We’re back!

After a few months without a server after most of us lost interest, I’ve been repeatedly asked to start a new one. So I did. Rather than host the game on a shared server with a game server company I have rented a virtual private server from Linode just for us and am running the game on that. The advantage is that I get full control over everything in the game server so there will be less waiting for the server company to fix problems.

The new server costs about £21 per month, plus the web server. I’m happy to pay much of that, but I am on disability benefits so all donations are much appreciated. See the front page of our website to make a donation.

I think we are probably going to re-instate a weekly game, probably 8pm on Sundays. Check at other times too, we will probably be busy most Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.

I’m looking forward to shooting you all.

- Latentexistence.

Gameservers.com have taken it upon themselves to move our server to a completely different IP address.

This means your favourite servers list will be wrong.

The server is now at 108.61.253.29:27015

Here’s their explanation:

The Amsterdam Location will be undergoing a network and hardware upgrade which will increase it’s network footprint as well as upgrade every server within this datacenter to the latest Intel Hexcore technology. The cutover to the new infrastructure is scheduled to be completed before Tuesday March 1st, 2011.

The upgrades will be done on all game servers that has fall under the following IP ranges:

94.75.x.x
95.211.x.x

If your server’s IP address falls within these two ranges, in order to complete the network and hardware upgrades, you will need to go through an IP change to take advantage of the upgraded network infrastructure. All of your server data will be moved along with any GUID files you may have depending on the game subscription that you own.

Keep in mind that we will have GameTracker automatically update your server’s IP information so that you do not lose ranking on GameTracker.

Before the end of this week, you will see a newly added subscription which will contain the new IP address that your server will be moved to along with all of its data.

I’m pleased to welcome Apple to the clan. We stole him from Sanctuary, because we’re that good!

We have bots again!

Yes, that’s right, the bots have been updated for the Orange Box engine. With the return of the bots you can have something to kill while you wait for other players to join your game. Happy bot hunting!

DKM! servers have just about returned to normal after Valves sudden and unexpected update which broke everything.

For those of you that don’t know, Valve updated HL2:Deathmatch to use the 2009 ‘Orange box’ Source engine instead of the 2006 engine. The main reason for this was to allow Deathmatch to run on Macs, and it has the side effect of fixing a lot of bugs in the game. (And introducing new ones!)

Source servers have a lot of ‘plugin’ software that makes the game actually fun to play. Things like disabling the ringing noise when you are near an explosion, protecting you when you spawn until you move, keeping your score if you get disconnected and then return, playing sounds, adding bots to the game, even adding sounds for ‘headshot’ and ‘dominating’ and so on. The updated game was unfortunately incompatible with a lot of those plugins. It is also incompatible with a large number of our custom maps.

Since the update many of the plugins have been released in new versions that work with this source engine. Most of the plugins that DKM used are now back in operation on the server. A couple that aren’t are the HRC Bots, and the spawn protection. We are also still having problems with the Sourcemod Admin tools, since many simple punishments like slap, slay, burn, and kick are not working leaving us only with banning to sort out offenders. We haven’t gone all draconian, it’s just that the only thing we can do is ban someone!

We have tested about 110 of the maps that we were using and returned them to service. We have about the same number again that have not been tested, but they will slowly be tested and put back on the server if they are still ok. If your favourite map is missing, try running it on your own computer, and if it works, let me know and I will put it up again.

Thanks for your patience,

Latentexistence.

The time has come, once again, to ask for your help.

DKM servers, website, stats and forums cost between £25 and £30 per month to run. Please help us by giving a pound or two to keep us going. See our website hl2dkm.co.uk/donate for details how.

Cheeky lamb is a DKM member too!

Welcome.

Welcome to the clan, Brolythegingerbreadman!

Please welcome DKM! clan’s newest member, Yunalesca!

The new private clan server is now up and running. I haven’t finished customising it yet, but it has the maps and admin stuff installed.  The new server is at 217.163.24.50:27015