:{l *puts in fake mustache what are your thoughts on the amaziny and charming retroG
Last edited:
AMA Kevimaster
- Thread starter Kevimaster
- Start date
- Status
:{l *puts in fake mustache what are your thoughts on the amaziny and charming retroG
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2009
- Messages
- 4,757
I can only imagine for fun
Some of those may be old, but they're still worth showing again to new members
At the moment they are the same as my DL duties but with the addition of learning how to be a Council member. Being a Council member is a different ballgame than being Divisional Leadership, not only are you responsible for your Division, but you also take a part in the decision making and leading for the entire clan. It will probably take me at least a week or two to settle into my position before the real work (and fun) begins with the Division.
I'll let you guys know in this thread though once I do figure out what kind of extra duties I may be taking on!
I am ambivalent to ponies.
Also, of course a kit of all kits would contain itself, it wouldn't be a kit of all kits if it didn't. This is fortunate because in case part of your kit with all kits breaks you have another kit with all kits to replace it with and more kits with all kits to supplement those.
Favorite ice cream is moose tracks by far, I love it!
As for the mustoreos, I hope not, I hated that last one!
As a new member nothing is expected of you! All I want is for you to find a place to hang out and play your favorite videogames while making some friends in the process. If you are active within the clan and are a mature member then your time will come and you will be given Admin on our servers. After you have proven yourself as a new admin and continued to be active and mature you will receive your O rank. At this point a lot of opportunities open up to you if you want to do more for the community, such as joining the Event Coordinators or the Admin Trainers. The PSC is also looking for members and will accept you as a G. Recruiting is something you can start right now if you want to give to the clan, we are always happy to receive more recruits! But none of that is required, if you so choose you are more than welcome to just play on the servers and have fun being a member of eGO, and thats what we really are deep down, a gaming community.
As for what you can expect from me, you can expect me and my leadership team to do our best to provide you and the other members with the best gaming experience possible. How exactly we will do that is still under discussion, but we're confident about how this is going to move the Division forward! Overall though, we will be focusing more on the fact that this is a gaming community.
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2009
- Messages
- 2,354
Do you have any pets? 
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2009
- Messages
- 4,757
Its a possibility, I don't think its something that will happen in the short term, but it is definitely something we'll look at for the next time we need to change a server or get a new server.
Do you have any pets?
No, but I wish I had a cat
Rarely, I'm not a fan of the taste personally, but I also just don't like hot drinks in general.
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2009
- Messages
- 4,757
I am curious how eGO picks the maps they use on their servers (i know they have changed in the past) what makes you change them? (get bored with them, people ask for a new one, etc)
Also i am curious what made you want to try out this new auto balance tool and what your and other leaders thoughts are on the new tool.
Thanks ^_^
Dart
Also i am curious what made you want to try out this new auto balance tool and what your and other leaders thoughts are on the new tool.
Thanks ^_^
Dart
- Joined
- May 30, 2010
- Messages
- 1,314
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2009
- Messages
- 4,757
My favorite moment in TF2? Oh man, thats a hard one. My favorite moments in TF2 would have to be when I get Pyro or Heavy tauntkills, they're just so fun
My favorite type of event is either Monday Madness or 6v6 scrim. I love Monday Madness because it is so wacky and fun, all the minigames that the ECs use are just great. 6v6 because it showcases a very competitive side of TF2 that you don't really see in normal events or servers.
Now, back when I was first promoted to Advisor. Thats when Nurse was still Council, ScrappyDoo was still DL, and TcVinsky was still an Advisor. I had been promoted to O 3-4 months before because of the help that I gave the ECs. Since then I had been helping out a ton and running loads of events. There was one month that I hosted over 20 events because we didn't have many ECs at the time. Tc had been a bit busy at the time and was asking for more help running the Event Coordinators, so I was the first choice for another Advisor due to the amount of time I was putting in to the program. When I was brought up it was announced by Nurse doing an all chat over Ventrilo and sending out a steam announcement. Fun times!
