- Joined
- Jul 28, 2008
- Messages
- 3,034
Hello, its your resident dicta......I mean Division Leader Annihilator here to give you a brief update on the State of the DOD:S Union.
our community has supported a DOD:S server or servers for over 10 years now, and supporting a server for any one game is a milestone in itself, we still continue to support 3 servers currently, but unless current attendance changes, things could be different.
Now I don't want to create any alarm, because in no means is our Division leaving or closing, we continue to have all of our servers ranked in the top 100, and we still maintain the same standards and expectations in our servers as we always have, which attracts many players to continue frequenting our servers. However, we all need to put some effort into these servers if we want to keep them.
Costs: Server costs we all know are pricey, and our community continues to grow with many new games being added over the years. There has been discussions of multiple divisions having to make the tough choices to shut down servers to curb our overhead to maintain the community. TF2, CSS, GMOD, and even DOD:S has made the sacrifices through the years for the betterment of eGO has a whole. It has been asked of us again, and we do not want to have to remove another server, but we suggested that IF and WHEN we have to remove a server, that we could possibly create a rotating Kalt/Donner server, so that we don't sacrifice losing all our longstanding player base of people who support these maps. Nothing has officially been done yet, and hopefully by creating this thread, with everyone's support, maybe we can prevent this from happening. But we need the help of EVERYONE in our Division and our regular players.
I have spent 8 years in charge of some aspect of this division, and one thing I have always prided ourselves on, is the fact that we still maintain the same expectations for our servers that we always have, and even though the rules have changed slightly through the years, we still maintain a punk free, friendly community. We always team up to promote our division in a positive light and we support each other in our events, contests, and respect we have for one another.
The Facts: This game is 12 years old, it's old, so many other games lives are much shorter, it's amazing to me that this game has lasted in popularity as long as it has. Many original players still come back to this game with so many fond memories, and that's tough for so many games that are made to say. Even though the hitboxes are wonky, the assault classes are ridiculous, and the game hasn't seen an update since around 2013, the game still attracts players back.
What can be done:
Server Filling: Plain and simple, we need to spend more time in servers. Not just prime time, but if we are not home, we need to idle if you keep your computer running. Idling helps numbers for rankings, and is great, but in all honestly, we need actual players in game in order for others to join. Over the years of heading the Rangers and going into empty servers, I have noticed just joining a server will attract random players in. Without an announcement or anything people just join who have our server favorated, or filter their servers by not being empty. Simply being in a server helps bring new and regular players back in
Rangers: We need to restructure our Rangers Group. I will be opening up applications for the Rangers group again, allowing people who we can trust to post announcements to help fill our servers in a way that is beneficial, starting with our most popular servers first. We will begin promoting the group within the servers as well, urging even our pubbers to join the group so that they know when we are trying to fill the server up. This group shouldn't just belong to us within the community, this needs to go out to our regular players as well.
To apply to become a Ranger Captain, you can fill out the forum HERE Once we have looked through all the applications we will choose a few new Captains to help send out announcements at peak times of the day.
Play for fun/not for points: We all are guilty of this, even myself. We focus our attention on our score and our points then focusing on having fun with those we are playing with. This causes us to not talk to other players, to focus on us, rather then them. We need to have conversations with our players, either in chat or over mic (not excessive long drawn out conversations over mic, no one like a mic spammer) but a little water cooler talk is always encouraged. We all know at times server filling gets frustrating when the try hards come out and wreck everyone, or caps out repeatedly, thus killing the server. We all know that this is extremely frustrating, but those are things we can't control, and we need to overcome in a positive way. Without rage quitting and giving up on the server. We should never ask a player to change their playstyle, but explaining to them why we don't want to cap out respectfully is encouraged. What they do with it is their business.
Attending Events: Our event coordinators put a lot of time and effort into their events, and honestly when people don't show up for the events, its very difficult for them to continue to put forth their time to host them. I know we all have other games that we play and support, and there is nothing wrong with that, but we need to show support to our EC's who give up their own time to try and show us a good time. Attendance has been so low lately, that we have had to quit doing most events, and we have had to limit realism's to every other week, and we still struggle to fill the server then. If you want events to continue, you need to make sure you are attending events and encouraging other players to join us as well, it can't be just the responsibility of Leadership and EC's to get people. We need your help.
Teamspeak: We need more people spending time in Teamspeak, prior to my Leadership time, I would never spend anytime in Vent, I was urged before becoming Advisor that I would need to spend more time in Vent by Slayr and Fluffy, and reluctantly I did, talking on the mic was something I didn't enjoy doing unless I was calling out a player, but they urged me do so, and it was the best thing I ever did. I have met so many friends and talked with so many other people that I probably would have never talked to. Not only do I talk to these people on a regular basis, I have met some of them in person in Las Vegas and other places. Over the years I have interacted with so many different people from all walks of life, aside from eGO I am also part of a car club, and I have made so many great friends through there as well. Sometimes people who are completely different can become friends with others because of one common interest, it broadens your horizon and opens your mind to other people and their personalities. Using teamspeak allows us to coordinate server filling and talk about other things that might not be game related, and allow us to sit back and relax and have a good time with each other. I know talking with people in Teamspeak keeps me in server longer, as after playing this game for over 12 years now, the game play can get a little boring at times, especially when you continually keep winning/losing.
Conclusion: This is a great division and through the years we have accomplished many things, with a little more effort we can continue to build our division and still reach out to our regular players, and through proper rule enforcement, friendly communication, and recruiting, we can continue to grow our division and make it thrive. I look forward to making 2017 be yet another great year for eGO and the DOD:S community, and I thank you all for your hard work through the years.
