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I only joined xG and started playing on the css servers this year, and it's never been *that* populated, but its still always been fun and certainly a place where I spend a lot of my time. We still have quite a few dedicated players who come on every day, and at least one server is populated at some point throughout the day. Now, I do see another option, that is somewhat combined with the second. Right now, we have 6 servers: Jailbreak, Minigames, RPG Surf, RPG Surf DM, Bhop, and sliderace. Only the first 3 are ever populated, not to mention they have way more slots than they need. If CSS Division is costing too much, why not downsize to start things off? Pay only for the 3 servers and the slots they need. That won't get us more players though, so on my ideas on the second idea Hiding mentioned. On JB and MG, we have new players come fairly often, but many don't stick around long, so we only have a certain amount of regulars. So, what can we do to keep new players interested? As it stands, xG CSS JB doesn't have a whole lot. Bombs, redbull, bank, that's about it. If we can get the devs and any member who can help to work on a new set of plugins, we might be able to have that extra something that makes other players want to stay. Now, as we have so many people asking for Hub, I think thats a great way to start. Why not even come up with something original? For example: A CSS hats plugin already exists, why not take that, add it into hub, but instead of using credits to buy, make it give you hats for "achievements" or something. IE 100 Hours on server? Get a hat. Warden 50 times? Get a hat. Now, that may or may not actually be a good idea, thats just an example. I do think we should get rid of bank, completely. Redbull and bombs are fine, imo. For minigames, a simple hub might keep things more interesting. And of course, we can add more as things go on if its successful. I could go on for a lot longer, but I just want to say this: We have other servers and divisions that are populated even less, why should CSS go, especially with so many people who play on them regularly, even if they are mods? What's the point in having servers if not to have xG members play on them?

Wasn't entirely sure how im supposed to screenshot my desk top..... so i took a picture and then screenshotted that picture.

OMG YES! I say just put it on pokemon trade and just make the maps alternate like every 30 minutes or an hour. The server is called pokemon trade center so there shouldn't be any issues.

I know this is going to sound like I'm just beating the same drum as pretty much everyone who's posted before me, but I think the smarter option would be to shut down the CS:S division. While I do think that option #2 may hold some prospects for the CS:S division, I do not believe that they would be enough to justify the continuation of the division in the long run. The time and effort that would be put into essentially creating a new jailbreak server would be quite large, and this would be one of the largest projects that I've seen go down at xG. Would the ends justify the means however? In my opinion, they wouldn't. While we may see a temporary boost in the amount of players, eventually we'll be put in the same situation that we are in right now. This probably isn't even due to the quality of our servers or the dedication of our members, it's simply that CS:S as a whole is slowly sinking, and the only groups that are keeping their heads afloat are the largest communities in CS:S as a whole. On the other hand, I think that CS:GO has a lot of potential, certainly a lot more than CS:S has right now. I think shutting down CS:S, and transferring over to CS:GO would be the smartest decision to go with right now. I can partially understand the argument that "CS:GO isn't populated/we should focus on current divs rather than switch over to new ones" however in this situation I don't really see those arguments as valid. CS:S has only three servers that could be considered "populated", and the other three which are essentially dead. However, jailbreak is really the only server that consistently has players on it. Most importantly, we now have to address another glaring problem: School. Right now, it's the summer (dur), meaning that most of xG has much more free time on their hands, mostly due to the fact that most of us are out of school. Once the summer ends, it means that the servers are going to most likely become even less populated than they currently are. If we can barely justify keeping the division up during the time when the servers are traditionally the most populated, how can we possibly justify keeping the division up when school starts, and server activity goes down the drain?

On iPad and this is really laggy, I'll fix typos tomorrow 1 ill kind of give you the one, as someone fucked up the map group effectively breaking it every mapchnge. 2 it has more custom content than CSS 1 we should work on servers we already have before expanding to new servers 2 not only should yo refer to 1, but to compete with other servers we would need a 128 tick server which costs even more money. I'm not surg what servers you play on but the menu works fine for me. 3 you contradicted yourself with serious casual. 4 I need access to a database, right now the hub is setup ghettoly by usin clientprefs to store credits, equipt items, and purchased items. The modules would need to be completely remade. 5 I don't know what glitch you're talkign about. True Holy shit this is so annoying to type with.

