Public Discussion: Weekly Casuals

What method of casuals being ran do you prefer?

  • Other (Please specify)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    37

Berry

resident homo
aa
Dec 27, 2012
1,056
1,898
As you may know, I've attempted revival over the past few weeks of the old sunday casuals. We all (or mostly) know the old ways are flawwed. Not to mention now the servers rotations are fluctuating; Snowplow and 72 hour maps whereas before 99% of the time they rotated on the near-/finished showcase maps everyone loves.

This discussion is here to take suggestions, ideas and opinions on what can be done with the casuals. My personal intentions (which the whole thing is not limited to) is a fun play of the maps we already have as most maps are basically forgotten after they're finished.

However, after we were limited to showcase and beta maps the income of maps was low. To expand the maps we bring in, I removed those limitations. My main fear now is of it becoming exactly like the gamedays because that's not what casuals are about. With this system in place, the only difference is the way casuals are presented.

An idea I believe may work that a few people have said is restricting submissions to maps the submitter did not make. I feel this is fair, but as said above I want to hear what other people think first and see if there're any better ideas.
 

Egan

aa
Feb 14, 2010
1,375
1,721
What seems to interest me most about playing specific maps is new perspectives. Not necessarily new perspectives for just myself (not just new maps), but also playing a map I personally know with people who have different perspectives of the map than me. It also seems that since we (tf2m) all kinda come from the same perspective when we were testing a specific map, it's uncommon that someone from casual play brings up a new perspective unless we're playing maps that came out before the players arrived to TF2m (playing old showcase maps). Other than new perspectives, I'd be playing maps that I personally find fun, but I don't like many maps. :)

So you can interest me in casual plays with either: playing maps I haven't played before, bringing in new players who bring new perspectives about maps I've already played, or by playing maps I personally find fun. I suspect this is similar to other people. Some examples of casual playtests that I've enjoyed: Maps from the showcase that I've never played before, Halloween Maps, 'Fun maps' that we found on Gamebanana, playing arena maps with the experts of arena at [arenafortress], playing my surf maps with people I've never heard of before.

Not the only way to go forward with this, but just on my mind.
 

Geit

💜 I probably broke it 💜
aa
May 28, 2009
598
1,161
Not to mention now the servers rotations are fluctuating; Snowplow and 72 hour maps whereas before 99% of the time they rotated on the near-/finished showcase maps everyone loves.

I need to fix the rotation for EU servers at some point - I only put the 72hr maps on rotation because I assumed that they'd still be on the redirect, turns out they've already be cleared out despite the fact they're only 2 months old. I might move TF2M's redirect to the EU server after some discussion with the other staff so that stops happening. (EU has virtually limitless space)

There's also been a recent suggestion that we try and build a more consistent server population on our rotation after the snowplow testing has finished.
 

Trotim

aa
Jul 14, 2009
1,195
1,045
Playing random popular gamebanana maps isn't a bad idea. I think there are a lot of maps flying under TF2M's radar
 

puxorb

L69: Emoticon
aa
Dec 15, 2013
531
798
I am glad that casuals exist in the first place. there are so many maps that I have always wanted to play on (other than with stupid bots) and I can never find a server running them. Any of them. Even though our servers are for testing WIP maps, I really would like to see more casual events.

I have a suggestion though; pick a random mapper and play all of his/her maps in one day. Sort of like Egan did with the mapper interviews. Those were quite fun and you can really get to know a specific mapper's style.
 

YM

LVL100 YM
aa
Dec 5, 2007
7,135
6,056
Casual -> not testing -> playing established maps -> showcase/suggestions/official maps.

Don't like playing those kinds of maps -> don't join and wait for an imp/gameday.
 

fubarFX

The "raw" in "nodraw"
aa
Jun 1, 2009
1,720
1,978
here, have music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxWi7AXtJ1Q

edit: wow wrong topic what am I doing with my life, have music anyways, music is good


guess I have to contribute to this topic now...
if I had anything to suggest it's this, have creative people come up with themes for each casuals. this way, every event is special and memorable! I don't play casuals because I don't think they are exciting, that's probably somewhere you guy can improve on.
 
Last edited:

ibex

aa
Sep 1, 2013
308
528
What's the point of playing maps not under development on TF2M?

Exposure.
If you introduce people to past maps they may want to put it on their own servers. If you introduce mappers even, they get to look at past work they may not have known existed. It can be a source of inspiration, or even a source of learning to look at how people have done things.
 

Dr. Sasha

L4: Comfortable Member
Aug 5, 2013
185
86
Exposure.
If you introduce people to past maps they may want to put it on their own servers. If you introduce mappers even, they get to look at past work they may not have known existed. It can be a source of inspiration, or even a source of learning to look at how people have done things.

Custom maps, you mean. I guess there aren't that many custom map servers out there. What about a seperate server for showcase maps and one for testing maps?
 

ibex

aa
Sep 1, 2013
308
528
Custom maps, you mean. I guess there aren't that many custom map servers out there. What about a seperate server for showcase maps and one for testing maps?

This is a discussion of gamedays. Specifically "casual" gamedays, of which the purpose is not to test, but to have fun and play maps we don't usually play. Or at least that was my interpretation of it.
 

YM

LVL100 YM
aa
Dec 5, 2007
7,135
6,056
What's the point of playing maps not under development on TF2M?

Casual -> not testing -> playing established maps -> showcase/suggestions/official maps.

Don't like playing those kinds of maps -> don't join and wait for an imp/gameday.

caaaaasssuuuaaalll. In a casual event we are, by definition, not testing. So we can play whatever takes our fancy.
 

Berry

resident homo
aa
Dec 27, 2012
1,056
1,898
Well then we should play shooooooooooooooooowcase maps, then. That would be great

The issue is the old casuals (ran by Harribo previously -mostly at least-) began to dwindle because of the fact we were just playing showcase maps. We're playing more than that at the minute to try to have more, different content to play each week that's still fun and people want to play.
 

Dr. Sasha

L4: Comfortable Member
Aug 5, 2013
185
86
The issue is the old casuals (ran by Harribo previously -mostly at least-) began to dwindle because of the fact we were just playing showcase maps. We're playing more than that at the minute to try to have more, different content to play each week that's still fun and people want to play.

Let us journey to Game Banana, then. Lots of maps there.