View attachment 16861
our community has supported a DOD:S server or servers for over 10 years now, and supporting a server for any one game is a milestone in itself, we still continue to support 3 servers currently, but unless current attendance changes, things could be different.
Now I don't want to create any alarm, because in no means is our Division leaving or closing, we continue to have all of our servers ranked in the top 100, and we still maintain the same standards and expectations in our servers as we always have, which attracts many players to continue frequenting our servers. However, we all need to put some effort into these servers if we want to keep them.
Costs: Server costs we all know are pricey, and our community continues to grow with many new games being added over the years. There has been discussions of multiple divisions having to make the tough choices to shut down servers to curb our overhead to maintain the community. TF2, CSS, GMOD, and even DOD:S has made the sacrifices through the years for the betterment of eGO has a whole. It has been asked of us again, and we do not want to have to remove another server, but we suggested that IF and WHEN we have to remove a server, that we could possibly create a rotating Kalt/Donner server, so that we don't sacrifice losing all our longstanding player base of people who support these maps. Nothing has officially been done yet, and hopefully by creating this thread, with everyone's support, maybe we can prevent this from happening. But we need the help of EVERYONE in our Division and our regular players.
I have spent 8 years in charge of some aspect of this division, and one thing I have always prided ourselves on, is the fact that we still maintain the same expectations for our servers that we always have, and even though the rules have changed slightly through the years, we still maintain a punk free, friendly community. We always team up to promote our division in a positive light and we support each other in our events, contests, and respect we have for one another.
The Facts: This game is 12 years old, it's old, so many other games lives are much shorter, it's amazing to me that this game has lasted in popularity as long as it has. Many original players still come back to this game with so many fond memories, and that's tough for so many games that are made to say. Even though the hitboxes are wonky, the assault classes are ridiculous, and the game hasn't seen an update since around 2013, the game still attracts players back.
What can be done:
Server Filling: Plain and simple, we need to spend more time in servers. Not just prime time, but if we are not home, we need to idle if you keep your computer running. Idling helps numbers for rankings, and is great, but in all honestly, we need actual players in game in order for others to join. Over the years of heading the Rangers and going into empty servers, I have noticed just joining a server will attract random players in. Without an announcement or anything people just join who have our server favorated, or filter their servers by not being empty. Simply being in a server helps bring new and regular players back in
Rangers: We need to restructure our Rangers Group. I will be opening up applications for the Rangers group again, allowing people who we can trust to post announcements to help fill our servers in a way that is beneficial, starting with our most popular servers first. We will begin promoting the group within the servers as well, urging even our pubbers to join the group so that they know when we are trying to fill the server up. This group shouldn't just belong to us within the community, this needs to go out to our regular players as well.
To apply to become a Ranger Captain, you can fill out the forum HERE Once we have looked through all the applications we will choose a few new Captains to help send out announcements at peak times of the day.
Play for fun/not for points: We all are guilty of this, even myself. We focus our attention on our score and our points then focusing on having fun with those we are playing with. This causes us to not talk to other players, to focus on us, rather then them. We need to have conversations with our players, either in chat or over mic (not excessive long drawn out conversations over mic, no one like a mic spammer) but a little water cooler talk is always encouraged. We all know at times server filling gets frustrating when the try hards come out and wreck everyone, or caps out repeatedly, thus killing the server. We all know that this is extremely frustrating, but those are things we can't control, and we need to overcome in a positive way. Without rage quitting and giving up on the server. We should never ask a player to change their playstyle, but explaining to them why we don't want to cap out respectfully is encouraged. What they do with it is their business.
Attending Events: Our event coordinators put a lot of time and effort into their events, and honestly when people don't show up for the events, its very difficult for them to continue to put forth their time to host them. I know we all have other games that we play and support, and there is nothing wrong with that, but we need to show support to our EC's who give up their own time to try and show us a good time. Attendance has been so low lately, that we have had to quit doing most events, and we have had to limit realism's to every other week, and we still struggle to fill the server then. If you want events to continue, you need to make sure you are attending events and encouraging other players to join us as well, it can't be just the responsibility of Leadership and EC's to get people. We need your help.
Teamspeak: We need more people spending time in Teamspeak, prior to my Leadership time, I would never spend anytime in Vent, I was urged before becoming Advisor that I would need to spend more time in Vent by Slayr and Fluffy, and reluctantly I did, talking on the mic was something I didn't enjoy doing unless I was calling out a player, but they urged me do so, and it was the best thing I ever did. I have met so many friends and talked with so many other people that I probably would have never talked to. Not only do I talk to these people on a regular basis, I have met some of them in person in Las Vegas and other places. Over the years I have interacted with so many different people from all walks of life, aside from eGO I am also part of a car club, and I have made so many great friends through there as well. Sometimes people who are completely different can become friends with others because of one common interest, it broadens your horizon and opens your mind to other people and their personalities. Using teamspeak allows us to coordinate server filling and talk about other things that might not be game related, and allow us to sit back and relax and have a good time with each other. I know talking with people in Teamspeak keeps me in server longer, as after playing this game for over 12 years now, the game play can get a little boring at times, especially when you continually keep winning/losing.
Conclusion: This is a great division and through the years we have accomplished many things, with a little more effort we can continue to build our division and still reach out to our regular players, and through proper rule enforcement, friendly communication, and recruiting, we can continue to grow our division and make it thrive. I look forward to making 2017 be yet another great year for eGO and the DOD:S community, and I thank you all for your hard work through the years.
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