BF2 Overzealous Admin

**Owyn_Merrilin** · 07-23-11, 02:41 AM

First of all, thank you for hosting the servers. I play both BF2 and TF2 on the TPG servers, and I love the serious attitude and honest teamwork that I find here. I don't know of any other community, especially in TF2, that comes anywhere near the level of friendly competition that is the backbone of TPG.

Unfortunately, I came across an overzealous admin this morning between the hours of 2:00 and 3:00 AM Eastern time. I was playing Battlefield 2 on the TPG server, on a squad which was not doing much teamplay to speak of. This was made worse by the fact that I was apparently the only person on the squad with a mic. I switched out of the squad with the intention of joining another one, but I was hit with the squad bug, and unable to join or create a squad. The admin on duty promptly kicked me from the server, which I understand, especially since I didn't type anything in chat explaining what was going on. I honestly couldn't find the button for global chat, and by the time I had it looked up, I had already been kicked. I logged back in after my minute was up, unfortunately with the bug still in effect, and explained what had happened. I didn't get any response from any admins, but they let me play out the remainder of the round, and on the start of the next round, I was able to join a squad again.

That's where the trouble started again -- I wound up on yet another squad of people with no mics. For some reason, the squad leader quit the squad, which wound up making me the squad leader. Now, I don't have a problem with leading a squad when the situation calls for it -- I'm not particularly good at it, but I'm not so bad that I'm afraid to do it when I need to -- but this time, there was only one other person in the squad, and he refused to so much as spawn on green, let alone work with me to get anything done. I noticed that there was a squad at 5/6, and decided to quit the squad and join that one, hoping I would be able to actually get something done for my team that way. Big mistake; the squad bug hit again. I explained in the global text chat everything that had happened, how I had quit a two person squad to join a five person squad, and the squad bug had hit -- something that seems to happen pretty regularly (but not always) when I try to switch squads mid-game -- but about a minute later, I was kicked. During this time, the admin had been going on something of a kicking spree, removing every single player who wasn't currently squadded up. While I understand the rules say everyone has to be on a squad, I'd be surprised if I was the only one hit by the bug. For some reason, even logging out of my account and restarting the game didn't fix it, which would suggest that it's a server side bug, not a client side one. Incidentally, both times I got kicked tonight, there were several squads with one or two players on them; I find it odd that un-squadded people were being kicked for not squadding up, but the various players who were on useless squads weren't told to combine into a larger one.

I guess what I'm wondering here is, what should I do in a situation like this? I tried explaining what was going on, but the admin either didn't notice or didn't care that I was experiencing a pretty nasty bug. Ideally, I wouldn't ever have to switch squads, and more ideally, if I did need to, I wouldn't get hit with the squad bug, but it seems to happen every time I switch, and with the number of people who play BF2 without a mic or who form squads which nobody joins, I need to switch more often than I would like. If I get hit with the bug again, should I just log off the server until the next map starts? It seems like a severely suboptimal solution. Thanks in advance for any help, this is the first truly negative ~~server~~ [edit]experience[/edit] I've had on your servers, and I've been playing since somewhere around April.

**iCeWhoshotme** · 07-23-11, 11:14 AM

Owyn,
We appreciate you playing in our server and like having players who enjoy our style of teamplayer gaming.
Since I was the one primarily kicking the unsquadded players last night this is most likely directed at me.

We go through the admin portion of our server and regularly kick unsquaded players. We attempt to give everyone plenty of time to get in a squad after the game starts or they load in. This gets the message out, usually, that the little warnings are meant and it allows people on who, like you, want to play our style of gaming. I was able to and know of other that were able to move within squads all evening with no issues. However, if you were able to join a squad then leave an not rejoin one I would suggest that you might look to restart your game or if you load into other servers and this happens reload your game. Occasionally we get little hiccups in things and the reload fixes the issues. I've had to do it and so have many others. I never saw a message from you describing your issue or I would have suggested the restart last night or at least attempted to remember to give you a little leeway if that didnt work.

When it comes to people in "usless" squads, that is up to the round commander to decide. Our policy is "squad up", its the commanders job to deploy those squads, combine or split them as they need for the battle. If a commander has an issue with a squad leader they need to bring it to our attention to be delt with.

I hope to see you back in the server. iCeWhoshotme

**Walkerxes** · 07-23-11, 11:24 AM

On a side note, Owyn, were you alive or dead when trying to join a new squad?

**[CoFR]SirMoo** · 07-23-11, 05:07 PM

I have never been able to join a squad when dead except when the round starts. After leaving an existing squad I have to spawn in in order to join a new squad, I can't do it while I'm dead...I didn't think it was just me...

**deathgodusmc** · 07-23-11, 05:24 PM

No one can join a squad when they are dead excluding prior to the round starting.

**cornfuse** · 07-23-11, 05:29 PM

Originally Posted by [CoFR]SirMoo

I have never been able to join a squad when dead except when the round starts. After leaving an existing squad I have to spawn in in order to join a new squad, I can't do it while I'm dead...I didn't think it was just me...

Pretty close. You can join/create a squad while dead if you have not spawned in yet. It does not need to be at the beginning of the round, but for 99% of the players in a full server, that is the case. If you've already spawned in, you have to be alive to join/create a new squad.

It sounds like this might have been your (Owyn_Merrilin's) "squad bug."

**Owyn_Merrilin** · 07-23-11, 05:32 PM

To iCeWhoshotme: Thank you for responding. Unfortunately, as I stated in my OP, I tried shutting down the program and reloading, but it didn't fix the bug. I don't know if it's connected to my account, or what, but it's a fairly consistent problem. For the first minute or so of a round, I can switch squads freely, but once the game gets going, I can leave squads but not join or create them. My guess is that there's some miscommunication between the server and my client, and one end or the other doesn't realize that I'm not still on the old squad. Ultimately, I'm going to need to redo this topic as a tech support question, because it really hinders teamplay from my end. Also, would you mind pulling up the chat-logs where I explained what was going on in the server? I'm not trying to get anyone in trouble, I just want to show that I'm not making anything up in my explanation of what was going on. Although I guess it's conceivable that I was chatting on the wrong channel -- I have a mic, and am not particularly familiar with the BF2 text chat system.

To Walkerxes: I tried it both ways. Clicking the join button made the game produce a click sound effect, but it didn't actually put me on a squad. I tried it alive, I tried it dead, and I tried joining a squad, creating a squad, and creating a custom squad. None of it did anything.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me; it might be prudent to move this to the main BF2 forum, since it's less a case of abuse than a case of me having a weird glitch and the admin not noticing that I typed an explanation -- which with all of the stuff going on in chat, is fairly understandable.

PS: If what deathgodusmc is saying is correct, I may be mistaken about having tried it after spawning (doubtful, but anything's possible.) I'll have to hop on the server and try it again tonight. I'm going to feel really stupid if I've been doing it wrong since I got the game, which according to my stats page, was back in February :/

**deathgodusmc** · 07-23-11, 05:32 PM

Pretty much what i meant. If you just joined then the round is starting for you but you phrased it better.

**Owyn_Merrilin** · 07-23-11, 05:54 PM

Just tested it, and yes, it was operator error. I feel pretty stupid about this, especially since I've read the manual like, 10 times and never noticed that little tidbit about the squad system. Feel free to lock this thread.