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lordpil

Mildly Menacing Medic
Contributor
Hello. So, it turns out as I look back upon my life over the past year that I've spent perhaps an inordinate amount of time playing Hightower in TF2. I started on NY2 early on when the game randomly selected it and then eventually moved to NY1 when it shut down and then to Hightower+. I will occasionally play on some other skial servers like 2fort, but most of my time is spent on Hightower+ now.

In all this time, I've developed an impression of what is okay and what's not, which generally consisted of pretty much anything is okay, but people will probably vote yes for gagging players that mic spam. Conga lines occasionally spontaneously form and die out. Players might attempt to form a giant stack in the canyon and get mad when I shoot the guy at the bottom. All in all, people seem to have fun.

I believe I've seen an admin on the server maybe once before (I usually play weekday evenings, eastern). Last night, two admins came on the server and completely shattered my worldview. They started banning everyone for friendlying, and when a protest formed, they banned even more people who were regulars and play there every night (most of the time normally, occasionally friendly).

I actually assumed that they were trolling us. Why would you ban someone for being friendly? I didn't even know the word 'friendlying' had been invented, much less that it was technically against the rules. By the way, this is not at all obvious to me from the rules, though I have read several threads here explaining that it is included in the 'help advance the team' rule.

So, here I am. My world is shattered. The place I thought I knew is not what it was. Or is it? Is it immoral to spend 10 minutes doing a Conga every once in a while? Or for one guy out of 32 to run around the whole match as a friendly hoovy? We often end up in an extended stalemate, so it hardly seems to be unbalancing the teams. Are these admins justified in their actions?

Friends, please shed light on this issue. Let me understand the truth -- have I chosen a false home? Am I now a hatless transient searching for a new home, unsure whether any place will accept me? Or is the home I thought I once had still my home. Will it accept me? Will it accept the other peoples who's names I know so well lend comfort to me in the dark of the night as they scroll across my screen -- I having repeatedly killed them. Or that I can never kill and at whom I scream, enraged to the point of quitting?
 

Chief of Bears

Legendary Skial King
Contributor
Being friendly is against the rules. Bottom line. Thank you for your questions, we hope you enjoy your time on Skial. *insert smiley here*
 

shoooooooooooooooo

Australian Skial God
Contributor
I'm confused as to whether or not you're serious.

they told you multiple times that it was against the rules, these admins did nothing wrong. there are plenty of other 24/7 hightower servers, I suggest you visit them if you insist on friendlying. Otherwise, I think you need to get a better grip on the rules before telling admins right from wrong.
 

Meowcenary

Gaben's Own Aimbot
Contributor
Teamfortress 2 is, and has always been, a game designed around combat. We ban friendlying because while some people may like friendlying, there are people who hate it. The majority of people seem to enjoy playing the game the way it was intended to be played, not the friendlying way.

If you want to friendly without getting in trouble, you can go do so on Skial's trade servers and on Bottigers 24/7 idle without getting banned. Hell, you can even go find servers dedicated to nothing but friendlying. Lazy Purple hosts at least two non-competitive servers, you can go check those out if you want to friendly.

But if you do it on Skial servers (except trade and idle) you'll be banned.
 

Shiny Charizard

Legendary Skial King
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lol
 

lordpil

Mildly Menacing Medic
Contributor
I am serious, just writing dramatically due to my own insecurity.

I was not friendlying and was not banned. I was gagged by one of you for voteabuse (I actually did not think friendly was against the rules, though I expected the result I got). I don't think that was valid, but it's moot and doesn't matter.

I think you can perhaps see the problem here, though, if you look closely. This server does not appear to be frequented by admins (if there are other admins besides Meowcenary and creeper that have visited, they haven't done anything other than warn against racism that I can recall). So, there is a community of people that play regularly on the server and have an expectation of what is acceptable on the server. Suddenly, an admin shows up that played there only once in a blue moon and turns everything upside down. I think I've been playing on this set of servers since December last year, to give you an idea of how long I've had this apparently warped worldview.

So -- the question now is. Back to normal? Or live in fear that an admin might come back? Hightower+ seems to have a nice balance of play, occasional friendly and stupidity. An all-friendly server wouldn't work well for me. Is there room for occasionally bending of the rules? I noticed that you got voted top admin for banning friendlying Meow... Or perhaps a server that explicitly allows this? I would donate for such a cause...

