I actually sent an email to Valve about a week or so ago (back when this issue was just bubbling up) asking them to implement a CS:GO Overwatch-type system for TF2 servers. I still think that such a system is the best way to go without requiring Valve to manually police servers themselves, allowing community owners to still compete for QuickPlay traffic with servers both following the intent and the text of Valve's QuickPlay rules, and giving players the same unadulterated vanilla experience that they want.
At the very least I'd like Valve to at least address the issue and discuss these changes with us instead of remaining completely silent. On Fri, Jan 24, 2014 at 12:56 PM, ics <i...@ics-base.net> wrote: > Well it would be just better for them to care more about our time spent on > their game because customer service is lacking a hand here. A rating system > doesn't do any good because there are quickplay rules and it's ok to have a > crap server obeying them. That's the real problem and i think thats why > they added only official valve servers option, so players can seek and feel > the vanilla experience while playing instead of mod this, mod that, yadda > yadda crap. > > But this hits us, who run legitimate servers for fun and out of sincere > reasons the most. > > -ics > > Jake Forrester kirjoitti: > > What if one of us made a site specifically for rating TF2 communities >> and servers? We could quite literally provide a list of crappy servers >> by name + IP to them once a month. I imagine Valve does want the >> servers gone as much as we do, but if it's going to waste too much of an >> employee's time, it's not worth it to them. If we could hand them >> something that's manageable and could be dealt with in part of a day, >> maybe they'd be more willing to shut down (or even just penalize) those >> communities who aren't living up to the standards either of us want. >> >> On 1/24/2014 9:35 AM, ics wrote: >> >>> There are only 2 solutuins where one is good and one is tolerable. >>> >>> The good one would be removing all the crap servers from quickplay but >>> thats too much work for them. The tolerable option, since there is no >>> going back is to take that tick off from the box that makes people >>> search servers among official valve servers only by default. >>> >>> -ics >>> >>> Jake Forrester kirjoitti: >>> >>>> I don't generally post to this list, but I would like to add some >>>> statistics from my community. McKay already posted some of them, but >>>> here are some more numbers. >>>> >>>> We run 3 dedicated boxes, and about 20 total TF2 servers. Of those, 14 >>>> are quickplay. The quickplay servers are mostly vanilla, with some >>>> various donor perks that don't affect gameplay whatsoever. In the last >>>> month we have seen about***140,000 unique players* and *475,000 >>>> individual sessions*. We're not a gigantic community, but we're >>>> definitely not small either. At least 2500 players have > 24 hours of >>>> play time on our servers, and I don't really see those players >>>> disappearing--at least not right off. >>>> >>>> Our community relies 100% on donations, so a temporary decrease in >>>> quickplay traffic wont affect us at all in regards to keeping our >>>> servers up (no ad revenue). But looking at our server list this >>>> morning, I noticed that our Chicago system which usually has 7 servers >>>> full around this time of day instead has 3. If we're unable to keep our >>>> servers full, I'm sure the donors will eventually start to dwindle as >>>> well. >>>> >>>> Now there's no real way for community owners to fight back. Really our >>>> only defense is to post to the mailing list and hope our message is read >>>> by a Valve employee, but that alone doesn't create change. If we can >>>> all band together behind a single solution though, it certainly wouldn't >>>> hurt our cause. >>>> >>>> That said, let's get the ball rolling on some ways we can help Valve >>>> combat players getting matched into terrible quickplay servers, without >>>> ripping apart the communities which make this game so great. >>>> >>>> Here are a couple of my ideas: >>>> >>>> *1) Quickplay ID Grouping* >>>> Have the ability to register a community/group ID to associate different >>>> quickplay IDs. This way if one server breaks the terms of service, they >>>> can all be shut down fairly easily. Of course, this incentivises good >>>> communities to use this option, and the troll/spam/greedy ones not to >>>> use it. I think that's fine. Prioritize traffic of those communities >>>> who have > 2 servers on the same group ID, and make it a little bit >>>> harder to start out without a community ID (sorry new folks, but I don't >>>> see an elegant solution here for you). >>>> >>>> *2) User-based voting* >>>> For all users matched through quickplay, have them actually rate the >>>> server they were connected to once they leave. A simple 1-5 star system >>>> and a "flag as abusive" button to start a ticket would be great. If a >>>> user has already rated that server, show their previous vote and allow >>>> them to change it. By not allowing the same user to repeatedly vote on >>>> the same server would help cut back on people down-voting other >>>> communities just to get more traffic sent to their own. This can work >>>> with the first idea to rank communities as a whole. So if you run a >>>> solid community and launch a new server, it wont be so hard to fill it >>>> up. You've proven your worth, and you shouldn't need to do it with >>>> every server launch. But if you run a poor community, it will affect >>>> all your servers. >>>> >>>> *3) Un-check the box >>>> *Everyone else said it. Don't pick valve servers for people by >>>> default. I think it's totally fine to have that option available, but >>>> pulling all the players away who don't really understand what that means >>>> doesn't seem fair. I believe new players are already being matched to >>>> Valve servers with super high priority, until they spend a few hours in >>>> the game and get a feel for what a 100% vanilla, un-moderated server is >>>> like. Good! Keep doing that. Just don't grab the players who aren't >>>> new to the game, but haven't learned how to connect anywhere without >>>> quickplay button. >>>> >>>> ~ rann >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list >>>> archives, please visit: >>>> https://list.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hlds_linux >>>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, >>> please visit: >>> https://list.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hlds_linux >>> >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, > please visit: > https://list.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hlds_linux > -- thesupremecommander (Steam<http://steamcommunity.com/id/thesupremecommander> ) _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: https://list.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hlds_linux
