Bringing back the event server discussion

[Glory22]

Idea: Bring back event server for S.A. to do events on whenever they want

Implementation: Allow it to be actually used for deployments for specific battalions and regiments so we aren't forced to do whole server deployments all the time. Battalion of the month already gets access to it, so this could certainly be done.

Other: This is 100% needed. A whole server deployment at such high player counts is unplayable and leaves a poor taste in everyone's mouth. This would enable more freedom for gamemasters, not cause them to get dejected when their event runs like ass at 100 players, and would ensure the server is all happy and not getting pissed off at each other. We were told we would get it back if player count improved, and it has to the point where we have 100 people on for these deployments, so it honestly should be brought back ASAP.

I got approval from Xaze to repost this to here to gather community feedback. The suggestion below was up for 9 minutes and I would like to have something that can be open longer to gather more feedback from the community.

Hence, this is not a "suggestion", and merely a place to gather input from the community. You can leave +1 or -1 as usual to just show your thoughts of course. I understand that there is a plan for when the server can come back, at 70 players peak average, but I find that constantly pushing these things back just alienates that community and makes us annoyed, to the point where the optimism that we will ever meet this quota fades. This can be seen in how our numbers have been slowly going down over the past few weeks and the sight of ever getting this back fades into the abyss. The same could be said about Doom's Unit coming back.

I would love to see what the community thinks about bringing this back and put any ideas relating to it down below!

[JuiceBox]

+1 its just better to have it performance individuality, and general pop problems aren't a thing along with generally competing servers that have an event server simply makes GM's have a better time making a  story

[Gears]

How can you justify 10-15 Clones of a Battalion leaving main when we arnt even getting a good enough pop to keep us afloat if they leave. -1

[Xaze]

3 minutes ago, JuiceBox said:

eneral pop problems aren't a thing along with generally competing servers

Hey! This actually is an issue, and one of the biggest agruement for not bringing back the event server. Our goal was 70 consistant players all week long before we bring back the event server. We held a steady 60 yesterday. I'm watching the stats like a hawk, because I want this too... but the biggest issue w/ the event server that we ran into was users not coming back on to main or hopping on main before their deployment. That lead to less numbers overall, and started to heavily impact synergy in a negative way. Even the most recen Rancor deployment hit the server extremely hard. We were in the 20s. 

 

5 minutes ago, JuiceBox said:

competing servers that have an event server

There are only two actual servers that we can compare ourselves too that have event servers. We're not as large as either of those servers.

 

 

 

[Crisp]

+1 Honestly I really believe the event server should be brought back. So many good deployment ideas have been ruined by lag, mass confusion among battalions, and generally just kills the mood. For example todays deployment was a fantastic idea and I loved it but it would have been much better suited to a battalion only deployment, MAYBE a regiment but that's pushing it. I get that these server wide deployments are supposed to help get our name higher on the server list but the experience is bound to drive newer players away. The server becomes super laggy and makes it hard to move and communicate effectively in game. There are so many good deployment ideas that are killed by this lag and it just adds to the confusion between battalions on what objective has been completed. It was so much easier to follow events on the event server when it was just a couple battalions. Joint regiment comms tended to be used more often and generally improved relations between battalions. Sure there is a great turnout for these deployments, getting up to 100 something players, but we end up losing around 20 to 30 player halfway through the event depending on how bad the server is lagging or how engaging the event is. Even further, many people get off right after the deployment or DB because the event drained them, so there goes even more of the pop. Even going back to what Xaze said about losing 20 players after event server deployments, we lost over 40 after this main server deployment alone. There was even another event directly after to try and keep player to stay. I'm not saying the event server would eradicate this problem but I feel it would help retain more people that are new to the server. Say you're very new, just joined the server, and you joined a battalion for the first time. I feel they would get the better experience on the one battalion event server deployment than they would with a full server deployment. With the event server they would be able to see how their battalion operates as a group and get to know their peers better while, from my experience, on the full server deployment people lose interest fast and just afk because they don't want to put up with the lag. Would you want to stay on the server that lags a ton and everyone is disengaged with the event? Or would you rather stay on the server with adequate ping and a healthy operating environment where you get to understand your peers better? I am not the best write so this may seem like a bunch of mush and I am leaving out a few points because I don't know how to properly write them out without restating other points. In short, please bring back the event server so we can get deployments tailored to each battalion. I wanna actually do spec ops stuff man.

[Glory22]

Quality deployments are the things I remember about this server. Hopping on 501st as a trooper to go on a special mission that is handcrafted for us is what I remember best of this server. It is much easier on the gamemaster team, to the point where new Senior Admins are able to host deployments that are of good quality without the entire server egging on them.

