Server Communities
Hey guys,
I am researching what people generally like about server communities and what people generally dislike.
The purpose of this research is aid me in deciding whether or not to start my own.
Basically I want to know the following (if it applies)
1. What server community(s) do/did you belong to?
2. What were unique points, if any about it?
3. What did you enjoy most about being a part of a server community?
4. What did you enjoy least?
5. If you could create your own community, what kind of members would want? What special additions would you put in to let people know that this was your community?
6. Any other helpful advice or comments
Thanks a lot, catch ya later.
I am researching what people generally like about server communities and what people generally dislike.
The purpose of this research is aid me in deciding whether or not to start my own.
Basically I want to know the following (if it applies)
1. What server community(s) do/did you belong to?
2. What were unique points, if any about it?
3. What did you enjoy most about being a part of a server community?
4. What did you enjoy least?
5. If you could create your own community, what kind of members would want? What special additions would you put in to let people know that this was your community?
6. Any other helpful advice or comments
Thanks a lot, catch ya later.
Comments
<b>1. What server community(s) do/did you belong to?</b>
TacticalGamer.com, since 2002.
<b>2. What were unique points, if any about it?</b>
The community, plainly, requires that its members act like adults. Yes, any social human will make an ###### of himself given enough time, but the community applies to its members (on and off our servers) tenets that you expect from a bunch of adults with a common interest: respect, capable communication, and, when in the servers: teamwork. In games more suited for it, they also demand a certain degree of realism in their gameplay. Those are things *I* like in my gameplay, so it works nicely (for me).
<b>3. What did you enjoy most about being a part of a server community?</b>
The social aspect. If you look long enough, you can find rules you like, or love. If not, you can create them on your own server. But finding *people* who will treat you as a friend, who are moderately selfless and giving as *people*... THAT is what makes gameplay GREAT (for me, at least), night after night after night, and *that* is enabled by "being part of a server community".
<b>4. What did you enjoy least?</b>
Drama. Anytime you put enough humans together, it's only a matter of time before some of us get pissy about this or that. And that is of course true even among adults. It's the cost of doing business. I go out of my way to avoid it whenever I can.
<b>5. If you could create your own community, what kind of members would want? What special additions would you put in to let people know that this was your community?</b>
One could argue I did create my own community, within TG: TGNS. I shaped it around the "kind of members" I wanted: nice people, who could play the game without acting like spoiled children. I didn't care about skill, so much, though a nice side effect of demanding that people act like adults and use teamwork is that some of the game's better players (competitive and not) enjoy TGNS and the functional teamplay they learn to rely on there. About "letting people know that this was yours", see my next answer. Summary: decide what you are and BE IT.
<b>6. Any other helpful advice or comments</b>
Man, oh man.... do I have a piece of advise to anyone trying to emulate TGNS' success: stick to your guns. Decide what you ARE, and then BE IT. People are going to tell you what a miserable failure you are, and how ridiculous you look, and why you're doing this wrong, and you've got to take from that what's useful (especially from folks who present their arguments, again, like adults) and *genuinely ignore* the rest. When people recognize that you're confident in what you are ("teamwork required", "3500+ Level Combat", "24/7 de_dust", "Kids Eat Free", *etc/whatever*), *and* they see themselves fitting with your gig nicely, they *will* give you the opportunity to retain them as a regular visitor. If all goes well, that regularity of presense eventually enables the friendships that lead to the richness I referenced in the other answers above.
I've counseled, both technically and administratively, several folks before who have come to me wanting to create their own servers/communities. The more communities from which players can choose a home, the happier everyone is, and the more content each of is where we are (because alternatives exist). I have trouble putting my finger exactly on what's worked so well for TGNS.
Oh god... so many, starting off at some random clan server, joined lunixmonster, fr31ns, NSA, now mostly jigglies, but I play OldF still when there are people there. Outside of NS I'm the head moderator at the TA Spring comunity and I moderate for the Source Forts Mod community (where we're currently trying to set up a league that I will administrate for).
<b>2. What were unique points, if any about it?</b>
Each one was so different... LM was strict as hell with several gameplay rules, fr31 wasn't very strict and had no swearing rules, NSA is... interesting... Jigglies is virtually un-admined, and OldF isn't strictly adminned.
