The other night while RSHL was taking place, someone mentioned in blue chat that some games were starting late because it took several minutes to find a ref that was online. I asked on Discord why this was the case and this is the response I got:
It got me thinking, how difficult could it be?
Also, it made me realize that after nearly 20 years playing this game, I had never tried reffing an RSHL game, not even once.
With that said, I took it as an opportunity to earn my stripes.
I put my referee gear on and marked my name down on that list.
For the good of the zini, am I right?
I ended up picking the ADM @ SHF game because it was taking place at a time that I was going to be on anyway. From there, it was just a matter of learning the ropes.
The first thing Bogey sent me was a link to the ref sheet which is on google drive and is pretty extensive. It helped me get acquainted with the most commonly used commands, even though I had no real idea or direction as to when to use them exactly.
A few days passed by and the game day was approaching. I’m not going to lie and say that I felt sure I’d do a good job. First time jitters were definitely creeping up on me. I joined one of the games that was taking place one night just so I could get a feel for what to expect.
I joined as a Goal Judge but I was actually just asking the ref questions.
Werewolf was reffing that game and he was nice enough to guide me through his process and what he does to make sure the game runs properly.
He gave me some pointers and I wrote most of what he said down on a notepad.
Game Day
Finally, Sunday arrived, the big day.
As I was going through my notes, I got a private message from Jack on Discord asking me to play some of their team songs during the game:
Shit.
At that moment, I realized that I didn’t know how to play any of the songs. You can play music in this game? Wtf.
So I contacted whoever was online on my Steam list at the time, someone from HZ.
Turns out that was Boogieman.
Okay, so that wasn’t so bad. He straight up gave me the, “it’s not so hard just know these things” spiel, but it was better than no guidance at all.
I asked him a few questions and he was kind enough to answer them even though he was in the middle of playing some Japanese video game. I appreciated it though.
T-Minus 30 minutes
Holy shit. I was panicking. Do I have to know the game ID? What happens if I miss my timing with the ?gameover command when the game ends? Is ?givepuck done from spec or do you have to be in the arena? So many questions.
Okay. It’s okay. I’ve got this.
Wait.
What is my ref name?
Do I even have a ref name?
Shit.
Son of a bitch.
Okay, so it was time to message Bogey, since he’s the one who asked me for my ref name.
I asked him if he had created it for me. He said no.
I just had to create it in subspace and then login.
Apparently, I was already in ?listmod … whatever that meant.
Done.
Created the name Navi+ and I was logged in.
What the hell was step 2?
T-Minus 20 minutes
Goddamn hero.
Enough said.
T-Minus 10 minutes
Songs ready. Doritos bag ready. I cracked my knuckles and imagined myself putting on warpaint on my face like in that old Antsy video on YouTube all those years ago.
I made a checklist of what to do and put it on my 2nd monitor.
T-Minus 5 minutes
Joined the game as Navi+
Waited in spec mode for people to show up in pub.
T-Minus 1 minute
Joined the Schedule Fukkers arena only to realize that I had to download a whole ass map.
FUCK.
1% …
2% …
Shit.
Shit. shit. shit.
Shiii—
Game Time + 4 mins
Okay so I was late by 4 minutes, but that’s fine because no one had actually joined. People were still coming in and nobody seemed in a hurry.
Immediately after entering the arena, I started running through my checklist:
- ?readmysqlroster – you need to do this before you do ?listgames
- ?listgames – this will list the games planned for this current season
- ?startgame id# – after you list games, get the id# of your game and insert it here
- Do ?announce so that it sends the default message zone-wide that the game is starting
- While everyone is joining in to the arena, you can do ?a %192 for the team theme song
- Wait for everyone to join in on the teams
- If it takes too long, we can use ?a %193 to play the second song (usually AI generated)
- Once the teams are filled and the captains have chosen sides, we can ?startperiod
- ?givepuck to put yourself in center ice with the puck and then spec to drop
- Remember to do ?replay for goals scored by home team and ?a %194 for intermission
The last bit was a warning from Boogie, Werewolf and Big E:
?gameover immediately after the first replay but before the second replay starts
This must be done in between flashes, or you’ll fuck it up and the world will end or something. IDK.
Game Starts
Big E hopped in just in time to help me start the game.
I typed ?startperiod and then ?givepuck, it spawned me in center ice and all I had to do was spec to drop the ball. The game was on!
Big E gave me some pointers as the game went on, things like:
- Make sure to do ?save if you see that a play was interesting or it was a missed chance
- Do ?replayall after the game ends so it starts playing the replays immediately
- Don’t do ?a %1 during plays, as it distracts players (the green text with bong sound)
- Learn to do Macros so you don’t have to type so much
Honestly, it wasn’t bad. It was actually kind of fun. Would I do it again? Probably not.
But hey, good learning experience.
Anyway, thanks for reading.