I feel a lot of creativity is lost with this, and that is what honestly matters. The server existed for a very long time with the former setup where the event server was here, and focusing on the numbers too much shouldn't hold us back from having a quality roleplay experience. Part of the reason people get off right after a deployment is because they feel there is no downtime right after the event for which they can chill out for a little bit.

1 minute ago, Crisp said:

Even going back to what Xaze said about losing 20 players after event server deployments, we lost over 40 after this main server deployment alone.

This is an amazing point, Crisp. 

I also feel like part of the server is hurting at times is the poor management of suggestions and bug reports going back more than a year. My suggestion was denied in less than 10 minutes with the community not getting a chance to put much say into the matter. If people can't speak their minds in an actual suggestion and get a chance to say something, then why even bother to have suggestions on the server. As Mas Amedda, when I initially got the position, I often vetoed or denied bills very soon without giving people a chance to say anything, and this pissed many people off with me, regardless of if it was the correct decision or not. People should get a chance to voice their opinion in a manner that actually has a chance to change anything, like this post here will not do given that the actual discussion was denied immediately. The server only exists at this point due to continuous generous donations and dedication of time by the player-base. I've been in this community for a consistent year of my time and I feel like I should be able to make a suggestion post on a forum without it getting immediately shut down, and that those who have been here longer than me should get a say as well.

There's plenty of suggestions and bug reports up that are seemingly not being worked on (both now and then) and we are back to the point where we have pages of posts that have no resolution that would take literally an hour to go through and clean up so the community knows what's going on, and somehow this simple task is constantly ignored for months at a time. Here is an example of one such suggestion that is being totally ignored.

Mas Amedda out.

[ETsilvian]

although i would love to see the event server come back i still dont think its a needed implementation and in some sense could be risky with the current playerbase. ngl main server deployments have honestly benefited us more as of right now because its all done through main which keeps player retention up and minimizing the amount of people that just come on for deployments. when we had the event server we would get like 100+ pop but then half of it would be deployed and the other half would be left on main and people would get bored and leave then when the deployment ends the main lost a quarter of the numbers it had. i do understand the server being unplayable at times but i also think its not worth the sacrifice of main server retention. im open to anything im just giving my view on this but overall id give a -1

[Slump]

A lot of the problems ride on the community itself to be completely transparent, in terms of us having the event server back up and don't get it twisted I would love for the event server to be up 100 percent, but in cases like the Rancor BOTM deployment where we did lose a lot of population and was left to 20 on main it comes down to the community itself to pick up the population (ping their battalions, create RP scenarios, host trainings, involved with events, go on patrols, explore what you can actually do on the server !) 

This needs to be a common thing with everyone so we have assurance that when people move to the event server we don't go down the rabbit hole like it was November last year where the highest pop was 25/35 which compared to the growth of the server right now is piss poor and I'm sure no one wants go back to that since the progress we have made is amazing so far.

It is up to YOU a member of this community to do your part in boosting population and entertainment of the server whether its doing the small amount of points I quickly came up with above in brackets or further developing your ideas for events/encounters by joining the GM or staff team. 

Synergy itself has so much to give and be utilised that people are blind to see the paths they can take to help out, yet time and time again people complain of the higher ups not implementing this and that when there are other scenarios you should be improving with the duties they already have whether that be their battalions, subunits or whatever other valuable positions they hold. 

The main question you seriously need to be asking yourself is "What else can I do to help out the server", if you want the event server back so bad like everybody else including high staff and management team then can you do more yourself to reach the goal set out, and don't get me wrong its understandable that not everyone can take 3 positions and juggle their irl work but considering how many posts and negative comments are thrown out I know for a fact you could of been using that time making a small roleplay situation like hosting simple medical check ups for your battalion which follows up with creating an event/scene out of that.

Going back to the topic off Coordinator+ they do insane amounts of work which people take granted for because they can't physically see any changes or improvements which to me is the dumbest thing I could hear. If you actually look on the community Discord (https://discord.gg/synrgg) in the channel #github you can see every change the development team make involving the server itself, although you can not see the detail to what they change, for every commit posted there is 200+ lines of code changed to improve the performance and quality of YOUR playtime so take that into consideration when negative comments are thrown about.

But that's just my opinion on all this.

(Baron you aren't allowed to read this post)

3 hours ago, Keegan said:

This can be seen in how our numbers have been slowly going down over the past few weeks and the sight of ever getting this back fades into the abyss.

