Announcement Latest Changes

Neon

Pendulum SQ
Developer
Oct 11, 2016
402
1,215
1,405
Stuttgart - Germany
Hello all together :)
As you probably already noticed there have been some changes on the server lately, most of them are related to VIPs. I will try to break them down and give some explanations why they happened.

Easy things first: We came to the conclusion that the [USERGROUP=9]@Director[/USERGROUP] role does not serve its purpose anymore. The role got removed and @Nivinski and @Struppi got moved to [USERGROUP=8]@Technical Staff[/USERGROUP] .

In order to promote map diversity we increased the default cooldown for all maps from 20 to 40. During 24h the server "plays" 40-50 maps on average so in the worst case scenario you have to wait a little over a day to nominater your favourite map again. Some maps that always had a higher cooldown than the other maps have been adjusted accordingly.

Now about the changes to the VIP system: There is a german saying which would translate to "You can't survive only from air and love". And exactly like that you can not run a server on players only. In the end you need money to pay the server bills. Lately our monthly costs are excdeeding our monthly income from VIP donations. This has many reasons overall. For example we upgraded to a bigger fastdl to be able to host more servers, we spent some money on advertisements to get nosteamers on both css and csgo. Also in the past we had some generous admins who donated a lot of money to us, which are sadly not part of our community anymore. Another big reasons is the huge amount of people with Permanent VIP. While it probably seemed like a good idea when UNLOZE started it is kinda hurting our financial situation in the long term

We want to get to a point where our monthly income is higher than our monthly costs again, for obvious reasons. That is why we were collecting some ideas for changes to the VIP system. Some already got implemented, others still need to be talked about internally.


The following changes are already running:

  • Donating of VIP rewards you win during an event is not allowed anymore. You can only win VIP for yourself. There are many reasons behind it, one of them for example is some ppl having perm VIP who are donating the VIP they win to others.

  • Between 6pm and 10pm server time only VIPs can nominate maps.

  • Some Maps are only nominatable for VIPs (some of them with a very high Cooldown).
Code:
ze_castlevania_v1_3
ze_FFVII_Mako_Reactor_v5_3
ZE_FFVII_Mako_Reactor_V6_B08
ze_ffxii_westersand_v5_2
ze_ffxii_westersand_v7_2
ze_FFXII_Westersand_v8zeta1
ze_ffxiv_wanderers_palace_v4_5s
ze_harry_potter_v2_1
ze_lotr_minas_tirith_v2_2fix
ze_lotr_minas_tirith_v3_3
ze_mist_v1_3
ze_Paranoid_Rezurrection_v11_9
ze_Pirates_Port_Royal_v3_6
ze_shroomforest2_v1
ze_shroomforest3_b6_2

  • Normal Admins and Retired Admins do not have the VIP status anymore. Retired Admins got the Member status instead.

The following ideas still ned to be discussed:

  • Adding a 2nd cheaper VIP option with different perks.


Feedback is welcome!!!!!!


Small Teaser: There will be a Halloween Event soon, very similar to the XMAS Event :)
 
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1) are there still people who have perm vip?

(because i had perm vip in place of being "retired admin". and also i know some people that still have perm vip)

2) why do you have to pay to nominate a map?

(i understand the vip nominations, but only vips can nominate maps at the time in which pretty much everyone plays)

3) what was the reason behind the retired admin only being "member"

(i know its kinda similar to question 1, but still)

feel free to answer, i just need some clearings, thats all
 
1) are there still people who have perm vip?

(because i had perm vip in place of being "retired admin". and also i know some people that still have perm vip)

2) why do you have to pay to nominate a map?

(i understand the vip nominations, but only vips can nominate maps at the time in which pretty much everyone plays)

3) what was the reason behind the retired admin only being "member"

(i know its kinda similar to question 1, but still)

feel free to answer, i just need some clearings, thats all
The people who paid for perm VIP still have that of course.
The whole nomination stuff was to add good VIP features without going back to pay2win.
Normal admins are not VIP anymore so why should the retired ones be? Also handing out 2 free years of VIP for 6 months of admin duty for example doesnt really feel right.
 
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Reactions: Géovanni
That is however an option we sort of rather avoid. We dont want to spread panic between players.
 
My suggestion is to add the following:

- Player/User/Normal Role (No vip, no nothing, you're a simple player with no perks at all who just wants to play the game)

- Member (With perks, which you can pay a minimum amount for, and get permanent membership, BUT, not with all the maximum perks and benefits the community server can offer)

- VIP (You would need to pay for this every month/3 months/etc, the price can be discussed, perhaps a bit higher than Membership, and with this role you'd get all the perks you can get if you pay. You would not be able to get permanent VIP, ever)

That is my suggestion if you're having payment issues, and there's like, too many Perm Vips right now so. Discuss it in between yourselves.
 
asking people to help out with server cost and donate will not actually help that much. most ppl will not care... the only option you have is to have/start an organisation clanwise. I've been for years in a clan, and we didn't mind paying for costs back in Medal of Honor Allied Assault and CoD1. Everyone brought in their chip. One more than the other depending on social status etc. I however do strongly disagree with putting nominations alltogether behind a paywall.

Its gonna hurt your general public taking something as essential as that away what been around since the start of ZE, a feature a lot older than Unloze is. Its kind of disrespectfull and with people leaving the server cos of such changes this will only result in downward spiral.

Stuff like skins, no fall dmg should be VIP bussiness. If your getting hurt from PERM vip then you need to change that. Don't give it out anymore and maybe even make a reasonable change with the excisting perms, tell them after 1 year it will be gone. If they dont agree they dont care for unloze.

Anyways, good luck with this change. I think you'll regret it.
 
@FinalChaos/Simona(mmo) ♡
I think you are speaking under the delusion that everything was jolly good and we just decided to make a change. As Neon explained on the post, we can't run a server on only dedicated people such as yourself. This wasn't an attempt of us to be greedy and earn money, nor was it to limit the server from playing maps.

We do not have the options to buy perm VIP anymore. As for your suggestion to let remove people's VIP or they don't care about unloze. That is, considering the matter you are complaining about, highly hypocritical. Not only is that against the law since they paid for it, it is simply more wrong than simply adding a new VIP perk such as map nominations. Not all nominations are only VIP. Only during peak hours.

I can agree we seem to have encountered a balance issue where server is dead and nobody can nominate the popular maps. This is obviously a feedback we'll take into account.
 
I am monitoring the server population very closely and right now it is super constant. Server fills up during the afternoon and in the evening we get at 1-2h where the server is completly full. Playerwise we are are doing pretty good right imo.

To prevent the issue you mentioned it could be possible to automatically allow everyone to nominate maps during the peak hours while they are less than X VIPs on the server.