Yeah, I'm not going take a debate into personal attacks, bud. Getting rid of motd ads might not bring community servers back, but it might bring players back to community servers, and that would be a step in the right direction.
Feel free to have the last word advocating for them, though - we'll just have to see if Valve makes a decision either way who was in the right in the end. On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 8:20 PM, Robert Paulson <thepauls...@gmail.com> wrote: > I don't need to know more about Valve than you do. All I need is logic. > > Patch: MOTD blocked for all quickplay users > What Happened: Quickplay users see no ads. Non-quickplay users can see ads. > > Patch: Quickplay defaults to official servers > What Happened: Quickplay users see no ads. Non-quickplay users can see ads. > > In terms of ads, there is absolutely no difference. It is obvious Valve > was concerned about having to police pay2win and similar mods. > > Even before ads existed on TF2, fake players was rampant. Saigns and > Nighteam both never worried about players leaving in droves when they saw > donators shooting 10x faster. And they still ended up with the most > players. They did not need to worry about convincing everyone to pay. You > only need 1 out of 1000 players to pay to make a profit. That's how > free2play works. How late did you join TF2 that you don't even know this? > > With or without ads there is an incentive to cheat the system. Even now > you have servers breaking the rules. This is an observable fact. This is > not an opinion. > > So actually no. You are still wrong. And beating of the dead horse of ads > isn't going to bring community servers back. Next thing you know Valve will > just remove the motd and do nothing else. > > > On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 4:10 PM, E. Olsen <ceo.eol...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> The more you keep beating this dead horse, the more you fill the mailing >>> list with gibberish that Valve simply doesn't care about. >> >> >> Let's not pretend that you know any more about what Valve cares about >> than I do. Maybe you're right - I don't think that's the case, but then >> again we'll not know unless Valve actually says once and for all "THIS is >> why we made the change two years ago, and this is what we want to prevent." >> >> However, there is absolutely no doubt that MOTD ads have been a negative >> towards player perception of community servers. Hell, I've never used them, >> nor frequented a server that does, but I have reason to hate them if for no >> other reasons than I had to give up the long-standing functionality of the >> MOTD window for quickplay players simply because those ads were being >> abused - yet another thing we lost because of the abuse of others. >> >> Another flaw in your argument is this: >> >> There is a way to monetize players connecting to a server that is never >>> going away. And that is premium status. >> >> >> Actually, no. >> >> Those kinds of operators, while they certainly had/have no place in >> quickplay, DID have to convince players to donate for the premium "perks" >> (or whatever they call them), so players aren't monetized simply by >> connecting to those server, they had to see some kind of value in giving >> those servers some $$$. >> >> ...and frankly, I have no beef with that, as long as they are playing by >> the rules, and abiding by the "Policy of Truth"/Quickplay Rules, etc. If >> there are players that find that kind of silly silly stuff fun, they should >> be able to pay for if they like. >> >> That's the distinction - one source of revenue encourages building value >> in a server environment, the other focuses solely on attaining the maximum >> possible player connections. It might be little difference to some, but I >> think the distinction is an important one. >> >> As for the rest of the "stop beating the horse about motd ads, they >> aren't a problem" argument, I'll agree to disagree - again, if for no other >> reason than Valve has *never* said otherwise, and I think they've >> brought far more damage to the *perception* of community servers than >> anything else - mainly due to the ease at which they will always be abused. >> Maybe Valve did use them (or allow them) on their servers (I've heard that >> before, but I've never seen a Valve server displaying a motd ad), but they >> are clearly not an advocate of them, or the thousands of Valve servers >> would be serving up those ads everyday (probably making Valve a bundle in >> the process). >> >> You may call it beating a dead horse, but no one here can speak for Valve >> but Valve - so until they actually weigh in one way or the other, your >> point of view is no more valid than mine. >> >> >> On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 6:35 PM, Matthias "InstantMuffin" Kollek < >> proph...@sticed.org> wrote: >> >>> "Use" != "Abuse" >>> >>> But honestly, yes. Communities used to run on actual donations. Not >>> whatever people call donations these days to avoid paypal refunding. >>> If you need to resort to ads to keep going, you're either doing >>> something wrong, or you shouldn't be hosting servers. >>> I hate ads, and I don't like people supporting them. >>> However with the situation as it is now, it is hard to attract players >>> if you're not trying to be yet another Valve server (and especially if >>> you're trying to be as original as possible), which in return makes it >>> difficult in getting eventually necessary donations. Plus, who would want >>> to donate to a server that isn't any different from a Valve server anyway? >>> Valve doesn't support being different. Being original. And this is what >>> the real community is all about. So Valve does not want a community, or >>> rather does not want to put the necessary effort into it. However small (or >>> not?) it is. >>> >>> On 05.09.2015 00:22, Rowedahelicon wrote: >>> Ads didn't always used to be a problem, and why do community servers get >>> the rage for ads when Valve has used them too? Pinion was used for official >>> valve servers before. They gave Arthur a special forum rank and I've seen >>> posts from Valve higher ups defend the use of Pinion. >>> >>> If a community has to use ads to survive, maybe it's not doing too well. >>> But Valve used them as early as everyone else. Can't get mad at the kids >>> for following the dad's example right? Plus if a player comes on and just >>> hates that community, they can venture to a different one. >>> >>> We're going to wind up breeding new players who don't want to explore >>> the world that the players made inside of the game. >>> >>> On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 5:54 PM, Robert Paulson < <thepauls...@gmail.com> >>> thepauls...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> You may disagree but you are simply plain wrong. People cheating the >>> server browser is still rampant and it goes on without any ads. There is a >>> way to monetize players connecting to a server that is never going away. >>> And that is premium status. >>> >>> The more you keep beating this dead horse, the more you fill the mailing >>> list with gibberish that Valve simply doesn't care about. >>> >>> "If the problem had simply been the handful of those "paytowin" or >>> "premium" operators, Valve could have simply blacklisted them and solved >>> the problem (there were never very many server operators selling "premium" >>> pay2win stuff anyway).." >>> >>> That is more likely to be the problem than the ads. As mentioned over >>> and over again, the ads issue was completely solved by completely blocking >>> them when people connected through quickplay. To borrow your own words, >>> if the problem had simply been ads, then why didn't they do exactly what >>> you said? It is really easy for them to simply remove HTML motd for >>> everyone instead of a subset of players. >>> >>> It seems like you've never reported a server before. Valve took over 3 >>> months to ban 100+ server communities using fake players such as >>> elitepowered. That is how much they don't want to bother cleaning the >>> server list. They don't even want to spend 30 minutes a week, let alone a >>> month, doing what needs to be done. >>> >>> And there was a time when Saigns was on quickplay and they never got >>> banned because their modifications were never explicitly mentioned in the >>> quickplay document. And they probably don't want to track down every >>> server that has instant respawn without the tags. Because they only way you >>> can verify this is by playing on each individual server. >>> >>> Having quickplay default back to community servers after a few hours >>> isn't asking them to change it back to how things were. New players >>> are guaranteed to know what a "vanilla" experience is. >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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
