Project Reality Forums

I suspect you guys dont really want to hear it, but I think its becomming quite a relevant and affecting factor of the TG public server now.

Its about the contraversial Supporting Member system.
Im not going to tell you how to run your server, its yours. I just think that some of the affects of supporting membership need to be addressed.


For a non-SM, it is not uncommon to find yourself being swiftly removed for joining SM; as the TG public server has grown to be perhaps PR's most popular server yet, its almost always full.
Alot of the time I play on TG on a private teamspeak chanel with friends/aquaintences who join me on the server. There are few times now that we have been playing together and had to just abandon rounds, as member after member gets kicked for an SM; forced to squabble with other non-SMs for that golden 61/62 player slot ( to the stage I am gaining repetitive strain injury in my left mouse finger from refreshing )


Our games are quite often hindered or sometimes plain ruined, as we all find ourselves subject to that kick. I can also imagine that others in a similar position to ours suffer just as much.
Iv noticed that not only do squads suffer, but often teams are heavily burdened with a fragmenting leadership and a break down in organisation.
The worst case scanario (and by no means rare) is that a squad leader will be kicked (They are usually the first to go, as those that play most and longest become more experienced and able to lead others to success).
Even worse can be that a transport pilot is kicked, leaving a flying (now rappidly falling) coffin, carearing towards the ground/water.
With a system that kicks as seemingly as indescriminate ((I understand that it is based on playing time, but its like having a sniper that you cant eliminate,that will eventually and enevitablly wipe you from the server )) as this, the tides of battle are slendom left to the normal variables.


Ofcourse, it would be rediculous and unproductive for me to suggest that the SM system be removed, but there are some obvious flaws that, for those on the recieving end, are almost unforgivable.
What i can suggest, is an opposing method. Perhaps increase the price of supporting membership, as I think this would reduce the amount of supporting members (and therefore the need to compete with others and obtain the membership in the first place) and bring up server quality ten-fold.


constructive criticism,

...mongol...

another point. i was in a squad with a clan last night and they wanted all the clan members to be on the same team. so they try to switch teams and get kicked for doing so. but all through the round the tg admins were all switching to one team. me and a few others noticed it. so how about something like people in clans can be on a team with their clan without getting kicked? the admins do it. i do like the server but having a clan member stuck on the other team is a pain in the arse.

Mongol, I have to agree with you (gasp!) on this point, at least to some extent. I understand the frustration that non-SMs feel, as I was one at one point. However, the problem has grown worse over the past year, and especially recently with the release of .8.

The kick script was/is the fairest way to allow people to have as much time as possible playing on the TG server and experience the community while still giving the supporting members access to the server when they desire it. However, I see it as also having a detrimental effect on the community as well. Let me explain.

One of the ideals behind the script, from my understanding, was to actually increase the number of supporting members for the community. If a player is on for 2 hours before being kicked for a SM (which was the general rule back when it was happening to me), then they had a pretty good chance of experiencing some excellent game play (we hope) and want to come back to TG for more. Well, eventually those players would decide that TG is the community for them and decide to become supporting members themselves. I don't have hard numbers, but it is a fair guess to say that we've gained a considerable number of supporting memberships over the past year that are probably a direct correlation to the quality of the mod and the new releases starting with .5.

Now, the problem. More supporting members means that fewer and fewer non-supporting members can have access to the server, and if they do get on, it for a shorter and shorter period of time (especially during prime-time playing time in the US). At some point, which I think we've either reached or are close to reaching, this is going to have a negative impact on the TG community. First, resentment is going to grow in the PR community at large that might really like playing at TG but either can't get on any more or grow frustrated because they get kicked all the time (or their friends get kicked, etc. etc.).

At this point, will the number of supporting memberships grow? Possibly. For those that absolutely have to get on the server, they will be forced to pay to have access. What does it do our image in the community? Well, I'm sure that there are some hard feelings, people may feel TG is an elitist community because the general PR player base cannot have access to the server or can't stay on for very long, or it is a mixture of both and those players (who may be awesome PR players) may never step a virtual foot back on our server again.

What is the answer? I don't know. We've talked about a second server, but there are legitimate concerns about how that may divide the community as well as many others that I won't go in to here.

Thanks for the feedback. Hopefully we can figure something out that works for everyone.

d1sp0sabl3H3r0 wrote: What is the answer? I don't know. We've talked about a second server, but there are legitimate concerns about how that may divide the community as well as many others that I won't go in to here.

Thanks for the feedback. Hopefully we can figure something out that works for everyone.

