DOD:S - What would make our public servers more enjoyable to play?

[Boyle]

I see a lot of good ideas. Maybe I missed reading it, but a change I would like to consider is going to all-talk. Many of the more populated servers use all-talk. It lets friends on opposite sides keep up the friendly competition. I also think it causes less friction between really good players and not so good players. Sometimes I get repeated kills over a single player. With all-talk on I can kid around with them or warn them I am in my spot and to watch out. I find all-talk keeps me more relaxed because I am not talking as much strategy with my team. I still give out warnings, but at least the enemy has a chance to move when called out.

 

[BearKiller]

All your options have been tried and died.

The only hpoe is port the game over to the new released "Source 2" engine (released in 2016).

 

[wewo]

Sometimes I get repeated kills over a single player.

That would be me

 

[Warrenheil]

All your options have been tried and died.

The only hope is port the game over to the new released "Source 2" engine (released in 2016).

I realize that some of these options have been tried already, and I really think some
of them should be tried again.

Its like DODS, its highly improbable you will score a victory your first go, why we need to find a good
combination that everybody is comfortable with, and give it another go.

Sitting on our hands waiting for another port of DOD, is not pro-active, and I think many people like
the game just the way it is.

 

[Warrenheil]

I see a lot of good ideas. Maybe I missed reading it, but a change I would like to consider is going to all-talk. Many of the more populated servers use all-talk. It lets friends on opposite sides keep up the friendly competition. I also think it causes less friction between really good players and not so good players. Sometimes I get repeated kills over a single player. With all-talk on I can kid around with them or warn them I am in my spot and to watch out. I find all-talk keeps me more relaxed because I am not talking as much strategy with my team. I still give out warnings, but at least the enemy has a chance to move when called out.

I think that's a fantastic idea Boyle... would be kind of like a vent atmosphere, could liven things up a little.

i was just kind of thinking of some of the other dods servers, and they have it so that the death cam doesn't zoom in on people,
but rotates the cam in the 'general direction' of where you were shot from. it could be more challenging to have something like that,
but i don't mind either way.

you kind of gave me another idea of how the server re-arrangement could work.

in the event we happened to keep our 3rd server... what we could do...

Is have that module to have excessive Avalanche members transferred to Donner...
(it tries reconnecting to the ava server every 20 seconds i believe)

Then on that server, it would rotate back and forth between kalt/donner
with all-talk on... also change flag capture time delay for the maps.

On the 3rd server, have a gun game setup, with a bunch of custom maps people
can vote on... with all-talk turned on as well.

Then as a little treat, maybe load some extra audio clips that can be accessed
through the admin panel, that can be played by the admins. more or less like audio emojis. (audoji)

 

[Warrenheil]

its like with the music player .... its not that people didn't like the idea, its that whenever i tuned into it,
i never heard any music i even remotely enjoyed.

we never really had that many DJ's, as I think they were limited to finding people who had licenses to their
music... which majority of amateur DJ's obviously don't. I think broadcasting music to 30 people, is generally
considered small potatoes to anyone actually pursuing that anyways. Its when its broadcasted to thousands or
millions of people, that they take interest. I know of several amateur radio stations who just have people who
play music they get from youtube with no worries.

I think that's what happens with some of these ideas we have.... is that they're often good ones, but
they're sometimes not executed as well. Often we just need to give them a longer chance, and let people adapt to
them, before deciding if its something we want to keep or not.

Instead of giving the music player the axe after only a few weeks, we could have looked for more DJ's.

Like friendly fire Anzio, i think people enjoyed that, but at the time... we were trying to fill the other
servers, that it never really took off. Which doesn't make it a failure... but just wasn't as popular at the time.

 

[shadowlord]

One idea I've seen used on other servers is if one side wins a map 5 times in a row; the server will scramble up the player onto random teams the next round. Helps to offset imbalances. People are still free to switch back to the other side, of course, but not all will do so.

