I'm going to make this FAQ topic about Soldat Gather so that new players to gather and IRC will find it as easy as possible to join and play gathers. I'll update the topic with anything worth reporting. I won't include everything about it here but I'll try to remember and mention all of the necessary stuff. Feel free to discuss anything gather / IRC community related here.
Short FAQWhat is Gather?Gather is a Soldat related project lead by DarkNoddy and a place for people to play organized CTF games.
How to join Gather?To play gather, you need to use IRC and join #soldat.gather @ irc.quakenet.org which is gather's official channel. You need to auth your nick before you can join though, so if you are new to IRC and quakenet, read Denacke's short
IRC tutorial and you should be set.
Why play Gather?Well, I'd say there are plenty of reasons! First of all, it's a great way to get better as most of the community's skilled players are there. Of course there are a lot of players of different skill levels so you don't need to worry that you aren't good enough for gather as everyone is welcomed to play. Secondly, in gathers you don't need to worry about teams having unbalanced amount of players or players leaving and joining in middle of game. Naturally we have some rules too but more about that later. Gather is also a great way to get to know the clan community and find an active clan or just to get to know new people.
So how does it work, exactly?The gather is incredibly easy to understand and use. You simply need to join the channel and use either !on (starts a new gather) or !add (joins a gather) command to get a game going. Most of the games are 3v3 but you can also start 4v4 and 5v5 games if you so wish. Once the gather bot is full, it will randomize teams and query you with a message with server information. You will play a match best of 3 maps, alpha team picks first map, bravo team picks second and third is randomized by the bot, if needed. The most important rule to know and remember is that
you are not allowed to leave before the game is over. If you join one, finish it. If you know you don't have time to play a full one, then don't add.
Where are the servers located?Currently we have 7 servers and they are all dedicated 100mbit servers located in Germany, Europe. There's a gather for Americans too, known as #sna.gather which works on the same principle as the European gather. Note that Americans are welcomed to play in our gather as well, the ping shouldn't be unbearable or anything and Europeans actively play sna.gather as well.
What does voice mean?Some of the people on #soldat.gather are voiced (indicated by + in front of their nicks) while others aren't. The voice means that you can take part in
gather+ games. Voice means that you are recognized as a player who follows the rules and is skilled enough to take part in games where the skill level is a bar higher. Like in normal gathers, there still is a lot of variety in the skill of voiced players since we aren't really strict about who to voice but even so, it's no easy feat to get a voice. Gather+ is liked among voiced players because the games are usually closer and there aren't any (or at least many) rulebreakers/lamers among the voiced players.
You can get voice by joining KANE. You can read about it
hereHow active is Gather?You'll most definitely get to play Soldat if you are interested in playing gather! It's visited by hundreds of players and there are 250+ users on almost constantly and most of the servers are in continual use during the daytime. Currently there have been over 73000 gathers in total.
NEW!!! Custom Maps! (Servers 6 & 7)YOU CAN RECOMMEND/GIVE FEEDBACK ON CUSTOM MAPS HERE ON SOLDATFORUMS BY GOING TO
THIS TOPIC.
We recently opened two new servers for custom maps only. Some of these maps might make it into new versions and gather is a good way to test and see people's reactions of different maps. Currently there are 23 maps on the server but we will actively add and remove maps, depending on which ones seem to be popular and which ones don't really work too well. We won't accept just any map but are open to suggestions and naturally we want as many good maps as possible. If you want to suggest a map, you can do so
here. Currently the list is:
MAPLIST:ctf_Amazonas
ctf_bassaliens0
ctf_Bone
ctf_Bounce
ctf_Coldshiver
ctf_Coolbya3
ctf_Deathcult2
ctf_Drugster
ctf_Glory
ctf_HotBeam
ctf_Line
ctf_Pilot
ctf_Razer
ctf_Rennos
ctf_Roundabout2
ctf_Rubicon
ctf_Tae2
ctf_Vivid
ctf_Whitehawk
Maps updated by SuoW, sorry for missing links
DOWNLOAD MAPPACKCommandsHere are some of the most important commands you should know:
IRC:
!on / !on+ - Starts a 3v3 gather / gather+ (NOTE: !on 4 / !on 5 starts a 4v4 / 5v5 game)
!onc / !onc+ - Starts a custom gather / custom gather +
!add / !add+ - Adds in a gather / gather+
!addc / !addc+ - Adds in a custom gather / custom gather+
!del - Deletes you from the gather / custom gather (NOTE: you cannot delete once the gather is full)
!sub x x - Search for a substitude. The first variable stands for server number and the second for the amount of players. (eg. !sub 3 1 would search one sub for server 3)
!sadd - Adds as substitude.
!status - Checks if there are any current games you can join.
!overkill - Checks the status of all servers.
!infox - Shows server info. x stands for server number.
!playersx - Shows the players on the server. x stands for server number.
!specx - Spectate a game. x stands for server number.
!kane - Shows KANE information.
!gstats - Shows how many gathers you have played plus some other information.
In-Game:
/ginfo - Shows teams and tiebreaker on the server.
maps / ?maps - Shows maps (custom maps on custom servers, default maps on normal servers)
pause - Pauses the game (65% of players needed to use to activate)
unpause Unpauses the game (100% of players needed to use to activate)
RulesRules topicI hope that was everything. I'll update this topic when something comes up or if I forgot something important.
What is it?#SNA.Gather is an IRC Channel which helps people to have an organized soldat match. These matches are called gathers and consist of 6 people who are willing to play. These people will form 2 teams of 3, which are randomly selected by the NAGatherBot. These two teams then fight a usual 3vs3 match as we are used to in clanwars.
How it works?- IRC -To be able to join our channel (/join #sna.gather), you will have to get an IRC Client and connect to Quakenet. You can find more information on how to set up your IRC Client on the soldat wiki:
http://wiki.soldat.nl/IRC_tutorial- Basic Commands
!statusThis command shows you wether there are still players needed to fill up the gather or if a game is already busy.
!addThis command will add you to the list of players that want to do a gather. When a total of 6 players is reached, the game will start.
!delThis command removes you from the list of players that want to do a gather.
For more commands please use !help in our channel.
- In-game -When the gather is full, the bot will make teams and give you the server information. When all players are in the game, the map can be changed using, for example !map ctf_Laos (case sensitive). Another useful command would be !pause, which would pause the game. This command is only to be used when there is an afk player.
- Admins -SNA.Gather is designed so that admin intervention is rarely needed. If however something goes wrong, you are always welcome to contact the operators on #SNA.Gather.
