[Applied] Retire Dead Servers?

[EpicFP]

I have not been active in the community for quite a while and upon coming back I've seen that SG had expanded it's servers quite a bit. I also noticed that the player count and community has also seemingly shrunk since I had left. With this inference in mind, it seems there are servers with terrible or no player populations which I think should be considered to be removed. The servers I am calling into question goes as follows.

 

Server Name	Player Population (Last 30 days)
Crackhouse	Flatlined... If this were my bpm I would have died a long time ago...
Rust	With the y-axis being so unproportionate it is difficult to tell the actual population of the servers. From what I can tell it seems that the average population is <= ~5. Personally I would find that playing on a rust server with less than 10 people incredibly boring, let alone 5.
Scrim	I believe that this server is only used for events and requires a password to be joined. If the server needs a password to join why even advertise it on the public server list? You could just post the server IP where the event is being hosted.
Zombie Escape	It seems that the average player population is about 2 players, with the exception of the 2 spikes. That being said, who tf is going to play zombie escape with 2 players.
TF2 Fort	This isn't completely dead I guess, but is not performing too great. I've never played this game mode so I couldn't tell you if playing with < 5 players is actually playable.
All Squad Servers	All 3 squad servers have similar graphs to this one, A max of 2 players in the past month? Yikes! I don't see the point.

 

I'm not sure how you guys host these servers but it just seems like a waste to keep these servers up, some more than others. I guess you could keep them up in the hopes that one day people will join them again but I personally don't see that happening without some manipulation.

[Steven.]

Why remove them if there's no downside to having them there? It's also not like we're adding any servers soon to my knowledge. While we don't have an endless capacity to keep adding servers I don't think they plan on removing them until the day we do run out of space. Plus every server has an SM and I know from experience they're always thinking of new ways to change the servers and potentially gain back a population. 

[Phoenix_]

The future of some servers (not going to name which, because it's still a discussion in early phases) are being discussed at a CA+ level as we speak. I will say that much, anything I say below is just my personal opinion.

 

IMO I think we are a little spread thin on terms of support for servers because we have 9 SMs and 14 CAs supporting 19 servers. This spreads us a little thin and can lead to both quick burnout and low support on some servers. But with that in mind, I think I think you're targeting mostly the wrong servers in this thread, and I'll explain my thoughts on each of the ones you mention:

1. Crackhouse
   • I honestly agree with this one. It had a decent amount of hype at launch but hasn't really received much support since then, and has mostly sat at 0 population.
2. Rust
   • Rust is something definitely worth keeping around. The death of our Rust server is actually not even our fault, it was facepunch messing up their server browser and getting a lot of servers taken off it. We would consistently have full Rust servers throughout the wipe before the mess-up happened with the server browser. I believe if we can get lucky even for one wipe, we can get the Rust server at least half of where it was. 
3. Scrim
   • I can say with confidence that Scrim isn't going anywhere. It's not really meant to be a server to sustain pop because it's private to SG. It's really great to have for community events or for a fun comp game between a group of friends. It's advertised on the server list to notify our players and (not really realistically) pull in a person or two interested in scrimming for fun against other casual CS players.
4. Zombie Escape
   • No way. ZE is one of our flagship servers and it got this community to where it is today. ZE (as odd as it sounds) has a really high ceiling but also probably the lowest floor of our servers. In Q4 2020, there was a consistent pop on the server, it just takes constant work from staff and regs to get it popping. We've been looking for ways to revive this server and they should come sooner rather than later.
5. TF2
   • These servers don't really pull players but we do have two active staff members interested in trying a couple of more things with these before we let them go. I'm not a TF2 player, but these servers don't really take up much room on the dedi and we have staff ready and willing to put effort into it.
6. Squad
   • As far as I know, there's not actually meant to be 3 squad servers right now. One of them isn't publicly advertised on the Squad server list, and I think that one was meant to actually be taken down (I think fallujah?), but we are currently in the Squad tournament thing and we have been gaining quite a bit of traction in the Squad discord, so it's something worth keeping an eye on because there is potential. 

 

Again, these are just my thoughts though.

[sWz]

I don't entirely disagree, as I'm one of the people known for banging the "X SERVER IS DEAD" drum but this issue isn't black and white.

