Squad TWB's Map of the Month

[LogisticEarth]

Well you can only say in your opinion as the servers are busy with many players who would disagree with you as to stock map suitabillity on a 50 player server.

Actually it seems that a good portion of the time I'm on those servers and one of the smaller maps (Danzig, Baskan Valley, Kaukasus) comes around everyone groans and complains. It's incredibly frustrating. EVERY time I've played Kaukasus on your servers the most common things people are saying in chat is "ARG THIS MAP SUCKS" and "F-ING NADESPAM" etc. Your players NOT like many of the maps in your rotation, at least at the 50 player level.

The reason, more often then not it seems, that people are on those servers at those times isn't because they actually LIKE it, it's because there're no other populated servers with decent ping at the time. Personally I've been avoiding your servers for a while now and only join if one of the better balanced ones isn't available. Unfortunately, because I'm in North America and play around 7-9 every night, the other choices are pretty slim, so I spend a good deal of time on the Old Glory server.

The "a lot of people consume this product, therefore it's good" argument only works for watered down corporations. The TWB servers, right now, come across as the Electronic Arts of the RO server community.

 

[DoubleSidedTape]

Our names were., .., ..., ...., ....., ......, and ........

 

[=GG= Mr Moe]

...The reason, more often then not it seems, that people are on those servers at those times isn't because they actually LIKE it, it's because there're no other populated servers with decent ping at the time. Personally I've been avoiding your servers for a while now and only join if one of the better balanced ones isn't available...

I think that for at least some players, that is a real possibility. If I am on the TWB servers at those times, it is because I got lucky and a map I like is on, or I am waiting for something better and bigger to come on, or there just isn't any populated server at the time I jump on. Since I am sometimes one of those players, it stands to reason that there could at least be a few others like me. Ex: Berezina comes on and some people cheer, others say they are gonna sit out and wait for a small map.

 

[ButchCassidy]

Actually it seems that a good portion of the time I'm on those servers and one of the smaller maps (Danzig, Baskan Valley, Kaukasus) comes around everyone groans and complains. It's incredibly frustrating. EVERY time I've played Kaukasus on your servers the most common things people are saying in chat is "ARG THIS MAP SUCKS" and "F-ING NADESPAM" etc. Your players NOT like many of the maps in your rotation, at least at the 50 player level.

The reason, more often then not it seems, that people are on those servers at those times isn't because they actually LIKE it, it's because there're no other populated servers with decent ping at the time. Personally I've been avoiding your servers for a while now and only join if one of the better balanced ones isn't available. Unfortunately, because I'm in North America and play around 7-9 every night, the other choices are pretty slim, so I spend a good deal of time on the Old Glory server.

The "a lot of people consume this product, therefore it's good" argument only works for watered down corporations. The TWB servers, right now, come across as the Electronic Arts of the RO server community.

Again this can only be taken as your own personal opinion and as always we respect and appreciate others views, good or bad but none the less complaining here is not really the place if you want to make your view known then please go join our forums and state your choice for a map of the month for June.
You can at least then be making your view known in a positive way.
Our admins are always open to positive suggestions regarding improving the servers so good feedback is appreciated.

 

[LogisticEarth]

Ex: Berezina comes on and some people cheer, others say they are gonna sit out and wait for a small map.

The problem is that the large number of players on the smaller maps breaks the game, it's not a preference between large or small maps.
EDIT: Example being that I actually like to play Kaukusus when it has an appropriate number of players on it. But on a 50 player server it turns into nade-rain and SMG spam. The spawn zones are so close to the cap zones that one side can keep dying and raining nades on the opposing team, ruining the balance and breaking the map. If the number of players was lowered, this wouldn't be a problem as the number of given nades falling down, or SMG dudes running around spamming would be greatly decreased.

Again this can only be taken as your own personal opinion and as always we respect and appreciate others views, good or bad but none the less complaining here is not really the place if you want to make your view known then please go join our forums and state your choice for a map of the month for June.
You can at least then be making your view known in a positive way.
Our admins are always open to positive suggestions regarding improving the servers so good feedback is appreciated.

