Major Update Speculation XXVI: Much Ado About Nothing - Games

I honestly dont understand why this is such a big deal. watching a 30 second add once when you join a server isnt the end of the world.

[QUOTE=poptart TF2;48235278]I honestly dont understand why this is such a big deal. watching a 30 second add once when you join a server isnt the end of the world.[/QUOTE] aaaaannnnndddd now you're back to guzzling poptarts, just great

They're the new Capitalist Indoctrination flavor! Everything is for sale, even things you don't own - including other people's time, privacy, and dignity! Bend over backwards for the gentle caress of the Invisible Hand!

[QUOTE=G. Verloren;48235315]They're the new Capitalist Indoctrination flavor! Everything is for sale, even things you don't own - including other people's time, privacy, and dignity! Bend over backwards for the gentle caress of the Invisible Hand![/QUOTE] the only to save him now is 20CCs of anti-DOTAline stat

[QUOTE=poptart TF2;48235278]I honestly dont understand why this is such a big deal. watching a 30 second add once when you join a server isnt the end of the world.[/QUOTE]Pinion, in my experience, had the most magnificent habit of popping in to say hi in the middle of your life, taking away control of your character for up to a minute, usually at the worst possible time and place.

And besides, the game was never supposed to get ads. If you're going to run a server, you're supposed to know what you're putting yourself into, including financial costs. Not only is putting in-game ads on your server morally debatable, it was interrupting gameplay and that's unacceptable. (not to mention it was also badly implemented, took up resources and was a pain in the ass to deal with) The community deserved what happened, they abused Pinion way too much and it had to have consequences. Good community servers will continue to live because they know how to handle themselves properly and offer great additional content. And the keyword here is additional: although TF2 and its community is a special case, don't forget that there is an intended way to play the game (Valve servers) and that anything besides that is a bonus. Community servers can coexist with Valve servers, but when it interferes too much action has to be taken. That said, I see the point that there is no reason to play on community servers with the quickplay feature. But the thing with community servers is that you never know where you're gonna end up. If we only had servers running custom maps from the workshop that'll be fine, but we're far from there. I think the whole server system needs an overhaul, if not to be redone completely.

I just want them to revamp Arena mode so I can play those Ravine and Lumberyard again, or revamp them into KOTH maps