This is actually the opposite of what's happening with the server, if you check battlemetrics we have been improving with every week which is amazing to see but it shouldn't stop there in fact everybody should be helping and improving more within the server.

Edited April 13, 2023 by Slump

[ToasterBath]

[Hanz]

2 hours ago, Slump said:

I know for a fact you could of been using that time making a small roleplay situation like hosting simple medical check ups for your battalion which follows up with creating an event/scene out of that.

Everyone loves medical check ups! Everyone loves infection events that come from medical check ups!

You used the worst possible example ever. Bad events make people want to play even less than no events. There is a reason population drops off so much right after our main server deployments. People are pissed off, want to just get their promotion at the end of DB and leave. I think the only reason people get on for these deployments is the pressure of their Commanders to get on and feel if they miss every deployment they will be considered inactive.

Anyways,

Heart is an incredible Gamemaster, but he hosted one of the worst events I have ever played in (No offense) and I believe it was not his fault in the slightest. Trying to run a good deployment with the lag of 100 people and trying to put enough NPCs for 100+ people and have enough space for it to not be a friendly fire machine is nearly impossible. Especially with the maps we are limited to.

Everyone's fondest memories on the server are event server deployments with their Battalion/Regiment. For me, it is seeing @Conrad and@Shockpoint roleplaying together in my early days in 501st in a lore based deployment, or laughing my ass off when I was at 104th Deployments with @Cox, @Piff, and @Clutch. I miss being in Wolfpack and being able to do things especially made for us because the GM wasn't trying to handle 100+ players. I miss being able to hear what someone was saying because it wasn't laggy or SPC Bob wasn't playing a soundboard or screaming his head off. I miss sending off a BCMD with a fun event hosted specifically for our battalion. I MISS EVENT SERVER DEPLOYMENTS!! Seeing an deployment now makes me sigh. I want to get off before they start, but I feel the pressure to not be called inactive like I said earlier.

I understand population drops off during deployments, but there is a way we can do both. Make sure as a High Staff and Command team that you are enforcing that people are hosting events, trainings, and doing roleplay during deployments and if they are not, then step in and do it yourself. I think we can also handle a slight population decrease for the well being of our players. People are sick and tired of the same limited events we have on main server and with these deployments. People are not going to stay for these events.

If the event server is eventually going to come back how will this 70 player threshold (which is barely defined) change the problems you say it will cause. Please let me know if you had a huge discussion about this number and please explain why this random number will actually solve our problems. This number seems arbitrary and made up to try and get us playing. It seems we are close to hitting this 70 player number but its so undefined we never know if we are actually close.

If bringing back the Event server isn't gonna happen please hear this. These full server deployments are sure as hell not helping our pop. We got to 100 players, Congrats, but to me thats 100 players who had a shitty experience today and will just get burnt out. I am one hair pulling event away from never showing up to a full server deployment again and I can guarantee I am not even close to the only person that feels this way.

Edited April 13, 2023 by Hanz

[Kortnul]

+1 I really really do miss doing battalion only deployments with the 501st and 104th making memories and having a good time. This latest deployment was so bad (Not Heart's fault) and so laggy that I just stood in the corner on my phone during the sith fight since I literally could not do a single thing with how laggy it was. Believe me I wanted to join in but with 10 jedi going in and around 50 troopers surrounding a single sith raining fire while at 400 ping it just makes it impossible, even without the lag that singular part would've probably been just as bad since the entire server is in that one area against one sith, I digress though.

My thoughts on the problem of losing server pop are that the constant mention of it seems kinda monotonous, does the server care more about the number of people on the server and not about the quality of the events/deployments they host? I could be totally in the wrong here since I really don't understand the importance of a large server pop. Hell the first server I ever played on had a max of 20ish people a day and more than 30 was insane and I loved those events more than anything in the world, the amount of people on didn't really concern me. I have to agree with the fact that most clone recruits joining in on that wouldn't have joined the server, I know I wouldn't have personally. 

Ultimately, I'd love to see the return of the event server even if the server pop drops around 15ish people because of them. Some of my best memories on this server was going on a deployment with my battalion and those memories are the ones I think of when I play this server and why I keep coming back everyday in hopes of reliving again with new friends and new people. 

Edited April 20, 2023 by Kortnul

[Heart]

+1

I think the event server itself is not the reason people don't come back after a deployment, but rather the time it happens. Keep in mind the (my estimate) average player is in highschool/college or works a normal job and almost all deployments happen in the evening. When a deployment occurs at 6-7-8pm EST, it is bound to end near 9 or 10pm EST, which is when people would normally get off the server anyways. All that's happening is they spend their time at peak hours on ES, then they hop off afterwards because IRL > RP. Weekends are an exception for a majority of players but I digress.

