How A Server Died Over A Week.

[Alk 0]

To start off, im "alk_", i've been playing on Lotusclan servers since i joined tf2, 24th june, uber update. First i played on uk stock maps, then payload, and now one of the servers is completely dead and the other at the verge of dieing. But what has been done to these servers? (ok stock maps is in pretty good shape yet, but still not as full as before).

Honestly i think this isnt the Lotus's staff fault. We, at uk payload asked for new maps at the time, but things went downhill. We got thundermountain and frontier, barnblitz(new maps), but lost upward(due to popular request of sentry spam at last). Alas, upward was one of the core maps to payload stocks.

I am here to ask for improvement to both of the servers, to rebirth one of them and keep the other one alive.

now i gathered testimonials from a few friends i made during my playtime in lotus.

23:03 - alk_: what do you think killed payload stocks?
23:03 - elementary: the reason that it isn't goldrush/badwater 247
23:03 - elementary: also, thundermountain is crappy s***

23:04 - alk_: what do you think killed it?
23:04 - moonymeen: losing players
23:04 - moonymeen: well
23:04 - moonymeen: they stopped playing
23:04 - alk_: but why?
23:04 - moonymeen: got busy?
23:04 - moonymeen: i dont know
23:05 - moonymeen: i guess its ppl cba to start it up
23:05 - moonymeen: they see its empty and have no motivation to fill it
23:57 - moonymeen: i loved upward tho

23:11 - -NeGusoYs-: the maps killed the
23:11 - -NeGusoYs-: lotus
23:11 - -NeGusoYs-: same maps everyday
23:11 - -NeGusoYs-: but i cant play 5 maps out of 10 or 12 or how much official maps are there
23:11 - -NeGusoYs-: every day
23:12 - -NeGusoYs-: i miss junction
23:12 - -NeGusoYs-: and steel
23:12 - -NeGusoYs-: payload i miss the pipeline
23:12 - -NeGusoYs-: yes
23:12 - -NeGusoYs-: and i dont know other payload

23:06 - Bloody Spy: ah
23:06 - Bloody Spy: when I tried playing there some time ago it was unbearably laggy
23:06 - Bloody Spy: and froze up often.
23:08 - Bloody Spy: hmm.
23:08 - Bloody Spy: PL_FRONTIER
23:08 - Bloody Spy: that is all
23:11 - Bloody Spy: and the lag fixes would probably help. I dunno was it a momentary issue, though

23:06 - alk_: why do you think people stopped playing on uk payload stocks? map list changes?
23:07 - MouldyCheese: umm maybe
23:07 - MouldyCheese: they took out upward and frontier, both good maps =/

btw im a loner dont have many friends so this isnt a wide survey

i cut off some random mubmling but almost the raw paste. Now we can see a common theme in this list, maps

And this is the essence to killing a server (except supa-awesome premium like saigns)

What can you, a player do?

You can post here to improve, your suggestions, maybe servers on the american side died off also. This is a note, a note for the Lotus staff to hear.

So, heres my list of suggestions.

1:Get a large, and i mean a large map rotation. Its called payload stocks with only 4/10(offical) payload maps on it. There are maps out there, and only need to download.

Maps i, and other suggest to add:

Upward-It may be a bit laggy, but anyone experience know that and the sentry spam.

Swiftwater-This is an unofficial map used in UGC. i've played only 18 players on it, but it was noramlly optimised.

(Frontier), and all of the payload race maps.-Frontier is laggy, its not server side, its client side lag, the map is poorly optimised. Its a request tho. PLR maps, its a payload stocks, there is almost no reason to keep those out.

More maps from http://www.tfmaps.co...ayload&maps=tf2 Let the community vote, but adding many would be best.

For stock maps, all of the offical ones, there are enuff.(not itemtest please )

2:Listen to the players. And the majority. Please dont go the blizzard path here and listen to 2-3(thousand) 11yr kiddos who complain something is hard. You learn by failing, or tutorials. but failing mostly.

3. on a sidenote, votes about random crits n stuff would be great.

4. about removing maps, community choice, but thunder may stay if there are enough maps to keep it fresh

Also, swiftwater is a rare map to be seen in pubs, think, it may attract players

Now a problem may arise, already discussed a bit at frontier. Lag.

Frontier alone is no problem, problem is the one tf2 has advertised when you join a 32p server. They are not as fast as 24p ones. the extra 8 players make a huge difference, for client mostly. having more spam and explosions and s*** on screen eats frames. so do poorly optimised maps. There are 2 ways for this problem. either 24p or remove the map.

another problem someone might bring out is hard memory, not RAM, but memory for storing all the maps. this has a simple solution. change the rotation weekly, but keep the maximum ammount of maps.

OK folkes, enough puntuation for me , no need for full stops for a year now.

Im not english so grammer may not be greatest and latest.

Alk_

damn, i hate full capitals on every word, forgive me for the title

[Vaginal Hubris 2,659]

To start off, im "alk_", i've been playing on Lotusclan servers since i joined tf2, 24th june, uber update. First i played on uk stock maps, then payload, and now one of the servers is completely dead and the other at the verge of dieing. But what has been done to these servers? (ok stock maps is in pretty good shape yet, but still not as full as before).

Honestly i think this isnt the Lotus's staff fault. We, at uk payload asked for new maps at the time, but things went downhill. We got thundermountain and frontier, barnblitz(new maps), but lost upward(due to popular request of sentry spam at last). Alas, upward was one of the core maps to payload stocks.

