New direction for CS:GO Community servers (a heads up)

[[DtK] [C] Squall]

Dear DtK Community,



Roughly 6 months ago one of the CS:GO Dev's made a request to community server operators:

We're aware that some server operators are offering to their players false inventories and/or profiles as a free or paid service via mods on their servers. These mods inaccurately report the contents of a players' inventory and/or matchmaking status, devaluing both and potentially creating a confusing experience for players.

Therefore, we are asking server operators to remove any mods and plugins that falsify the contents of a players' profile or inventory.

To be clear, the services that should not be offered on a community server include (but are not limited to):

- Allowing players to claim temporary ownership of CS:GO items that are not in their inventory (Weapon skins, knives, etc.).

- Providing a falsified competitive skill group and/or profile rank status or scoreboard coin (e.g., Operation Challenge Coins).

- Interfering with systems that allow players to correctly access their own CS:GO inventories, items, or profile.

If your server provides any of the above services then we request that you disable them. If for some reason you are unable or unsure of whether a particular plugin should be removed, feel free to contact us.

Only one of our servers at that time ran a plugin that was in violation of the above - the weapon paint plugin that was requested by ex member/ex JA Terminator for GG13. After the request from the Dev, the plugin was promptly removed.

This request from the dev obviously made sense, Valve sells weapon/knife skins and the skins should only be available to those who made the purchase. Servers that continued to run plugins in violation of Valve's guidelines were blacklisted via IP. These blacklisted servers wouldn't show up in the server list and and a IP change would be required to get the server running again. This was a flawed way of dealing with violators as Server Hosting companies would get their IP banned even though it was their client being the violators and not the company itself. Valve then implemented a system where to run a server, server operators needed to create a token for each of their server. To create tokens a Steam account is required along with a valid phone number. If one of the token gets banned, all tokens on the steam account gets banned as well. To get servers online, a new steam account and a new phone number is required. Doesn't sound too bad right? Don't use plugins that violate Valve's rules and you should be fine. Well not really the case, as most phone numbers do not work and server operators had to get new phone numbers just to get their servers running. But the worst was yet to come.

Fast forward to 1-2 days ago , CS:GO servers started getting banned. Server operators were issued with bans that would expire after 22 years (22 because of a unix limitation). What were the reasons for the bans? Valve did not provide reasons and server operators could only speculate what the reasons could be. Some ran the !takeknife plugin, some ran plugins that gave users custom knife models (keep in mind these were community made and not Valve skins) , some didn't even ran any plugins that gave knives but had plugins in the disabled folder (this as per CS:GO dev request) and some ran pretty much stock servers. Few operators that got banned put in a support ticket and got a copy/paste response with a link to the quoted request up in this thread.

No warnings , no clarifications, no communication prior to bans, no ban reasons provided with the bans, everyone left in the dark. On top of this, the ban wave happened few hours before the new CS:GO update that allows players to drop their knife and other players to pick it up.

Today they released new guidelines for CS:GO servers : http://blog.counter-strike.net/index...er_guidelines/

The most important part to take note of is :

[To clarify: it is also not acceptable to provide players with custom models and/or weapon skins that do not exist in the CS:GO ecosystem]

Counter Strike was a community mod of Half Life. 1.6 followed CS 1.5, Condition Zero followed 1.6 , Source followed 1.6 and finally CS:GO followed Source. CS:GO owes it's success to previous iterations of CS. Games that were popular due to it's mod friendliness and communities that pushed out custom content for players to consume. With these new guidelines, custom content by the player community is no longer accepted by Valve. Servers that rely heavily on custom content are now hanging in the balance. Servers like Zombies, Jailbreak all use custom models heavily. Zombie models, zombie claws, human skins,etc gave the players a high level of immersion and enjoyment. Will servers like these be the same any more with custom content gone?

Ever since micro transactions were introduced, Valve has made changes that could only be interpreted as attempts to phase out community servers. This recent ban wave isn't something new. CS:GO introduced ridiculous limits on the number of content that could be used on a community server. Valve didn't think it necessary to tell server operators what the exact number is. This means that if the limit is 50 models (including map props,models,custom models,skins,etc) and an extra model is added, the server will simply crash. With each CS:GO update, the additions by Valve contributes to the total number. If a map loads fine, next CS:GO update it might start crashing because while Valve is adding more content, they are not compensating by increasing the limit. As a result community servers have to choose between outright removing a map that is reaching limits or sacrifice content to run the map without crashes. Server operators have been waiting for months for Valve to address this issue but alas, increasing the limit number is not going to make them more money.

Want more examples of what a money grabbing greed monster Valve has become? A fairly recent exploit results in servers crashing. This exploit is fixed in match making but the exploit still works on community servers.


As it currently stands, server operators that will willingly risk getting banned and have the resources to create new GSLT's will prosper while those that follow Valve's guideline will end up with near stock servers without much content to offer the regulars of the servers.

You can look at this as a rant but this is just a server operator expressing concerns at what community servers are going through and the lack of care evident on Valve's side.

What does all this mean for DtK? I do not know. Things might change or they might not. CSS isn't affected by this at all as Valve does not make money off CSS but if one of the DtK CS:GO servers gets banned, all DtK servers get banned as well. We have started removing custom content plugins from some of the servers. This also throws a wrench in the works as we were about to introduce the CS:GO Store. If things continue the way they are, I can only assume operating community servers will become difficult and offering players something that is unique from other community servers might be next to impossible. A few have given up already - some of whom weren't even banned. The bans are done in waves so who knows what might happen and we aren't necessarily in the clear.

This is just a heads up. If you are seeing major changes on our CS:GO servers, it is not by our choice. Hopefully Valve once again recognises the importance of community servers and starts treating them as such.

[[DtK] [Jedi] Onesks]

But unfortunately most of the playerbase doesn't care about community servers

Mostly DM and MM

[[DtK] [Jedi] HawK]

True scum bag material right here. Valve is too lazy to give anything new to the game, so the community does it for them. Now they are undoing people's hard work and effort to the csgo community. Although there is a recent update to their post about allowing custom models again, but who knows what is allowed and what isn't. They are vague as ♥♥♥♥, like every other rule they set.

[The_Tactical_Bacon]

And only a couple of days ago I said Valve doesn't care about the community servers in DTK chat. This backs my statement up.

Also all of that money they are making off of weapon skins and knives is ridiculous, you'd think that with all that money they would be doing more to improve the game but no.

And I agree with you HawK, Valve are certainly vague with their rules and they're also pretty damn awful with communicating with the CS:GO community and Steam users. Its kind of become their gimmick.

[[DtK] [Jedi] TC_TopCat]

Hmm. Really interesting post.
So much DtK longevity behind us but so many future variables that arent really in our control.

Very much appreciate the update Squirrel. Might be a good time for you guys to talk about what actually happens to DtK if push comes to shove (pls keep the community involved in some plans). I think once you guys pick a solid direction(s) based on what outcomes we might be facing, keeping the community involved as early as possible is the best way to ensure we go from strength-to-strength (as opposed to a surprise shutdown and everyone unfortuntely left in the dark ).

Lets try to play our cards right and hope for the best.

[[DtK] [Jedi] Onesks]

isn't it possible to port some servers back to CSS If we do have to (since these rules only apply to csgo and not css)? You know hopefully I hope we don't have to go to that decision because these csgo servers are great but just a recommendation.