Freelancer - The Void

Well Zeb that was a good reply. =D>

But Rev Del said many good things and you will have to admit-THEY ARE SPOT ON.
Maybe he shouldn't have said that Void is "dead" in such a manner here,but what he said is unfortunately the TRUTH.

The player count has fallen,Disco has 3 times the number of Voidians,I think even in our "prime time" we fall short of their graveyard shift number which is around 60.

He is pretty much right-WE NEED A NEW MOD,AND THAT TOO IN 1-2 MONTHS.Or we will lose more players.

I am going to open a thread with radical measures for this,and i don't care if it is anti-establishment or not,massive changes are needed.

Only one word comes to my mind-Stagnation,while describing Void.And that really is the biter truth. :-<

Imo,Rev Del doesn't need to come here for this,i really don't think that was an attempt to poach people from here,why should they?
They are already so popular and becoming even more popular,why go so low by sending the top Admin to make 1 post here(his first)-as if that will help and make more people go to Disco???? ?

The only thing that surprises me is-
How is that draconian laws and draconian implementation of rules and RP makes a server popular?

(When it should be opposite,Void is so "free" but what is there to show for it?A confounding paradox?!)

Though Void is not RP server,100% that is and it will never be,but we would have to look at changing things and changing it big time.Increasing the RP component to around 80-90% could work wonders with the remaining for those who want to NPC kill on their own etc.

Moreover,large chunks of Void server staff are no longer active,while that is not the case in Disco where regular replacements are made.
How can u expect to enforce laws when many are inactive?

Its a struggle for survival now,and Rev Del's post just shows the bitter competition between FL Servers to hold on to the last bit of FL Players in the world,and some of this is done by crook in some cases,if u check Starport,and see "mature Admins" stealing each others works and accusing each other.
No wonder Disco was the among the last few servers to join FL Community network.

Its about time Voidians wake up,or they will wake up to a dead Void.
And i suppose to defile the memory of Void,we will be compelled to join Disco or what?? >:P

-Geromix

Im not disagreeing with everything said, its just I get the feeling that more and more players are prepared to "write off" the VOID as a dead server.  Rumours like this, spread by other server admins and such have caused the downfall of other servers so its my duty to resist this - Im not suggesting that the Rev is out to deliberately sabotage us in any way shape or form - Im just standing up for our corner  - thats all.

If Disco want to rapidly replace their Admin staff then thats their perogative - here on the VOID we take time to observe and to assess those that we would use as ADMIN and VOID staff.  There is much that goes on in the background that you are unware of and that is as it should be.  There will be an announcement regarding server staff in the not to distant future - Watch this Space...!  :)

OMG SPOILERS

What can we do... what can WE do!? I'll tell you what we can do!

<b>1st.</b> Play the game and take some time to actually know the people who plays it.

<b>2nd.</b> Even if we had a new mod right now this isn't the best time to release it, the advantage of releasing a new mod must be well timed, usually should be released when mods from other servers are getting old as well so ppl from those servers actually feel like giving a try in our new mod. But nevermind, you guys shouldn't worry about that either.

<b>3rd.</b> We could start helping new guys more often, not just "Hey pal! Wanna join our clan!??" and then BANG! He'll spent his first weeks only pvping... try to show him some of the turistic sights we have here, some cool stuff or simply have a friendly chat.

<b>4th and last.</b> Despite the fact that this community owes a lot (and I mean A LOT!) to the A-team, it wasn't exactly the A-Team who managed to make this server as great as it is (some would say "was"). It was the community, yes the community. Right now this might feel like just one more of those "yeah allright comments" but it really isn't more than this: it's all up to us and to how we treat our server/community.


note: I really would like to post things a bit better but i'm posting this from my office and Boss doens't like this kind of "abuse" lol.

Best Regards,
Kosmiker

[quote="ReverendDel";p="204180"]
Activity:
Nothing says play me like an active server, let's be honest which one would you prefer as a newbie? 60 or 198? The gap seems huge, now 60 players is no small thing, it's our regular graveyard shift and our server is still plenty lifelike, But 60 isn't your regular amount. You have an average player count somewhere around the low 30's, now that looks like a dead server. It isn't by any stretch of the imagination, but to a new player it looks like one. You need to get your regulars to step up and either play more often or stage regular events that get the server jumping. Activity is the ultimate reason Disco stays active.


There's a few other things you could do that Disco doesn't.

Welcome your newbies, they are your lifeblood. Discovery veterans have a habit of snarking uncontrollably at things they don't like. This hostility breeds more hostility which results in ther new bie saying "Sod this for a game of soldiers" and wandering off elsewhere, or upon finding no active servers, stops playing altogether. Don't be like us in that respect. If they seem a little ill-educated when it comes to your establishment, educate them properly. Your veterans are the key to that.

[/quote]

I totally agree with what ReverendDel wrote about activity on server and new players.
More events=more people playing.
More events that could be won by newbie players,so that means less pvp events and more races,chases etc.