Hmm, this does sound exciting.
If a new server does come online, you can pretty much expect that everyone will try and hoard one server, with most of the SM flocking to play together; as a result, all the 'fun players' (one of TGs best selling points) will want to be on the one server.

Perhaps a way to make it all nice-n-dandy, is a max limit on supporting members on each of the two servers.

...perhaps

...mongol...

You have to remember that "supporting memberships" is what pays for that server. So to remove that moneys is a very bad idea. With out that money, that server could go away. No matter how I feel about TG them selfs. The server is good. That's why I play there (with a 120ish Ping I might add).

A Quick fix is to add a 2nd server. But as mongol has pointed out. You may get a case of everybody trying to play on "Server #1" because it is populated/full and nobody using "Server #2" because it is empty as everybody is on "Server #1". This can by combated by a dedicated team of admins/TG-Members doing the old job of "Kick Starting" "Server #2". But it takes time (days, weeks. Not just hours) to pull it off and not everybody can do that. TG would need to promote the 2nd Server a hell of a lot in there own community it entice players to use/kick start "Server #2". It's a lot of work from an Admin point of view (I know all to well from my time at FCW).

Silly idea. To encourage players use "Server #2" You could have a sale on "Sever #2". Drop the price for "supporting memberships" on that server. Not sure how your payment system is setup to accommodate that. Just a silly idea that poped into my head.

Its best to note that pb is kicking all players at the moment so that personally I have to rejoin the server maybe 2 to 6 times per game which means Im kicking that many more players then I normally would.
I normally play a few games together so thats upto 18 times the rate I would normally be responsible for. I dont know if the applies to other sm as well

Once pb issues are resolved you should see less churn of players during games.
Typically people have been able to play through at least one game in the past without being kicked which is fair enough imo.

Also some games are getting stupid long this version, 2 hours for a pub game is fairly immense but its common on maps outside of kashan now

There are a couple people and a couple points that I would like to address here.

1. Team switching
This has become more and more of an issue recently. A couple months ago the amount of complaints started become more and more frequent, and the current answer is that there is no answer. TG has multiple "In-house squads," such as the fifteenth, the sixth, and the tenth. These inhouse squads are much more like clans, and the guys in these "clans" like to play togather, as this is the reason they are in an inhouse squad. Pretty simple.
The problem that came to surface is that once all of the sixth guys are on one team, then players complain of teamstacking, having all of the experienced players on a single team. Members of inhouse squads are allowed to teamswap if for the purpose of playing with their squad. What is not permitted, is members of in house squads swapping just because the other team is the winning team.
When there are two in-house squads on at a time, the admins have asked them to be on seperate teams, to eliminate "stacking."
You will always see people teamswitch, and there really isn't much we can do about it. If someone teamswaps just because their team is losing, please report them, and our admins will warn them about it.

2. The supporting member kick
The purpose of this, as stated above, is to get more supporting members into the community. This kick is vital to keeping the server alive. If this kick were not in place, then the income for the server would diminish quickly, and we at TG would not be able to keep the server alive. The server is the #1 PR server, and is ranked #5 top server in BF2. It is almost always full, costing us several hundreds of dollars a month in bandwidth. The kick provides us with supporting members, who pay for the server. This kick-script is necessary in every way. If you have a couple spare bucks, buy yourself a month's of subscription. Keep our server alive, please.

3. Locked Squads
There are some assets out there that need only a certain number of people. Any more would be a waste. Also, in-house squads like to play and practice togather, so you may see a locked squad full of members of, say, the sixth, or the fifteenth. We generally allow this at TG. If those members are seen locking their non-full squads all the time, please report them to the admins, and the admins will take care of it. Wooly-Back-Jack, in your case, it may be that those people in the squad were saving a spot in their squad for that guy who later came and took your place. Or maybe that person was good friends with the members of that squad. But, there is a point to be made about locked squads. Locked squads, like teamstacking, are becoming more frequent, and there isn't much we can do about, sorry. If the team you are on is full of locked squads, switch to the other team if you can. If you can't, make your own engi squad until a full squad loses a member. We are trying to cut down on locked squads, but with the amount of PR newbies caused by .8's release, it is very hard for us.

only kick the people with no mics for the SM's. you need a mic to play pr anyway.

Well i change my opinion, i dont like this server anymore.

TG is just the most ridiculous server ever these days, all these "hotshots", devs, and "vets" play in it. I'm not saying its bad but they get a LOT of special treatment. No one really cares what they do. And everyone plays favorties with them, they try to suck up.

