[blarky]

I've been a regular on the Sourcep server 1 since about 2007, right when the Orange Box came out. Many days and hours have I played here! Throughout the years I have thoroughly enjoyed playing here, made a lot of online acquaintences, and enjoyed the usually civial yet funny/entertaining community here. Of course, I've also been appreciative of the hard work and contributions of people like DF.

For several years, the server was consistently full during most times of the day and night with hundreds of regulars. Today, I am sad to see how empty the server is most of the time.

There are a lot of reasons for that, some of which are not controllable (such as some of the regulars simply moving on from this game to other games). But other things ARE controllable and can help make a better experience for everyone.

When people do play here, it's like a flash mob. A few die hards will join an empty or nearly empty server and hope enough people show up to play. Hopefully, enough people join and a few maps are played. This lasts up until when a bad map is selected and the server dies again.

The sytem for map voting is unequivocally broken. When 80% or more of the people vote against Sawmill and it's STILL gets selected as the next map, something is wrong.

I wholeheartidly agree with the letter that Enforcer posted above.

Below are two options that DF and/or whoever still runs the Sourceop servers could consider to help out:

Best case: The bad maps need to be removed from the rotation as noted earlier, along with the voting system being updated to the modern F1/F2 style. Potentially some new maps need to be added which would keep things interesting.

Compromise case: Give other regulars here the power to change the map. Honestly I really see no reason why this can't be done.

Thanks for your consideration.