Lack of community servers = lack of community feel = getting bored of the game sooner

(KayDubz) #1

I know the devs are against community run servers…but do know this. The reason I played COD4 for 5 years was because of community servers. I could find many different servers with a slew of variety. I could play specific maps all I wanted, or play with different rules depending on the server. Community ran servers meant having admins who were present to kick hackers…or having better vote parameters put in place…so team switching/shuffling or map changing didnt need a huge majority to pass

Best of all, I felt a sense of community once I found a server that had everything I wanted. I joined a clan, joined a Ventrilo server for the servers I played on, and you’d see the same regulars every day. I created friendships in different servers. That sense of community meant people stuck around longer, and weren’t so quick to change their name-tag

Dirty Bomb will never have that it seems. The play community feels fragmented, even though I post here on the forums. I rarely play with the same people, even if I build my friend list some. All most people do is drop into random games, play a couple matches and then leave. There’s no laughing with your buddies every day…there’s just killing random anonymous folks.

I gotta say, despite the game being in Beta, Id feel like the game would have more longevity and grow a larger player community if there was a sense of community involvement like Im used to in other games. I just dont get that here. And I already find myself looking for new shooters to play.

DB is a good game…but it almost feels like a wall-garden, not allowed to grow to its full potential.

(Amerika) #2

One of the biggest things that SD/Nexon need to fix when it comes to public servers is exactly this. They want to have everything locked down and restricted so they can control content and limit abuse but that also stifles anything that the community could build and potentially hurts a lot of other areas too.

For example, it’s really odd that they would choose such a locked down model then expect the grassroots community to be entirely responsible for leagues/tournaments. If you are going to lock everything down as hard as possible then SD/Nexon should also be offering up company ran leagues/tournaments for the playerbase as well to keep multiple areas of the game interesting (cosmetics, pubbing and high end competitive). Sure, there are some tools now that help but that’s not a good substitute.

My #1 wish for DB is that SD/Nexon got serious about league/tournament play and put in efforts to create something that gets us all talking and interested in something other than jumping on to do missions in preparation for the next merc.

(KayDubz) #3

Thats another thing. They seem to not realize how the community grows games when allowed to get our hands dirty. For example, modding.

How many games grow a big community because of mods allowed? Star Wars Jedi Academy, an old game, was eventually modded with original trilogy content and given great reviews. As a sports gamer, I have seen dead games like MVP Baseball 2005 live on for a few years after series cancellation, because a modding community released total conversion mods for the new seasons each year.

When FIFA buys up all the licensing in soccer/football, players who prefer Pro Evolution Soccer have a modding community that changes all the fake players, teams, and stadiums into the real thing. And the game thrives because of this. As people like myself, who enjoy PES over FIFA in terms of realistic gameplay, its great that Konami never locked this down.

Even if SD didnt want the game’s mechanics or gameplay modded, new community created maps and textures could grow the player base and overall interest in the game. How many custom map servers still exist for COD4 and BF2? These games are OLD and no longer developed or supported by the original devs, but the community keeps them alive.

And do I even need to talk about Team Fortress 2?

SD needs to stop kicking themselves with this one. The game as it stands just feels locked to me. And even with new mercs and balance changes, I feel so disconnected from the game.

It wouldnt be so bad if players could at least create their own public matches for people to join. I used to play Warface, another F2P game…and the clans seemed more organized with matches and events because you could actually create your own matches that people would see in server browser. You could create passwords if you wanted, choose the map schedule, friendly fire, which classes could be used, all that.

The problem with Warface was P2P mutltiplayer matches. While co-op against the CPU ran through dedicated servers, player versus player multiplayer was P2P. Hence everyone connected to whoever was the host of the match…and thus lag was always a big problem.

However despite that, at least the game had some community feel. I likely wouldnt have left the game if it had dedicated servers. But Dirty Bomb though? It just feels too locked down and like the devs are stifling its potential.