[QUOTE=SLBros.;48235768] The community deserved what happened, they abused Pinion way too much and it had to have consequences. Good community servers will continue to live because they know how to handle themselves properly and offer great additional content. [/QUOTE] The problem with this thinking is that you're equating the older, established community servers that had tighter-knit communities and ran only one or a couple of servers while [I]never[/I] using any ads, and [B]the generic, shitty server chains (including malicious Pinion abusers) that sprung up in the 2+ years after the Uber Update BECAUSE of Quickplay.[/B] Quickplay, before it got changed to Valve-only-servers by default, actually allowed people to set up unneeded, shitty, and poorly maintained/admined generic server chains without proper regulars or an actual community - becaue it started to shape player habits, the way the masses of new or lazier players searched for servers. Over the years, people just got used to clicking that one button to find a server via QP (because they couldn't be arsed to actually ask around for decent community servers and do some exploring/Favoriting via the normal browser) and this allowed a shitload of post-2011 server chains, some just bad and unneeded, others downright unscrupulously malicious, to clog up the server browser. Quickplay, even back when it didn't default to Valve servers, ironically allowed the growth of the shitty ''community servers'' without real communities, servers that were entirely relying on QP instead of having regulars and on-hand admins that played the game and only refreshing their ranks gradually by being discovered/recommended to new recruits. Then, when these shitty ''community'' servers started to overshadow the established ones in numbers and there was simply too many of them, they appealed to Valve to ''save them from financial unsustainability'' in some way. And then it was [I]Valve themselves[/I] who thought Pinion and the like was a good idea, which was in turn abused and perverted to a large degree by the shady ''community'' chains set up just to make a quick buck from ads, treating players as ad-impression bots to be milked. [B]The ''proper'' community servers with a rotation weren't really doing this at all.[/B] Starting to get too long, but those of you that say 'good riddance' are unfairly equating all community servers to the shitty post-2011 generic ones set up in a lazy way, with too many instances running on too few machines, that really didn't have a community around them. I'm sorry, but someone that, in 2012, set up a new chain with 10+ servers running 32-player Dustbowl or 2Fort just like hundreds before them (instead of starting small with 1 or 2 servers ) imo kinda deserved to have their server not populated, instead of resorting to Pinion, further fouling the growing gutter of the community server list, and then resulting in Valve taking a radical decision to screw up ALL community servers, good or bad, sincere or shady, ad-users or non-ad-users. Saying that Valve's QP change was totally fair and not heavy-handed at all and that all community servers deserved to die is cynical and narrow-minded to the extreme. When the current QP totally dominates the server tastes and habits of the vast majority of players and funnels everyone into generic, non-admined random Valve servers, where you always play with completely silent strangers and the differences in skill/experience are huge, the few surviving decent community pubs with a rotation have a really difficult time getting discovered and frequented by any relatively new blood to refresh their pool of regulars. As older players gradually stop playing or take a break from the game inevitably. Only 24/7 servers or ones specializing in custom gamemodes or shitty Orange/trade maps can retain a regular playerbase because they cater to specific/poor tastes that have always existed among the players. Rotation pubs, no matter how well-admined, cheery, communicative and filled with decently experienced players they were not so long ago, are a dying breed, ousted and replaced by Valve's rotation servers, which are a safe, reliable wa of finding a stock-settings populated game of TF2, but a horribly inferior way to pub for any more experienced player, unless you're clearly looking to have an easy time. It's questionable whether TF2 is a worse game in terms of balance, weapon choices, maps etc. now than it was 3, 4 or 5 years ago, but I do know that for me, Valve server pubbing is a clearly inferior experience to playing on the lively, populated community servers of old. If they're intent on letting community servers to rot, then they should at least (besides the proper competitive matchmaking in a specific format) use the matchmaking algorythm to introduce different tiers of Valve public servers for different skill/experience levels, because I'm really tired of being on a server where only a few people per team can provide good teammate support or resistance and games aren't decided by a few pubstompers. I wish the top few people from each Valve server were funneled into 'advanced' tier Valve servers, while the newer/less skilled players and kids remain in the lower tiers, where they can learn to get better and be relatively safe from pubstompers. Valve servers are the new norm and the default way of Tf2 pubbing, okay, great, now it's time for Valve to actually improve them, provide different server environments for different types of players, make them less half-assed, random and generic than they have been for the past 4 years. Christ, the generic, bare-bones servers set up as the havens for post-F2P newcomers are now the frickin' norm of all TF2 pubs. And the general skill level has hardly risen, you just have a few more experienced players or pubstompers feasting on a endless supply of kids, beginners and 5th snipers, with some 'friendlies' and griefers dedicated to being useless and not taking the game seriously thrown in for good measure. High time Valve provides different options/choices for different types of players as far as their own servers go.

In retrospect, removing Valve servers from the server browser might have been a first pass at providing a nice separation between vanilla play and "the wild west", ala CS:GO. Granted, it wasn't a [I]good[/I] first pass, but...

Well, here's to hoping they keep these 3 community maps in the game. :xfiles:

The problem was Valve wasn't enforcing policy of truth, let alone not even bothering updating it to include a "don't run invasive ads". Compared to the current CS:GO skin "tryout" plugin kerfuffle where it seems even those that did comply to eliminate any trace of those plugins from their server(s) got banned anyway, it's a damn shame PoT wasn't enforced very strictly after the one or two incidents where Valve actually bothered doing something to the servers that were in violation of it. I still hold the stance that if your server is good and provides a good experience, people will be happy to donate some money to keep it running at their leisure. But invasive, up in your face ads just screams "GIMME ALL YOUR MONEY". Hell even using Google AdSense would be better than Pinion or its clones, since you can just stick a small rectangle ad and be able to have your MOTD useful instead of being completely useless.

Mostly I want the maps to stay in because I love the Japan theme.

