What Needs To Be Done

[Brian 50]

Hello, for most of you that know me, I'm back! For those that do not, I used to run the servers for around a year before @Nomulous, when I left to focus more on high school in order to get into the college I wanted to. I'm back, and I'm here to post my thoughts on changes that need to occur in order to solve the issue of money as well as making players stay on our servers. Take everything you see with a grain of salt, this is simply one man's opinions.

New Servers

The new servers, such as Freak Fortress 2 and Wario Ware are great servers, but there's much work needed to be done. In order to limit the amount of criticism taken from an unfinished server, I recommend either putting a password on the server and set a deadline for completion, such as next week Monday, or putting up advertisements stating the server is in Beta. Many plugins are missing on Freak Fortress, and I understand bosses may always be added, but there are a few basic plugins missing, such as

• [TF2] The Amplifier - AlliedModders
  
• [TF2]TauntCrits - AlliedModders
  
• And other fixes, such as Goomba Stomp killing hale in 1 shot
  

These plugin need to be added sooner than later, and plenty of randoms have already joined the server, but have left either due to boredom or lack of originality. Many servers have a sticking feature, something that helps people come back. We have one. It's called hub.

 

Hub Plugin

Hub is the main feature of our servers, and after nearly two years of false promises, it's here on TF2. On some of the servers. And you can only buy some stuff on some servers. This needs to be fixed immediately. This should be the number one priority if you're worried about population. Having certain parts work on some parts here and there doesn't cut it. It needs to work on all servers in order to be successful. Please fix this issue by getting everything on all servers, especially the popular ones.

 

Donations

Nearly every single community accepts donations of some kind. Some communities have more effective means than others. The current donation system is horrid, with little explanation given to each tier. By that, I mean there's no way to learn what each tier gives you without going directly on the forums and searching for it, which puts off a lot of people. The current prices are also high. The top donation is 20 keys. The average key price a key is sold for on source-op is around 1.90$, give or take a few cents. That is about $38.00 for the maximum donation. It's stupid high, and almost out of reach for any given player. I guarantee you will see a maximum of one or two of these types of donations, if any at all.

What I recommend doing instead is putting all donation features on hub, like colorme, skeleton, and other plugins on the hub for a certain price, and

change it back to the old system, where donations give you a certain number of hub credits. 1 key or 20 keys will give hub credits. Also, accepting monetary donations would be better as well. Here's a sample conversion chart.

• 1$ = 1,000 Credits
  
• 1 Key = 1,750 Credits
  
• 10$ = 12,500 Credits
  
• 10 Keys = 20,000 Credits
  
• and so on....
  

Then, make certain benefits, such as skeleton cost 2,500 credits, maybe more or less. This way it is still reachable for certain members that are active on the servers, but not too ridiculously expensive for those that wish to donate can't purchase in one go.

 

Admin Behavior

The strictness of certain admins has come to my attention recently. An admin is somebody who is supposed to set an example and punish those who break server rules, not to do what ever they please and ban those who offend them with the reason "admin disrespect." The order goes gag, kick, ban, not an immediate ban for one comment. I recently was banned for making a comment, no warning, or gag, not even a kick. SO please, if an admin is handing out bans for all the wrong reasons, such as to protect their ego, please discuss this with them. Many admins feel they may run rampant, and I understand that they are allowed more freedom, but banning and kicking without warning is a major issue that needs to be confronted.

 

Closing Thoughts

Xeno Gamers has always been a community that provides fun for those that wish to find it, but recently I feel we have drifted away from that and focused too much on money, and less on fun. We need to find at least a balance of those two, in order to prevent the community from collapsing on itself. Thanks for reading.

 

[jaygoki 237]

Also, in FF2 the Ninja Spy or whatever the fuck its called, his slo mo between his 3 lives is pretty op :l tagging a few people that i think agree with me because my memory is donkey shit @Hachi @Starfishprime_69

[Swift 11]

Oh, you're back, weird seeing you here again. That admin thought is great BTW, i totally agree.

[Matsi 35]

I strongly disagree with you on the donation stuff... 20 keys for the highest level isn't "too much" and for people who cant afford that they can get a lower tier, and gradually upgrade over time... I think it will be stupid to lower the prices because then everyone will have it and it wont be worth having.

 

"focused too much on money" LOLWUT?! You obviously have never been in a clan that makes you pay per month to have admin! xG is as far from focused on money as a gaming community can be.... and if you think that offering bonus stuff for donations is focused on money than you should take the time to figure out how much it costs to run all the servers that xG has...

[Izanagi 0]

@kbraszzz @Nomulous

Donator stats pls.

[Haruka 88]

Also, in FF2 the Ninja Spy or whatever the fudge its called, his slo mo between his 3 lives is pretty op :l tagging a few people that i think agree with me because my memory is donkey steaming pantload @Hachi @Starfishprime_69

Sweetie this is the wrong place for this .3. Plus mama likes her ninja spy. He's just hard to handle with 6 people.

[Haruka 88]

And also, both of those plug ins are on our VSH server. Nom should be adding them too FF2 when he gets the chance: Or at least that's what he told me..

