Custom Server Space discussion

[Sniped]

One of the biggest issues for our community right now is the ability to customise your own experience of Ace of Spades. Our goal has always been to give you more freedom of choice – This process has been started already with addition of customisable weapons and Classic mode. Following on from that, we’re now looking to open up the ability for you to control your own matches in the form of custom server space, giving you the option to make private matches, choose maps, game types, load-outs and even more besides.

We want to be able to give you the ability to customise your own matches and control the types of games you want to play, while still maintaining the security and quality of service that you expect. To make sure we deliver the best experience possible we are looking to you, the Ace of Spades community, to help us deliver on our goal.

In the next couple of weeks we will be looking for volunteers to help test out our new customised match system, and regularly feedback to us on the experience. This period will be a beta test, and the system will improve as we apply updates and react to your feedback. In particular, we will be looking for clan leaders, leaders of large communities and experienced beta testers to get involved.

We are still finalising the method of distribution, but it is likely that we will provide local server space with a set number of game ‘slots’ for a modest, reasonable fee. This opportunity will be available to our community leaders and will be much like them having their own server, except that the game will be running securely within our own environment on Steam’s platform. It’s worth highlighting at this point that player-rented servers have not been ruled out as an option for Ace, but there are some hurdles we need to overcome before we are able to offer that solution, so we hope that this will serve as a good start along that path.

This is a really exciting project for us to work on, and one which has been initiated by you, the community. With your help we can make Ace of Spades an awesome, ever-improving experience for a long time to come

The Ace of Spades Team

[junkersapple]

Very Good, Very Good!
This will be interesting!

[Lyper]

It took a bit of time to figure out what exactly you want to make, but it seems like custom server space ≠ custom servers.

giving you the option to make private matches, choose maps, game types, load-outs and even more besides

I'm pretty sure that most people, do not just want to choose between maps and etc., but actually create and play their own maps. We can already choose what map we want to play, and this seems more like a PR stunt than anything else. Sure, more control for the players is great, but this is not custom servers.

This is a really exciting project for us to work on, and one which has been initiated by you, the community.

Again, let's just pretend that a companies interests lies mainly in initiating projects by the community, and it's not done because it was something that should have been in the game from the start, and not because most reviewers have basically taken a shit on your game because of it.

I think giving the players some options is a must-do when creating games for a PC audience, and the recent changes made by Jagex have been good. I just don't believe that the community is interested in so called "Custom Server Space". All we want is custom servers, without the last word.

[...] but it is likely that we will provide local server space with a set number of game ‘slots’ for a modest, reasonable fee. This opportunity will be available to our community leaders and will be much like them having their own server

This is just confusing. Is this actually custom servers? Are the real custom servers only available to so called community leaders? What is this, a digital version of North Korea? It seems like you think you are under the rule of sony/microsoft, and for some reason just refuse to actually give some freedom to the actual (not "community leaders") player.

To sum this article up: We (Jagex) will be creating some new options, which we will launch under the name "custom server space", so that people will confuse it with real custom servers. We (Jagex) are pretending to not have completely abolished the idea of real custom servers yet, and the idea of only giving real control to a select few, actually seems like a good idea.

If i have completely misunderstood your (Jagex's) intention, please do inform me! I'm not even joking. I'm not a troll, I love the idea of this game, i just don't like all this politician talk.

[rakiru]

We are still finalising the method of distribution, but it is likely that we will provide local server space with a set number of game ‘slots’ for a modest, reasonable fee.

Called it.

The community has the hardware - let us host our own servers, instead of paying you yet more money for what you seem to think is the privilege of playing your game.

[xFigTeTT]

One of the biggest issues for our community right now is the ability to customise your own experience of Ace of Spades. Our goal has always been to give you more freedom of choice – This process has been started already with addition of customisable weapons and Classic mode. Following on from that, we’re now looking to open up the ability for you to control your own matches in the form of custom server space, giving you the option to make private matches, choose maps, game types, load-outs and even more besides.

We want to be able to give you the ability to customise your own matches and control the types of games you want to play, while still maintaining the security and quality of service that you expect. To make sure we deliver the best experience possible we are looking to you, the Ace of Spades community, to help us deliver on our goal.

In the next couple of weeks we will be looking for volunteers to help test out our new customised match system, and regularly feedback to us on the experience. This period will be a beta test, and the system will improve as we apply updates and react to your feedback. In particular, we will be looking for clan leaders, leaders of large communities and experienced beta testers to get involved.

