Does Valve 'want' to increase interest is the thing, from what I've gathered plus input I've gotten it seems like a no. Apparently a lot of the TF2 team is against community servers so we've been pushed aside from the get go.
That's part of why I think we need to do the task of trying to generate interest. Try and advertise ourselves and highlight the best parts of community servers. In the Discord I linked I proposed adding map makers + mod makers into a presentation to highlight what the return is from having community servers as a testing ground for all sorts of ideas and toys. On Mon, Jul 25, 2016 at 4:20 PM, E. Olsen <[email protected]> wrote: > While traffic is certainly down to our servers, it's not down 70+% as some > other communities are reporting - but then again, only our servers that > weren't quickplay enabled are still filling up reliably everyday (our > "vanilla" quickplay servers are now ghost towns), so it's a mixed bag. > > We ARE seeing new players finding us, with pretty positive comments on our > forums as well. However, none of our servers are as "resilient" to sudden > drops in traffic as they used to be. > > Frankly, I think the whole "casual" game mode needs to be turned over to > community servers entirely. Make the "ranking-up" mechanic > community-specific (i.e. ranks only apply to the server group they are > earned on), and let Valve handle all the official competitive stuff. > Probably won't happen, but I think it would strike a nice balance if it did. > > I think the communities that are being most drastically affected by this > so far are the smaller communities that relied entirely on quickplay > traffic combined with ad-supported (i.e. MOTD ads) servers. Unless you're > one of the huge server groups with the dozens of servers in various > locations (I supposed there's only 2-3 of those left?), I doubt the current > UI/server browser is going to support that model going forward. > > What will really be interesting is if the MOTD ad companies will be > actually a viable business for very long after this. Let's face it - > quickplay drove their business model, and without it automatically feeding > them players/ad impressions, I'm sure their overall revenue has already > taken a big hit. In fact, that in itself could start a bit of a "feedback > loop"....if their traffic/ad impressions drop too far, I wonder how long > they'll be able to stay in business? If they go out of business, how long > will the "major" server groups be able to continue operations? > > Heck, for that matter....how many community servers as a whole would be > left standing? > > There's a ton of things Valve could do to increase interest in community > servers again. I still consider this a first step - placing us back on the > UI AND removing the 5000+ Valve servers from the browser is definitely a > big step forward. A few more things I'd like to see: > > 1. Casual mode turned over to community servers (as it should be) > 2. Daily/weekly highlighting of non-official community maps in the UI, and > a button to search for servers hosting them. > 3. Community-specific leaderboards to highlight the competitive ranks of > our members only. > 4, A new, idiot-proof (and stable) map editor that just about anyone could > use. > 5. Better bots with all game modes supported. > 6. MVM servers moved to their own tab in the server browser (a simple > change to un-clutter the browser). > > ....just a few of the many ideas we've discussed over the years. I'm sure > you folks have alot more. > > > > On Mon, Jul 25, 2016 at 3:27 PM, Robert Paulson <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> Is it just me or was there literally zero benefit for community servers >> in this update? >> >> The only thing Valve did was rename quickplay into "casual" and >> completely blocked all community servers from participating in it. There >> was no real change. >> >> The reason why everyone saw a bunch of players in the first week was >> because casual mode was temporarily broken. >> >> Anyone remember this little gem? >> >> On Tue, May 10, 2016 at 2:50 PM, epi <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Perhaps you will get the attention you so desperately seek from Valve in >>> the next update: >>> >>> https://twitter.com/4G_b4nny/status/729839464684490752 >>> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > > -- *Matthew (Rowedahelicon) Robinson* Web Designer / Artist / Writer Website - http://www.rowedahelicon.com/
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