Changes to official servers

[Stormeus]

In order to limit the seemingly arbitrary nature of the promotion of official servers, and to avoid confusion and further debates on the qualifications of certain servers over others, the following criteria are now being used to determine whether a server should be listed as official or not:

• If the server was listed as official in 2011 and earlier, it'll remain official today.
• If the server is actively maintained and headed or developed by a VC:MP developer or VC:MP beta tester, the server will be promoted to official status.
• Since the LU team is also part of the VC:MP team, any active servers headed or developed by a LU developer or LU beta tester will also be promoted to official status.
• Any official servers that fail these criteria will be removed from the official listing.

These changes will help maintain a stricter definition of "official" in the server browser.

:edit: The list of changes to the official server listing is as follows.

Demote

• Evolution A/D — no developers or testers in a leadership role
• Daydream RP — no developers or testers in a leadership role

Promote

• XE — has been official prior to 2011 (is not online yet and will appear on launch)
• Liberty City Unleashed — is developed and run by LU developers

No Change

• Argonath — I'm hosting and maintaining it
• littlewhitey's — is developed and run by LU devs
• MK CTF — is developed by a LU beta tester (@Murdock)

[ermaccer]

Liberty City Unleashed — is developed and run by LU developers

LU is dead, so they now need to port their client onto other game?

[.]

Th!s sh!t has been debated all the time. And to be honest, I've never really understood why... A lot more text was supposed to be here trying to understand why do people even give a f* about this crap but then I realized something... why bother?

[WiLsOn]

So this post means if any developer/beta tester creates a server that becomes official? or if any normal guy from vcmp who is in good relation with any vcmp developer/beta tester he can easily get it official as well. those who are working day/night to keep this game alive they are simply wasting their time on this game by working on their own server, take me for example i know few developers/beta testers some of them busy or some of them already joined some server as developer, i am really disappointed by this rule because of this i just lost my playercount in my server, and please give me decent reason why should we invite any beta tester or developer as scripter? when we already have a lot scripters it's just like giving away someone else's position, do they have enough time for script for us? or test with us? are they working for free? or money is going to create a new clock for them? i apologize for my this kind of behave and post but really i can't stand this rule and i couldn't stop myself from posting this. thank you for your time.

have a nice day. 

[Cool]

Mean a normal guy server can not become Official Right?
if i am right so this rule is not good this mean if developer or tester have empty server its will also become official?

[KAKAN]

Mean a normal guy server can not become Official Right?

Nope. They just don't care for that. This will be the mark of VCMP's downfall Though, I did never care for the official list, I never visited it though :p

if i am right so this rule is not good this mean if developer or tester have empty server its will also become official?

I thought this and also have the same question :p

[Sebastian]

In the past, I also wanted my server to be in the official tab, thinking it will get more popular.
But guess what: it doesn't !
I have seen how numerous servers got a big player database without even being officialized.

If a brand new server is good enough for players, the first of them will stay, and bring more others.

[vito]

If the server is actively maintained and headed or developed by a VC:MP developer or VC:MP beta tester, the server will be promoted to official status.

Now everybody will invite vcmp devs/testers to their server to wear official rank

[Eva]

I care more about players having a good time in my server , thats what its all about!!!  Also i guess 9 out of 10 players look in the browser for servers with players instead of using Officials tab.

[Finch Real]

Well i think there should be some rating function builtin for every who ever server got rating of 9/10 or bigger his server become official but guess what it will never implemented

[Stormeus]

Well i think there should be some rating function builtin for every who ever server got rating of 9/10 or bigger his server become official but guess what it will never implemented

I'm playing around with the idea of "featured" servers alongside official servers. This is nothing but an idea at the moment, though, and I'm yet not sure how this would be implemented without regressing to the old official system.

[vito]

Well i think there should be some rating function builtin for every who ever server got rating of 9/10 or bigger his server become official but guess what it will never implemented

Only one rating system I support it's a online players count in current moment. Without any "great history is past" (hello new-XE) and "lords of LU".

[EK.IceFlake]

Well don't worry I'm going to open my own masterlist with more ethical official policies

[DizzasTeR]

Atleast now there is a clear reason and a meaning to what the official was claimed to be. In other words, I disagree with each member here pointing that official status doesn't help, well, here you have it:

i am really disappointed by this rule because of this i just lost my playercount in my server

Alot of things happen, a good standard is neglected and only causes disappointment, Some may be wasting time on this game, but for me as an example, I'm just trying to do something better, and even I had succeeded ofcourse I wanted something and now I can't be like "I made the best server in VCMP, now give me money as a reward" No, all in all what really had mattered was a fucking attention so that the struggled put into coding it is atleast known to the community and is not dusted.

Anyway as I said, now there is a clear point why and which servers are official.

[NewK]

It seems that people have forgotten what the word "official " means. It seems obvious to me, going by the true meaning of the word "official" that the only official servers are the ones that are affiliated with the VC:MP team in some way. Official doesn't mean that the server is better than other non-official servers, it just means that it's affiliated with the VC:MP team in some way, that's all.

Granted, there might a small advantage for servers in this position when it comes to attracting new VC:MP players. Since these players will probably take the "official" tab more seriously. But this isn't really a big advantage in my opinion because after these new players stay in VC:MP for a longer period, they will be able to make their own decisions on which server is best for them, regardless of that server being in the official tab or not. VK's server is a good example of that, it has a good ammount of daily players even though it's not official, so the "official status" doesn't really mean much for server popularity since the players are capable of making their own decisions.

This criteria is clearer. The previous criteria for selecting official servers had some grey areas that made it hard to make a decision. Although I am of the opinion that all the servers who specifically ask to be made official should not be made official. If you're specifically asking VC:MP devs for your server to be made official, it's because you have failed to make your server stand out from the rest of the servers on its own merit. It does not make a good impression on your servers for you to be asking VC:MP devs to "review" them. I believe that the servers who stood out to VC:MP devs without people asking for them to "review" them, are the ones that earned their spot. But anyway that's in the past now.

These new guidelines are easier to understand for everyone. Although the type of people that kept pestering VC:MP devs with "pls make my svr official" are now going to be pestering  VC:MP/LU beta testers for them to join their servers' staff teams. Nothing we can do about that though. Overall, I don't think the "official" tab should be removed at all. It's simply an indication of the servers that are somehow affiliated with the VC:MP team. Maybe a new tab could be introduced like a "Top 10 active" that would list the top 10 most active servers at the moment. Although, the way we detect/identify active servers would have to be very well tought and planned since players could just idle inside the servers to make the server seem active.