August 2nd Community Meeting Notes/Discussion

[Karma]

CS2

Surf: Ramp bugs causing minor issues but server itself is doing fine, possible ways to look into valve issues

BHOP: Getting last few timing issues fixed, possible events in future

JB/PB: Hopefully will have server fully "finished" and will start populating by running seeding days with Slim

MiniGames: This has been talked about a lot between the higherups, it is something that can be done, and honestly shouldn't take too much time; our main concern with opening a MG server is getting a consistent population. The prior regulars would most likely not come back and play and getting people to play minigames more then a short time period is difficult. If we did get a lot of traction around the idea it can be done and would be something I would personally be willing to run.

Opening new servers (Plan): When we are opening a new server we are trying to make sure we are setting up seeding days with specific people who can seed on those days. There are certain servers that can be created and played without larger server pop operations (i.e. surf, bhop, ect.)

GMOD
TTT: Running well, few possible changed to map pool but nothing major server is running well

Forums
Landing Page: Current forums leads to the main page, looking at adding a landing page with basic info as well as ways to connect more with discord instead of the forums. (Linking donations with discord and discord nitro boosting 
happening soon)

Changes: Possible basic forums changes with topics or headlines, but nothing major. Changing bans is something we are looking at in order to make banning on discord a little easier, nothing set in stone but ban appeals might change location

Discord
Opening discord to new people: We have tried looking into discord promotion options and some of them have panned out, a lot of people that join threw them have been trolls, bots, or really young kids; we are trying to avoid this as much as possible but it comes down to balancing getting people in and not making restrictions too strict (mobile auth for exp.)

Getting people to invite friends: Doing things like party games to pull more people, get people to invite their friends to hang out and play.

People hanging out in discord: With discord being the new fad we are obviously trying to make our discord "popular", one thought along that route is that times have changed. Previously people used to use communities to interact with their friends as there were not many ways to talk to friends vocally without it. With discord being where it is most people that are talking to there friends are doing it in private and free personal discords.

Other Communities
GFL: Shut down recently with this news coming out of know where we have asked to see if SG could help with anything, as of now this direction is not happening 

[Reid99]

stimulation friendly post for the wall of text above

 

[Ejivis]

Regarding GFL, is SG actively trying to merge current/previous GFL players and resources to SG?  If not, should we? That seems like a win, win if GFL is indeed shutting down.  We need to make it known that SG is alive and accepting of a possible merger. 

[Karma]

33 minutes ago, Ejivis said:

Regarding GFL, is SG actively trying to merge current/previous GFL players and resources to SG?  If not, should we? That seems like a win, win if GFL is indeed shutting down.  We need to make it known that SG is alive and accepting of a possible merger. 

Was talked about and we have had some conversations with old GFL members but as of now nothing is directly coming of it.

[BloodBlades]

Not sure if adding more maps is part of the future plans for bhop/surf, but the current maplists feel small, and I see the same maps being replayed all the time. As for minigames, there was a NA course server that utilized incorrect tags and was still able to gather some player base for a bit, until the server began shutting down inexplicably for days on end, all but killing it. So, I think if done right an MG server could work. If it were to be done, I suggest keeping the course maps to a minimum and keeping the server scroll only (autobhop only enabled on course maps). 

[Reid99]

12 hours ago, BloodBlades said:

keeping the server scroll only (autobhop only enabled on course maps). 

Much as I'd love to never let autohop see the light of day it just isn't possible given how MG was the last few times I cared about it especially in GO. I dared to suggest that some maps are unplayable even with autohop on and some fixes to them. That wasn't received well.

 

If the MG playerbase I remember from GO is still present crossing over with the movement playerbase then you gotta keep that on for the most part or you're just not gonna have anyone playing. I remember some workarounds being done in the past for certain maps to be a lot less shit to play but I'm pretty sure those would have to be made again in CS2.

[BloodBlades]

1 hour ago, Reid99 said:

Much as I'd love to never let autohop see the light of day it just isn't possible given how MG was the last few times I cared about it especially in GO. I dared to suggest that some maps are unplayable even with autohop on and some fixes to them. That wasn't received well.

 

If the MG playerbase I remember from GO is still present crossing over with the movement playerbase then you gotta keep that on for the most part or you're just not gonna have anyone playing. I remember some workarounds being done in the past for certain maps to be a lot less shit to play but I'm pretty sure those would have to be made again in CS2.

Just looking through the currently ported maps, nothing seems to be that bad with no autobhop, in terms of multigames/DM. I was more so suggesting an easy scroll. I'm not sure what they did, but if you ever played kz on cybershoke they have a pretty good easy scroll system. However, if autobhop needs to be added then I would hope at least speed will be capped for it. Uncapped autobhop is what killed a lot of mg servers before, with experienced players just backstabbing anyone new forcing them to quit. 

