If somebody wanted to make a server to attract the best players, how would you suggest they set it up? Obviously everyone likes low pings, but what do you prefer as far as the game settings ML, FF, Cmpgn or SW, things like that?
Talk amongst yourselves.
Personally, the first thing I look for in Punkbuster enabled. Fact is, I have that filter turned on, and don’t ever need to turn it off.
Second is FF, servers without FF just don’t appeal to me, something about having enemies running through thier own teams artillery that bothers me.
Beyond that, I like campaigns, 3 or 6 map. Usually 6 map. I find it kills an evening nicely, but doesn’t keep me up too late, those 10 map ones are insane.
Heavy weapon restricted servers are nice, now and again, I hate running into a team full of panzers, but I don’t avoid servers because of this, I consider it part of the game.
Usually the last thing I look at before jumping into a server is the size, both current and maximum. I like games in the range of 6v6 to 10v10, less than that, and it just gets boring, more than that and it gets nuts. Normally, I will go for a server that has around 16 people with a cap at 20.
About the only other thing that turns me on/off to a server is the skill level of the teams. If one team is dominating the other, I will usually try to get a shuffle vote through. The game just isn’t any fun this way, no matter which team you are on. If either the people on the server won’t shuffle, or the server has this vote disabled, I’ll go elsewhere. In the same strain, a clan stacking one team (especially if its the team who runs the server), tends to get me to leave. Sure, being in a clan doesn’t instantly make one better, but there does seem to be a bit of a corolation between being in a clan, and being a good player.
I agree with most of what Dragon said, but I do sometimes enjoy the mayhem of a 30 something server. As for the XP shuffle, I always vote no. If I’m on the team that is outclassed, I find it a good way to improve my skills and will spend more time waiting for a medic so I can ‘see’ what makes them so good. If I’m on the team that is outclassing, I try to make sure we are truly out classing and not just camping the other team.
I HATE when the other team spends more time in my spawn than I do. Lately I have been spending time on 3 second spawn servers. I have found that no matter the skill levels of the teams, it is almost impossible to maintain a spawn camp for more then 3 spawns (approx 9 seconds). I do make the distinction between spawn camp and spawn lock, if you stay in my spawn, your camping. If your outside my spawn, trying to keep my inside, but giving me an oppertunity, however slight, your locking, and I enjoy the challenge.
One other thing I don’t like is the constant kick voting. Usually I believe it’s kids just screwing around, but it sure is agrivating when you in the heat of battle and someone is calling a vote every minute.
What attracts me to servers is
any server with a good mix of the above = me having a good game 
Thank you for your input. Does anyone else have an opinion? I’m trying to figure out what the “ideal server” would be like in the hopes that I can help to create a great place for the community to play.
My dream server:
-Low ping.
-FF on.
-Max lives on.
-Good admin(s).
-No n00bs.
-Good players.
-Common language (no Parlous vouz Franquais - CRAP).
low ping, good admins, good crowd (regulars), shrubmod, FF on, campaign with 6 or more maps in it, few or no n00bs.
OT: Avoid Austin Gaming ET Unlimited! They have immature and abusive admins! I got votemuted because of complaining about TKs and medics passing me by and not reviving me. I disconnected shortly after.
Fuck you LeadBritches! 
I must say I have seen LeadBritches at work, I have seen him many times abuse his power and I got sick of being on a server were he claims we should all be so greatful to him,hes the perfect example of how not to be an Admin.
I absolutely hate anything more than a three map campaign.
12-16 players is just about right for me. Low pings, FF on…
LeadBritches gets a lotta hate mail and to be fair its quite justified - he can be a nsaty peice of work with his bad attitude
My ideal server is the ETPro SW server in my sig, but I suspect it’s not to everyones liking.
[ul]
[li]Bani’s ETPro mod
[/li][li]XP disabled = players play for the objective, not their XP
[/li][li]Stopwatch = competitive games, not only do you have to achieve the objective, but you have to do it quicker than the team before, plus you switch sides between rounds (staying Axis and defending round after round gets boring)
[/li][li]Active Admins = lamers get kicked pretty quick
[/li][li]Shuffle teams between (SW) rounds
[/li][li]16 player max
[/li][/ul]
People who are good fun to play with and who dont whine or have crappy attitudeds and who know the maps and are prepared to work for the team(get to know the crowd and you have a much better time)
PB enabled
Force Team Balance Enabled
FF On
Campaign Mode
A server what doesnt lag
Plenty of Admins what can be on for the most part and dont abuse there power in any way.
Servers what kick people who like filing on non-purpose Tkers.
About 20 player max.
That sounds a good server to me
The server TNCK is talking about is tx2.clanbank.com
Features:
With ET 1.02 im turning FF on but limiting it so you cant complain about artillery and mines.
I like servers which are often visited by experienced players and are close to league settings.
Put ET Pro on it, use some sane Punkbuster limitations (like timenudge in 0) to avoid warping as much as possible, a few decent custom maps (total starters usually don’t have them downloaded)…
g_antilag should be 1 for me, while 0 works for my ping (30), I think that antilag is the best thing since sliced heads and can’t quite understand the paranoia about it.
g_friendlyfire 1 without any question.
Use the new cvar of 1.02 to disallow complaints after mines-kills. If someone really wants to annoy his team by bombing them or planting mines in front of the spawn, a kickvote certainly works better.
g_heavyweaponrestriction 20 would be nice.
Objective or Stopwatch if possible, if it has to be a campaign, then a three map campaign (anything more is silly IMO and either leads to me winning because of XP and getting bored or me trying to fight my way through endless artillery strikes).
I’m not sure about disabling XP, I could imagine that it would work quite well on publics to avoid the usual XP whores. But it would also rip a part out of the game and I guess that people will just play for frags in that case. You can’t really change the gamer.
No silly things like maxlives.
Oh and if possible 12-16 maxplayers. I like 12 or 14 but 16 is still ok. Maybe add two or four additional private slots and give them to nice gamers.
I know one server that is pretty much configured like the above and surprisingly it’s usually full of the most experienced players (as opposed to every other ET public that I know about). It’s just not using antilag which is uncool. =)
important for me is:
server has 2 be almost lagless, i hate lag spikes
good server admins,referees who interfere when they need 2 (t/k ers etc)
10vs10 is fine anything above that is just panzerfood imo…
punkbuster on or off dont matter 2 me
and also very important, players need 2 play as a team 
punkbuster, friendly fire, antilag on
max lifes off
6-8 players per team
stopwatch or 3 map campaigns (no more, its just stupid imho … same is no XP reset)
don’t need heavyweapon restrictions for this setup, and low restrictions are very annoying for field ops
patch 1.02, etpro preferred, I hate shrub (lots of stupid options that spoil the game for me)
sane admins present is fine (not needed most of the time though)
and of course ping < 50 is great, > 100 is a no go
[ul]* PB on.
But all that is just tech mumbo jumbo. The one thing that matters is that the teams are balanced (I mean really, not just by numbers), and that atleast half of both teams know what they are doing