Custom Map Thursday (now Mondays!)

[[JiF]Mike]

What would you all think about giving CMT a rest for a few weeks? The server hasn't been getting much traffic on Thursday's and we could manually change to custom maps every now and then. Just a thought.

Update
This thread led to a change in our custom map day from Thursdays to Mondays. The first day will be July 7, 2008.

[[JiF]KellysHero]

CMT is nice, but when you can only get 3-9 players at most, not all that fun. I'm all for a temp ban on it!

[[JiF]Lt Gav]

I'm getting really bored with the Omaha idle map. It would be better if the US tickets reduced if they don't have half the flags, or those damned ships stayed sunk when I've spent 5 minutes on a PAK sinking them only to have it return from Davey Jones Locker a few minutes later & some bot on the Fletcher takes you out.
Rant rave grrrrr gnash wail.
There, I've got that off my chest. I think you are right though, the numbers are not growing significantly enough to make the maps really enjoyable. There seems to be a real culture of drop in play a map or 2 then drop out again.
It's a shame we can't put some of the better ones in permanent rotation as this would drop those visitors who don't have them downloaded.

[[JiF]Mike]

I think we need to focus on building a sustained population of the server. Thursdays seem to be a real population killer right now.

[[JiF]KellysHero]

Check out 69.9.176.105:14568 It's TLB (old 3FL clan) BF server. They run long maps, 45 minutes to an hour, mainly vanilla, all conquest. It usually has at least 10 player on it, and at night, they are usually full at 34. Granted they have a good contingent of TLB'ers playing on it, but that's a pretty good model. I usually play there when there are coop maps on the Jif Server or it's empty. Well admined too.

[[JiF]Mike]

Yeah, I'm not sure anyone else noticed but when I set the rotation to all conquest the server was busier and the server actually went up in rank that week. I know that isn't the rotation everyone wants though. I think it's more important to have a consistent rotation, instead of changing it completely one day out of the week.

[Lonewolf-McQuade]

I'm not opposed to ending CMTs however I am completely opposed to scrapping it all together. There are several issues about custom map nights that I'd like to highlight:

-We have had up to 12 players at once which is more than we have on certain weekdays.
-We have not had a lot of time to build a crowd, but I have started advertising this in some forums I frequent, and we are getting newer visitors each time.
-There was never widespread support for Thursday being the custom map night. If you look back in the threads, it was initially proposed that we have custom maps on Mon, Tues, or Wed (our slowest nights.) Thursday is the lead-in to our busy-time which I had stated before. Thursday was really just a random selection.

Thursday is now the day Why? because it's tomorrow. No other reason I am sure that's gonna piss-off somebody. It will start 3:15 AM Eastern Thursday until 3:15 AM Eastern Friday.

I strongly believe that we should keep the custom night but move it to Mon, Tues, Or Wed as proposed initially. Those nights have low turnout currently. The custom night has widespread support from a handful of players, is attracting a few visitors, and is something I'm personally enjoying. I think Monday or Tuesday are the best.

Custom Map Discussion Reference 1
Custom Map Discussion Reference 2
Custom Map Discussion Reference 3

[[JiF]Mike]

Could try changing it first, that is fine with me. I will change it to Monday...looking at the player graphs that is the day with the fewest players.

[Lonewolf-McQuade]

BY all means get other feedback, If i'm the odd man out then so be it

[[JiF]Melon Farmer]

I'm all for a change of days, since half the time I have band practice on Thursdays. One suggestion- we should put Karden into the regular rotation, since everyone seems to love that map.

[[JiF]Lt Gav]

So let me get this right. CMT is not selling well to the general public & we are not therefore getting many players on a Thursday which doesn't make the maps as good as they potentially could be.
The smart guys in marketing have come up with a new idea "lets re-brand it as CMM" , a night which we usually get even less players so we should attract a smaller audience!
Can you kind of see my point?

[kologik]

I like playing the custom maps, but it does suck that there is a serious lack in players on Thursday. I think the problem is that people are too lazy to come here to download all of the custom maps to play, if they try the server and it tells them the map is not found, they just move on. Would it be possible to download the maps as we play if you put them in with the standard rotation? I was going to suggest even changing the rotation you have up a bit, the same maps all the time are kind of getting old.

[Lonewolf-McQuade]

Custom maps early in the week was always the discussion where I was concerned, so this is not a new idea. Gav, check the thread links that I posted above to catch up on the past chatter about it.

I get your point, but my point is that custom map days are only for the hardcore/dedicated gamers, of which we already have a handful & some outside visitors like evilhoosier from DDAY. The average BF42 player isn't going to screw with custom maps that's why those days will ALWAYS have few 'random visitors.' It's up to us, just like on Thursdays to sell it to the regs and dedicated players and build a play by schedule group that is interested. Just like on Thursdays there are no guarantees.

I'm crazy with the underlines

[Sir Die-a-lot]

LWMcQ is right, get the people organized if you want to have custom nights to work with loads of players. That's what we do at Surfals and SoC does the same with their Best of SoC server.

Contrary to LWMcQ, I'm more keen on bold face.

[[JiF]Djsmg]

get the people organized if you want to have custom nights to work with loads of players.

While I am a fan of custom map nights (regardless of what night they happen to fall on) (still kicking myself for not making it out for stonehendge) my understanding of being part of JiF is that we are (more or less) "players who cannot dedicate themselves to a real clan, but want to be a member of a group that plays together" So getting a loosely organized group of people to follow structure and schedule can be very hard as some of us are "opportunity players" and can only commit a little bit of time at the time it is available (speaking for myself).

As it is, I am even more motivated to join the server on custom map day as I personally feel that:
(1) The players on at this time are more experienced, more hardcore/dedicated, and much harder to kill
(2) As the custom maps are all still relatively new, any edge a player may have from knowing the terrain (from standard maps) is non-existant and I may be able to find a route/hiding spot that not everyone is yet aware of to suprise/ambush the other guy.
(3) Back to the more experienced, more hardcore players, by being able to challenge them in the custom map setting, even if you get it handed to you continuously, you can sharpen your survival skills by watching how they reacted to your fire or if you were lucky enough to be looking in the direction of fire that took you out how they approached you and what actions they were doing.

I guess our biggest challenge is to get the random players who enjoy our server is to visit this website and download and install the custom maps. Mike, getting the mappack to self extract to the right locations was a great idea and will definately make things easier for those who would like to try out the maps.

I favour brackets along with italics