I just noticed Graphite Grey posted something similar, but it didn't go over too well. He is a regular I recognize. To be honest, I can't remember much about him other than his name, but I don't recall him ever causing a problem that others complained about.
 

Chance

Australian Skial God
Contributor
I am serious, just writing dramatically due to my own insecurity.

I was not friendlying and was not banned. I was gagged by one of you for voteabuse (I actually did not think friendly was against the rules, though I expected the result I got). I don't think that was valid, but it's moot and doesn't matter.

I think you can perhaps see the problem here, though, if you look closely. This server does not appear to be frequented by admins (if there are other admins besides Meowcenary and creeper that have visited, they haven't done anything other than warn against racism that I can recall). So, there is a community of people that play regularly on the server and have an expectation of what is acceptable on the server. Suddenly, an admin shows up that played there only once in a blue moon and turns everything upside down. I think I've been playing on this set of servers since December last year, to give you an idea of how long I've had this apparently warped worldview.

So -- the question now is. Back to normal? Or live in fear that an admin might come back? Hightower+ seems to have a nice balance of play, occasional friendly and stupidity. An all-friendly server wouldn't work well for me. Is there room for occasionally bending of the rules? I noticed that you got voted top admin for banning friendlying Meow... Or perhaps a server that explicitly allows this? I would donate for such a cause...

I just noticed Graphite Grey posted something similar, but it didn't go over too well. He is a regular I recognize. To be honest, I can't remember much about him other than his name, but I don't recall him ever causing a problem that others complained about.

1ac0ba1c5fa1c8dead9f2edf3f3e56d4.png

Report abuse not vote abuse.
 

shoooooooooooooooo

Australian Skial God
Contributor
I am serious, just writing dramatically due to my own insecurity.

I was not friendlying and was not banned. I was gagged by one of you for voteabuse (I actually did not think friendly was against the rules, though I expected the result I got). I don't think that was valid, but it's moot and doesn'ttter.

I think you can perhaps see the problem here, though, if you look closely. This server does not appear to be frequented by admins (if there are other admins besides Meowcenary and creeper that have visited, they haven't done anything other than warn against racism that I can recall). So, there is a community of people that play regularly on the server and have an expectation of what is acceptable on the server. Suddenly, an admin shows up that played there only once in a blue moon and turns everything upside down. I think I've been playing on this set of servers since December last year, to give you an idea of how long I've had this apparently warped worldview.

So -- the question now is. Back to normal? Or live in fear that an admin might come back? Hightower+ seems to have a nice balance of play, occasional friendly and stupidity. An all-friendly server wouldn't work well for me. Is there room for occasionally bending of the rules? I noticed that you got voted top admin for banning friendlying Meow... Or perhaps a server that explicitly allows this? I would donate for such a cause...

I just noticed Graphite Grey posted something similar, but it didn't go over too well. He is a regular I recognize. To be honest, I can't remember much about him other than his name, but I don't recall him ever causing a problem that others complained about.
the admins make the rules, not the community. Trust me, everyone who is punished is punished for a reason. If you're scared of admins, you must be fully aware you're doing something you're not supposed to be doing.
 

lordpil

Mildly Menacing Medic
Contributor
That's you. But what about other admins? Do they care? I'm not really concerned about being banned myself since, though I think it is possible. I'm more concerned that you will ban everyone that normally plays on the server and the server will collapse and die. I presume NY2 went offline due to lack of players, on the same note.

I noticed that HT+ is empty tonight...
 

SuperNewman

Face-Melting F2Per
Teamfortress 2 is, and has always been, a game designed around combat. We ban friendlying because while some people may like friendlying, there are people who hate it. The majority of people seem to enjoy playing the game the way it was intended to be played, not the friendlying way.

If you want to friendly without getting in trouble, you can go do so on Skial's trade servers and on Bottigers 24/7 idle without getting banned. Hell, you can even go find servers dedicated to nothing but friendlying. Lazy Purple hosts at least two non-competitive servers, you can go check those out if you want to friendly.

But if you do it on Skial servers (except trade and idle) you'll be banned.

