PS#1 new change suggestion

[xP.Bo0m!? Profile]

Hello guys, so I was thinking of making some changes on PS#1 server, I discussed this with Landser last couple of days, we both agreed to make a post about it, so everyone can participate. As i had some similar experience (positive) in my previous community with same thing, I decided to suggest it here too, to make PS#1 more populated and to attract new players.

So far I've noticed, we have 2 groups of players on our server, those who come only to have fun fraggin bot's, and the other group who strictly prefer normal 'no bot's ' game. It's usually hard to please everyone, and we all witnessed some people disconnect when bot was is ON, or those who quit instantly when we switch from botwar to normal game. So i talked to Lands, and we both agreed to discuss this about next suggestion with all of you:

Everyday, from 5pm till the next morning to completely disable bot's, for 7 days trial, just to see if this would attract new people. Idk if there are settings to do such (have bot's untill 5 pm than disable it untill next day), but I'm sure Ninja will think of something

Anyway, as I said I already had positive outcome from this on one of the server I used to play in my previous community, so I think we should at least give it a try here, if you guys agree.

Cheers, bo0m bad

[SpyCow Profile]

perhaps push the deadline a little further, to 6-7 PM.

[xP.Bo0m!? Profile]

Hmm I think 6 would be the limit
As you allready have incoming players from 4pm +

[Ninjadeer]

perhaps push the deadline a little further, to 6-7 PM.

Yup, 5pm sounds pretty early, depending on timezone ofc.

I guess we could archieve pretty similar results by disabling the possibility to add any more bots on server than there are by default. This way it would be easier to implement and it wouldn't be so boring for the first players on the server even if some day most of the players came hour or two later than normally.

About the time related system and this statement:

but I'm sure Ninja will think of something

Ninja will think of Egglaf and his LUA skills

[egglaf]

but I'm sure Ninja will think of something

Ninja will think of Egglaf and his LUA skills

Egglaf thinks: "Shit I should be graduating" and says "what about a cron job?"

[xP.Bo0m!? Profile]

perhaps push the deadline a little further, to 6-7 PM.

Yup, 5pm sounds pretty early, depending on timezone ofc.

I guess we could archieve pretty similar results by disabling the possibility to add any more bots on server than there are by default. This way it would be easier to implement and it wouldn't be so boring for the first players on the server even if some day most of the players came hour or two later than normally.

About the time related system and this statement:

but I'm sure Ninja will think of something

Ninja will think of Egglaf and his LUA skills

Hmm disagree, but to make a compromise, would it be possible to reduce bot ammount for this trial period? And ofc disable option to add more.

[Troyan Profile]

Imo if we want to test "only normal gameplay" mode on the evenings, we should try to do that also with minimal amount of players. Minimal amount of players to create "normal gameplay" is 2 [ 1 on 1 ]. So 2 bots are enough imho, when some1 is alone on server, he must wait and he can abuse this 1 poor bot. When there will 2nd player connect bots are gone.
Ofc same will happen when 1 player is playing and 1 is on spec, but well... life
Tbh playing against 5 bots with 4 teammates bots isnt rly exciting and im mostly bored after max 2nd map. So if we want to test smth, lest do it with big bang kick, like Chuck Norris
After all we can test many variants.

Would be great to see more opinions in this topic Dont be shy

[xP.Bo0m!? Profile]

Yeah I couldn't agree more with you Troy. Well I just talked
To two more ppl on server, feanor and ridge, they both like normal play more than botwar. I hope feanor will post opinion here as promised, but seems like ridge is too lazy to register xD anyway, imo some change would bring good to the server..

[pompidom_23 Profile]

Interesting, very interesting. I do like the idea and I think it deserves a test.

BUT.. server is going very good these days so why would you change it? Also -like mentioned in posts before- what about starting up the server? Nobody likes to join a server with nothing to shoot at: no bots or players to shoot at.

Let's say we disable bots at 18.00h, what about the players who where already playing? Let's say there are 5 players playing against bots, and suddenly on 18.00h bots get kicked: 2-3 of 5 players will disconnect immediately and the other 2-3 players won't stay long because they don't like to play 1v1.

I love your input Boom and I love the way you care about our community. This idea is needing some discussion!

[Yoschi Profile]

disable whole day

[xP.Bo0m!? Profile]

Well Pompi, if we agree to reduce ammount of bot's for start, to let's say 8 total (4 each team) or 6 maybe (3 per team) , and also remove the option to !putbots, when player join some team bot disconnects ofc. So like this untill evening there should be no bot's at all so no problem. As I could understand today from few ppl with who I talked, there are like 5 -6 of us who agreed to totally disable bot's at some time (here we said 6 pm). I agree server is going good, but if you noticed at the evenings last two days when only players playin you could see new ppl connecting. And please have in mind this would be only TRIAL test, in 7 days we will see if this worked better (attracted more ppl) or not. But if we don't try nothing than....

And also I have one more suggestion for server, but I need to talk lands first before posting it. But I think it would be awesome:D

P.S. yoschi I agree, but we.not alone here hh

[Troyan Profile]

7 days trial wont be enough credible imho. Too short period of time

[xP.Bo0m!? Profile]

Well that's easy to extend. That's why we are here to discuss.

[tempo Profile]

If you delate all botwar cmds and leave 4 or 6 bots, and when a player comes, a bot automatically leaves? Maybe is better for the 2 3 first players that come. But they can always disable bots. The best for me is without any bots (they are useless ) but i cant get how a empty server could make more ppl join.