We are still finalising the method of distribution, but it is likely that we will provide local server space with a set number of game ‘slots’ for a modest, reasonable fee. This opportunity will be available to our community leaders and will be much like them having their own server, except that the game will be running securely within our own environment on Steam’s platform. It’s worth highlighting at this point that player-rented servers have not been ruled out as an option for Ace, but there are some hurdles we need to overcome before we are able to offer that solution, so we hope that this will serve as a good start along that path.

This is a really exciting project for us to work on, and one which has been initiated by you, the community. With your help we can make Ace of Spades an awesome, ever-improving experience for a long time to come

The Ace of Spades Team

"This process has been started already with addition of customisable weapons.." then why when i try to change the skin to a gun the game says me invalid client data? i think you should make the weapons moddable and make the sight as png like first...

[Lyper]

Called it.

The community has the hardware - let us host our own servers, instead of paying you yet more money for what you seem to think is the privilege of playing your game.

You forgot the most important part

[...] This opportunity will be available to our community leaders and will be much like them having their own server

"Community leaders." Sometimes, I wonder if Jagex is just pulling a joke on us. How far can they take it, must be the next logical question.

[rakiru]

Our goal has always been to give you more freedom of choice – This process has been started already with addition of customisable weapons and Classic mode.

No, it has not. If it has, you have failed in every possible way. If this had been your goal from the start, you would not have removed the ability for people to host their own servers or modify their game.

We want to be able to give you the ability to customise your own matches and control the types of games you want to play, while still maintaining the security and quality of service that you expect.

Security and quality of service? I've asked this several times before, and either been ignored or told to take it to PMs (which never get answered), but what security? The only sense of security I can see is either stopping piracy by hosting the servers, or stopping server admins from getting people's IPs (which is so easy, it's basically a non-issue). As for quality of service, servers are laggy and buggy. I will admit there has been improvement since the game was released, but it's still got a long way to go. The ease of hacking the game (you even left a debug console in the initial release) shows how little you actually care about this.

We are still finalising the method of distribution, but it is likely that we will provide local server space with a set number of game ‘slots’ for a modest, reasonable fee. This opportunity will be available to our community leaders and will be much like them having their own server, except that the game will be running securely within our own environment on Steam’s platform. It’s worth highlighting at this point that player-rented servers have not been ruled out as an option for Ace, but there are some hurdles we need to overcome before we are able to offer that solution, so we hope that this will serve as a good start along that path.

If this is supposed to be some sort of compromise, think again. Ideally, what we want is customisable server software that we can run on our own hardware. By customisable, I mean the ability to write plugins for it and create our own maps. This is a large part of what made 0.x successful. Paying you more money to rent servers from you with severely restrictive customisability (your maps only, your game modes only, etc) is not what we want, and frankly is rather insulting.

This is a really exciting project for us to work on, and one which has been initiated by you, the community.

Well it's nice to see that after several months of asking, turned arguing, has finally brought along some change, but it's just a shame to see that it is barely like the change we wanted.

With your help we can make Ace of Spades an awesome, ever-improving experience for a long time to come

It would seem to be "ever-improving" only because you are drip-feeding us things that used to exist before you removed them and sold us a cut-down game with extra guns.

[MonteCristo]

It took a bit of time to figure out what exactly you want to make, but it seems like custom server space ≠ custom servers.

This. They have a vocab issue here - Paid for slots (without true customization at that) are not private servers. This plan doesn't give any of the benefit that the community is looking for in asking for private servers.

Rakiru's post above describes my feelings exactly, well said.

Private servers don't need to have an official bubble of protection, that's why they work, that's why they offer more customization. Leave your own public servers up and give us real private servers.

[Sample]

"In particular, we will be looking for clan leaders, leaders of large communities and experienced beta testers to get involved"

where is the justice

[armyantsrule]

"I just don't believe that the community is interested in so called "Custom Server Space". All we want is custom servers, without the last word."

Please don't act as if you speak for all of us.

I'm interested in being able to create my own servers, my own game modes, even if it means only being able to use existing maps and game modes. I want longer games of deathmatch but currently I am unable to do so since I don't have the option.

This seems like it would give me that option.

Even if it doesn't, they're still giving us stuff. The behavior of this "community" is ludicrous. You are just like Runescape's, and you are just like WoW's community: you are insatiable. They give you something and you hurl it back at them because it's not specifically what you wanted. That is not unlike a three year old child throwing a tantrum because they didn't get the Christmas present they asked for.