What Happened to the Non-Fast-Spawn Servers?

[FaintPulse 1]

The non-fast-spawn servers are dying on the east coast 2fort front. All players are either quitting outright or heading to Skial.

 

I'd love to see a change.

 

As a lifelong lover of Lotus and donor, I'd love to see the fastspawn servers eradicated. I'm sure we'd still attract the same players. Right now, we have multiple Jersey and East Coast games with no one playing. Maybe that's the idea. All I know is that my enthusiasm wanes every time I log on to see nothing but a _somewhat_ full fastspawn + many other friends' servers (e.g., Skial).

[luop90 4,400]

Valve essentially made quickplay only go to their "official" crappy servers. So essentially all but the fast spawn servers died. The normal spawn servers essentially depended on quickplay to be full, and with that out of the equation (at least for now) all but the most popular ones essentially died.

[Novalia2 3]

tf is dying a slow painfull alltalk/instant spawn n00b server filled death..

regs are nowhere to be found.. stuck with spycrabs and sammich heavies and friendly sewer pyros with 3 engies building in the intel room...

the 2fort golden age is over.

[Mana 3,867]

Once valve changed quickplay defaults most players started going (being sent) to valve servers. And that's why community run stock servers aren't doing well anymore.

 

The non-fast-spawn servers are dying on the east coast 2fort front. All players are either quitting outright or heading to Skial.

 

I'd love to see a change.

 

As a lifelong lover of Lotus and donor, I'd love to see the fastspawn servers eradicated. I'm sure we'd still attract the same players. Right now, we have multiple Jersey and East Coast games with no one playing. Maybe that's the idea. All I know is that my enthusiasm wanes every time I log on to see nothing but a _somewhat_ full fastspawn + many other friends' servers (e.g., Skial).

 

I'm not sure what you mean by this... Take the populated fast respawn servers and kill them? That's a really weird suggestion...

The only servers that were changed to no crits/fast respawn were the ones that were dying/dead.

 

None of the well populated servers have been touched.

 

We still have more servers with default spawn times. Such as these 4 East Coast 2Forts:

64.237.38.25:27025
64.237.38.26:27015
66.55.148.155:27015
66.55.148.155:27035

 

All but one are empty. So there's definitely no need to take the populated ones and kill them when there's plenty of stock spawn servers that no one wants to play on .

 

Honestly though valve just has a monopoly on stock gameplay servers. They are the defaults so the vast vast majority of players (and all new players) get sent there. There's also around 2000 of these servers.

Of course you can't really build up a community around them, since most players on those servers never come back there again. As they just get sent to another random valve server next time. Or even if they would want to and actually knew how to use the server browser and favorites then the server itself might turn into Mann UP mode or CS:GO.

[Se7en 10,762]

[Asjo 90]

Could we at least get a 32-player fast spawn 2Fort server? 24 players is a bit useless ... tame action :/

[Novalia2 3]

now your servers never have winners.. the score just keep going up and up and up..

are you just giving up now?

[Ocean_NB 3]

Yea, the never-ending games, where the score is 200 to 202, are the end for me.  Instant spawn is hard enough to tolerate, but a game with no win scenario is too much.  I have resorted to playing on other servers, and when my 3 month sub runs out, I think I am done being a donor.

[luop90 4,400]

There is still several normal respawn servers, with normal cap.

 

66.55.148.155:27015

 

That is the East Coast One.

 

The UK 2Fort #2 is stock.

[fever 9,884]

Yea, the never-ending games, where the score is 200 to 202, are the end for me.  Instant spawn is hard enough to tolerate, but a game with no win scenario is too much.  I have resorted to playing on other servers, and when my 3 month sub runs out, I think I am done being a donor.

We're listening to your feedback whilst we try different configurations to help keep the servers fuller for longer since Valve stacked the Quickplay in their favour.

[Canti 386]

Yeah I had noticed that it will send you to official servers by default, these are OK for a quick game but annoying because of their map rotation.

 

You could join a game that's one map, then a few minutes later you'll find yourself pushed to a different game mode entirely.

 

I do like the occasional long game, but the default 30 minutes per round is a little strict for CTF... I never considered that this would be the reason most of my saved servers were getting more and more empty lately.

[fever 9,884]

I think Valve basically want us all to log in, press a big "Go" button and get a generic "TF2" experience, whether that be 5 minutes of 2Fort, then 5 minutes of PLR, then 5 minutes of Saxton Hale...wtf...etc...<advanced grumbling removed>

[Mana 3,867]

now your servers never have winners.. the score just keep going up and up and up.. are you just giving up now?

 

 

Yea, the never-ending games, where the score is 200 to 202, are the end for me.  Instant spawn is hard enough to tolerate, but a game with no win scenario is too much.  I have resorted to playing on other servers, and when my 3 month sub runs out, I think I am done being a donor.

Of the 2 UK 2fort servers one is like that and the other is not.

 

Also I will be making it so certain things (like votescramble) will end the game. But you do have the option of playing on the other 2Fort UK server. It has 3 flag caps and no instant respawn:

95.154.193.26:27025

[Novalia2 3]

ocean and i were mainly referring to the NJ server which is essentially the only US server that had a pulse.. i can tolerate fast spawn for a few minutes but no endgame just makes it boring death match.. i dont understand the reasoning for that config change.. NJ fast respawn was regularly populated before that change..

its too bad your recruitment policy was so lengthy or you might've had a chance at a dedicated crew to help populate your more popular US servers.. from what i now see all those recruits have removed the tag and your regular US members never play.. and now your US servers are dead.

