Valve Maps's Progress Thread

[opscomm]

Okay, being the guy who watched the rankings like a hawk every day, these are some key points in why valve maps needs quick play.

1)It is dropping like a rock in rankings. foundry has now passed it because foundry has quick play.
2) It would make it much easier to fill because it means that as little as 4 people can go in and the server will fill with pubs, thus creating more possible recruits to eGO
3) It would make filling Blackmesa much easier because we would not have to empty out another server to fill it.
4) The prime supporters of the No-crits, no-spread are now gone, or just do not play TF2 much anymore.

Basically, if we want this server to survive, it has to be on quick play. I know having a competitive style server is nice, but ranks are ranks, and they do not lie. We need valve maps to suceed, or else we risk losing the server entirely.

I believe Quickplay is already on there even with no crits and no spread. Spidey made a plugin so that it could work together.

This is not the case. According to Spidey, valve has started cracking down on servers which go around the quick play system.

Also, idling is great and all, but it does not get the server full of pubs, which is what we want. The IDEAL situation for any server is for it to have 2-3 admins, a few e's, and then the rest are pubs. Granted, we have more than enough members for this to not be the case, but we should be striving to get our servers filled with pubs so that we do not have to put out announcements every day for filling valve maps. Quick play would enable a small group of people on vent to go and start the servers up, and then let quick play do the rest.

 

[Kazoo]

Okay, being the guy who watched the rankings like a hawk every day, these are some key points in why valve maps needs quick play.

1)It is dropping like a rock in rankings. foundry has now passed it because foundry has quick play.
2) It would make it much easier to fill because it means that as little as 4 people can go in and the server will fill with pubs, thus creating more possible recruits to eGO
3) It would make filling Blackmesa much easier because we would not have to empty out another server to fill it.
4) The prime supporters of the No-crits, no-spread are now gone, or just do not play TF2 much anymore.

Basically, if we want this server to survive, it has to be on quick play. I know having a competitive style server is nice, but ranks are ranks, and they do not lie. We need valve maps to suceed, or else we risk losing the server entirely.



This is not the case. According to Spidey, valve has started cracking down on servers which go around the quick play system.

Also, idling is great and all, but it does not get the server full of pubs, which is what we want. The IDEAL situation for any server is for it to have 2-3 admins, a few e's, and then the rest are pubs. Granted, we have more than enough members for this to not be the case, but we should be striving to get our servers filled with pubs so that we do not have to put out announcements every day for filling valve maps. Quick play would enable a small group of people on vent to go and start the servers up, and then let quick play do the rest.

I have to agree with everything you say. (Oh, but not all competitive-play supporters are gone.)

Despite our efforts over the last few days, the rank continues to drop. Like opscomm, I really do think we need the Quickplay. Perhaps, when summer arrives, we can remove Quickplay and go back to no-crits & no-spread for the competitive players.

 

[Goz]

4) The prime supporters of the No-crits, no-spread are now gone, or just do not play TF2 much anymore.

Basically, if we want this server to survive, it has to be on quick play. I know having a competitive style server is nice, but ranks are ranks, and they do not lie. We need valve maps to suceed, or else we risk losing the server entirely.

I don't much agree with your statement that supporters for no-crits/no-spread (including me) are gone. I have to say that it's true, but not everybody who supports this is gone.

As much as I hate random crits (seriously Valve? you want to give free random kills based on how much a player is destroying the other team?), I think we need to put Valve Maps on Quickplay before we lose it again.

Blackmesa takes too long, it gets old after awhile.

2fort has the most annoying players on it (and I mean on ANY 2fort server) and it's generally a bad map.

Foundry's all good.

I do not want to see Valve Maps disappear again. We need Quickplay if only for a little while until our ranks rise again.

 

[opscomm]

I don't much agree with your statement that supporters for no-crits/no-spread (including me) are gone. I have to say that it's true, but not everybody who supports this is gone.