[Karma]

On 8/3/2024 at 1:04 PM, BloodBlades said:

Just looking through the currently ported maps, nothing seems to be that bad with no autobhop, in terms of multigames/DM. I was more so suggesting an easy scroll. I'm not sure what they did, but if you ever played kz on cybershoke they have a pretty good easy scroll system. However, if autobhop needs to be added then I would hope at least speed will be capped for it. Uncapped autobhop is what killed a lot of mg servers before, with experienced players just backstabbing anyone new forcing them to quit. 

So here are my thoughts on Minigames; I do love the gamemode and it was the one that I originally became "AT/AO" for back in the day. It is fun and a good way for people to play together without having gamemode style "rules", with all that said my concern is it's ability to gather a population/bring that population to the rest of the community. The style of game itself hasn't been that popular to the average CS player since CSS, with most people playing more DM style gamemodes or at least TTT/JB/ZE. Not that it couldn't be done, but it would take a ton of work to do. Even back in 2018 or so when the gamemode was still doing well, it took me and Kyle joining the empty server and messaging and inviting everyone on our friends list to get a population started.

My other concern is the people who play MG. The regulars themselves are all "movement" players who love autohop and backstab all day long. Without autohop or by adding a speed cap you will lose most if not all of these players. While I don't love how the server plays with these people on it, sadly they do nolife the server and bring a lot of traction/population to the server within their different friend groups.

Lastly minigames is not much of a "come to my community gamemode". While that isn't my main concern as I'd rather have people who are running the servers actually enjoy the server and not just run them as a population grab, if we have neither then it makes this idea more difficult. I personally love MG and would be more then willing to run it, even alone, I don't think I have the time to really put into minigames what it deserves.

With everything I typed I am not saying its not possible or we won't try it. If we got enough people who were interested I would be more then willing to give it a shot.

[BloodBlades]

On 8/6/2024 at 11:05 PM, Karma said:

So here are my thoughts on Minigames; I do love the gamemode and it was the one that I originally became "AT/AO" for back in the day. It is fun and a good way for people to play together without having gamemode style "rules", with all that said my concern is it's ability to gather a population/bring that population to the rest of the community. The style of game itself hasn't been that popular to the average CS player since CSS, with most people playing more DM style gamemodes or at least TTT/JB/ZE. Not that it couldn't be done, but it would take a ton of work to do. Even back in 2018 or so when the gamemode was still doing well, it took me and Kyle joining the empty server and messaging and inviting everyone on our friends list to get a population started.

My other concern is the people who play MG. The regulars themselves are all "movement" players who love autohop and backstab all day long. Without autohop or by adding a speed cap you will lose most if not all of these players. While I don't love how the server plays with these people on it, sadly they do nolife the server and bring a lot of traction/population to the server within their different friend groups.

Lastly minigames is not much of a "come to my community gamemode". While that isn't my main concern as I'd rather have people who are running the servers actually enjoy the server and not just run them as a population grab, if we have neither then it makes this idea more difficult. I personally love MG and would be more then willing to run it, even alone, I don't think I have the time to really put into minigames what it deserves.

With everything I typed I am not saying its not possible or we won't try it. If we got enough people who were interested I would be more then willing to give it a shot.

The notion that only movement players would play minigames is rooted in bad map and player habits. When all you play is some combination of long road, super tower, and skytower you're obviously gonna get a bunch of backstabbers who just like to fly around the map. I can't speak for the times before me, but from when I played, we rarely got new players that stuck around when we were on these types of maps and had these types of players online. Whenever the server reached 20+ it was almost always on a more laid back map that didn't promote backstabbing or when no movement players were online.

 

Catering your server to a select group of players who usually have no loyalty to any 1 given server and who actively drive away new players is not a winning strategy. I also think its been long enough that many of these players straight up don't play cs and especially not MG anymore. 

 

I don't blame anyone for the server hosting sweaty players and I understand it wouldn't have been feasible to just remove autobhop after years of the server having it back then. But its been a year since cs2 launched and multiple years since the old csgo mg server shut down, we have the opportunity to start fresh with a new approach on MG.

 

I know work is being done and people have lives outside of cs, but most of our servers sit empty all day. I don't see the issue with trying something new out and seeing if it works out. If you want to measure how many people are actually interested, maybe host an event or open a separate thread asking people for their thoughts.

 

If you guys decide an MG server isn't worth it, I understand completely. I just wanted to say my piece. 

[Dong]

On 8/2/2024 at 7:36 PM, Karma said:

 

MiniGames: 

 

 

 

On 8/2/2024 at 11:23 PM, BloodBlades said:

So, I think if done right an MG server could work. If it were to be done, I suggest keeping the course maps to a minimum and keeping the server scroll only