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| Wu-banga |
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Registered Member #49
Joined: Tue Dec 06 2005, 01:37AMPosts: 1561 |
If you clicked this thread, theres a good chance you love to play in FTC. FTC has everything. A great group of admins, regulars, and we get some noobs in the mix as well. I've seen it evolve from 2005-2007, and things have stayed the same. The only difference is over time, we lost some great regulars and gained some as well. The server is still operated exactly the same, except now it seems to be getting bigger. FTC is by far the most populated fish tank server, and Surf the second, but why? A lot of people have made a legitimate attempt at creating a new Fish Tank server, only to have it fail miserably. Kaliburs GunGame, Alex's/Krems Rotation, and sorry I can't think of who it was, but someone had a 50 SLOT ASSUALT SERVER! why do these servers fail? It seems like the server runs smoothly but nobody plays them, only people who have migrated from FTC and FTS. Everything is done right, the Rotation server even had AWPs. I see servers like the LANFusion public rotation servers that have LARGE followings. I ask this because next year when I get a credit card I am going to look into making Fish Tank Zombie if there isn't one already by that time. I don't want it to be a failure |
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| Joey Leone |
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{F7L5}'s official smartass
Registered Member #293
Joined: Mon Jun 12 2006, 06:17PMPosts: 234 |
In my personal experience, servers often fail in their first month(s) mostly because of poor circulation. By that, I mean that not all that many people know about the server. A typical server will receive a typical amount of hits, and of those hits, about 1/4 to 1/2 of them will return to play. But a lot of servers, after just one or 2 months don't see enough regulars, and so decide the server is a failure and take it down. On the other hand, there are those servers that 3/4 to all of the visitors just love, why exactly that is? hard to say, sometimes it could be the people they played with there, other times it could be the mods on the server, and yet other times it might be the downloads. ( I see a lot of piece of crap servers do really well because they have fast downloads.) |
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| .4ngryToasters |
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you would
Registered Member #149
Joined: Sun Feb 12 2006, 01:08AMPosts: 2039 |
I have a theory. Fish tank admins are some of the toughest mother fuckers around. They keep play fun for the regulars and they don't tolerate bullshit; which is absolutely necessary to keep a well rooted and established server on it's feet. Every time a new server has sprung up, admins from the established servers (FTS and FTC) are prime choice for admins on the new server. Because of this, they apply what they have seen as sucsessful on the new server, and it works... at first. During the opening days of the new server, an orgy of members flock over there to the new experience, and this keeps the server full, and the admins police it properly. After the shock of a new server has dulled down, the flock of members remember how much they owned on the server they came from, and go back to their old habbits (after all if they wanted a different experience, they would just choose another of the 65,000 servers out there to play on). This leaves only the admins and the ocasional browsers who just happened to end up at the server by random chance. This does not make for a good mix. Seeing how the browsers are new to the server, they don't know the rules, and probably wont take the time to read them, however the admins are hardcore rule enforcers who have wet dreams about punishing abusers. When the admins give the new player what's coming to him, he sees the server as a nazi camp, leaves, then does one of two things: A: tells all his friends an exagerated account of his experience, then warns them not to play on the server, or B: tells all his friends an exagerated account of his experience, then convinces them to wreak havoc on the server. The latter of the two being more destructive to the server's reputation, as it may affect other newcommers as well. This leads to a downward spiral: new people never show up, the server remains empty, when regulars look at the server, they see office is full and the new server has no players on it, so they make the obvious choice to play where everyone else is. This makes the server op angry and he stops paying for the server. How can we avoid this? As FT admins, you are trained to "trim the fat" of the clan by ensuring the regulars have a good time, and rulebreakers stay the fuck out. Once again, this works on an established server, but fails when trying to attract new players. On a new server, admins should be leanient to players and flexible with the rules. Hell, even entertain newbies by playing some sounds or giving them special abillities for a round. If you're able to convey a positive image, the word will spread