<b>3. What did you enjoy most about being a part of a server community?</b>
Status and familiarity. I like playing with people I know and people who know me, this is probably why I haven't been incredibly discerning over playing places where I agree with the rules, I just play there for the regulars. Really bad rules or poorly executed systems can make me leave a place though.
<b>4. What did you enjoy least?</b>
Dealing with overbearing administration. The more I play the more I find if you're going to make rules in a server don't expect your administration to enforce them, just code a plugin that does it automatically, if you can't, then it's a bad rule to make.
Trying to get administration to uphold a rule in an unbiased manner is practically impossible. 90% of your admins will either not like the rule so ignore infractions, or take it way too seriously and enforce infractions that have nothing to do with the spirit in which the rule was made. A perfect example is how on NSA certain admins regularly use the "Play for the benefit of the team" rule to ban people who either don't know what they are doing or are trying to do something creative for whatever reason, or just are generally frustrating the admin. NS is a frustrating game, these kinds of rules are only good for justifying fascist actions that wouldn't have even been made likely if it wasn't the heat of the moment.
<b>5. If you could create your own community, what kind of members would want? What special additions would you put in to let people know that this was your community?</b>
I'd want your average mix of decent players, competitive, ex competitive, and a few pub stars and noncompetitive regs for good measure. I'd likely run the chamber vote plugin and decrease the round time so you don't have to play the same maps several times in a row. I'd shy away from game play modifying plugins as they usually confudle what has taken alot of work to perfect (laser mines, spore mines, giveres, and the buildmenu or whatever the hell it is plugin)
<b>6. Any other helpful advice or comments</b>
I'd have to agree with wyzcrak. Decide what you are and stick to it until at very least it's apparent weather it works or not. If you have to change your face, do it all at once. Also, do away with useless ideology, ideological dreams of how "the game should be played" or "we must encourage teamwork" just lead to stupid impractical and dysfunctional rules that destroy the ability of the server to be successful. Do what you do because it works, ditch the things you ditch because they don't work. A while back TG implimented a system where when one team was stacked against it made the lowest scored player on the other team join it. The ideology was that teams should be even numbers at all times, what it practically meant was that as soon as one team started losing and people rage quit, people who had worked hard for their win started getting off loaded onto the losing team at the last moment, and they were all the low skill players who couldn't make a difference anyways. While ideologically it's more fun to play with even teams, the ideology couldn't be forced mechanically, and for practical reasons the system was broken. That the system works is more important then that the ideology is appeased. Only chase down ideals of play when it can be done with a system that works from a practical stand point. Finally, treat people as people. No one will respect anything you show unless you win their human side first.
Running a community is intensely complex. It's one part an exercise of psychology, one part an exercise of diplomacy, one part of leadership, one part of technical skill and one part of common sense. If you personally lack in any field get someone who you know is strong to take over that field, and don't appoint people powers that you don't believe they are ideal for unless you know they won't use them. At TAS the web administrators don't moderate the forums and the forum moderators can't administrate the website. At SF they tried the opposite and it's caused one drama bomb after another. Technicians aren't necessarily diplomatically in tuned and may not understand why they can't ban people who criticize their work, and diplomats may think they have a solution to a technical problem, but their solution may explode your website. Get these people intercommunicating with each other when they need things done rather then trying to fudge things them selfs.
As I read his last paragraph, it occurs to me just how compartmentalized TG is, whether you're looking at the greater beast (larger -- and older -- than most communities you'll find), or the TGNS sub-community. You've got your base admin. That's adminstration Level One. Then you've got forum moderators, selected (typically, but not exclusively) from the "admin" pool. These people as Swift said, are trusted to keep their cool while enforcing in the community the administration's preferred decorum.
Anyone with a greater role, I suppose, is who you'd really consider "Staff". And that's where the heaviest work gets done, and, as Swift suggested, that is where *I* (come to think of it) observe the greatest separation of duties. Everyone knows what everyone is in charge of, and very rarely does anyone else handle that responsibility. It keeps order in what could easily become chaos.
The older days of Guns4back2school, mostly the 1.0x-3.0(earlier) days. I'm not really part of their community right now, most of the regulars from 1.0x.3.0 are gone so I'm really unfamilar with quite a few people.
<b>2. What were unique points, if any about it?</b>
There were some people who disagreed with others, insulted others, but we usually resolved the problem quickly and it's usually for jokes anyway.
The main point was that everyone knew each other real well, it felt like playing with a group of friends you knew well from real life.