Could the quality of events on ES not inspire more people to come? It's possible. With the rise of Synergy being put on Youtube and shared with others outside of our own circle, the ES can provide a facet for more advanced and intense roleplay scenarios resulting in the effect of, "Holy shit, Synergy just did an event where we got to rob a bank" and sharing it with their non-synergy audience. But respectable content creators who want to see the server succeed will not post the laggy mess that occurred yesterday.

Those who discover the server themselves and experience it first hand were immediately disappointed or unsatisfied with, what is supposed to be, a very important mission for their character. Anybody who was around during the event server remembers that while every deployment is not always the greatest, it at least allowed for memories to be made. 

At this time, I can't advocate for the GM team to continue hosting deployments unless A) it's less than 50-60 population or B) there's a less-laggy alternative.

At the end of the day, I know this server is a business and a company before it is anything else. But the main thing we provide is experiences with the Store being our "Gift Shop" to support the server. Bad experiences will always directly correlate to less plushies sold at the gift shop. 

[Ccmonty]

+1. having to deploy the entire server is extremely restrictive on what type of deployments you can even do and the box we have right now cant handle the numbers high staff want us to push for in order to get ES back. I'm fairly certain that if we had 120 people on the server most people would be getting less then 30 fps

[Gears]

11 hours ago, Heart said:

B) there's a less-laggy alternative.

The New Server Box?

[Banjans]

+1

[Perri]

+1

[Woeny]

On 4/12/2023 at 7:19 PM, Keegan said:

I also feel like part of the server is hurting at times is the poor management of suggestions and bug reports going back more than a year. My suggestion was denied in less than 10 minutes with the community not getting a chance to put much say into the matter. If people can't speak their minds in an actual suggestion and get a chance to say something, then why even bother to have suggestions on the server. As Mas Amedda, when I initially got the position, I often vetoed or denied bills very soon without giving people a chance to say anything, and this pissed many people off with me, regardless of if it was the correct decision or not. People should get a chance to voice their opinion in a manner that actually has a chance to change anything, like this post here will not do given that the actual discussion was denied immediately. The server only exists at this point due to continuous generous donations and dedication of time by the player-base. I've been in this community for a consistent year of my time and I feel like I should be able to make a suggestion post on a forum without it getting immediately shut down, and that those who have been here longer than me should get a say as well.

There's plenty of suggestions and bug reports up that are seemingly not being worked on (both now and then) and we are back to the point where we have pages of posts that have no resolution that would take literally an hour to go through and clean up so the community knows what's going on, and somehow this simple task is constantly ignored for months at a time. Here is an example of one such suggestion that is being totally ignored.

Mas Amedda out.

Now normally im down for a good discussion no reason not to have them, and its nice to hear everyone's points and view, but this crossed the line calling the dev team lazy. That  is  absolutely mind blowing to me because it just shows really how clueless you truly are. Lemme throw some things out to educate you.
Now mind you when it comes to suggestions they do stock pile i wont disagree with you on that, but to expect them to constantly be cleared out is an expectation that is just way to high, as @Xaze  and @Jad are the main people that go over them as they just sit there bashing there head into the addons tools etc to find whats the issue with them or if they are good, as you might know this takes alot of time sinces its not a simple log in click the tool use once, No they run through scenario after scenario and even after they have! they go to @Baron to triple check them! Now we just recently had a server suggestion update in late march! so its crazy to me that a little over a month is too long for you. baffling honestly

Now for that whole laziness part had me dying that you think that, maybe i can interest you in on a cool thing that @Xaze went out of his way to add for the players to see! Go ahead and head to https://discord.gg/synrgg there is a channel in there labeled #github looks like this  now crazy idea here! Xaze himself is throwing in there what hes working on so that you guys can see. a lot of it is reworking/fixing the major contracting and clans system for the Civilian faction. A lot of the bugs that your pointing out are minor or model changes. 
Server suggestions like i said were literally just done in march, they are done in phases which was announced a while back so of course they are gonna stock up, but I wouldn't even say that late FEB is stocked up. Anytime they are about to go through server suggestions they announce it either through community meetings or discord pings, anything after that point of when they review them gets pushed to the next round of server suggestions. As stated above its not just something simple of hurr durr i click link drag to folder. (as stated above) @Baron @Jad and @Xaze go through them and test each one since 99% of the time things go over peoples heads when they suggest it since they wouldn't look at it from the same view Management + would 



