Ghost++ Warcraft III HostBot FAQ

April 21, 2011 Chilling_Silence How-To's / Guides / Tech info

This page is dedicated to all the admins / rootadmins out there, that don’t know how to use Ghost++

Ghost++ is the most common host-bot for Warcraft III. It’s very easy to use, highly functional, and customizable.

To get started, the commands can be entered in, in up to 3 different places:

1. In a Channel (Such as your Clan Room)
2. In the game Lobby (When the game is hosted, but waiting for players to fill)
3. In-game

I’ll give you a quick overview of how to get the most out of your Ghost++ bot, as well as some useful tips / tricks you may not have known.

This post is semi-universal, but mostly aimed at people using the Ghost++ Bots that I have setup.

Now before we begin, let me clarify a few things:

1. Using !closeall and !openall is NOT needed and if you do it too much, you’ll get the bot banned for 24-72 hours. Just don’t do it. Don’t let your Admins do it either!
2. The Bot is refreshing the game in the background, but it happens too quick for your Warcraft III client to actually see it. Don’t worry, nothing you do will improve the refresh!
3. Having !refresh on, is purely a status / informational thing. You can have !refresh off, and the game will still automatically refresh in the background.
4. Anybody in the lobby or in-game can use “!checkme”. It’s possibly worth having it in your MOTD to educate n00bs
5. When you use !ping in-game, everybody will see it. If you’re worried about pings, check the person with the lowest ping. If it’s under 80ms, then the bot is NOT having issues. If everybody is over 100ms, then you know the bot is having a problem

Now, onto the good stuff!

Using the commands

!ping

This can be used when you’re in the lobby, to ping everybody, as well as in-game.

As I mentioned earlier, when you’re checking the pings, if somebody is over the !latency value (Usually 100) then they’re probably going to have issues in one form or another.

If you’re doing !ping and *everybody* is over 100ms, then it’s possible that the HostBot may be having issues and you should contact the owner.

If one or two people are sitting under 100ms and some are over 100ms, then it’s most likely a problem with the gamers internet, and NOT the HostBot.

 

!from

This isn’t quite as important as !ping, and it’s also never fully 100% accurate. You’re better to kick somebody pre-game based on their ping, rather than their country. I know a lot of people, myself included, who show up as being from the wrong country.

 

!pub or !priv

This hosts a game and can be used either in the chat channel, or by /w’ing your HostBot.

Remember, you can only have one game in the Lobby at a time (However once that game starts, another of your admins can begin to host another)

If you use !pub, it will start a public game that anybody can join

If you use !priv it will start a private game that your friends / Clanmates have to know the exact name of to join. It won’t show in the game list.

Use it like:

!pub DotA -ap nz/aus DR HostBot

or:

!priv ih myclan

 

!addadmin

Everybodies favorite, only the root admins can perform this. You can /w the bot at any time, or from the same Channel that your HostBot is in.

Use: !addadmin UserName

It will add UserName as an admin user who can host games and ban other players.

You can also use !deladmin UserName

That will then remove UserName from being an admin.

Admins can’t delete other admins, only the Root Admin has this ability.

 

!latency

Use !latency to set the DR value. This can be set at any time, including /w to the HostBot, and it changes the value for all current games.

If you send !latency on it’s own, it will tell you what it’s currently set to.

If you use !latency 90, it will set the DR value to 90ms. Remember that there is 1000ms in 1 second, so going from !latency 100 to !latency 60 would mean .04 of a second difference. That’s less than the click of your fingers. Leaving it at the default of 100ms is ideal.

 

!unhost

This is used either by /w’ing the HostBot, or in the game lobby to stop hosting the current game in the lobby.

If other games are currently in-progress at this time, they won’t be affected and will still continue to play.

 

!mute

This is used to mute a player, generally if they’re talking too much trash or spamming. Remember that the player you !mute can still /w you and anybody else.

 

!ban or !banlast

Happens all the time, somebody talks a lot of smack talk pre-game, then dies to first-blood and leaves. Naturally you want to ban them so you don’t have to play with them again!

Use: !ban UserName Reason Why

This will ban UserName with the reason of “Reason Why”. When they later try to join your games, it will show up as something like this:

UserName is trying to join, but was banned by AdminXYZ on 21/2/2011 because “Reason Why”

If the person you want to ban was the last to leave the game, then you can also use:

!banlast leaver

This will ban the last person who left your game with the reason of “leaver”.

Common reasons for banning a person include leaving a game, raging, flaming, or going AFK.

 

!close

This will close a specific slot in your Lobby, useful if you’ve got an Observer map loaded so you can !close 11, or !close 12 (To close the observer slots).

It can also help if you want to have a semi-private pub game, or a 3v3, you can close extra slots.

 

!swap

This is useful for swapping people around in the Lobby. You can swap players from Scourge to Sent and all around by using:

!swap 1 7

That would swap players 1 and 7.

 

!fakeplayer

Similar to !openall or !closeall, this adds a fake player in to a single slot and then removes them. This is for Bots that don’t auto-refresh. Don’t use it, or if you spam it too much, your Bot will get banned from bnet for 24-72 hours.

 

!getgames

Use this to check how many games are currently in-progress.

You can do this from the chat channel, or by /w’ing your Hostbot like this:

/w HostBot !getgames

 

For now, that’s the important ones. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please leave me a note in the comments section below and I’ll see about adding them to this FAQ

DotA, Ghost++, HostBot,