Feature request: Built-in Voting for maps, etc.

[Randy O]

Greetings, Rich-

I've been a server admin for 8 years and I always used q2admin's voting feature for maps, kicking bozos and sometimes game changes (FFA to CTF, TDM, etc.).  I agree that over the years, Q2admin has become woefully inadequate in dealing with exploits- but it's voting system remained a very vital part of any good server.  The Q2 mod I've been involved with all these years is Weapons of Destruction (sound engineer for WoD 8.0~8.3), although I had nothing to do with any coding aspects since I know nothing about coding. 

My issue is that the mod ceased development without having any voting system on it.  This is a major pain, since I run between 45~50 maps on my hosted servers and the servers are restarted daily.  We never get to see most of the maps on the server and I'm constantly getting requests for a voting system so we can play the maps we want "on the fly".  My servers both run linux r1q2 and I imagine almost all the Linux and Win32 servers out there for Q2 also use it.

It would be incredibly handy if R1Q2 had a built-in voting feature, even if it were just for maps and player kicking!  Changing gametypes would be a plus but not paramount.  I did some research and found KillrBee's sourcecode for Q2Admin is public, so even if you could port the voting part of the code over to R1Q2, it would be better than the nothing I have now.  Of course, if you had a little time to create some clean voting code just once and incorporate it into R1Q2, I know it would mean the world to all of us out here who are still using Q2Admin for the voting alone.  As a matter of fact, my new hosted servers won't even work with Q2Admin so at present I have no way of allowing for any voting at all.  This is costing me clients and there's nothing I can do about it but post here with my plea.  I have scoured the net looking for an independant proggie that handles voting but have come up totally empty-handed.  It appears you are the only one left still doing anything of real consequence for Quake 2.

To close, it's been no secret that you have a long history of carefully crafted code and continued attention after the fact.  To me, it is a no-brainer to come here with this issue.  You were simply the first person I thought of and the one I have faith in to get it right.  Incorporating voting into the front-end that controls the server seems like pure logic to me and it also seems to be the only thing of relevance to the game that's missing in R1Q2.  So- what do you say?  Is it possible?  Would you consider it?  I know it would be a life-saver for not just me but many other server admins running mods without voting capabilities.  Thank You for any and all consideration in this matter!  I look eagerly forward to your reply, even if to say it's not possible and possibly to direct me somewhere I could go to remedy this.

With great respect-
Randy O

[Snake]

Theoretically it is possible to strip all but the voting stuff from the q2admin source.. but that code is such a mess that it's a BIG job to even attempt it, and I already feel sorry for those that try. Including myself.

[QwazyWabbit]

I wrote a voting module for LOX and published the source. It is strictly for map voting but the hooks are there for other vote types if someone wanted to extend it. LOX was derived from early WOD so it is fitting that she returns something back to her cousins in WODland.

http://www.clanwos.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3984

The whole module could be put into a proxy DLL along the same lines as q2admin and it could be stacked into a mod like WOD 8 just like q2admin was if someone wanted to simplify the task over trying to untangle the Q2admin voting code. Avi Zung's GameCam is a model of good server proxy DLL hooking for those coders who might be interested.

Assuming, of course that Rich was unable or unwilling to add it to the engine. Extensions like this are usually reserved to the game dll to implement.