Now talking about the event server, i spoke a little in the commander chat about this but the standard has been set for when the server would return an average of 70 players over a decent span of time. This is why the suggestion was denied because the standard has been stated many many time. whats that time? why 70? what led us to these numbers etc etc.
Now when we were talking about this, this conversation spanned about 2-3 weeks because its a pretty massive thing, none of us (none being Management +) want to shut the event server since that's where a lot of cool things take place, but it kills main server massively.
For proof 104th had there BOTM of the month event server deployment today, now context going into this everyday this week weve sat around 60+ throughout the day 
now when that deployment occurred this is what main was looking like noted HERE  we dropped.

Now for why 70? 
We had a discussion taking a look at the entirety of the community and how our approach on it, as you guys have said we are no longer a "massive large" community and we needed to change our approach on it. We decided to take a step back and approach it from a smaller community stand point thinking whats best to boost main so that we can bring in new faces and new life to the server. Thinking to watch attracts people to join, theres quite a few things, Population being #1, systems or unique things the server might have and how the community interacts.
Population: People are always gonna stray towards the higher number when it comes to games, much like streamers they have more viewers so obviously they are doing something right, same goes for products your gonna lean towards the one with better and more reviews. So we wanted to bring the focus back onto main, since we took this new community, we wanted to bring the focus to main in which ES was hurting main proof above

So then why 70?
70 gave us that comfort where we can have a good enough population on main to still give that feel to new players and returning players so they are not missing out on alot. This giving that larger community feel and its where WE as management+ would feel comfortable to go back to that larger community view.
Going off your point of people leave after main deployments, of course thats always going to happen the same thing happens with ES so your point doesnt really ad up to me as those people are on main making it more likely for others to join compared to them being on ES and not returning.
Deployments feel like a repeat?  hate to break it to you almost all ES Deployments are similiar since the same tools are provided to them, they just tend to have a little more since its less people. Majorityt of the ES are still just shoot emups since finding people who wish to be an EJ isnt the easiest but i implore you to apply for the gamemaster team since its not linked with staff you ccan focus on designing and creating new creative events, heres the link to the apps create those events!

Edited April 15, 2023 by Woeny

[A-a-ron]

1 hour ago, Woeny said:

Now normally im down for a good discussion no reason not to have them, and its nice to hear everyone's points and view, but this crossed the line calling the dev team lazy. That  is  absolutely mind blowing to me because it just shows really how clueless you truly are. Lemme throw some things out to educate you.
Now mind you when it comes to suggestions they do stock pile i wont disagree with you on that, but to expect them to constantly be cleared out is an expectation that is just way to high, as @Xaze  and @Jad are the main people that go over them as they just sit there bashing there head into the addons tools etc to find whats the issue with them or if they are good, as you might know this takes alot of time sinces its not a simple log in click the tool use once, No they run through scenario after scenario and even after they have! they go to @Baron to triple check them! Now we just recently had a server suggestion update in late march! so its crazy to me that a little over a month is too long for you. baffling honestly

Now for that whole laziness part had me dying that you think that, maybe i can interest you in on a cool thing that @Xaze went out of his way to add for the players to see! Go ahead and head to https://discord.gg/synrgg there is a channel in there labeled #github looks like this  now crazy idea here! Xaze himself is throwing in there what hes working on so that you guys can see. a lot of it is reworking/fixing the major contracting and clans system for the Civilian faction. A lot of the bugs that your pointing out are minor or model changes. 
Server suggestions like i said were literally just done in march, they are done in phases which was announced a while back so of course they are gonna stock up, but I wouldn't even say that late FEB is stocked up. Anytime they are about to go through server suggestions they announce it either through community meetings or discord pings, anything after that point of when they review them gets pushed to the next round of server suggestions. As stated above its not just something simple of hurr durr i click link drag to folder. (as stated above) @Baron @Jad and @Xaze go through them and test each one since 99% of the time things go over peoples heads when they suggest it since they wouldn't look at it from the same view Management + would 



Now talking about the event server, i spoke a little in the commander chat about this but the standard has been set for when the server would return an average of 70 players over a decent span of time. This is why the suggestion was denied because the standard has been stated many many time. whats that time? why 70? what led us to these numbers etc etc.
Now when we were talking about this, this conversation spanned about 2-3 weeks because its a pretty massive thing, none of us (none being Management +) want to shut the event server since that's where a lot of cool things take place, but it kills main server massively.
For proof 104th had there BOTM of the month event server deployment today, now context going into this everyday this week weve sat around 60+ throughout the day 
now when that deployment occurred this is what main was looking like noted HERE  we dropped.

