Written by Citizen Alpha Sunday, 24 January 2010 03:03

Article Index
The Rise and Fall of CCNGTA
The Glory Days
The Gangs of CCNGTA
Circling the Drain
Why so serious LSPD?
The Gift of Embitterment
The WTFMan Debacle
The Return of CCNGTA
Derailed Mindset of the Long Time Player
The Splinter Servers
The End
Epilogue
All Pages

The Splinter Servers

The senior staff and I call it the “grass is greener” mentality. CCNGTA started similar to a lot of other servers in the SAMP realm. We played on other servers then we asked ourselves, “How can we do this, but better?” I couldn’t really be mad at people who came to CCNGTA and wanted to start their own server. Yeah, I walked them all out the door for reasons I’ll explain, however there really wasn’t too much animosity for the simple fact of starting your own little world. Most of that didn’t come until their actions later. The problem with most of the servers out there spawned from CCNGTA is that people started these servers for the wrong reasons.

First, a lot of people think it’s easy. They jump on the SAMP forums and see all the code out there and believe they can throw something together. Code integration is a whole problem in itself, plus when you’re presented with a pile of cookie cutter solutions you’re often forced to use what’s closest to solving your problem, not really what will actually solve you problem. Then you have a lot of frivolously “oh neat-o” features that provide very little in terms of expanding big picture game play but are implemented because the code is available. This also opened the door for exploitation if theirs economics involved in the addition. The Godfather script came stock with a few of these. Take fishing for example, we had a world full of hardcore gangsters with the richest among them were avid fishermen. How lame is that? To me that stuff is all fluff and no substance. A little fluff is ok but when it’s the staple of your server there’s a problem.

Others started servers because they want to run the show. A lot of our splinter servers started because they were rejected in some manner from staffing on CCNGTA. Some were ex-coders, some we ex-admins, and others were never given the chance on our staff for problems we identified prior to recruitment. I don’t know if it’s some sort of power trip they want or if its spite, but a lot of that comes through on their servers and damn’s them from the start. These servers I never really worried too much about because I’ve seen what they can do usually. I can’t help but chuckle when I drop a guy from our coding team because he can’t accomplish simple tasks without supervision announce shortly after, “I’m starting my own server, I’m coding it personally, and it’s going to be better the CCNGTA”. Meanwhile I’m trying to figure out why all their in game text boxes look like a speak-and-spell puked on my screen while prodding a car with a broom handle trying to knock it out of the side of a wall that they put it in.

The biggest reason these people get banned from CCN services is because when I ask myself, “Ok, they’re starting a server, where is their player base coming from?” The answer, invariably to most, is typically “My server and forums.” I had no issues with other players checking out other servers, I said that many times on the forums, because they always seem to come back. The coding wasn’t as promised. The staff was abusive. No population. Those servers were bad for us simply because they gave everyone the grass is greener mentality. People are always looking for the next best thing and it’s natural to strive for it. These servers would come and go, our population would ebb and flow, and unfortunately some of the players would burn bridges at CCN and lose their welcome.

I can’t count the times I’ve seen people backpedalling out the door to their new servers with their middle fingers raised, obscenities flying, hacking away, only to find them climbing in the window a few weeks later with a new IP. Players that came back from these servers went two ways, they came back and really appreciated what we had to offer or they felt jaded that their greener pasture was full of dung and want to keep looking because they think they tasted the better life when in fact it was an empty promise. I tried initially to keep these aspiring server owners on board with CCN, even though they had competing servers, because I liked them on a personal level however 100% of time I’d catch them soliciting my users. I would say the most common reason we banned players outside of fact out cheating was for server advertising.

People claimed they loved the community but they’d do everything in their power to fracture it. After CCNGTA closed up shop we had a considerable amount of splinter servers crop up prior to the discontinuation of services. Like I keep saying, I can’t really blame people for that but I am pretty displeased with the common behavior of these other server staff members. CCN’s forums are now open for servers to advertise but my stance remains the same regarding those individuals that burned bridges with us.