Welcoming new players...now that's something much people need to work on.
Often i see veteran players killing some newbie 5-10 times.And yes i know,newbie attacks first.....BUT if you can clearly see that hes no match for you leave him alone,or better yet give him some pointers on how to be better at pvp.

One more thing:Stop complaining about spam,lag,bugged ships etc.This is all a part of multiplayer Freelancer game and your negative comments don't help void being a better place.
If someone have lag don't just shout : YOU LAGER ,there i a polite way to say someone he have connection problem (even if you are RP enemies).
If you ask me words lager and spammer should be banned from void.
People want to relax by playing FL not to be called names.

Oi guys,will be jumping in with a small thing here.

Quality > Quantity. Nuff' said.

How many of those 19239348 people from your server do you know mate? (im adressing the Discovery person). Thanks for your input, but i dont think you should be taking the liberty of doing such gestures of good will. Times change, you never know what might be coming from behind that corner,eh?

I'll take the small quiet hometown anyday over the large city. Thank you,have a good day ^^


PS : and to be on-topic : The Void could use some love. Simple unconditional love. Dont moan that guy lags,dont get pissed off that you lost a fight, dont cry that someone spammed you to death. Just love the other for simply being there.

Eat your damn lemons.

My personal oppinion, no offence to no one here, but it's people who end up flamming because they die, end up flamming cuz they're egos too big for their own good, it's people like this that bring down the Void as they don't have anything good to say. Moans are another reason, who wants to hear moans? keep them to yourself, yell at your comp, its a game, not real life.
When i joined Void, DTA had just got banned/Dissmissed, and so did XEF, the Non-Pirating rule in Alexandria was put in, it's stuff like this that brought down the Void, as the Void was not seen as a hardcore RP, it was seen as a PVP server, and once you take away the hot spots, you loose players. Once you harm the hot spots, you harm the server. It's just the small things like this that took down the Void, I personaly think that XEF, DTA and the other old clans should be alloud back to the Void as they were the true clans, they didnt care about what others thought about them, they wanted to play a game... a killing game, once you take away the killing, you take away the game...



@ Blackheart, their might be 198 people on discovery, but how many of them are accualy having fun, all they do is trade, talk, they never kill each other, they dont know how to fight or anything... all they do is stickt RP, VERY strict, i've never seen a server were you pick a faction, play as that faction, use nothing but that factions guns...

Note : This post is not intended to start flames, but a simple discussion, this is only an oppinion, dont take it personnaly.


[Saint]-Thorn

The reason not alot of people come here and people leave isn't cause of activity....

Ill admit, i've played on a different server because i just don't want to put up with the hassle of some players within the game.

A player that roams saying "pop" after every kill....An offence in my day, and for the player who does this. Pop was used if a player blew themselves up, and was considered offensive....

Its not cool, and its not nice...

Players that tell people to "**** off" if they shoot them, because they are veterans and are better than newer players...

This server will be chocked by ego's and children that can't grow up, and thats why i don't like to play here as much anymore.

Also, its been shown by disco that alot of people like roleplay, what roleplay is left on Void?
May aswell delete all roleplay tags:

Pirates - Almost gone because people just want a "I CAN DO EVERYTHING" role...
Rogues - Group with everyone and basicly don't follow the original rogue code at all.....

Congratulations oh veterans of the server. you really show what an AWESOME server this is...

Goodbye, and goodnight.

Let me weigh in on this, even though I'm not playing FL active anymore (though, as you can see, I did come to check out what happened on Apr. 1. Pretty much what I expected, though :/), because I've tried Disco out earlier. Just my two cents - in a wall of text, probably :P (@ReverendDel, for the most part.)

Is it better than the Void? No, it isn't. Is it worse than the Void? No, it isn't. It's, in one word, different.

Unless by "better", you mean "has more players online", because yes, it does have. As far as I know, the main Disco RP server is the only server that has more than a hundred players online, well, pretty much ever. And more players means more new players, too. You know: after a certain point, activity increases activity. But you're right that you don't constantly have 198 players online: that would be a bad case, because it'd mean that connecting to the server would be quite hard, all the time. (If only MS made the FL server multi-threaded...)

Is the mod itself better? Well, I have to say that yes, it is. But not by far. There are more new systems, and I'm not counting the Void's 3D systems into this, because while they are an excellent concept, in reality they're just a bunch of random planets and clouds splattered all over a system, with all too large distances between them. I would love to have five "real" 3D systems on the Void - it would be a lot more exciting than 10 2D systems on Disco, or 50 of the current ones here. Let's not forget that a fair number of your new systems are "guard" systems too, aka accessible only to members of that faction. And while the Void doesn't have that many new 2D systems, they are, on the average, larger than the ones in Disco, in my opinion.

