I’m sure people are eager to know what we will be doing with Instagib server, especially after having two different votes. Well, after some discussion among leadership, it has been decided to drop the Instagib server. I will try to answer questions I feel would be ask about this decision or that may be related in the following paragraphs.
Instagib’s rank wouldn’t matter. Why can’t we have it on the side?
Let us take a look at the other servers day-to-day population. We have increasingly been seeing Valve Maps and Payload stay empty more and more than before. Before April the two servers would at least fill up for a few hours at night. Even other servers are having trouble filling up, such as Dustbowl.
Now let’s say that Instagib is replaced with a Custom Map server. The members who usually play on other servers, helping to keep them regularly populated, will go play on the Custom Map server, even though there may be low people. This takes people away from our servers who are already suffering from lower levels of players.
Furthermore, we saw from the votes that we had almost a 50/50 split on the choice of keeping or dropping the server. That’s not a huge majority that supports keeping the server. And as others said, Instagib could potentially detract from the events we host almost daily.
Is it all about the ranks now?
Since it seems that some people said in the survey that there was too much importance on ranks, let me explain something. Ranks are not important; however, ranks is the only numerical measure to see how our servers are doing. I think most of us can agree that more people playing on our servers means ranks tend to be higher. This is not always the case, as we have seen in the past that the server ranks would dip when they continued to stay consistently filled. This is attribute to other servers doing better.
Bottom line: the ranks (and more specifically their trends) are a good way to see how the population in the servers is doing. As we see these days, our ranks have dropped and the player count has as well. But we know that this change is due to (1) deadlines & finals for many students and (2) the QuickPlay changes.
Why are we seeing less people anyway (aside from finals)?
Valve made big changes to QuickPlay a few months ago. The biggest most notable change is that QuickPlay, by default, will send players to official Valve servers. Unless the player takes the time to make the adjustment to the QP options to include community servers, they will never see our server. This takes away a good chunk of our potential players from our servers.
Other communities and server owners are closing down their servers due to low player population. In Valve's mailing list, many other server owners have been voicing how badly the QuickPlay changes have affected their servers’ populations, so this isn't an issue unique to us.
What can I do to help?
When you get on TF2 to play, help fill the servers. I know we all have our favorite server we want to play on, but the more people that join together to kick-start a server together, the faster we can get to your favorite server. Also, I encourage you to have fun on the server. Have fun and show your teammates how great our community and servers are. The more regulars we get on our servers, the better our servers will be.
If you have any more questions, feel free to ask, and I’ll answer them the best I can.
Also, courtesy of Sephiroth, here is a link to our servers' players analytics page: http://egoadmins.com/sephiroth/analytics/
Both username and password is "analytics". This is a non-admin account, so you won't break anything and can take a look around.
Keep in mind that:
1. The site loads very slowly. It is not your internet connection or computer.
2. Please do not spam the site with requests.
3. The User Status that says if a player is Premium or Free 2 Play is broken.
Instagib’s rank wouldn’t matter. Why can’t we have it on the side?
Let us take a look at the other servers day-to-day population. We have increasingly been seeing Valve Maps and Payload stay empty more and more than before. Before April the two servers would at least fill up for a few hours at night. Even other servers are having trouble filling up, such as Dustbowl.
Now let’s say that Instagib is replaced with a Custom Map server. The members who usually play on other servers, helping to keep them regularly populated, will go play on the Custom Map server, even though there may be low people. This takes people away from our servers who are already suffering from lower levels of players.
Furthermore, we saw from the votes that we had almost a 50/50 split on the choice of keeping or dropping the server. That’s not a huge majority that supports keeping the server. And as others said, Instagib could potentially detract from the events we host almost daily.
Is it all about the ranks now?
Since it seems that some people said in the survey that there was too much importance on ranks, let me explain something. Ranks are not important; however, ranks is the only numerical measure to see how our servers are doing. I think most of us can agree that more people playing on our servers means ranks tend to be higher. This is not always the case, as we have seen in the past that the server ranks would dip when they continued to stay consistently filled. This is attribute to other servers doing better.
Bottom line: the ranks (and more specifically their trends) are a good way to see how the population in the servers is doing. As we see these days, our ranks have dropped and the player count has as well. But we know that this change is due to (1) deadlines & finals for many students and (2) the QuickPlay changes.
Why are we seeing less people anyway (aside from finals)?
Valve made big changes to QuickPlay a few months ago. The biggest most notable change is that QuickPlay, by default, will send players to official Valve servers. Unless the player takes the time to make the adjustment to the QP options to include community servers, they will never see our server. This takes away a good chunk of our potential players from our servers.
Other communities and server owners are closing down their servers due to low player population. In Valve's mailing list, many other server owners have been voicing how badly the QuickPlay changes have affected their servers’ populations, so this isn't an issue unique to us.
What can I do to help?
When you get on TF2 to play, help fill the servers. I know we all have our favorite server we want to play on, but the more people that join together to kick-start a server together, the faster we can get to your favorite server. Also, I encourage you to have fun on the server. Have fun and show your teammates how great our community and servers are. The more regulars we get on our servers, the better our servers will be.
If you have any more questions, feel free to ask, and I’ll answer them the best I can.
Also, courtesy of Sephiroth, here is a link to our servers' players analytics page: http://egoadmins.com/sephiroth/analytics/
Both username and password is "analytics". This is a non-admin account, so you won't break anything and can take a look around.
Keep in mind that:
1. The site loads very slowly. It is not your internet connection or computer.
2. Please do not spam the site with requests.
3. The User Status that says if a player is Premium or Free 2 Play is broken.
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