You know what would solve the problem for good? Remove the ability for third parties to host TF2 servers. Valve is already heading down that road anyway.
Obviously, I don't want this to happen, but if there's one thing that Valve is good at, it's picking the nuclear solution to a problem. On Jan 24, 2014 1:06 PM, "thesupremecommander" <thesupremec...@gmail.com> wrote: > 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 > _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: https://list.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hlds_linux