There are also considerably more ships on Disco, and while I haven't played that long there (bit over a month, maybe), in my opinion, they are less balanced. If you didn't have strict rules enforcing which players can use which ships, everyone would be using only a handful of them. All the others would become redundant, then. There's only one seriously unbalanced ship here, the Eagle, and even that one's only a killer if outfitted with nomad lasers (aka unbalanced weapons) - and a good pilot :P

Weapons, however, are more balanced on Disco. Pretty much all of them. But that's no wonder, since most of the system has been reworked from vanilla Freelancer, while here, custom weapons are pretty much added on top of them. Here, players seem to use only about half a dozen weapons, with Nomad lasers coming out on top, because they're overpowered compared to the others. (There's a thread discussing this, with the majority of players agreeing on that.) There, you see a wider variety of weapons used, even more so on capital ships. (But let's not forget that there're restrictions in place for weapons, on who can use what.)

There are also a lot more new things happening on Disco: war between the Houses, and such. But you need the community to play them for them to matter, and your draconian measure about RP do come in very handy here. Events are quite rare here, true, but there are no events on Disco, either. If anything is organised here, it is always available to new players (even if they usually get creamed in the tourneys), but any mass events on Disco are tied strictly to RP, and as such, newcomers to the mod aren't allowed in. If we had more events AND more event participants, I would say the Void is the clear winner in this regard. I also have to admit that it's a bit of my fault, too: while I tried organising a ranked pvp championship with Maverick, it didn't really take off, as we almost never were online at the same time - and no other players offered to help host the stuff. There's an Event team, but I don't really know how active it is now. Even if they aren't, the point is that you, and any new players, will see events from time to time, and everybody can take part.

Then there is the dynamic economy. Which, in my opinion, is a huge plus for the Void. It makes trading more interesting, and more lively. Forgive me for saying this, but trading on Disco is just plain boring. There are a lot more trading ships, and more routes (because smugglers are actively policed, and because there're a lot larger trading ships), but in the end, you settle on one route, and pretty much all you do is farm money. (Then an update comes out, which prolly nerfs your route :/) Because you need a LOT of money for high-end stuff, like buying capital ships. And then you find that two-three bombers, which are incredibly cheaper than your new capship, can take you down quite easily. And if we had 100+ players online here too, the dynamic economy would mean that trading would be a LOT more interesting than it is either here, now - or than what's over on Disco.

Then there's pvp. For all the more balanced weapons, combat on Discovery is more boring, especially when we consider that there are a lot more players online there. Yet if mass pvp events (wars) happen here, they're on the same scale as over there: because systems are better connected here (which is why we love Alexandria), and players are less spread out over the entire server. And I have to say that on the average, the pvp skills of the Void players are noticably better than those I've met on Disco. I don't consider myself as a particularly good fighter, as I can't really snipe, and there are quite a bunch of veteran players who can kick my ass while I can barely dent their hull, but even I was surprised at how many players I could either kill or evade in combat there. (Well, you don't kill a cruiser and a gunship in a Sabre, now do you?) In my opinion, if we made a Void all stars team, and kitted them out on Disco, they could kick pretty much everybody's asses :P But that's just my opinion, and to see whether it's true or not would require a server war. Why don't those happen lately btw? :/ (At least, I heard that they did at least once, in the past.) In my opinion, it would be a good way to increase activity here. I would recommend inviting the Disco server for one - but to be honest, seeing how many people play there, I'm afraid that they'd zerg the whole server :D

The problem with pvp here, however, is that it mostly happens in Sparta - a place where even the few RP we have is pretty much suspended, and a place where certain people with grudges flame people who would respond in kind. And since most new players never enter Sparta (they have little reason to do so, if they don't know the trade routes leading from/to the Abandoned city) all the combat they see happening on the server is in the form of the death messages. When I was playing here, I tried to lure people out from there, into Alexandria, NB, or some other places - and I have to say, it felt good when some new traders passed us and went "Whoa, Demos/Barsine/etc is a warzone!" And that will probably mean that they will stay, because they can see that even if there are only 30 people online, the server is not dead. There are things happening here, and fights happening. (And what's even better, you can get to know all the people on the server!) During the time I was on Disco, I recall seeing only one fight in which more than 8 people were involved. If y'all got your [s]as[/s]... behinds out of Sparta, everyone could see that such fights are a lot more frequent here. But please, leave the lags, spams and flames behind!

Lastly, there's the community. I have to say that RP is several notches better there than here. I've gotta hand it to you, you guys know your stuff and do that the best. I also have to say that new players find a lot warmer welcome here than there. And I'm not just talking about the forums, but also about in-game. Here, we have a team of volunteers dedicated to helping out the fresh blood - and if you're one, you'll find that most players are helpful towards you. (Unless you regen in combat, that is, because you'll probably be receiving waves of hate then from some players :P) On Disco, nobody approached me to help out with anything, but they ARE watching: watching if you break even the smallest of rules, in which case they're immediately there for you. (Pun intended :)) I'm not saying that draconianism is bad - on the contrary, I'm all for enforcing the rules all the time. What I'm saying is that the players there are considerably more unfriendly towards new people. But hey, since your server is full, you can afford that - while if everyone hated on new players who regen, or go in any way against the rules, the server would become dead a lot faster.
To be honest, I think the majority of new players here stay only because of the friendly welcome here, and because of the stuff to explore - and the fights. I'm not going to say that there are no flames and no hate in the community here, because there are - but if you stay out of the business of veteran players, and if you stay out of past grudges, you'll get a considerably more pleasant experience here than on Disco, or HC (didn't really try that place out, though). And odds are that if you come online in NY for the first time, you'll have someone greeting you. At least, I did here on the Void, but never have over on Disco. (Do five characters count, in this aspect?)

