Firstly, thanks for the good responses guys, probably the most
thoughtful two posts about the custom tab yet.
Secondly, I too like the "Classic" and "Modded" approach (even those
terms are much clearer than 'internet' and 'custom' by 1000x). I also
think that if the game defaults to 'all', with a *very visible*
'classic/modded' selection (in addition to a tags search that's not
restricted to custom servers) there's *no* incentive for custom
servers to lie about being classic.
As a programmer myself, and admitted author of at least one of the
anti-custom-tab plugins, I can tell you it is nothing but a losing
battle to try to force people to another tab. Nor can valve even begin
to manually check each server for compliance. In Roman's idea, since
everyone is listed to start, if it is done properly, I think you
wouldn't need to worry about server admins lying about their server,
and the whole 'force custom' issue is solved. It becomes beneficial to
properly label your server so players can find it. There'll always be
a certain level of spoofing, but at this point players really would be
looking for classic games on classic, and it wouldn't be nearly as
beneficial
I think another base problem with the server list is the way it
presents servers. Right now it sorts them much like all games have
since forever: Either by full-ness or ping. Neither of these
(especially a one-shot ping) is a very good indicator of quality, and
it leads to this whole 'get my server front and center' mentality
that's the root of both this problem and the fake players (33x servers
anyone?) problem. What the server browser *should* do is display to
you 'your' servers, IE your favourites, with several different tools
to find 'new' servers to play on.
How I would envision an ideal server list: You open the browser to a
default "my servers" window that has big squares to represent each
server with 'time played' 'friends seen' etc. Servers could have a
name and then a subtitle defining their affiliation/ownership (IE My
primary server could appear as "Nemu's Stomping Grounds" with a banner
below of "Doublezen.net Community"). You could place comments by these
servers as well, that could be visible to you and friends. There would
also be a side bar that would have smaller but similar boxes for
servers your friends play on a lot ("Friend Servers") with their
comments about them and maybe servers sponsored by your community.
If you don't have a server to play on you could pick 'find new
places to play' and it would bring up a more classical-style server
browser. This browser would present, in order: A selection of your
friends 'top servers', a selection of servers 'sponsored' by the steam
communities you belong to, a small handful of popular servers amoungst
members of the communities you belong to (with a button to 'see more'
on all of these of course). After these would be 'featured servers'
(perhaps maintained by valve or volunteers that select and feature
quality servers at a certain rate) and a more general server list that
you could sort by the classic means, perhaps with notes that point out
who you know that might've been on a server, and a nice tags system so
you could see what the server has to offer.
Obviously that's a huge thing to implement, and I doubt valve really
cares too deeply about it, but you get the idea: Servers should be
presented to players based on what will bring them together with
friends/a community moreso than 'omg thirty FOUR slots on that spoofed
server?' - otherwise we're always going to be in a spoof-war, whether
it be fake players or fake tags, and that's not a war valve is in a
position to win in any sort of way that will benefit the community.
- Nephyrin "Totally looking for a job right now" Zey
On Sun, May 25, 2008 at 5:45 AM, Thomas Morton
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> @Neph: FYI I run 15 CSS servers for a couple of communities (of various
> types - Gungame 5, Deathmatch, vanilla and one glassfun 24/7 [that one is
> HELL to manage believe me :P]) and 2 TF2 servers (a normal and a custom map
> one) all of which are fairly busy to full.
>
> The custom tab barely affected the TF2 ones for me.. However I do see how
> those that valve see as custom will be affected by the bump to the custom
> tab AND that some of the stuff that your "de-listed" for is a bit silly.
> That said I do agree with their stance of 32 player servers being custom
> (can-o-worms opened :P).
>
> I dont see CSS being affected either. Deathmatch and Gungame are the ones
> that are likely to be "de-listed" in this case, (although as pointed out I
> dont see how they could tell yet..) - these cater for a specific need anyway
> and all GG/DM servers will be located in the custom tab - so no problem! Of
> course if they mark "friendly fire" as custom that could be another matter
> ;)
>
> @Roman: I'd concur with those ideas (I have just said I LIKE the custom tab,
> and I do, but this is a much more elegant solution with the same effect).
>
> Regarding #2. I think that certain things should force the server to be
> custom. So for example having a plugin loaded, or - in the case of TF2 -
> having 32 players.
>
> Then allow server admins to tag their servers (perhaps with some pre-decided
> default tags (gungame, deathmatch, custom maps etc..) as well as custom
> ones) with the option to mark it as "custom" for the browsing. (there ya go
> Neph.. you asked me to post ideas...)
>
> It seems the me that the only real problem people have with the custom tab
> at the moment is it's lack of "visibility".
>
> Tom
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "Roman Hatsiev" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2008 1:27 PM
> To: "Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list"
> <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: [hlds] Scrap the custome server tab
>
>> The idea behind Custom tab is to separate classic servers from modded
>> ones. The idea is nice, I really love it.
>>
>> But the problem is that you cannot clearly distinguish those servers.
>> How drastic changes to gameplay should be to classify server as
>> modded? This leads to endless disputes.
>>
>> Also, as it was pointed out earlier, you cannot tell that the server
>> is modded just by looking at some server variables. Remember mods like
>> Gungame or Warcraft3 which change gameplay dramatically without even
>> touching those variables. So any attempt to automatically mark server
>> as modded by checking some predefined list of servers variables is
>> flawed.
>>
>> So I believe that:
>>
>> 1. Separate tab for modded servers is unnecessary but what we really
>> need here is three buttons, always visible on every server list. The
>> buttons are All, Classic, Modded, so player can click either one of
>> them without need to open filters bar. And All button should be
>> pressed by default leaving actual choice to player without forcing it
>> on him. Educational text should appear in tips windows which come up
>> when user keep mouse cursor over one of those buttons for a few
>> seconds, not just once as it currently implemented.
>>
>> 2. Separation between classic and modded servers should voluntary, it
>> should be left up to server operator to decide whether to mark his
>> server as modded or not. But with implementation of server browsing as
>> suggested above I'm ready to give up on this one.
>>
>> 3. Tags system should be made available to all servers, including
>> classic ones. I still welcome an idea of marking all my servers with
>> my brand tag.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Roman
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives,
>> please visit:
>> http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please
> visit:
> http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
>
_______________________________________________
To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please
visit:
http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