[Gwoash 0]

amen, definitely need a proper explanation for each donator status; I can see all the commands on the main thread, but an explanation for each command would be nice. Setting an actual rule and guidelines to using the donator's perks would be nice because we really need to know what is abuse and what is not because you're telling me that cloak and dagger with the usage of eternal reward is allowed on jailbreak? <

A certain person used it to kill blues and apparently has received approval from kbraszzle or at least has his awareness of the 'bug'.

 

The hub generally isn't that good either, given us only a few options of what to buy none of which really interests me either.

The trails look horrid, the images loop causing it to seem clusterfucked, it causes lag to the server too. I don't know if trails are really necessary.

 

But before fixing the hub or even the donator's perks, please address the issue of saxton hale and death run. Those servers are completely broken making them unplayable. Saxton hales still allows you to choose maps that are non-arena maps causing the plugin to break down; this issue has been addressed before but still nothing has been done.

 

So overall, what I'm really trying to say:

PLZ NOM, ADD CLASS WARFARE SERVER.

[Haruka 88]

And pardon me for the spam Dx

But, it would be a bad idea to put all of hub on VSH/FF2. Simply because of friendlies. "hey hale! Don't kill me I'm the scout with ___ trail!" Or "hey hale don't kill me I'm the pyro with this colored gun" and stuff..

Maybe putting colored names and stuff would be nice, but haveing trails and gun colors would just lead to disaster. Plus I don't see how gaining hub points would work... Maybe the top 3 scores get a lot..and hale gets a point everytime he kills someone.. I don't know.

[Haruka 88]

But before fixing the hub or even the donator's perks, please address the issue of saxton hale and death run. Those servers are completely broken making them unplayable. Saxton hales still allows you to choose maps that are non-arena maps causing the plugin to break down; this issue has been addressed before but still nothing has been done.

Actually Nom took off all non arena awhile ago..

[Brian 50]

I strongly disagree with you on the donation stuff... 20 keys for the highest level isn't "too much" and for people who cant afford that they can get a lower tier, and gradually upgrade over time... I think it will be stupid to lower the prices because then everyone will have it and it wont be worth having.

 

"focused too much on money" LOLWUT?! You obviously have never been in a clan that makes you pay per month to have admin! xG is as far from focused on money as a gaming community can be.... and if you think that offering bonus stuff for donations is focused on money than you should take the time to figure out how much it costs to run all the servers that xG has...

 

Actually I have, and a lot of the fun stuff that was added for admins, such as horseman spawn and noclip, have been removed and given to donators. I'm not suggesting simply removing or lowering it to 20 keys, I'm giving the suggestion so that those who play on the server frequently can actually have access to certain things as well, so they can pick and chose which items they like, not simply be forced to purchase a bundle. It takes with the current suggestion, it would take nearly 400 or so hours just playing on the servers constantly to earn the top donator package.

[Forge 77]

"The average key price a key is sold for on source-op is around 1.90$, give or take a few cents. That is about $38.00 for the maximum donation. It's stupid high, and almost out of reach for any given player. I guarantee you will see a maximum of one or two of these types of donations, if any at all."

 

So if there's only one or two that means.. Starfishprime69, FoRgE, Slinkerton, Izanagi, BelloWaldi, Kypari, Egossi, Matsi, Bach, Gugomo, Didn't donate within the first few weeks and never have donated which is incorrect. This isn't even a full list but it's what I have.

 

"but recently I feel we have drifted away from that and focused too much on money"

What.. Perhaps you didn't notice but the servers have been struggling to get money so they can be hosted, The money goes to the servers so it can continue to stay online, The donations are helping far more than you think.

[Brian 50]

"The average key price a key is sold for on source-op is around 1.90$, give or take a few cents. That is about $38.00 for the maximum donation. It's stupid high, and almost out of reach for any given player. I guarantee you will see a maximum of one or two of these types of donations, if any at all."

 

So if there's only one or two that means.. Starfishprime69, FoRgE, Slinkerton, Izanagi, BelloWaldi, Kypari, Egossi, Matsi, Bach, Gugomo, Didn't donate within the first few weeks and never have donated which is incorrect. This isn't even a full list but it's what I have.

Has each of these persons donated the maximum amount?

[Forge 77]

Has each of these persons donated the maximum amount?

Starfishprime69, FoRgE, Bach, Matsi, Izanagi and another play on trade I have no identity of so far, They are ubers, So clearly you're wrong. People are willing to pay that much for donator powers.

[Brian 50]

Starfishprime69, FoRgE, Bach, Matsi, Izanagi and another play on trade I have no identity of so far, So clearly you're wrong. People are willing to pay that much for donator powers.

I merely asked if people donated the entire 20 keys.

 

I think people are taking what I said about donation the wrong way. I'm not saying that donations in general are bad, I'm saying that there are better systems than the one we have currently. The bundle system is, I feel flawed, because if you only want a certain privilege, you may have to go up all the way on the highest tier. Obviously, stuff such as /tsay and /hsay are understandable, but lesser privileges such as !makemegift aren't really worth donating nearly 38$ worth of keys for. I am instead suggesting that they be implemented individually into hub, and that people maybe either grind for a few days in order to get what they want, or pay upfront and have access to multiple options. This makes it more of a pick and choose what you would like, rather than a set of options contained only in this bundle. It would allow the donator more freedom in options. plus, with lower costs, more people would be willing to donate.