SST -Whatcha think?

[genie]

bans under 3 days are not usually posted on our forums for everybody to see. so the only people who would have known about this are magic, flaminwaffles, (assuming that is who flamin was), and everyone on at the time.

[Dracone]

The ONLY thing that ever gets me to go into SST anymore is the people I used to know. I had 100 ping, then 60, now 150, and it sucks. It ACTUALLY wouldn't be a problem, save for the fact that there's 260 BPS. Try 160 or something, 260 overloads high pingers' FPS. Too many buildings = More room for newbs to screw up and get banned.

I've actually almost asked admins there to ban me so I don't make the mistake of getting pissed playing there. But that would not be very logical.

[Rawr]

@St. Anger:
No, Magic is not the server OP. Magic "bought" his admin by donating to SST, Meow/Confess+ and TopGun are the owners of SST. Paradox was hired by Meow/Confess to help maintain the server. Then Mario is next in power.

[DarkRogue]

heh sick with the flu for a week and I miss all the fun *cries*

Anyways seems the biggest complaints are:

Server size - 52 players/260 bps

Personally I agree, there's too many bps for this number of players. It'd be more skillful in my opinion if it was up to the players to designate people to attack and defend. 160 bps seems like a good number, a bit more than default since you do need more spawns with a full load.

Server skill transfer

This issue is just plain newbishness. Yeah the tactics on a 52 player 260 bp server is going to be vastly different than a 16 player 100 bp server. BAse locations and setups are going to be vastly different. But this is not the servers fault. We never claim tactics on sst will win games anywhere else nor will playing on odins server win games on sst.

Friendly Fire

Yes it's annoying being shot to death by your own team or pounced as you evolve into a basilisk and die. However there's more skill involved in ff games than non ff games. Argue this point all you like but the fact is it takes more skill to get into the enemy base while also avoiding your teams suppressive fire than it does getting in cause you can wade in perfectly safe from being TK'd by your teams luci spam.

Admin Abuse

Admins that abuse are dealt with as they are reported and evidence given. Yes in the past tuple that process was slow and usually unfullfilled but since council got active abusing admins HAVE been fired as they have been reported. As for para abusing he uses the same logic as you do tuple. His own free time is limited and thus he takes short cuts from time to time (uber nading things he needs deconned etc) however he has greatly reduced the frequency that he does this. Also more often than not he just fucks around by blowing himself up with this tactic not harming anyone other than the foolish to try and kill him during it. The thing to remember is para is an op and partially incharge of the server, he has every right to fuck around if he chooses. No one save confess has the authority to say he's abusing.

Now this means that yeah sometimes its just not fun to be on sst when para is in fuck around mood. Trust me I understand fully there's times I came on to play and the map is in devmap mode. But I have to re-say it, as op he has the authority to decree a fuck around game. And WILL stop it if the general concensus agrees they want to play normally. If the server is enjoying devmap mod then he'll continue. The only thing we as players (and lesser admins) can really do is wait til his free time is up then play as normal.

Layout abuse

Layout is strictly for the use of repairing decons now. This comes from confess. Anyone using layout for anything else is automatically fired. If someone is using layout extensively and disrupting the game/abusing it to save their team demo it and report it. It WILL be addressed.

However keep in mind layout IS allowed for repairing base decons. When an op/council member is doing such both teams are expected to stay in their own base and NOT take advantage of their invincibility to further destroy the opponents base/get in a position where they can. In such situations players are putteamed to spec or slap killed if they fail to acknowledge the MULTIPLE WARNINGS to stay out of each others bases. If you cannot stay tuned to what is going on in a TEAM GAME go the fuck back to single player games and stop bitching about being required to keep at least a glimmer of knowledge of what's going on with the game around you, especially when something like an obvious layout is occurring.

/edit
Scratch the revoke odins posting rights bit. Didn't notice the link I hit transferred me to the trem forums. Still though the thought remains odin, if yer only here to flame sst get on with your life....

All in all SST is getting better. Yes there will be settings players disagree with. Not every server is a cookie cutter clone of each other, sorry. Some will like it, others will dislike it. But it is headed in a good direction stability wise, staff wise we're cleaning out the abusers where possible, yes there are alot of rules but hey the rules are there for all to see there's no fine print, yeah the settings could use tweaking but that comes in time. SST IS improving. MAybe it's not up to what YOU expect from a server but as mentioned no one is forcing you to play here. There are surely half a dozen servers which better catter to what you want to play as.

Is like trying to decide which is better: Tourney 1v1 or deathmatch 64 players. Some enjoy the former, others enjoy the sheer chaos of the latter. No one has the right to tell each other what the game SHOULD be played at, but you are more than welcome to emphasize what YOU enjoy. Just respect that not everyone is you or has to agree to your definition of what makes the game fun. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. It's when you try to cram your PoV down anothers throat that one crosses into the land of being an asshole.

[tuple]

Server skill transfer
This issue is just plain newbishness. Yeah the tactics on a 52 player 260 bp server is going to be vastly different than a 16 player 100 bp server. BAse locations and setups are going to be vastly different. But this is not the servers fault. We never claim tactics on sst will win games anywhere else nor will playing on odins server win games on sst.

