glacius server promotion

[adminless]

ok guys I open this thread here in a effort to bring some attention too (not with the intention that you don't even consider attempting to connect to UnFreeZe/FreeFUn ever again) to the glacius.fpsclasico.de server. as most of you already know in addition to the two top main UnFreeZe servers (UnFreeZe/FreeFUn), as well as other servers, following years of users requests for it btw, there's also a third official UnFreeZe server generally named glacius or at peak times just UnFreeZe3 for convenience. that server is obviously on the in-game server list and completely supported by the provided client and it's just the very same exact same thing as UnFreeZe but running on all the unquestionably best and most popular custom maps ever instead of just the top quality, but, limited set of standard maps included in Quake III Arena. for real, there's no excuses whatsoever, no ifs, no buts, no anything, the only we could ever discuss about it is if the average rating of the current rotation is a 8.967 or 9.145 or if by weighting it differently and making a map change here and there we could still chug a few tenths more of average rating into the 9.236. that's all about it.

I'm more than done with being that arrogant know-it-all prick, that I know that sometimes I'm, and pick on this topic (though, honestly, at this point I think the facts stand by themselves), the reality is that at the moment this server is really in need so I want to open this thread in a effort to "promote" it. as can be seen on the attached screens, both main servers are starting to reach full capacity and this rather than be a exception is slowly starting to become the norm and as I see it as the weather and the year will continue to unfold on the following months I can only foreseen the trend going upwards. I mean, just today it got so unimaginable wrong that there was people who couldn't get their UnFreeZe (1/2) spot for five minutes straight, I think that it can not possibly get any worse than that. however in the other hand despite all that and how much people always brag about competitive games, custom maps and all that kind of stuff, glacius is peaking at 5 or may be exceptionally 6 connections a day (let alone any games of course) and that even luckily at best because the norm is plenty of days with absolutely 0 connections whatsoever. I mean, seriously, is so absurd that if it wasn't because of how wrong this is it would be laughable.

then, like I started saying, now I don't pretend with this that you all stop playing on the UnFreeZe/FreeFUn servers altogether. no, there absolutely nothing wrong with them, they are indeed great top-quality and very fun servers but I also hope that from time to time you also drop some into glacius specially on times of pressure at the main ones. as I broke down, I think each day is really more and more in need and in general having some activity too at glacius can really have a very positive and lasting impact on the community, specially, in the long run. despite how bitter I'm always towards that server (as you see I have reasons of my own) the reality is that is doing even worse than what I had expected. I mean though I was expecting it to be death, I wouldn't even have expected it to be completely death for months like this. even under my most pessimistic expectations I would still have expected a couple of casual games here and there specially even more under the current load situation (+250 unique players a day).

so that's it for now, at the moment I lowered the bar a bit in the conditions for glacius to get named just as UnFreeZe3 in a effort to promote it a bit so now I'm not pretending either that you throw yourself into the thing for hours brutalizing bots and/or that you start spamming all over the place about it but hey when you happen to come across by chance with UnFreeZe3 just know that is a good moment and a good thing to drop by there and check what's going on. I really hope to see some activity there too, as I said, specially when UnFreeZe1/2 are just full, otherwise, if things get really bad and people can't just consistently get a slot I might be start looking into more drastic measures like load balancers at peak times or stuff like that.

[aimer]

Random idea: instead of running custom maps on Glacius, how about running other default maps instead?

It seems to me like the main problem with the server is that many players do not have custom maps and do not know/care to download them beforehand therefore players can't connect and the server is empty.

I'd personally love to play unfreeze on dm16 for example even if it means getting randomly shot into space (idea, reduce freeze time in that case like for lava).

The server could host a bunch of maps that are different from the standard rotation which works fine as it is but still allow any player with a default q3 client to connect to it and play a different map rotation.

Proposal for a map rotation:
- dm1 (up to 6 players)
- dm10 (from 12p+)
- dm12 (from 16p+)
- dm16 (from 8p+)
- tourney5 (up to 8p)

On top of these, i believe some CTF maps would work well as they are already planned to be used as a team play so:
- ctf1 (up to 10p)
- ctf2 (up to 14/16p)
- ctf3 (from 10p)

[adminless]

It seems to me like the main problem with the server is that many players do not have custom maps and do not know/care to download them beforehand therefore players can't connect and the server is empty.

true, that's exactly what I was talking about right from the start on this topic. but honestly at this level of load/popularity (+250 unique players a day) leave it all just on that it would be a too simplistic vision. the reality is that it's been like almost half year already of the provided official UnFreeZe client bundling all those maps yet it changed absolutely nothing. about a third of the players, and probably more than half of the regular players (those same that requested them for years btw), actually play with the provided files. that results in around 80/100 unique players a day that do have the maps yet, once again, nobody do ever stop by glacius, I mean, not even by mistake which is laughable. I think that at this time just put all the blame on the noobs and the randoms that obviously don't have them would be a understatement.