(watsyurdeal) #4

I would like it if this game had community servers, definitely would make the public part of this game better since people keep trying to turn it into competitive.

(frankopeti) #5

Or mapmaking would be awsome:)

(Jostabeere) #6

I doubt anyone in this community is competent enough to make maps on SDs levels.

(frankopeti) #7

Not yet my friend the chosen 1 will born in 2016 and by the time the game come out of beta( in 2036) he will be ready

(Amerika) #8

I doubt anyone in this community is competent enough to make maps on SDs levels.[/quote]

You’d be surprised.

(p4v) #9

I doubt anyone in this community is competent enough to make maps on SDs levels.[/quote]

In Wolfenstein: ET almost every competitive map came from the community. Only two maps by Splash Damage out of six (if I remember correctly) were used in cups and they had to be modified anyway for balance.

(Dirmagnos) #10

“LACK OF COMMUNITY SERVERS = LACK OF COMMUNITY FEEL = GETTING BORED OF THE GAME SOONER”
Total nonsense. In fact its exactly the opposite. Allowing private servers would lead to player movement from one to another and not really playing the game, resulting in disappointment in game.
"I could find many different servers with a slew of variety. I could play specific maps all I wanted, or play with different rules depending on the server. "
All that can be done without creating private servers. And im pretty sure that devs have that written down somewhere in a 2do notes.
“Community ran servers meant having admins who were present to kick hackers…or having better vote parameters put in place…so team switching/shuffling or map changing didnt need a huge majority to pass”
And considering immaturity of modern gaming community it also means admins who will abuse their position of power and “better” voting parameters that will lead to completely absurd situations where couple of guys will be able to kick whole team. Or when members of the clan, who will obviously have higher privileges, that runs server will simply kick and ban any1 they like 2, based on some ridiculous reasons.
"Best of all, I felt a sense of community once I found a server that had everything I wanted. I joined a clan, joined a Ventrilo server for the servers I played on, and you’d see the same regulars every day. "
Yeah, same 3 people every day. Considering how game is build and on what developemnt stage it is, there wont be that many moving around, since absolute majority of population will remain on Nexon servers.
“All most people do is drop into random games, play a couple matches and then leave.”
Thats your organization problems, not issue with lack of private servers. If ppl like you would want to play together, then they could do it under already existing conditions. There is absolutely nothing that prevents friends to play same games.
“Thats another thing. They seem to not realize how the community grows games when allowed to get our hands dirty. For example, modding.”
Considering that game is still in development, asking for any type of SDKs is plain stupid. First devs would have to put it together and then after each major update theyd have to spend a boatload of time updating both SDK user-generated content and SDK itself to be up to date with most recent version of the game. And thats a lot of money and work hours that otherwise would go directly towards game development. I dont know a single game where devs would release any type of modding tools in pre-release stage.

While in general im not opposed to whole private servers idea, i see far more potential in devs working towards private game rooms(with certain extra options and limitations). Makes more sense and far easier to implement considering game development direction.

(SereneFlight) #11

Right now if Nexon decides to not support the game anymore (which will happen when Sniff stops playing the game) and shuts down the servers… that means no more DB for us.
With community servers that wouldn’t be the case + admins could just kick & ban hackers and bumholes (like me) + force shuffle when teams are uneven/ -balanced… one could, and already have, argued that admins could also abuse the power they got but eventually people would just simply avoid their servers… why to go Little Timmy’s bar if you get kicked out for no reason every time you go there?

This!
Or at least hold a map making contest.

[quote=“Dirmagnos;124646”]
“Thats another thing. They seem to not realize how the community grows games when allowed to get our hands dirty. For example, modding.”
Considering that game is still in development, asking for any type of SDKs is plain stupid. First devs would have to put it together and then after each major update theyd have to spend a boatload of time updating both SDK user-generated content and SDK itself to be up to date with most recent version of the game. And thats a lot of money and work hours that otherwise would go directly towards game development. I dont know a single game where devs would release any type of modding tools in pre-release stage.[/quote]
This far I haven’t heard KF2 community being pissed about how SDK have ruined everything. I would say they’re happy that SDK is a thing so they don’t have to play the same few maps all the time.

