Modest Questions

[Noxstar]

Why can't we take advantage of discord? / Why haven't we started to move to discord?

 

I think the idea behind a gaming hub on discord is just not sustainable from what I've seen while communities don't really have a choice other than to turn to platforms dedicated to, well, communities. Forums are also just not going to do as well as a dedicated discord server with new updates from discord to help with threads and forums.

 

Why haven't we given up on CS:GO?

 

I know this seems like a dumb question but we're getting probably at most 20 people on a server at prime time and for a community that has like 20k registered users, I don't think that's a good look. People keep making the argument that a lot of people still play CS:GO but it's not that hard to just look at community servers during eastern hours and seeing that only skirmish servers like awp-only and map-dedicated servers are the only ones with anything above 10 players. I also feel like we can't use other communities as markers anymore since a lot are dead and others like GFL are outliers in that they've made footholds orders of magnitudes larger than ours.

 

I think it's the end of an era for communities in games and the start of finding something new for SG.

 

What's next for SG?

 

I know caution said something about going back to simpler times and that the BD's were going to be more transparent but is that really it? I'm not asking for anything grand but the lack of vision is just so deadening and the lack of motivation is just contagious. I know that a lot of people are burnt out but I feel like it's hard not to blame the people who sucked out power because there was a lack of trust. Noting the fact that the same people burnt out are the same people who let this happen.

 

I expect a lot of people defending the servers so I know this thread won't really go anywhere but it's worth asking.

[Dominic]

I wrote a big ass post like 3 times here and kept deciding it wasn't worth it.

 

What do you think SG should do? Here's the question I want everyone to ask themselves: if you were the President right now, what would be your grand plan? What would you put in motion? Would you turn us into a 'gaming hub' on Discord? Timeline that for me and make me understand how we're going to survive long-term. Would you shutdown all the servers instantly because it's 'time to give up'? Give me a list of pros and cons, how would that help the community? Everyone keeps asking questions, answer some for me. I'm so curious as to what's going on in the minds of all the people asking the questions.

 

 

[jazzy]

1 hour ago, Noxstar said:

I think the idea behind a gaming hub on discord is just not sustainable

Is this a typo or something? The latter half of this paragraph infers that a discord is better than the forums.

Regardless, IMO, discord is part of the short term future of gaming. It's one of the best ways to collaborate, game, and socialize. I think SG's #1 priority should be making a great feeling community in discord. The discord is already active and has lively discussion, voice channel participation (with flavor of the month type gaming), streaming in discord, etc. I would argue Discord is SG's #1 most active platform. Why, for the life of me, people are ignoring it, is weird.

 

1 hour ago, Noxstar said:

Why haven't we given up on CS:GO?

Agree CSGO is not suitable for gaming communities. The server browser is outdated, obtuse, and not appealing.

 

1 hour ago, Noxstar said:

I think it's the end of an era for communities in games and the start of finding something new for SG.

Flavor of the month gaming is there. When games like Valheim pop up, SG should just spin up a server for them and run with them. Didn't someone just do a Minecraft server that was lively for a little bit?

 

1 hour ago, Noxstar said:

I'm not asking for anything grand but the lack of vision is just so deadening and the lack of motivation is just contagious.

Here's what I'll say about this whole "dying" "motivation" "burn out" etc things (and this plays into Dominic's paragraph about plans and futures and blah blah).

 

General talk:

What is your reason for being on SG? Like why specifically SG? Is it because they had a ze or jb or ttt server? There are plenty of those servers on the server list, so why specifically is SG the best? I would say that most people stay here for a pretty simple reason: they like the people/culture here.

 

An example:

Since COVID hit I got back into cs1.6, most people here probably haven't even played it. Right now it only has 5000 people. Most people would call that a dead game... But I certainly never have a problem getting on certain communities, even right now at 1AM as I'm posting. I can pug 5v5 socal servers till probably 4am if I wanted to. Is CS1.6 growing? Not really. So why do I participate? Because it's enjoyable. 

