Seeding, should we stop?

[Adam]

I think we should stop.

To be perfectly honest, seeding isnt any better than putting bots in there , imho. We are doing exactly the same thing really, as those other clans trying to remain in the top server ranks. Except we loose a certain amount of esteem and credibility by doing this, bring us down to their level which is a shame considering how proud we all are of ego and what we all stand for.
Its not honest and goes against what we try to achieve in ego. I can understand the reasoning around why you would have us seed, but in principle its dishonest .

I am quite happy going to a server with a few friends and get it filled up..its quite easy to do and players are usually more than happy to help out. Granted in the off peak hours its harder to keep the servers full, but incentives always help. I know we dont like to reward people all the time for their help but players like casino cash and little acheivement awards, those never hurt !

Its normal to worry about server ranking, but I believe that if we get enough dedicted ego members involved we can get those servers hopping.

In fact, I would go so far as to challenge like minded members. Lets have some Server Starter Challenges going. I bet you cant populate a server quicker than me.. anyone wanna put themselves to the test and take the challenge .. we can go head to head to get the servers rocking.

Quoted for Truth. I think Buga has hit the nail on the head, WITH A HAMMER. We definately need more dedicated members. People who are on a lot or on during the day.

It would be great if we had a group of people who played during the time when most of the kids are at school, that way the servers would atleast have people in them for when the after school "rush" hits.

 

[Toxxin]

Yes and No. I think we should have server starters instead but it doesn't hurt to have 2 or so seeders in a server with 10 people playing.

Thats a good idea.

 

[AJC]

I agree GG

 

[zombie allah]

seeding is no better than idling for hats or weapons. it is not what ego is all about.

 

[Motorcycle Sidecar]

I too think Mental Buga put it perfectly.

 

[Kamon]

I think we should stop.

To be perfectly honest, seeding isnt any better than putting bots in there , imho. We are doing exactly the same thing really, as those other clans trying to remain in the top server ranks. Except we loose a certain amount of esteem and credibility by doing this, bring us down to their level which is a shame considering how proud we all are of ego and what we all stand for.
Its not honest and goes against what we try to achieve in ego. I can understand the reasoning around why you would have us seed, but in principle its dishonest .

I am quite happy going to a server with a few friends and get it filled up..its quite easy to do and players are usually more than happy to help out. Granted in the off peak hours its harder to keep the servers full, but incentives always help. I know we dont like to reward people all the time for their help but players like casino cash and little acheivement awards, those never hurt !

Its normal to worry about server ranking, but I believe that if we get enough dedicted ego members involved we can get those servers hopping.

In fact, I would go so far as to challenge like minded members. Lets have some Server Starter Challenges going. I bet you cant populate a server quicker than me.. anyone wanna put themselves to the test and take the challenge .. we can go head to head to get the servers rocking.

This. From now on, whenever a server population runs low, we need to get a team together in order to revive it. With Buga's little 'challenge' (which I'm TOTALLY going to beat, by the way) now posted in the division discussion board, hopefully we'll have more people taking this path. A couple minutes of playtime when a server goes empty in order to bring its rank up is a worthy sacrifice, in my opinion.

 

[QB]

The key will be organization of teams to accomplish our stated goal. We can't just use the TF2 eGO steam group to do this.

 

[LuxMortim]

2 seeders max, and then call it good.

 

[Carmine]

I thought you would never ask. YES.

 

[Silenthunter]

As was said before by a few people as i've skimmed the comments. Having Seeders only discourages repeat players. Since there are servers that use clients to fake how many players are real in the server, it just gives the server, and the community, a bad reputation. Personally there are servers that I never go back to because of this problem, even if the 40 people were real.

I mean stopping the server's from hitting zero in the off hours is probably fine with at most 4 seeders. But there will be instances where have like 15-20 seeders, would be a major problem. Once the prime-time hits it is a hassle to have to go through and make space for everybody. Along with this, if there is a lot of seeders, it makes it harder to start a server because people thing it is a full server, and when it is 5v5 they will leave for another server that has players actually playing.

 

[firestrike24]

This seeding policy has been in effect for a while now. Garden isn't talking about starting one, more about changing the current one.

Just because it's been in effect for a while doesn't mean it's a good strategy

The best way to figure out if this works or not is to suspend seeding for a week and see what happens to the server ranks. If the ranks fall then the solution is not really a solution.

Trial by error, that's what I always say

One week is a very short sample period, plus, you fail to take into account that many people may already have been driven away by the seeding policy

I leave the server immediately when I log in and only see 3 or 4 people playing out of the 15 or 16 I thought were logged in.

If I weren't already in the clan, I'd be blacklisting the servers I see doing it.

To be perfectly honest, seeding isnt any better than putting bots in there , imho. We are doing exactly the same thing really, as those other clans trying to remain in the top server ranks.

There's your beef right here, if we don't want to get blacklisted, we need to stop this policy now.

 

[CheeseW01f]

Seeding isn't as productive as starting. Starting>seeding. My vote: yes.

 

[AdmiralVonBentebent]

I hate joining a server and find out that all my steam friends where just seeding.
Okay we go up the rankinglists, but is it fair?
I dont think so.

We should stop seeding.
Besides ValvE has made it impossible to seed without being called an idler.

