Killing off competition? That's not what I was getting at. A proper scoring system for quickplay would show which servers are good and liked by players. Be it valve's own or certain community servers. It would also make it easy for valve to see what features are liked the most. Bad servers will always pop up. Having a system to combat that would make everybody happy.
And if we are talking about "competition" that's abusing quickplay. They are the ones being rewarded when valve adds such measures. As they aren't afraid to lose their playbase with a ban on their server. Which itself is something that may or may not happen ever again. In the meantime they can do what they want to keep players on their servers longer. Even when it's against the quickplay rules. This sort of thing adds up. More players join such servers and the competition suffers and dies. Then you get some of their players as well :). If valve no longer feels like enforcing their own rules then it will only get worse. Little risk and why should we share players when we can take each other's? This is the sort of thinking that got us into this mess and these sort of people will always be around. But there's always ways to deal with them. Some easier than others. Any communication from valve would help. They can always go for a bandaid solution again. It wouldn't help much but it would be very easy to do and still help a bit in the short term. Make an announcement about a renewed commitment to the policy of truth (similar to the one before) and do nothing. Takes very little time and it will scare some people just like it did last time On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 4:37 PM, Robert Paulson <thepauls...@gmail.com> wrote: > Very few players use community quickplay anymore and it was like that > before a few servers started breaking quickplay rules. I assume you are > talking about the Stop the Tank server. Yes it should be delisted, but even > if it happens right now it isn't going to make any difference to your > server population. All the other vanilla servers are empty. > > The dev who did this knew it was going to kill off communities, so they > wouldn't have to spend any time cleaning up community servers. Complaining > about this only validates his position. If server owners can't tolerate a > few bad servers, how can you expect players to do the same? > > It is sad that we are arguing with each other and trying to add > restrictions on our servers, including ones that don't exist on official > ones such as class limits. If we are more interested in killing off > competition than reversing the quickplay ban, we will all die together. > > > On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 1:19 PM, 1nsane <1nsane...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> I wanted to check out some other payload servers now. First >> quickplay server I get sent to is half-full of players that look like >> robots and the frigging payload cart has the audacity to shoot at me! Can >> you imagine the horror? Well I had to experience it in person... >> >> Second try at it was even worse if you can imagine. Won't even discuss it >> as such. Pretty sure the policy of truth has long since been forgotten. Or >> maybe it was never meant to be enforced. Ban a few servers here and there >> and hope that everyone else is too scared to do it. Because reporting >> servers that were blatantly abusing it got us either nowhere or took many >> months before any action came around. Then they would just spawn some new >> servers and repeat. Making everything harder for both the players who want >> to have fun and the server owners who wanted to provide a fun place to be. >> >> There's many ways to solve this. Trust new servers less until they prove >> themselves. After all they have the least to lose if they get banned. Can >> be fully automated and delisting will actually mean something. Imagine if >> quickplay had some sort of a working scoring system. If only valve would >> consider it. >> >> Or maybe implement something like CS:GO's overwatch (except for servers) >> and let certain players look at server reports from other players >> (anonymously). The less policing valve has to do manually the more likely >> it is to make everyone in the community happy. Server ops and players alike. >> >> On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 3:58 PM, E. Olsen <ceo.eol...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> If you've found server violating the policy, by all means report them to >>> Valve, but I don't think conducting a public "witch hunt" on the mailing >>> list is a good idea. All I've seen in the past is quite a few false >>> accusations, etc. Hell, I remember a couple of years back someone getting >>> our servers added to a reddit-based blacklist of servers that used Pinion >>> advertising - even though we've NEVER used any advertising on our servers. >>> It took a dozen people actually standing up and saying "uh, these guys >>> don't use pinion" before they removed us. >>> >>> Honestly - I doubt even those people violating the policy are getting >>> much in the way of quickplay traffic anyway. I only have less than half of >>> our servers quickplay-enabled anymore, and those have sat empty since about >>> a month after the change last year. >>> >>> When you think about it, what really needs to be addressed is the >>> reasons people feel they need to violate that policy. Considering that you >>> never heard of server owners "hiding" their server settings until Valve >>> bifurcated the TF2's traffic by saying "you'll only get access to the main >>> source of traffic if you make your server identical to every other vanilla >>> server". >>> >>> Should those folks be thrown out of quickplay for breaking the rules? >>> Sure thing....but perhaps it's the rules themselves (and the way they are >>> implemented to remove/stifle any and all diversity) that need to be >>> changed, as does the implementation of quickplay itself. >>> >>> Take, for instance, the rules against class limits. Why is that still >>> listed in the policy when valve now allows class limit votes? If a class >>> limit vote passes on a quickplay-enabled server, are we now in violation - >>> even though it's part of the engine itself? >>> >>> How about another scenario: Let's say an operator wants to run his >>> servers plain-jane, 24-slot vanilla during the slow hours of the day to >>> help during daytime traffic, but at night during prime time manually >>> changes their settings to 32-slot, fast respawn servers. He's not hiding >>> anything - all the appropriate sv_tags get set - but during prime time the >>> extra slots are needed for our supporters. Is he now in violation of the >>> policy because he's changed his settings? >>> >>> Of course not - but I'm sure some folks would perceive it that way. >>> >>> ....and therein lies the problem. When valve decided that an automated >>> system for throwing players into a random server was superior to a player >>> choosing a server on their own from the server browser, they caused more >>> problems than they solved. >>> >>> If there are folks out there breaking those rules - I'm sure Valve will >>> catch them, but frankly, If every single one of them were thrown out of >>> quickplay, it wouldn't help any other community operators one bit....and >>> will probably just hasten the demise of community servers all together. >>> >>> On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 3:28 PM, Lucas Wagner <lgwag...@gmail.com> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> I think the policy either needs to be enforced, or abandoned >>>> completely. In the current state the policy only affects those server >>>> operators that have the honor to follow it. This is not news to anyone, but >>>> it is a bit disconcerting to read a policy, understand its meaning, follow >>>> it, and then watch as others violate it without consequence. Sure I can >>>> sleep at night knowing I did right by Valve but that doesn't keep my >>>> servers filled. >>>> >>>> >>>> On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 10:52 AM, N-Gon <ngongamedes...@gmail.com> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Sounds like a great title for a SFM short :) >>>>> >>>>> Last year Valve shook up the TF2 community by changing many of their >>>>> policies on Quickplay (Plenty of which is still being debated and I don't >>>>> want that talk in this thread, there's already numerous others for that; >>>>> Thanks), they also took the extra step and punished servers who broke >>>>> their >>>>> Policy of Truth. Plenty of communities, both big and small, crumbled and >>>>> vanished that day to the rejoice of many of you. But now I fear the time >>>>> has come again to snitch. >>>>> Since Valve has made their Quickplay changes many communities have >>>>> started to cheat the system to get more traffic. >>>>> I've been Quickplay'd into servers that have donor effects, that kick >>>>> me out for reserve slots, that have silly class limitations, that don't >>>>> have their Respawn modifiers tagged. This is really annoying especially >>>>> when I'm just trying to find a Vanilla server. >>>>> If you know of servers, report them. If need be, spread their names on >>>>> here so other folks on HLDS can go see for themselves, verify they are >>>>> abusing Quickplay, and report them as well. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, >>>>> please visit: >>>>> https://list.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hlds >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, >>>> please visit: >>>> https://list.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hlds >>>> >>>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, >>> please visit: >>> https://list.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hlds >>> >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, >> please visit: >> https://list.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hlds >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, > please visit: > https://list.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hlds > >
_______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: https://list.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hlds