 

Growth isn't always sustainable, and I want everyone reading this to understand that sometimes you don't need to have growth ALL the time. I'm not saying SG shouldn't try to grow. But at the end of the day nobody is being paid here. You come here because you like it, and if you no longer like it, you'll probably leave. Growing a gaming community has never been about getting new players, it's about retaining good players. Why have a community if it's just a bunch of random RDMers, trolls, mic spammers who join and grief? The whole point of a community is to come here, play with your friends, and mesh and socialize. Literally I was permed like 6 years ago and now that I'm back I know basically nobody, but I can see there is still very much the SG culture (in some good and some bad ways...) and I think I've made friends with new people to some degree and had a fun time on here and discord.

 

So ultimately what I'm trying to drive home is- just because SG is not growing doesn't mean you can't have fun. Just participate in the community when possible and talk and meet people.

 

Real tangible things:

Right now there's a slump where I do agree CSGO is not working, and I don't think it really will long-term.

 

I think within the next year s&box will be big for SG (I'm in the "alpha" right now and it's quite good in terms of gamemodes/mods, though I think server browser integration has something to be desired).

 

I'm stealing an idea from some very OG SG members who tried this a very long time ago but I think it might be time to consider allowing more freedom on the SG brand. I'm not saying drop the dedi's necessarily but I would allow more higher up staff to host their own server and use discord/forums to broadcast it. The minecraft server was a good example of this. I mentioned Valheim before but this would be another example. Hosting servers in 2022 is really easy and all I would recommend the SG TA team do is verification that it is secure. I think servers that need to tap into the SB list or other ban lists could be a problematic portion of this discussion but it can be worked about

 

I think it would be a good idea to reduce the toxicity a little bit here. It's 2022 and there's still some social progression to be made. Stuff like "that's gay" "shut up retard" etc have no place for social interaction. When I was a kid on here I was doing this and it is really not healthy for any party to call or be called offensive terms. It took me a couple years to learn how to properly fix the way I interacted with people because of the abusive behaviors I exercised and was victim of here. I've talked with a couple other people who used to be ex-SG and they've voiced similar concerns that after leaving SG their mental health was improved. I'm not saying you can't sarcastically rib people, but it needs to be toned down from what I've seen in the discord. I'm also not saying you need to go out and perm people for this but it's just something to be aware of and be better on.

[Noxstar]

10 hours ago, jazzy said:

Is this a typo or something? The latter half of this paragraph infers that a discord is better than the forums.

It’s more like an opinion of mine that I strongly hope is wrong. I didn’t really have the energy to explicitly say where I came from when I said that either so that’s my bad. I think it’s just the lack of structure and visual appeal the discord has always just struck my mind in a negative way for a long time.

 

I’m too lazy to quote what I’m referring to, but I agree with how SG strives through its people and culture. I think it’s hard for me to say that growth is the only form of success when retention is there as well. The issue is how strong our lack of growth is, and I genuinely don’t have an answer unless we turn to discord where we can use the “flavor of the month” thing you were talking about as our main driver.

 

11 hours ago, Dominic said:

Would you shutdown all the servers instantly because it's 'time to give up'? Give me a list of pros and cons, how would that help the community?

who said instantly? Jailbreak has been our most successful server in getting population recently and it probably has been for a while now but how has that helped the community? There might be obvious answers but I struggle to find one.

 

I think it’s harder and harder to keep trying to fight the tide of communities that are ever-expanding on discord while catering to the people in our current community who rarely hop on our servers anymore. Although it’s not the only reason, I think it’s the one that says most about how much we really care about cs:go and how much we benefit from it now.

 

idk why I can’t quote anymore but in response to the flurry of questions you asked about us being president and timelining it, it’s just not my job. I think I already stated my opinion in turning to discord and inferred that our goal should be riding new waves of whatever games allow us to let our community ride on. People can complain about it not being stable and so on but it’s an idea at the very least.