James, I understand your frustration, but perhaps utilizing some tact would be in order.

Also, you list things that need to be done, but not what you suggests happens to do them. 

Example:
get more recruits:  How do you propose that happens?  Does one drive down to Wal-mart and pick up some and some Dr. Pepper while they are there?

Get better servers:  Can we grow those in the backyard or does it take money that people are not donating (not going to ask if you donate or not, but you can consider that to yourself). 

Attacking WDF's leadership:  do you need somebody to tell you to play daily?  What sort of leadership do you need?  Not to mention that the clan rules require NOBODY to compete.

Fill the servers:  again, buy players while at Wal-Mart?  I was a regular for a while.  I have been scarce as I have a personal life (work, marriage, family, personal interests) that does not always afford time to TF2.  I am able to stay active on the forums as best I can.  Also, I am not sure how long you have been playing online games, but a downturn in players is always expected during the summer (people still go outside) and the age of the game contributes to that as well.  TF2 is ranked 15 in terms of hours played on xfire, not number 1.

Again, you can be frustrated, but attacking folks for not having the level of dedication/time/drive to play this game does not drive them to the servers, it just drives them away from you.

oopsie you obviously missed my post and didn't read the whole thing.

get more recruits:  I said this would take care of itself if the servers were filled.

get better servers:  I don't personally know why, but there has been a hardware update in the works for months (apparently) that has not gone through and has just been on hold.  I would donate but I don't have a job at the moment and I am up to my ass in student loans.

attacking wdf's leadership:  I wasn't just randomly attacking him because I am disgruntled alone.  I play on the servers and try to fill them whenever possible.  In this area I don't think you have any reason to attack me because I go on the servers every day and don't see even a quarter of people that should be on there.  I don't need someone to tell ME to play, but others probably do.

fill the servers: We can do this by simply banding together as a clan and actually getting it done.  When the event call goes out there are usually four people that show up at MAX.  A lot of times it is only Belligerent Pimp and I that show up.  I really hope this post pisses people off, for the sole reason that it might cause something to actually happen.  I'm doing this because I enjoyed the atmosphere and play that pDs had a couple of months ago, not because I'm just angry.

Waaaaaaah



WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!



Shut up.


I'm on my way to go pick up the financing for the three new boxes today. Sorry it took so long. Hopefully we can work a deal with our financers and get the ball rolling finally.

Once this happens I'll be taking a more active role again blah blah blah.

pDs goes through this downtime each year every year. Ask anyone who's been here for a while.

Time to engage the rage.

I've wanted to stay out of this thread and let it run its course. However, I think since one of the major complaints is that our leadership sucks, I'll weigh in on this issue.

Let's begin.

1. The servers are dead.

What? Tempest 2 is full daily. Every day. The only time it isn't full is when there is an update and I haven't updated it yet. That's it. The other servers are less popular, yes, but that's to be expected.

There are some things that need to change, I agree. The userbase has dwindled. This is a two parter. One, Valve keeps pulling a George Lucas on their games. The soldier is pretty fucking lame right now. The game is losing players globally. Less players. Less activity.

Two, it's summer time. People are outside enjoying the vacation time and the weather. Not everyone wants to cram into the servers when it's a zillion degrees outside. People are enjoying life outside of the videogame world. This happens every single year to our community. Every single year. Ask anyone who's been here for at least three or four. Every summer the playerbase drops off.

"Get better servers." Oh, ok. Let me jump right on that. Allow me to demonstrate the amount of money this place loses me each fucking month. $450/month in colo hosting ALONE. $20/month for HLstatsx stuff. Currently $1000 on a website redesign. Another $10,000 on getting the better servers you demand. I don't see you shelling out a damn cent to help me out with that. If it was as easy as flipping a switch and magically having better hardware, believe me I'd do it. However, I have a lot of things to budget here. Not only do I have house payments, car payments, utilities payments, tax payments, but on top of that I need to come up with $10,000 to fix the online issue. I'm working on it. It's taking a LOT longer than I anticipated. But really, getting someone to finance something like this is no easy task. You want to step up and send that money my way?

Furthermore, Tempest 4 is central and on a different machine/provider. Donkey stepped up and made that happen. That's something you can't say you've done. If you want a server that isn't hindered by hardware issues currently, play over there. Get games going. Make that your port of harbor.

Why don't you help get more players in? Bonzai!

2. Our leadership sucks.

Thanks. Make sure to put that one into the suggestion box.

Let's check some facts here. I've been doing this for eight years now. Go around and find some other online communities that have been around that long. My leadership isn't perfect, but it's apparently pretty damn ok considering things.

What is your definition of leadership anyway? Someone online constantly pounding the war drums and harrassing people into playing with you? Putting us in clan matches? What?

Anyway, you haven't seen me because I haven't been around. I'm out working my ass off to pay for everything you get to enjoy here. To me, that is the ultimate sacrifice. That is the ultimate form of leadership. I don't even get to fucking enjoy my hard work. You do. I've provided everything you need for a successful server community, you, the users, need to uphold your end of the deal.