The reason why it felt so friendly/close is because back when NS was on WON, with the horrible download speeds, well G4B2S used to kick anyone who tries to download custom maps from their server directly, and they had about 60% custom maps most of the time. You had to download all these maps from their website and install them, which took quite a bit of time, but was well worth it as it was one great server(back then).
<b>3. What did you enjoy most about being a part of a server community?</b>
The best part was making 4 of my best friends on natural selection(<i>they don't play anymore, but I do have their contacts, don't really talk to them much at all actually</i>) and commanding.
What I like the most was that I was one crappy commander. I was a really horrible commander, caused marines many many victories throughout the day and week. People said "Oh no, Petco's commanding, we're going to lose", that wasn't bad. <b><u>The best part was that they never ejected me once.</u></b> Since we know each other well(<i>well just regonize each other's names</i>) they didn't mind if a player failed to do something or cost the team's victory.
After I failed several games commanding, I gotten better, a lot better. Then I won almost every game I commanded, and I became a well known commander. People were "Petco's commanding, don't eject, we're going to win".
And hearing that(the praises) and getting to be one of the more 'famous' commanders was <b>awesome</b>.
Unfortunately, those days are gone now(<i>since I'm horrible at commanding now, haven't commanded in over a year, and no one I knew back then plays anymore</i>), I do miss them and that was the Climax of my Natural Selection game experience.
<b>4. What did you enjoy least?</b>
Probably downloading the custom maps and getting into the server(<i>it's full often, and even more nowadays, can't get in without being a donator</i>). From the actual game experience, I really can't think of any, and I'm only speaking of the older G4B2S days, I haven't really played much NS at all to experience the present G4B2S.
<b>5. If you could create your own community, what kind of members would want? What special additions would you put in to let people know that this was your community?</b>
I have to say like the other posters said, a decent mix of team players, players who don't really flame others, or are skeptical at certain strats.
Admins won't be too abusive, actually I prefer for admins <b>not to play</b> and <b>instead have a forum where people can take demos of players who break rules, and I'll ban them from there.</b>(<i>That's kind of like the current G4B2S way</i>) I've had bad experiences with abusive admins, and most I played with weren't too 'friendly' and I mean not because there were people who were clearly breaking the rules, it's because they were just plain being abusive.
Some people can't handle power, they don't have self-control, even if I picked the 4 'ns best friends' that I mentioned earlier to be admins, I think they can't handle being admin without abuse.
Abuse doesn't really have to mean exploiting their admin powers directly, like kicking or banning people for no reason. <b>In most servers, admins can be jerks and get away with it easily.</b> That's really a bad impression for players new to the server, and like I said before, I had a really bad experience with admins.
<b>6. Any other helpful advice or comments</b>
It's concering the admin thing again, don't hire anyone to be an admin, make sure admins don't abuse or get away with rules.
If you're having problems with your admins not listening or so, I'd suggest the method that I pointed out above, which is to not have any admins play(<i>except you obviously</i>), and just have players post demos/videoes of players breaking the rules, hacking, etc on a forum. Then you can ban them from there.
The vote kicks/bans don't really work well either, a lot of players accidently vote anyway since they have to switch weapons.
<b>You do have to monitor your server for the first months</b> or so before adding some player base banning system where players can just post videos and give proof of players breaking rules.
Prediction: Firewater shuts down his project after 1 week, citing "IRL reasons" and that "Nobody cared about the hard work he was doing." Then he vows that he is quitting Natural Selection, as well as computer games and the internet in general, for good. 2 weeks later, he's back.
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cmon mate, dont be so harsh.
If he is willing to spend 300+ dollars for a dedicated server from
<a href="https://www.insomnia365.com/" target="_blank">https://www.insomnia365.com/</a>
or the likes then he is starting on the right foot.
More power to him if he can afford to pay off the server for a few months till donations start rolling in.
edit: and imo personally, i dont like playing on community servers that don't run their own box but would rather rent a server from a gaming company. It just shows they are more established, ect imo
- Shockwave
Basically we have until around december to work on this. And actually I require the following kind of people to make this happen, I will post a forum advertisement later, but as of right now these are the people we require.
Envision/PHP coders, front end developers and skinning. This would be for the forum.
Promotions/Public Relations work. It would be best if people had status in other communities to bring out our community project and attract members to the forums and gameservers. Anyone with significant pull in large general gaming communities (i.e. Halflife2.net) etc... would be perfect for this job.