Option #1 is the best and most realistic choice in my opinion. As Bleed/Hiding already stated Hub is not gonna bring everyone back, many people have already lost interest in CS:S and have switched to other games. And Lithium I have also noticed people joining the server typing !store and other commands related, but personally speaking those times where it happened are actually rare. We should not waste time/resources on a division that is basically dead. A division that is now only populated by members and will rarely receive new players that stick around. I honestly think that it is time to put Old Yeller out of his misery. :( . Adding a Hub might attract new players but lets be realistic, it will not last long. Why? More and more people are playing CS:GO. According to the steam charts, CS:GO is the 2nd most played game (With TF2 being 3rd ;D). Meanwhile Counter-Strike: Source receives approximately 9 times less players then CS:GO. (CS:GO received a peak players of 163K and CS:S had a peak of 17K) Now unless I'm mentally retarded this can potentially give us higher chances of getting new players and populating servers. This is a link to the charts from Steam themselves Steam: Game and Player Statistics . Not to mention the fact that I've been around some other Jailbreak servers who do have a store system and they are basically empty except for a few. CS:S servers for the most part are dead. Its alive and kicking but barely. And Hub? Like honestly we've been promised it for 1 year now,. But lets say we do turn over a new leaf for the CS:S server it'll only stay populated for a year or two at most (If xG lasts that long). And that'd be even if we do get the Jailbreak server populated again. This would require a major overhaul of the entire division which personally I see isn't worth the gamble in the long term. Meanwhile according to ThePenguin who has constantly rubbed it in that there is Hub on CS:GO. There is already a lot of work being done on it. And it just needs a push to get it going again. To me this seems like a No-Brainer, Lets start fresh... Opinions? @DrLee @Hidingmaster @Lithium @Legend *Too bad that my computer can't run CS:GO that well*

thanks for the tag. @Hidingmaster and the mention as the OG DL of CSGO and also the oldest member in this conversation besides shadowspy. option 1 seems like the best bet. as far as staff is considered, I can safely agree with bleed that trusting admins+ and doing a straight transfer there would be fine, however mods are a bit iffy, we would probably as the OG CSGO staff of bleed penguin and I weed out some of the mods that probably wouldnt work and really get it to work. also in the case of developing for csgo, bleed is a good guy and after he learned how to work with the servers (a very painstaking process of letting him know he fucked up and has to fix it then realizing it was still broken later that night and ninja fixing major issues until he learned) he got able to handle and he can focus mostly on the developing (i am offering to pay him in pizza right here) and I can get back to actually caring about a server since it wouldnt be just me populating it.

well that's rare

Why is this not true for CSS then? CSS as a whole certainly isn't dying, and I see no reason why attention from devs and people in command couldn't revive it just as easily as another division.

Who are you though, seriously?

Well, if we were to do option 2, youd have to make sure everyone is willing to work on it, if you start working on it then juat quit midway it'll be a waste. I also think we should try and get some donations in from the css div first, make something for when hub is up they get some type of vip thing, like free stuff etc. But as much as it hurts me to say it, being someone who stuck around xG the longest (since summer of 2010, 405th xG member), option 1 is much smarter, more oppurtunity for the csgo div. CSS will die eventually since people will transfer to csgo being the newer ( and imo, better) game, we cant stop that. If it were worked on seriously enough, it could last longer, but it's only delaying what is sure to happen soon. If css jb were revamped, we would SERIOUSLY need some unique traits, whether it be plugins, games, etc., If we are the same as any other JB, the work will be for nothing. I would like to see css thrive as it was then, but even I understand it's just a dream, one that will likely not be fulfilled. Oh, and wow, nobody tagged me, I see how it is. Screw you guys, im goin home http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z99iVXJ8OtA

I really, really hate option 1 because CS:S is 90% of my daily occupation and I don't know what I would do since TF2 JB is shit and I don't really play any other games of the other division. That's the only reason I would prefer option 2. This thread is making me sad :( @Lithium @Legend @sqwurt @DJ_Audible_Swag

Keep bhop up, I go on it every day.

