Johnydrisk's Suggestions for fun boxes

[Johnydrisk]

Okay. It's time to hear Johnydrisk act like an adult for once.

With the heated conversation that just recently happened regarding a post in the forums about the fun servers being empty all the time I'd like to make a few suggestions that were supposed to be said during an admin meeting that sadly enough was cancelled.

1. Leave the lovenest alone for now: The lovenest is a mess. Bad maps plague it, long download times have crippled it and it is too much of a pain to pop. We need to focus on funbox 2. From what I noticed fun box 2 once had a healthy community until we made it a 24/7 dodgeball server for two and a half months. However after the tourney it was brought back to it's original state. Which brings me to suggestion 2.

2. Rebuild funbox 2's community: admins are not enough to pop it. We need help from other communities/friends that are in a healthy relationship with CSN or are a part of CSN. Even my Drisk Brigade which is close to being ready to deploy needs some recruitment help. Also I don't want anything else to be added or removed from funbox 2 until we hear what a community wants from it. Once we have succeeded in doing this we then turn our heads to giving the lovenest some much needed help.

3. Rebuild the Lovenest: I have now words on how we can do this yet so Id like to hear from our community. What do you guys suggest we do when we come to this step? We need new game types, remove maps, remove that dreaded sound file that causes poor players to wait for 5min to fully download and much much more.

This is what I wanted to say during the meeting so now I guess we are in a bit of uproar about this Id like to see if I could help.

[xalde]

I've rarely hopped on any of the funservers, usually only when I needed a break from being dominated in the slayboxes, so I'm mostly ignorant of how to best help or rebuild or anything. Regardless, here are my thoughts to consider:

* Do the funbox servers get quickplay players? How do they get random people to join them - people browsing the server list? I honestly don't know, and wouldn't think they do since those servers aren't hosting valve maps or have proper valve server specs or whatever to funnel in quickplay players. So if that's the case, it would seem the need should focus less on populating the server (in hopes to trigger random people joining in) and more on rebuilding the community. I think it was a year or a few years ago there used to be a sizable number of regulars always on them, and I haven't seen those regulars in quite some time (nikkiwolf, arty, etc).

* My personal experience in the past (why I stopped going to funboxes) was that I could never download the maps. I would try to hop on, it would attempt to download, but then some reason it wouldn't (error, denied, something I don't know. Maybe I forgot to change my settings). That said, having an easily accessible location (pinned forum post, front page, whatev) listing maps used and where to download them would be extremely helpful. I have slow internet, so if I could download them while at work then I wouldn't have to wait at a loading screen to play on the server.

I'll lurk in the shadows and offer more input/suggestions as this progresses, but I hope my insight helps a little.

[Balubish]

No Xalde, it does not get quickjoin. It only works on Stock maps. Funservers only get ppl in with pop message, friends invite and regular gamers that come in each day to play.
Its only friend and community pop, so needs much more work than other pub servers thanks to only custom maps.

And personal opinion about the funservers even though my voice is weak for it cause im rarely there at all and shouldnt poke on the matter.
But I think it have waaaaay to many maps, and when voting is you get several suggestions and one of them are "Fun Maps". I always choose that, cause I want to have fun in general.
So its kinda stupid voting system I think. Split it up to PL, CTF, RACE or whatever the playstyles are and then choose what map.

[HausOfJoel]

FB2 has always had a superset community basically. It had younger players that would typically not partake in the forums or steam group. For a while I was inviting plays on that server to the group to build up that base and try to get them on the forums but nothing really come of it. If the server is back to its normal maps and mods it should not be to hard to pop

[xalde]

No Xalde, it does not get quickjoin. Funservers only get ppl in with pop message, friends invite and regular gamers that come in each day to play.

That's what I thought, so it seems that we really just need to build the community up again. Though the reason funbox isn't getting populated as much anymore could just be the fact that the critsandvich community in general has severely depleted - I remember a time (last year or year before?) when all three slayboxes were full as well as the funbox on any given day. Now we can only keep slaybox 1 full with a handful in funbox - just an effect of a declining community.

So community building ideas. No clue. I did gander at the facebook page, that seems pretty dead. Maybe have someone take over that. Don't know how effective contests are. More special events? How did that dodgeball thingy go, do something like that again, hold more funbox events? When was the last admin vs. community, how has that been going? Maybe I should go back to doing random reviews (games, cds, movies, etc) like I did years ago.

As an aside, the reason I keep coming to the slaybox is because of the people. The increased skill is nice, but I really go to listen to potatoes and balubish or johnnydrisk or medred chat about shenanigans and yet play seriously. I tend to lurk and not talk much, but I do enjoy that company. Also that special moment when enough people who kinda know each other are able to work together to do amazing things (great defense against a good offense, great push against a great defense). So I guess it's the community feel that keeps me there, and could be what gets me to funbox as well someday.

But I think it have waaaaay to many maps, and when voting is you get several suggestions and one of them are "Fun Maps". I always choose that, cause I want to have fun in general.

The only maps I've played on funbox was the airship/balloonship race and mariokart. Fun for exploring, balloonship was always fun. Exploring in mario kart was fun. Whenever I go to funbox I'm just looking for fun and chatter. I'm not aware of what the other maps are, and with my slow internet I'm not going to sit for half an hour or so to download something only to be bored after a minute. So an information center listing maps and what they are?

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I suppose I'm just treating this as another brainstorming session. Hope it helps, of if I'm just polluting the air let me know and I'll shush.

[Ron Swansons Stache]

Are there websites where servers are ranked for 'fun' type maps? I know on Minecraft you can get rankings for all types of Minecraft servers, does the same exist for TF2? If so, are we submitted onto these and fully updated with our info?

[Someone Special]

Are there websites where servers are ranked for 'fun' type maps? I know on Minecraft you can get rankings for all types of Minecraft servers, does the same exist for TF2? If so, are we submitted onto these and fully updated with our info?

I've definitely seen them. I'll edit this post if I can find it.

[HausOfJoel]

Are there websites where servers are ranked for 'fun' type maps? I know on Minecraft you can get rankings for all types of Minecraft servers, does the same exist for TF2? If so, are we submitted onto these and fully updated with our info?

I've definitely seen them. I'll edit this post if I can find it.

I do know there are ways to search for servers by mod and map. I'm not sure if they are ranked but they should be on there