and the server will do well. Case and point: when Alex and Darknarf started their servers, they probably didn't know what players would find acceptable, and what would be excentric. So they probably laid back and let the players mostly have their way in fear of going overboard with power and loosing all the new-commers (since there were no regulars to protect). They were in it for the fun of it all and were probably very leanient. As time went on, they saw people more often and started to get a feel for what kind of rules to abide by. They no longer feared the players, but made the players fear them if they broke the rules. This evolved to the well run government we see today, which works for their established servers, but is not compatible with new servers. Summary: FT admins are trained to accept regulars, and weed out the rulebreakers. We're hardcore enforcers that look out for the regulars On a new server, there will be no regulars, FT members will stay loyal to their home server and newcommers will be your best chance of becoming the regulars. Because the new players will not know the rules, admins should be leanient and more forgiving with them, to attract even more newcommers. Once you have a set of regulars, then you can start enforcing the FT way So start soft, then toughen yourself to an FT admin. In fact, maybe try starting the server with only a few (3) rules, so there isn't too much to enforce No Hacking No Spamming Have fun This way you can always add rules later if the need arises. 4ngry out Edited Sun Feb 11 2007, 03:05AM |
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| jigg4joe |
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Registered Member #326
Joined: Wed Jul 05 2006, 04:15AMPosts: 635 |
official post to come, but wild, night, and i are going to take a shot at running a dust2 server with other goodies to be announced. including stuff for zombie lovers! when everything is set up and we can get officially sanctioned as another FT server, we will let you know. this is not a tease either, the server has already been purchased! thx to everyone who has been giving us advice and for all future guidance! |
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| emerican |
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Registered Member #164
Joined: Tue Mar 07 2006, 12:07PMPosts: 3146 |
yeah the reason why they fail is because the owners dont give enough time to gain regulars. after the first 3 months of nobody playing they just give up. im sure the server was hardly ever full when ftc first started. the owners have to believe that the people will come. and they will. just look at ftc now. |
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| O_Mega |
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Inconsistant Ownage Device
Registered Member #59
Joined: Sat Dec 10 2005, 06:12PMPosts: 1058 |
Hmm I would say that FTC admins are actually not nearly as Nazi like as they could be. Ive been to other servers where you get banned at the whim of a hat, none of this democracy posted stuff, just I dont like you, BAN. | ||
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| [FT](.)(.)'s a |
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[FT](.)(.)\\\\(.)'s a](/media/avatar/100x0/upload/css_spray.1189739279.jpg)
Registered Member #355
Joined: Sun Jul 23 2006, 06:38AMPosts: 244 |
lol i had the 50 man but it failed i think because of school starting and most of the youngsters wasnt on after that but this spring i will open it up again as a 32 slot and give it a better chance to get known. | ||
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| Wildcard23 |
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Registered Member #514
Joined: Wed Dec 20 2006, 06:33AMPosts: 1067 |
Hrmmm. This is good for Night, Jigg, and I to read about since like Jigg said we are taking a shot at getting a dust2 server up and running. Patience seems to be a general theme in waiting for the word to get out about the new server. It is possible that FTC had it's rough start until the "regulars" started populating the server all the time. The benefit for the dust2 server and titties' assault server would be that FTC is pretty well known and populated. This includes the website so I have a good feeling the advertising would work to our benefit. Plus, word of mouth is always the best way to get new members. I agree with Omega's comments. I think the admins are no where near nazi level and seem to suck up a lot of shit that a lot of other server admins elsewhere wouldn't. Hell, I have been on other servers prior to FTC where you would get a good run and kill 4 or 5 people in a round and be instantaneously banned. No explanation or chance to come into a forum and plead your case. New members that stay continually say that they stay on the server because of the people that play here and the fact that admins enforce the rules so that there isn't this retaliatory nature for accidentally shooting a teammate or random spawn attacking. Anyways, keep it coming in this thread as it's good for the three of us to know about. And like Jigg said, the official announcement to come here shortly. 
