[Rejected] Steamgamers Divisions

STEAM GAMERS COMMUNITY GAME DIVISIONS

Hi everybody,

In the recent couple of weeks, there have been several threads about servers with low population and threads with no decent changes or amount of input from inside the community that could affect our population within the community.

There have been so many people who tried putting this off as “beginning of the year”, and it will be probably the same story in December when the holidays are coming up.. But that’s not going to help us out does it?

We are a standalone (not really, thanks to Channelfuse) community that is supported by the people (supporters) and right invoice and leadership of Spartan who is supported by our Board of Directors (Caution, MPQC and Nishok).

We can all agree that they are online most of the times, those guys are pretty damn active considering that we all have private lives and we just don’t have the free time or energy sometimes to turn on the computer at the end of the day and read the same bullshit on the forum or cb every night.

But here is when change jumps in.

You can pull this off as another bad idea that is copied right off the big ass communities like eGO but it is currently what we need. Crazy Swede really stood up a couple of weeks ago and said “Guys, I have thought of some changes for Zombie Escape, and I think it’s the right way to do”.

We all trusted him and as the moment I’m writing this, the Zombie Riot server (74.91.116.97:27015 btw) is almost full But also, the Zombie Escape server is empty.

My idea isn’t great, it’s more of a last resort in the pile of used ideas.. But it’s the right time to do since everybody is awake and concentrated on doing this right now.

We make Divisions. Simple.

We need people with the same interests that come together on weekly meetings, and divide ourselves within the community based on a structure that is plain simple and really communicative at the same time.

So what is this sudden idea? What is so new about it?

Well, we have so many talented people in our community while we don’t even know it most of the times. Given the amount of time we spend together on our forum we must know something about eachother.

I’m not throwing out fake pie charts and diagrams to prove my right here, but it’s something we can try.

Listen me out here on a last note, I’ll give an example of the changes that could be done here:

THE FORUM AS OUR COMBINED BRAINTANK

We all know that there are several threads that has an idea in it and it gets wrecked or approved.. Who can blame the people that aren’t open minded on change. We aren’t all decent democrats amirite? #governmentshutdown2013

As to change this type of mixed opinions by people who have absolutely no knowledge or sometimes no decent invoice to give on the matter, we should make it more like the admin complaints. Make the suggestion subforum of each division invisible to everybody but the people who are selected to work on the server.

We can’t start this idea with a couple of divisions, we have to test these matters with small baby steps at a time.

I would suggest by starting to make these subforums and we shall see what the outcome gives. We are experts at what we do actually, not only the higher-ups have managed to keep up this community for a while now, we have supported it my giving it funds and ideas to improve ourselves.. But sometimes it’s not enough.

So what I would suggest as the BETA Divisions:

Counter Strike Source:

- Zombie Escape / Riot

- Surf / Deathrun / Trikz

- Minigames / Jail Break

Garry’s Mod:

- Trouble in Terrorist Town

Minecraft:

- Minecraft servers

With the divisions there would become more clear views on the matters of ideas and such. So start off with the changes in the forums (invisible from the people who don’t have anything to do with it ofcourse, as long it is only used for the good of the community, not the next offtopic

We would also need a change in leadership as it is. With this I mean that each BD would have a division under his hand (Spartan not included). While doing this, we would divide all the AO’s in a division, taking SA’s in the team who would like to help out. On the last part of the BETA testing, regular users could be included too, but it would be wise to leave it to small teams of SA+ to bring out the best from the community to the people.

Make the AO's divide themselves, but try to keep it balanced. CE's are left out of the plan since they can handle the complaints and such.

I hope this can solve a few minor flaws in our current system. Like when you add a few SA's to the team who really want to make this work, they would actually be motivated to go on their server of the division they entered and be more active, or more a group of admins that is balanced on all the servers, instead of JB or MG.

While we're at it, we can make it a mini-competition between the divisions and give them a chance to do an event each month (let's make it a saturday for example). Make it a ONE DAY LONG event, with specials and really interesting stuff to make people come to their server.

They have a month to think about something, and we can see what specific group of higherups is worth their title.

Peace out.

And please, be sober and gentle when you respond, my fingers hurt

I can see the merits of this system for sure (like you said, look at eGO - its' divisional structure has served them well). I'm not 100% sure if it would work for SG, because of the low populations currently... I feel like the divisions would be both hard to coordinate (because a lot of people, higher ups included, may have a hard time figuring out which they'd like to help administer and all that) and would be relatively small in population, at least at the start.

But hey, I might be completely wrong. It would be cool to see something like this to help boost activity across all platforms, if it did end up doing so. Good on ya for coming up and suggesting something to better the community at large too. I would say that this idea needs some tinkering, but the basics sound feasible and there's a definite opportunity here.

I was going to post somethings such as this in the staff section, only more radical. Was going to recommend this once the money ran out and a panic set in but oh well :

We have a small number of higherups , who have limited time to work on SG , with different gaming interests and game libraries. Ontop of that we need to make sure we do not waste our money on servers that will not earn their cost back . This sets many limits on what servers can be made , denying SG of potential new members .