Very carefully. In all seriousness maps are generally chosen after a week or more of debate among Leadership as to what the best choice would be for the server. The things that go into consideration for choosing a new map are:
- The community's acceptance of the new map
- The popularity of the new map
- How frequently the map is run on another one of our servers, if applicable (For instance when we chose Dustbowl, we looked at the Valvemaps server statistics and saw that Dustbowl was rtv'd to on the server approximately 20% of the time, compared to the other two most popular, Badwater and Granary, which were both 15% of the time)
- How many other servers that are highly ranked run the map.
- Whether quickplay can be used on the server or not.
- The map's history in eGO (have we tried it before, if so how did it do? Was it successful? Did it fail after 2 weeks?)
- Size of current member/player base.
- And more.
First off, looking at the community's requests we have a few suggestions that I can remember off the top of my head.
- Custom Maps Rotation
- Turbine
- PL Maps Rotation
- Instant Respawn 2Fort
- Silly Mods Server
Valvemaps Data
Now, I'm going to go get the data from our Valvemaps server about what maps are popular at the moment on it.
Just looking at this a Badwater/Goldrush rotation or a PL rotation looks very good. But when you think about it, looking at this graph (as of 5/4/12, since this graph will actually automatically update daily) pl_badwater and pl_goldrush are being played on the server a combined 44% of the time. So, what would happen to the server if we either removed those two maps or added a server with them exclusively? Do we have a large enough following for both of those things that we would be able to keep supporting both servers properly? In theory the population would be split 50/50 between people who are on the server for the variety that Valvemaps offers with the people who love PL more than other maps, so is half of the population that enjoys badwater and goldrush enough to start a new server? Is it enough to keep valvemaps going? At this point I personally would not want to risk it. Too high a chance that it would do more harm than good to both servers.
Top Servers Data
Now, moving on to the top 100 servers in gametracker. This isn't necessarily a good picture of what is popular with the eGO community at the moment, but it is a good indicator of what is popular in TF2 as a whole and has the greatest chance to draw new kinds of members to the Division. To reach an audience that lies untapped for us that may not be well represented at the moment.
After just skimming the list, I saw a few turbine servers, a lot of payload servers, a lot of 2fort (with some being fast or instant), a couple custom map (mainly Orange maps), and a few fun mods.
Quickplay?
- Custom Map Rotation: no
- Turbine: yes
- PL Rotation: yes
- Instant 2Fort: no
- Silly Mods: no
History in eGO
Many of these servers have some sort of history in eGO, whether it be good or bad.
- Custom Map Rotation: has a small history in eGO. For those of you who remember the 'Auction Server' that was a server that had a new custom map every single week. Didn't really do too well. There have been several other custom map servers, but all of them were single maps as far as I can remember (such as Toy Fort, Convoy, etc)
- Turbine: Used to be a very successful eGO server. Great times were had here and many members enjoyed it. The population for it isn't what it once was, but it is still a possibility that it will rise again. Unfortunately the Valvemaps data is against it, within the last few months we were looking at the Valvemaps data to figure out why it kept emptying during the middle of the day. We found that out of 11 times that Turbine had been RTV'd to during these couple weeks, the server had completely emptied 9 of those times before the map had changed again. The map was then removed from the server due to the toxic effect that it was having.
- PL Map Rotation: Tried before, wasn't hugely unsuccessful or successful at first, eventually ended up failing though because we didn't have the population to support it. Probably a different story with Quickplay.
- Instant Respawn 2Fort: The 2Fort population of eGO has always adored the instant spawn server. It was unfortunate that the decision had to be made to keep it instant or change it to normal due to Valve's decisions regarding quickplay. I have not seen the instant 2Fort crowd around recently on our other servers or on the forums much (although granted that I don't play anywhere besides Valvemaps much), so I don't know how many of them if any would come back to help the server succeed. Plus we already have a 2Fort, do we really have the population in eGO to support another? Would it hurt the current one?
- Silly Mod Server: No real history in eGO outside of events, which is a plus, new things are always fun to try and could end up turning out better than we could hope. On the flip side mod servers tend to be difficult to fill because people don't like to wait for downloads on a mod they've never played before and don't know if they'll like, especially if it is a lot of mods, the server also has the chance of being unstable or of breaking and becoming unplayable after TF2/Source updates.
