There are pro and cons to running member-supported communities. While I agree that getting kicked for a reserved slot (which, btw, your two year old example of No Heroes was the old system, prior to using two "hidden" slots to allow supporters to direct connect to a full server, making reserved slot kicks of public players much less necessary) is not ideal, the other side of that coin is asking the people to stand in line to play on the hardware they're paying for, which I also think is a bad idea. It's a debate we've had back and forth for years, but there's no real elegant solution that will satisfy both community supporters and public players. Hiding a couple of slots that only supporters can directly join is a happy medium for us.
At any rate, without getting the thread too far off track, community building is a long, slow process that requires consistency and a lot of like-minded people. Regardless of your personal feelings about this or that community, if they have consistently full servers without the use of the nefarious things we've talked about here (fake clients, redirects, hidden bots, false sv_tags, etc.), then they are obviously doing something right. The issue, I think, is that some people attempt to start a gaming community thinking that if they can fill a game server - using whatever means necessary - then that will equate to a thriving/successful community, and that's simply not the case. I remember 4 years ago playing on our (at the time) one TF2 server for hours with 3-4 other people, just trying to get people to join and stick around. It took 4-6 months of doing that every single day before we had a decent group of "regulars". Most folks, unfortunately, don't have that kind of perseverance, and prefer to try any shortcut they can to get traffic (which is usually short-lived anyway). There is a lot you can do to build the kind of value into a community that will attract long-term supporters (and, believe it or not, it has very little to do with reserved slots). Special events, competitions, unique tools that help your supporters maintain clean servers...the list goes on and on. Reserved slots are a dime a dozen - players want more value out of a community these days than that. On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 7:22 PM, Cc2iscooL <cc2isc...@gmail.com> wrote: > When I ran a community it was mainly funded by donations with myself > making up any remainder that hadn't been donated. The only 'perk' anyone > got for donating was a little tag next to their name in the community > forums that said Donor, and more often than not people chose to donate > anonymously so they didn't get the tag. It's really one of those things > that if people really do enjoy what is offered they will help out. I've > personally donated myself to communities in other games (even small > amounts) with no 'reward' for donating besides the fact that the server > stays up. People value a good place to play and even though at the time I > made enough to support the servers myself, donations helped lessen the > burden, and we had little tournaments every once in a while if we had > donations that surpassed what was required per month to keep the servers up > with gaming-type prizes. Was pretty fun and our community seemed to enjoy > it. > > On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 6:50 PM, Gavin Langdon <puttabu...@gmail.com>wrote: > >> That's not really true, IMO. For example, donations to WWF (the World >> Wildlife Fund) or PBS give you perks such as tote bags, DVDs, and plenty of >> other gifts. Certainly, the value of the gifts is much lower than they >> would be--they're more incentives rather than actual products--but the fact >> remains, there are still perks for donating. >> >> Now certainly TF2 community donations are not anywhere near the same as >> actual nonprofit organizations, but I think it's fair to call them >> donations. Many of the people who donate to CSn do it more because they >> enjoy their community rather than because they want round-end immunity. >> >> Since you mentioned reserved slots, yes we do have them, but we do not >> have the kicking feature enabled, so our servers appear full (24/24) >> instead of 23/24. We too dislike the kicking reserved slots. >> >> --Gavin "Benny Hill" L from the Crit Sandvich Network >> >> On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 6:41 PM, Invalid Protocol < >> invalidprotocolvers...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> As far as I know, when you donate (money or goods) you don’t expect >>> something back. Very few communities use donations to support the servers. >>> **** >>> >>> ** ** >>> >>> Most of them simply sell something (access to reserved slot, immunity >>> during humiliation round etc…) for real money and call this a donation. >>> Also, as far as I know, No Heroes servers can kick a player to free a slot >>> for a “donator” ( >>> http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1531500), so in >>> their case is “pay to play” instead “pay to win”.**** >>> >>> ** ** >>> >>> *From:* hlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com [mailto: >>> hlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com] *On Behalf Of *E. Olsen >>> *Sent:* Saturday, May 05, 2012 12:59 AM >>> >>> *To:* Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list >>> *Subject:* Re: [hlds] Policy of Truth??**** >>> >>> ** ** >>> >>> Yeah - let's not paint communities whose members donate to support their >>> servers as something negative. Community supported servers are as old as pc >>> gaming itself. Not all communities that are member-supported are "pay to >>> win". We sure as hell aren't.**** >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, >>> please visit: >>> https://list.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hlds >>> >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, >> please visit: >> https://list.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hlds >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, > please visit: > https://list.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hlds > >
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