No real problem giving devs and such special treatment, but people seem to try too much, making it stupid.

I have been noticing this, and have been testing this. I've been logging on multiple names and been actually getting kinda treated like ****. Even with VOIP and eagerness to follow orders.

I'm just getting sick of it, i feel that people should be treated fairly, but I don't know, maybe I missed something in the TG rules?

Have you guys noticed this? I'm talking in general, since I've really just been noticing this since .8 release. (no im not ranting on what happaned latley, i got kicked for some other BS)


sorry on the rant :\

i think tg on avg is one of the best pr servers out there and i think its the rules and admins that make it that good.
i do think it has its flaw's <ie> server crashs as of late (.
but for the whole they do fine

HughJass wrote:Well i change my opinion, i dont like this server anymore.

TG is just the most ridiculous server ever these days, all these "hotshots", devs, and "vets" play in it. I'm not saying its bad but they get a LOT of special treatment. No one really cares what they do. And everyone plays favorties with them, they try to suck up.

No real problem giving devs and such special treatment, but people seem to try too much, making it stupid.

I have been noticing this, and have been testing this. I've been logging on multiple names and been actually getting kinda treated like ****. Even with VOIP and eagerness to follow orders.

I'm just getting sick of it, i feel that people should be treated fairly, but I don't know, maybe I missed something in the TG rules?

Have you guys noticed this? I'm talking in general, since I've really just been noticing this since .8 release. (no im not ranting on what happaned latley, i got kicked for some other BS)


sorry on the rant :\

Is it the admins that are doing this or the player population in general? Regardless, let us know the specifics and we can address it. There's a link in my signature for our Contact an Admin forum (which is a private forum between you and the admins) or you can PM me either here or at TG.

Dirtboy wrote:It is not random...it is scripted to kick the longest playing player.

Why the longest playing player? thats backwards

i just got kicked from the server by "-tactic- thor" becouse
there where just 10 people on 64 kashan.

i was on a squad whit thor and another tactic member, after both of them get into a tank they driven to the frontline. thor said i shouldnt get into the MBT i was in, so a asked "what should i do then?" no response, so i sayd "i get the tank" thor replied "no you dont.".
well, then i replied "then i sit in the main base then.." sarcastic.

"STEVE darkerlightofday KICKED! shooting/stealing other players vehicles."

Yeah iv had that same problem as well!
Btw Tweaky my friend im lovin the signature!

seems you can only have a good session on there if you contribute or your face fits. Had bad experience there myself just leave them to run their server and find yourself a decent one.

the other Steve wrote:i just got kicked from the server by "-tactic- thor" becouse
there where just 10 people on 64 kashan.

i was on a squad whit thor and another tactic member, after both of them get into a tank they driven to the frontline. thor said i shouldnt get into the MBT i was in, so a asked "what should i do then?" no response, so i sayd "i get the tank" thor replied "no you dont.".
well, then i replied "then i sit in the main base then.." sarcastic.

"STEVE darkerlightofday KICKED! shooting/stealing other players vehicles."

I don't know why you're posting this here, it could not have been on our server.

1. I know all of the admins. There is no admin that goes by thor.
2. The TG server never has only ten people. Never. I know I kinda sound like a ****** by saying this, but unless the server just rebooted or crashed, we always have at least 60 people on there. If there were only ten people on it, it would only be for a minute. We would never play 64 Kashan with only ten people
3. -Tactic-, the tags that the admin you described was wearing, I know is from a different server. Search through the server list, and you find that TacticalGamer and the -Tactic- server are two different servers.

yeah your tag is [TG] isn't it, still stand by my bad experience though lol

ok sorry then, but its also a good example that claners shouldnt underestimate normal gamers, some people just dont have the time or dont want to join a clan, that doesnt mean that theyre all idiots who cant play the game, but its just natural that claners are more organized as pubbers, and please dont kick a dude when he doesnt got a mic, but is typing faster as you can turn the heli. (my record for "tank at C3kp4" is 1.5 seconds. )

the other Steve wrote:ok sorry then, but its also a good example that claners shouldnt underestimate normal gamers, some people just dont have the time or dont want to join a clan, that doesnt mean that theyre all idiots who cant play the game, but its just natural that claners are more organized as pubbers, and please dont kick a dude when he doesnt got a mic, but is typing faster as you can turn the heli. (my record for "tank at C3kp4" is 1.5 seconds. )

TG isn't a clan.........lets just set that straight.