Regarding "Events" and Populating Servers

[Failhorse]

I'm posting this for everyone to read. As those on the forum could have some vital input on how to continue to make our servers successful. For those who aren't admins, our number 1 goal is to get the servers initially populated. For the last year the most successful way is to use a Steam Community Event. ... Those annoying little boxes that pop up work wonders when a server is at 0 and you want to get it to 24 really really fast.

Well now we have moderately successful servers and a huge community group. I never expected almost 16k people "following" us. With recent additions to TF2, like the game asking if you want to fav the server when you leave. Our servers almost populate themselves. Sometimes they need a kick in the pants, and that's when an admin would send out an event. And now, a ton of people will kick us back. I'm the biggest supporter of events, well I was... I'm really starting to see that they are counter productive and we need to find a better way.

Generally what I'm seeing now, regardless of an event. When a server hits 8 people, it generally hits 24 within the next 10 minutes. We need to find a way to gather supporters without "hitting" the general community.

I have a few ideas.

1) Instill into people the proper time to connect. Central time, 10am weekends, 3pm weekdays. This can be adjusted based on when we can get a core group together.

2) The creation of a separate community group. crit sandvich's vice presidential action rangers. Essentially a group consisting of admins and supporters who want to help pop the servers at the appropriate times. There we could event to our hearts content, without pissing off 16k people.

3) Cheat... By cheat I mean fake clients. If you don't know what fake clients are... Well it shows bogus connections on the server. I'd propose doing this in a different way than normal. Require an admin to be on the server, and only boost population based on certain criteria. Then have it disable when 10-14 people connect. If 0-3 it shows 0-3... At 4 shows 6, at 6 show 10, at 14 show 14... (long shot here.) It's evil but works.

One thing we can't do is just let the community figure it out. If we leave the servers to populate themselves, we'll be left with empty servers, which will quickly lead to no servers at all. Connections = cash. Full servers give us a great community, people supporting us, and all the admin's here fancy color codes.

I think we're at the point where we need to tighten things up here and go pro....

If you have any input, please advise. This is a public discussion, so lets stay serious and on topic.

[Argent]

Well, regarding the last one at least, I've blacklisted every server I've ever visited to use fake clients just because they piss me off so damn much to expect something when I enter a server, and get something different. Your proposal isn't as bad as they normally are, but I don't like the idea of it.

The second point would probably work. I sure as hell don't mind the frequent events, but I can see how other people would be. Do that one imho

And to be contrarian, and going in reverse order...you could -try- the first idea, but TF2 is a game. People come on whenever they have time or whenever they feel so inclined, and any sort of schedule proposal might work at first, but lives and whims get in the way too easily. That said, it would probably -work- just because 16000 people is a lot. I didn't even know that many people lived in the world, and surely if we pushed the idea of going on at certain times of certain days, at least 48 of them might be so inclined to do it.



There's my two cents, and I feel gipped. I demand a refund.

[Patrid]

I'm all in for starting a second group for hardcore "followers", but I gotta say I'm completely against fake Client usage. I will never partake in such deception, and like Argent, have blacklisted servers that have done so...

[Vivi Hill]

No fake clients.

[VoltySquirrel]

No fake clients.

QFT

[Toaster]

I'm all in for starting a second group for hardcore "followers", but I gotta say I'm completely against fake Client usage. I will never partake in such deception, and like Argent, have blacklisted servers that have done so...

[Failhorse]

I'm just throwing it out there. Also, with events, you can get more than 1 server full. It goes to a lot of people. Wait 2 minutes, and edit the event and change the IP to the other server.

But we're talking no events, what do we do?

[Enigma]

I like the idea of having a seperate group for those who are willing to populate. Like you said, it takes about 6 to 10 players to populate the servers within 15 minutes. I've seen this before in my old clan. Also: no fake clients.

[MrVulf]

Personally the event's don't bother me at all (probably cause I love CSn and join immediately). But then again so do all the "hardcore" followers. Perhaps a separate group for the hardcore members would work thoughh..

[NuclearWatermelon]

No fake clients.

This.

Otherwise, I agree with all other statements.

[Failhorse]

Are we pretty much now just posting for the sake of posting? I understand that 1 of the 3 ideas is bad. I added it so people can understand what it is. Anyone have any constructive ideas? Or ideas to make my other 2 plausible? Anything?

[VoltySquirrel]

Are we pretty much now just posting for the sake of posting? I understand that 1 of the 3 ideas is bad. I added it so people can understand what it is. Anyone have any constructive ideas? Or ideas to make my other 2 plausible? Anything?

Nope.

