Or, let us use skins from workshop, that way people get custom skins. On Aug 5, 2016 11:14 PM, "TJ" <balo...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hello, > > As a pre-warning, this is going to be quite a long post regarding !ws and > !knife, ban waves, GSLT (Tokens), and the currently where everything > stands. > I know that this post may simply be looked over by a lot of you, but I am > hopeful a CS:GO dev will read it. Going back when Gamemann and myself were > commenting on the Illegal Plugins thread created earlier this summer, we > saw > about 6 ban waves, and that was it... almost as valve has forgotten again. > > While I do not dislike communities who wish to use !ws or !knife, I > understand that you are doing it to drive more traffic and keep your hard > work alive, I still believe it is an un-leveled competing field that only > Valve can solve. There will always be people who go against the guidelines > and against the policies, but Valve is simply sitting back on this one and > if they continue to, more and more servers will turn to utilizing these > banned plugins. (Proof of such will be later in this message) > > > Quick Backstory: > ------------------- > It has been over a year since Vitaliy Genkin made the 'Request to Server > Operators', and although many people have analyzed it, here's my take. It > was stated 3.1 million unique players were playing community servers, yet > we've never seen another statistic since. The request continued to say that > server operators were making a confusing experience for players and > devaluing the worth of having a skin, or skins. While, in many ways this is > true, giving everyone a karambit slaughter on your server makes the people > who own the karambit slaughter double think 'why did I pay for this, it > could've been free', many enjoyed getting to preview cool combinations of > skins, possible knives they could've purchased, and all in all enjoyed very > high-priced items for a temporary amount of time. > > The request went on to state that it was a REQUEST, not a demand from > Valve. > Then finally said that we could contact valve for clarification... which > rarely came. > > The entire situation was confusing, similar to the notice for gambling > sites > to shut down due to violation of the SSA, yet websites are still operating > using the SSA illegally (commercial use as the notice stated from valve and > their cease and desist). In both cases valve was no wheres near > transparent, > for the most part confusing and this drove, and continues to drive, a lot > of > players to ignore valves initial request. > > > Where we currently stand: > ---------------------------- > After many pleads from Server Operators who are complying with valves > request, after the dreaded change over to GSLTs, false bans, etc: people > are > still operating servers with banned plugins. To my knowledge, now more than > ever. > > Sadly web archive does not have a save of a !ws query back in May of 2015, > before these plugins were banned. I vaguely remember before this notice, I > researched 'should I add this to my network', and decided to until the > original notice came out, as about 25 pages of results came up (25pages x > 15perpg == 375). That is about 375 servers which were operating with !ws or > !knife. > > As of today, there are 39 pages for !ws, and 41 pages for !knife, bringing > the total to about 600 servers, as 15 show up per page. Reading back just > earlier this summer, someone mentioned there was 400 servers running these > plugins at that time. Clearly it has grown, especially if those 400 were > accurate. This means that more people than EVER are using ws/knife. It's > kind of sad that this system has driven more people than ever to use it. > > I've seen quite a few friends decide to add the plugin to their servers to > save their community. Population is not the same, some of their servers > depend on brand new traffic, servers ESPECIALLY like surf. Lucky for > myself, > our most popular servers are more community orientated, plugins mean > little(excluding custom timers), it's the environment that makes people > stay. This is not the case for every game-mode however. More and more > people > are deciding to swap over to !ws and !knife, while I understand their > reasoning, I cannot bring myself to do the same; nor will I. > > Some responses include 'Just follow the guidelines' throughout this mailing > list. Most of us who are speaking out here, do follow the guidelines and > will continue to, however we aren't going to sit quiet. In the previous > post > by gamemann, a response included 'You're following the rules and it doesn't > affect you'. While the logic is correct, if you follow the rules you won't > be punished, the result is not. I have asked my staff just to tally up how > many times they see this: > > User Player A Connected from The United States. > Player A: !ws > Player A left the game (Disconnected). > > Some of our servers see about 50 per weekend, 100 per week. That's 100 new > unique players that could be required to our community, at 30+ servers, 15 > being CS:GO: this is about 1,000 unique players(excluding less popular > servers) that we miss the chance to make our server their constant. > > The competition is unfair, there is an illegal/banned niche among us that > some of us cannot compete with because we wish to stay in the light of > valves server guidelines, all in all, only valve can fix it. > > > Banned Plugins, a first Solution: > ----------------------------------- > A lot of people complain about this, yet nobody has really broken down how > the banning system works. One user, SM91337, came onto the mailing list to > thank valve for more business, and the ban waves almost daily stopped. For > this, I actually wonder why. > > While I do not think Valve Corporation would stop doing ban waves because > someone got sassy in the mailing list, I'd like to break down the cost of a > ban wave. > > At the current average of 600 servers running banned plugins, if we assume > that we only take 25 pages, because the other 15 are owned by the same > community / steam account, that's 15 x 25 again. 