 

Servers like Scrim aren't supposed to populated all the time, and should definitely not be taken offline. Scrim is just a place to have a private comp every once in a while and scratch the community's competitive itch.

 

ZE has been "dead" for quite some time. I got about a years more worth of trust in the higherups before yeah, I'd agree this server has run its course. Every time we have an event the server pops though, and every ZE event I've been to has been super fun and lively. I don't understand why they haven't done more events, but I'm sure they have their reasoning because they've said for about a year and a half they have something "big" planned.

 

Crackhouse was a server I majorly advocated for and would honestly play all the time if it had players, it just never got off the ground. I still think this server has a chance if it had more events.

 

As for the other games, I haven't played on those servers at all so I can't really comment.

 

It's easy as an outsider to just look at the stats and say "what the fuck are they doing these servers are dead they dont care they hate their players bla bla bla" but a lot of things happened out of their control and I've still got trust that the higherups actually do have a plan for servers like ZE and Crackhouse.

 

To be fair tho, things aren't looking great and at this rate we're gonna have a new Kendrick Lamar album before ZE gets a consistent player base. Just have some faith.

[Nate.]

13 hours ago, EpicFP said:

All Squad Servers

I plan on moving forward with the reduction of 2 of our Squad servers. It isn't necessary anymore as we haven't filled up 3 servers in months. I think the last time we had 300 players was sometime in September of 2020. I'm working my hardest and it's not always easy to get input directly from SG as we have like 3 people who actively play. To get a server relatively full we need to start more seeds, and now that we have a good amount of members in our Squad Discord server it shouldn't be too hard to get 100 players. Tournaments and partnerships also seem to work. 

4 hours ago, Phoenix_ said:

One of them isn't publicly advertised on the Squad server list, and I think that one was meant to actually be taken down (I think fallujah?)

24/7 Fallujah was delicensed due to the lack of players. OWI has a tendency to do so as they think it's inactive and clutter. As long as there is 1-2 people that join a day even for 5 minutes, this shouldn't be an issue. I can always request the license again if it comes down to that. 

13 hours ago, EpicFP said:

Zombie Escape

Balancing between the two (Squad & ZE) has always been a challenge but we have an amazing group of people who still regularly give their input and suggestions for events and server changes. I don't have the same free time like I did during the school year due to a job & such but I work to push out at least 2-3 events a month. I don't see a point in retiring the server just yet as there is still some support within the community. Yeah, there may be very few people playing on the server during a normal day but when events are pushed out we see upwards of 40 players. I would be a little more concerned if we had significantly less turnout.

[Error.]

4 hours ago, dafty said:

Crackhouse was a server I majorly advocated for and would honestly play all the time if it had players, it just never got off the ground. I still think this server has a chance if it had more events.

I want to elaborate a bit more.

 

I still love the thought of crackhouse in CSGO, it is unbelievably untapped in this game and is still very popular in CSS. We 100% need more events on the server, not just kill contests. My idea is have events like Jailbreak... dumb, stupid, and, most importantly, fun mechanics. I would play this server a lot more if it had a dedicated fanbase of atleast 5 people who play it a lot. With enough seeding, I think it could be a huge server with a dedicated fanbase.

 

Also, add more cosemetics... I don't think anyone is going to hop on crackhouse to warm up

[dolo]

Rust
With a game like rust its very hard to try and build a solid community in game.
 

I think a lot of people that play rust along with me have gone on those shitty max population servers with people that roof camp all day, offline raid, and make it a living hell for other players. It is nearly impossible to keep a server without these things because these strategies actually somewhat work. To combat some of these issues I would recommend we try and build a stable community with advertisements and with this community build it up as a respectable server where onlines, counters and good pvp happen. This is not a easy task at hand and would take a very long time, this would consist of many ups and downs, but is still possible.

What I think the rust server needs is a little uniqueness, something to pull peoples attention to the server and not just blend into the massive server list. As well as I recommend that the server managers make the map smaller as this increases pvp with all ranges of population and makes it more enjoyable in a competitive and casual standpoint. 