Then there's one last thing, about mods and updates. True, we haven't seen an update in a long time. True, Disco has a huge new update coming out, and experiences a surge of new players because of that. Notice that I didn't say that a new mod came out, but that it's in the process of being released. Because it's in beta - and we don't get betas here. Yes, there has been no update on the Void since November. That's half a year. But don't forget that there's been no update before the beta for Disco for a whole year - and even then, it's not a stable release. There IS a very impressive amount of changes and new things in it, but your main server is running on beta, and as such, is unstable. The Void mod has only one server running it, but when a new release comes out, it's been tested and is stable. When I saw that on Disco beta, the whole server crashes if anyone takes a Gallia mission, I was pretty much turned off from the whole thing. Not only because that's a game-breaking bug for almost two hundred people, but also because that was a known bug, and went unfixed for quite a long time. (If it were me, I would've disabled the missions on the same day this became known - not just set a random announcement in-game for it.) And the server went down several times a day(!), which can be very frustrating. You know, I'd rather wait three more months for a new mod update than to have a beta commence right now. I agree with Geromix that an update would help this server a lot with activity, but I don't think that trying to rush Strail would help. In my opinion, if we have a new release before Discovery goes stable and live, we should be good to go. (Set in bold because Gero did that too :P) And while you guys have a larger development team, you also have a lot more to work on. But I have to say that your work so far has been excellent, keep it up, and good luck with it in the future!

Modwise, I have to say that the Discovery mod is better by some. If we're talking about servers, my earlier point still stands: neither the Void nor the main Discovery RP server is better or worse than the other. They're different. Thank you for pointing out valid points about our server, and I mean this sincerely. I welcome your comments when their intent is to help us out. But please don't say that the server is dead - or, to be precise, don't imply that. I, on the other hand, can't point out the good points of the Void without pointing out not just the good, but the bad points of Disco too. I have to say that all my negative comments about Disco were for the sake of comparison - you won't see me coming online on the Discovery RP forums, saying that I came from the Void, and posting them :P I wrote this to say my opinion about the Void, even if I'm inactive now, because reading your post prompted me to do so. Still, you do have some valid points there, so thanks for sharing those with us! (Ah, and thanks for the timing :P)
(Oh, and after I re-read my post, you might say that it looked like I was attacking Disco in what I wrote, but even if it did come off that way, well, I won't lose any sleep over that :))


One last thing, though. (...Damn, I wrote that one already!) You wrote in your sig, for everyone to see, to "feel free to PM with questions". Let me ask you a question here, then: if you came here to post this, then why did you write that there? We all know what private messages are for :P Or does that mean you'll hang around for a bit?

[quote="Kosmiker";p="204228"]What can we do... what can WE do!? I'll tell you what we can do!

<b>1st.</b> Play the game and take some time to actually know the people who plays it.

<b>2nd.</b> Even if we had a new mod right now this isn't the best time to release it, the advantage of releasing a new mod must be well timed, usually should be released when mods from other servers are getting old as well so ppl from those servers actually feel like giving a try in our new mod. But nevermind, you guys shouldn't worry about that either.

<b>3rd.</b> We could start helping new guys more often, not just "Hey pal! Wanna join our clan!??" and then BANG! He'll spent his first weeks only pvping... try to show him some of the turistic sights we have here, some cool stuff or simply have a friendly chat.

<b>4th and last.</b> Despite the fact that this community owes a lot (and I mean A LOT!) to the A-team, it wasn't exactly the A-Team who managed to make this server as great as it is (some would say "was"). It was the community, yes the community. Right now this might feel like just one more of those "yeah allright comments" but it really isn't more than this: it's all up to us and to how we treat our server/community.


note: I really would like to post things a bit better but i'm posting this from my office and Boss doens't like this kind of "abuse" lol.

Best Regards,
Kosmiker[/quote]

Agree with 1.

2-You are right,but aren't we lagging behind?When we should have released it,we never released it.
Did we?
The more we delay the more we lose.
A good mod is a good mod  whether other servers release or not,people will eventually come.

3-We have FAQ.Compared to Disco our player community receives players more better than them.

4-Server staff needs new people because there are far too inactive server guards.People like Zeb get overburdened and there is lax enforcement of laws.

[quote="cmdrsaman";p="204243"]Let me weigh in on this, even though I'm not playing FL active anymore (though, as you can see, I did come to check out what happened on Apr. 1. Pretty much what I expected, though :/), because I've tried Disco out earlier. Just my two cents - in a wall of text, probably  (@ReverendDel, for the most part.)

