I always find it odd that modded/custom map servers seem to get looked down so much on this list now. While I can certainly understand running a few "vanilla servers" if that is what your community wants, why people would think that putting up a bunch of servers that are essentially exactly like Valve's would build a strong following over the long-term is a mystery to me.
Sure. there are some players that will always turn up their noses at "instant respawn" or custom killstreaks, or a number of other custom mods - but like it or not, it is a proven fact that that ARE loads upon loads of players that actually LIKE those kinds of settings/modifications. Personally, I think the that the easiest way forward for communities is to try to provide an experience for players that they can't find through Valve. If your servers are just "Vanilla plus moderators", then it's just not going to be enough to attract an audience anymore. Further, I can tell you from 8+ years experience now that custom community events (with actual physical prizesz) can go a long way to attracting long-term community members. Over the years, we've held some pretty large-scale events that included server-fleet wide systems with custom stats tracking, along with custom maps that we designed internally. Players eat that stuff up (especially holiday-themed stuff). If $$ is a problem, try running a fund raiser using tfund or teespring to get some funds for prizes. On Wed, Jul 27, 2016 at 5:59 AM, Rowedahelicon < [email protected]> wrote: > Basically, Valve servers just had become an alternative to community > servers entirely, and you're right. Server is empty? Play on a valve > server, those are always full! > > Now community servers just have a lot of stigma against them, and we need > to win everyone back. Also I'm really sleepy so I don't have anything to > add right now. > > On Wed, Jul 27, 2016 at 5:47 AM, ics <[email protected]> wrote: > >> >Even if you populate a server with friends,admins and regulars, they >> still wont stay populated very long. >> >> Forgot to say that before valve forwarded all traffic to their servers, >> quickplay really did its job if the server had even some players. It was >> great system untill the point of the change that killed so many community >> servers. >> >> -ics >> >> ics kirjoitti: >> >> I dont know if they still read this list, but the most popular servers >>> out there right now on the community side are the ones that run mods, >>> orange maps and trade maps. Even idle servers, despite idling now has to be >>> accepted per item drop. >>> >>> While working with this current update and had in mind a competitive >>> mode, valve worked with competitive people. People like banny. His point of >>> view is the competitive side, which majority of the people who play TF2 >>> doesnt' seem to share. This update was too concentrated of dividing players >>> to competitive and casual competitive. >>> >>> Why change even casual to competitive related, useless rank related >>> thing? Better would have been just to preserve quickplay and let community >>> servers participate in it, or simply remove casual comp from the list and >>> put the server browser higher than that. Who would want to play casually >>> with competitive rules, when the game hasn't been like that for 9 years. >>> You still play competitively, just not with stop watch and such. >>> >>> However, people do not join into empty servers. There should be a carrot >>> for doing so that is still missing. Even if you populate a server with >>> friends,admins and regulars, they still wont stay populated very long. >>> >>> -ics >>> >>> >>> Robert Paulson kirjoitti: >>> >>>> I don't see the point in casual mode recording stats at all. If it >>>> doesn't matter if you win or lose then those stats are meaningless. And >>>> people that want to play casually usually don't even want to have their >>>> badness recorded. >>>> >>>> What the TF2 team should've done was just leave quickplay in and open >>>> it to community servers. They could even still give people a rank based on >>>> play time which could be checked client-side, bypassing the servers. >>>> >>>> As everyone said already, making another server browser isn't going to >>>> persuade the 1 click play button players. As long as Valve is offering a >>>> feature like that, the only way to compete is to also have a 1 click play >>>> button for community 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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