Well I'm a trader, but these days trade servers are more of just a killbox for baddies who can't play well enough to get along on real tf2 servers be they community or valve. For about three months I went around to every trade server worth mentioning, and every one of them failed in some key way. Quite a lot of servers are mismanaged, some have odious server rules based on avoiding the terrible map designs they have to run to get traffic, and most don't have people who actually want to trade.
Our map is custom and I am the one who updates it, so we have avoided that pitfall, but how are we going to get new traffic? The same problem that faces a fighting server faces us doubly. Not only are we reliant on users to be around to trade with we also need a steady flow of people that everybody hasn't already traded with. People need a reason to go to community servers, not a reason to ignore them. At least with trade servers we have clear advantages, the !bp command allows users to browse the other users backpack without leaving the game. The !ks command allows people to show off the killstreak effect on the weapon they are selling. I think that the only truly compelling thing that community game servers have to offer is in depth statistics. With people's time on community servers not being counted on the casual stats page there is no draw to grind out some time on a community server. The likely reason is that Valve knows *10 servers exist, and the data would be meaningless if that was allowed to contaminate it. This still means that in the end community servers have on the face of it less of a visceral point to playing than valve servers. Quite a lot of community servers get a bad rep because of all of the adbait and changed rules, so that can be avoided by upgrading the server browser. I think it would be really nice to be able to exclude and include tags in a search at the same time, so I could filter all norespawntime or respawntimes servers while still only getting servers with all talk enabled. On Jul 27, 2016 2:20 AM, "Rowedahelicon" <theoneando...@rowedahelicon.com> wrote: > I feel like your experience with community hosting may be much different > from ours, for instance I know I'm still enjoying hosting and I've had no > problem with an entrenched user base. Though me personally am not too sold > on the browser idea either, it's just one thing we're working on. The other > being a video which will highlight the community from our perspective and > talk about how community servers have helped out TF2 in the early days, > along with the modding / mapping scene. > > A server browser may help people who want to find a new server or group to > play on by not dealing with having to look around for places they won't > wind up enjoying anyway. > > On Wed, Jul 27, 2016 at 2:10 AM, Ryuke Dragon <damnratbast...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> Nobody who plays casually will use an out of client browser to find a >> server to play on. Things like the GameSpy system catered to people who >> wanted to join a server they would likely never connect to again. A more >> robust tag system could exist, but without general and widespread knowledge >> of how it works the effort would be wasted. IIRC you can already set non >> standard tags for servers in the browser, it's just that most end users >> don't know or don't care about the tag system >> >> The steam workshop system works well as its own host already, I'm not >> really certain what issues the download system has outside of the enigmatic >> function s. You can load maps to your server, steam has the maps already >> hosted for you. Game modes, without becoming standardized and unified, >> cannot be supported in this hands off manner. The problems the workshop >> maps do have is an inability to load custom soundscapes. >> >> This third option would be great, but what form would it take? A balance >> would be difficult to find between a deluge of servers you would never >> actually look through, and showcasing one at a time that essentially gets >> slashdotted spiking its traffic to insane levels. Either way my community >> is small, neither works to my benefit. And in any case what incentive does >> valve have to give us free advertising? It doesn't make much sense even >> from a vengeance kind of viewpoint. Most community servers themselves, >> especially trade servers, are actively hostile to new members, mostly >> through their entrenched userbase, so even if you were enterprising and >> clicked the ads every time you saw them it wouldn't take long before you >> had had enough of community servers. >> >> This is just more advertising for us, I don't know why this is a separate >> comment from #3 >> >> In a perfect world where anybody who liked your server invited every >> friend he had and they all hung out and had fun on your server for years >> that would be the ideal way. Sadly people have lives, move on, forget about >> hitting up that one cool server they were on where dudes were friendly and >> helpful. Are any of us still really having fun in the servers we run, or >> are we spending too much time worrying about how we were boned in such and >> such update, or lording our payment of a hosting company over the people >> who are essentially the lifeblood of the servers we pay money for? >> >> I feel your anger, but I dont see the love. >> >> On Jul 26, 2016 6:23 PM, "Joe P" <joe.pej...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> To get everyone caught up on what has been happening on the discord: >>> >>> We have come up with a general plan to greatly improve the community >>> server experience for users and get many more interested. >>> >>> 1. Create a website for players to find the community servers they want >>> to play on - Sort by community, tags, gamemode, etc >>> >>> 2. Support this with map workshop integration - give players a way to >>> connect to servers playing the maps they've subscribed to, and give server >>> owners an easier way to download and host these maps as well as mods and >>> gamemodes. >>> >>> 3. Promote community servers in general, both because we personally >>> think they're great and because they're indispensable assets to large parts >>> of the TF2 community >>> >>> 4. Developing videos and other rhetoric to support the effort to bring >>> community servers back in full force >>> >>> If you would like to join this conversation, please come join us on the >>> discord! >>> >>> https://discord.gg/6Ccr4 >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> On Mon, Jul 25, 2016 at 5:28 PM, Robert Paulson <thepauls...@gmail.com> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> This update may not kill your servers right away because it is still >>>> summer vacation. Right now there is a shakeup in community players with >>>> some communities closing, and a few players favoriting your server when >>>> casual mode wasn't working properly for a week. But as you have noticed >>>> yourself servers now seem to be prone to suddenly emptying out. When summer >>>> vacation ends, people will not so easily refill your server and those new >>>> players won't last forever. It is now impossible to compete with Valve on >>>> vanilla servers now that people can only get ranked on them. >>>> >>>> Now we all have to run 32 slot instant respawn spam-fests like >>>> No-Heroes and every other weird plugin... which are the very reasons that >>>> people on Reddit and Steam complain about. >>>> >>>> MOTD ad companies aren't at the mercy of the TF team anymore unlike the >>>> rest of us here, they've already diversified into other games such as >>>> CS:GO, Gmod, Minecraft. They will keep offering TF2 advertisements until >>>> the very end. >>>> >>>> Trying to hype up community servers won't do anything. Half of the >>>> community server owners here hate the other half, as you can see by Mr. >>>> Olsen here who never fails to falsely suggest that servers with ads are the >>>> cause of every community killing update. >>>> >>>> Community servers used to have most of the players now, but now we are >>>> a small minority due to years of being locked out of traffic, so trying to >>>> get the TF team to panic by sheer number of complaints is impossible. >>>> >>>> It is up to the TF team to realize that they cannot copy Overwatch and >>>> CS:GO to success. They had strong community servers and now they are >>>> throwing the last of them away and doing a bait and switch on people that >>>> bought the game to play/host their own servers. >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> 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 >> >> > > > -- > *Matthew (Rowedahelicon) Robinson* > Web Designer / Artist / Writer > Website - http://www.rowedahelicon.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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