Now for why 70? 
We had a discussion taking a look at the entirety of the community and how our approach on it, as you guys have said we are no longer a "massive large" community and we needed to change our approach on it. We decided to take a step back and approach it from a smaller community stand point thinking whats best to boost main so that we can bring in new faces and new life to the server. Thinking to watch attracts people to join, theres quite a few things, Population being #1, systems or unique things the server might have and how the community interacts.
Population: People are always gonna stray towards the higher number when it comes to games, much like streamers they have more viewers so obviously they are doing something right, same goes for products your gonna lean towards the one with better and more reviews. So we wanted to bring the focus back onto main, since we took this new community, we wanted to bring the focus to main in which ES was hurting main proof above

So then why 70?
70 gave us that comfort where we can have a good enough population on main to still give that feel to new players and returning players so they are not missing out on alot. This giving that larger community feel and its where WE as management+ would feel comfortable to go back to that larger community view.
Going off your point of people leave after main deployments, of course thats always going to happen the same thing happens with ES so your point doesnt really ad up to me as those people are on main making it more likely for others to join compared to them being on ES and not returning.
Deployments feel like a repeat?  hate to break it to you almost all ES Deployments are similiar since the same tools are provided to them, they just tend to have a little more since its less people. Majorityt of the ES are still just shoot emups since finding people who wish to be an EJ isnt the easiest but i implore you to apply for the gamemaster team since its not linked with staff you ccan focus on designing and creating new creative events, heres the link to the apps create those events!

TLDR?

I understand the whole wanting enough players so Main keeps high numbers but main server events are the worst thing ever, 10-25fps Max and ping is always terrible and it leaves a bad taste in alot of peoples' mouths. I got on for one Main server deployment and that was the last time since it was a terrible experience, the best part was asking people if they were lagging

Edited April 15, 2023 by A-a-ron

[Zensras]

@Woeny

Confirm something at least because this was corrected to me way back by someone and I cannot recall who:

The ES and Main are on the same box that was hyped up in the past correct?

 

 

[Zeros]

13 hours ago, Woeny said:

Majorityt of the ES are still just shoot emups

i am incredibly hurt by this slander

[Unkindled]

+1

[Xaze]

1 hour ago, Zensras said:

The ES and Main are on the same box that was hyped up in the past correct?

 

Not sure waht this means.

 

We upgraded in the past to a i9 10900k, we're upgrading to an i9-13900k

 

[Zensras]

I mean are both on the same server box by chance

[Finn]

I'm all for adding the event server back, but idk why there's such an upheaval about it rn. Xaze said months ago what the timeline was to add the ES back, and the community hasn't hit the 70 person average player count, so we aren't getting the ES back. It's a really simple concept guys, get your battalion/faction active, promote positive RP or some other reason for people to get on and stay on the server, and you'll get the ES back in action. As easy as it is to try and blame anyone other than yourselves, this really comes down to the community not pulling it's own weight. Xaze and dev team do far more than they should be doing in order to keep the server running, and the community pushing in a forward direction, the least we can do as a community is try and pull our own weight.

[A-a-ron]

22 minutes ago, Finn said:

I'm all for adding the event server back, but idk why there's such an upheaval about it rn. Xaze said months ago what the timeline was to add the ES back, and the community hasn't hit the 70 person average player count, so we aren't getting the ES back. It's a really simple concept guys, get your battalion/faction active, promote positive RP or some other reason for people to get on and stay on the server, and you'll get the ES back in action. As easy as it is to try and blame anyone other than yourselves, this really comes down to the community not pulling it's own weight. Xaze and dev team do far more than they should be doing in order to keep the server running, and the community pushing in a forward direction, the least we can do as a community is try and pull our own weight.

Yes king! punish the current player base because the player count isnt high enough!

[Hanz]

14 minutes ago, Finn said:

I'm all for adding the event server back, but idk why there's such an upheaval about it rn

We are repeatedly having terrible deployments every week and miss good deployments. That is the reason we want it back so badly. We are not blaming Xaze or the management team for us not hitting 70 players. We are blaming them, because think that their goal is arbitrary and not needed. We think bringing back Event server will help retain players which in the end will help our population in the long run. I don't think they are not putting in any effort, I think they are a bit wrong on what will actually help the server grow. But what do I know I'm just a player.