375 unique people need > tokens. > > Each ban wave, assuming that the majority of these do not know about token > websites (I saw plenty of times people thanking others for mentioning they > even exist), that'd be on average $7.50 for CS:GO x 375. > > Each ban wave valve performs off my figures would give $2,812.50 in sheer > profit for running a ban wave on illegal functions being used. Now let's > assume even 300 of these servers are on the 5(?) major token websites, > we're > looking at probably 20 copies of csgo among all 5, and the other 75 unique > users 95 x $ 7.50 = $712.50 USD per ban wave. > > While these are just estimates off the data I can access, as you can see: > Valve you are making money by doing ban waves! Why not do them daily? > Hourly? Hell, you'd make it not worth some of these users time to keep > getting new tokens, as they'd be banned just as fast. In addition these > token websites would have their inventory depleted in no time, and we could > have a more fair population ground. > > A LOT of the servers who switched to !ws and !knife did it because others > kept using the banned plugins and found that it was highly unfair that > others would be moving forward without them. I'm sure a lot of them, if > having no banned plugins or very little servers remaining with them, would > go back to their normal servers without the banned plugins even running. > > Now everything I mentioned above, yes, it's a stretch on cost, and some of > you may see it unfair one of my suggestions is up to almost hourly ban > waves, but for those of you who actually want these plugins gone, this is a > viable solution. > > > More solutions: > ------------------ > Now comes a bit of a conspiracy with how the GSLT system is working. For > those of you who only see valve as a money hungry empire, a lot of you > assume they banned knife/ws simply so they could earn more money. By > eliminating these servers, no one would be buying multiple copies of CS:GO > just to keep their servers up, so in turn, they may lose profits*. While > this could be true, I doubt a $2,000 profit each wave, vs more and more > servers either quitting all together or sticking the middle finger up, is > worth it to valve not to do something. > > This brings me to a final point, or more solutions. Some, many of you won't > like, but of course I encourage feedback. > > 1. Bring down the Server Guidelines if you are not going to effectively rid > of those who do not comply. > > This one is obvious. Valve should consider overturning the Server > Guidelines > if they are not willing to do anything to prevent these servers from > operating. This is very unlikely. > > 2. More frequent ban waves, yes sub-daily. 12 hours, 6 hours, 1 hour. > > Whatever it takes to deplete the stock of companies selling tokens, and > make > it not worth operating these plugins any further. > > 3. Break the functions. Safe-guard, block, prevent. > > I don't know why this one wasn't done to start with... It's 'technically' > an > exploit, why Valve cannot guarantee that the player is getting a skin from > their inventory vs the server, it's beyond me. If AlliedMods can > 'safe-guard' sourcemod and prevent these plugins from running, valve has a > deeper availability as they are the Authors of the game. There has to be > something they can do. It'd probably be less upkeep than ban waves, and for > that case, be less of a hassle than the entire GSLT system in the first > place. > > 4. Pay to use ws/knife? > > Now this ones a stretch, and it'll get hate, but if you look at what's > currently going on... this is already happening! If Valve cares about > making > that extra $600-2k profit from each wave, implement a payment system to > opt-out of having to follow the 'free guidelines'. $15/m - $20 per steam > account running these plugins to allow them not to get banned is actually a > viable solution. Say even 100 server operators, or 100 communities do this, > that's $2k profit to you valve. You get money for people using your skins, > your copyrighted materials, etc. > > > Closing Up: > --------------- > For those of you who stayed with me through this entire post, I thank you. > I > don't want to see the community scene in this game eat each other, and > watch > everything around us fall apart like TF2 did. I enjoy operating my servers, > and enjoy providing an environment for each player who comes through my > servers. Our organization/network has been fortune enough not to be > completely ruined by competing with ws/knife servers, how-ever we still do > see the effects, and it's not fair to some of my friends who own > communities > who are facing the same troubles. > > Someone needs to speak out, we need to get the ball rolling and not let > valve continue to push this off. They are a corporation I hold respect for. > Free dedicated servers come quite far these days, games like H1Z1 don't > even > support them, and the ones that do (DayZ, BF4, etc) charge unbelievable > amounts to host their servers. Valve may be going against the communities > wishes, they may be having poor judgement on how to handle this situation, > but they are still a good company overall, or at least one I haven't lost > all my faith in yet. > > I hope to see responses on this, especially from Ido, Vitality, or one of > the Valve devs, as I took some time to compile this. I hope all of you > enjoy > your weekend and continue to operate your servers successfully. Best of > luck > as we enter the new school year. > > Regards, > TJ > > > > -- > View this message in context: http://csgo-servers.1073505. > n5.nabble.com/Re-visiting-Banned-Plugins-GSLTs-and-Ban-Waves-tp11935.html > Sent from the CSGO_Servers mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > > _______________________________________________ > Csgo_servers mailing list > Csgo_servers@list.valvesoftware.com > https://list.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/csgo_servers >
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