Fuck the admins!

I love how he has only 98 hours on TF2 and all 506 achievements.

At certain points in time you realize that things you loved greatly cannot last forever. People move on, you get bored, things get stale. No matter how much you wish that things would return to the "way they used to be" you have to realize that it will never. CS:S is exactly this, something that was once a great time, with great people, and a game you could play for 12 hours straight without being bored. Unfortunately it just doesn't have to appeal, to anyone that plays anymore. We are lucky to have an hour a day with anyone on it. Minigames fairs slightly better, but still has dismal population numbers. And when either of these servers are populated, most of the time it is members; the randoms are few and far between. At the current moment, CS:S is seriously struggling. Population is low, its stale, people complain about the state of it. So what do we do about it. There are really two options, and before carrying on I ask you to take a minute and seriously think it through. Don't look into the past and think about how much fun JB was in 2011-2012; you realistically cannot expect it to be the same ever again. Option 1: The tough choice Nobody wants to say it, but I have no problem being the first. I think a serious consideration about taking CS:S down for good is in order here. As it stands right now, we are putting a lot of money into server upkeep but seeing very little benefit. We haven't changed much on the servers in what seems to be years, and certainty nothing drastic has changed to make it fun or worth it. So let's say we do decide it's time to let go of CS:S, what can we do with the money that is saved? Well, it certainly will make xG that much easier to keep running; there would be less reliance on Silence and a few random people to keep the servers paid for. In addition this money could theoretically be invested into one of the other divisions, whether it be CS:GO, GMOD, or TF2. My hopes is that something would be worked out with CS:GO div @Bleed to migrate current mods+ and to work on creating a great JB and minigames experience there. I tend to think of this option as the better for all option, versus the better for some. The benefits of this choice are: 1) Save money, which xG has needed to do for quite some time. 2) More focus can be had on CS:GO, a division that I see a lot of potential in. 3) With focus on CS:GO, there can be a new experience that can create new memories 4) Letting CS:S go before it becomes an even bigger let down Option 2: The risky choice And then there's the second option which involves a makeover of CS:S JB. The three division managers (Cristo, Dr. Lee, and I) could attempt to essentially do jailbreak all over. Rewrite the rules (less strict), deleted all maps and add just a handful to get started, get hub into jailbreak, and even potentially remove bans to help open the server back up to a lot more people. What we could do is just shut jb down for a week or two to get a lot of this done and create a stringent schedule that would be posted on the forums to get the list of items added and jb running. This would take work by a lot of people though, and may take a while to get going. We would need @Nomulous and @Bleed to get hub running. My concern with this is 1) Not getting hub done, as it was supposed to be done a year ago and 2) A lot of work being put into this and only seeing a benefit for a few days once the server is back. In my opinion, hub isn't the CS:S savior. It's not new, its really not different from other servers, and I can only see it bringing a few days of excitement back. So those are just the two choices that I have devised, but there may be more out there. I already briefly discussed some of this with the division managers, but really it will be up to all to decide what happens. And like I said, it is though to say that CS:S should be put away, but something you just have to realize when things may be done. @Rhododendron @Forest @Bonk @DrLee @Cristo @Gawd @diabeetus @ThePenguin @snakeboyeric @Hexx @Haxx @Legend

This thread makes me really sad.

I think that with the right people, and the right support, css can go back to its former glory. 'get hub into jailbreak' 'prisoner skins' It's hard to populate a server when it doesnt even have some basic things.

We all know what option is best :^) In all seriousness though, why do something risky when it most likely won't pay off in the end? The decision is clear here.

Im sorry but all that money would go to tf2 div, tf2 div is like the only div thats populated, why dont we close gmod, lfd2, csgo, anything else. -1 on close of css, css is how i started to play xG. Dont mind the spelling im very unaware of what im doing atm