For Server Admins - Suggestions for Free Weekend

[[TW]Ramm-Jaeger]

This was something I posted for the previous free week, but I think its still quite relavant:

Hi guys. I just wanted to take a moment and give some suggestions for the admins running RO servers for the free week. These are suggestions only, so you can follow them or not, but these are thing we think will help give the new players that are trying the game during the free week the best first experiences of RO. These suggestions are only for this free week period.

Suggestions:

1) Increase FF Kick limit or turn off Friendly Fire.
With a large influx of new players there WILL be a lot of TKing while poeple learn what the enemy team (and thier own team looks like). To combat this, you could turn off FF, but what I suggest is just increasing the limits. That way poeple still get a realistic experience, but aren't heavily penalized right away if they screw up. Here are the settings that we are using on our server:

FriendlyFireScale=1
FFKillLimit=8
FFDamageLimit=6000
FFArtyScale=0.100000
FFExplosivesScale=0.250000

Set these values in your RedOrchestra.ini or server launch commandline respectively. Turning down the FFArtyScale and FFExplosiveScale will make kicking more lenient for arty and nades respectively. That way if a new player calls in arty, and a bunch of new players run into it and die, they won't get kicked immediately.

2) Lower the WinLimit to 1 round.
When lowering the WinLimit to 1 round, this will ensure that poeple trying the game for the first time will be more likely to get to try a few different maps before forming thier opinion about the game. What we found with initial release, was that some poeple joined a map that they didn't like, played 3 rounds (45-60 minutes) and gave up on the game. Later on, they played other maps that they REALLY liked the gameplay of and become hooked on the game. So in this way, if poeple get a chance to try several different maps within a few rounds, they'll get a broader idea of what RO is all about.

Here are the settings we have:
WinLimit=1
RoundLimit=1

3) Turn off MapVoting (or increase the repeatlimit)
This is a hard one, but it goes hand in hand with number 2. If map voting is enabled with a low repeat limit, the same 2 or 3 maps get played over and over. Let the new players experience the breadth of gameplay RO has to offer. You might just discover some Official maps that even the hardcore players have never played and come to love

4) Remove custom maps
This is also a tough one, and one I'm fairly certain a lot of admins will not do. One of the things we want to do is have RO:Ostront succeed (or fail) based on its own merits during the free week. New players won't have a clue if a map is custom or not. And if the map is really bad, it might put them off from the game (many reviews recently have even mistaken custom maps for official and given RO reduced scores accordingly). So while custom maps are a GREAT thing for the RO community, and the devs and the fans love to play them, lets try and let the new poeple see the official maps first.

5) Flag your server if your running custom maps
If you don't want to remove custom maps from your rotation, put (Custom Maps) in your server name. That way players might see that thier playing non-standard maps. Also, try and run complete custom maps, and not buggy early alphas.

6) Admin your server personally as much as possible
Try and be available on your server as much as possible. There will be a lot of new players, asking a lot of questions, trying to learn the game. If an admin is there to point them in the right direction this will really help. Also, because ANYONE can try the game, there will certainly be some poeple that just connect to servers to cause trouble. If there is an admin present they can readily handle these poeple before they ruin the experience for the other poeple on the server.

7) Flag your server with (Beginners Welcome)
If you (or some of your clanmates, etc) are going to be present on the server to help new players learn the game, flag the server name with (Beginners Welcome). This will let new players know that is a place they should start.

8) Don't overload your server
We all like to think our servers are all powerful, but frankly many of the servers even running now get overloaded. If you notice that when the server gets full or close to full everyone's ping climbs, that means the server is overloaded. Bump your MaxPlayers down a few notches. This will ensure the new players get a lag free experience.

Finally, I just want to say that everyone at Tripwire greatly appreciates all the server admins out there. They are the backbone of the community, and without them this free week, and even our game, wouldn't be possible.

Cheers,

John Gibson
President
Tripwire Interactive LLC

[JackSparrow]

Nice suggestions!

We removed all custom maps and also removed FF punishment.
All our players will try to help new players as much as they can.

[Divinehammer]

good to see that you got this out. I was going to do something similar but really not as nice as this. I still see alot of servers running like Danzig 24/7 really servers should be running regular maps in rotation. Customs should be taken out because waiting on downloads might turn some people off. Next thing is talk to the Noobs in VOIP , lead, and help out. I saw alot of that last night and some lessons learned as well. It may also help that if you are playing a custom map then let the NOOBs know on VOIP that it is.

Next question is why is ROs free week only from 7th to 10th when Steams is to the 14th?

[Boogerhead]

I'd like to encourage admins and players to routinely type stuff like:
Just use "T" to talk if you have any questions.

I've seen a lot of people not knowing the "use" key today.