Community Owned PVP Servers thought

[Tom_Anger 0]

THIS IS JUST A THOUGHT SO PLEASE READ AND REPLY.

I think many of us can agree there aren't enough consistent PVP type of missions out there giving the community what they need. I run a server for my group, but as with many groups what we see is an inconsistency where gametypes may be switched for gaming preferences on the fly. We want to be fair to our gamers too. This is to be expected, however, this hurts those looking for that server that hosts a specific gametype regularly.

So with that - I had a thought which I believe may help get gamers what they want. It will take some trust, responsibility, trial & error, and finances, but for now lets just focus on the idea. Here it goes.

What if we (the community) agreed to pool efforts to order four 32 player slot servers on the New York location (New York seems to help UK and US as a whole) to host consistent gametypes. With this package comes 1 community teamspeak with channels for each server and Team Side. Gametypes can be discussed, but for now, humor me and go with it... Ignore the server name THE ORANGE BOWL - it is just an example, lol

Server 1 (THE ORANGE BOWL): 32 player Advance & Secure only

Server 2 (THE ORAGNE BOWL): 32 player HOLD - 1 or more objectives to capture to win

Server 3 (THE ORANGE BOWL): 32 player TDM/DM Only

Server 4 (THE ORANGE BOWL): Wild Card - host whatever the community has in demand for

Each server would have to host a consistent style of gameplay meaning no heavy mixture of stuff that would confuse people. Each style with similar styles of play... Changes would be discussed in a centralized forum (not sure where that would be but just go with it for now)

Taking cost out of the equation would this make sense? I believe it would help. With Joint Operations Typhoon Rising the gamemakers did run their own community servers and they were full at 64 players for a long time. It encouraged the community to play more and host more... I am stating this post for 32 players here because at some point costs will become a factor, lol.

Basically anyone looking for a non-coop experience can hop on one of these servers, hit the community teamspeak, and have a hopefully good experience. A rotating message can point folks to the TS address, requests/comments to a specific BI forum and the server admin's role is to help communications in that forum for the operation of the servers.

Again - taking costs out of the equation, does this sound like a decent idea? In a perfect world maybe, but lets discuss and see where this idea takes us.. Or choose not to discuss, lol. I would be willing to contribute to this for sure. I would be willing to help for the cause to get a constant AAS, TDM/DM, HOLD, etc type of grouped servers.

There's my thought on the topic. what do you all think about this? There are definitely pros and cons (you can please everybody all the time). Looking for feedback on the subject... If need be we can put up a poll, but I would be willing to hear what folks have to say. If it comes down to $$$ then we can continue discussions on that part, however, there are other areas to discuss here as well....

[celery 8]

I think it's a great idea if the financial side can be managed in a smart way.

[.kju 3245]

Whis and I have been discussing your post today Tom Anger.

There are several other issues with public PvP play atm.

One being only servers with a certain player count (>10) get noticed by the main crowed.

AI or scalable missions could help to build up the server pop better.

From what I can tell there are several community servers.

* ESL (hold): Russian servers like Kazan.

* CTF: OWM? - at least there is one.

* AAS: BMF/BCA/Arma2.ru and couple more

DM is small scale normally - it is more something to get into a gaming night.

TDM isn't really popular and doesnt make much sense public IMO.

I am more missing here Devastation, CaptureTheBase, your missions (in general those

of SBS Mac's PvP pack) and other not as popular public missions.

Yet back to the initial problem - the high pop berzerk, evo, domination, cti servers

draw the most attention and therefore one of the main issues is to get a server full

house (aka 10-20 player).

Normally that somewhat works if you have clans play public and add ~5 people to a

server as a start.

[qwertz 10]

I guess it's a chicken-egg problem. I know of people that do love ArmA 2 but have stopped playing because there is a lack of public servers that combine PvP with a somewhat coordinated gameplay (which is missing on the crowded berzerk etc. servers). Not everyone has the time to get "serious" and join a clan etc. , which is usually the solution to the problem.