[xP.Bo0m!? Profile]

So you are like 7th person today who said no bot's at all. Hh. Well, there are players who love to play with bot's, there are players who come earlier and play for 1-2 hours untill other ppl connect.. So, i do not think disable bot permanently would be the best thing to do.. But to lower bot's ammount maybe a good start..

[Toup Profile]

This is an idea that wouldn't hurt to test out and might bring on a positive change.

I'm certainly not an expert on ET player demographics but logically thinking players wouldn't be too tempted to join an empty server once the bots get kicked at 5pm. Your proposition would please the players and hopefully the newcomers that want to enjoy a bot-free match but unless an effort is made by our members and regulars to populate the server during these first bot-free hours I doubt the change would help to attract any new people on its own.

I'm aware that my credibility is fragile when it comes to talking about regularity on the server but this change could potentially boost player activity if we manage to make sure there are always at least a few players in the server around whatever the time we decide on will be.

Perhaps we'll have to start assigning designated server shifts to PS members in exchange for !beer

[tempo Profile]

Well there are a lot of "empty" servers crowded of bots to play with, and this is not one of those. But if there are pll that love to play with bots and other pll too, maybe, as i said before, 4 6 bots with any botwar cmds will be fine. But also try your idea is not a bad idea . Et is an old game and 1 week with different setting will not change the world .

[xP.Bo0m!? Profile]

Well, I do not know you personally that good, maybe we met few times in last few months or even earlier back in a PS#2 days (if you were member allready than or at least played there as I did) but that doesn't really matter now. As I tryed to convince few guys today on server to register just to give their opinion, and maybe together we could came up with some good solution. Even I played here then joimed other community, then came back.. Hah. But am here now and just want to make the server the best it can be.
As you said Toup; "Might bring on a positive change" . well that's the exact thought that made me suggest this here... There are some who think that it's pointless to even think of making changes on 13y old game, but even that it is old, there are still new et nubs downloading and playing this, and that I have witness on daily bases on several servers, including here, even this afternoon.
Despite you have loads of members who are not active due to irl stuff, but also a small group of regulars, that doesn't.mean we shouldn't at least try and make some changes, and try to get some new, hopefully active regulars.

Also what tempo said, there are LOADS of servers with bots only, so why not implement some new changes and see what will happen? After all, if there would be no changes it's easy to add bot's whenever you feel like and no harm done.
Idk for the rest, I could play 1 map bot war, maybe even 2nd one, but after that I feel bored as hell. It's just not fun and zero dose of action.

So I say let's try something different, and yeah, I forgot ban yoschi so that new ones that come actually stay on our server

[SpyCow Profile]

Should we, though?

Should we try out this idea now while things are going great? If it doesn't work out, things will be worse for a while.
However, if we wait until (unfortunately) we may run into a dry streak, then we don't have anything to lose, so to speak.

At which point we could give the idea a shot?

[pompidom_23 Profile]

Should we, though?

Should we try out this idea now while things are going great? If it doesn't work out, things will be worse for a while.
However, if we wait until (unfortunately) we may run into a dry streak, then we don't have anything to lose, so to speak.

At which point we could give the idea a shot?

Exactly! I really don't think this is the right moment to try out new stuff on our server. This is the first time in long time our server is always filled, and we see new people coming back every evening. There even was one moment 28people on our server!

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea and I do like your input and dedication on this. Also I see a lot reactions and discussion, so this topic needs to stay in our mind, and we need to use it when our server is going bad. But using it now can have a very negative effect what we don't need.

Playing every evening and having a good atmosphere on server is the thing we need to do now!

BTW: On our adminforum/memberforum we have also a lot of discussions about making server better, new possible changes etc.. The reactions we get on these topics are less than here on this public topic, and also much the same people(only members like I said). So to all our members/Admins/HA's I say once again we need to share our discussions more on the public topics so everyone have the chance to say there opinion. After that we can make a new private admin topic so we can discuss the response and details. Also it would create much more activity on forum what can have a positive effect on our server.
I could share this on our admintopic and didn't post it here, but wanna make a point here. (colleagues HA's: please tell me if this part of my post isn't the right place).

[xP.Bo0m!? Profile]

Well, the idea is here to discuss about. I've putted 7days poll, so there is enough time to see and decide together wheter to try this out or not. Indeed last few days server is going good, I wanted to post this few days back but first I wanted to speak with lands, and that also took few days. I'll send him another advice for the server, and he can copy paste it to member forum so you guys can discuss it. This kind of stuff don't ask for immediate decisions, so take your time and ofc every suggestion is welcome.

[landser]

hmmm
vote was positive, but some valid points at the end of the discussion, after voting.

i would suggest letting it run as it is now for another week - so we can let the new maps settle in and see how things are going.
i will make another vote for disabling the bots (for example) for 1 week with a certain starting date. would make this vote the coming weekend.


for now:
every player got the possibility to call a vote for disabling / enabling bots and even for botwar:
ESC / Vote / Wolfadmin / Choose voting parameter

candidates got the possility to start a botwar or to disable the bots:
!landwara15 ; !landwarx15 ; !cow
plz use these commands after you comunicated with other players, make a POLL (ESC / Vote / Misc / Enter poll question) for instance.

[xP.Bo0m!? Profile]

Well seems like server is going better lately, and the new maps are really refreshing. So, let it be for now.