I did not say everyone who supports it is gone, I think it is a great idea. When I was saying this I meant people like sequel, Dalsia, Nik, Cthulhu, and Super88. They are all gone, and besides sequel and super, are still in the top 10 list on Valve maps in terms of points, and with the exception of Cthulhu, all of them are in the top ten in terms of time spent on the server. This is a big deal, considering that four of them were senior member, and were basically the undisputed leaders of the valve maps drive.

 

[ThatNintendoDude]

I also have fallen victim to the whole "college course load" thing, which is why I haven't been on much. I'll try and do a better job of hoping on VM when I get some free time, I don't want to see the server (and subsequently, the community of the server) go under like it has before.

 

[Dracula]

I don't think idling can keep the server up, everybody who starts up TF2 wants to play it and not join an idling server, so they disconnect and search for an other one....
What do you guys think about adding bots (but pretty good ones so you can train against them? ) and as soon as the ranking system starts to work the bots disconnect ?

 

[oey192]

I don't think idling can keep the server up, everybody who starts up TF2 wants to play it and not join an idling server, so they disconnect and search for an other one....
What do you guys think about adding bots (but pretty good ones so you can train against them? ) and as soon as the ranking system starts to work the bots disconnect ?

This idea I like. It would allow us to always have an eGO server where you could play, even during times when all of our servers are usually empty.

However, I don't know if it will work. Can you have a server on quickplay when it has bots on it?

And do we have a plugin or something to make them disconnect one by one as the server fills?

Even if quickplay can work when there are bots, will people who join via quickplay stay once they find out there are bots?

And what about the regular pubs? Will they stick around if we add bots to the server?

 

[Kazoo]

I don't think idling can keep the server up, everybody who starts up TF2 wants to play it and not join an idling server, so they disconnect and search for an other one....
What do you guys think about adding bots (but pretty good ones so you can train against them? ) and as soon as the ranking system starts to work the bots disconnect ?

I don't know about bots. I used to play on a server with bots. There were a few maps where the bots would get stuck in one place, and that made them useless to the team they were on.

Also, the servers with bots weren't as fun as the ones without them, in my opinion.

I think Quickplay should work, but if it doesn't, maybe then we need to pull out the bots...

 

[Cacophonus]

No bots. I will personally blacklist the server and ask everyone else to as well. Play in a server like that and you'll understand.

Most people start TF2 to play- idling is already infringing upon the grey area of "lets buff our numbers at the player's expense". It is a waste of my time to join a server with a few people on it and finding out that most/all of them are idlers- blacklist and move on, and I'm sure many tf2 players do the same.

Bots are even worse, especially servers like Lotus who attempt to "pretend" their server has players when in reality the 23/24 number consists mostly of bots... who at times will even take YOUR name after you've disconnected and play on. That's only 1 of the many dishonourable and despicable methods that come with "bots"- there are plenty of others, just join some random pubs and enjoy such behavior first hand.

Perhaps, and maybe this thought has crossed some of your minds as well when reading threads like these, it is time to think of the issue from the player's perspective and not from the server administrator/owner/manager perspective. In other words, if you can't make it work for the random pubs to enjoy it, get rid of it. How often is the Event server used anyways? Why not replace the events server- hardly used - with the Valve Maps server if nothing appropriate and not underhanded works for the current VM server? When you run events, you password and lock the "new" VM server. Done- and our members who enjoy Valve Maps (myself included if it didn't lag insane amounts for me) can still play the maps they want without hurting the bottom line, which is all that really matters in the end. (P.S.: where do we go from here, if we do add bots? Going to be like skial and implement pay2win?)

My two cents.

EDIT: I read up the thread a bit to finish catching up on this last page here... and yes, bots, especially if implemented with the slightest shade of grey, will drive away current pubs. And Future pubs that are any good at the game.