News Updaters. People who are involved with various gaming communities and have new info about whats going on in different game's communities.
Artists: Particularly logo design, banners, skins, buttons etc...
This what we need to kick off by december, anyone seriously interested (those who are worthless and continue to be so, and leave me alone) please send me a private message and I will work out a way to communicate to the people who running the show.
We want to launch by december. I wish I had found these guys sooner but unfortunately I didn't. They already have some of the people onboard, but they really want to make some custom stuff for the site that hasn't been done before.
All we ask is that if you commit to the project is that you do what you are going to say, if not more. Nothing more worthless than a good idea without the means of execution.
If you are still interested, hit me up with a private message.
1. Lunixmonster (plus TG)
2. It was AWESOME. I guess having members of the NS community that I had known for a while counts as something.
3. The people were neato.
4. ARGH THE SERVER IS FULL.
5. I would want team players. I dunno what kind of additions you're talking about. Maybe a MOTD?
6. Banhappy admins > no admins.
Basically, Nano was fun because it was a goof-off atmosphere full of friendly, helpful people. It sucked at points because of the mega-strict admins and negative attitude towards anyone who was good at NS. The Vet server was awesome because it was the only place it seemed that I could go for decent competition without having to PUG a scrim. It had a tendency to be pretty harsh to newbs or anyone that didn't perform up to standard, though.
IMO, split the server cost with a friend so you have two people with ultimate admin power. Hasty bans and being seen as a "nazi admin" are good ways to kill your community off. It'd be a lot easier to avoid that type of stuff if you have someone to consult with who shares the same level of power as you.
I started playing NS on Bugeyed Aliens from Navan, and later on the neXt server at jarHedz. I now play on YO-clan, which is the best server in europe at the moment, and long may it last. I was a founding member at jarHedz, so I've been involved with running a gaming based community for a very long time. Recently I stepped down from jarHedz to focus more exclusively on NS so for the first time in a long time I'm just a random gamer now, with no responsibilities for running game servers and I'm enjoying it.
2. What were unique points, if any about it?
jarHedz was formed by gamers a little older than average to provide a place where consistent, fair and effective adminning was offered in a friendly atmosphere. Over the years we've offered our services to help many communities and mods get up and running. We hosted ns downloads, readyroom.org, commchair.com and the first constellation test. We basically got some really awesome sponsorship and were able to use our abilities to help those in need of hosting, bandwidth and expertise. We never charged anything for any service. When our sponsorship fell through, our illustrious friend ShockWave and his cohorts at playzen came to our rescue with an even sweeter sponsorship deal.
3. What did you enjoy most about being a part of a server community?
Having a regular place to hang out and enjoy games with friendly people. I play games predominatly to relax, I look for a relaxed approach to gaming where people don't take themselves too seriously.
4. What did you enjoy least?
Dealing with people who assume that skill entitles them to influence. When we had a very popular CS server, we got constant grief from people who insisted on dicating what our server rules should be. Who took pleasure in causing drama on the server. In the end we just stopped hosting cs.
5. If you could create your own community, what kind of members would want? What special additions would you put in to let people know that this was your community?
I'd want players who can respect those that frequent the community. Those people who who say "lol internet serious business" yet take the time to make the insulting jokes again and again are exactly the people you don't want. The internet isn't serious business, and neither is life. But a certain amount of civility is required for a community to flourish. Any community that caves to pressure from these people and begins to tolerate a certain amount of antagonism ( all in the name of humour of course ) eventually stops growing, and member turnover will then cause it to shrink. Communities need to be welcoming to new members above all else.
6. Any other helpful advice or comments
Wyz said it best. You need to define your ethos and then commit to it.
<!--quoteo(post=1570317:date=Oct 17 2006, 11:51 AM:name=Firewater)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Firewater @ Oct 17 2006, 11:51 AM) [snapback]1570317[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Nothing more worthless than a good idea without the means of execution.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->What's the "good" around your "idea"? Not 24 hours after you soliciited recommendations regarding the very core of your "idea", you're engaged in "execution", soliciting staff and making financial obligations (or planning to)? Careful not to be seduced by the excitement of activity. I'm sure this idea's been rattling around in your head for some time, but it's only going to be more complicated for you to solidify your "ethos" later, when you have X number of administrative stakeholders.
