Hello All,

I really do think I have a fix for server 1. We switch it to 36 player HC Vanilla, no mod. We run the same rules as every other decent tactical server out there.

No nades first 20 secs (except Smoke)
Must use sights at all times when shooting
No Marty or Last Stand
No spaming of anything without uniform contact and you are only allowed a few rounds then.
No standing anywhere you could not in real life
No blind nades, unless room clearing and you must follow immediately after.
Admins follow the TG way (Educate, Warn {Educate More}, Kick {Educate More}, and Ban if we must)
Allow spectate mode after a player dies (Not free Cam) This means all of your regulars turn into Junior Admins and help educate the new players.

This server is our 'Farm'. It is our Bread and Butter. We use it to find new Community members and to train our players and our admins for our modded servers. We advertise constantly for the players to try the modded servers and have our regulars promote the modded server. We have tournaments where members can win recognition for communication and teamwork and not necessarily score. For many players this is their first glimpse of what tactical means and while these rules are not up to standard TG mods you might consider them a step toward becoming TG. The battlefield series here at TG is very popular and the server is always full and the reason is because of this consistancy. Don't tweak your main server. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Hundreds, even thousands of our members started with us in just this fashion and we here in the COD4 area have lost sight of that.

On our modded server, stay away from things like adjusting how much a person can run. Our players are big boys and girls and in real life soldiers can and often do run. Sprinting across an open area to get to cover is not only as tactical as it comes, it is a wise practice. Just because you can tweak something does not mean you SHOULD. The game must be realistic, but always in the back of you mind you must remember that it IS still only a game and if you take away the parts that make it fun, the players will drift away. We have rules against Running and Gunning and lone wolfing on our modded server that should be enough. Putting limits on how far they can run or how high they can jump is just too control freaky.

The statement, "In real life a soldier would not be permitted to. . ." is dangerous for two reasons. This is NOT real life and these are NOT real soldiers. It is a game meant for fun and entertainment. I swear some of you tweakers are working on ways to develop a gaming chair that will actually damage players as they get hit in game! (You are aren't you?)

Whenever a new game title comes out, it is my advice to leave the base game unaltered to attract new players and, more importantly, new community members. Make up and enforce a handfull of rules to make it more tactical and then make your mods to make it even more tactical, but do not attack the basic mechanics that the people are used to. (Running, Jumping, Walking Upright) Instead, concentrate on things like moving the bomb sites, enlarging the maps or play areas, adding new weapons, or even tweaking down really broken weapons (P90). The rest of our mods should be a more advanced ruleset for the modded servers. Players held to higher standards. Now by more advanced I don;t mean we should go crazy, if you have more than ten or so rules it is too many and you need to look at streamlining it a bit. This saves on your admins too. Remember an admins greatest fall back is that if anyone is ruining gameplay for ANY reason, that player can still face a kick or ban.

On server one Promote and Encourage Communication! (Discourage lone wolfing and not communicating)

On server two (modded) Enforce Communication! (warn and kick for lone wolfing and not communicating)

These are just examples and samples from the gaming world but I really believe if we back off a little and go back to the basics for server one, things will turn around for this title and help us for future endeavors. The servers that are run this way are ALWAYS full and they are still Tactical, just not Tactical Extreme. (Diet Tactical?)

What do you think?

Loraxe