There is a middle ground, I feel. I view it as my responsibility to
fund the servers, but for those who choose to donate I simply give them
access to reserved slots. I have a handful of hidden slots set up so no
one already in game gets kicked when someone with a reserved slot
chooses to join.
The donator rights you describe are certainly deplorable. I've never
played on servers set up that way, but it sounds like those that do and
donate are the sort who play through games using cheat codes to win.
That or they are naive and were tricked into believing that is how the
game is meant to be played, which is a shortcoming of the quick play
system in my opinion that people are sent to those servers in the first
place.
I also don't run a 32 player server. I run 2 24 player servers, not
that it matters.
On 8/10/2012 9:00 PM, Cameron Munroe wrote:
My only issue is that most donator rights come with a benefit. i.e.
you donate you get round end immunity, which by all standards isn't
bad. If you on a !rtd server you get 100% positive rolls. However,
like many servers that I have been on you can also buy adminship, ban
immunity, extra health, unlimited ammo, multiple senturies, noclip, 0
grav, and much much more. These are very simple ways of getting lots
of people to donate, but they pollute the game. I've been on servers
where there is purchasable adminship and all they did was abuse. I've
been on servers with unlimited ammo and they just spammed the whole
game. These servers you would think would go into the ground, but they
don't they are safe as all the people who donated keep coming back for
there kicks and people keep coming because the server has players.
Finally those players buy it too and then you get servers which I
fear. Where the only way to have fun, and some slight bit of success
is to buy / donate and the only way to be better then everyone else is
to donate more.
The above is what scared me more then an ad, I don't even realize the
ad is there much of the time anymore. However, I still find servers
with the above living and breathing and there communities are 10000+
on steam groups, with there auto-inviters. Yet I stayed small and let
my community slowly blossom into a 161 steam group members =D and over
80K connects in less then 7 months. I was asked if I wanted an
auto-inviter, and I said "no." Yet people still no the name of my
servers and they carry around the clan tag with pride. I never pushed
them into using it, they just started to add it. There happy when they
are on and in the end that is all that matters. I never had to use a
fake client cheat and I work swiftly to kill all cheaters. Yet this
conversation is still based on one fact, "ads." I use them and people
keep connecting. They come on to the server and quickly begin beating
the crap out of other players, laughing and trying to sell that one
item that they want to get rid of for a simple scrap. My server is
ranked 52nd on gametracker so I must not be doing anything horribly
wrong and mind you this is less then 6 months to almost the top. My
server doesn't have the overzealous player count of 32, but a more
reasonable 26. Players keep coming and keep asking for more. My 26
player server is now nearly full 24/7 and rarely blips down below 16
players. I compete with your 32 and yet I survive.
The fact is that even if you say that ads are against your community,
there what keeps mine up. Players say "...YOUR SERVER HAD RUINED ME
FOR ALL OTHER[s]...." and yet I still have ads.
You think that ads kill communities, I think abusive admins, and
unrestrained donator rights do.
The End.
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