What did these people even get from advertising on TF2 servers? It's not like anyone went onto their site because of it. Infamy I guess, but not much else. Edit: Talking about Pinion itself

[QUOTE=Doom64hunter;48236802]What did these people even get from advertising on TF2 servers? It's not like anyone went onto their site because of it. Infamy I guess, but not much else. Edit: Talking about Pinion itself[/QUOTE] Money. They can get paid even if people only watch their ads. That's why you're forced to watch them, so they get paid and so they can pay the server owners. That's also why some sites ask you to turn off adblock.

[QUOTE=omegasupreme1;48235329]the only to save him now is 20CCs of anti-DOTAline stat[/QUOTE] Can you stop with the "hurr DOTA sucks and is a drug and sympathizers are terrible" rubbish? It's getting dumb.

[QUOTE=Jetamo;48236917]Can you stop with the "hurr DOTA sucks and is a drug and sympathizers are terrible" rubbish? It's getting dumb.[/QUOTE] yeah, even if it's true, it's hardly relevant here

They could easily move the four Gunmettle maps into quickplay, and be done with that unless the maps need to have minor updates.

I got bored and decided to see what a Halo-style playlist system would look like for Quickplay: [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/aH1htIZ.jpg[/IMG] Obviously just a rough mockup, but it's food for thought.

having the maps being "removed" doesnt mean much when you have been playing said maps outside valve servers. because fuck playing on valve servers with 180+ ping.

[QUOTE=Metaru;48237690]having the maps being "removed" doesnt mean much when you have been playing said maps outside valve servers. because fuck playing on valve servers with 180+ ping.[/QUOTE] It means they wouldn't be available on stock rotation servers or servers with map rotations that never update their custom maps (looking at you STAR_'s server, fucking viaduck pro rc3 when version 6 is out by now), which is a problem.

[QUOTE=Rajikaru;48237754]It means they wouldn't be available on stock rotation servers or servers with map rotations that never update their custom maps (looking at you STAR_'s server, fucking viaduck pro rc3 when version 6 is out by now), which is a problem.[/QUOTE]Can't patch people.

I wonder when the second contract this week comes out. It usually came earlier than this didn't it?

[QUOTE=poptart TF2;48235278]I honestly dont understand why this is such a big deal. watching a 30 second add once when you join a server isnt the end of the world.[/QUOTE] either you never actually joined a server with pinion or you are actually trying hard to defend it 30 secs add that pop more than ONCE and can pop at random times while you play, rendering you useless in the game because you can't do anything but watch a fucking AD that makes no sense. Also the whole idea of having ADS in-games (especially since some contain viruses) it's completely stupid and selfish. but of course you had to come back and shitpost like a champion like you been doing all this past time grats

[QUOTE=Erfly;48238150]I wonder when the second contract this week comes out. It usually came earlier than this didn't it?[/QUOTE] i believe a few pages ago it said wednesdays and saturdays edit: accidentally put thursdays [QUOTE=ysd64;48211973]Contracts are every [B]Wednesday[/B] and [B]Saturday[/B] if im correct[/QUOTE] i see that you meant time wise, sorry. thought today was friday. loadout.tf is saying 50 min, don't know how accurate it is [url]http://whatsnext.loadout.tf/[/url]

If today's contract drops at the same time as last Saturday's contract, then we'll have to wait for another hour and a half.

[QUOTE=TwoYearLurker;48238344]If today's contract drops at the same time as last Saturday's contract, then we'll have to wait for another hour and a half.[/QUOTE] The times are really getting fucked, before today I always got my contracts around 8 AM, which leads me to believe that perhaps they're regularly released at 3 AM EST on each wed/sat.

[QUOTE=TectoImprov;48234638]Oh god you reminded me of pinion. Fuck everything about that shit.[/QUOTE] If you try and visit pinion.gg, the site endlessly loads so I think we defeated it (at last).

New contract is here boyos

[QUOTE=CoalTen;48238985]New contract is here boyos[/QUOTE] Whenever this thread announces the contract, I get it like half an hour later. Is it random? It's very confusing to me

[QUOTE=Bynine;48239050]Whenever this thread announces the contract, I get it like half an hour later. Is it random? It's very confusing to me[/QUOTE] People who play DOTA get it early