Every single one of your favorite servers sucks: here's why

[TrainDodger]

There's also the fact that some players on alleged PvP servers will cry GRIEF to the admins as soon as you visit and scratch their paint a little (socialization on a server? *gasp*). The admins will then cater to those little bitches antisocial fucks wtfAreYouEvenOnAServerFor players and apply Nazi SS level surveillance on larger PvP factions, making it completely unfun for said PvP factions that are doing PvP on a f*cking "PvP" server.

Morale of the story; if your server is meant for carebear wannabe multi-singleplayer newbs, don't label it as PvP.

If someone wants to avoid PvP on a PvP server... then why don't they station their homebase several galaxies away from spawn, so only the most determined come looking for them?

 

[karkinosz]

RIP EI, best server in StarMade history thus far, never forget...

I'd contest that the original EE beats EI due to a better community and larger playerbase in general. But otherwise +1 it was a good run but sadly* Ark wasn't in for the long haul.

EDIT: added one word.

 

[PriZm]

EE <3 it was great!

 

[Az14el]

This is why Odium loved EI:

• Arkazan refused to participate in factions or even play the game, he dedicated his full time to administration.
• It did not say the server had "great preformance" I do not even think they advertised their specs, that was up to players.
• No admin abuse, Arkazan was never aligned with any faction, thus he had no reason to abuse
• While they did have boosted mining, the faction config forced factions to control additional territory and you could only mine in your own territory, so even more reason to expand
• It was stable, at least until made those changed to the configs that the server did not agree with
• RIP EI, best server in StarMade history thus far, never forget...

*Almost best
if it ended up actually happening i think it would have been quite somethin' yeah

 

[Keptick]

If someone wants to avoid PvP on a PvP server... then why don't they station their homebase several galaxies away from spawn, so only the most determined come looking for them?

But why would they play on a PvP server, or a server at all, if that's the case? If they're just going to sit in their homebase all day 10,000km away from spawn, then they might as well just play single player and not take up server ressources for people that actually want to play.

 

[Megacrafter127]

If they're just going to sit in their homebase all day 10,000km away from spawn, then they might as well just play single player and not take up server ressources for people that actually want to play.

What if they do leave their homebase, just never when you are around?

 

[Keptick]

What if they do leave their homebase, just never when you are around?

In an other galaxy there won't be anyone around, ever. And don't pull the "oh but there's a 0.0000000000001% chance of" argument, the point is that they're still voluntarily avoiding interactions with other players, on a MULTIPLAYER PVP SERVER. Therefore, they are wasting server ressources to play pseudo-singleplayer.

 

[jorgekorke]

It's good to remember that massive exploration, and the opening of other galaxies are bad to the server's database - makes things more heavy, to simplify it. So yes, if someone is going to be 10 zillion km away from the spawn galaxy in order to not be touched, I'd rather have them on single player instead of a server.

 

[Comr4de]

Arkazan refused to participate in factions or even play the game, he dedicated his full time to administration.

You and I both know this isn't true. I liked Arkazan but you are lying.

 

[Zyrr]

One of our local multiplayer pushovers, whose name rhymes with Medymnion, argued he fucks himself off at his base because he liks to talk to people while he builds.

I think that says a lot about the player base this game attracts.

 

[Lecic]

Isn't that in one of the few snippets that actually made it to youtube?

Seeing as how they only put up some glitched, all-cut-to-6:15 clips from day one, Hey guys, that was 4 months ago? Where are the rest?, I'm going to say no.

Dodge what point, i'm not here to play silly video game politics. i'm here to make sure the server runs for people to use and to build things creatively ... that's it. i don't place any stock in this cancerous bull shit of server expirences. I have nothing to gain from it.

If your max mining bonus is above 15 you need to not. Just don't. This is really the crux of my message here so please pay attention. The first major problem with this is that it removes any need to actually fight, expand, maintain territory, or do anything that would require interacting with other players and NPCs. It has transformed the multiplayer experience of starmade into an online creative mode. While some people may be fine with this it betrays the purpose of online play; to interact with other players through both combat, diplomacy, and trade.

This point. The primary point of the thread, which I have attempted to get you, the SS guys, to respond to. However, despite this, you keep bringing up the "forum politics" you claim to hate.

 

[FlyingDebris]

who needs rational discussion when we can all just point fingers anyways

 

[Aynslei]

Holy shit guys for real now? Like really?