Is it better than the Void? No, it isn't. Is it worse than the Void? No, it isn't. It's, in one word, different.

Unless by "better", you mean "has more players online", because yes, it does have. As far as I know, the main Disco RP server is the only server that has more than a hundred players online, well, pretty much ever. And more players means more new players, too. You know: after a certain point, activity increases activity. But you're right that you don't constantly have 198 players online: that would be a bad case, because it'd mean that connecting to the server would be quite hard, all the time. (If only MS made the FL server multi-threaded...)

Is the mod itself better? Well, I have to say that yes, it is. But not by far. There are more new systems, and I'm not counting the Void's 3D systems into this, because while they are an excellent concept, in reality they're just a bunch of random planets and clouds splattered all over a system, with all too large distances between them. I would love to have five "real" 3D systems on the Void - it would be a lot more exciting than 10 2D systems on Disco, or 50 of the current ones here. Let's not forget that a fair number of your new systems are "guard" systems too, aka accessible only to members of that faction. And while the Void doesn't have that many new 2D systems, they are, on the average, larger than the ones in Disco, in my opinion.

There are also considerably more ships on Disco, and while I haven't played that long there (bit over a month, maybe), in my opinion, they are less balanced. If you didn't have strict rules enforcing which players can use which ships, everyone would be using only a handful of them. All the others would become redundant, then. There's only one seriously unbalanced ship here, the Eagle, and even that one's only a killer if outfitted with nomad lasers (aka unbalanced weapons) - and a good pilot

Weapons, however, are more balanced on Disco. Pretty much all of them. But that's no wonder, since most of the system has been reworked from vanilla Freelancer, while here, custom weapons are pretty much added on top of them. Here, players seem to use only about half a dozen weapons, with Nomad lasers coming out on top, because they're overpowered compared to the others. (There's a thread discussing this, with the majority of players agreeing on that.) There, you see a wider variety of weapons used, even more so on capital ships. (But let's not forget that there're restrictions in place for weapons, on who can use what.)

There are also a lot more new things happening on Disco: war between the Houses, and such. But you need the community to play them for them to matter, and your draconian measure about RP do come in very handy here. Events are quite rare here, true, but there are no events on Disco, either. If anything is organised here, it is always available to new players (even if they usually get creamed in the tourneys), but any mass events on Disco are tied strictly to RP, and as such, newcomers to the mod aren't allowed in. If we had more events AND more event participants, I would say the Void is the clear winner in this regard. I also have to admit that it's a bit of my fault, too: while I tried organising a ranked pvp championship with Maverick, it didn't really take off, as we almost never were online at the same time - and no other players offered to help host the stuff. There's an Event team, but I don't really know how active it is now. Even if they aren't, the point is that you, and any new players, will see events from time to time, and everybody can take part.

Then there is the dynamic economy. Which, in my opinion, is a huge plus for the Void. It makes trading more interesting, and more lively. Forgive me for saying this, but trading on Disco is just plain boring. There are a lot more trading ships, and more routes (because smugglers are actively policed, and because there're a lot larger trading ships), but in the end, you settle on one route, and pretty much all you do is farm money. (Then an update comes out, which prolly nerfs your route :/) Because you need a LOT of money for high-end stuff, like buying capital ships. And then you find that two-three bombers, which are incredibly cheaper than your new capship, can take you down quite easily. And if we had 100+ players online here too, the dynamic economy would mean that trading would be a LOT more interesting than it is either here, now - or than what's over on Disco.

Then there's pvp. For all the more balanced weapons, combat on Discovery is more boring, especially when we consider that there are a lot more players online there. Yet if mass pvp events (wars) happen here, they're on the same scale as over there: because systems are better connected here (which is why we love Alexandria), and players are less spread out over the entire server. And I have to say that on the average, the pvp skills of the Void players are noticably better than those I've met on Disco. I don't consider myself as a particularly good fighter, as I can't really snipe, and there are quite a bunch of veteran players who can kick my a** while I can barely dent their hull, but even I was surprised at how many players I could either kill or evade in combat there. (Well, you don't kill a cruiser and a gunship in a Sabre, now do you?) In my opinion, if we made a Void all stars team, and kitted them out on Disco, they could kick pretty much everybody's asses But that's just my opinion, and to see whether it's true or not would require a server war. Why don't those happen lately btw? :/ (At least, I heard that they did at least once, in the past.) In my opinion, it would be a good way to increase activity here. I would recommend inviting the Disco server for one - but to be honest, seeing how many people play there, I'm afraid that they'd zerg the whole server

The problem with pvp here, however, is that it mostly happens in Sparta - a place where even the few RP we have is pretty much suspended, and a place where certain people with grudges flame people who would respond in kind. And since most new players never enter Sparta (they have little reason to do so, if they don't know the trade routes leading from/to the Abandoned city) all the combat they see happening on the server is in the form of the death messages. When I was playing here, I tried to lure people out from there, into Alexandria, NB, or some other places - and I have to say, it felt good when some new traders passed us and went "Whoa, Demos/Barsine/etc is a warzone!" And that will probably mean that they will stay, because they can see that even if there are only 30 people online, the server is not dead. There are things happening here, and fights happening. (And what's even better, you can get to know all the people on the server!) During the time I was on Disco, I recall seeing only one fight in which more than 8 people were involved. If y'all got your [s]as[/s]... behinds out of Sparta, everyone could see that such fights are a lot more frequent here. But please, leave the lags, spams and flames behind!

