Well, I don't really know where to start. And I don't know if i'll fully know what i'm getting at in this post. I feel i've been neglecting the {MC} community as of late. I used to be a regular member, playing most everyday years ago. Then I shifted form job to job. Schedule's ever changing. I've had a girlfriend for the last 6 months which has gotten pretty serious. And I lost the time to play. And now I sit here unemployed again. With all the time in the world. I've paid for a ventilo server that I rarely pop onto. And from the looks of it lately, all the servers that Para puts up seems empty most of the time.
I've been involved with another community, some others of which I used to game in CAL and TWL with. Most of them are my age, or older, which brings up talking about other topics much easier than it would here, with the exception of rampage. Which I don't believe is around much either. And that other community has been the main reason for my absence.
I've 10 {MC} servers in my list at the moment. And I'm sure there might be much more than that. And 1 other server...the [CoR] server. Which one of you kindly purchased. And it makes me wonder, what happened to all those people. I used to be able to look. At almost all hours of the day, and find at one of them, servers full. Almost always the sw2 on both {MC} and [Cor]. But what happened. Did people lose their way as I did? Or did you meanless "war" with each other just make enough people lose interest and they've moved onto other places. Or maybe I was just gone so long that something else happened to make them all disappear.
I'm going to attempt to make more appearances, of which my bust lifestyle can never guarantee. I'd I shall keep the ventrilo up and hopefully one day, will find a need to expand more slots to it. I just wish that once again I could look at our massive server list, and find one server full enough worth joining to hop onto for an hour or so.
Biggest reason is the change in interest of games. A game comes out or is found by one of us and we all jump into that game. Currently, two games are RF Online and COD4 (which we do have a server for) which we are all playing. Most of our servers primary focus is CS1.6, which is a game we ALL have in common, makes sense. But as computers are upgrading and games are getting more advanced, we find new interests. This isn't just the {MC} community, but all of the CS1.6 world. Currently, cs1.6 is the number 10 game in Xfire's most popular game list. Although, of all the tons of games xfire supports, CS1.6 being 10 shows its popularity. Hard to believe though that just 6 months ago, cs1.6 was xfires number 6 game, only last week being the number 9 game. This is evident by the number of servers there are today on cs1.6 today then there was a year ago. Currently there are 61,000 cs1.6 servers available (give or take a few thousand due to SMSL issues). A huge number, although smaller than compared to a year ago where there were around 80,000 servers available (give or take a few thousand due to SMSL issues). Its evident all out when you look at server populations, or even CAL-O team registrants for cs1.6. Me and Para have talked about this and have noticed it for some time. An idea that I personally have had is having the cs1.6 servers cut down to a more manageable number to around 4 or so compared to the near 10 we have. That way, we can have a more primary focus on a server than trying to have a monopoly of different game types and different servers for 1 game. This gives us the opportunity to appeal to a more up and rising crowd such as COD4, BF2, TF2 or third party source mods. {MC} has had a huge loss of popularity and community interaction for a while now because the community has moved on to the up and rising advancements and {MC} has been slow to tag along with these uprisings. Really cannot blame the community on either aspect. Moving on to new things is what will keep the community portion alive since you can carry on the old crowed to the new and better things and pick up new ones on the way. Thats the online philosophy of traffic.
The above being the main reason for this, there are a few smaller factors which include the so called "war", the steam master server list issue we have had since the firewall update, Valves "experimentation" of cs1.6 such as in game ads, etc etc.
So don't look at it as the community dying out necessarily, rather than us looking for a new ground zero to build up from.
Yeah, What Rush said!
I think a lot of the thinning of the {MC} Community is due to the reasons mentioned above. A lot of people have grown up and moved on in life, some are at college and stop by when they can, some are working and others have their own reasons. The "war" was only resposible for losing about 1 or 2 members of our community. As for Cor, they were dying or almost dead... We've kept the game alive by changing the servers around when we can and following the latest game that the rest of us get into. We've setup servers for the follwoing games that most of us got into:
Some games we played but didn't run servers for:
This list is far from complete, it's just what I can remember off the top of my head.
So as you can see we have all been busy playing lots of other things. Bottom line is {MC} is still alive and kicking without CS 1.6 even though we will keep a server (or more) up as long as it's practical to do so. It's the one common game where we can all go back to.
There's a Myth going around that the community follows me from game to game.... No idea what that's about....
Remember... Where ever you go, there you are...
We have all noticed the lack of players. It is a mix of several things. Like para said, and like your own story, members grew up and became busy. CS 1.6 is dying out, and another game has yet to win the hearts of all the {MC} for such a long period of time. We won't die, we will never die. We may crumble a bit and lessen in numbers, but the one place you can always find the main contributors is in vent. Unfortunately, it's very often now that we'll be split into groups playing different games. The problem with new games is the lack of customization that CS had, and the plain fun and cheesyness. You can always hop on and play with us for an hour..we're just not certain what game we'll be playing at the time.
http://www.paradisesgarage.com/mcweb2/photos/troop/images/2372/original.aspx[/IMG]
well, sadly i have started to play COD4 except its the 360 version and not pc so i can't join you guys there, however when i go to college in sept i might buy a few more games for my pc, and then join you guys if your on, since i have just put a 500gig harddrive in it so i can add a few more game s then i could before. But my main reason for not being as active as i used to is still work but now i'm obsessed with COD4 on my 360.
I know it's good on the the 360, but if your computer can handle it it's smokin' on the PC! All it takes is a decent video card.
Nothing beats a mouse and keyboard for speed and accuracy, not to mention customizability. I am currently in love with COD4, I really haven't played much else since I got it. lol, not that I've played much! So busy Coding right now that I have not played more than 1 hour in the last week!
I dont think TF2 is limited to 24 anymore.
A lot of the servers in my list are 32 max.
Thats where i spend a majority of my time. TF2. Or on my 360.
Rock Band and Halo 3
They are still limited to 24, those servers are using a hacked server.dll or a plugin to let them show up on the list.. I was using a plugin for a while but have basically given up on the game. COD4 pwns it anyway.
(first off my eyeballs hurts... arg)
i am one of those dudes who was kind of here on and off at random times and sometimes for a long amounts of times. i've had a lot of stuff goin on. but i know for 2 years i'll be here in san antonio so I'm here. i'm on. and i'm not goin away unless i'm deployed lol. i do think cs1.6 is getting a little less popular, unfortionately cause it's still a fun game, i still play it all the time in a server thats closer to me :-P but it is definitely being pwned by COD4. pretty badly too. but a lot of games i've seen are good for a while, and then they slowly die out, and then we all end up going back to cs. maybe that'll happen with cod4 since you can only reach a certain level and get so many achievements. but either way i'm still gunna find a way to play somethin w/ you guys. i suck at most games but it's fun to try and have you guys make fun of me. like secondlife. i still don't know how to get places or build things. and garrymod, i couldn't build a table while you guys were building moving vehicles. haha. but it's still fun to be a part of this community. (sometimes i hear my girlfriend call and just want to go deaf for a minute or so... haha)
well time to fix my eyeball and find somethin to do... cod4? :-D
{MC}[SS] cash