Just make sure you know what you are. Don't fall into the trap of "build now, design later."
My ethos is not ready to be released yet, as I haven't had time to explain my logic and philosophy. But to sum it up "Have fun, play to win" I will explain more when the time is right.
It will be ready when I run it past the people I am working with so that we are on the same page.
Expect something by the end of the week.
Wyz you took my quote out of context. The "good idea" quote was based on the fact that a lot of people have good ideas, but either too lazy or incapable of executing them. We do not need a bunch of thinkers in our community team, we need people who will think of things (i.e. art design, coding, PR blitz, etc...) and execute their ideas, with or without help from the other team members.
We are preparing to launch by december, I have plenty of time. If its not ready by then, then we will delay.
If people can't have fun while playing in a competitive enviornment, there are plenty of other servers to accomodate the type of play they want.
I want to encourage aggressiveness, improvisation, and skill. I want to welcome talent, not ban it.
I want to encourage aggressiveness, improvisation, and skill. I want to welcome talent, not ban it.
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As we've discussed on many an occasion FW, the rub is the sort of mentality that tends to accompany those traits. Good luck to you, but I'd rather not have all the e-drama to deal with. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
At jarHedz we had the concept of a lifeline. A banned player has one free unban for their behaviour, but the process of getting unbanned is our way of stating clearly that the behaviour is not tolerated. It works fairly well, and diffuses a lot of the grief I see on other server communities. The head admin does have the authority to deny a player their lifeline, but only in the most extreme circumstances. I can't recall that ever happening though.
Another important principle of jarHedz is: the admin is always right. We do not publically criticise our admins, but they all know that if they abuse their position they lose their admin. The admin team must appear united with a single consistent purpose. You don't air your dirty washing in public.
Also at jarHedz, any admin that ever takes action based on suspected cheating is *required* to take a demo. Each demo is reviewed by our head admin on his 'haxbox'. He makes a judgement and educates the admins on how to be sure someone is cheating. If we are unsure, we give the player the benefit of the doubt. I'd rather not ban 100 cheaters than incorrectly ban one non-cheater.
Going back to the skill issue: Most skilled players are friendly and cooperative with admins, but you will get a few who insist on dictating server policy. Make it clear that such discussions are welcome, but only on the forums. Nothing is more disruptive to a frenzy of gaming than an ongoing debate with admins. One of the more common debates that happens in NS is over the issue of stacking. We all know that NS requires reasonably well balanced teams, and how disruptive a skill stack can be. Make your house rules on this issue carefully, and enforce them strictly. Dod has a similiar problem: we do not allow players to shoot into spawn on our server. On some maps it is possible to take a very safe sniping position that covers enemy spawn and rack up kills. The house rule works very well, but we still regularly get players who insist we have no right to stop them from doing this.
If you just allow a free for all on your server, not many people will want to play there. The popular servers are the ones that provide structures that encourage good games. Any NS server that begins to tolerate stacking rapidly becomes unpopular, no matter how skilled the players who try to keep it busy are.
NTFM, No Time For Muppets.
<b>2. What were unique points, if any about it?</b>
Friendly and fun over seriousness. It's a game after all but still playing the game as best you could.
<b>3. What did you enjoy most about being a part of a server community?</b>
The people.
<b>4. What did you enjoy least?</b>
The people.
<b>5. If you could create your own community, what kind of members would want? What special additions would you put in to let people know that this was your community?</b>
Been there, done it. Never ever, ever again.
<b>6. Any other helpful advice or comments</b>
From experience trying various methods:
1. Run it as a dictatorship YOU are in charge and right or wrong you are right. Democracy doesn't work for games.
2. Always think before acting not just about what you are doing but how it will be perceived.
3. Be prepared to draw the line <i>before</i> it stops being fun for you.
4. Dont take it too seriously, dont forget to play.
RIP NTFM.