So, which would we choose?
Honestly I don't know, all of the servers have their pros and cons that equal out fairly well. I would probably say that PL and 2Fort have the lowest chance of passing because of the damage they could cause to our current servers and player base, while Turbine has the highest chance of passing due to its history and the fact that its a server that can use quickplay.
But, in the end it would come down to that week long debate that I was talking about earlier and have mentioned before. It would be a tough decision that we do not take lightly, since if it fails it will likely tie up the server for at least a month to two months while we give it the best possible chance to succeed. If it succeeds it has the opportunity to bring in a whole new set of members to eGO and to be another attraction for our current members if they get bored of their 'normal' server(s).
Future Server Changes
In the future when we do server changes we will be posting in Division Discussion about the decision and asking for input as to what the Division members feel that we should do. The final decision will be in the hands of Leadership, but there will be a thread notifying you of the upcoming change and allowing you to give your input (whether that be to keep the server, or what to change it to).
I hope this sufficiently answered your question, if not you can ask a follow up question though
Since it is a well-known belief that meatballs are the sincerest form of flattery, do you have a favorite Swedish meatball recipe to share with the masses?
Unfortunately I do not, my mother probably does, she is 50% Swedish and loves to make meatballs, but I am unaware of her secrets.
I personally am 50% German, 25% Swedish, and then 25% potpourri of various Norther European countries including Finnish, Norwegian, and Danish.
Sorry, I fixed that in this post though
This question wasn't asked yet in the AMA, but I've been asked it many times in the past and our Leadership team will be expanding shortly, so I figured I'd answer it as well.
New Advisors are generally chosen based on their current activity and Leadership actions within eGO. The most common people to be promoted to Advisors are Event Coordinators and Admin Trainers. This is for a couple reasons, one because we need Advisors specifically to run those programs, and two because they give our O's an excellent way to showcase and grow their leadership abilities and skills. For instance, how an O acts under the pressure of hosting events and operating as a part of the EC team gives us a good idea as to how they might act under the pressure of being an Advisor and of working as part of the Leadership team. Recruiting is another area that is newer to the TF2 Division and is becoming a place that we may start frequently drawing Advisors from, but it is newer and still fairly small at this point so it is hard to say. This does not discount you from being an Advisor if you are not part of one of those programs, but they are the main draws in the TF2 Division.
Another consideration that must be made is how the person will fit into the current Leadership team. As an example, lets say we want to promote failEY to the position, but he doesn't get along very well with Awptivate, Serious Waffle, or Nilsow!!. He frequently disagrees with them and gets into large arguments with them over it, seems to disagree just because he doesn't like them, but he does do a lot of work for the ATs and puts the time in. Unfortunately there isn't a good chance he will get along with them once hes promoted and may end up sowing more harm than good within the Division. Let me be clear that having a Leadership team that disagrees with each other on a decision can be a good thing (brings out the pros and cons of both decisions, in the end theoretically selects the best one at the time, doesn't always happen in practice though), but having a Leadership team that doesn't like one another or likes to disagree just to disagree is setting yourself up for failure no matter how good a member that person is otherwise. And yes, I've seen that situation in a Leadership team in eGO before, and I know how bad it is for the Division and for Leadership. We will often choose to give people in a situation like this or in a similar situation a prestigious award to show our appreciation for what they do even though we can't promote them at the time (also note that this does not mean if you receive a high award that you are unable to attain Advisor, we like to give awards to those who deserve it no matter what the situation).
Of course also considered is their reputation within the community, but generally competence and whether the person has taken a leadership position among their peers are valued higher, at least in the TF2 Division.
Now past here is where it can be different based on the Division. In the TF2 Division the Advisors are informed (if they did not suggest in the first place) of the person who the DLs would like to bring up to Advisor. The Advisors are given an opportunity to give their input as to whether the person would be a good Advisor or not, and special consideration is given to the person who would be working closely with them. For example when we brought up Noise to help with the ECs, we first made sure with Activate that he was OK with it and would like to work with Noise. If he had said no, it would have carried more weight than Legit (recruiting) saying no since they would not be working as closely and possibly not even on a daily basis, compared to Activate who he would be working with daily to run the ECs. Obviously Legit's opinion is still very important to us, but in the end it will affect Activate much more.