Server over-inflation is bad, there are not many well argued points against this. I would like this thread to maintain its original course and provide a discussion about server practices and health effects caused by those practices.

I am of the opinion that high multipliers do more harm than good, give me a reason this thought is bad.

 

[Master_Artificer]

To be fair, Starside IS one of the better public/non whitelisted servers out there.

 

[Orphaniel]

This has been a very interesting read*

*I glossed over many of the less constructive posts, thus not letting them mar my interest

I've been a server admin, head admin, and now Retiree admin (still busting my balls for the server) over at Ragnarok for many years now, While we've always advertised ourselves increasingly as an RP server rather than PVP/PVE there's no escaping the latter elements and reading the original post and some of the following discourse has made me nod my head emphatically in understanding.

I will reveal that we're on the cusp of a reset ourselves, though not due to database bloat or the usual issues but just because we're launching a kick-ass new lore that everyone will love and everyone who has ever played starmade will come and be a happy family and everything will be good and great and... where was I? Right.. Even in our comparatively strict RP environment these problems spoken of presented themselves - Obviously we had some people for whom the RP was entirely secondary to destroying fools (this is a problem that would be unique to RP servers) so we tried to make rules about not camping out and abusing those who just wanted to live in relative peace, and rules about not dropping capital ships on tiny factions and the like.

In the end, it comes down to the people who inhabit your server, any rules we made to try and make things pleasant for the whole were abused by the few into their favor, in the end it was these people who had this "MUST WIN" attitude who were at issue, not our rules.

We've also run into the problem of conflict, we used to have people constantly accusing us of being dull and boring whilst they sat in their proverbial fortified compounds refusing to come out.

Most recently, the problem was one of imbalance, where we had two "Good" Factions with dozens of members each who were closest of allies, if ever any "evil" or otherwise opposing faction appeared the response was overwhelming and immediate. RP that did take place with them was almost exclusively internal, shutting out everyone not in those factions.

For administrative staff it comes down to professionalism. I personally never held issue with staff playing as normal, provided they could differentiate between normal play and their duties. I always advocate a switching between two modes as a member of the community and a member of the administrative team, I even came down on language and general behavior -in the community but mostly within the staff- so they could set the correct example both as staff and as players. I'd like to think the team succeeded in that. I myself stepped down because my job at Lightweave threatens to demand all my time at any moment and I was not comfortable holding the title of admin when I might not be able to give it the attention it deserved.

In the end it comes down to the players on your server. If you want a great server with a lovely player base (which Ragnarok has in my opinion) then you've got to set it up so the kinds of people you would wish to play are attracted to your server. If you are lazy in the setup and you have casual or abusive admins, then the players you retain (if any) will be of a quality that reflects that.

In the words of a great man: Keep on being excellent to eachother.

 

[fire219]

Woah woah WOAH there everyone.

Ok, someone had asked me to take a look at this thread and the drama within it. I didn't expect all this junk...

Normally I would just clear out the bad posts and ask all the good boys and girls to behave, but this train is so far off its rails that there is no saving it. Closing thread...

Comr4de: If you want to repost the OP (maybe with a less inflammatory title, please?), you're welcome to.

 

[Crusade]

I've gone through and removed posts I've deemed off-topic, or those that took the thread as a personal attack.

This thread is to show the current state of the game, focusing on servers. SS was selected in the OP because it is well known, and while for the most part, it is a great server, like everything in life it has it's issues.

For those entering this thread, please keep personal issues out of it. Please only reply with constructive information and refrain from derailing the thread.

For those watching and contributing to this thread, if an off topic post is made, contact me directly to evaluate and resolve it.

Thanks fire219 for locking and making it easier to vacuum.

Thankyou.

 

[Comr4de]

For administrative staff it comes down to professionalism. I personally never held issue with staff playing as normal, provided they could differentiate between normal play and their duties. I always advocate a switching between two modes as a member of the community and a member of the administrative team, I even came down on language and general behavior -in the community but mostly within the staff- so they could set the correct example both as staff and as players. I'd like to think the team succeeded in that. I myself stepped down because my job at Lightweave threatens to demand all my time at any moment and I was not comfortable holding the title of admin when I might not be able to give it the attention it deserved.

