Sorry about that - I'm not sure why outlook did that.
From: [email protected]
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2013 22:18:57 +0100
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [hlds] Problems caused by connecting server favorites to IP
address
Is your email in enough different font sizes?
~~~~~
"Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve." - Edward Lear
On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 10:11 PM, Jason Tango <[email protected]> wrote:
Hello,
I know this has been brought up many, many times....but it would seem that with
the maturity of the server registration system that Valve is now in a perfect
position to fix this issue which both negatively impacts long-established
servers, AND prevents server operators from moving to better/improved hardware.
I'm talking about the way server favorites work in the server browser.
Specifically, the fact that if - for any reason - a server operator needs to
change their server's IP address, it disappears from all the users clients who
have added it to their favorites over the years.
That may not seem like a big deal, but it absolutely IS. It takes months and
years to build up a strong base of server regulars, and that base is virtually
destroyed if you change that server's IP address.
For example....we recently had the opportunity to acquire hardware at a
significant discount at another server provider that was a significant upgrade
from our current hardware (from a Q9400 to a E3-1270v3 with a samsung Pro SSD)
for the same price we were currently paying per month. Wanting to give our
players the best possible experience, so we decided to make the move.
To prepare, we ran a message for 30 days on the current servers informing the
players the servers were moving (and the new address). After that 30 day
period, we flipped the switch, and shutdown the old server, bringing the new
ones online (the 1270v3 is ridiculously powerful, BTW).
Now, these are servers which had previously stayed full for 18+ hours per day
on a regular basis, with a 24-hour average population (according to HlStats) of
21 players.
After the first 30 days, the 24-hour average is now down to 6 players, and they
only fill up roughly 4-6 hours per day.
And therein lies the problem. We did (we believe) what was absolutely the right
thing in that we chose to upgrade our hardware solely for the purpose of giving
our players a better, smoother, more state of the art gaming experience. The
server runs wonderfully (3 full servers uses less than 7% CPU!), and the
players who ARE playing on them regularly comment on the improvement to frame
rate, stability, and map load times.
The only thing on our end that changed as far as server configuration was the
IP - and it has essentially KILLED the traffic to those servers, forcing us to
basically start over from scratch trying to build our server traffic back up
(and no, we don't run any of those atrocious MOTD ads or anything - our servers
are supported by donations only).
The fix, it would seem, would be relatively easy. Why not tie the server
favorites to the server registration information instead?
Connecting the favorites to IP address does nothing but prevent server
operators from upgrading/moving to better equipment and/or datacenters, and
severely limits the options we have to improve the gaming environments for our
players. I, for one, won't be upgrading/moving anything else if it means I have
to change IP addresses. It's simply not worth the traffic loss you incur as a
result.
Please make this a priority, Valve. The time has come.
Thanks.
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