Honestly, the mic spam and friendly rules should be relaxed for 32 player, fast respawn servers. Nobody goes to those for a serious TF2 experience, and if they do, they are dumb, and should feel bad for calling in mods to enforce the letter of the rules against the majority who are having fun.

On a 24 player server, with normal spawn times? Yeah, no friendlies. I'm split on mic spam that isn't harmful or racist, because client mute is a thing.
 

Meowcenary

Gaben's Own Aimbot
Contributor
That's you. But what about other admins? Do they care?

Admins don't get to choose which rules they enforce and which they don't. If any of them ever refuse to enforce certain rules Bottiger would likely remove their admin.

The only differences you'll see is how admins go about enforcing the rules. Some admins will ban you on the spot without a warning for friendlying, others will warn you to stop and ban you if you refuse to comply. That's about it. They're not going to let you sit there breaking the rules. If they ever do then they're refusing to do their job and they can get in trouble for that.

And to answer your question, check all the bans for the reason of "friendlying" or "friendly". That should show you all the admins here do enforce the no friendlying rule.
 

Meowcenary

Gaben's Own Aimbot
Contributor
Honestly, the mic spam and friendly rules should be relaxed for 32 player, fast respawn servers. Nobody goes to those for a serious TF2 experience, and if they do, they are dumb, and should feel bad for calling in mods to enforce the letter of the rules against the majority who are having fun.

On a 24 player server, with normal spawn times? Yeah, no friendlies. I'm split on mic spam that isn't harmful or racist, because client mute is a thing.

Every time I join hightower everyone is killing each other, not friendlying. A ocassional player will friendly, and every once in awhile there are a handful of people trying to have a friendly party, but they're still the minority.

The point being is friendlies are the minority. People join to have a normal round of TF2, not a friendly fest.
 

Bottiger

Administrator
We used to not have a rule against friendlies and the forums were full of complaints about friendlies. Even more than the complaints some of you are having now for not being allowed to be friendly.

If you can show us that more people want to be friendly then we can remove that rule.
 

lordpil

Mildly Menacing Medic
Contributor
Personally, I don't think the rule needs to go, just perhaps be relaxed, and maybe only on hightower. E.g. 5 minute conga is okay, 1 hour conga is not okay. I would imagine other regulars would agree, but I suppose we'd need to hold some kind of poll. I'd expect there would be a decent percentage that would like it abolished completely.
 

Meowcenary

Gaben's Own Aimbot
Contributor
Personally, I don't think the rule needs to go, just perhaps be relaxed, and maybe only on hightower. E.g. 5 minute conga is okay

That's 5 minutes of people being useless dead weight cannon fodder to their team who are taking up player slots from those who want to play normally

And if there's no admin on that 5 minute conga can turn into a 30+ minute conga
 

Sargent¥

Australian Skial God
Contributor
That's you. But what about other admins? Do they care? I'm not really concerned about being banned myself since, though I think it is possible. I'm more concerned that you will ban everyone that normally plays on the server and the server will collapse and die. I presume NY2 went offline due to lack of players, on the same note.

I noticed that HT+ is empty tonight...
All admins do care because it is what we signed up for. We signed up to enforce the rules so as a matter of fact, we do care.
Personally, I don't think the rule needs to go, just perhaps be relaxed, and maybe only on hightower. E.g. 5 minute conga is okay, 1 hour conga is not okay. I would imagine other regulars would agree, but I suppose we'd need to hold some kind of poll. I'd expect there would be a decent percentage that would like it abolished completely.
Whenever I see a friendly, I'll inform them of our policy, let them have their fun for a few seconds and then proceed with any necessary action should they continue. 5 minutes is a ridiculous amount of time. I think that's a full round of basically any KoTH map.
 
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Bottiger

Administrator
Skial didn't get to where it is by having arbitrary rules that no one agrees with. The rules you see are picked because the community wanted them, not because I said that's how it should be. I personally don't care about friendlies but there were too many complaints about it.

The server being empty has nothing to do with this. It is caused by Valve's quickplay changes and no one wanting to seed servers. As you can see after the patch, the server is 32/32 now.
 
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sov

Legendary Skial King
Please keep the anti friendly rule up. I think friendlies are stupid and if you want to friendly do it at a trade server or valve server. I, and many others, go on Skial to play a pub, not to farm strange kills and listen to people play shit quality music that no one wants to hear while they're throwing sandwiches.