TF2 Voting

Team Fortress 2 has a new VGUI voting system based on the Left 4 Dead Voting system and is controlled by Game Events and User Messages. You can use either a string from the resource file, or TF_playerid_noteam which will let you create any vote you want.

How voting works

1. The server sends a vote_options event.
   • The values it sends are garbage data (or the previous multiple choice vote's choices) for Yes/No votes or the actual vote options for multiple choice.
2. The VoteStart User Message is sent, the last argument determines the vote type.
3. Clients use the "vote" command to register their votes (option1 through option5), after which the server sends a vote_cast event with a 0-based option number (so option1 = 0, option5 = 4).
4. When the vote is complete, the server sends either a VotePass or VoteFailed User Message.

User Messages

Note: These user messages use signed bytes for the team number. SourcePawn's BfReadByte reads it as an unsigned byte, so -1 shows up as 255.

The User Messages that exist in the TF2 Voting system are:

VoteSetup

Note: Sent to a player when they load the Call Vote screen (which sends the callvote command to the server), lists what votes are allowed on the server

Name:	VoteSetup
Structure:	byte issue_count Count of vote issues allowed on this server string... issue An issue allowed to vote on

There is one string sent for each supported issue. Valid strings are:

• Kick
• RestartGame
• ChangeLevel
• NextLevel
• ScrambleTeams

CallVoteFailed

Note: Sent to a player when they attempt to call a vote and fail.

Name:	CallVoteFailed
Structure:	byte failure_code Failure reason (1-2, 5-10) short time For failure reason 2, time left until client can start another vote

Valid Failure Codes are:
1 - Cannot call vote while other players are still loading
2 - You called a vote recently and cannot call another one for X seconds (second argument to CallVoteFailed specifies the number of seconds)
5 - Server has disabled that issue.
6 - That map does not exist.
7 - You must specify a map name
8 - This vote failed recently
9 - Your team cannot call this vote
10 - Voting not allowed while Waiting for Players

VoteStart

Note: Sent to all players participating in a vote.

Name:	VoteStart
Structure:	sbyte team Team index or -1 for all byte initiator Client index (NOT USERID) of person who started the vote, or 99 for the server. string issue Vote issue translation string string param1 Vote issue text bool yesno true for Yes/No, false for Multiple choice

VotePass

Note: Sent to all players after a vote passes.

Name:	VotePass
Structure:	sbyte team Team index or -1 for all string details Vote success translation string string param1 Vote winner

VoteFailed

Note: Sent to all players after a vote fails.

Name:	VoteFailed
Structure:	sbyte team Team index or -1 for all byte failure_code Failure reason code (0, 3-4)

Valid Failure codes are:
0 - Generic "Vote Failed" message
3 - Yes votes must outnumber No votes
4 - Not Enough Votes

Events

Used Events

vote_cast

Note: Sent to all players when a player chooses a vote option (or more specifically, the server receives a vote command)

Name:	vote_cast
Structure:	byte vote_option which option the player voted on short team long entityid entity id of the voter

When it says entity ID, it actually means client index. It is very rare to see Valve use a client index instead of a user ID, but I tested this, and it's definitely the client index... I primarily tested this with two users. We had user ids 3 and 4. My votes came up with entityid 1, his came up with 2. I reconnected and got user id 7. My votes still came up with entityid 1.

vote_options

Note: Sent to players before VoteStart UserMessage to populate choices for a multiple choice vote

Name:	vote_options
Structure:	byte count Number of options - up to MAX_VOTE_OPTIONS [ed: 5] string option1 string option2 string option3 string option4 string option5

Unused Events

These are events that existed in L4D, but remain unused in the TF2 vote system.

vote_ended

Name:	vote_ended
Structure:

vote_started

Name:	vote_started
Structure:	string issue string param1 sbyte team long initiator entity id of the player who initiated the vote

vote_changed

Name:	vote_changed
Structure:	byte option1 byte option2 byte option3 byte option4 byte option5 byte potentialVotes

vote_passed

Name:	vote_passed
Structure:	string details string param1 sbyte team

vote_failed

Name:	vote_failed
Structure:	sbyte team

Example voting plugin

This is a basic plugin that starts a vote, "Is gaben fat?". It does not ensure the same client does not vote multiple times, nor does it actually kick the user.

#include <sourcemod>
// TF2's internal map vote uses client index 99 for the server
#define TF2_SERVER_CLIENT_INDEX 99
#define TF2_TEAM_ALL -1

new yesvotes;
new novotes;
#define MAX_VOTES 4

public Plugin:myinfo = 
{
	name = "Test Yes/No Vote",
	author = "Powerlord",
	description = "A test vote plugin for the AlliedMods wiki",
	version = "1.0",
	url = "http://wiki.alliedmods.net/TF2_Voting"
}

public OnPluginStart()
{
	RegConsoleCmd("testvote",Callvote_Handler);
	RegConsoleCmd("vote", vote);
}

public Action:Callvote_Handler(client, args)
{
	new Handle:bf = StartMessageAll("VoteStart", USERMSG_RELIABLE);
	BfWriteByte(bf, TF2_TEAM_ALL);
	BfWriteByte(bf, TF2_SERVER_CLIENT_INDEX);
	BfWriteString(bf, "#TF_playerid_noteam");
	BfWriteString(bf, "Is gaben fat?");
	BfWriteBool(bf, true);
	EndMessage();
	
	yesvotes = 0;
	novotes = 0;
	
	return Plugin_Handled;
}

UpdateVotes()
{
	if (yesvotes+novotes >= MAX_VOTES)
	{
		PrintToServer("voting complete!");
		if (yesvotes > novotes)
		{
			new Handle:bf = StartMessageAll("VotePass");
			BfWriteByte(bf, TF2_TEAM_ALL);
			BfWriteString(bf, "#TF_playerid_noteam");
			BfWriteString(bf, "Gaben is fat");
			EndMessage();
		}
		else
		{
			new Handle:bf = StartMessageAll("VoteFailed");
			BfWriteByte(bf, TF2_TEAM_ALL);
			// Check list of failure reasons
			BfWriteByte(bf, 3);
			EndMessage();
		}
	}
}

// If the TF2 vote system is running (sv_allow_votes 1), this needs to be a command listener because TF2 registers the vote command only when a vote is ongoing, and thus hooking it using RegConsoleCmd doesn't work.
public Action:vote(client, args)
{
	new String:arg[8];
	new option = 0;
	GetCmdArg(1,arg,8);
	PrintToServer("Got vote %s from %i",arg,client);
	if (strcmp(arg,"option1",true) == 0)
	{
		yesvotes++;
		option = 0;
	}
	else if (strcmp(arg,"option2",true) == 0)
	{
		novotes++;
		option = 1;
	}
	
	new Handle:msg = CreateEvent("vote_cast");
	SetEventInt(msg, "entityid", client);
	SetEventInt(msg, "team", -1);
	SetEventInt(msg, "vote_option", option);
	FireEvent(msg);
	
	UpdateVotes();
	return Plugin_Continue;
}

See the following images for examples what this looks like:

Vote started

Vote passed

Vote failed