 

[firestrike24]

I hate joining a server and find out that all my steam friends where just seeding.
Okay we go up the rankinglists, but is it fair?
I dont think so.

And even then we don't go up the rankinglists...

 

[Danzyyg]

Seeding SHOULD stop. When all the server's are empty and one of the servers has four people, I jump in. Then I find that these four people aren't even playing so I leave. I'm sure that pubbers do that too. Hell, when I look for other servers, I see 24/32 and jump in there. I then notice that NO ONE is in there at all.

I think seeding is a more negative aspect than a positive one. With a clan as big as eGO is, there is no reason we shouldn't have full servers all the time. We have 8,037 members in the main eGO group and 1,912 people in the eGO tf2 steam group. There's no reason all the servers shouldn't be at least half full all the time. Instead of everyone focusing on keeping the horrid map blackmesa full, we should spread it to all servers. I've heard that some people wait 10-15 minutes to get a spot in blackmesa, when instead they can go help fill another server, like our valve maps. I haven't seen anyone in there for weeks now. It won't be hard either. All the other servers have fake clients so no one would want to play in those.

But yea, i ran off course a little bit but seeding is a bad thing.

 

[tiddy]

Objectively speaking, seeding servers with humans or bots is no different. Just because eGO uses humans does not change the fact that we are lying about our active playing count so we can go up in some arbitrary rank. eGO somehow rationalizes this by dangling the carrot of possible human interaction at some point. In practice this is hardly ever the case and we'd be lying to ourselves if we attempted to argue any other way. Let's be honest with ourselves here.

I play in servers with fun communities and full, active servers. And last I checked, Steam doesn't display server ranks in the server listings. I don't care what rank a server is, I just want to play TF2 with people. I want to play the game and enjoy myself. Public players don't give a damn what rank a server is and those are the players that lay the groundwork for community and eventually donations.

The Ranger teams of eGO yore were groups of players that chose a server and simply PLAYED on it for an hour or so until other players joined and jump started the server. This worked. This was effective, this was honest. If you had a few different teams of 9-10 players just jumping in an empty server and playing, I guarantee you'll see results.

Focus on the groundwork and the rest will follow.

 

[Stormrider^]

Objectively speaking, seeding servers with humans or bots is no different. Just because eGO uses humans does not change the fact that we are lying about our active playing count so we can go up in some arbitrary rank. eGO somehow rationalizes this by dangling the carrot of possible human interaction at some point. In practice this is hardly ever the case and we'd be lying to ourselves if we attempted to argue any other way. Let's be honest with ourselves here.

I play in servers with fun communities and full, active servers. And last I checked, Steam doesn't display server ranks in the server listings. I don't care what rank a server is, I just want to play TF2 with people. I want to play the game and enjoy myself. Public players don't give a damn what rank a server is and those are the players that lay the groundwork for community and eventually donations.

The Ranger teams of eGO yore were groups of players that chose a server and simply PLAYED on it for an hour or so until other players joined and jump started the server. This worked. This was effective, this was honest. If you had a few different teams of 9-10 players just jumping in an empty server and playing, I guarantee you'll see results.

Focus on the groundwork and the rest will follow.

This, sounds like a solid plan.

 

[Lance]

Objectively speaking, seeding servers with humans or bots is no different. Just because eGO uses humans does not change the fact that we are lying about our active playing count so we can go up in some arbitrary rank. eGO somehow rationalizes this by dangling the carrot of possible human interaction at some point. In practice this is hardly ever the case and we'd be lying to ourselves if we attempted to argue any other way. Let's be honest with ourselves here.

I play in servers with fun communities and full, active servers. And last I checked, Steam doesn't display server ranks in the server listings. I don't care what rank a server is, I just want to play TF2 with people. I want to play the game and enjoy myself. Public players don't give a damn what rank a server is and those are the players that lay the groundwork for community and eventually donations.

The Ranger teams of eGO yore were groups of players that chose a server and simply PLAYED on it for an hour or so until other players joined and jump started the server. This worked. This was effective, this was honest. If you had a few different teams of 9-10 players just jumping in an empty server and playing, I guarantee you'll see results.

Focus on the groundwork and the rest will follow.

Attaboy, tiddy. Also, hi

 

[Mental Buga]

Yes Tiddy, a bit more eloquently put than I did but I agree 100% we need server Starters not seeders !

 

[zombie allah]

Seeding SHOULD stop. When all the server's are empty and one of the servers has four people, I jump in. Then I find that these four people aren't even playing so I leave. I'm sure that pubbers do that too. Hell, when I look for other servers, I see 24/32 and jump in there. I then notice that NO ONE is in there at all.

I think seeding is a more negative aspect than a positive one. With a clan as big as eGO is, there is no reason we shouldn't have full servers all the time. We have 8,037 members in the main eGO group and 1,912 people in the eGO tf2 steam group. There's no reason all the servers shouldn't be at least half full all the time. Instead of everyone focusing on keeping the horrid map blackmesa full, we should spread it to all servers. I've heard that some people wait 10-15 minutes to get a spot in blackmesa, when instead they can go help fill another server, like our valve maps. I haven't seen anyone in there for weeks now. It won't be hard either. All the other servers have fake clients so no one would want to play in those.

But yea, i ran off course a little bit but seeding is a bad thing.

He's a witch! Burn him! Burn him I say!