I'm glad I favorited some of my most played non-mod servers...

draktok

not being able to tell what servers are modded or not is pretty silly to me, especially since I enjoy -only- the base game of ns2, save the occasional faded game. Loading into a server with random mods that are going to detract from my normal play experience is a bad thing, to me. -.-

Xao

Join a server, it displays exactly what mods are being run, either stay or type disconnect in console and find another server.

Asraniel

Just play on UWE servers, thats how i do it, even before that change. Servers could "hide" mods before.

draktok

I never ran into a "hidden" modded server, at least not one that detracted from normal play.

I shouldn't have to join a server to find out if i like it or not, perhaps if the load time wasn't horrendous.

Xao

That's why the information is displayed before the map even precaches and you can press ~ to bring up the console and type "disconnect" before it even starts loading if you don't like any of the mods being used.

And plenty, plenty of community run servers were installing mods in all kind of ways like random vote, mapvote, DAK server tools to get around being yellow listed.

draktok

But again none of those detracted from normal play.

The point is that now i have to go through the extra effort when i realistically should be able to filter out the horrendously modded servers that actually detract from gameplay. The yellow filter shouldn't have disappeared before the utilities arrived (apparently next patch or so) to inform the player without having to either load the map, or have the know how of console dropping.

_Necro_

You are overacting. If you really would have no favs by now, you would know which servers you are frequently on by name. It's not that there are 100 servers with players on and good ping you can chose from.

Really some people are just searching for reasons to cry. The change is a non-issue.

PaLaGi

draktok wrote: »

The point is that now i have to go through the extra effort when i realistically should be able to filter out the horrendously modded servers that actually detract from gameplay.

Where are all these horrendously modded servers you can't avoid that detract from normal gameplay? The only 2 mods I can think of that are vastly different are the faded mod (which u said you liked) and combat. And both of them are easily distinguishable in the server browser and sortable so you can find that type of game if you want it and avoid it if you don't. There's also a few servers running balance mods but again they are clearly identified in title or otherwise.

Are you seriously trying to tell us that you NEED to better way to avoid a server that runs say, NS2Stats or rockthevote? Like everyone said already, this is a non issue.

tarquinbb

i was against the 'merging', but it works pretty well now that you can actually see the mods on loading screen. (then search on steam workshop etc)

Neoken

Most modded servers out there don't actually change anything gameplay-wise.

Regnareb

Even if you thought none of the server you played on was not a modded one, that nothing in the gameplay was changed, you would never have known, you can't know for sure.

Anyway:

Max wrote: »

6john wrote: »

Can we get at least some way to tell this? I like the idea of preventing second class stuff, but i think ideally there'd be a way to blacklist certain mods for your personal filters, or at least tell what mods are running before joining.

We're going to add a "details" window in the server browser that shows you information about a specific server, such as the mods that it is running. It will be in a future patch.

Having it simply tell you modded versus not-modded was not consistent with our goals. Ultimately we would like almost every server to be running mods -- like server administration tools -- which the community can do a better job at than we can.

/thread.

Sherlock

Our eXo~ public play server has added [no mods] to it's name for people like you and I. I would love it if other server owners followed suit, as a service to the community.

IP address: 85.114.137.15
Port: 11220

#shamelessplug

Tyrsis

To reiterate what has been said over and over since a lot of people seem to be missing this point. All server owners got around the mod flag because a mod flag made the server "2nd class" (ie: no one would join). The server owners could directly add mods anyways, and in some cases modify the game itself without you even knowing it. Perhaps some of the servers you thought that were unmodded and vanilla, actually had some significant gameplay changes that allowed you to win more. The mod flag in the form that it was on release was flawed majorly because of this (ie: voogru's servers had a form of res for kill on it even though it reported vanilla which is a massive gameplay mod).

The other thing was it made using the actual method of installing mods via the workshop useless. And installing that way is so much easier than directly overwritting the LUA to install a mod. This change was really needed so server owners can run important mods easily, at least until they create a good method of identifying gameplay mods for players, and also disallowing the work around to install mods without notifying players.

There are some mods that are absolutely required to run servers now, including good admin tools. These mods are better worked on by players instead of devs, since devs have so many other things in priority.

tarquinbb

imo the main problem was that you were relying on the server name to tell you mods - which is not reliable and you can't even see the full name.

i can't imagine anyone with common sense was thinking "zomg its yellow, server must have leprosy!".

Calego

I was wary of this change at first, I too am a vanilla player and don't want some strange mod messing with my gameplay.

Today none of my favorite servers were populated, so I joined Next Level gaming's eastcoast server. I was greeted in the loading screen with a list "DAK Admin Kit, NS2Stats, ns_jambi." I was like, ok cool! I'll play on Jambi for sure! This server would have been yellowed out pre-patch and I would never have clicked on it (unless feeling adventuresome). But I was rewarded with two games of Jambi that I would never had had under normal circumstances.

There aren't many server admins out there that want to ruin the precariously balanced game we all love to play. And once the details window rolls out you'll see what mods are running earlier. Sure maybe they should have waited till it was ready but what's done is done now. No use crying about it.

So basically, I think this change is awesome. I hope a ton more server admins make use of some of the workshop items. Specifically maps and the (assumedly) awesome admin stuff made by the community. The more servers running NS2Stats the better IMO, since UWE doesn't have a front-end for their sparkmonitor, we need a bigger sample size of "normal" players for our own substitute.

Wake

_Necro_ wrote: »

Really some people are just searching for reasons to cry. The change is a non-issue.

Excuse me necro, Some, who are NOT used to cry, see the change unnecessary as they are not willing to play modded unless they know what the mod is about.

You can put it anyway you want (connect / disconnect), there is no logic in masking vanilla servers before the detail window get implemented.

I do not pay attention at server's name and we all hope there will be tons of servers to pick up as soon as possible.

invTempest

The thing is you can't always please everyone. The idea behind this change was to please the majority - Sure there are going to be some that dislike the change but its not like you can't just disconnect once you find out that a server has NS2stats or heaven forbid, DAK admin kit.

The minority few are the most vocal in this case and make mountains out of mole hills.

Hell, you can even mod the server browser to add this functionality *right now* if you so wanted to, but I guess that goes against your whole anti-mod thinking and would rather complain to UWE to FIX FIX FIX. The information on mods is sent as part of the query response and has been for a while now.

Marking servers as modded by making them yellow by running anything (map, DAK, ns2stats) meant that they were infrequently played on even though they most often have a better experience due to the value added by those mods. This lead to people circumventing the whole modding system which causes issues cause they had to overwrite actual game files to do this. You were probably already playing on a bunch of "modded" servers without actually realizing it, but now you don't have to guess as you can see when you join (and soon before you join) what mods a server is running. This was obviously not good for a mod that touts its modibility so hence the reason for the change.

I for one would like to thank Max and the UWE guys for making this change as it has been needed for a while.

1dominator1

After this change is the first time I have seen the balance mod server get a steady playercount, which I think is great.