I edited my original post to clarify on this point; while it is ultimately up to the server owner how they run their show, my 3 years experience of skub has taught me that more often than not "less is more". I personally wouldn't trust someone with admin duty unless I had their phone number or something. It makes it easier (and rewarding!) to bitch them out in that case.

 

[Az14el]

So from what I understand, screwing with several xml config files causes issues (or am i wrong? because this would negate everything im about to say!)

And it seems like we have consensus that faction config is the most problematic on its default settings, since it promotes homebase hugging & being antisocial. FP Reversal is something I've noticed catching on with several (albeit new/inactive) servers, glad to see as I personally stole LCB's factionconfig.xml as a total no-brainer myself, and simple ideas like boosting mining a little in other peoples systems w/ no asteroid respawn just passively reinforces the need for player/faction interaction in my mind.

I don't see any major issues to address in block config, yet that seems to be the more popular to change (Jump & Warp gate distances mostly).
If I'm correct about the bugginess when making changes to multiple xml configs, that would make this really annoying on servers on who want to make use of both, and end up making the popular but less effective changes.

Also wow, down to 4 pages now? good effort

 

[Lancake]

The way I see it, (some?) server owners feel forced to make life easier because Starmade doesn't really have many mechanics to promote expansion which gives you a better quality of life. Resource gain stagnates if you have a big enough salvage ship right? Only getting more players mining at the same time improves it. You don't need more bases for that, just a few more ships (and players)

Also, our trade model is currently a very simplified version of a supply & demand system, a system where shops magically gain blocks so inflation is something that happens on its own. Considering that newly discovered shops spawn with a full load, you just have to go far enough to find them.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong since this is just my experience, in the past I played as a normal player and I blamed Starmade for not giving me opportunities to do more than just mining and ship building. That might just have been my particular playstyle though since I never got involved into faction politics.

I did not feel the need to PvP, the only real reward I got out of it is killing someone who was verbally harassing me. There's also a ton of risk involved compared to the potential reward, losing your entire ship kicks you in the balls after spending weeks of building it. I do NOT want to reduce the risk, just increase the reward. With everyone having an invulnerable homebase, it's hard to actually get PvP going anyway unless it's planned to happen at a certain date + place, but that takes away the element of surprise. "Oh no I'm getting attacked at base Y, gather the fleet in system X and get there ASAP! We will purge these heretics from our sacred lands!!" etc...

I did not feel the need to expand and have multiple bases (all of which are hard to defend even with super duper turrets on them), I can't really think of of something positive you get from having more bases, you already have an invulnerable one that can have everything you want.
And that salvage bonus you get that? That's a joke, you can get it by placing down a station block and a faction module...When you're done with mining, either remove it or let it stay there, it's not like FP costs are a big deal. And finding + getting to an unclaimed sector isn't difficult anyway, not with all the buffed up jump drives being used on all servers.

PvE is a bit different, it's way more predictable when you know what ships are being used on the server. The spawn size is usually the same (5 ish randomly chosen ships) so you roughly know what ship size to take with you to farm them. So yeah I did PvE, but there was never any danger involved since I knew what to expect.

All of these concerns I had, can't really be addressed by changing the server config. You can make resource gathering go faster, but that just makes me build more ships without actually using them. You can encourage PvP on your server by other means (witch hunt for spawnkillers, pvp events with rewards, ...) but that doesn't change the fact that at its core, Starmade encourages you to hug your homebase till you die of old age.

--------------------

Now about performance issues, usually I can blame the server for that ^^...There's a reason why we have a default config, the game is optimized for those numbers.

It's true that a 10 max block build size is small, but the game is optimized to handle that amount. It can handle 8000 blocks per click extremely well but that efficiency goes down fast when you go above that limit.
If I see a server with 100 max block build size, I can't take them serious when they're complaining about performance. Placing down millions of blocks with a single click puts a tremendous load on the server. Sure it's doable when there's only 2-3 guys doing it...But when there are 20 or more online at the same time, you're going to have a serious amount of slowdowns.

I can say the same thing about increasing the max speed, systems get loaded/unloaded at a faster rate which means more server traffic going on. Increasing sector size counters that a bit, but considering you can also put more ships inside the same sector, you potentially create a zone that has a lot of data to be fetched and saved. That's hypothetical though, I don't really think there's any bad thing of increasing sector size with a reasonable amount unless it's like higher than 5 000 meters it should still be fine-ish.