If private server operators are a dying breed due to Quickplay etc. and they are still needed and valued by the broader Team Fortress 2 community, then where’s the community outcry? I think most people realise that the average Team Fortress 2 player doesn’t care about the plight of privately run servers. Also, I find it a little cute that Robert would cite Minecraft as being indicative that privately run servers aren’t outdated. Not only is it a completely different game and genre, but it’s also a game that doesn’t have official servers. Team Fortress 2 on the other hand does have official servers, which does change things somewhat, only a fool would suggest otherwise.
Now, I’m not against community servers, they have added value in the past by virtue of being the only option for Team Fortress 2 players at the time. Thankfully, there are more options now, specifically official servers. And need I remind everyone that it was the behaviour of a number of community operators that led to Valve setting official servers only as the default option – A default setting which in line with other Valve games, I might add, official server defaults are hardly a new thing for Valve or any other developer with a distinguishment between ranked/unranked or official/unofficial servers. Finally, I would note that even if bad servers weren’t a thing in terms of Quickplay and master server browser abuses, private server operators would still find themselves being treated like second class citizens because Valve wants to be in control of their player’s experience from store to server – Which makes complete business sense. Further, I would suggest that Valve would still be pushing down the path of contracts, Mann Up and lobby matchmaking to official servers (Which are the only servers Valve can guarantee to be mod free) irrespective of the bad eggs within the private server operator pool. Given, before it was about keeping bad eggs out. Now it’s about Valve trying to provide players with new content, in the only secure manner that they can – Hosting the servers by themselves. Some people seem to forget the value of the Team Fortress 2 economy and as to why Valve would need to exclude private server operators from economy affecting actions. On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 5:12 PM, Robert Paulson <thepauls...@gmail.com> wrote: > Quickplay was hardly the first or one of the first anti-community changes. > It is the worst and that is why everyone is fixated on it. Official server > exclusives like MvM and passtime pale in comparison based on damage done. > Matchmaking could possibly be just as bad, but only time will tell. And it > might not even be an issue if community servers got all the unranked > players in return. Or even whitelisting trusted communities that was > supposedly the reason for tying servers to player accounts. > > Community servers are not "relics of the past". It is simply a business > decision and Valve has decided to choose the path of greed, laziness, and > betrayal. One only needs to look at Minecraft as proof that community > servers are not outdated. > > Unless you are biased against them, it is hard to argue that community > servers haven't added any value. As I have said multiple times, community > players were by far the majority until they were blocked from quickplay > over a year ago. And it took massive traffic manipulation to reverse this. > Just because we are the minority now doesn't mean that's the way it should > be. > > It is sad to see Valve acting more like EA. Instead of dealing with bad > servers they have decided to chuck all community servers in a ghetto. > > _______________________________________________ > 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
