quote | But at the same time, I can see why others would do it. They are simply doing one thing - trying to attract players in this extremely difficult market. |/quote
yes they are trying to attract people but in a dishonest and VERY lazy way.. it shoes that they are not prepared to put the work in to populate the servers... i know for one that i have sat alone many an hour on a server to get people in. Fake slot = lazy imho Karl Weckstrom wrote: > I've been meaning to post about the whole subject of Server Scoring, but I > wanted to read everything you guys posted, let it sink in and all that. > > I'm glad you've been putting some thought into this - but I hope you take a > step back and look at the bigger picture. I hope you'll read this and also > let it soak in, even if it's just one man's opinion. > > Now - I own and partially run the Trashedgamers.com community. We're quite > new, only around about 6 months. But in the golden days of old, I ran another > gaming community called "Railbait" (www.railbait.com, now defunct). > > 10 years ago, things were a lot different. Running a gameserver means you > were actually spent some money on bandwidth and hardware as opposed to today. > If you ran a server and it was fairly decently policed, you were pretty much > guaranteed it would be popular. At the height of Railbait's times, we had > nearly 200 player slots filled 24x7 and it was nearly effortless to > accomplish. We never had to work to fill servers, people would voluntarily > pug some people and do it themselves. People were just HAPPY that they had a > new place to play! > > Times are much different now. Bandwidth is cheap, and anyone with mommy or > daddy's cable connection can potentially run a server, or they can pay a few > bucks a month and rent one. Webhosting costs next to nothing. Symmetric fiber > lines are $70/mo for 20/20 in certain areas, etc. > > So it's time you realized something, Valve - and take this to heart: There's > such a huge surplus of servers out there now, it practically takes an act of > God to actually make any given one popular. Players now have SO many choices > (dare I say, TOO many choices) that they have become extremely jaded. A > tight-knit community is so incredibly hard to form today, many server owners > simply don't bother with the extra work that comes along with community > building. > > The problem (and solution) you discuss on the Teamfortress blog is an > interesting read and is absolutely a step in the right direction. However I > think what you're seeing with these "Bad" servers is a SYMPTOM of the real > problem - NOT the problem itself. > > Now, don't get me wrong - if I were to join a server advertising 30/32 > players only to find it was empty or close to it, I would be annoyed > personally - and we certainly don't use this particular tactic at > TrashedGamers. But at the same time, I can see why others would do it. They > are simply doing one thing - trying to attract players in this extremely > difficult market. They WANT people to play there because they have put forth > the time and effort to put up these servers, websites and what not in an > attempt to run a successful, thriving community. While I might disagree with > the method, I don't find any malice in its intent. I'm not trying to justify > their actions, I'm simply good at playing Devil's Advocate. > > Now - you might argue that you made this SteamCommunity.com infrastructure to > help build communities, but this is also flawed in a sense. I assume that you > built this infrastructure so members who frequent certain servers, have > similar interests (like cookies) and what not will have a common meeting > place. Personally, we use it as a userbase for filling our servers. > > Toss up an event, and the server will be full in under 5 minutes, and for us > - stay that way sometimes for several days. But this too has a dark side as > I'm SURE you're aware. Man, we invite everybody. Since everyone's community > ID is out there in the open for anyone to grab, inviting massive amounts of > people in a fairly short time is trivial. We do it. That Kifferstupidwhatever > group does it. I would argue that ALL the top 10-20 groups have done it or > are still actively doing it. But is the SteamCommunity site really serving > its intended purpose? I doubt it :) > > So - before you consider a mass delisting of servers that are using whatever > trickery to keep them active, consider the actual root of the problem - NOT > just the symptoms. Before doing anything crass, please consider that we > server operators and community owners need the proper tools to make both your > titles and our communities popular. > > In order for any solution to work, you must ensure that one thing remains > paramount - the symbiotic relationship between Valve and the people who host > your servers. > > I've said my piece, I won't say anything else about it :) > > _______________________________________________ > 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