A few problems with this, one, I hardly play on the updated server because of high ping, so voting for the Map of the Month will have minimal impact on the derth of good North American servers.
Second, every time I do try and make a comment to a server admin I get this same "Well that's your opinion, we respect all players opinions and highly value your input, please take a number" line, or the "That's not what we've found in our experience" line. It's frustrating, and reminds me of talking to a customer service agent from a large and inefficient company who doesn't give a damn what I think. So I'm starting to get a little irate.

 

[7-CLOWN-7]

As an admin myself and running a server that has almost every single Custom map available or at least ones that are known as good to better. Our server is rarely full and it could be because of the many things that TWB says.

Not only this even with the variety we have on our server, only like 20 of those maps are still played on a constant basis, the server has 100+ maps and still to this day some have yet to even been played. Another example to the argument is look at servers like Arad or Danzig 24/7 these things are full all the time, that alone says something, I just wish I knew what... LOL.

I can see both sides of the argument because our server lives it every hour on the hour. We only have a 40 player server and personally I feel that is really the happy medium for the game. I also think as TWB has said many don't want to download or don't want to learn something new they simply just want to play.

Many of the regulars or skilled players obviously can play any map and know the map within minutes of playing it, at least I know I can. I will play any and all maps but of course I have preferences too.

When we do fill it up the games are fantastic and the server runs great. I love variety and that's why our server runs the way it does and if people want to play Customs or maps that aren't on other servers then you need to look at other servers.

 

[ButchCassidy]

Yes unfortunately you can't please all the people all the time...

We endeavour to cater for all but the reality is it can't be done.
So in the end we cater for the majority and unfortunately the majority don't visit these forums and don't like having to download lots and lots of files as they join a server.

Which in the end is why they have joined a server so they can get on and play the game...None the less we are still progressing with our efforts to enlighten players regarding custom content and in fact its nice to see that Elnya seems to be very popular so thats an encouraging start to our little quest.

 

[LogisticEarth]

So in the end we cater for the majority and unfortunately the majority don't visit these forums and don't like having to download lots and lots of files as they join a server.
...None the less we are still progressing with our efforts to enlighten players regarding custom content and in fact its nice to see that Elnya seems to be very popular so thats an encouraging start to our little quest.

Again, the problem isn't so much the lack of custom content, as it is the 50 player limit in conjunction with tiny maps suited to at most 32 players. Elyna is perfect for 50 players. Lyskrovy is not. Berezina is great with 50 players. Kaukuses is not, etc.

Have you ever considered knocking down one of your servers to a 32 or 40 player and keeping small-to-medium infantry/combined arms maps, while reconfiguring the other to medium-to-large maps?

The way I see it is that you have a large portion of the player base and multiple, popular servers. Is it better to have them all configured to try and please everyone, providing a medicore experience, or to have them *slightly* specialized, still please MOST people, and provide a better experience?

 

[ButchCassidy]

Again, the problem isn't so much the lack of custom content, as it is the 50 player limit in conjunction with tiny maps suited to at most 32 players. Elyna is perfect for 50 players. Lyskrovy is not. Berezina is great with 50 players. Kaukuses is not, etc.

Have you ever considered knocking down one of your servers to a 32 or 40 player and keeping small-to-medium infantry/combined arms maps, while reconfiguring the other to medium-to-large maps?

The way I see it is that you have a large portion of the player base and multiple, popular servers. Is it better to have them all configured to try and please everyone, providing a medicore experience, or to have them *slightly* specialized, still please MOST people, and provide a better experience?

And again this is your opinion only...If the maps were such a disaster on 50 player then to be honest no one would play them at all...The fact they do not suit your tastes does not mean that they do not suit many of the others who visit our servers.

No I don't think we would ever consider taking our servers back down to 32 player..There are plenty of very good 32 player servers out there and many others that offer a specialized version of the game in one way or another so if players prefer to play the game on a smaller scale the choice is there...
We are simply offering players another choice and the decision as to whether players join our servers has always been there own.
All we are trying to do now is offer players the chance to enjoy some of the great custom content thats around and hopefully bring them a better gaming experience because of it.

 

[LogisticEarth]

And again this is your opinion only...If the maps were such a disaster on 50 player then to be honest no one would play them at all...The fact they do not suit your tastes does not mean that they do not suit many of the others who visit our servers.