[Xaze]

5 hours ago, Zensras said:

I mean are both on the same server box by chance

Yes. Main and event are assigned to different cores on the same system.

 

[Conrad]

My want to be on the server heavily declined when the event server closed. I would say it’s the second biggest reason I resigned. Not having the ability to have smaller character driven events on the event server to offset the large scale things killed the fun for me. I need both. I know it’s slowly coming back in bits and pieces but I couldn’t see myself coming back to a place where those smaller scale events aren’t able to happen after experiencing not having it for at the end of my last run on synergy. It’s too core to the swrp fun to me. I know player count is an issue, but not having it helped drive me away,  and I’m sure theirs at least a handful of others that feel the same. 
The solution to me is simple. Bring it back but vet it harder. If people wanna do deployments for any number let it happen.  But make them get permission from a high ranking member first. Have that high ranking member ensure the event is going to be quality and worth it (perhaps with the doc system @Daytona211championed so long ago). Make sure when they do happen they’re thought out and quality events, that don’t happen Too often. Stop punishing the players and start rewarding them. Actually have the leadership team of the game master useful for upholding quality and not just quantity. 

Edited April 16, 2023 by Conrad

[Heart]

On 4/13/2023 at 5:26 PM, Gears said:

The New Server Box?

re-read unless

and  until that server box can sustain a 100 person event, it's not a less laggy alternative

[Finn]

23 hours ago, Hanz said:

We are repeatedly having terrible deployments every week and miss good deployments. That is the reason we want it back so badly. We are not blaming Xaze or the management team for us not hitting 70 players. We are blaming them, because think that their goal is arbitrary and not needed. We think bringing back Event server will help retain players which in the end will help our population in the long run. I don't think they are not putting in any effort, I think they are a bit wrong on what will actually help the server grow. But what do I know I'm just a player.

Look, I don't disagree, but I trust Xaze more than I trust my own judgement of the situation, because almost everything Xaze has done has worked in stabilizing and rebounding the population of the server. I don't like it anymore than you do, but it's of those things that isn't going to change just because we don't agree with it. I argued the same points everyone is making to Xaze when the roadmap was announced, and I'm sure I'm not the only one to share my concerns about this to him directly. If he's still confident that this is the smart play in the long term then I'm not gonna argue against it.

As for the quality of deployments, maybe the community should be working to better shape the events? The most recent 5 pages of events (125 total), 4 of them 10+ replies. And we all know how terrible the community is at reviewing events honestly and critically. Of those 125 events posted, how many do you think are just 5/5/5 with no context? I'm getting real tired of blaming the GM team when the players give no feedback to them, give zero effort to improve events, and half the time not take them seriously in the first place. Don't get me wrong, the GM team has NO imagination when it comes to events outside a select few GMs, but the players are just expecting free Mavelle level events all the time, and that doesn't happen. It's a symbiotic relationship that needs both sides to contribute in order for the system to work.

[Shockpoint]

Bring it back and I'll come back

Hell I might drag back the rest of the furious five too @Mavelle @Daytona211

[Buzz]

Even if we were to add the event server back in for rotation I still don't think it'd solve anything. I'm not entirely sure but I don't think we've received the new server box yet and if we have they're still in the process of setting it up and making sure it can handle everything. Yes, I'd love the event server to come back as soon as possible but we have to focus on the player counts as they are currently.

I am going to use the 212th as an example as they're currently one of the more successful battalions right now. Lets say they have 20-30 people on main and get called for a deployment on the event server almost half of the player base will disappear as they disconnect to go to the event server. I think we need to focus on the priorities right now and try to reach our goals first before opening the event server back up, as much as it saddens me as it is down.

I don't think anyone is lazy but business is business, the dev team and founders may be trying to get a box and looking for the best price alongside improved performance. This takes time as reviews aren't always the best to go off of. I have full faith we will get back to where Synergy was but for now, we must live with what we have and push forward.

[Mavelle]

21 hours ago, Shockpoint said:

Bring it back and I'll come back

Hell I might drag back the rest of the furious five too @Mavelle @Daytona211

I'll happily run some events with you and @Daytona211IF WE CAN KEEP YOU IN A DAMN CHANNEL FOR MORE THAN 5 MINUTES LMAO

 

It's a new generation shock, they won't remember us now- we get to pull out all the fuckin tricks again >:)

Edited April 20, 2023 by Mavelle

[Zensras]

On 4/18/2023 at 10:25 PM, Shockpoint said:

Bring it back and I'll come back

Hell I might drag back the rest of the furious five too @Mavelle @Daytona211

You won't even answer my fucking texts much less come back smh

[Bolt]

i haven't played in a while but they removed the event server?

