Cue said:Mystic has it spot on, if you've ever been in one of these RP servers you'll understand how badly executed the role play really is. I must ask you though, Blue, how do you define 'abuse'?
Anything that really isn't genuinely fun for the audience. I guess what I'm basically referring to is using really crappy addons or settings to a server that just make it irritating and not fun at all. Cramped house maps, poorly designed character wads, and just flat out being stupid and adding a billion wads nobody has. I don't envision said problems to be solely handled by banning, per se, but rather quality wads and server nettique need to be promoted where most of the MS community will see it. I'm absolutely certain that shovelware would drop dramatically if we just had new content on srb2.org. Otherwise, people are just getting wads from all over the place, and there's no extra attention being placed on the good addons.
Cue said:[Text block]
So, what you're saying is this would only have a chance if the more 'competent' part of the community actually cared anymore. This is something I was a bit afraid of, actually.
There are ways to create awesome-sauce match servers, but if we want them to start overpowering then we need to get our hands on another server and fix up the dedicated mode in SRB2, stick 3 or so on there (match, CTF and race, I guess) and sticky them (which I can do now, ever wonder why the SRB2.org server is always at the top?) and we may get somewhere. Of course, we might not even need another server, I haven't really looked at our server running more than one SRB2 server at full capacity yet, so all is left to debate, if we can get 3 or so 24/7 servers up then great!
Sounds plausible to me... though if we really want them to be "awesome-sauce", I don't think we'd be able to do that without some variable addon to the mix. The default rotations are stale, and I think that might be one of the larger reasons why a person wouldn't enjoy the game. I think the Best of OLDC, although tremendous in filesize and therefore obviously not downloadable, would easily fix the "stale" problem. If that isn't feasible, then at least a default match server is a match server....
Penopat said:We could always just not have a centralized Master Server for everyone to mooch off of. Many of us exist in our little separated SRB2 communities or situations, so often a IP based game is actually rather effective.
Why not have everyone else deal with the RP issue on their own terms instead of forcing certain obligations down everyone else's throats?
As long as the MS is here, people will go "hey let's play a rp game, i'll host on the ms lol". If the MS isn't there, they'll find someone else's master server to mend with, and most likely one that's RP friendly. If not, they can get their friends together and make their own and invite people themselves.
People who are generally looking for a well-done CTF game could just plop into #srb2fun (although they're probably already sitting in there anyways...) and round up people for it. "Pro" players don't have to bother with rampant, distracing, RPing imbeciles, and pathetic, idiotic dictators won't stop the RPers from actually ENJOYING themselves for once. We can also divert those resources to actually getting more important stuff done...
I tried something like this a long time ago, though it was the other way around. I basically considered the MS wasn't going to change any time soon, so I tried to invent a message board (which eventually spawned a master server) where RPs and hangouts were allowed, so as to reduce the quarrel on the SRB2MS. Both the forums and the master server were unsuccessful, though. That master server is currently down at the moment, but if we agreed to do what you propose, then I would be happy to open back up the master server. Though, y'know, I'd prefer it be used this time around rather than dwindling away bandwidth. ;P
I'm personally tired of the dead-end generic Match and Coop servers that rarely if ever go beyond Mystic Realm (which will probably be the representative of these so called "perfect Match/CTF/Race/RP servers"). If anything, we should be ENCOURAGING creative play and custom wads, not dull and illustriously boring standard play. But that's just me. :)
I actually was hosting a netgame late last night where we were doing match in Mystic Realm's coop maps, and even if they weren't entirely made for match, I'd have to agree that it was a lot better than the default rotation. What's basically the problem is that most of the time, the wrong wads are added, eg. SA City, SMS. Again, I think we need to get srb2.org's addons section back in business in order to slow down the use of shovelware and encourage quality addons.
@Mystic: I think one possible workaround to the MS RP problem is that you can temporarily disable joins during an RP session. Not flawless, but at least it's a bit of a solution.
Spazzo said:I have seen both sides of this issue quite clearly (given the amount of times I've brought it up), and I see one clear answer: abolish the MS. Let everyone form their own little mini-communities, and not be forced to follow the rules of another. That way, we're all happy. The RPers can have what they want, and we can finally get rid of the god-awful reporting system that's spawning players whose sole intent of joining servers is to be tattle-tails. It's not like joining via IP address will kill anybody.
Sounds simpler than the rest of this giant conversation. Hell, why not?