[Mana 3,867]

ocean and i were mainly referring to the NJ server which is essentially the only US server that had a pulse.. i can tolerate fast spawn for a few minutes but no endgame just makes it boring death match.. i dont understand the reasoning for that config change.. NJ fast respawn was regularly populated before that change.. its too bad your recruitment policy was so lengthy or you might've had a chance at a dedicated crew to help populate your more popular US servers.. from what i now see all those recruits have removed the tag and your regular US members never play.. and now your US servers are dead.

It's not just us. A lot of other communities are having these problems. I talk to other community owners and they are all having same problems after valve's quickplay changes. Seriously be it Firepowered, Lotus or Skial they are all affected. There's many more communities that died since the quickplay change. And it will only get worse . We have to adapt in order to get any new players. And that can't happen when valve is running thousands of stock settings servers which are the quickplay default.

 

 

Lotus was a 32 player server only community for years. We also had popular no crit servers such as Stock Maps #2 (there was even a 32 player 2Fort server). Then quickplay came around and this all changed. But now it's even worse when quickplay defaults to valve servers only.

 

I can assure you that any changes made that are not for the better (player count wise) will not be kept. I am looking at the connection/gameplay stats and adjusting things. Apart from the votescramble reset there's another thing that I might try soon (when it comes to flag capture amounts).

[Unfortunate Gunner 6]

Hello there,

 

Been playing on the lotus servers for around 2-3 years now and a donator for more than a year.

 

Just like many of you, i used to play with some great regular players on the UK & German 2fort 24x-33xplayer servers, after the last updates from valve they pretty much died..

 

All of the servers that have players now are insta spawn + no cap limit, which many regulars hate for a good reason. So, why can't Lotus do what Skial is doing? They have 3 EU 2fort servers that are always FULL, plus no BS mods like insta spawn or no cap limits. HOW ARE THEY DOING IT?

 

 

I can't understand it really, how is Skial attracting and filling 3 servers with no shitty mods? Can't Lotus just copy what Skial is doing for their 2fort servers?

 

This is really sad, i used to log in into the UK servers because i loved the community, good admins, and the game play, now a lot are going to Skial 2fort servers.

 

Please fix ASAP,

[Emma 1,798]

Skial's got regulars who join the servers when they're not full and help fill them up, I guess. Their community is larger than ours, maybe if you and the other regulars of that server just join it, more people will too. You can't blame us for losing players when Valve barely supports Lotus servers anymore and a lot are going to Skial. Trust me, if you and the regulars can fill it up to 12 players, people will join and soon get the server full again.

[luop90 4,400]

Skial attracts people for that exact reason. They are a bigger community. And yeah, 12 people in a server is all you need to fill it up. I've done it several times on the New Jersey #3 2Fort server. All it takes is 12 people so no more bots are online, and its like magic. People start to join. You just need about 12 people and from there others will start to join.

[fever 9,884]

[Unfortunate Gunner 6]

Well if it's all because of Valve, then that sucks. I hope in time they'll get sick and tired of managing all of those servers and implement the old QP back ASAP before the community run servers die.

 

In the meantime, the only option seem to be talking to Valve i guess. I found these 2 emails when browsing other community run server forums, you could send valve complaints explaining the negative effects of their acts at [email protected] and [email protected].

Edited April 22, 2014 by Unfortunate Gunner

[LjubicaZubica 5,610]

Hey Gunner, regulars are gathering on old UKx32 server. It's fast respawn now and 24 players, but then with voting we increase number to 32 and it's great. What you can do is not avoid server if it's half empty. As guys said, fill to 12 and magic happens. Cya there

[Asjo 90]

Yeah, given how many regulars 2Fort UK had, you wouldn't think quickplay was necessary. But the problem has always been to start the server off when it has no players. Once you get past that, it usually quickly gets rolling. I was so happy to see the 2Fort UK server with 32 players the other day and hoped it would bring some of the regulars back who left for the skial, UKCS and gfm-clan servers. Now, I'm sorry to hear that it only happens when people vote it, though. It kind of confuses the identity of the server, and it means that the server can suck one moment (with max. 24 players) and be nice the other (with normal 32-player size), which still leaves me a bit confused as to whether I should play on it.

 

I know that with instant spawn people will be off their marks quicker and will therefore re-appear quicker once you kill them. However, a 24-player server with instant spawn still feels kind of empty, and there are a lot of exciting moments and momentum swings that can happen on a 32-player server, which just aren't the same for 24-player servers. With 24 players, it still feels like a server for individualists, and even if you have fast spawn, you still only have around 3-4 people on each team who are willing to work together. With 32 players, you have maybe 6-7 players who play as a unit, which is a completely different dynamic, especially if they attack in a group. 2Fort is not like other maps, and the action often happens in dramatic episodes rather than through a continuous barrage of spam like on most other maps. Also, the action is often more spread out, with 2-3 different points being contested, the fronts going back and forth. These differences between 2Fort and other maps mean that while another server might be fine with just 24 players when they have fast spawn, 2Fort isn't, since you need the people in place for the action to happen, which they won't be if you have to spread 10-12 players across all the action zones. Constant 1on1 fights just don't have the charm that a real team fight has.

[Emma 1,798]

That is exactly why I love 32 player Dustbowl, and I punish anyone who votes against increasing the max players <3

[dylstew 0]

That's a shame, I think fast/norespawn and 32 players is awful.

[luop90 4,400]

That's a shame, I think fast/norespawn and 32 players is awful.

Which is why there are 3 non-fast respawn x32 servers that are completely empty...