Matthias seems to be confusing two separate issues, deliberately so I suspect. It is, in my view, the height of intellectual dishonesty to confuse the creation of custom content with the existence of privately-run servers; it is possible to have a strong custom-content community without the need for privately-run servers and I suspect Valve has been posturing Team Fortress 2 toward such a reality for some time. For example: Workshop map integration inside the server. If I was a betting person I would preempt that the true reason for Valve implementing this feature is to allow their soon-to-be-implemented lobby system to assign a lobby to an official server, with a stock map or a custom map selected from the workshop. Such would completely negate the need for custom map servers run by private operators.
As for custom game-modes, which presently do require privately-run servers, last time I checked private operators with servers featuring custom game-modes, who put effort into social networking and publicity etc. are doing quite well irrespective of the existence of Quickplay. The servers struggling the most as a result of Quickplay are privately run servers which are directly competing with official servers whilst only holding half the cards. Ergo: Stock-map servers, which miss out on things that official servers get. Even if the default option was addressed, those servers would still be holding half the cards. Hence a lesson of history relevant to privately run stock servers: Steve Jobs was smart enough to realise that if Apple was in a zero sum game with Microsoft, Apple would lose. He was also smart enough to realise that he didn’t need to play that game – That Apple could do something that Microsoft wasn’t doing. Perhaps stock server operators could come to that same enlightenment in terms of private servers and Valve. Finally, I would note that the misunderstanding of Matthias’es use of the term “community” was deliberate as a means of pointing out the inappropriateness of the term. I personally dislike the term “community servers” and much prefer the more accurate term “private servers” and “private server operators”… and I would again express my awe at the fact that some elements of this mailing list would seem to think that they could represent other private server operators – Despite the diverse range of views and gross amount of hyperbole that infests every debate like a bad stench (Case and point: Just bring up Pinion or Motdgd) I can only imagine that such representation would be a lot like herding cats. Whilst cats can make a lot of noise, getting them to go in one direction is impossible… and it’s not the first time that someone had attempted to establish a coalition of Team Fortress 2 servers …just look at the failed TF2 Alliance. On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 2:56 PM, Rowedahelicon < [email protected]> wrote: > There's no need for negativity, just because server owners now are a small > minority doesn't mean we can't grab people's attention. A lot of the TF2 > community simply may not understand what all is at stake. > > On Thu, Dec 17, 2015 at 11:18 PM, Matthias "InstantMuffin" Kollek < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> Congrats, you managed to exceed the level of pragmatism and transform it >> into a rant. I don't see any reasons for this. If you have doubts about >> Valve caring about community servers, I do too. The situation is quite >> obvious. However I'm not presenting a solution, but a way to make our >> voices count for the last chance we apparently have. >> You also misunderstood my reply entirely. I never said we would be >> speaking for the entirety of the players. I also don't see a reason why >> Valve would not at least a bit care about community servers (that tiny tiny >> bit), given that they respect minorities like the competitive groups >> (compared to other games like csgo and dota). I also don't see any >> re-playability of small event minigames, some gamemodes that start in a >> pre-alpha state and barely ever get finished (and create situations that >> require weapon balancing for the next 20 years), few maps of the same >> gamemodes and some contracts compared to what a decent community can >> provide for itself. >> You're completely oblivious to the weight communities and their gameplay >> mods have on Valve's products. Please realize that almost all Valve >> products started out as mods. >> Killing future products and the talent behind it in its tracks by >> limiting the platform seems like a very dumb strategy for a company that >> basically ships ideas created by its own community. >> >
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