Also, mods will keep people playing the game longer which would allow devs to sell DLC/ MTs for longer.
Skyrim is one those singleplayer games that people have played for hundreds and hundreds of hours… why?.. mods. I would say that large number of people who spend hundreds of hours would probably played the game 60-100 hours if the game didn’t have any mod support.
And then there’s KF1, which sold DLC through 6 years after the release. While the games is fun, without mod support the game most likely wouldn’t have survived 6 years before the sequel and couldn’t have sold DLC anywhere near as much as they did.

So… mods = people will most likely stay interested in the game for longer period of time = you can sell more DLC/ MTs for them for.

(Amerika) #12

Don’t stop asking for change. The community has gotten quite a few things changed and some features added, some of them being things that SD said would not change, due to overwhelming and unified support.

(KayDubz) #13

[quote=“UnaSalusVictus;124714”]stop asking, SD have said pretty much from the start no community servers or server software.
also dont ask for TDM/DM or CTF modes the former have been ruled out(or so im told) by the devs long ago, and ctf “cant work because players move at different speeds”

do not expect an SDK/Mapping kit for game that wont have community servers, since it would require nexon to rent players servers and give them some actual control over them, and if they where gonna do that, they wouldnt have ruled out the community servers early on.

sall good, db is what it is, and there are other games to play and coming out that will have these things, that you can play to take a break from db and its limited maps and game modes.

also alot of know-it-all members here will tell you community servers would ruin the game by spreading the community out to much or by allowing “Admin abuse” (kicking people who are being cucks, and when your a cuck thats a bad thing…)
[/quote]

I wasn’t asking. I was getting a discussion going because I’m aware of their stance. And personally I feel their stance stifles the potential of this game. And I know for a fact that a few people I used to play other shooters with won’t come to DB because of certain community friendly features it lacks.

(srswizard) #14

One of the coolest things about TF2, just as an example, is that I can hop on a 24/7 Harvest KotH server and just grind away mindlessly, doing whatever, without long pauses between matches.
This is just one of those things that we can’t have in Dirty Bomb currently, because we’re stuck with this closed server system.

(FalC_16) #15

[quote=“Kay-Dubz;21461”]

The play community feels fragmented, even though I post here on the forums. I rarely play with the same people, even if I build my friend list some. All most people do is drop into random games, play a couple matches and then leave. There’s no laughing with your buddies every day…there’s just killing random anonymous folks.[/quote]

hey I will play with you! I actually never recognized someone from here in the game itself.

(Runeforce) #16

The devs have never said that they are against user-administrated servers, custom mods and mapmaking, in fact they have always expressed support for it and said that they want to do it. It’s been the most often requested features since day one, and the answer has always been that it’s late in the roadmap.

(frankopeti) #17

And don’t forget the game is still in beta,
I think the devs are focusing getting the game fixed I am sure after releasing it they would have more time dealing with other stuff

(Denzel) #18

https://youtu.be/J6zhI47b1v8?t=74

These guys were adamant about giving the community some reign over the game. But it seems somewhere down the line they had a plan change.

(Jostabeere) #19

[quote=“Denzel;124846”]https://youtu.be/J6zhI47b1v8?t=74

These guys were adamant about giving the community some reign over the game. But it seems somewhere down the line they had a plan change.[/quote]

Or Nexon just slapped the shit out of them :smile:

(Ctrix) #20

Am I the only one who hates community servers?
There’s always some shitty mods running, which you don’t know about unless they ruin your fun, some really basic and thus shitty rebalancing mechanic, and some troll admins who kick you if you are on the opposite team and making them lose.
They’re also highly susceptible to pupstomps, because someone owns the server, and that guy probably has friends and they play as a clan.

There are plenty of servers right now, why would you want more.
(unless you’re in Australia, in which case life hates you)