Question regarding the life of private servers

I legitimately am wondering if private servers are managing to survive these days. The reason I ask is because I've taken a nice long hiatus while I attempted to gain a bit more knowledge with programming, and upon returning I see a bunch of new threads, very few being from anyone I remember with any real knowledge. So are private servers dying out, or if I attempted to run one, would I be able to compete to stay alive?

Please don't reply if your post isn't a legit response. I'm not really asking for a bunch of bs, just your honest opinion, or if there is truth, then that.

Eh.. to tell you the truth, in my opinion Conquer is dying out altogether. Sans the effect the private server community has on it, Conquer is just plain dying; losing popularity; whatever you want to call it, it's dying. TQ is trying to stall that with the release of Conquer 3.0, but I doubt it will work for long.

Sure, there are a few "fairly" active private servers, but not many. If you decided to go ahead and make a rather nice private server and hosted it on a nice host, I'm sure you could gain popularity given time. The problem is finding people who want to go back to level 1 again and work their way back up for a game that they're practically lost interest in.


As far as this community goes, it's rather dead. It's making baby steps to revive itself, but that will be a community effort on all our parts.

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Originally Posted by Zeroxelli Eh.. to tell you the truth, in my opinion Conquer is dying out altogether. Sans the effect the private server community has on it, Conquer is just plain dying; losing popularity; whatever you want to call it, it's dying. TQ is trying to stall that with the release of Conquer 3.0, but I doubt it will work for long. Sure, there are a few "fairly" active private servers, but not many. If you decided to go ahead and make a rather nice private server and hosted it on a nice host, I'm sure you could gain popularity given time. The problem is finding people who want to go back to level 1 again and work their way back up for a game that they're practically lost interest in. As far as this community goes, it's rather dead. It's making baby steps to revive itself, but that will be a community effort on all our parts.

Yeah, that's what Fang has been telling me for a while now, but I'd hoped since I've been gone that it would've changed. Well, I can really only pray that the community really wants to pull through together and that the major developers here revive the spark we all once had for CO. Thank you, Zeroxelli.

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Originally Posted by xBlackPlagu3x Yeah, that's what Fang has been telling me for a while now, but I'd hoped since I've been gone that it would've changed. Well, I can really only pray that the community really wants to pull through together and that the major developers here revive the spark we all once had for CO. Thank you, Zeroxelli.

Can't agree with you more on that. I came back after 3+ years to see "recent" threads not having a post for months, it was rather sad.. I thought that maybe everyone moved to another forum, or to the UG, but both were false. The immense ratio of leechers to contributors just overpowered the community, and/or caused developers to give up on it. Maybe it really will come back to be the thriving community that it once was, I don't know. But, if it does, I'll stay with it this time to try and make sure this doesn't happen again.

Anywho, you're welcome. And if possible, please contribute something (anything) you think would be useful. :)

The community is dead and what's being done to keep it alive isn't good enough. Generally speaking, most the people running private servers don't know their head from their ass in regards to programming, let alone management skills.

Arguably (and I'm probably going to receive a lot of backlash for saying this) but the problem is the community is too split with everyone off doing their own thing. Lateralus and Korvacs are off writing a 1.0 server, which is yet to bare fruit despite how few features a 1.0 server has, I can't see why it's taken so long. Then there's other coders like tlkblackbelt, CptSky, etc. who are off doing their own projects; for whatever reason both of them decided to develop an open source server now bringing the total of open-source server projects to 4. Zero has moved back to another game (I believe because money was involved? Someone correct me if I'm wrong) so he hasn't really been working on CO++. Fang has always kind of twiddled his thumbs imo and is too much of a perfectionist aka take 10 years to implement 1 feature instead of simply being satisfied with an OK route. And the list just goes fucking on and on.

I hate to say this but it reflects all back with the minimal support CSV3 has received. At the end of the day, I don't give a fuck because whether I receive the support or not CSV3 will be finished and will be the closest implementation to a fully working server (at this time, I haven't seen anything further than CSV2, the funny thing is I don't see anyone using CSV2 but I don't blame them because it's not noob-friendly and I wouldn't want it to be either). If people were interested in saving the community, or let alone completing the community's goal from the start which was to write a fully functional server everyone would stop doing fuck all and contribute to CSV3. Yes, it is the savior.

To anyone I called out, It's just my opinion; don't take it too personal. There are plenty of people I didn't mention.

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Originally Posted by InfamousNoone The community is dead and what's being done to keep it alive isn't good enough. Generally speaking, most the people running private servers don't know their head from their ass in regards to programming, let alone management skills. Arguably (and I'm probably going to receive a lot of backlash for saying this) but the problem is the community is too split with everyone off doing their own thing. Lateralus and Korvacs are off writing a 1.0 server, which is yet to bare fruit despite how few features a 1.0 server has, I can't see why it's taken so long. Then there's other coders like tlkblackbelt, CptSky, etc. who are off doing their own projects; for whatever reason both of them decided to develop an open source server now bringing the total of open-source server projects to 4. Zero has moved back to another game (I believe because money was involved? Someone correct me if I'm wrong) so he hasn't really been working on CO++. Fang has always kind of twiddled his thumbs imo and is too much of a perfectionist aka take 10 years to implement 1 feature instead of simply being satisfied with an OK route. And the list just goes fucking on and on. I hate to say this but it reflects all back with the minimal support CSV3 has received. At the end of the day, I don't give a fuck because whether I receive the support or not CSV3 will be finished and will be the closest implementation to a fully working server (at this time, I haven't seen anything further than CSV2, the funny thing is I don't see anyone using CSV2 but I don't blame them because it's not noob-friendly and I wouldn't want it to be either). If people were interested in saving the community, or let alone completing the community's goal from the start which was to write a fully functional server everyone would stop doing fuck all and contribute to CSV3. Yes, it is the savior. To anyone I called out, It's just my opinion; don't take it too personal. There are plenty of people I didn't mention.