anyways, not that I have any problems with that, that's perfectly fine, like I said the UnFreeZe servers are indeed quite good, the only problem here is that later those are the same guys that fire up a random Quake III Arena YouTube video and then reach me to assist me on how to download and install a custom map because the newbie admin clearly can't know any better and flood the forum requesting them with no end for years. true story my friend and that's where things get messy.

so we'll see, the problem at hand now and that I must address is that both main servers are consistently starting to get full which, hey, don't get me wrong, is a great thing, but obviously not to the point where people can't even consistently get a slot. the right solution would be that people spread some of the load (6-8 players) into glacius at those peak times so by now I'll just try to promote that in one way or another. if that proves just not possible/realistic then I'll consider further drastic measures like balancing the load at peak times and/or stuff like that if things get serious.

ultimately if things gets really serious and people just can't consistently get a slot for hours then yes I can consider dropping the custom maps altogether. unfortunately this is a last resort/contingency measure that I'd rather avoid at all costs if possible since, unfortunately as I explained on the previous points, a custom maps server, even if completely death and irrelevant, is necessary to meet the community demands. so shall be the case, I think that is a good suggestion to drop there those standard maps not being used at the main servers. probably it won't be that good as I think that plenty of people rather play the custom maps than many of those alternative maps (proof) but well giving the circumstance and for a third server it can be a interesting idea. now that there's also a official ctf server, which btw though is nowhere near as popular as the main thing is, nevertheless, is like ten times more popular than glacius, I would also discard the ctf ones but for the rest they are probably worth giving them a chance there.

so that's it, I hope this thread encourages some people to give a shot at UnFreeZe3 too and we'll see how all this turns out. we really don't know how it will unfold, may be such overcrowding never end up materializing, you can never know, but if the trend doesn't change the reasonable is expecting trouble consistently connecting to the main servers in the following months. if we want to minimize the impact of that possible situation, as well as expand the game beyond what it actually is at the moment, I think we should start now giving some attention to glacius too.

[aimer]

that results in around 80/100 unique players a day that do have the maps yet, once again, nobody do ever stop by glacius, I mean, not even by mistake which is laughable. I think that at this time just put all the blame on the noobs and the randoms that obviously don't have them would be a understatement.

It's probably a fair estimate, but i believe it is not the whole picture.

Personally, given the choice between joining 6 players on Glacius playing dm6++ or 10 players on Unfreeze playing dm7, i'll choose Unfreeze most of the time.

There is some resistance, i believe, in learning new maps (although they are not really new) and some repetitiveness in playing the same 20 players that do happen to connect to Glacius compared to 250+ on the other servers.

Moreover, certain maps like dm6/dm7/t4 are extremely popular and people that decide to fire up quake because they have an hour to play during the day, do want to play those rather than join an empty server and waste their time waiting for others to join.

As an alternative to only custom or standard maps in Glacius, maybe a mix of the two could be tested for a few weeks?

[adminless]

well I think small 6/8 top players games on glacius can get really hot too, at least those sort of small competitive games seem to be what some are looking for, I mean, at least that's what some say. but yeah, well said, I also agree with you on that in general. however overall as I see it your arguments seem to reinforce my statement that there's obviously more reasons beyond just the noobs and randoms not having the maps for glacius to be that death rather than undermine it. all in all, as I said I can't exactly tell how this will turn out (nobody can btw) but if the popularity trend (in the long run) continues like this I think the best option by far is to make use of glacius as is now. in my opinion is probably all just about balance and expanding the game/community beyond what it's at the moment and having more options to chose from and variety. all good and important things I think, specially when you are looking for the long run.

as for the mixed solution, UnFreeZe2 experience tells me that's probably about the worst solution. one could legitimately think that by doing that you'll get the best of both worlds and you'll please everybody but the reality is probably the opposite and you'll end up pissing everybody off instead and killing what's left of that server reputation which is very low already. I did that for a couple of months during the 2017 season of UnFreeZe2 and it completely killed it for a whole year fair and square, look where it's now. it took another whole year of it consistently delivering top games to recover from that mess. the main problem with that is that as hinted most times you'll just end up being hated by the noobs and randoms for randomly kicking them out of the room and the elitist players will obviously never forgive you for throwing them anything beyond a state-of-art 10 of 10 unquestionably pro map. no good, it would probably won't really please anybody, I'd likely leave that option last.

anyways, at the moment, as I said, the game plan is probably that, see how the popularity/players load evolve on the coming months and see, if necessary, if we can promote or make glacius work in some way as is now which is probably the best. if the first condition meets but the second fails then I think we can start by considering the alternative Quake III Arena maps rotation for glacius you suggested and then go from it depending on the real players involvement/situation.

anyways, thanks for the suggestions/feedback.

