StiffWrists

Some maps lag way worse than others from my experience and Erdenberg is absolutely the worst culprit. It's impossible for me to get a stable 200ms ping there. I have also noticed that the latency spikes are aggravated the more players there are. My theory has been that it's due to two things: 1. Bandwidth bottleneck somewhere in the network path. Bandwidth saturation produces knock-on effects like elevated or unstable latencies. 2. Map geometry is not well sectioned (or has leaks) so you end up with far more server traffic than necessary to update invisible players. (2) is maybe testable by recording a demo and playing back using r_showNormals 1. From the EU, network bottlenecks really shouldn't be a problem. To check this, you could maybe run Speedtest (https://www.speedtest.net/) from your computer and picking the ISP the main ETL1 server is on. One misconception behind network issues is that the problem lies on one end or the other i.e. the ISP or the game server in this case. In reality, it very much depends on the routing between the two endpoints and the problematic node on the path could belong to an intermediary. As far as client tweaks is concerned, there is the setting of packet duplication to off (cl_packetDup 0), reducing snaps, reducing rate and reducing cl_maxPackets. Except for cl_packetDup, the ETL1 server is unfortunately too restrictive for any of the above to work. I have always wondered if it would be better to set a range of acceptable snap and rate values rather than fixing it to 40 and 35000 respectively. On a sidenote: regarding traceroutes (or tracert on Windows), you have to be careful with interpretation. 1. Most service providers will ask you to provide traces in both directions because the forward and reverse paths may not be the same. 2. It is alright for intermediate nodes to not respond to traces. Pings and Traceroutes use a different protocol (ICMP) and are considered 'control traffic' instead of 'data traffic' and switches/routers prioritize forwarding data. The right way to interpret Traceroute results is to look at the trace in reverse, beginning from the destination. Note down the latency and losses, then work backwards to the earlier nodes to observe the progression.

Dude! It really depends on the map but I prefer Allies because they're on the offensive most of the time. Like Sebastian, I do hate walking long distances and then getting blown up with a still full magazine. But I try to find some enjoyment hopping at speed around.

I play medic most of the time and can empathise with nosekbk. However, medic pushes are the main engine of RtCW and ET attacks, so nerfing them will change the game drastically. In scrims people deal with them by gibbing bodies as soon as an enemy is dropped. The OPness of medics in public games has less to do with the ability to revive and heal than the fact that they have too much ammo. In RtCW, their power was heavily checked by several facts: 1. No XP or levelling system so no extra clip or dual-wielded pistols. 2. Inability to pick up an enemy's weapon (no backstabbing sprees). 3. No ammo cabinets. 4. Self-kills and team-kills give -3 score each. Revives are worth about +3 (so TK-revives don't move your score) each and kills are +1 each. This meant that medics were entirely reliant on lieutenants (field ops) to supply them with ammo and always played a supporting role. It is typical after an exchange of fire that medics had to make do with the pistol. This was especially difficult to RtCW as SMGs were much more deadly with higher firing rates and dealt more severe knockback. When there are breakthroughs, you would have to hold position with only pistols and wait for reinforcements. In RtCW, there was also a limit of 10 needles per life but that is rarely reached. It made max lives games especially interesting though. Competitive ET matches sort of reproduce this pattern of play by disabling the XP system. But it's no fun for public games I guess. It's a balance issue that ET public servers have never really managed to resolve satisfactorily in my view. Disabling medic level 4 (adrenaline) helps I guess. Another thing about matches is that the low team sizes (6 aside usually) typically meant that you could not afford to spare a medic player to get around the enemy front to harass. A field ops or a panzerfaust/bazooka carrying soldier has better firepower and more bang for buck.

Greetings fellow ETPlayers! I'm StiffWrists, one of the few Asians that frequent the TM server . Probably most recognisable from my ~200ms ping times, quick footwork, and insane tendency to rush headlong into heavy fire. I am a 40 year old guy living in Singapore. I work at a small container shipping firm, managing the company's server infrastructure and writing custom code to augment our ERP system. My history with ET started in late 2001 when Return to Castle Wolfenstein (ET's predecessor) was released. Being a fan of the original Wolfenstein 3D, I got myself a copy in the form of a Limited Edition Collector's Tin from a gaming store. At the time I was still on a high latency 56k dial-up and had only intended to play through the single-player campaign. The section on multiplayer in the game manual however intrigued me so much that I decided to try a few games out. Needless to say I was hooked. It was a real struggle playing with ~280 ping and no anti-lag against players on cable but I found ways to excel and impressed enough on public servers to get invited to join a nascent clan. Spent hours honing aim and jumping skills, timing first contact, finding trick shots ('rifle mortar' as a clanmate puts it), planning match strats, scrimming, all that stuff. Even made an ET aim practice map (rgb_practice) which a scarce few of you may have heard of. My biggest regret is having never managed to develop my match play skills to its full potential. We never had a regional ladder in this part of the world, like what CAL did for North America and Clanbase did for Europe. Much of this had to do with the lack of a lingua franca (English is not widely spoken), large geographical distances (ping times) and uneven economic development (RTCW and ET were demanding games). Of the various countries, Japan had the largest and most serious ET community. I knew some Japanese and fell in with the more serious players there but it was never really enough. Fast forward to 2021, I have gotten too old to pour time into this game 🤣. I game on both Linux and Windows with a 35-inch ASUS ROG screen at 3440x1440 and a Ducky 65% mechanical keyboard to maximise my desk space. This large display is the secret behind my ability to engage at extreme distances and being annoying to snipers. I play all kinds of games. Flight simulators, sim racing, city building, RTS, point and click adventures, platformers, interactive novels, you name it. For first-person shooters, I personally like Quake 3 Area and Left 4 Dead 2. I also picked up an arcade stick controller recently and begun playing a bit of Street Fighter. See y'all on the servers!