I still stand by my opinion that the sources to all of the private servers should be taken down. I don't believe that just anyone should even have the right to run a server. I think the community should become more guarded, sorta like the UG, in the sense that you have to prove yourself to gain access to the source(s) of private server(s). You had the right idea going with PacketBusters, it's just a shame that ePvP couldn't be catered more like that.

What I'm getting at is: ePvP has become like 4botters and RageZone in the sense that it's practically run by leechers instead of the developers and contributors who built it in the first place. I don't want people coming here, downloading a source, and leaving. That's a complete load of bullshit, and they can (excuse my French) go fuck themselves.

If enough people showed interest in CSV3 I would consider going closed-source and actually turning it into a server. I've already had several people ask me to do so. However, I don't have the motivation at this time but if other people contributing to the project wanted this, I'd be down for it. At this point, the only person who's shown an interest in running a server again is Saint (yes, he's back and working on CSV3).

I don't even care how good a person is at coding; I've already said that in regards to people interested in contributing to CSV3 (all I really ask for is being able to fluently speak English) and even then... still nothing.

Like I said, I don't have any problem contributing when I have the time. However, I don't think that's going to entirely solve the problem that ePvP's CO2 section is facing. Look at the advertisements sub-forum. That's just a small fraction of the forked "servers" that are all over the place, and no more than one or two are run by a competent staff. A kid and his dog can go and download a source and run it on his computer and get players. In my opinion, that should not be possible.

@InfamousNoone I'm not even close to a novice programmer yet, but I do have excellent English skills, and I'd love to help anyway I can.

@Zeroxelli Not in a weird way (this goes the same for Fang and InfamousNoone too), but you've officially became a source of wisdom for me. o.o It was kind of nice returning to someone who knows what's going on, and it's definitely something that it saving my reaction to the failure of this community. So thanks! =P

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Originally Posted by xBlackPlagu3x @InfamousNoone I'm not even close to a novice programmer yet, but I do have excellent English skills, and I'd love to help anyway I can. @Zeroxelli Not in a weird way (this goes the same for Fang and InfamousNoone too), but you've officially became a source of wisdom for me. o.o It was kind of nice returning to someone who knows what's going on, and it's definitely something that it saving my reaction to the failure of this community. So thanks! =P

Wisdom? I guess I have some of that haha. Don't jinx me, I don't need kids yet. ;) But yes, it's also nice having someone who actually wants to contribute return, as well.

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Originally Posted by Zeroxelli Wisdom? I guess I have some of that haha. Don't jinx me, I don't need kids yet. ;) But yes, it's also nice having someone who actually wants to contribute return, as well.

Well I don't have much to contribute, but at least what I do know is a start to something new (new as in the return of the contributes vs. leechers). Hopefully as time progresses I'll figure out more tricks, and I'll be able to contribute better, and more often. I tend to contribute information more so than releases because obviously releases can be taken for granted.

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Originally Posted by xBlackPlagu3x Well I don't have much to contribute, but at least what I do know is a start to something new (new as in the return of the contributes vs. leechers). Hopefully as time progresses I'll figure out more tricks, and I'll be able to contribute better, and more often. I tend to contribute information more so than releases because obviously releases can be taken for granted.

Hey, everything helps. And even those baby steps are a big help to someone out there who hasn't even taking theirs yet.

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Originally Posted by Zeroxelli Hey, everything helps. And even those baby steps are a big help to someone out there who hasn't even taking theirs yet.

This is true. I remember when I first began Conquer dev (I still feel as if I'm just beginning sometimes) and every small post helped, even if the information was complete garbage.

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Originally Posted by xBlackPlagu3x This is true. I remember when I first began Conquer dev (I still feel as if I'm just beginning sometimes) and every small post helped, even if the information was complete garbage.

Definitely. Even something that doesn't make sense, or is completely wrong, can spark an idea in your head and set you on the right track to furthering your development or fixing some bug in your code. Almost everything can be useful/helpful if you're in the right mindset.

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Originally Posted by InfamousNoone The community is dead and what's being done to keep it alive isn't good enough. Generally speaking, most the people running private servers don't know their head from their ass in regards to programming, let alone management skills. Arguably (and I'm probably going to receive a lot of backlash for saying this) but the problem is the community is too split with everyone off doing their own thing. Lateralus and Korvacs are off writing a 1.0 server, which is yet to bare fruit despite how few features a 1.0 server has, I can't see why it's taken so long. Then there's other coders like tlkblackbelt, CptSky, etc. who are off doing their own projects; for whatever reason both of them decided to develop an open source server now bringing the total of open-source server projects to 4. Zero has moved back to another game (I believe because money was involved? Someone correct me if I'm wrong) so he hasn't really been working on CO++. Fang has always kind of twiddled his thumbs imo and is too much of a perfectionist aka take 10 years to implement 1 feature instead of simply being satisfied with an OK route. And the list just goes fucking on and on. I hate to say this but it reflects all back with the minimal support CSV3 has received. At the end of the day, I don't give a fuck because whether I receive the support or not CSV3 will be finished and will be the closest implementation to a fully working server (at this time, I haven't seen anything further than CSV2, the funny thing is I don't see anyone using CSV2 but I don't blame them because it's not noob-friendly and I wouldn't want it to be either). If people were interested in saving the community, or let alone completing the community's goal from the start which was to write a fully functional server everyone would stop doing fuck all and contribute to CSV3. Yes, it is the savior. To anyone I called out, It's just my opinion; don't take it too personal. There are plenty of people I didn't mention.

<- left out </3