State of the community

[Dominic]

Hey everyone,

 

So I'm completely aware that making this type of post is risky considering my current standing here. This can 100% be taken and twisted into something negative but this is genuinely coming from a place of good intentions. I've also been here for so long and I couldn't even figure out where this type of post should be placed lmao - move if need be.

 

This post is more so a question than a suggestion, but it's quite simple: have we given up? It's been a while since I've been here, I did come to visit the website a number of times while I was banned but I couldn't view many of the subforums. I've been back for a couple weeks and I've remained relatively quiet, just been observing things. I went and read some of the posts that have addressed this problem; Noob's post in the suggestions box about unbanning regulars for instance, though that seemed to devolve into something completely different. Then there was that post somewhere in the CS:GO subforum where a higher-up essentially said staff had given up and had no motivation. 

 

This post is coming purely from a place of curiosity, though it does pain me to see a server like Jailbreak in the condition its in. Obviously we've seen this coming for a while - CS:GO is not on a downtrend by any means but communities are, it's undeniable. I've looked at the state of some of our old competitors; majority have clocked out. For the staff here to be unmotivated is not unreasonable by any means, most people don't realize how much it sucks to manage a dead server. However, there seems to still be people in this community that have passion and want to help, so it sounds like people need to be swapped out and others need to be given a chance. 

 

I'm also surprised that I couldn't find a megathread addressing this problem, or a post about having a community meeting to talk about it. I also don't see any monumental changes as of late or posts about plans for any. Do you guys as higher-ups have any plans that you can tease at, any hail mary plays for the community? Because let's not sugarcoat this - SG is on its death bed and it does not have long, so anyone with any passion left for this community would need to act fast. I am not one of those people obviously, I did my time and I'm fresh out of passion, but I am taking the time to make this post because I don't care to see SG on a tombstone. 

 

I suppose I have to include a suggestion somewhere in all of this, and my best one would be to just become super unconventional if you haven't already. Some of these regulars seem so passionate about wanting to see some of the servers succeed - fuck it, make them a CA. What do you have to lose at this point? Honestly, same thing goes for what Noob suggested about doing a mass unban. SG can't really go much lower before it's quite literally dead, so why not make these unconventional, hail mary plays while you still have something of a community here? 

 

I truly hope something good comes out of this.

[kabLe]

It's a multi-variable problem that is been stewing for awhile now. There is no one great way to attack it imo.

 

I can tell you how I currently view it.

 

Problem 1: We are not pulling in enough money to sustain long term current operations.

Problem 2: Current incentives for pulling money in are mainly directly attached towards CSGO in game perks.

Problem 3: Servers are dead

Problem 4: No population = no pull for sponsorship or power position to negotiate any kind of deal as far as I'm aware of.

 

So what do we do? Personally, I believe we need to build our servers back up to a decent level. Doesn't have to what it once was but at least something to show we having something cooking over here.

 

Priority 1: Rebuild servers/population to the best of our ability.

Priority 2: Rework donation incentives to not be mainly based in CSGO perks

Priority 3: Be on the look for other potential games where we can try and expand our community player base.

 

The first 2 priorities are listed this way because IMO, it's more realistic to rebuild what we have than try to create something new and re-establish ourselves like that. We need to be pulling in money and have a player base on our servers to move forward at all. Nobody is going to site on as a streamer/partner for a community that is barely pulling in any cash and shows no signs of life on what they do currently have established.

 

Priority 3 because this should always be something we are looking into. It's not impossible to build into a new game but it's unlikely to be a solid foundation as history as proven and I'm all for forward progress, however ignoring the 15 years of base in CS would just be negligent.

 

I think a common sentiment has been no transparency and lack of support to our current servers. I am currently working on getting Server Reps brought back as a separate rank, not intertwined with CA, and their job will be to assist the current SM in all their duties as pertaining to that server. They will (hopefully) be given full access to the test server they are representing and limited access to the production so that they can assist the SM in finding errors or working along side. This will also help in my opinion, have a larger potential pool of SM candidates so we don't run into an issue where we have a bunch of burnt out managers with nobody to replace them. This will be the dedicated path towards Server Management. The hope is to nurture more potential candidates while also having more dedicated support to each server.

 

I'm working bringing FFA back and have been brainstorming possible ideas that could help with its official release to incentivize people to play. 

I'm also working on a new scrim plugin which will track more in depth stats, streamline demo acquisition, and a web GUI to go with it to make search up specific players/games easier. I also plan on removing the password from scrim and opening it up to the public similar to the Warlords CSS scrim servers which still get a fair bit of traffic to this day considering how old they are. The plan is to also reimagine SGSL and try to put together a prize pool to attract players from outside SG to come and take part.

 

Beyond that, I am slowly(very slowly) working on a Rust Combat Training server, and a Left 4 Dead 2 server that streamlines custom content (campaigns) as this is not something I currently see on any of the popular L4D2 servers. This may not yield the results I hope for but hey, nothing ventured nothing gained.