Lastly, there's the community. I have to say that RP is several notches better there than here. I've gotta hand it to you, you guys know your stuff and do that the best. I also have to say that new players find a lot warmer welcome here than there. And I'm not just talking about the forums, but also about in-game. Here, we have a team of volunteers dedicated to helping out the fresh blood - and if you're one, you'll find that most players are helpful towards you. (Unless you regen in combat, that is, because you'll probably be receiving waves of hate then from some players ) On Disco, nobody approached me to help out with anything, but they ARE watching: watching if you break even the smallest of rules, in which case they're immediately there for you. (Pun intended ) I'm not saying that draconianism is bad - on the contrary, I'm all for enforcing the rules all the time. What I'm saying is that the players there are considerably more unfriendly towards new people. But hey, since your server is full, you can afford that - while if everyone hated on new players who regen, or go in any way against the rules, the server would become dead a lot faster.
To be honest, I think the majority of new players here stay only because of the friendly welcome here, and because of the stuff to explore - and the fights. I'm not going to say that there are no flames and no hate in the community here, because there are - but if you stay out of the business of veteran players, and if you stay out of past grudges, you'll get a considerably more pleasant experience here than on Disco, or HC (didn't really try that place out, though). And odds are that if you come online in NY for the first time, you'll have someone greeting you. At least, I did here on the Void, but never have over on Disco. (Do five characters count, in this aspect?)

Then there's one last thing, about mods and updates. True, we haven't seen an update in a long time. True, Disco has a huge new update coming out, and experiences a surge of new players because of that. Notice that I didn't say that a new mod came out, but that it's in the process of being released. Because it's in beta - and we don't get betas here. Yes, there has been no update on the Void since November. That's half a year. But don't forget that there's been no update before the beta for Disco for a whole year - and even then, it's not a stable release. There IS a very impressive amount of changes and new things in it, but your main server is running on beta, and as such, is unstable. The Void mod has only one server running it, but when a new release comes out, it's been tested and is stable. When I saw that on Disco beta, the whole server crashes if anyone takes a Gallia mission, I was pretty much turned off from the whole thing. Not only because that's a game-breaking bug for almost two hundred people, but also because that was a known bug, and went unfixed for quite a long time. (If it were me, I would've disabled the missions on the same day this became known - not just set a random announcement in-game for it.) And the server went down several times a day(!), which can be very frustrating. You know, I'd rather wait three more months for a new mod update than to have a beta commence right now. I agree with Geromix that an update would help this server a lot with activity, but I don't think that trying to rush Strail would help. In my opinion, if we have a new release before Discovery goes stable and live, we should be good to go. (Set in bold because Gero did that too ) And while you guys have a larger development team, you also have a lot more to work on. But I have to say that your work so far has been excellent, keep it up, and good luck with it in the future!

Modwise, I have to say that the Discovery mod is better by some. If we're talking about servers, my earlier point still stands: neither the Void nor the main Discovery RP server is better or worse than the other. They're different. Thank you for pointing out valid points about our server, and I mean this sincerely. I welcome your comments when their intent is to help us out. But please don't say that the server is dead - or, to be precise, don't imply that. I, on the other hand, can't point out the good points of the Void without pointing out not just the good, but the bad points of Disco too. I have to say that all my negative comments about Disco were for the sake of comparison - you won't see me coming online on the Discovery RP forums, saying that I came from the Void, and posting them I wrote this to say my opinion about the Void, even if I'm inactive now, because reading your post prompted me to do so. Still, you do have some valid points there, so thanks for sharing those with us! (Ah, and thanks for the timing )
(Oh, and after I re-read my post, you might say that it looked like I was attacking Disco in what I wrote, but even if it did come off that way, well, I won't lose any sleep over that )


One last thing, though. (...darn, I wrote that one already!) You wrote in your sig, for everyone to see, to "feel free to PM with questions". Let me ask you a question here, then: if you came here to post this, then why did you write that there? We all know what private messages are for Or does that mean you'll hang around for a bit?[/quote]

Damn...good post. =D>  =D>

I am out of time now,but i will comment soon.

You should be in Dev Team for the mod,see my topic,i hope there are reforms!!

Yes before Disco stabilizes,if we release mod we get the players.

Like I said - VOID is not an RP server.  Its a shooter server with a bit of RP - going down the Discovery line on that front is not (as far as I am aware) an option here.

@ Thorn - I appreciate what you are saying.  But dont forget why it was that certain clans and individuals were permanently banned from the VOID and it had nothing to do with RP or with the quality of the game play.  There were very specific parameters that these people chose to push to the limit and to the detriment of the VOID - allowing them back on would be the biggest mistake.

