[moralhazard]

You have also only played sourceop six times since November. So either play more or give solutions that encourage participation because this kind of crap doesn't work.

With no plans to come back anytime soon; I don't have much spare time these days, and don't know why I'd want to spend that small amount of free time playing on servers full of stackers and angry drunks who rarely use their mics for anything other than shit-talking or complaining. The only server that has even a modicum of decent players is Valve Maps 1, but it's always full of subscribers so having a reserved slot is useless.

The fact of the matter is that TF2 has been out for three years and there are tons of other games out there that people enjoy playing. The overall playerbase is decreasing, with people angrily leaving over things like hats and new game modes faster than new people are joining.

SourceOP servers are some of the only ones out there that don't have ridiculous sound clips or the ability to manipulate gameplay if you donate enough money, but even with that appeal they aren't fully populated all the time. Servers need to be cut, the few regulars from those cut servers will try to find another home but then realize SourceOP is pretty much the best you're going to find when it comes to vanilla servers and end up becoming regulars on the ones that weren't cut.

The servers themselves, as they are set up, aren't much of the problem; it's the people you have to suffer through interacting with in order to play a social shooter that are driving down the popularity, and there's nothing DF can code to cure stupid.

My opinion is not invalid just because I haven't played recently; I have played on SourceOP servers almost exclusively for the entire time I've owned the game. Perhaps you shouldn't preach about building community in one breath and be an asshole to other members of the community in the next.