[Dominic]

@kabLe

 

The fact that you still have the passion to push for all this change after all the years you've been here is admirable. I'm a big fan of all your ideas, I think it's a great line of thinking. You're right in saying that building back what we already had is much more realistic than trying to branch out and establish ourselves entirely new. Bringing back server representatives and then allowing people to jump up there immediately is your best option IMO. I don't think there's any time to have people get through the admin application process and then prove themselves as one in order to get to SR to help out. Like I said, you need to get unconventional. Throw some dedicated regulars into the SR role and see what happens.

 

The transparency in your post is awesome - has any of this been mentioned before? The community is on its last legs, the time for keeping things private between higher-ups is past. This is the time to lean on every possible person that is willing to throw an idea or suggestion your way. Wanna bring back the SR role? I say make a public post about it and let everyone brainstorm the best possible way to do so. Wanna branch out into Rust? Make a post and let longtime Rust players chime in and give you input on the best way to do it. Want other ideas for how to branch out into other games? Have a community meeting and let this big ass group of gamers give their two cents.

 

Am I saying stuff like a community meeting is some revolutionary idea or me advocating for transparency should win me an award? No. Yes we've done all of this before but if there's any time to be completely and utterly transparent with the everyday members of the community, it's now. I think it's great that you listed the problems the community is facing - I completely agree with your priority list. Who better to ask about what incentives they'd like to see in order to get them to donate than the regulars? There should be an immediate announcement post about a potential donation system rework and everyone should be allowed to voice their opinion.

 

Sounds repetitive reading it back but you have great ideas and I'm sure you're not the only one. There should be nonstop community feedback threads about what the higher-ups have going on. Rebuilding this community needs a lot more minds behind it than just the people in our staff ranks IMO.

[Steel_]

2 minutes ago, Dominic said:

The transparency in your post is awesome - has any of this been mentioned before?

From my perspective as just a regular for the community, I’ve never seen a list by the higherups on what they are working on now. Kable’s post is really a breath of fresh air for someone like me and it really gives me hope for SG’s future. The idea of a huge community feedback thread would definitely be a step in the right direction to having more unity between staff and regulars

[Hawks]

Chiming in on this I would like to apologize as I'm picking and choosing what I'm replying to in no given order. But I hope my insight can help shed some light on my current and on going tasks.

 

Right now I am researching and experimenting with a game called Deadside on steam. It has a small and tight knit community that has loyal players. I'm aiming to create a small starting server with the backing of a couple groups of people I've met within the game. Having a seeding team lined up and ready to go is one of my main goals to kick off this server. I'm hoping to achieve stability over quantity with the player base on said server as if I can maintain steady numbers I will surely pull in numbers over time. 

 

I am also working with Bom and Mikey on our Tarkov scene, we have some fun exciting events lined up that we plan to post on popular Tarkov forums such as Reddit and or Twitter groups etc. Don't wanna spoil the stuff quite yet but we're on it.

 

6 hours ago, Dominic said:

Am I saying stuff like a community meeting is some revolutionary idea or me advocating for transparency should win me an award? No. Yes we've done all of this before but if there's any time to be completely and utterly transparent with the everyday members of the community, it's now. I think it's great that you listed the problems the community is facing - I completely agree with your priority list. Who better to ask about what incentives they'd like to see in order to get them to donate than the regulars? There should be an immediate announcement post about a potential donation system rework and everyone should be allowed to voice their opinion.

Replying to this, if anyone ca+ has had a conversation with me I am a clear advocate that being transparent will yield more connection and trust amongst our player base and have no issue saying it again here. There are xyz reasons on why higher ups don't like this idea but as you point out, we can't go much lower then where we are now. I've been dying to see some sort of announcement post on the behind the scenes stuff and have pushed for it many of times and will continue to do so.

 

From my LA pov I am in the midst of easing restrictions on who can apply for the yellow name. I feel there are a plethora of people with good ideas that don't want to go through admin to have a voice. And right now I cannot blame them for thinking that way. Near future plans are gonna allow for people to get to CA without the need of admin before hand. Announcement to follow upon it's release.

 

Without saying too much more I have other unrefined plans on the way that aren't ready for leaking, and as always for all of the community I am willing to have conversation with anyone about any and all concerns/ideas in DMs or voice.

 

Hope this post adds insight from my pov to help paint the overall picture.

[BoM]

As this is not the first or even close to the first of these threads, I'm just gonna keep this short in saying a lot of the stuff said here is accurate and being acknowledged by the red people. Myself and others are working on some of the suggestions here and elsewhere, probably try and run a community meeting in the next few weeks to more properly address everyone all at once.

 

From speaking to A LOT of people it seems that there is a big need for more knowledge on what the community direction is and what different parts of the staff are working on, while I'm a little less worried on specifically flooding the staff ranks with more people. A lot of people want to help and just need to know where to direct their efforts.

