@ Weasels Lair: Agreed, however I look at that button as kind of a "I feel lucky" button, in that it would allow players to find unique servers/game modes they might not find otherwise (kind of a "stumble upon" for servers).
I think an important ingredient in a UI like that would be a re-design of the client blacklisting system that would simply work with both the server browser AND quickplay. That way, in the event the player gets connected to a server they don't like, they could simply select "Never show me that server again" in their blacklist and the problem would solve itself, etc. The key, really, is player choice, and letting it decide the direction of the game, instead of the false direction setting certain "defaults" as Valve has done to artificially push the game in one direction or another. Consider this....if Valve changed the first choice in quickplay from Payload to Control Point, would control point maps/servers suddenly become more popular? Or course they would, because the "default effect <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_effect_(psychology)>" gives the default option an unnatural advantage for both traffic and player counts. That, of course, is simply another example of how a system like quickplay (or at least how it is implemented) has been stunningly harmful to the game's diversity and development. When you only show a limited menu, and essentially hide all the diversity that is available by default, almost all of them will order the same thing each and every time....the consequences of which are a slow, gradual decline in anything that doesn't fit those "default" parameters, to include maps, game modes, and settings. It's a false premise to say that community servers offer limited choices these days. The truth is, quickplay caused community server to eliminate choice, one map at a time. Sure, it easy to say "but Valve introduced the Maps Workshop, and that's for community servers, right?"....but the truth is, that's more for Valve themselves than anything else - since it gives them an easier path to find what few maps are still being developed and make it their own. Look no further than their own forums and all the people asking why they can't find any servers hosting workshop maps....it's because those servers are nearly impossible to fill (again, because of the imbalance created by quickoplay). On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 3:04 PM, John Irwin <j...@thepodkast.com> wrote: > @E. Olsen +1 to you and to @Weasels' response. > > Very well written. In many ways quite refreshing to hear such a well > constructed argument about a topic we're all very familiar. > > The linked UI, as an example, serves its purpose. No point getting into > the grit of what it should look like since ultimately this is Valve's > purvey. > > A new UI may actually be something they could be encouraged to work > towards given the plethora of game modes they currently have. That said I'm > struggling to come up with a single game or website Valve operates where > the default UI (or UX) is enjoyably effective rather than usably > functional. > > Actually, given how comfortable Valve is using community created content > for their games, a fun/sponsored UI competition - created in collaboration > with the collected force of community server owners - may be a way to draw > attention to the issue as we see it. > > I'd be happy to throw some effort into making this a thing. If anyone else > is interested please feel free to message me off-list. > > Agro > > -- > KritzKast.com <http://kritzkast.com/> | thepodkast.com > > _______________________________________________ > To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, > please visit: > https://list.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hlds > >
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