[Echoplex]

I think that we should start limiting how many events we post each day (I'd say 3 max) and then get feedback from there. The Mustache Brig steam group has 320 people in it now partly because they were spamming 10+ events a day (and also not deleting them), but people aren't going to get their panties twisted up over a couple of toast notifications a day. The community is thriving and what we're doing is working great, so I don't think that we should make any drastic changes from our formula.

[CutlerSupreme]

Being on both sides of it, I have removed groups because of events being posted too frequently. I would say make it clear that events from this server are common but if you want to get more events from Csn join (insert new hardcore group link here) Somethings are actualy pretty useful to send out to 16k players. When an update happens I enjoy knowing that there is a server I can connect to. I would love to have 16k people see our commentary on an event. However as for populating a server create a second group.

Was this helpful or does it feel redundant?

[VoltySquirrel]

Being on both sides of it, I have removed groups because of events being posted too frequently. I would say make it clear that events from this server are common but if you want to get more events from Csn join (insert new hardcore group link here) Somethings are actualy pretty useful to send out to 16k players. When an update happens I enjoy knowing that there is a server I can connect to. I would love to have 16k people see our commentary on an event. However as for populating a server create a second group.

Was this helpful or does it feel redundant?

Cutler, your helpful.

[Failhorse]

Volty you jerk =)

[Maringue]

I think we might be able to stick with creating events if we stick to a few rules.

First, no events for updating the server. People who were on the server know it will be updated shortly and will try back. For everyone else in the Steam group, it's just two useless events posted back to back.

Second, no event should ever be left active for more than an hour.

Third, don't make a new event for the second server, just mod the original event to reflect the other IP.

I think all of these things will basically cut down on the chaff of events and leave us with effective ones. I think members of the Steam group are not expecting to never have an event pop up, but it's just that there are too many that are useless being thrown out there. I bet we can start getting the servers rolling on their own, but having 1 event a day to get things rolling is not the end of the world, especially if that event gets deleted once the server fills up. Alternatively they could be used to let people know the servers are back up in the event that they go down for an extended period of time (almost never the case though). If you never want to receive an event pop-up, then I would recommend not joining a Steam group.

[Ackybur]

Don't make an event if it crashes....they know. Don't make an event if it's back. They'll know

[VoltySquirrel]

Volty you jerk =)

[Fiend]

Faking server numbers is an instant blacklist for me, and honestly, as if anyone cared it makes me want to blacklist CSn based on the suggestion alone. I appreciate the challenge and the humor though, so I'll hold back on that for now. Buffing server numbers with bots, even if temporary or set to a player count threshold will also turn me off big time and I'll blacklist a server for bots.

As for events, if the events are cleverly crafted and contain the "come play" link so I don't have to do any work whatsoever then they'll often work on me. With a user base this big, it's still potentially annoying, but also sort of expected. I used to be a part of some big servers like Voogru and NoHeroes, but they definitely took events too far. If it seems automated and generic, it'll just turn people off and they'll ignore it when you really want them.

Thinking critically in terms of the online community and ease of use is pretty important too. I work for a web design company and am their "social media guru", so maybe this is all very personal to me, but the easier it is for me to complete tasks on the web, the higher chance I'll follow through. Having server mods that let me type a word to join a community, type a word to go to the forum, etc is very compelling stuff. Make it as easy as possible for the end user to do everything without hunting, and don't hesitate to remind us how as long as it's not GIANT GLOWING TEXT.

What drives me to return to a server: (other than map rotation)
If you've got a decent number of admins for each of your servers, I'd suggest each of them just try to befriend regulars. I've administrated a few different servers on TF2, and a personal shortlist of core players is always a great way to seed a server. To this day, I've got a solid group of about 20 people who I know will drop any game and join up with me if asked in a private message. I don't know these people in real life, and it's not out of guilt. If every admin has a close group of people who they enjoy playing with, and don't mind playing against, it's really easy to get a 6v6 going at most times, and life Failhorse said, once a decent server hits ~8 then you'll end up with 24 in short order.

I don't think I've got a single CSn member on my friends list, but it is in my favorites, and if I see John, Finger, ZClipse, Sandman and a few others, I join to play with them for the challenge or otherwise.

Good players working together (but not stacking) instead of just shitty sniper d00ls on 2fort, that's what makes a solid server.

[Failhorse]

That's very helpful fiend.

Based off what i've scene over the weekend, I popped 3 times without any help from the steam community "perks." It takes a bit longer but is possible.

Thinking I'll create a premium member group today. Stay tuned.

[Vivi Hill]

Make sure people don't confuse "premium" with the premium mod. We don't want to be accidentally associated with that crap.

[Maringue]

We could just call it, "Critsandvich Population Event Group". No confusion.

[rancoR]

Please do not fake clients, most annoying thing ever. Also, the events are spectacular, it's awesome that a quality server can get filled up early in the morning with them.