Edited Sun Feb 11 2007, 12:38PM
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| alcosatz |
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FT Classic Op
Registered Member #39
Joined: Fri Dec 02 2005, 10:30PMPosts: 1545 |
This is an interesting topic, Wu. Good job. FTC started on Friday, July 1, 2005 with a mani redirect and adverts from krem's Digital Anarchy (not exactly sure when, but I know DA was doing close to 2000 connections per day at some point) as well as a full admin staff that included; Ian, kremit, Rim, Prize, Eric (from fux0r), Kamikaze Watermelon, Zad, zooted, Yourdroid, tony touch, and many others from my fux0r.org server (prior to FTC). There were many "regulars" from the DA server that still never gave up on office, and were thrilled to know that DA/FT/etc. would have an office server once again. FTC (or CFT, "Classic Fish Tank," as it was called at the time) never had a problem with getting started. There was absolutely no "three months of no connections" or anything like that. It was bumpy at first with last minute changes to server settings and a much needed hardware upgrade about a month after it launch, but it pretty much hit the ground running. So, let's think about why it started off well: 1. Mani Redirection - Sadly, the cl_restrict_server_commands cvar put in last November defaults to prevent admins/server-plugins from running commands such as "connect" to force a players cs:s client to connect to a different server when one is full. This makes launching new servers, or even migrating from one host to another (when changing server hosts or GSP's, as FTC has had to do three times!) because you can't take a busy, full server like krem's DA server, and redirect clients to a new server that is just starting out like FTC. I wish I could return the favor for any new servers starting out, but as I mentioned, Valve made this irrelevant by defaulting cl_restrict_server_commands to pevent the connect command from working when issued by Mani. 2. Instant Regulars - Since "The Fish Tank" was 24/7 office before, there were already regulars the first day FTC started. It's a hell of a lot easier giving something back that many FT were sad to see go in the first place than convince them that they should try something new. There is also much less guilt about being loyal to a particular server. I'm certain that there were many admins and regulars from DA that shifted their focus back to office because that's how they originally were interested in FT/DA. 3. Full Admin Staff - This was crucial for FTC getting started. There was already a high level of trust from krem and Ian placed in many of the admins, as well as many regulars who recognized the authority of these admins as well. We had a few problems with admins starting out but they were quickly and quietly handled. I was in a unique position with FTC because starting out I only knew a few of the admins despite playing on their office and then rotational/custom server for several months. It was awkward being an outsider and server op at the same time, to say the least. Anyway, most everyone got along fine and I was grateful for not having to build an admin team from scratch.All three of the above were instrumental in getting FTC going, but are not possible (in the case of mani redirection) or easy to duplicate. You can't expect the circumstances of what has worked for FTC (and Surf too, I guess) to work for every new server we try. If you're planning on starting a new server I strongly suggest you organize with other server admins/ops and site admins here to get a full-scale media blitz going. You need things like MOTD messages, mani adverts, news items on the front page of our site, simple word of mouth advertising like people talking in game, "have you played Wu's new zombie server? its teh hawtness!" As Toasters pointed out, Surfers and Officers are most likely going to lose interest beyond the initial frenzy of starting a new server so you can't rely too much on siphoning off regulars from either of those servers. I suspect the same goes for most admins. Contrary to what others have said about patience, I say treat the first few weeks as "make or break." If the launch of a new server is properly communicated, these first few weeks will yield the most support from your fellow FT members who are willing to start the server up in the afternoon or evening. As mentioned, you can't count of this support for very long so make the most of it while you can. Anyway, hope this helps.
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| .4ngryToasters |
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you would
Registered Member #149
Joined: Sun Feb 12 2006, 01:08AM Posts: 2039 |
wrote ... Valve made this irrelevant by defaulting cl_restrict_server_commands to pevent the connect command from working when issued by Mani. I'm not sure if this will work, but when this update was made, a lot of zombie and heavily customized servers suffered (such as gg servers) because clients were unable to accept commands from the server. To fix this, players had to manually type "cl_restrict_server_commands 0" (changing the 1 to a 0) in console. This allowed server commands to be recieved again, and the customized servers/mods worked again once I did that. So if you put an advert out that said "cl_restrict_server_commands must be set to 0" then I'm sure players would listen, change tha setting, and the redirect might work again. |
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