Make sure you join (or already belong to) this Steam Group:


Actions up-coming or already in-progress:

• Accepting various join requests for the Weasel's Lair Steam group (https://steamcommunity.com/groups/WeaselsLair).
  
• Changing ownership of DNS domains.
• Updates to DNS for Fully-Qualified Domain Names (FQDN's), such as "games.freaksmisfits.club", "games.saphes.space" to "games.weaselslair.com", etc.
  
• Deleting the Freaks & Misfits Discord server entirely.
  
• Deleting the Saphe Space Discord server entirely.
• NOTE: I will still be on Discord as a user, there just will no longer be any "official" Discord server.
  
• Migrating game-server configurations to the designated Steam account used for hosting dedicated game-servers.
  
• Over time, lots of back-end game-server configuration changes migrating things from freaksmisfits.club and/or saphe.space to weaselslair.com.
  
• Over time, migrating any important content from the Freaks & Misfits Steam group (https://steamcommunity.com/groups/FreaksMisfits) to the Weasel's Lair Steam group (https://steamcommunity.com/groups/WeaselsLair).
  
• Over time, migrating any important content from the Saphe Space Steam group (https://steamcommunity.com/groups/FreaksMisfits) to the Weasel's Lair Steam group (https://steamcommunity.com/groups/WeaselsLair).
  
• Over time, lots of back-end game-server configuration changes migrating things from freaksmisfits.club and/or saphe.space to weaselslair.com.
  
• Over time, migrating YouTube content from existing YouTube account to new YouTube / GMail account.
  
• Probably a short-ton of stuff I am forgetting at the moment.

I've tried to delegate promoting and moderating the community to others over the years with mixed success, and make the community less about "me".  But, nothing seems to "stick".

So, I'm thinking about just re-activating the old "Weasel's Lair" brand and moving everything back to that - making it all about "me" again I guess.

Not 100% sure yet, but don't be surprised if this happens in the near future:

• Announcement on old Weasel's Lair Steam group.
  
• Various people invited to the old Weasel's Lair Steam group.
  
• Announcement on [Saphe] Steam group.
  
• [Saphe] Steam group goes read-only and everybody down-graded to "member".
  
• [F+M] Discord server shuts-down.
  
• Announcement on [Saphe] Steam group.
  
• [Saphe] Steam group goes read-only and everybody down-graded to "member".
  
• [Saphe] Discord server shuts-down.

NOTICE: I just converted the anti-cheat system we use on all out game-servers that are based on Source-engine (i.e. HL2-engine), as follows:

• Before: SourceMod Anti-Cheat (SMAC) - which has not been updated recently.
  
• After: Little Anti-Cheat[forums.alliedmods.net] (Lilac), version 1.7.4-3[github.com] - which is recently updated (last month).

Please notify me know if you experience any "false-positives" (i.e. people being kicked or even banned because it thought they might be cheating). This effects the following games that we host servers for:

• Team Fortress 2 (TF2)
  
• Team Fortress 2 Classic (TF2C)
  
• Counter-Strike:Global Offense (CS:GO)
  
• Counter-Strike:Source (CS:S)

UPDATE: Also updated the anti-cheat on all our servers that are based on the older GoldSrc-engine (i.e. HL1 engine) to the latest available HLGuard anti-cheat system. That system is still several years old, but newer than anything we were using before. This effects the following games that we host servers for:

• Half-life (HL1)
  
• Team Fortress Classic (TFC)
  
• Counter-Strike 1.x (CS)
  
• Deathmatch Classic (DMC)

It has come to my attention that certain individuals have been engaged in what amounts to cyber-bullying other players on our server(s), and in some cases even following those players to other Steam groups or other media to continue their harassment, and that this had been an escalation of a long-standing situation.

Some people apparently have taken advantage of the "light" moderation (lately almost entirely no moderation) on the game-servers (and in some cases language limitations) to engage in bad behavior.

Unfortunately, this has resulted in a long-standing player on our server(s) effectively withdrawing from our community.  While this might have the effect of ending this particular situation, I am not inclined to leave it lay like that - because it leaves those guilty undisciplined, and possibly likely to harass other players in the future.

Consequently, I shortly will be taking the following measures:

• Removing any such alleged bullies from being administrators / moderators in all forms (the Steam Group, in-game server permission, etc.).
• Likely perma-gagging those same parties in-game, to minimize their ability to verbally harass any additional players.  This may also have the effect of cutting them off from certain in-game features that are activated by in-game-text-chat.
• Kicking and banning those same parties from the Steam Group and Discord server.  This may also have the effect of cutting them off from certain in-game features on the servers that require Steam Group membership to utilize.
• Personally unfriending these players in Steam and Discord - where that is applicable.  I have no interest in debating behavior with such people, my patience is exhausted in this matter. 

If those efforts do not prove sufficient to stop the behavior, additional steps may include things like:

• Permanently banning the offending parties from the game-servers entirely, so they can not even play as muted/gagged players.
• Where applicable, reporting harassing behavior in Steam to Valve (FYI), or likewise any similar behavior in Discord to Discord (FYI[support.discord.com]).

Further, I am NOT going to discuss what individuals were involved.  This matter is closed as far as I am concerned.  I will shut-down all such services I am effectively sponsoring (the game-servers, web-related stuff, e-mail, domain-registrations, Discord servers, Steam Groups, etc.) before tolerating this kind of behavior.

PS: A similar announcement will be posted in our other affiliated Steam Group with equivalent actions taken for the same individuals.

For those who play or are otherwise interested-in TF2Classic[tf2classic.com], we now have two game-servers up and running for that "mod". Server details are noted below.

[Saphe] TF2Classic Server:
[F+M] TF2Classic Server:
Work performed so-far:

• Setup new server-side folders, SteamCMD install for each new server instance..
  
• Installed TF2Classic.
  
• Installed Metamod:Source & SourceMod.
  
• Installed TFC-Classic-specific SourceMod updates.
  
• Uploaded various custom or 3rd-party maps (CP_Minifig_XMas, CTF_Mach, CTF_Royal, CTF_Convoy, CP_Toy_Fort, etc.)
  
• Generated new bot "navigation meshes" for each map.
  
• Setup some basic customization for SourceMod (Say-Sounds, Head-Shot, etc.).

Works-in-progress/next-steps:

• Continue trial-and-error of SourceMod plugins for TF2 servers under TF2Classic.
  
• Investigate adding statistics tracking for servers with GameMe.com (as with our other game-servers).
  
• Create references pages in Steam community groups with relevant game-server information.
  
• Update existing Steam community group pages as needed.
  
• Setup Hammer on map-editing computer for creation of custom TF2Classic-specific maps.