A theory on why traffic is not as high as it used to be.

[TheComposer]

I remember this time last year, the tf2 server was usually full or almost full with people, with regulars and non-regulars combined. This year, it seems to be much lower. I have sort of a theory on why that is.

The name of our main map.

Think about it. I remember one time last year, a reason someone came to our server was because it was the only mario_kart server that didn't have all crits. I'm beginning to think it was the server's main pull. The map that is. People like to play on mario_kart maps, but they didn't like all crits.

Now think more. What do people search in the map area when looking for a mario_kart server? Most would probably search with mario I presume.

What's the name of our main map? DARKSPIN_mario_kart. Why would someone looking for a mario_kart server look for it by typing in darkspin first? I feel the decision to put darkspin at the beginning of the map name has reduced a lot of the traffic the server could be getting.

My solution? Change the name of the map to mario_kart_darkspin. By putting darkspin at the end of the name instead of in front, we'll still get the traffic of people looking to play on mario_kart, and we can still have the clan name in the map name.

I feel doing this would increase the server's traffic by quite a bit.

[DarkRyu]

This was a good suggestion and we listened. It's sort of working, I think. Another reason is the violent nature of the server but that can't really be helped. We've held meetings about curving our aggression but.. only a few of us are mainly friendly ^^;

[TheComposer]

Yes, but I've talked about the aggression before, and you've made it clear that's just how the server is. Several times at that. This I felt was something much more manageable for you and the rest of the server to change easily.

Glad to hear that you think it's sort of working.

[DarkRyu]

Yeah. Really though, I know that you don't join the TF2 server very often, so the fact that you wanted to help is nice of you. So, thank you very much.

[TheComposer]

I don't join it much anymore , but I still remember how many hours I spent there, so I'd like to see it continue and prosper.