Some more improvements....

tl;dr
Better server updates, no more select/copy/paste from chat like a caveman for the SDR connect, MOTDs with reservation info.

1. We changed the way we do server updates. Previously we checked the server version just as your reservation started, and told it to update itself if it was out of date. This was annoying for two reasons. First this meant the server had to fully shutdown and restart to get the update from steam, which can be slow due to congestion. It can also overload the machine hosting the gameservers with the disk and network getting trashed when many gameservers update at once.
Second, sometimes the gameservers took multiple restarts/updates to fully get to the latest version. So when that happened, after waiting for your reservation to launch you got greeted with the "Server is running an older version of the game" message.
So now we handle all the updates as soon as they come out. We stop making new reservations on servers that are not yet updated and start updating a few servers per machine at once. Games in progress are not disturbed and can finish their match on the old version of TF2.

2. There's now an in-game menu to switch between a direct connection and Valve's VPN connection, SDR. Type !sdr to open this menu.

3. Added MOTDs to all servers. This MOTD shows who made the reservation, its setttings and has convenient buttons to copy the connect, SDR connect and STV connect to your clipboard. If it's your reservation and you are logged in you can also control and RCON the server from this screen.

4. Fixed broken redirects after logging in. The site forgot where you were after signing in with steam, now it remembers where you were and redirects you back like it's 2011.

Just a small QoL update. A button to copy the settings of your previous reservation and make a new one. You can also right click this button and share this URL. It will only copy server config, whitelist and first map, not your rcon.

https://fakkelbrigade.eu/i/1689706927.jpg

I think the steam docs and the announcement put it quite well:

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/multiplayer/steamdatagramrelay

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/detail/1791775741704351698

I don't know if enabling SDR on the server with -enablefakeip delists them from the master server list, since we typically run "hide_server 1" on all gameservers anyway.

A small update, which could help if you experience a bad connection, poor routing or live further from the servers. All servers now support connecting through SDR (basically Valve's gaming VPN), in addition to direct connections.
So if you are on a server and have packet loss or unexpected high pings, type "!sdr" in chat to get the SDR connect info.

Just paste that in the TF2 console to connect to the same server, but this time through SDR.

As an example, this helped lower my ping to one of the Chicago servers, the first row is me on SDR, with a private SDR IP, the second row is me on a direct connection to the server:

https://fakkelbrigade.eu/i/1687541374.jpg

https://fakkelbrigade.eu/i/1686909078.jpg

There's also a queues endpoint which gets polled once a minute. It appears to return a list of all matches ever played and all the players in those matches and the pug histories of those players. While it probably just should return the current queues.

http://fakkelbrigade.eu/i/1686908740.jpg

So that's become a 1.7MiB JSON with 80k lines. It gets loaded 5 times after opening the site.

You could set "logstf_title" through RCON after your serveme.tf reservation starts.

Uploading duplicates is what TF2Center does.

Changing the steam id format from STEAM_0:1:123456 to [U:1:123456] during i52.
Releasing a TF2 server update that accidentally required CPUs with AVX instructions

This IRL matchmaking is not a service I offer.

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Thanks to ozfortress, au.serveme.tf is back :) Starting out with 12 gameservers.

More info on how and why in these two blogposts.

Please don't use that. It's unmaintained and not user friendly. I just wrote it for myself because it was something interesting for VanillaTV at the time, so that's some indication of how old it is ;)

"If Coyo invites you to a private sexy maid session at i69, don't go"

People from Russia and Belarus can make reservations on the site again. Just tick the "I am not a vatnik" box and you're good to go.

I was at MasterNoob's this summer and we discussed it, not as in me buying it, just my thoughts on him pulling the plug.

He's been looking for someone to take over and buy the whole thing for a while because he hasn't had the same interest in the site as he once had.

You're not going to like the price.