Community retirement of RANKED

(MoonOnAStick) #21

I’m not sure that downloading random files from every server you visit is something that people want to do these days. I would certainly be reticent.

It would be nice if people could agree on 3/6 of the best custom maps suitable for 16 to 24 players and create 1/2 extra campaigns which any servers switching to unranked could run to maintain consistency. Perhaps these campaigns could also be hosted somewhere more ‘legitimate’ (splashdamage.com, or ModDB)

Also, some documentation for new players and admins (a sticky thread here would do).

(tokamak) #22

Yeah people aren’t opposed to trying new stuff. Starcraft 2 has shown that once again. But they also want to to have the core game readily available there and then whenever they want to play. More often than not I’m tied to short sessions of gaming which means I want the game I bought as fast as possible once I clicked the shortcut. The shorter the time between that and my desktop, the better.

In practice, it is.

(.Chris.) #23

This wouldn’t always be the case, only if that server ran their own campaigns, running mods or custom maps.

Yes, this would be a nice idea, that’s why I think it would be nice for server admins to get their heads together.

Agreed.

(tokamak) #24

Custom content sanctified by the developer and released through a patch is a really great idea. But even there there needs to be a way to easily differentiate between stock content and custom.

Most of the time I would have both filters allow for approved custom and ranked, perhaps toggle off ranked if I’m in the mood for quirky stuff and toggle approved custom off whenever I just want to hog people.

(Ashog) #25

approved custom… you must be kidding…

some unapproved custom is way better that some stock maps. Not playing the custom content means either you are uncurious (=not human) or that you deliberately abstracting yourself from additional fun.

Doubt I would be still playing vanilla and ETQW at all if there were no custom maps. Hell, I would have been out 2 years ago already.

(Susefreak) #26

What’s the deal with content being approved?!? I believe community can play for judge too.

(Nail) #27

I voted yes to unranked servers, just like I did 4 years ago, when it would have actually made a difference.

(DrD3ath) #28

OK guys, interesting thread. We have kept it ranked because we felt that players (mainly new) wanted the stats. I don’t think there are enough players to keep all the popular servers full. Maybe server owners could get together and have say 2 ranked and 2 unranked ? Maybe 4 is too many but would suggest US and Europe server for each. Will people stick around and play to keep them going. There isn’t much point in paying for empty servers.

(.Chris.) #29

Yeah, it’s not like there are 1000s of maps to filter through, the community can chose for themselves from the dozen or so suitable maps, even then servers aren’t forced to use them.

A naming convention for servers would be all that is needed. Phrases like “Vanilla”, “Custom Maps”, “Custom Campaign”, “QW:TA”, “Promod”, if players can’t read they can’t complain.

Would be interesting to hear from the server admins’ thoughts on this matter, some sort of roundtable discussion would be nice between the remaining popular servers to throw some ideas around about mixing things up and measuring up the pros and cons of moving to unranked and perhaps come to some sort of mutual agreement on the matter for the benefit for the game as a whole.

I should probably stop dreaming but this thread is a start though, already noticing a couple of things popping up that would need addressing to admins and players to ease their concerns.

(Susefreak) #30

sidenote: I can facilitate the roundtable if needed, TS server is ready.

(-Odi-) #31

I would like to see a ranked and unranked servers, but I think the unranked servers are only fun for a while. Me and many people have played this game for years on ranked servers and we still enjoy the standard campaigns. I would surely like to play changed campaigns, pro or custom maps, but I also want to play the old QW. I loved that game for many years and me and (I think) most of the people would like to play the standard QW. The ranked servers are a certitude to play the game we loved for all those years.

(.Chris.) #32

What is the difference between a ranked server and a unranked server with the exact same settings?

(-Odi-) #33

I know there is no difference, but players who didn’t join a community or look at these forums will mostly think that those servers are modded. It would be a good solution to put ‘Standard settings’ in the servername (just an example) so they know where to find the standard settings.