Crackhouse

People would rather pay 3 dollars on steam to play Counter Strike Source and play all different types of DM maps then play against bots half the time on the Crackhouse server. There is almost no appeal for the server because all the people that played Counter Strike Source have full time jobs and mostly don't play video games anymore. The appeal to Counter Strike Global Offensive players is almost zero to none because they'd rather play a DM on dust 2 or mirage than play on the Crackhouse server.

Scrim
Scrims is one of the best servers we have at Steam-Gamers. No doubt about it. It's used for events, and random spontaneous scrims to have fun. As other people above me have said it's not supposed to sustain population but instead act as a private server to use whenever we please.

Squad
Knowing @Nate. he probably has something cooking with the other admins for squad, but seeing the chart for the games average players quietly going down there's a reason why the server may not be doing so hot 

 

[Bondairy]

2 hours ago, Kanye said:

Rust
With a game like rust its very hard to try and build a solid community in game.
 

I think a lot of people that play rust along with me have gone on those shitty max population servers with people that roof camp all day, offline raid, and make it a living hell for other players. It is nearly impossible to keep a server without these things because these strategies actually somewhat work. To combat some of these issues I would recommend we try and build a stable community with advertisements and with this community build it up as a respectable server where onlines, counters and good pvp happen. This is not a easy task at hand and would take a very long time, this would consist of many ups and downs, but is still possible.

What I think the rust server needs is a little uniqueness, something to pull peoples attention to the server and not just blend into the massive server list. As well as I recommend that the server managers make the map smaller as this increases pvp with all ranges of population and makes it more enjoyable in a competitive and casual standpoint. 

Creten and Gween changed the server to Solo/Duo/Trio to combat the problem of big groups getting offlined and just getting off for the rest of the wipe. We got really lucky and probably would keep having amazing pop if FacePunch didn't decide to put their "official" servers first. We try our best to seed bi-weekly as a staff team and I have also been leaving my PC on just to get one or two people on in my own attempt to see some improvement. I've seen a few new players since I've been on and we all have bases scattered around launch site so map size isn't really a problem and it wasn't when we had max population. Also, we advertise on the SG Rust discord and ping all the people who have a seeding-esque role, also we have twitter announcements and occasional R/Steamgamers subreddit posts about the Rust wipes. It's hard to tell the community to not offline or do whatever but we can encourage them not to do it, but in the end it's their decision to do said thing so building a strong reputation is going to be a little challenging. With all that being said there's a big future for Rust that we don't know about yet, I don't suppose they would want it gone even with how thinks are looking right now. All I can say is that we'd appreciate if everyone could help seed at some point as well, and thanks for sticking around!

 

 

As for you, EpicFP, I can tell you that Zombie Escape is the reason we're even here today and it won't be removed ever, I obviously wasn't apart of the community when it was top 3 in community servers because that was way back in 2009-2010 but since then it has brought SG a long way. There are lots of things in store just stay tuned. Rust is what I said above to Dolo, and TF2 is getting the same revival treatment, as for Crackhouse, it was more of an event thing but one of the major advocates (the one who made the map) for that server doesn't have access to a PC and they're all pretty busy with IRL stuff which triumphs, y'know everything else. Scrim has been in SG for a long time and it's home to us because it's protected by a password, it's not supposed to have population, just say in Shoutbox "Need (X) for Scrim." Finally, Squad is being worked on with Nate and he's done lots of the tournaments lately, and you should expect more stuff like that to come. Seeding is as always appreciated and there are big things planned for each server listed above. The Server Managers and Staff are very passionate about their servers and are trying their best to get some population. 

[kabLe]

21 hours ago, Phoenix_ said:

The future of some servers (not going to name which, because it's still a discussion in early phases) are being discussed at a CA+ level as we speak. I will say that much, anything I say below is just my personal opinion.

