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Didn’t find it in the rules but I think I’v read it before that you are allowed a pause during a game, is this correct?
We had constant problems with people dropping out and wanted a pause but the other team couldn’t pause the server..

Ok, so not during a round then…
If a team wants a pause in between rounds and the other team doesn’t pause the game, it that a “punishable offense” or something like that then?

on the other hand a team can be almost capturing last cp, one of u drops, u pause, u have time to relax, think the best way to def last cp, then ur player joins, and u manage to def last cause the pressure u had before was gone, u had time to calm down…

or, if a player drops 3 or 4 times during the game, will u stop the game during that time… so its better to be in the end of every round

We had to pause the server in some of our (not ETF2L) matches.

Personally I think the pause function of Team Fortress 2 sucks. It completely locks the server. You can not even use the text chat anymore during a pause, you can’t join teams, you can’t select classes… so if someone dropped and you paused the game because of it, you have a hard time seeing when he comes back, you can not communicate with your opponent via textchat as to when he is coming back – so you have to resort to using steam friends instead – and when you unpause the game the guy who dropped loses some precious seconds as only then he can join a team select a class and so on.

In the end we resorted to not pausing the game but instead writing down the time left and when we were ready to resume the match, the mp_timelimit of the server was increased accordingly. The end result is the same (you have x minutes y seconds left to play the match), you only have to do some math to find the correct mp_timelimit value. Unfortunately this solution only works if you are not on a map that uses stopwatch mode, and of course both teams must be trusted to cooperate (i.e. pause means they willingly stay in spawn and do nothing).

Of course, if someone knew the reason as to why chat is disabled during pause, maybe there is a setting to allow it? If my memory doesn’t deceive me, chat was just fine during a TFC pause…

We’ve actually had an interesting discussion in the Admin forums about the pausing rules so please await an update.

You are wrong the pause in TFC was as bad, after about 3 lines of chat you would get “Cant type for 10seconds due to spamming” or some thing! It’s the same with TF2 :)

edit: OMFG Marco you STOLE MY BRAIN

Because what if one team, defending their final cp, drops a player? Suddenly the round is restarted, making it completely unfair for the attacking team.

Uhm, the ETF2L default config which has to run on all servers states: sv_pausable 0

I don’t know, but changing those settings by rcon during midmatch, especially when the one with rcon is the medic, sux, even between rounds.
Not to mention there’s not always someone with rcon around in matches for all teams, in top divs maybe, but lower down not always.

You should clear that out and make consistent rules and configs.

That screenshot looks nice, will have to check out how to make those menues, heh. Could just bind the commands to a key too though.

The point was that not all clans have rcon on the servers they play on, some have to be configured by web-interface, some use borrowed servers.

Anyways, I’d like the administration of the league to make more pointed rules about when a clan can demand to pause the game.

Honestly I dislike the option, even though we have had our share of crashed and disconnected players as well, more than one official game we have played outnumbered at least for a while.

But it slows down the game, makes everyone invest more time and screws up surprise elements. We have had games, especially in summer cup, where we surprised our opponents with unusual tactics on one map, and had won the map already when they figured out what we are doing and how to counter it.
If a clan has the possibility to demand a pause and get their “timeout” whenever they request it, they can start already after the first round to analyze opponents gameplay and tactics and figure out in ventrilo how to counter it.
I’d much rather see clans having to adapt to surprises on the fly, while playing the next round already.

Playing outnumbered due to crashes, disconnects, whatever is bad, but it’s evened out by chance, and if someone has such bad connections that he keeps disconnecting often, maybe he should change his provider? In my opinion it’s a risk of life and giving every clan the right to request pausing the game opens the door to misuse and manipulation (fake timeouts if required for a pause).