The only location in the US that offers all the above is the BMF server as far as I know, thats why I almost exclusively play there (it only gets full after 9-10pm Eastern time, though).

I think if Tom_Anger would pull this off, with a little word of mouth, there should be enough ppl that would be happy to jump on board, at least over time.

Tom_Anger, if/when you pull this off, let me know if you need help, I don't have too much free time but would be happy to contribute to the funding.

[galzohar 31]

If you want to get people, I think the best idea would be to start with small and simple. Too many people make missions that require a very large number of players to work and then wonder why their server stays empty. Guess what, nobody wants to play a 30 player mission with 5 players. Look at domination for example - it can work even with a lone player playing, and thus can actually rack up the players (or they can keep playing even if nobody joins and the mission works). Berzerk, on the other hand, doesn't work at all without 100 players because it's just huge, and the only reason it gets player is because it already has players - a privilage a new game mode and/or server does not have.

I tried making Bunker Control: Kabanino which supports up to 50 players but can work even if you only have a few players on - About 8 is where it starts being fun but even less works. The important area to fight over is small enough so that they will meet each other if they actually try to win by getting points for holding the bunkers. Then there's the even-smaller Bunker Control: Chernogorsk which is max 16 players and can work fine with even less than the first one (as few as 4~6 players can have fun in that one).

If you don't have a server but just want to play these missions with friends, feel free to hop on the Art Of Game server (which has these and many other missions available) and vote that mission by typing #vote missions in chat (or vote one of you as admin). Problem is though that the server is in Israel so Europeans should get ~100ms latency and Americans ~200ms, but at least you can try out the missions without hosting them yourself. If you do actually organize some people to get on and play at a preset day/time, feel free to leave a message on the Arma 2 Israel steam group so that more players might join.

Anyway, the bottom line is that if you want to get a PvP server off the ground starting with nothing, you have to make something that will work for the number of players you expect to see logging in to your server. I know I'm always with my eyes open for servers running non-domi/evo/cti/aas/berzerk servers, and others that don't like playing those missions do as well. Heck, that's how I found the Zeus community.

[Tom_Anger 0]

Good posts - moving forward with the concept (again taking finances out of the equation), the operating requirements to make this work would require:

• A centralized forum for each server - so that requests, issues, comments, can be discussed. I would love to see this done on the BI forums, but for now lets just discuss the concept. Missions, server settings, etc. would be polled.
  
• A small set of Server Admins who would also be Mission Raters. This responsibility requires work. A mission would not go on the server unless it met the requirements (we would have to discuss what the requirements are i.e. balancing issues, good detailed notes to explain how to play the gametype, playability, glitches, etc). I could easily write a set of categories and things to look for to be server-worthy. I do this with my mission rating team at http://www.nova-inside.com. Another thought is each server can have a set of scrolling messages which can have ARMA 2 news and headlines at community sites.
  
• Each server would only have the gametypes specific to the server's setup (i.e. AAS would only have AAS, HOLD would only have HOLD, etc). All players have to do is hop on and when a mission is complete they can vote for the next map where majority rules. The server admin could review the activity and most requested missions. Each month rotate some fresh missions based on player preference.
  

This concept isn't hard and I am pretty sure I can get a package deal if we move forward with it. I don't want to rush the ideas here so lets continue to discuss. Maybe something to keep focussing on for Quarter 1 2010 or scrap the idea altogether.

Running a server is a no brainer. It's making everybody happy all the time that is the hurdle. You can't please everyone all the time, but with this as a focus for discussion I think the gamers can make a nice place for everyone to game in the MUCH NEEDED PVP CONSISTANT SERVERS.

Positive feedback and negative feedback is welcome here. If we get enough positive feedback we can then focus on the financial aspect and work out a pledge system to get donations and make this happen, but for now focus on the concept....

KUDOS to those clans that made the decision to stick to 1 gametype (i.e. BMF and others). They are the ones that are helping at the moment...

[Kochleffel 10]

i have resources free for one more PVP Server, if u are intressted, write a mail to me: Kochleffel@dao.nu