a) the admin is not always right, that isn't to say that it's a good idea to air your dirty wash, just to say you get alot farther if you admit from square one you are human and you can make human mistakes from time to time. If you have a community member log on the forums and say "Hey, I'm banned, what gives" it's perfectly acceptable for the admin to say "sorry, I was trying to ban someone else" or "sorry, I over reacted, you're unbanned now" if that is the case. If people don't feel safe to try the right path first then they are just going to create negative whispers in the background. This is EXACTLY what happened at lunixmonster. There was a forum section for repealing bans, but it was basically just used as an avenue to tell bannee's how stupid they are and how much they deserve to be banned. Everyone knows how widely popular lunixmonster was. As to airing your dirty laundry, not claiming that admins are always right is not allowing people to come and dramafest you. If someone creates a post complaining about the current rules and suggesting new rules, that's legitimate, let conversation go on. However, if someone creates a topic saying "So and so admin is an idiot they should be fired" that is flaming the admin in question, you have every right to lock the thread and move the conversation to PMs. The server and community still belong to the people running it, and therefore on their private property they can allow the communication they want to and disallow that which they don't, so don't allow flaming, of anyone, especially admins and moderators. If a legitimate intelligent complaint can't be formed then nothing should be said.
b) Don't run as a dictatorship. Multiple people will have input and investment in your project and they deserve to be heard at all times. Pretending you are right when you are not does not make you look strong, it makes you look retarded. You won't be respected unless you treat your regulars and contributors, and anyone who joins up and plays on the server with respect until they prove they do not deserve respect. This isn't to say that ban and discipline decisions are up for vote, but it is to say that people deserve their opinion on your actions and you should hear them out with respect even if you ultimately won't agree. Ultimately the organization will be monarchic by design, you have certain people with power simply because they started the organization and they won't be voted out and someone else voted in, but this is not a good reason to stretch the usages of these powers, be a benevolent monarchy if you want success, fascist monarchy's will fail.
Of course admins make mistakes, and you should always welcome discussion on your rules and admin procedures. This should happen on the forums, not in game. Players need to accept that on the game server, they need to follow the rules as implemented by the admins. Also, Admins should not police each other, or overrule each other's decisions in public.
I remember what is good, and what is bad. Its safe to say my community will be nothing like Lunixmonster
<!--quoteo(post=1570390:date=Oct 18 2006, 04:32 AM:name=Shockwave)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Shockwave @ Oct 18 2006, 04:32 AM) [snapback]1570390[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
As we've discussed on many an occasion FW, the rub is the sort of mentality that tends to accompany those traits. Good luck to you, but I'd rather not have all the e-drama to deal with. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
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Hey in all fairness, I know how to deal with competitive players for the most part, seeing as I was one for the majority of the time I have been gaming online.
I will find a way to minimize the drama.
<!--quoteo(post=1570387:date=Oct 18 2006, 03:25 AM:name=lagger)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(lagger @ Oct 18 2006, 03:25 AM) [snapback]1570387[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
Hey, I was wondering what the server community under question would be for? I'm assuming a natural selection server community as its the most relavent, though nowhere in the thread from what I saw proposed this. I hope all goes well!
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No, it will be a multi-game community. I originally wanted to start a Nuclear-Dawn community, plans have changed.
Also, about demos... having a server-side demo of, literally, every second of gameplay on TGNS has been a godsend on more than ... more than SEVERAL occasions. I strongly recommend setting that up for yourself (all fully automated and self-managing, of course) whenever server resources allow (and the game in question provides the feature). It makes cheat reviews convenient, it makes behavioral investigations a breeze (it relinquishes you from having to trust *anyone's* account of "what happened" on the server), it provides fine promotional material (see sig movie), and re-watching great games as a group can be educational and entertaining (see sig event).
edit: it occurs to me that TGNS HLTV demos provide full voicecomm for both teams, which most demos don't, and that *is* key to their great usefulness. But there's still some merit in what I said about server-side demos.
Lunixmonster. Penguin...thing.
2. What were unique points, if any about it?
The people were good and warm, though they hated competitive players.
3. What did you enjoy most about being a part of a server community?
Always willing to talk, always used teamwork.
4. What did you enjoy least?
Their hate against competitive players. It was simply ignorance.
5. If you could create your own community, what kind of members would want? What special additions would you put in to let people know that this was your community?
Competitive players who consistently played, on a daily basis. And as to additions, I'd simply have a unique name, and in terms of NS, stick an extra icon in for specific players(really, a good example of this was the NS Armslab Veterans server).
6. Any other helpful advice or comments
Have admins that do their best to be objective. Opinions are the bane of succesful servers.
