Re: [hlds] Roughly 2 weeks out from the MyM update...
Hi Tim, The cool thing about this is that pretty much nothing's set in stone atm. Off the top of my head (and I'm just one guy), maybe a randomised display order like huds.tf use would help? For the delisting/listing thing, maybe allowing all server owners to submit their own websites to site on a trust basis is the answer? Or maybe that's too hands-off? That's the thing, I have no design expertise mysself but it's all on the table for discussing and working on and hopefully together with the help of whoever wants to get involved we can identify concerns like these and arrive at something that works for everyone. Similar story for what the tags will be - details like that will have to be decided on at some point, and yes I'd be very much surprised if the few of us currently in the discord are a completely fair and total representation of the entire TF2 community who will get everything like that right first time round. Maybe (and again, this is one guy spitballing) the best thing to do is to make sure we have as much input on this as we can at an early stage so we can get as close to something good as we can from the beginning. You're right in that anything outside of the game itsself will always miss a lot of people, sadly aside from Valve themselves giving the community a hand I don't think there's much anyone can do about that. Still, I think it could be useful for introducing a fair number of people to community servers, e.g anyone who's interested (or we can help become interested by reminding them of the good things about community servers) in finding a server but wants/needs a cleaner way to view their options. When my 'benefits of community servers over valve servers' video did the rounds a month or so ago I found there was a real appetite for the community server experience among a lot of people who either hadn't found a community yet or used to play on a community long since gone, it's early days but I'm hopeful that building the hype up around community servers again combined with giving them the tools to find a server that suits them will benefit these players and community servers alike. I think if we can get a number of people, wherever they're coming from, interested in community servers again then a lot of those same people could be interested in something like this. I don't want to act like I speak on behalf of the group or anything (mostly because nobody does and it's nothing nearly as formal or well-defined as that), I just think something like this could potentially help out community servers a bit andI'd like to see problems like the ones you're pointing out solved. The fraction of server owners already involved won't have all the answers and it's not at all a closed door, with probably everything being up for discussion, and if other server owners can chip in and help this thing get somewhere I think that's only a good thing :) - Scatterbrain (btw I get the feeling something was misinterprated somewhere - so far I've found the group to be a friendly bunch, I'd be saddened and surprised to find any genuine pettiness) On 27 July 2016 at 04:26, Tim Anderson wrote: > This doesn't really address my concerns. You or maybe some other server > owner (if successful) will have massive power in deciding where all the > players go. You still control who gets listed/delisted and shown in what > order, or what tags will be made or not made. I don't think it is safe to > assume this list will remain unbiased given how biased /r/tf2 and spuf are > towards the servers they are associated with. > > And without a plan to get people too lazy to use the server browser to > start using yours instead, all you are going to do is end up with the same > small pool of players who already know how to use the server browser. This > is probably not possible without Valve inserting whatever server finding > idea you have into the game itself. > > Without solving these 2 issues, I don't think this will be successful at > all. > > On Tue, Jul 26, 2016 at 7:56 PM, Rowedahelicon < > theoneando...@rowedahelicon.com> wrote: > >> We figure the best fair / logical approach to this is provide the user >> base a list of tags and providing any important info to the user so they >> can make an educated guess if they like a server or not. We decided trying >> to rate good and bad servers won't do anything positive because our opinion >> on what is good or bad could be too flexible. It's better to just let the >> userbase decide and give them as much information as possible. Some users >> don't mind ads for example, some users hate mods or custom maps. If we tell >> people what is good and what isn't, no one is going to bother listening. >> >> >> As far as impersonations go, we already have a plan to authenticate who >> actually owns a server so no tomfoolery can happen. That all said, we're >> still mostly doing talks and planning and etc. Anyone is free to hop in and >> contribute / add in their two cents, and of cours
Re: [hlds] Roughly 2 weeks out from the MyM update...
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 < theoneando...@rowedahelicon.com> 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 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 vie
Re: [hlds] Roughly 2 weeks out from the MyM update...
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 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
Re: [hlds] Roughly 2 weeks out from the MyM update...
>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
Re: [hlds] Roughly 2 weeks out from the MyM update...
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
Re: [hlds] Roughly 2 weeks out from the MyM update...
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
Re: [hlds] Roughly 2 weeks out from the MyM update...
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" 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 > 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 st