 

are you ok guys? is everything ok?

[Quillhan]

I think we all need to trust the process. I can completely get behind the want for a different player experience on a different map or environment. I mean that old Nar Shadda map house some of my fondest memories of the game. That being said I don't see the issue with holding off on the event server, justifying dropping Synergy servers on the SWRP list isn't easy. When Synergy is at 60+ pop it is actively keeping up within the top 10 servers which I promise you has a significant impact on players joining, attention to the server, etc. 

It is an absolute no brainer that every person in this community would take the event server back tomorrow hands down, BUT I have few main issues with most of the arguments in this thread actively claiming that event server is a must have currently and/or calling out the staff team.

Firstly I have almost been 'back' for two weeks. This community has changed quite a bit and I personally think in a lot of ways for the better! One thing that is clear is that during the weekend for sure, but also during the week, there are constantly a various mix of events happening. I wanna say Thursday there was legit events happening consistently for like 5+ hours without any lag at all. These events seems to be relatively large in scale and I think some of them were immersive and dynamic, but from what I remember about the event server from my 3 years was a lot of one battalion consistently getting events when others wouldn't due to batt size etc. or a lack of a coordinate, planned, and structured event. Imagine 212th and RANCOR getting deployed when the pop is at 80 people. We'd drop from Top 3 servers to somewhere way below with like 50 people. Not worth!

The second piece to this is that map we currently have is probably if not without guarantee, the BEST map there is out there. There is SO much room for activities! xD In all seriousness there is so much room to host things for your own batt or unit group without the need for the event server. When I first joined the server way, way back on the extensive venator, @Conrad wasn't even in staff yet and a had a gamemaster spawn us an "Endor" dupe that was literally a box with props and it was the most immersed I think any of us had been! This map is so goddamn big you can easily create content for yourselves with the gamemaster team working with your batt. Nobody goes on patrols and that is such a good way to create RP or to immerse yourself on the planet. Be creative! Work with people to create interesting dupes. I mean you could even coordinate with any bounty hunter or jedi and go to the village and have an EASY story play out. Use the cave system and place some props down or a dupe and now you have a simple RP situation as well.

I'm just some boomer, but the server has so much more content than it has EVER had and so much potential! You absolutely don't need the event server to be juiced out with content, even though we'd all take that in 2 seconds!

An example of content that anyone can do without the event server: 

 

Edited April 22, 2023 by Quill Khan
grammar and formatting is kinda scuffed but it is what it is!

[Ccmonty]

6 hours ago, Bolt said:

i haven't played in a while but they removed the event server?

 

are you ok guys? is everything ok?

our numbers were pretty low for a while, pulling around 30 people on saturdays, so they closed ES because deployments took to many people from the already pretty empty server. we're ok now tho and pull around 40 people daily, and we can pull 70-80 on weekends and for deployments

can we AT LEAST get a main map rotation going then so GMs can have new enviornments to make dupes and events in because we've pretty much exausted onderon of original event ideas

[Gears]

On 4/23/2023 at 1:40 AM, Ccmonty said:

can we AT LEAST get a main map rotation going

Yes cause that worked the last 3 times we did it

[Slak]

After the last couple weeks of deployments. Honestly, I think the fact that these deployments keep bringing terrible lag and in-game experiences it causes people to get frustrated and will just cause them to get on less for these deployments eliminating the hype for deployments. They're not seen as the deployments we used to see back when event server was up. They're now seen as a laggy crashing mess that people continue to attend so we get the ES back, not to enjoy the event. 

Edited April 27, 2023 by Slak

[Rudy]

I'm add my two cents now. As I have recently come back to the server in the last 2 weeks, I've seen a very very big jump in players ever since I left. From what I remember even during deployments we had 30 maybe 40 players and everyone would get off after the event and back down to 20. Well with whats been happening event wise and server pop wise I do think bringing back the Event server for ATTK reg deployments and other things related to this is a good idea, as having 70+ people on a server with 100+ NPCS shooting, spawning, ect at the same time really is not good for the health of the server. I've seen a lot of events in my time back straight up just become unplayable and that's no fault on the EC its simply a server issue. I think we could be having a lot better events if we wore to fully re-open the event server or just open to 1 Reg at a time for OPS ( 212th / 501st event ). IDK how it technical side of things with the server and if it just is generally shit and not because of the players but event that I still think it could give EC's a lot more breathing room and more time to plan and make sure an event goes a certain way if they only have to worry about maybe 20 - 30 players. IMO