[aimer]

Your analysis seems more accurate than mine (and actually based on data).
Bottom line, thanks for the effort you put in keeping the community alive

[imprecise]

Hi Adminless, Aimer

suggestion: create a server or transform Glacius to make it into a server with the unfreeze mod you made, but only with the railgun (without other weapons) and with the possibility of making rail-jumps on the ground and on the walls, the all with the same maps as on Unfreeze and FreeFun

I'm pretty sure some players would like it ...

on the other hand I do not know if this is possible for you and if you agree with it, and what workload it represents

otherwise for Glacius I would do my best to connect to it if players are present on the server, rather than joining Unfreeze or FreeFun

thank you for the attention you pay to the servers and the gaming community

[adminless]

yes, that can be a possibility, it's a good suggestion but I'd also leave that last after first trying glacius as is and then the other suggested maps. probably it wouldn't take me that much effort, however the problem with rail only mods is that I know very well from experience that they are evil. I mean, yes, they are great mods for fun and have some frags and they are very popular too but in the long run they are also too simplistic and lack any real depth which end up leading to really crappy games. I think all-weapon games are much better in terms of overall gameplay/skill and also what most people prefer. if at some time I were to give a shot to some rail only based server I think I'd rather go for the ctf than for glacius. I think it would probably be a much better match there than at glacius but anyways thanks for the suggestion/feedback.

and sure like I said, I'm not pretending that now people get crazy about glacius or anything, I'm just trying to bring some attention to it because, initially, I foreseen that it may be needed.

[imprecise]

I understand your reluctance, probably you are right about the rail-only mod (funny and simplistic), and yes for the rail-only CTF it can be a possible alternative after a poll on the forum and in game

it's a shame that Glacius' attendance is so low, the maps are however very nice and easy to learn for the most part, it is certain that if more good players occasionally connects it will attract other players on this server ...

Perhaps with the relaunch of the Covid-19 epidemic this winter (which I do not wish for anyone) and the resulting confinements, the frequentation of Glacius will increase

[PacMan]

Bfg , extra grenades , more dm6 and voting and auto download

And we need admin for a shoot up, good old fashion shoot up

[adminless]

haha yes and kamikaze plus unlimited quad damage too not gonna happen sorry

[Dr.GreenThumb]

I guess I'm partially to blame for the slow death ...I used to organize the Glacius Sunday evenings, but have not been playing for about two months. Back now, but not full time (yet). But regardless, it would be nice to have organic growth.

At this point I'm not sure what is better - try to do more organized evenings, or do changes to maps as you guys recommended already above. The problem is, like aimer1 wrote, it's nice to have a large mix of random players vs. the same group that makes the effort to get the official client with the maps to join. A server with the same scheduled small group of (really good) players will have an elitist feel to it eventually, and also lacks player variety. I sort of felt this already while we had the organized events. So yes, overall I can totally see why adminless objected/objects against customs maps to begin with...I would have never guessed this as an outcome. So many requested custom maps, I thought once this comes online the main ones will suffer as "boring" (how wrong I was!)

If adminless you say at some point - this is the death of custom maps, I would vote for aimer1's first reply with giving a chance to those "not suited for unfreeze" maps that are not custom but still part of the original game. Like aimer1 said, I can totally see it being fun to "mess around" on those maps as well. Perhaps not, you may already have experience with the same maps and same death. It depends on the map I guess, if they can be easily dominated and ruin the chance / fun for others.

Perhaps the best and cleanest is to simply assign it as a third server and simply serve the expanding player base.

You know best.

[...jutuli...]

My propose - DM17 could be a great and funny masacre... 20 sec one round, 3-5 mins whole game? We all can chat all the time in the void.

[aimer]

My propose - DM17 could be a great and funny masacre... 20 sec one round, 3-5 mins whole game? We all can chat all the time in the void.

dm17 is probably one of the best stock maps but unfortunately we would all look at it from the bottom

Of the space maps though i think dm16 could be fun to play (maybe even with the grappling hook in that map) and with a few other maps it could prove to be more popular than the current Glacius.
A way to give it a head start would be to mix the new map rotation with some popular ones from the Unfreeze rotation like:

- dm1 (up to 6 players)
- dm6 (from 6p+)
- dm7 (from 8p+)
- dm10 (from 12p+)
- dm12 (from 16p+)
- dm16 (from 8p+)
- tourney5 (up to 8p)

This would also please certain players that ask to vote maps in the current server as they could easily just switch to Glacius and play something different.

[PacMan]

Admin on a serious note I think these guys got some good ideas , perhaps the glacius server should be like this every few months a change , like as above space maps or something different