I am here to ask for improvement to both of the servers, to rebirth one of them and keep the other one alive.

now i gathered testimonials from a few friends i made during my playtime in lotus.

23:03 - alk_: what do you think killed payload stocks?
23:03 - elementary: the reason that it isn't goldrush/badwater 247
23:03 - elementary: also, thundermountain is crappy s***

23:04 - alk_: what do you think killed it?
23:04 - moonymeen: losing players
23:04 - moonymeen: well
23:04 - moonymeen: they stopped playing
23:04 - alk_: but why?
23:04 - moonymeen: got busy?
23:04 - moonymeen: i dont know
23:05 - moonymeen: i guess its ppl cba to start it up
23:05 - moonymeen: they see its empty and have no motivation to fill it
23:57 - moonymeen: i loved upward tho

23:11 - -NeGusoYs-: the maps killed the
23:11 - -NeGusoYs-: lotus
23:11 - -NeGusoYs-: same maps everyday
23:11 - -NeGusoYs-: but i cant play 5 maps out of 10 or 12 or how much official maps are there
23:11 - -NeGusoYs-: every day
23:12 - -NeGusoYs-: i miss junction
23:12 - -NeGusoYs-: and steel
23:12 - -NeGusoYs-: payload i miss the pipeline
23:12 - -NeGusoYs-: yes
23:12 - -NeGusoYs-: and i dont know other payload

23:06 - Bloody Spy: ah
23:06 - Bloody Spy: when I tried playing there some time ago it was unbearably laggy
23:06 - Bloody Spy: and froze up often.
23:08 - Bloody Spy: hmm.
23:08 - Bloody Spy: PL_FRONTIER
23:08 - Bloody Spy: that is all
23:11 - Bloody Spy: and the lag fixes would probably help. I dunno was it a momentary issue, though

23:06 - alk_: why do you think people stopped playing on uk payload stocks? map list changes?
23:07 - MouldyCheese: umm maybe
23:07 - MouldyCheese: they took out upward and frontier, both good maps =/

btw im a loner dont have many friends so this isnt a wide survey

i cut off some random mubmling but almost the raw paste. Now we can see a common theme in this list, maps

And this is the essence to killing a server (except supa-awesome premium like saigns)

What can you, a player do?

You can post here to improve, your suggestions, maybe servers on the american side died off also. This is a note, a note for the Lotus staff to hear.

So, heres my list of suggestions.

1:Get a large, and i mean a large map rotation. Its called payload stocks with only 4/10(offical) payload maps on it. There are maps out there, and only need to download.

Maps i, and other suggest to add:

Upward-It may be a bit laggy, but anyone experience know that and the sentry spam.

Swiftwater-This is an unofficial map used in UGC. i've played only 18 players on it, but it was noramlly optimised.

(Frontier), and all of the payload race maps.-Frontier is laggy, its not server side, its client side lag, the map is poorly optimised. Its a request tho. PLR maps, its a payload stocks, there is almost no reason to keep those out.

More maps from http://www.tfmaps.co...ayload&maps=tf2 Let the community vote, but adding many would be best.

For stock maps, all of the offical ones, there are enuff.(not itemtest please )

2:Listen to the players. And the majority. Please dont go the blizzard path here and listen to 2-3(thousand) 11yr kiddos who complain something is hard. You learn by failing, or tutorials. but failing mostly.

3. on a sidenote, votes about random crits n stuff would be great.

4. about removing maps, community choice, but thunder may stay if there are enough maps to keep it fresh

Also, swiftwater is a rare map to be seen in pubs, think, it may attract players

Now a problem may arise, already discussed a bit at frontier. Lag.

Frontier alone is no problem, problem is the one tf2 has advertised when you join a 32p server. They are not as fast as 24p ones. the extra 8 players make a huge difference, for client mostly. having more spam and explosions and s*** on screen eats frames. so do poorly optimised maps. There are 2 ways for this problem. either 24p or remove the map.

another problem someone might bring out is hard memory, not RAM, but memory for storing all the maps. this has a simple solution. change the rotation weekly, but keep the maximum ammount of maps.

OK folkes, enough puntuation for me , no need for full stops for a year now.

Im not english so grammer may not be greatest and latest.

Alk_

damn, i hate full capitals on every word, forgive me for the title

They took out Upward? I don't deal with server shit (so really I am not much of use). However being a payload addict, it would be a serious disservice to remove Upward. Hopefully Mana or one of the server admins will be able to answer your question though.

[Mana 3,867]

Custom maps make people leave. If this were a custom maps server to begin with it would have a different set of players who would stick around and re-populate it. But as it is now adding custom maps would just completely kill it. Most people don't care to wait around while a map downloads.

But I will be adding more maps to this servers rotation. This did not work before and almost caused the server to die. But there's been some changes in the way TF2 matchmaking works and I'm hoping there's less emphasis put on certain maps now. Only one way to find out!

[Alk 0]

Honestly about maps, i've been a surf player for years, long before tf2 and i dont mind maps or customs downloading, but i guess this is just catering to another group, to the more unexperienced people with map downloads.

[Mana 3,867]

Honestly about maps, i've been a surf player for years, long before tf2 and i dont mind maps or customs downloading, but i guess this is just catering to another group, to the more unexperienced people with map downloads.

That's the thing. If it was a custom map server from the beggining it would have had a different kind of crowd. But it's not.

Anyway, all payload maps are on rotation. However I doubt that will help it. So if it doesn't it will become a 24/7 server.