 

[opscomm]

Perhaps, and maybe this thought has crossed some of your minds as well when reading threads like these, it is time to think of the issue from the player's perspective and not from the server administrator/owner/manager perspective. In other words, if you can't make it work for the random pubs to enjoy it, get rid of it. How often is the Event server used anyways? Why not replace the events server- hardly used - with the Valve Maps server if nothing appropriate and not underhanded works for the current VM server? When you run events, you password and lock the "new" VM server. Done- and our members who enjoy Valve Maps (myself included if it didn't lag insane amounts for me) can still play the maps they want without hurting the bottom line, which is all that really matters in the end. (P.S.: where do we go from here, if we do add bots? Going to be like skial and implement pay2win?)

We have done this in the past, and it is a pain to deal with because if the server is full, to run the event you have to kick a full server out to run the event, assuming it is full of pubs, and then have to start the server up again later. Bad idea.

 

[Sequel Sentry]

I'm posting because I heard someone mention bots, and I have a radar that tells me when things like that happen. If valvemaps is dehydrated and needs a drink of water, you don't put cyanide in it.

Bots remove a server off of rankings, so if you want to increase rankings, don't do that, because no ranking isn't a number.

 

[Goz]

bump.

We just dropped another 100 in our rankings. I'm starting to think that we need to enable quickplay.

 

[Wawad1]

Once upon a time, I joined a server full of "e's" "eG's" and "eGo's" the server had no crit and no spread on, most of the players were better than me, i favorited the server (insert clich? line here) it was all I ever asked for, I don't post much, or at all :# But i've been following this thread for three+ days, Why you ask? Because I LOVE Valve maps, best server ever<--Fact

Please keep crits and spread off, Pyro says please.

 

[Kazoo]

bump.

We just dropped another 100 in our rankings. I'm starting to think that we need to enable quickplay.

I agree completely. The server's rank has been dropping non-stop, and it does not appear to be slowing down...

In fact, we're close to the ranking we started a month ago....

Once upon a time, I joined a server full of "e's" "eG's" and "eGo's" the server had no crit and no spread on, most of the players were better than me, i favorited the server (insert clich? line here) it was all I ever asked for, I don't post much, or at all :# But i've been following this thread for three+ days, Why you ask? Because I LOVE Valve maps, best server ever<--Fact

Please keep crits and spread off, Pyro says please.

I know that tons of people love the no-crits and no-spread. However, if Valve Map's ranking continues at this rate, we may lose the server all together.

Either way, thanks for supporting Valve Maps!

 

[Timr]

If you want to make a suggestion that affects things on a server, you should always Drop Box it (If you haven't already) I don't play a lot of TF2, but when I do it's usually on Foundry or Valve Maps. I enjoy the experience of both (Foundry more than Valve Maps, because crits are on), and enjoy playing with the great people in the TF2 division. Getting more to my point, I think that crits and spread would be a good change. For now though, while I'm at work I'll sit idle in the server and see if it brings more people.

 

[Mr.OneShot]

As much as I hate to say it I've come to the realization that it needs to have quickplay. If we gain regulars and a lot of ranks I'm sure we can always go back to no crit/ no spread.

 

[Sequel Sentry]

What happened around the 23rd which made the rankings drop so much?

 

[Noise]

What happened around the 23rd which made the rankings drop so much?

My Birthday?

 

[Sequel Sentry]

My Birthday?

Precisely!

 

[Kazoo]

If you want to make a suggestion that affects things on a server, you should always Drop Box it (If you haven't already) I don't play a lot of TF2, but when I do it's usually on Foundry or Valve Maps. I enjoy the experience of both (Foundry more than Valve Maps, because crits are on), and enjoy playing with the great people in the TF2 division. Getting more to my point, I think that crits and spread would be a good change. For now though, while I'm at work I'll sit idle in the server and see if it brings more people.

I brought up the issue during our divisional meeting, but I think I will take your advice and Drop Box it.

And thank you.


EDIT: I sent in my suggestion through the Drop Box.