Blue Ver - Rework Time

[CaffeinePowered]

I've been thinking for a while what to do with Blue version, its had modest bits of use over time, from being a vanilla server, to being silly customs only, to being no crits, and back to vanilla.

We've gotten it full under the following circumstances....
- Contests
- TF2 Updates
- FNF/TFT (rarely anymore these days)


To be clear, I do plan on keeping Blue around through at least the engineer update, though serious consideration has been made for canceling it. What I'm thinking of doing is this.

- Uploading 30 to 40 custom maps that don't get as much play time
- Sticking on Random Rotation for those maps

I keep hearing that the number of maps that run lots of customs is shrinking and since we've been unable to get anything going with blue using normal "stock" maps since most of the community does not seem to want to play them all the time, I figured this might be a better route to go. I also didn't want to just make it a carbon copy of Red.

I'm looking for feedback on this, if people think its good I can implement any changes on Saturday.

[Surf314]

I say go crazy and do all customs on Blue.

[zaneyard]

i think that sounds fun actually

[CaffeinePowered]

Oh also I'd put a relay from Blue to Red, so if blue gets its 24th person on, they get routed out to Red

[Moosendoo]

Did someone say custom's only?  :o

I'd seed that sucker left and right!  Or at least try.

[Tricks]

I don’t play a lot of TF2, so feel free to ignore my comment.

I kind of think we should cut our losses? The few times I have played TF2 recently (all outside of events like TFT, or FNF) Red has been near-dead, and blue has been all dead.

It’s almost all your funding Caff, so you can spend however you want. I do remember that during the demo/solly update we had all three servers full so I can understand wanting to wait for the engie update. It's just a lot of money for a lot of downtime...

Also yellow: I read somewhere that idling is dead now, what will you do with it?

[CaffeinePowered]

I don’t play a lot of TF2, so feel free to ignore my comment.

I kind of think we should cut our losses? The few times I have played TF2 recently (all outside of events like TFT, or FNF) Red has been near-dead, and blue has been all dead.

It’s almost all your funding Caff, so you can spend however you want. I do remember that during the demo/solly update we had all three servers full so I can understand wanting to wait for the engie update. It's just a lot of money for a lot of downtime...

Also yellow: I read somewhere that idling is dead now, what will you do with it?

Red - Its far from dead, not as crowded as it used to be, but TF2 is an older game overall, and red will probably go away whenever Valve stops supporting TF2 entirely....or if I somehow magically become too poor

Blue - My cash, and I'm willing to make the monetary investment to keep it going

Yellow - Will be going away unless someone wants to continue to pay for it since idling is pretty much worthless now


Also I have no idea when the engi update is coming and Id rather not take it down...then just put it up again in a month, can't be arsed

[zaneyard]

yeah it's fairly easy to seed red last time i checked we had some good games going late at night even

[copulatingduck]

If we do all customs on it can we shift the focus of Red's rotation to more stock, or at least only the most popular customs? I don't play frequently, and it's frustrating having to wait to download maps, only to get rolled or lost because half the people I'm playing with don't know where anything is. If blue goes all custom I'm not gonna touch it

[Radio Raheem]

most of the time ive seen the server with people late in night probly thanks to my boy spaceman bill who is the man by the way a wierd custom comes up and kills it and then its like 3v3 or i go to sleep and the fun is over

[CaffeinePowered]

If we do all customs on it can we shift the focus of Red's rotation to more stock, or at least only the most popular customs? I don't play frequently, and it's frustrating having to wait to download maps, only to get rolled or lost becausee half the people I'm playing with don't know where anything is. If blue goes all custom I'm not gonna touch it

This is Red's current rotation

cp_gravelpit
pl_goldrush
ctf_snowdrift_b3
cp_badlands
pl_cashworks_rc2
ctf_chaos
pl_badwater
cp_indulge
cp_dustbowl
cp_coldfront_rc2
cp_gorge

6 Stock
5 Custom

I think the five customs on there aside from coldfront are fairly well known...also coldfront just owns, we're also one of a handful of servers that has made snowdrift popular among people playing custom maps as well. Making sure _good_ new ones get put up on rotation or at least vote is just part of the territory  

[Versus]

i kinda wish mercy was on rotation because it is the only ctf map i like, but i realize it's a newer map

also spaceman bill owns

edit: idk about chaos on rotation :-\

[Moosendoo]

Yeah, if red went all stock I wouldn't know what to do with myself.

[CaffeinePowered]

i kinda wish mercy was on rotation because it is the only ctf map i like, but i realize it's a newer map

also spaceman bill owns

edit: idk about chaos on rotation :-\

I had mercy on for a while, but people complained about steamrolling, I have not tried b6 yet, if you think its a better choice than chaos. We had mach4 and indulge on for the longest time so I wanted to put in something that proven to not suck (generally) and that a lot of people already have, hence chaos.

[Radio Raheem]

spaceman bill owns so incredibly hard

and cashworks kinda blows that giant downhill part is one of the dumbest things ive ever seen in a map but when you blow open the vault and run in the gold its kinda cool so maybe the maps not that bad after all

[zaneyard]

spaceman bill owns so incredibly hard

and cashworks kinda blows that giant downhill part is one of the dumbest things ive ever seen in a map but when you blow open the vault and run in the gold its kinda cool so maybe the maps not that bad after all

radio you are one of my favorite people in the world

[Black Aspen]

If Blue were to go all custom....  Maybe Red should have it's custom map list slashed down to almost nothing?  I think Red's rotation is pretty good as is, and I rarely ever see the votes shift away from any of the maps featured in the rotation, even when RTV'd.  Is there a reason beyond "just in case" that Red has so many maps to vote on?  Maybe a streamlining would be in order if Blue becomes the customs-only?

[Puck]

Any chance you'd be down for one going nocrit? 

Customs on a seperate on sounds great.

Any way to set up rotation based on how many people are on? I love me some cashworks and snowdrift but they have a tendency to kill it hard late at night, the only time I can play really.  Boo. 

Which is supposed to be the primary?

[backfire]

Any chance you'd be down for one going nocrit?   

Customs on a seperate on sounds great.

Any way to set up rotation based on how many people are on? I love me some cashworks and snowdrift but they have a tendency to kill it hard late at night, the only time I can play really.  Boo. 

Which is supposed to be the primary?

Actually, turning blu into an all custom no crits is something that sounds pretty cool. Go for that I say.

[Professor Funbucks]

Any chance you'd be down for one going nocrit?   

Customs on a seperate on sounds great.

Any way to set up rotation based on how many people are on? I love me some cashworks and snowdrift but they have a tendency to kill it hard late at night, the only time I can play really.  Boo. 

Which is supposed to be the primary?

I'm not sure what everyone else view on customs+no crits is, but usually when i play customs im just dicking around so crits dont matter really
if it was nocrits+customs, i probably wouldn't play it tbh, i'd much rather play a vanilla nocrits or a customs with crits.


EDIT: WOW someone with the polar opposite opinion posts right before me lol