After the person has achieved approval from the TF2 DLs (who have the final say on the Divisional level) the request is sent to Council for approval. In all but the most extreme cases the Council member will ignore his or her negative personal feelings for the person (if he or she even has any, which is very rare for any person who has received a 'go' signal from both the Advisors and Division Leaders) and will then bring it up for approval from the entire Council team. At this point every single Council member has the opportunity to state any misgivings that they may have about the Candidate and to register a 'yes' or 'no' vote. If the candidate receives a yes from Council then congratulations! They will be promoted to Advisor when most convenient for them and the Division! It is very rare for someone submitted to Council for Advisor promotion to be denied simply because of the fact that if there were any major problems they likely would not have gotten through the Advisors, Division Leaders, and Divisional Council member in the first place.
This process means that you can rest assured and be aware that whatever your personal feelings are, anyone who has achieved the rank of Advisor in the TF2 Division has done so with the approval of their fellow Advisors, their Division Leaders, their Council Member, and the entire Council.
I hope that answers this question adequately as well, it is something that I frequently get asked so I figured I'd put the entire process into text that I can link people to if they are curious enough to read this whole thing
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2009
- Messages
- 4,757
Props to anyone who reads that whole thing
Part of my personal policy to be more open to the community than before means that I am willing to explain things and decision making processes in detail if requested.
Part of my personal policy to be more open to the community than before means that I am willing to explain things and decision making processes in detail if requested.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2009
- Messages
- 4,757
Around and hour and a half, and please forgive any spelling or grammar mistakes. It was about 2AM when I finished
Props to anyone who reads that whole thing
Part of my personal policy to be more open to the community than before means that I am willing to explain things and decision making processes in detail if requested.
can exchange my props for brwnie points they're more valuable tha omney ya know
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2008
- Messages
- 2,417
I wonder if the reason our servers with certain maps (Turbine and Dustbowl come to mind immediately) don't do as well as others, particularly in rotations, is because feelings about them are highly contrasted. For example, let's say the Valve Maps server rtv's Turbine with 60% of the vote and then empties. The 40% of the server who didn't vote for it absolutely hate it and disconnect immediately. Then the 13 people left in the server after the map loads don't want to play in a half-empty server and leave. Then we have the hassle of filling a server, regardless of what map is running. In this case, there might be a population to support turbine but the sudden disconnecting of half the server all at once is what kills it.
On the other hand, a two map server with say turbine/dustbowl would only attract people who would actually play on turbine. It can live off the population of people who do like turbine and dustbowl, and wouldn't suffer from sudden mass disconnects since it's expected to come up next map change.
I mean, I'm guilty of this. I strongly support valve maps, but if cp_well gets voted up I disconnect before map change. I cannot stand that map and no amount of hats will make me tolerate sitting through 30 minutes of the most boring game of TF2 I will ever play. When the entire TF2 community is split half and half on this issue (like Dustbowl) we see issues of it in RTV that wouldn't arise in a 24/7 or even two-map split server. I guess this is just food for thought?
Now for an actual question:
What's the percentage of times Option 1 in the RTV gets selected? Because it really bugs me when I see cp_well as option 1 because it means I have to leave soon.
On the other hand, a two map server with say turbine/dustbowl would only attract people who would actually play on turbine. It can live off the population of people who do like turbine and dustbowl, and wouldn't suffer from sudden mass disconnects since it's expected to come up next map change.
I mean, I'm guilty of this. I strongly support valve maps, but if cp_well gets voted up I disconnect before map change. I cannot stand that map and no amount of hats will make me tolerate sitting through 30 minutes of the most boring game of TF2 I will ever play. When the entire TF2 community is split half and half on this issue (like Dustbowl) we see issues of it in RTV that wouldn't arise in a 24/7 or even two-map split server. I guess this is just food for thought?
Now for an actual question:
What's the percentage of times Option 1 in the RTV gets selected? Because it really bugs me when I see cp_well as option 1 because it means I have to leave soon.
- Status