And of course, my favorite map of all time, dod_strand. I know it'll get shot down because it empties out servers when people don't play as a team, but would love to see it as an option on a rotation server only available on a player-vote. i.e. A server that would normally rotate between donner-kalt on its own; but then an admin can put up a vote to see if people want to switch to strand (or some other map); and the admin can extend the map (say if map's about to rotate, but they want to finish the round). Strand does take more than a 2/3 15-minute rounds for players to get used to it, but it does get people to play as a team once it gets going.

DBad, where are you, buddy? I need your support to bring strand back! :thumbup: The old 24/7 Strand server was really what introduced me to the wonderful, friendly eGO community.

 

[Warrenheil]

I'm sorry shadowlord but your communications are breaking up, *static* did you say your favorite map was Flash? I thought so.

I can't stand strand. lol and I think most people who leave strand don't leave it because people aren't playing as a team.

Its because its a sniper and MG map, lots of long open stretches that are a nightmare for any assault class, whether you're
playing as allied or axis, its a bad day to be an assault class. The map can be confusing at times (without consulting the mini map).
In most maps you can wander into the enemy... in Strand, you take the wrong turn and you end up wandering into a pasture with a dead cow,
or somehow manage to crush yourself with the elevator. hey... it happens!

Its always cloudy on strand, there's bombs flying everywhere, lol its just a gloomy depressing map, with a bunch of nasty ol' snipers.

 

[TheDopeDragon]

I also think the server rotation favorites idea would be good, however I think making the duration of maps longer then we can see when people are playing and which maps they like the best and we will rotate the least liked out for other odd and end maps as fillers

 

[Warrenheil]

I also think the server rotation favorites idea would be good, however I think making the duration of maps longer then we can see when people are playing and which maps they like the best and we will rotate the least liked out for other odd and end maps as fillers

Basically, you want to see us go through all of our custom maps and or our standard dods maps.
Then see which ones we are losing more people on. I think that's a good idea!

I think for that to succeed, we would have to do one of two things.

After every map session, we poll the map we just played, "did you like this map?" "5. Yes 0. No"
then after a while, we should be able to tally our results together, to come up with
a more definitive decision.

If we just go by when people leave the map, or the decay of players, we might get false positives,
as people might like the map, but leave for different reasons.

I have seen some players recently come into our avalanche servers, who haven't played
the game in a while... and they always inquire about our Donner/Kalt servers, and I see
them pop into the game later that day... but the activity is usually so low, that they
don't really stay for long... I think its these type of regulars, we could easily get to come
back again.... providing we make a concentrated effort to fill the server.
Even if its for an hour a day.

But because some people have it stuck in their heads that no one plays it anymore,
they just kind of give up.

realistically though, I think we need to do more than just fill the server... the other options
need to be considered... to keep people coming back.

 

[Warrenheil]

Server 1. Avalanche
Server 2. Kalt / Donner (Ava-overflow) (All-Talk on)
Server 3. Custom Map Rotation - Gun Game. (All-Talk on)

For server 3, we could get those "Killing Spree!" voice commands alicia was talking about.

The polls reflect people want 2 things primarily...

* Different maps driven by votes.
* Overflow from avalanche to help fill a secondary server.

This type of setup would satisfy both of these conditions.

I think people who play the Kalt / Donner servers, don't want too much to be changed,
so I think that's where we would leave everything alone.... and do our more robust changes
on the 3rd server.

So if we do make a change to donner, i would say... longer capture times,
and turn all-talk on to encourage a more lively atmosphere.

 

[Warrenheil]

you guys might say its all been done before... but I'm pretty sure we've never had this
exact arrangement / combination of servers and settings...

I think leadership needs to pull the trigger on this...
Lets get a move on.

If it doesn't work, then we'll come back here, and do this all over again, until we find something to improve our results.
Giving up is not an option.

 

[Zer0]

We appreciate and thank everyone for their input here and we will consider everything and how to move forward. Until then, this thread is closed to stop any further misunderstandings between members. If and or when we as leadership come to a decision for any changes to the servers, we will be sure to make you all aware. In the mean time,


FILL THE SERVERS!