It is difficult to say without potentially insulting other communities, why I am starting my own. Being a competitive player, there are only two servers that I remember that not only provided a great gameplay experience, but at the same time remain full at peak hours. These two servers are the HAMPTONS, run by my former team HAM, and The NS Armslab Veteran server. These servers were amazing because they welcomed talent, and didn’t ban it on that sole basis. There were no subjective rules that could be passive-aggressively used against a player because maybe some of the regulars did not like him. There were no “role playing” rules that restricted how one plays the game to attempt to “simulate a realistic environment” which by the way often fails because I hardly know anyone who knows what tactics a military unit would use, likewise I think we even have less of an idea what tactics terrorists would use. But I digress. These kind of rules support “scrub” play. I define the scrub as per David Sirlin’s (professional gamer, and professional game designer) website <a href="http://www.sirlin.net" target="_blank">http://www.sirlin.net</a>. A scrub is merely a player that burdens themselves with mental obstacles while playing their game. He also reiterates that the scrub is not a stupid person, only one that restricts themselves for a variety of reasons. I personally believe that some of the reasons that people do restrict themselves are to role-play, achieve status (do not want to look to good, just want to fit in), prior conditioning (never learned how to excel at their game, so their skill level just stays the same), lack of motivation (people just want to play).
My goal is to provide not only the best possible gameplay experience, but at the sametime provide the resources for those who want to improve their play, but maybe unsure of how. My goal is also to provide rewards for skill, not ban it. Through personal experience (of course anecdotally) I feel that more often than not administrators will ban a person if they feel threatened by them, using the subjectively enforced rules to as a sort of justification for. Where as people who play the politics in the community are privy to said rule breaking because a lot of server communities have the “Good Ole Boy” theory, where eFriends do not have to follow the rules as much as new comers or strangers. In order to have these sorts of politics, one must have those subjectively enforced rules (i.e. No spawn camping, Counter Terrorists cannot attack because that’s not “real life” etc…) The problem with these rules is that they are relative to a person’s status within the community.
For example if I am on server XYZ, I play the politics, maybe even donate a little money, and I spawn camp in eclipse hive in the amazing game Natural Selection. While I am doing the camping however, I cleverly time when to pull out my knife so I can attack the resource node, and then switch to my primary weapon it is time to engage in combat. So my rationalizing for break said subjective rule is that “I am attacking the node and defending myself”. An admin would see me and say “its ok” due to eSocial Status. Now take the same situation only I am a new player or a competitive player, I would be banned on the spot, only to goto a ban forum which more or less acts as a place eMuscle Flexing for the admins.
Another example of this rule is on a particular role-playing server. The rule on a hostage map is that Terrorists cannot attack, for whatever reason. The rule is that whoever is defending must guard the objectives, the problem is there are no specific boundaries that determine a rules violation. So if a Terrorist goes offensive it is a rule violation, but there is at no point is there a clear definition of what is offensive or not. Another problem again, plays with the politics in this situation. I have seen personally people who are defined as “professional status”, that is those who “live by the rules” often are those who can find the best rationalizations for going offensive even though a majority of the server’s people would like to complain, but since they have the status they cannot be harmed. The irony is that professional status in this particular community is obtained by encouraging scrub play, while real professional status is any other online game is obtained by having talent and a mindset that is the direct opposite of what said community defines as professional.
The point of these two examples is to provide a logic about my community not wanting to encourage said rules and behaviors. These rules do not support aggressive play, improvisation, skill, rather they restrict it. These rules do not allow the flourishing of talent, rather they deny it. In a way I understand how some people want to keep the games at an equal level to retain their status. It is much easier for a scrub without competitive experience to be a star or have status due to “skill” when there are no competitive players without their mental prison around to steal their thunder. There are plenty of servers where those rules exist. My community will differ from those because I do not believe in personal politics with regards to playing a video game, I only believe in the effectiveness of play and the longevity of the server. That’s not to say I do not want to have a connection with the people who play on the server, I just do not want to turn connection into the Good Ole Boy system. My official rules, when I have time to seek counsel from the other members who will be running this with me, will be defined in the most objective terms possible. If I decide that there are to be gameplay limiting rules, I will not only clearly define the terms, I will enforce them on everyone.
This is my ethos. If you do not like it, there are plenty of other servers to play on. If you believe in this and want to help, please PM me.
Do we have precedent for such a community lasting long? Or is this the first?
Since I am a part of a multi-game community, as long as the servers can adapt to the popular games while maintaining the ethos if you will, I see no reason for it to die out. It can technically go on forever provided that the funding there.