It takes a lot of effort to run the servers. It takes a lot of effort to manage everything. Once I get home from working a 14 hour day lighting a warehouse for a WaMu music video commercial I hardly feel like digging through server code and getting games going. I want to sleep. I keep the servers up to date. I add new stuff here and there when requested. The users must be the ones to help me out.

Are they helping? No, not much, I'll give you that. Step it up, people.

Lastly, this place wasn't named after me. This place is me. This is mine. I named it, I run it, I own it. Should it be named jamesbigmacnews.com? Maybe when you do something other than tell me how shitty I am.

There are four admins in this organization. Myself, Sirus, Splinter, and Dragon. Belpimp isn't one of them. Belpimp is a player, like yourself, who is going the extra mile to get shit done. The same thing I've asked of every single one of you. This community has never been about leadership or ranks. Never about who's in charge. It's always been about people doing their part.

Again, I've provided the tools for you to do your part. Do it.

"It seems that Leon and I have been the only ones organizing tournament matches since Virus has had to take time for other activities.  The tournament section is the only section that is actually active.  The tempest servers were supposed to be nooby friendly, I suggest we strive to take that back."

What? I don't thank you enough? Please. That was a project of Leon. He asked for space for it, he got it. I never wanted anything to do with it. I said that at the beginning. It's not my responsibility. WDFNews has NEVER been about competition. It's a subsection of a greater vision. It's part of our growing. It's an important part of who we are, but it's not who we are as a whole.


3. Non-existant members.

I shouldn't have to touch this one. It's not my fault. People have lives. People can do what they want. I'm not going to start kicking people because they aren't playing with you enough.


4. Recruits come and go. Blah blah blah. Yeah, it would be nice to have the infrastructure to provide top tier gaming experiences.

I'm fucking working on it. It's expensive. It has zero return value for me.



I hate to make this a money issue, but it is.

WDFNews and it's assets make me $0. However, it costs me a fuckload. It is the worst investment ever in terms of possibility of a return.

The return I get cannot be put into a dollar amount. It's the enjoyment that people get from playing here. It's the community that stands apart from many other communities.

The community shapes itself. I can't wave my magic wand and all of a sudden everyone magically changes their mind and starts participating again. That's not how it works.



In closing, are the servers hurting? Yep. Is the community hurting? Yep. Has this happened before? Yep. WIll this happen again? Yep.

This community is what you make it. I don't see many people having a pow-wow together, discussing when to play and where. I don't see much of that.

You could try to get some people together every day and join the servers. Use the steam community tools to your advantage. Start talking to people more. Everyone, not just James, needs to step up. This place will only die if you stop helping me.


I NEED HELP. I CANNOT MANAGE THIS PLACE ALONE. IT REQUIRES EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU TO DO YOUR PART. THE SERVERS WILL STAY DEAD UNTIL YOU GUYS STEP UP AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

I'd say the usual thing. The more we sit around and bitch about stuff not being perfect is the more we're not playing a damn game already.

 Making this community a drama office isn't enticing. Making this community a place where nutjobs like whut, cantrip, myself, etc can have some fun, enjoy the games and et al is the whole point. I got pissed with the pyro update and bailed for a very brief bit, didn't much miss the game, but I did miss the folks.

 One thing I never EVER miss is fucking bullshit drama. This place has been around, until whut gets off his meds it'll keep goin around I'd predict. Now can we please stop bitching and just get back to being retards?

Man I wish I still had some of our old forums from the clan-mr days. You ain't seen Whutters rant yet, believe me.

LOL, yeah the big guy must be mellowing in his old age, even from a year ago.  Ok time for the old guy to chime in.

Big Mac, if you take anything away from this is that Life will be and always will be > than video games.  I can't imagine working 14 hours a day and trying to hold up a gaming server.  During certain times of the year I will pull 14 hour days to push designs out and Whut is right, all you want to do is come home and sleep.

It's summer time Big Mac, go out and have some fun.  My wife and I are both professionals and one thing we have learned is to mix up your life and try new activities.  As far as some of your other observations, the best way to solve issues is to be constructive and lend some ideas and suggestions. 

I now work and have worked closely with owners of businesses and one thing to remember Mac, if tomorrow Whut wakes up and wants to change the server to a Commodore 64 and host Barney the dinosaur video games it's pretty much his call.  Luckily for us, he hasn't gotten that drunk yet and has held together this group for a number of years.

Next time, just a simple "What can we do to help?" will go a lot farther.

BTW, thanks Whut

 

The first thing we all should do is support this community with MONEY.  Donate now.  The second thing we can do is thanks Whut for all his unpaid  work for the community.

Thanks Whut.

This summer is going to be a low fragging time for me, but I've sent some cash in anyway.  There will be ups and downs in any group activity,  but things change.

Impermanence surrounds us.