loaded into the plugin memory, ensuring powerful, quick and efficient operation on servers of all sizes.
•
In game menus. We’ve revamped the menu system to provide better and clearer information. It will also easily allow users change things such as the end of round stat display preference.
•
Change FBG Profile settings in-game. Players will be able to set their tags, repup other players, donate plinks and issue any of the other FBG commands using a menu as an alternative to typing commands.
•
FBG Supporter perks. We’ll be adding incremental updates to the plug-in that are exclusive to FBG Supporters giving them extra information in-game on how they are playing and progressing that was never available before.
•
No more server registration required. You simply drop the plug-in into your addons folder and if your server is complient (is not running deathmatch and so forth), it will be activated with FBG instantly. What’s more, the plug-in is entirely independent, so you won’t need to run Mani or Eventscripts, MetaMod, SourceMod, etc.
•
Rcon no longer needed by FBG. Using the plug-in means the game server can communicate directly with FBG and we will no longer need rcon details to communicate with it.
•
Clan match data recording. The upcoming release of the match server plug-in is going to make a huge difference to the new Battles, as match data will be recorded automatically as the game is played and will no longer require the manual posting of match results. This immediately removes a lot of problems associated with playing clan matches and waiting on results and will help to provide a more accurate, up-to-date view of territorial ownership across the world.
We’ve also got some future surprises coming with the new Plug-in which we’re keeping top secret at this time (sorry guys – you’ll have to wait a bit longer to find out!) but needless to say, we have every confidence that you will be very pleased with what we are about to release. We’ve been building this plug-in for a very long time and it’s release will be very complimentary to the new Battle format.
Keep Killing... keep Plinking!
--
