Analysis
Anarchy servers always grow rules
'No rules' is a promise that admins will stay out of the game, so the rules an anarchy server keeps are the ones that protect the machine and the people outside it.
SweetMask · · 4 min
Editor
I run JoinGG. I have been hosting and breaking game servers for longer than I have been writing about them, which is mostly what I write about.
'No rules' is a promise that admins will stay out of the game, so the rules an anarchy server keeps are the ones that protect the machine and the people outside it.
SweetMask · · 4 min
Server-side stats gave each Counter-Strike server a ladder of its own and its regulars a reason to stay, and matchmaking took that pull away when rank became portable.
SweetMask · · 5 min
The per-slot price made sense when each player cost a predictable share of the machine; on Minecraft and modded servers it measures nothing and rewards empty slots.
SweetMask · · 4 min
Roleplay servers write pages of lore that players skip; the canon that shapes play is the part built into jobs, laws and prices, and the rest is best kept thin.
SweetMask · · 5 min
Valve's protocol counts bots as players, so part of any Valve server's count is software, and the number alone cannot separate a mode that needs bots from a server dressed up to look busy.
SweetMask · · 4 min
The habits of the LAN floor went online with broadband, but the room that kept people civil stayed behind, and moderation has been trying to rebuild it ever since.
SweetMask · · 4 min
An evening of someone else's downtime costs little, leaves no name on the traffic and pushes players elsewhere. That is why rivals get blamed, and why blaming them rarely helps.
SweetMask · · 4 min
Proxies let one address front a whole network, and Mojang's 2014 rules made cosmetics the main way to earn, so Minecraft's crowds gathered on networks.
SweetMask · · 5 min
Permission tools are built as ladders and titles are the only pay most volunteers get, so staff ranks multiply until they stop telling players who is in charge.
SweetMask · · 4 min
Free-to-play removed the purchase price that had quietly filtered who joined and made bans stick, and community servers have been rebuilding that filter ever since.
SweetMask · · 4 min
A stream's audience arrives as one event and leaves as one, so the decisions that matter are the ones that keep the regulars who were there first.
SweetMask · · 5 min
Mods that need nothing on the player's machine spread as far as their game; every required download, prompt or install costs a share of the people trying to join.
SweetMask · · 5 min