Players need to be well informed about the settings on the server or they may leave QW.

(DrD3ath) #34

There isn’t any except for the stats. Personally, I could easily drop Quarry and canyon tho the flyers might disagree. Reality is, there are max 200 players regualrly playing (at a guesstimate from gametracker numbers). We are all in different timezones etc. Punkbuster support being removed, (presumablly because they won’t pay for it) I wonder how long before the master server is taken away.

I would suggest a server with a mixture of standard and custom maps, maybe introducing the custom maps slowly, one at a time ? Information on servers to point people in the right direction to get them downloaded. I would like to help keep the game going, even if it just for the 200 odd players who still play. It has given me a lot of fun.

However, also have to take into account Battlefield 3 coming soon. How many will jump to that game ?

(MoonOnAStick) #35

I think there’s probably a few more than 200 players. There are often 150-200 people playing concurrently on a Friday night (Euro). In one of the Brink threads, SD quoted a figure of 5 times concurrent logins to estimate total player numbers.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Activision are obliged to provide the master server for as long as they have the rights to publish the game. Looking at Quake 4 reverting back to id/Bethesda this year, I’d guess another 18 months.

I would suggest a server with a mixture of standard and custom maps, maybe introducing the custom maps slowly, one at a time ? Information on servers to point people in the right direction to get them downloaded.

Agree, though I would introduce whole campaigns to keep the formula constant. It would be interesting to see what happens if 5 or 6 of the more popular servers all switched to unranked for a month (with the same custom campaign and vanilla settings).

One idea might be to start another voting thread with some possible map choices. Try to build a consensus around which custom maps could form a new campaign.

(DrD3ath) #36

Yes, you are right I did just consider concurrent players. I guess I was thinking that would be a reflection of the number of servers needed. Its also difficult to figure out the actual player base. Also, I forgot that each map is part of a trio campaign. Is there a way to just change one map in a campaign to a custom map and leave the other two standard maps in ?

Again, agreed, concensus is the key. I don’t really know how best to go about that. More contributions to this thread for a start I guess.

(Dthy) #37

I think to change one map you would need to make a whole new campaign and change the maps in the map-pool.

(Apocalypse_Pony) #38

I think step one is to simply take the servers (whoever is participating) unranked and just let it be for a while. If there is no drop off, then maybe start advertising a new campaign coming and how to get it. My biggest concern is how many people have the ranked servers filter checked. As long as they can still SEE their favorite servers, I doubt many would even realize the change.

How much can be done with stock QW? I remember it being somewhat limited, but I think if people can try new things by simply running their ol’ stock QW, there will be a better chance of success.

(.Chris.) #39

Yeah, this sounds like a good start, I think if you used that ingame announcement thing on servers to warn players before the switch over than I think servers shouldn’t lose players.

Depends what you are trying to do, stock QW can run custom maps however there is no megatexture auto download extractor tool thingy which could cause problems, ET:QW Pro and QW:TA both have that tool though.

You can change team sizes, map rotations and stuff like that in vanilla no problem.

Scrupus will be able to give a full proper answer but afaik it’s quite simple, you can have any map in a custom campaign, stock and custom alike, you’re also not tied to just 3 maps, there is a GUI limit though as the loading screen can only display a certain amount of map names on the world map you get, I can’t remember what the limit is. However that limit was overcome in ET:QW Pro I think.

(Susefreak) #40

[QUOTE=.Chris.;381387]
Scrupus will be able to give a full proper answer but afaik it’s quite simple, you can have any map in a custom campaign, stock and custom alike, you’re also not tied to just 3 maps, there is a GUI limit though as the loading screen can only display a certain amount of map names on the world map you get, I can’t remember what the limit is. However that limit was overcome in ET:QW Pro I think.[/QUOTE]

The gui limit can be overcome by simply implementing it in the custom campaign. The GUI limit for those who wonder in Vanilla is 3, with the update it’s brought to 12.