What I suggest is that we somehow decentralize server management , so that anyone can create a server and add it to our community , attracting any new players to the site where they can take a look at the many other servers available . If a server dies or it runs out of money, it will be their problem. In case they become successful and want to take their server and leave , we will probably have something in place to stop that .

It might be a wild idea but I think we should consider something like this .

Edit : I am working on this idea , looking at problems and how to overcome them .

Not even a single mention of WoT... the shame. But in all seriousness the game that should really be looked at is CSGO. We already have a CSGO server and CSGO has slightly more than twice the player base as CSS right now.

What I suggest is that we somehow decentralize server management , so that anyone can create a server and add it to our community ,

The problem with that is we'd still have to strictly enforce rules and regulations, otherwise it has the potential to give a negative perception about SG.

Low population has nothing to do with who is running it and who is there to make changes.

If you look at those other big communities you'll notice something that SG just doesn't appear to have: Their members help populate the servers nearly every day.

eGO servers I see the same handful of people that start playing every day to get it started, then it just fills on its own. They do this without events as far as I'm aware, and the members voluntarily do it. We do not have that here, our members don't sit and try to populate the servers, aside from one. TTT is almost always populated by those select few people that get on every day TO populate it and sit in the server inviting friends or waiting for people to join, once it started, it pretty much stays populated throughout the day. (12/24 people right now, highest of all our servers)

If we were to get our members to do the same for other servers, it would re-build a fanbase and instead of filling up our servers with our OWN members (via events) they would fill up with NEW members that become regulars due to a select few people starting it up everyday. That is how you create popularity and a player base. You frequently populate a server every single day.

You have to be able to do that without events since moderators of the group (AO's+) are not always on every day to play.

Low population has nothing to do with who is running it and who is there to make changes.

 

If you look at those other big communities you'll notice something that SG just doesn't appear to have: Their members help populate the servers nearly every day.

 

eGO servers I see the same handful of people that start playing every day to get it started, then it just fills on its own. They do this without events as far as I'm aware, and the members voluntarily do it. We do not have that here, our members don't sit and try to populate the servers, aside from one. TTT is almost always populated by those select few people that get on every day TO populate it and sit in the server inviting friends or waiting for people to join, once it started, it pretty much stays populated throughout the day. (12/24 people right now, highest of all our servers)

 

If we were to get our members to do the same for other servers, it would re-build a fanbase and instead of filling up our servers with our OWN members (via events) they would fill up with NEW members that become regulars due to a select few people starting it up everyday. That is how you create popularity and a player base. You frequently populate a server every single day.

 

You have to be able to do that without events since moderators of the group (AO's+) are not always on every day to play.

Tried this with ZRiot, had certain people responsible for populating the server and they really did try , it did not work . It might work for MG , TTT and PB but that is about it .

___________________________________________________________

Here is another way we can do things :

Have 2 divisions . One for CS:S and gmod and a second for everything else .

@Xeno,

Our NS2 server is almost always 24/24 (check stats). When it happens to be empty for some reason, I simply join the server with Silent or Spiritwind and after a while everyone starts joining until it is full.

This is the same principe for any other server, except it takes longer for the rest (since NS2 is new and not many good servers available, so it gets filled faster).

But for the current topic, I like the idea of having sort of divisions, but this doesn't mean you would lose access to the other servers. Everything stays the same except for management.

With this, we could have a bunch of people brainstorming for their servers division to make it 'better' and find ways to repopulate them (and also play on the servers yourself to get it running when empty).

 

But for the current topic, I like the idea of having sort of divisions, but this doesn't mean you would lose access to the other servers.: Of course not, that's why the system is going to be different Everything stays the same except for management.

With this, we could have a bunch of people brainstorming for their servers division to make it 'better' Think about it as an AO as division captain. (Take Crazy Swede for CSS: Zombie servers) and let him have a team of 3-5 SA's that work on it. We could arrange it so that every Division has one day each month to do a big event for their server(s). and find ways to repopulate them (and also play on the servers yourself to get it running when empty).

 

 

With a big event, I think that it could appeal to new players to see:

- Double credits

- More player slots

- Napalm Saturday for the CSS Zombie Division (I don't say that we have to split CSS down into the servers, but we need to make results here. If they want to make an extra server for their division, they have to convince the BD's or arrange it.)

- Special skins are a big NO NO.. Keep the downloading as less as possible.

- Competitions for credits or ingame advantages (getting supporter or something)

- Frequently asked maps

- A one-day WCS Server, Breakfloor server, Scoutzknivez server, Zombie surf server, ... We could really do so much old stuff and bring it back for one day each month, so they will have to come back to see it again

Another point:

- We should be able to make a TF2 or World of Tanks Division for the people who are interested, but they need an AO to back them up, otherwise I see no future or decent outcome of it.

I'm just giving ideas, I'm not saying they are good but I went random here

(EDIT: The reason i'm splitting up the servers a bit, is because we can't just do a PB event on the same night as ZE.. And if you have a month to prepare something in secret, the surprise will be big and will attract players.)

ZM maps are on the ZE server now anyway