[lynxie]

57 minutes ago, Hawks said:

Right now I am researching and experimenting with a game called Deadside on steam. It has a small and tight knit community that has loyal players. I'm aiming to create a small starting server with the backing of a couple groups of people I've met within the game. Having a seeding team lined up and ready to is one of my main goals to kick off this server. I'm hoping to achieve stability over quantity with the player base on said server as if I can maintain steady numbers I will surely pull in numbers over time. 

 

YES DEADSIDE BABY, I wanted to suggest this awhile ago, but due to the small knit community I refrained as it seemed that SG's motto was to stick to big games. (I've made videos on the game, I love it so much)

 

I really don't want to put my two cents into this. So @Dominic since I've already made some posts about this, so I'll link them there, and maybe you can look at them and comment on it. Don't worry about messing up by the way bud, you've got this

 

(Basically already dismissed, and they made really good points, but I think we should make a Steam-Gamers TikTok)

 

 

(Basically steps we could take to move forward and attempt to revive the servers) 

 

So yeah.

[Phoenix_]

I haven't been very involved in this community pretty much at all since my departure in February so my point of view may be a bit different from the truth. I know at least my stepdown and probably a few others that followed in the recent wave of step downs I noticed over the last few months could be chalked up to just a sense of hopelessness when it comes to the servers and community as a whole (or maybe not, but this is at least my perspective). I put many hours into this place to see minimal results in terms of community and server growth and it made me not want to try anymore because it felt like anything I did was going to be in futility. 

 

I briefly accepted a role to manage the marketing team when I tried to step down from the team just because at the time I would have rather thrown my last bit of energy into trying to provide a brighter future but then quickly realized I was just running on fumes and my ideas were likely uninspired and would fall flat. 

 

Average Phoenix doomer take I know, but I don't see this community reviving. That's not an insult to anyone in a position of power, it's just the matter of this era of the internet is gone. You're all lovely people and this is a place many of us hold dear, but I think the time to hang em' up so to say is coming sooner rather than later. 

[lorax]

Honestly something i've seen when it comes to activity on the servers, and something i've asked around about is that people arent getting simply just cause they arent any on. When trying to get people for JB the first 10 is always the hardest then getting that other 10 is so much easier, its just people waiting for their server to have pop.

[All Ts]

It's important to understand how SG got here if you guys really wanna fix it. It was basically decided some of it's most notoriously successful servers on one of the most popular games of all-time weren't important anymore (unintentionally and intentionally). Playing the servers became less important. Posting on the forums became less important. Accruing bans or play time became less important. Even touching the server you were managing or at all interacting with the community in any remotely perceivable way became pretty unimportant. Frankly a lot of the time no one wanted to interrupt the status quo for the better or be the person to say things were going bad & hold anyone accountable. I looked like an asshole pointing out people's inactivity, telling people no on admin apps, pushing for demotions and against promotions but I still feel that it's the right way to do things. Things always trended way too hard towards leniency and the caliber you were became a lot less important. This situation was exacerbated by changing the process for applying several times in critical ways & made worse when the people being promoted are only loosely known by the people promoting them. If you don't know the person running a server- especially one of the important ones then you don't know their CA's, or their admins, or the player base of the server either. Throughout my time here I have continuously seen people gaslighted on this issue, but this is how it is. 

 

I don't even remotely like Fuze but the go-getter attitude to do literally anything at all, have fun (hopefully) doing it, and execute it well is the ONLY measure that ever should have mattered. It's really the only thing that matters running any project. Make this guy BD. SG needed a lot of it's higher-up BD's in the dirt with shovels building servers when things started divebombing. Needed people with red names getting involved with the main 3 and if they HATED the server & it's player base they at the very least could use their experience/pull to have someone underneath them who LOVES the server learn not to be a fuck-up. The current structure at the community where a few people that barely speak to each other build servers that no one has any oversight over and the people with red names infrequently delineate on what is likely unimportant in the grand scheme is not a healthy way for things to run. Have to lead from the front-lines. If it's really decided that SG wants to go another way, that's fine. But the state of having 7 higher-ups and I don't see any indication that one of them is involved with or has really any interest in the big 3 servers that built the community up in it's transition to CS:GO is a problem. There needs to be drastically more involvement or a look at the way things have adapted as SG grew. 

 

The theory that CS:GO itself was just something to get away from, that it was in a stage of die-off was pretty malignant IMO. Whatever came from that weren't the most fruitful projects or weren't really supported much by the community at large. It seemed like an excuse to me for people who were otherwise not interested in the servers to stick around in a retirement home and bark at people all day. Anytime a server held good management on CS:GO and were backed by competent TA's, they genuinely did well because that's where the player base was and has always been. SG has been around forever building a community of Counter-Strike players, it would make sense to me to start there and if you want to work up from there then you'll at least have something instead of nothing. Why waste it? The multi-year veterans here aren't interested in niche half-assed one-offs of other games but plenty would probably pop in to see an SG Jailbreak, ZE, TTT run decently. Even some niche one-off inspired projects that were run well at SG have done well when the person behind them really gave it a real try & weren't using them for a promotion to ego on people with.