I didn't say the maps were "disasters", I said the server experience is "medicore". And I think it's very clear that what I state is "just my opinion", as there's no science to this stuff. You previously said that "Our admins are always open to positive suggestions regarding improving the servers so good feedback is appreciated. " but it seems that any time someone makes some critical statements about the servers we get the same "That's just your personal opinion/taste" line. Well of course that's the case. You ask for feedback and we're giving it to you. It would be refreshing to have a critical discussion instead of this watered-down PR nonsense.

As for:

There are plenty of very good 32 player servers out there and many others that offer a specialized version of the game in one way or another so if players prefer to play the game on a smaller scale the choice is there...

This is very rarely the case for the North American evening server situation. Yes there are a few smaller servers that are populated sometimes. But the ones (with a ping under 150 and without a complete language barrier) that are consistantly populated are the Old Glory server and the ARADARADARAD DANZIG 24/7 ones. The latter are not "very good servers" in my and many other's opinion. Hence the reason why TWB's server is the focus here. For the most part, people are not complaining about the "lack of custom content", but rather the abundance of overcrowded maps. This could be simply solved by culling out a few of the smaller maps, instead of having EVERY stock map included regardless of suitability.

 

[ButchCassidy]

Logistic
I fail to see where this is going?
You seem to be asking us to shrink our servers back down to 32 player and take out maps that you feel are unsuitable.
And many of the smaller maps are liked by many other people for a varity of reasons.
I fail to see those how those suggestions can be called positive but none the less I will pass your comments onto the TWB Admin senior staff.

Currently all we are doing is adding custom maps to our servers in response to requests from players who have asked for additional content whilst actually playing on our servers.
In addition we thought it would be a nice idea to offer the opportuntiy for players to actually post the custom maps they would like to see on a monthly basis.
We are not looking to change everyones gaming habits or their opinions of what does or does not make a good RO map.
We are simply asking players to suggest a map or maps that could be placed onto our servers every month.
Its that simple...

We recently added the Danzig remix map(which is a much bigger version of the Stock Danzig) to Old Glory and because of the response the Admins have decided to begin rolling out the same map of month idea onto the old Glory server.
This means we will be adding the AHZ pack and most probably Elnya as well.
But I hope you'll apprecate that we will not be adding masses of content all at once as we have found players are more likely to accept and enjoy maps if they are feed in a little at a time and they can used to them before another comes along.
We are also mindful of the fact that perhaps Old Glory does offer East coast players a chance to play something other than a single 24/7 map on a full 50 player server and I think you are only too right to suggest that we try to expand the content on that server.
Hopefully players will enjoy the maps that are added over the coming months..

 

[Divinehammer]

I put in some these entries over at the site. I thought you had a poll or something though.
I vote
Pavlov's House
Dubrava
PariserPlatz(latest)
Gorlitz

 

[ButchCassidy]

Thanks Divine
No we decided to let guys or gals post their choice without restriction that way we'll get a better idea overall of players are looking for.
Many thanks for visiting we appreciate your feedback..

 

[LogisticEarth]

Logistic
I fail to see where this is going?
You seem to be asking us to shrink our servers back down to 32 player and take out maps that you feel are unsuitable.
And many of the smaller maps are liked by many other people for a varity of reasons.
I fail to see those how those suggestions can be called positive but none the less I will pass your comments onto the TWB Admin senior staff.

To clarify, I was not suggesting you roll back all servers to 32 players. Many maps work very well with 50 players. I'm not one of the crowd that thinks that the "50 player limit ruined RO". I was suggesting that you cull some of the smaller maps off the 50 player servers, and perhaps move them to a 32 player server. Since you've got 4 or more servers running right now I suggested you specialize one for smaller maps and one for larger ones.

And (hopefully obviously) I'm not so arrogant as to demand that you only take out the maps that "I don't find suitable". But instead take a reasonable assessment of maps that would get overcrowded with 25 players to a side, and shift things around.

But I hope you'll apprecate that we will not be adding masses of content all at once as we have found players are more likely to accept and enjoy maps if they are feed in a little at a time and they can used to them before another comes along.

I agree that increasing custom content slowly is a good idea. At the same time, like I said, a reassessment and subsequent "cleaning up" the map lists might be in order.

 

[ButchCassidy]

Point taken and we'll review accordingly thanks for the input