For the record, the complaint that I regularly hear is that new players that start on big servers have a much harder time building up skills that are transferable to a smaller servers.  It makes perfect sense too.  New players on larger servers are much more easily distracted by the flood of opponents and it takes them longer to realize that they should be attacking the opponents base instead of every dretch in front of them.  To me, this is the most reasonable explanation as to why there are so many great killwhores on the large servers who can't seem to win matches.  Additionally, more new players pick large, populated servers cause it is frankly not so embarrassing to suck, which every new player does.  Playing against a larger population of new players is bound to have an affect on your ability to increase your skill level as opposed to playing against solid teams of skilled players with 1-2 new players per team.

Friendly Fire
Yes it's annoying being shot to death by your own team or pounced as you evolve into a basilisk and die. However there's more skill involved in ff games than non ff games. Argue this point all you like but the fact is it takes more skill to get into the enemy base while also avoiding your teams suppressive fire than it does getting in cause you can wade in perfectly safe from being TK'd by your teams luci spam.

Actually, I would have said that it takes a more skilled team to not shoot you in the back of the head while you are trying to get into the enemy base.  Particularly as you cannot see through the back of your head.  Wading through lucy spam is the least of my worries, it's the hitscan weapons...

Admin Abuse
As for para abusing he uses the same logic as you do tuple. His own free time is limited and thus he takes short cuts from time to time

however he has greatly reduced the frequency that he does this. Also more often than not he just fucks around by blowing himself up with this tactic not harming anyone other than the foolish to try and kill him during it.

The thing to remember is para is an op and partially incharge of the server, he has every right to fuck around if he chooses.

Now this means that yeah sometimes its just not fun to be on sst when para is in fuck around mood.

 Trust me I understand fully there's times I came on to play and the map is in devmap mode.

But I have to re-say it, as op he has the authority to decree a fuck around game.

And WILL stop it if the general concensus agrees they want to play normally.

Layout abuse

Layout is strictly for the use of repairing decons now.

Anyone using layout for anything else is automatically fired.
If someone is using layout extensively and disrupting the game/abusing it to save their team demo it and report it. It WILL be addressed.

Anyone else see how the above selection of quotes are contradictory.  For the record, Para and I DO NOT use the same logic.  If a game of trem is boring me, I DO NOT cheat and ruin the game for others just because they happen to be on a server that I have the power of doing that on.  I go do something that interests me.   Additionally, this does not just happen in matches that are in devmap or announced as fucking off matches.

What is the point of reporting admin abuse anywhere if it is coming from the top down?

A large number of people do not like SST because they have had numerous bad experiences there, particularly with admins.  Any server operator has any right to do whatever the hell they want on their server, but they sure as hell better stop complaining when players vent on any forum when the servers enforcement of their own stated rules are inconsistent, and when the operators cannot, with some degree of honesty, guarantee a fair game.  Can I cheat at chess if it's my chess set and my game? Sure.  Can I complain about your flaming me for doing it?  Sure, I can try.  Can I wonder why people complain and don't play chess with me anymore?  All day long.

Incidently, I believe that St. Anger's point was, if an admin does something that is wrong in front of an OP, regardless of how that individual is an OP, shouldn't the OP stop it?

[TRaK]

I hardly ever play on SST just because of the 260 bps. It just isn't the kind of game I want to play. Never mind that last time I went the server was full of people screaming 'I pwnd u noob' every 2 seconds.

Although I can see why some people like it.

[DarkRogue]

Well going to a large server first won't teach you anything about playing on a small server I can fully agree tuple. I started out on a small server before nesting on sst myself and glad for it, getting use to depending upon your own skills instead of insane amounts of structures helps out in a pinch with so many bad builders 260 bps seems to attract

But I restate the obvious, it's not the servers fault people can be utter noobs and think the tactics of a large server with larger bps can translate to a smaller server with default bps. They each have their own skill sets. But on another point I do agree, sst does attract alot of kill whores, those players that think they're good cause they can rack up tons of kills but can't assault an enemy base to save their lives. Every team game has these idiots, it's a sad truth about online play.

As for having a more skilled team that can aim well I agree that's always helpful but the team can't (and usually won't) learn to aim around teammates with ff off. The average mentality on a ff off server is to lay waste to the entire area since the only things you can hurt are yourself or the enemy. FF on forces a team to get with the program or their team doesn't suffer them very long.

And same mentality in the fact you are looking for fun in your limited free time, nothing beyond that. But as restated Para has been talked to about it and he has cut back from how much he use to abuse. And yes I do know he tends to use his abilities during regular games, or what people think are regular games from time to time, it's nowhere near as frequent as it once was.

As for the rest of the admins, I'm head of staff over there now, if the regular admins give you trouble give me a shout and I'll look into it. But for the record the OP tag a number of us wear over there does not mean server operator. The only operators are confess (meow) and paradox. The other "ops" are the council, most of us have assigned posts (ie me Head of staff, mario head of council, rawr head of the forums/website, magic is head of bans etc).

For most it's just a tag so the actual ops can address any council members on the server together about server business.