Practically every server out there is 'modified' in some way or another <<< Having official server prioritised discourages people to make stock gameplay servers.
What?
I ran stock servers when there were lots of them. Having others appear ahead of me in the list never discouraged me or many many others for that matter.
I want Tremulous to be more mod friendly <<< Highlighting the official servers reduced the player flow into the modded servers.
How? By not fooling people into thinking its not a mod (which is frankly the case now for some of them.) Mods getting featured status to build up their player base I would think would be extremely beneficial to them, if we were to include the "featured" server aspects into the equation.
Tremulous developers created a game, and would like to see newbies playing that game. <<< Fair enough, could you guarantee that the dev servers will not be deserted, or admin-less with every second player being a griefer?
Lots of admins of varying authority, protect regulars and take down servers that continually remain empty. Perhaps allow others to run "official" servers as needed/wanted/warranted.
During the beta release we need to ensure we are getting full data from populated development servers to help us create the best 1.2 possible. <<< I do not mind beta releases, as long as it is not public beta. (i.e. == public release)
If its ultimately beneficial, I don't see why it shouldn't go into final. If its demonstrably bad, it shouldn't. I can think of many ways it could be beneficial, and mostly selfish reasons why it wouldn't be, and thats not enough for me to argue to stop it.
I would like to feature one or two mod servers for the general population per month, so users can see the breadth of what's out there <<< On what basis? Can you guarantee it being unbiased?
I think this is a good idea in that you can make requirements of mods, IE don't use base, make your own directory(don't use another mods "base" directory), don't mess up peoples installs, etc, while putting a mod which even now may be buried in the server list a chance to get lots of traffic and work towards maintaining a player base. Also, servers that modify the game and are technically a mod (can you say esd) would not be eligible as they don't qualify if they use "base". I really don't think these are the rules, I've just made them up. But there are reasonable ways of doing this that would very much benefit mods a great deal. I could also see featuring an all beta maps/non standard maps server, great way to promote mappers and their work.
I also think that a shitty mod that amounts to all 6000 HP tyrants against all 6000 HP lucysuits or some other dumb idea being shot down. Of course, making that without nodes... hmm, that could be fun. Endless melee till you're dead, hmm. This may be a better example. I make mara able to jump 27 times higher than it does now, and make absolutely no other changes, should I have a "featured" mod?
Granted, its ambiguous. A well thought out mod in which a lot of work has gone into it should get featured status. Me modifying tremulous.h to make dretches and blasters cause 27000000000 dps shouldn't. Where does the difference lay? Can't really define where that line could be considering the endless modding possibilities. It would have to be played by ear. Still I think its worth doing. Mods with a lot of work on them would get a needed and frankly much much deserved boost in players and advertising. Seems to me like the good far outweighs the potential bad
There are too many 'crappy' servers out there that newbies first join and get discouraged from Tremulous after playing there <<< How would you define "crappy"? What sort of newbies? I like blueberries, my finance hates them.
I started a server expressly because of this, to just run the base because finding a server without esd or some such became impossible for a while. The ones I could find were full of griefing admins, which is much much worse. Lets face it, even I could make all sorts of changes and, using present techniques get it populated, it would be a crappy server, I make no bones about it.
There are too few newbie-friendly servers <<< 1.2 is anything but newbie-friendly. Better have some training maps before letting people out into the wild. Then the 1.2 official servers will make sence
/callvote ban Unnamed Player NOOOOOOB!
Seen it too many times. Used to kick people for doing it on my servers. Votekick before talk is a horrible way to introduce new players to the game. If they won't listen, thats one thing, but kicking someone who's feeding because they're not camping the second match they've ever played is just shitty.
cat maprotation.cfg: ATCS ATCS ATCS ATCS ATCS ATCS ATCS ATCS <<< cat maprotation.cfg DEFAULT MAPS DEFAULT MAPS DEFAULT MAPS DEFAULT MAPS ( DEV-SELECTED MAPS DEV-SELECTED MAPS DEV-SELECTED MAPS)
And? Featured beta map servers, lobbying devs to get a particularly good map added to the official rotation, which would be possible with downloads as a realistic option. With downloads a possibility it looks to me like trem will be much more organic "officially" or at least have much more organic possibilities.
I might have a problem if there are 10 "official" servers gobbling up the visible list, but if they're are a couple?
Overall, you seem to be saying that "Official Servers" will discourage mods, beta maps and standard servers. How you think 2-3 servers (my guess) would do this is beyond me. Setting a mod/beta map server as a featured server would promote it more to new players instead of making it something new players need to stumble on. Personally, I think the present free-for-all promotes brand dilution which is why people join standard servers and scream about there not being esd, etc.
OK, BACK TO WORK!
edit: forgot a word and left a sentence without end