@ Blazefury:  Your sentiment is noted and its not a bad thing either - when your read what Liman wrote about new players and such.  One of the reasons that ESF were and are so successful is because of the time they take to spend with new and untagged players. Sure they end up joining the clan but then wouldn't you if someone took the time to show you the ropes.  The "Hiya - Kaboom" approach will lead to exactly what the Rev had to say "Sod this for a game of soldiers..!" and people leave.

And I agree with you totaly - we are not "better" than any other server - just "different" and you are so correct on the Quantity versus Quality argument.

@Liman - so true my friend - part of online gaming particularly if you have a baseline PC is the fact that you are going to get periods of lag and there are other ways of dealing with the poor connections of some players other than giving it the "You Lag!".  I have asked people to reconnect and if its still bad - ask them to come back later when its quieter...! There are some who despite the bad lag persist in remaining online thereby dragging the server response time into the depths of a bottomless bucket.  Politeness and courtesy costs nothing.  Start of pleasant and it gives you a bit of room for manouver - start off being nasty and it gets you nowhere real fast.

Heads up - This is YOUR server and it will only survive if you Play The Game - just like Blazefury suggested.... Nuff Said.
Zeb - Over and Out...

[quote="geromix";p="204244"][quote="Kosmiker";p="204228"]What can we do... what can WE do!? I'll tell you what we can do!

<b>1st.</b> Play the game and take some time to actually know the people who plays it.

<b>2nd.</b> Even if we had a new mod right now this isn't the best time to release it, the advantage of releasing a new mod must be well timed, usually should be released when mods from other servers are getting old as well so ppl from those servers actually feel like giving a try in our new mod. But nevermind, you guys shouldn't worry about that either.

<b>3rd.</b> We could start helping new guys more often, not just "Hey pal! Wanna join our clan!??" and then BANG! He'll spent his first weeks only pvping... try to show him some of the turistic sights we have here, some cool stuff or simply have a friendly chat.

<b>4th and last.</b> Despite the fact that this community owes a lot (and I mean A LOT!) to the A-team, it wasn't exactly the A-Team who managed to make this server as great as it is (some would say "was"). It was the community, yes the community. Right now this might feel like just one more of those "yeah allright comments" but it really isn't more than this: it's all up to us and to how we treat our server/community.


note: I really would like to post things a bit better but i'm posting this from my office and Boss doens't like this kind of "abuse" lol.

Best Regards,
Kosmiker[/quote]

Agree with 1.

2-You are right,but aren't we lagging behind?When we should have released it,we never released it.
Did we?
The more we delay the more we lose.
A good mod is a good mod  whether other servers release or not,people will eventually come.

3-We have FAQ.Compared to Disco our player community receives players more better than them.

4-Server staff needs new people because there are far too inactive server guards.People like Zeb get overburdened and there is lax enforcement of laws.[/quote]

First let me thank you for the reply, now let me add a few words.

2. I understand and agree that if we have a mod fully ready then we should release it right away. The problem is, is there a mod ready or just half-ready? was it fully tested? Heck, we don't even know in what stage the new mod is! It's because of this we really should focus efforts on helping on building this new mod (very good post of yours regarding that btw).

3. Indeed we have a (very good)  FAQ a team.  But I wasn't refering to welcome new players that way, my idea was something more like actually everybody trying to act cool with these players and explainin them the "ways of the void", not just how to fight but also how to behave or something like that.

4. True.

Nothing more to add besides the fact that I'm reading some good posts on this topic.

(boss is getting mad again... lol g2g)

Hello. I am Korrd. One of the Server Admins from the Discovery server. If you allow me, I would like to add a post to this thread.
First, I'd like to apologize for the way I write. English is not my native language. Spanish is. So my grammar is far from perfect. If you see any mistake on my post, please let me know.

As the oldest and [supposedly] "most senior" Admin on the DGC community, I've seen the place to grow from a little server where having 16 players was a major event on itself, to what it is now, when having 50 people on means that the server is almost empty. I think that after observing and having been part of it for the last four years, I know some of the reasons why the place has became so popular. If you allow me, I'd like share them with you:


First of all, yes. Newb help. That does works wonders.
Entering a server where people do care for each other and help newbies to improve and find their place on the server gives newbies a reason to stay. That is because they don't feel like a third element in the middle of a fierce competition for the top, but as another fellow player instead, and mentored not by competitors who only care to reach the top no matter what, but by other fellow players who wants to have fun too while playing this wonderful game that is freelancer.

Welcoming new players...now that's something much people need to work on.
Often i see veteran players killing some newbie 5-10 times.And yes i know,newbie attacks first.....BUT if you can clearly see that hes no match for you leave him alone,or better yet give him some pointers on how to be better at pvp.

You are correct.
Being killed 2394824 times by a superior foe, even if (s)he attacks first, is really frustrating. Instead, the older player should train the newbie a bit.
If a new player is helped to improve by those who are better/older than him, he or she will definitively see some future playing on this server, as he would see that the community is not just a bunch of ultracompetitive players that only cares for being at the top, like ogame, but a bunch of people who are here for a common goal: to have fun.



