The server score is completely defeated by fake clients. Even if no one is on the server fake clients still show up as players thus elevating the score when no one is even playing. Within a few weeks you can have a highly ranked server without even having players on your server. So while your server is loosing rank in off peak hours fake client servers appear to be full still and jump ahead of you in rankings.
If you guys are not totally funding your servers with pinion by now. You have no idea what you are doing. You can bash ads all you want but it pays for all my servers. Donations at this point are actually gravy. Pinion is not going away so stop wishing. Players can disable html messages at any point or blacklist you so if you spam them with ADs you will end up empty soon enough. Overall Fake Clients is a very serious issue and it undermines the server ranking. The entire point is it tricks the quickplay system into believing there are players on the server and therefore sends you more players which give you ad views. Fake clients fill servers and if you think you can go toe to toe with a admin running fake clients you have lost your mind. Players stay on servers with more players and quickplay sends them more players. F2P players have no idea the server is full of fake bots with artificial pings and avatars. While you wait for your servers to fill Fake client servers are full first and stay full longer and this just defeats the server score you think is an equalizer. It most certainly is not. Fake clients undermines the entire system. ----- Original Message ----- From: "E. Olsen" <[email protected]> To: "Mart-Jan Reeuwijk" <[email protected]>, "Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list" <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2012 7:10:10 AM Subject: Re: [hlds] Server Delisting, does it need some changes? I think that everyone has already overlooked the fact that Valve already has in place the best method possible for weeding out poor servers - the server score. If a player leaves a server quickly (which I have to think they will with a bunch of fake clients, etc.) the score will decline over time, allowing the cream to rise to the top. Again - I think the root of the problem here is quickplay itself. Practically overnight, it has lulled new server operators into thinking that filling servers is not only easy, but is (for the most part) Valve's responsibility. It has also led to a rise in the use of fake clients/illegitimate bots in an attempt to garner as much of that "easy traffic" as possible. We've seen the effects of this every time there is a hiccup or small change in the system, as this list lights up with complaints of "quickplay is not working", or "quickplay no longer fills my servers", etc. etc. Those complaints are invariably followed by calls for more action against the bad players. Now, I'm all for taking action against the bad guys - the less of them the better (for the players, that is). My point is, even if Valve were able to rid the server list of every nefarious operators using these kinds of cheats, it wouldn't increase most server operator's traffic one bit over what you are already getting (which, if everyone who has their torch and pitchfork out would admit, is the motivation behind these debates - everyone wants the traffic those servers are getting). Looking at the other side of this debate, there's something to consider: 1. Would you actually WANT a player willing to buy admin right and/or those premium "pay to win" benefits? I sure as hell wouldn't - that's one step up from buying a hack, IMO. If they're willing to do that, they're willing to exploit anything they can to win - no thanks. 2. I agree that getting people to donate early on is next to impossible. My question is, than why would you? We went our first 9 months before accepting a single dime in donations. Build the value FIRST in your community, and the donations will come. If your next argument is that donations "dried up", so I HAD to run ads, I would submit to you that you failed to maintain and build the value in your community, and adding ads to your MOTD is not adding to that value, it's simply using random player connections/impressions as a means of keeping afloat. Will it pay your bills? Maybe...for a time, but Pinion would not be the first net advertising channel to go under due to poor sales conversions, and I doubt even the smallest fraction of players exposed to those ads are in the "buying" frame of mind, and click-thru/complete a purchase. Over time, Pinion's pool of advertisers may (IMO) most likely dry up, eliminating that source of revenue. What is your backup plan then? 3. In the end, there is a fix to all this, but most involved in this conversation won't like it: Do away with quickplay for all but the newest (i.e. less than 100 playing hours) players. In fact, let's disable the server browser for new players, and only let them use quickplay until they reach a certain point (i.e. X number of hours played with each class on X number of stock maps). Valve could make it something to work towards - no access to the server browser until you've achieved all the minimum requirements to teach you the game, etc. Once you've reached that, the quickplay button goes away, and the server browser button appears. Let's get back to making server operators actually work at building regular server traffic again. None of this nefarious activity was ever an issue before the quickplay system was turned on, as it really didn't really help the guys who did it that much. Server operators that went to the enormous effort of building awesome gaming environments and consistently seeding their servers (you know, by actually playing on them until they filled up) were rewarded over time with players that favorited them and came back, over and over. If your community/servers cannot survive without quickplay, you honestly have to ask yourself if they deserve to. If you rely on random players that are SENT to you, as opposed to players you ATTRACT, then you are building a house of cards, plain and simple. On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 6:27 AM, Mart-Jan Reeuwijk < [email protected] > wrote: ?? Never see any ads on YT, oh, wait, I blocked them :) Same as for in-game adds, MOTD = disabled. No need to "read" them if one doesn't: cheat, swear, abuse, grief, etc. And those that do, aren't reading it either. They can "plaster" it with ads for all I care. As for the actual SUBJECT of this topic (its gone way off-topic with the ads stuff), I think valve is already moving into the steam login required for setting up/running servers. Altho I think they should set it up that server owners can make a new steam account, and then request via web-page on steam to add server functionality to it (for dedicated servers), after which they can set up servers. That those should get linked to the owner's main account and the communities steam group(s) should also be nice. Once that is in place, a good "hammering" is possible. From: Sampson Rogers < [email protected] > To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list < [email protected] > Sent: Saturday, 11 August 2012, 5:46 Subject: Re: [hlds] Server Delisting, does it need some changes? I see no harm in servers running a MOTD ad that takes all of 1 click to get past with no extra effort. There is absolutely nothing wrong with supporting servers by clicking right past something you're not even required to view. Look at places like Youtube, they have ads on nearly all of their videos you have to wait a few seconds to get past and you can't tell me Google needs more money. You can also disable HTML MOTD if you choose, that sounds like a fair in between to me. No reason to punish communities that provide a good gaming experience but also run ads on the MOTD to keep the servers afloat. Nothing wrong with it at all. Other communities shouldn't be frowned upon for needing a monetary hand in getting started or maintaining their servers as long as they do things the right way, don't exploit their users for only a quick buck and properly administrate their servers. The truth is, it is not always easy to get donations, even when you run a solid community, especially starting out. _______________________________________________ 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 _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: https://list.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hlds
