Since CS:GO has a way more competitive community than source I'm 100% sure there are other people who feel the same way. What do we do then? We should look for a deathmatch server or casual competitive server.
What draws people in and keeps them around? Perhaps a skin giveaway at the end of each month for the player with the most kills with "X" weapon. Also, we'd have to get some plugins set up for the server to make it more interesting. i.e. pick a knife skin at the beginning of the game, perks to those with dedicated supporter, etc. Things that already work.
I've asked for one of these servers for way over a year now lol. I've recommended we model the "CaliforniaCS" server, which is classic competitive, because it is always filled with people except late at night. What are the responses I get every time I recommended it? "Oh we don't have a dedicated player base like they do so it won't work..." or "It won't work because the rounds are too long and people leave." Seriously? Competitive is suppose to be long and of course there isn't a dedicated player base BECAUSE WE HAVEN"T TRIED IT.
But in all honesty, no matter what type of server we try, it won't work. It won't work because every single time we change it,
people only stay in the server and try to fill it for like an hour before leaving. Either that or it
switches to a horrific map and everyone leaves anyways. Also, every time we try to fill it,
everyone has their tags on lol. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but imagine being a pub joining the server for the first time and all he sees is a bunch of admins and maybe one other pub with him. I would be super intimidated if I was that pub and would probably leave.
Finally, as soon as that pub joins, there are like
a million people trying to recruit him. I'm also not saying that recruiting is a bad thing, but to recruit a pub that has joined the server for the very first time makes it seem like all we care about is recruiting, not to have fun. I would say hold off on the recruiting until we have an actual pub base, unless the pub specifically asks to join.
Also the skin giving away thing, I've done that. Gave away a lot of skins to pubs that never came back. However I would be glad to give away skins monthly as prizes if the server actually works out. The knife pluggin is pretty popular in some servers, I recommend we try it.
CS:GO is the future. CS:S is a dying game.
Anyways, this is my opinion. I'm probably going to get criticized for something I said, but hey I've been used to it by now. Fire away!