On the second place, player politeness and fair (instead of ego-driven) competitiveness:

PS : and to be on-topic : The Void could use some love. Simple unconditional love. Dont moan that guy lags,dont get pissed off that you lost a fight, dont cry that someone spammed you to death. Just love the other for simply being there.

My personal oppinion, no offence to no one here, but it's people who end up flamming because they die, end up flamming cuz they're egos too big for their own good, it's people like this that bring down the Void as they don't have anything good to say. Moans are another reason, who wants to hear moans? keep them to yourself, yell at your comp, its a game, not real life.

Yeah.
People dislike those kind of rants. Something people dislikes after a long PvP fight is that, instead of a gf / gg or even some chat on how to improve each other's fighting technique the:

• Player who lost the fight begins ranting about lag, cheating, connection problems, etc. As if the cause for his defeat was something beyond his control, not his skill as a pilot or his strategy or his choice of tactics during the fight.
• Player who won begins bragging about it everywhere, as if he were the most godly player on the entire "Freelancerverse" ever, and despectively treats the defeated one as a n00b (and allow me to point the difference between a n00b and a newb, a n00b being someone who doesn't care to learn nor to respect the rules, and a newb being someone new to the server) instead of as a fellow player.

Those two things do drive people away as they are looking for a place to offload the stress of real life and have some fun, not for a place to exacerbate those.  Ego and arrogance are the worst enemies of an on-line community, and need to be rooted out of it if a place is looking forward to a brigter future.
Also, in order for players to became more polite, it has to be encouraged, not arbitrarily enforced by warning people to behave.
What I mean is that instead of threatening people with fines if they are not polite to others, the example should be given by behaving politely to others, even to those who are not. That way people will realize that reptilian-like territoriality and aggressive behaviour is not needed, and will begin to behave better toward others.


On the third place, Rule enforcing:
I think that our server rules are respected an enforced by almost every single DGC player because we have allowed the community to actively participate on their making.
If players have something to do with their creation, then rules are much more respected and enforced by them. That is because they don't think of the rules as harsh, arbitrary things set on stone and imposed over them by the powers that be, but as something that everybody helped to create and maintain in order to make the server a better place.
Yes, I know that we enforce rules in quite a Draconian way. But so far it works quite well.
On the other side, I think that now that 90% of the player respect the rules, we could ease up a bit by not sanctioning as harsh as we do. I see it as no longer necessary. Also, people should be again reminded that they were newbs once too, and that they should be a bit more tolerant towards people in general.


RP:
Regarding RP, i think that having the server to be an RP server gives people more things to do than just fight all the time.
One tends to get bored if all that is to do on the server is to fight fight and fight.
I think that is one of the reasons why the DGC server has became popular. Because there are more things to do than just PvP.
It does not need to be a super strict RP server, but to have enough RP on it so people can do other things than combat and only combat. It gives a server a lot more playability instead.

And also, the Admin team:
An active and healthy, unbiased Admin team is fundamental for a community to prosper.
An active Admin team means that the needs of the community are fulfilled, that rule violations, abusers, and the like are not let go unsanctioned (and I'll use the word sanction instead of punishment, as the former is less authoritative that the later), and that people feel that they are being cared for.
Another thing that I found to be liked by the community is Admins apologizing if they make a mistake.
We all make mistakes, and being Admins does not mean that we are infallible. When an admin makes a mistake and apologizes, it is showing the community the she or he does care for them.


That's all I can think of right now. I hope it helps.


On a side note:

I've always seen The Void as a bastion for freelancer. I remember when the void used to be full all the time. It saddens me to see it spinning down as it is now. I do hope that you can regain your lost numbers, and to get many new players too. Also, the server is far from dead. If you don't believe me, take a look at this picture: http://www.aa-flserver.de/flserverstat/ ... h_top5.php
It's 3rd on the ranking. The problem is that there aren't many FL players left.
As I see it, all that it's needed to regain numbers is a new mod version, some publicity, better traits towards new players, and less ego.

Why don't those (server wars) happen lately btw? :/ (At least, I heard that they did at least once, in the past.) In my opinion, it would be a good way to increase activity here. I would recommend inviting the Disco server for one - but to be honest, seeing how many people play there, I'm afraid that they'd zerg the whole server

I make myself the same question too.
A good idea would be to make some sort of Olympic games, where designated teams from every participating server would met on a special server to play on a friendly competition (Or we can rotate and use the server of one of the communities who participates on the games, which would be good as it would bring more people to that server, and it would even get new and old players to stay on that server too, as they would be effectively trying other mods). There could be many disciplines, like ranked fights, fleet maneuvres, even races (like the starflier race across the most dangerous Sirius systems that I've been trying to make, but never found time to do so ).
Olympic games would bring a lot of inter-server activity, and would be good for the community as a whole. But this is matter for another thread... and a matter that we should take a look at, for it is most interesting and quite promising.