Some observations that I've made that I haven't heard addressed by anyone yet:
- The game is 8 years old now. That's an extraordinarily long life for a game. What is the end-game for TF2? Has Valve considered this? For example, when they decide it's time to reallocate their hosted servers, will they have given the community enough time to build a network of servers to support the small but loyal followers of this game? Does Valve care? Should they care? I don't know the answer. - Valve servers, while deficient in many ways, do provide some much needed variety. Community servers largely run a set of 4-5 stock maps that people play on. You want to play something different, like plr_nightfall, guess where you can play that? Valve servers only. It's nice, and it's been one thing I've enjoyed about the switch. I can play something that's not 2fort, dustbowl, turbine, hightower, etc. If we had more community servers we'd just have more 2fort/dustbowl/turbine 24/7 servers. Isn't there enough of these already? Full disclosure: I ran community servers with a few friends. They died at the height of the problem. Our popular servers were 24/7 2fort, 24/7 dustbowl, and 24/7 turbine. Eventually qp referrals required 18 people to be on the server. We noticed that referrals stopped after 20 people, and were too inconsistent to keep the server full. Our friends in another community have succeeded since the big change, but they've had to resort to rather elaborate measures to make it work. They have a full-time seeding staff that is assigned shifts to keep servers populated 24/7. That sounds like a job to me... Not sure all of that is related, but I'd be interested in hearing opinions on those observations. On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 6:58 AM, Pat Stay <[email protected]> wrote: > lol look at you. typical response paul, you are so predictable > > -hides from addressing issues involving him and his actions on behalf of > his company that are in direct relation to the problem > -brings up advertising in this thread telling people not to blame it for > the problems, pointing to other things > -i state exactly how advertising combined with those other things > perpetuates the problem and how a large part of the community knows about > your shady actions > -you lecture me to stay on topic lol > -you use motdgd in the third person as if you are not Paul Lewis, co owner > and lead developer of MOTDgd > > you and your actions are a significant part of the problem and those > before you, pinion, are to blame as well for allowing such negligence to go > on. Instead of actually doing your job and monitoring your clients > implementations, you sat back enjoying your fat stacks of cash while people > exploited known bugs. You specifically are partially to blame because your > company's only known direct affiliate happens to be one of the single > biggest culprits of the initial issue that brought us here. ive watched you > make subtle little comments every time advertising is talked about here in > a negative light, so please dont act as if you aren't here trying to steer > the topic away from ads every time it's brought up. Sure you have a couple > of servers no one cares about so you are entitled to be here, just like I > am. Take responsibility for your actions instead of hiding like a coward > you degenerate thief. > > On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 6:35 AM, Pat Stay <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Sure, we can stay on topic >> >> >Paul [email protected] via >> <https://support.google.com/mail/answer/1311182?hl=en> >> list.valvesoftware.com >> 2:49 PM (15 hours ago) >> > >> >to Half-Life >> >Need I remind you, or anyone else, that ads weren't the sole problem. >> The big problem was some large server farms sending false player >> information to the master server, and servers not following quickplay rules. >> >> by this you must mean your affiliate partner who used to run 150 tf2 idle >> servers that exploited false player information to no end and farmed ads >> for your company motdgd. dont sit here acting like your shit ad system >> wasnt part of the ongoing problem. people could farm 30,000 ads from you >> per day using fake identities and text mode. but you knew that being a tf2 >> community owner. so essentially you're right, its not the ads themselves >> that are the problem its the people like you serving them fraudulently then >> hiding behind some dead link email address trying to veer the topic away >> from advertisements so no one knows you are one of the scumbags behind the >> problem >> >> On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 6:11 AM, Paul <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> How about we stay on topic here? >>> >>> On 4 September 2015 at 10:42, Pat Stay <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> >Paul [email protected] via >>>> <https://support.google.com/mail/answer/1311182?hl=en> >>>> list.valvesoftware.com >>>> 6:47 AM (22 hours ago) >>>> >to Half-Life >>>> >Fact is I don't believe they care anymore, mostly motivated on ways to >>>> make more profit than community support :(. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> irony, brought to you in part by the thieves of motdgd >>>> >>>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 6:37 PM, Alexander Corn <[email protected]> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> I'm getting them as well, just set up a filter in Gmail to route those >>>>> messages to the trash. >>>>> >>>>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 6:33 PM, Paul <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Apologies for going off topic, but I keep getting spam from different >>>>>> emails from someone called 'Amy Happy' via this mailing list. Other than >>>>>> unsubscribing from this mailing list or changing email address, is there >>>>>> any way I can stop this spam mail being sent to me (I assume others here >>>>>> are getting these messages to from her)? >>>>>> >>>>>> On 3 September 2015 at 21:41, Ross Bemrose <[email protected]> >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> There are a few things added even just recently that are aimed >>>>>>> squarely at community servers. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> One big example of this is the Map Workshop. Valve servers don't >>>>>>> use the map workshop... it exists solely to make it easier to run a >>>>>>> community server without needing to host maps on your server (or Fast >>>>>>> Download server). It may have taken 3 months, but it looks like all the >>>>>>> bugs have finally been ironed out of it. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Even minor things like changing the passtime cvars so that they >>>>>>> aren't marked as cheats were done for community servers. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Does this make up for separating community servers from official >>>>>>> Valve servers? Probably not. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> As for the business model, it's pretty clear why QuickPlay was >>>>>>> introduced into the game if you look at *when* it was introduced. Valve >>>>>>> servers and Quickplay were introduced in the Uber Update, the same >>>>>>> update >>>>>>> that made the game free to play. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> In other words, it was introduced as a hook to get people to play >>>>>>> the game and spend money. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> It wasn't really a surprise to anyone who used QuickPlay that Valve >>>>>>> eventually changed it to default to Valve servers... people already >>>>>>> explained the reason why further up the thread. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> It's also not a surprise that Gun Mettle contracts are restricted to >>>>>>> official servers. If they weren't, some enterprising person would >>>>>>> write a >>>>>>> server script that duplicates the actions needed to award points and >>>>>>> just >>>>>>> use it to farm from a ton of accounts, which would in turn drive down >>>>>>> the >>>>>>> value of economy items. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 3:05 PM, ICS Staff <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> 2005, community servers were first party servers, there were no >>>>>>>> Valve servers. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> 2014, community servers are 3rd party servers, Valve servers give >>>>>>>> you XP, drops from missions, players get directed only to Valve >>>>>>>> servers and >>>>>>>> community servers are in separate pool completely. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> What's next, you take away the drops too or are you really going to >>>>>>>> do something to keep us running servers or not? Too afraid to have open >>>>>>>> discussion about the matter? Yeah, thought so. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> -ics >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>>>> To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list >>>>>>>> archives, please visit: >>>>>>>> https://list.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hlds >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> -- >>>>>>> Ross Bemrose >>>>>>> >>>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>>> 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 > >
_______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: https://list.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hlds
