First off, thanks to everyone for running servers for the demo. We knew going into the release that we were going to need to figure out some ways to make it worth it for server administrators, and now we have a ton of feedback to work with.
Right now we're looking at ways that server administrators can both build a community around their game server (by subscribing to matchmaking) as well as service their group of "regulars" that play on their server. Hooking game servers into Steam Community is going to be our first step, and we're working on that now. There is a key difference between Left 4 Dead and games like Counter-Strike and Team Fortress in terms of matchmaking that we wanted to solve, and didn't think the server browser could accomplish. In CS and TF2, you can have 2 or 3 players leave in the middle of a game, have their slots filled by new people, and everyone else's experience doesn't completely suffer. When a player or two leaves Left 4 Dead the game suffers quite a bit, and we were worried that the server browser model wasn't the right one for this game. In hindsight, there are a number of cases where the server browser does a better job than the new matchmaking system does, so it is highly likely that we'll be adding it back in soon. It isn't trivially easy to turn back on, but there is overlap between it and the Steam Community work we'd like to do. Right now we're working toward getting that release out within a week or so. There are a number of Valve employees reading all of the posts on this list, and while we can't reply to every question that comes across, the discussions here are ones we reference commonly when talking about what to do next internally. _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
