Introduction

While your job as a referee may not be immediately obvious, your job as a referee is crucial to the tournament scene. Which is what makes it the perfect role for your first time as staff. For the purposes of keeping a complete guide, I'll be going over everything from the software to use, to refereeing without a ref sheet, to a breakdown of what I think should be the role of the ref in a behavioral situation.

IRC Clients

When it comes to refereeing, you will need some type of software to actually interract with chat. One option is refereeing from in game, but it's clunky, unprofessional, and there are many tournaments that don't allow that in the first place.

Here are my top three choices for IRC Clients:

chat4osu!

If you want to have easy access to osu! chat and ref casually on the side, chat4osu! is the most well-suited towards people that just want a simple setup. It has support for hotkeys, custom notifications, and the ability to visualize the lobby using a side menu.

Unfortunately, there's no MacOS release as of now.

Script chan

Script chan is the ultimate referee tool. It is completely overkill and I love it. It's got the ability to manage and create teams, manage mappools, use discord webhooks to post match results, automatic score keeping and posting, almost anything you could need in a client you have with Script chan (except for hotkeys).

This client only works on windows.

KiwiIRC

KiwiIRC is by far the most compatible client you can get. It's all hosted on the web, but it has virtually no features. It wasn't made for osu in the first place. However, if you need a client in a pinch, or have an operating system that doesn't support other clients, KiwiIRC is the best bet.

Which does CLXXIII use?

I rarely use KiwiIRC, but I have in the past when I needed to from a different computer where I didn't have my normal software installed. If it's a 1v1 tournament, or a smaller tournament I will use chat4osu. If it's a larger tournament, or one that I've already set up in Script chan, I will use both chat4osu for chat, and Script chan for the scorekeeping features.

Commands

When you're using an IRC client, you can't interact with a multiplayer lobby like you are used to. That's where the !mp commands come in. For nearly every action you can make in a multi lobby, you can make using !mp commands. Including some things you can't do regularly.

Here's a list of every !mp command you can use:

• !mp lock

  Prevents players from moving between slots

• !mp unlock

  Allows players to move between slots

• !mp make [room-name]

  Makes a multiplayer lobby

• !mp makeprivate [room-name]

  Makes a multiplayer lobby, only the players in the lobby can see the MP link

• !mp size [size]

  Changes the number of open slots

• !mp set [teammode] [scoremode] [size]

  Sets lobby properties

• !mp move [username] [slot]

  Moves a player to a different slot

• !mp invite [username]

  Invites a player to the lobby

• !mp host [username]

  Gives a player the host

• !mp clearhost

  Clears the host from the lobby

• !mp settings

  Prints information about the lobby

• !mp kick [username]

  Kicks a player from the lobby

• !mp ban [username]

  Bans a player from the lobby

• !mp team [username] [team]

  Sets the team of a player

• !mp map [map-id] [gamemode]

  Changes the map of the lobby

• !mp mods [mods]

  Changes the mods active in the lobby

• !mp timer [seconds]

  Sets a timer

• !mp start [seconds]

  Starts the game

• !mp abort

  Stops the current game from playing

• !mp aborttimer

  Stops the current timer

• !mp password [password]

  Changes the password of the lobby

• !mp addref [username], , ...

  Adds users able to use !mp commands

• !mp removeref [username], , ...

  Removes users able to use !mp commands

• !mp listrefs

  Lists all referees

• !mp name [room-name]

  Changes the name of the lobby