 

IMO I think we are a little spread thin on terms of support for servers because we have 9 SMs and 14 CAs supporting 19 servers. This spreads us a little thin and can lead to both quick burnout and low support on some servers. But with that in mind, I think I think you're targeting mostly the wrong servers in this thread, and I'll explain my thoughts on each of the ones you mention:

1. Crackhouse
   • I honestly agree with this one. It had a decent amount of hype at launch but hasn't really received much support since then, and has mostly sat at 0 population.
2. Rust
   • Rust is something definitely worth keeping around. The death of our Rust server is actually not even our fault, it was facepunch messing up their server browser and getting a lot of servers taken off it. We would consistently have full Rust servers throughout the wipe before the mess-up happened with the server browser. I believe if we can get lucky even for one wipe, we can get the Rust server at least half of where it was. 
3. Scrim
   • I can say with confidence that Scrim isn't going anywhere. It's not really meant to be a server to sustain pop because it's private to SG. It's really great to have for community events or for a fun comp game between a group of friends. It's advertised on the server list to notify our players and (not really realistically) pull in a person or two interested in scrimming for fun against other casual CS players.
4. Zombie Escape
   • No way. ZE is one of our flagship servers and it got this community to where it is today. ZE (as odd as it sounds) has a really high ceiling but also probably the lowest floor of our servers. In Q4 2020, there was a consistent pop on the server, it just takes constant work from staff and regs to get it popping. We've been looking for ways to revive this server and they should come sooner rather than later.
5. TF2
   • These servers don't really pull players but we do have two active staff members interested in trying a couple of more things with these before we let them go. I'm not a TF2 player, but these servers don't really take up much room on the dedi and we have staff ready and willing to put effort into it.
6. Squad
   • As far as I know, there's not actually meant to be 3 squad servers right now. One of them isn't publicly advertised on the Squad server list, and I think that one was meant to actually be taken down (I think fallujah?), but we are currently in the Squad tournament thing and we have been gaining quite a bit of traction in the Squad discord, so it's something worth keeping an eye on because there is potential. 

 

Again, these are just my thoughts though.

My opinion on the ZE server coming from a place of having seen it at its highest high and powerless low, it needs to go. Nobody cares about it like the managers who ran it when it was at its height. I don’t mean to say that negatively but if you think anyone currently managing it put in as much work as Wesker or Leon Mordecai did your just plain wrong. SG ZE is a thing of the past. An old achievement that no longer servers SG. It’s not a flagship server anymore. It’s a painful reminder of a beautiful past. 
 

this man put together a completely logical post using real statistics and logistics with an unbiased opinion. You saying ZE is SGs flagship server is an opposite, understandable, and incorrect statement. That would be equal to me saying Napalm is the flagship server of SG since I was around when it was the reason ZM became SG and expanded the community. It became a relic of the past that nobody who joined after it’s glory days would ever say it wa a good idea to make one.

[Phoenix_]

21 minutes ago, kabLe said:

My opinion on the ZE server coming from a place of having seen it at its highest high and powerless low, it needs to go. Nobody cares about it like the managers who ran it when it was at its height. I don’t mean to say that negatively but if you think anyone currently managing it put in as much work as Wesker or Leon Mordecai did your just plain wrong. SG ZE is a thing of the past. An old achievement that no longer servers SG. It’s not a flagship server anymore. It’s a painful reminder of a beautiful past. 
 

this man put together a completely logical post using real statistics and logistics with an unbiased opinion. You saying ZE is SGs flagship server is an opposite, understandable, and incorrect statement. That would be equal to me saying Napalm is the flagship server of SG since I was around when it was the reason ZM became SG and expanded the community. It became a relic of the past that nobody who joined after it’s glory days would ever say it wa a good idea to make one.

Perhaps I misspoke when I said flagship server, but ZE is still one of the servers SG is/was known for. While the staff has changed and we don't have managers like Wesker, Leon, etc. we still do have staff willing to put work into the server. Not to mention, there still is a fairly large market for ZE servers. 6 of the top 11 CS:GO community servers worldwide are ZE servers. Realistically, the only competition in NA is GFL for ZE servers. 

 

I doubt the server will ever reach the heights it did in the past, but there is still potential for the server to do decently well once we actually get a cohesive plan together and act. The staff who have stated their interest in ZE have not really had our schedules align recently to set up a cohesive plan for success, and that's obviously on us. 

 

I understand that @EpicFP put together a great thread with lots of statistics and no bias, and I applaud him for that. But I personally think there's a difference between servers that sit dead with no staff support and servers that sit dead with staff willing to support it. There comes a point where the staff effort becomes futile and the server should be shot, but I really am not sure if ZE is there yet. As little as 6 months ago we were getting the server full, even after the little ZE incident that went down. There will come a time where it's ZE's time to go, but I don't think that it's that time yet.