Just looking to open up some discussion to get ideas.

If you were the owner/operator of the n00bfest site and servers, what would you do with it? Put yourself in my casket for a minute and consider these factors:

Average operating costs are around $145 a month for the website hosting fees, 4 game servers, 2 ventrilo servers, and several subscription services.

Average donations in a given month can be anywhere from $30 to over $200 every now and then.

It's not terribly expensive to run, and if I leave the excess donations in the paypal account on a month where we have extra, it helps cover part of the next month's costs. I still end-up eating a good bit of the cost frequently.

Between 400-500 people visit the main CSS server every day. That's a significant increase since it was started less then a year ago. The CZ server had been operating for so long it could get over 2,000 connections per day. I suspect the main will be like that before much longer. It gets jammin' almost every evening and fills up to capacity frequently.

1337fest has been a little slow to take-off, but I think it'll catch on, especially with all the traffic in the main causing it to max-out frequently.

COD4 will hopefully start getting some play now that it's getting configured correctly by Mr Sox.

The website is visited by 5,000 - 12,000 unique visitors each month, and displays about 20,000 pages per month to it's visitors. Some people just use raw "hits" as the measure of a site's traffic, and our hit count averages about 1.3 million hits per month.

So there you have it. A fairly solid little community with a regular following and some decent stats. NOW WHAT??

Throw some ideas out there. Keep in mind, there is no "budget" for n00bfest to draw on and expand. With great investment, comes great losses.

What about a few "Events"

I'd push vent more as well, would cut down on alot of mic noise in game as only the ppl interested would be listening, and binding the same button for game voice to vent just doesnt quite solve things.. might even bump up visitors to the server as well.

I like it here because I can basically do as i please, so there's not really much i would change, 'cept my amount of support, which will be changing in the near future.

FNG out.

Personally, I would go to Florida so the bald one can kick you in the nuts!!!

Is the Wholesale Computer still our sponsor? If not, maybe we could hook another one, and get back into tourneys and stuff. Maybe if we went into other servers and just said "Hey, we're from n00bfest.com, and we're hosting a tourney at <insert>. If your clan wants to submit a team, inquire at n00bfest.com." Then I think that that would be a good way to get some traffic and publicity. Since we're not so big on CAL and GPL or GNP or whatever that shit is, I think it would be good for us to get something like that started.

Open up a Superhero server, or some type of mod where people have to continuously level and give people the option of leveling quicker by donating?
Or giving people insta-admin if they donate instead of having to remain on the waiting list. Not sure what's done around here with people that donate.

Just throwing that out there. Someone I talked with a while back had a few superhero servers and people would pay monthly just to keep their experience. Wait...don't they have an entire game based on that concept?

#1: More awards. Can be anything like 3 people killed with a nade or 5 headshots in a row. Things like these will make more people play often on the servers.

#2: Spread adminship around and make it cost 5$ or something, so that you don't have 5 admins playing at one time and zero at another.

#3: More events on special days where people can receive prizes for having top score. E.g. For easter have an egghunt on the server or something and the prize would be a special one-time award or the ability to use an awp or something. Before school starts again for a lot of people, have an all-out deathmatch war to help people relieve some pressure, etc (for 3 hours).

#4: Begin training and/or scrimming with other clans so members don't decide to quit after a month of being a n00b. This will also help n00b get some recognition.

I like the whole 'council' thing. It's one of the best ideas I've yet to see since it's more democratic and asshole douches don't become members and admins.

that was how it use to be when we played CZ, the admins and other n0b members would hang out in vent so we could still chat while the server changed maps and stuff. i like it and would be all for going back to it if more ppl did it


But in my opinion I think Ryan has the best idea. The best way to grow the community not only in terms of the amount of people coming through here but in terms of donations is to get out there and advertise! You never know who you might get the attention of.

it could be as simple as going into servers and getting banned for spamming "n00bfest.com come get some" or going on Google and searching for gaming communities and advertising on their forums or something. basically everything we here hate happening to use could be used to bring in more people and thus raise the possibility of having more contributions and allowing the possibility to potentially having the extra cash to "play around" with and invest a little in a more legit form of site advertising or in the future maybe we could have enough funds to have a presents as a gaming expo and get some serious sponsorship help.

Sorry if that was long, I am marketing major

I like all of these ideas especially #3

I'm not a big fan of insta-admin by donating, if for anything that opens up the possibility of a total douche bag getting admin easily just by paying (or a 12 year old kid getting admin because of his 200 dollar a week allowance from his rich parents who can't be bothered to look after him/her).

One thing I'd probably do is advertise the CoD4 server in the Source server a little bit. There might be some people in the source server who don't know we have a CoD4 server, but would love to play on one.

Too much would have to change. Mainly the SANF attitude.

brilliant :P

isnt there a way to edit sprites on maps... we can post banners of stuff...

Ozark is right about that it would defiantly increase the traffic on cod4 server. There's always ppl on main css server talking about cod4 on pc.

No. No.



You can have your cake and eat it too. Most people here weren't even in SANF.

From my own point of view safe is boring, but catering to everyone is more profitable.

The reasons why I've liked n00bfest so much is because there was that hey I know who you are come and play the game that we all like to play (which was counterstrike).

I think now n00bfest members are just too spread out into different groups according to the games that there playing.

solution: maybe we shouldn't be so diverse, and be 1 game 1 track minded again!

with that being said, the tournament ideas; the contests; the gambling; smoking crack; etc are all good ideas.

P.S. "hey Angry Kitten tits or GTFO!"

Not the members, the mentality. The problem with online gaming is, you're never going to be truly profitable unless you cater to the competitive gaming crowd. n00bfest is a pub community. You'll have to figure out a way to be profitable without competition.

I don't know, I'm such a poor ass that I couldn't imagine what you go through corpse. However n00bfest is one on the only reasons I try to keep my interweb bill paid. I don't even like CSS that much, but play for the bar like atmosphere. It's always someplace I can go when I get bored.

Getting people in the servers is one thing but getting them active on the forums and caring about the community as a whole is another. How to do it? I don't know. How important is that? I'm not sure.

A pug type tourney might be an idea. Have people sign up then the tourney admin randomishly assigns players to teams. This would prevent uber l33t over powered teams and foster more networking. Like look at the guy on your left and shake his hand type thing

Shorty is lurking with his l33t advert ideas waiting for the high sign.

Besides planning more on events for different cities where multiple n00bfest members live and can meet up and have LAN parties and get to know each other.

I think youre dynasty is growing quite well, I dont know much about advertising online, but I was reading something in my Maxim magazine about bloggers sites who pull in decent cash because of the Google links they have and the fact that enough people click on them over time, they help foot the bills, so maybe put some fresh links up and ask members to click some links to show Google we are using their links.

And back to my original argument, you gain a LOT of traffic here, but you probably lose a lot from youre ban-happy admin.

Just ask the admin to cool it down a bit, and let CS players be CS players. Shittalking is part of the game that makes it fun.
Testosterone filled kids, teenagers, and adults thrive off competition, so if you continue to exert youre E-Penis mentality, and ban anyone who talks a big game. You lose out on a lot of good players who just like to talk big when they PWN youre face.

The best revenge is just Pwning them back.

All in all, Corpsehumper, you have grown an awesome Community here, and given a lot of people a haven to be accepted and the potential to rise in rank where other people ignored them.

I think youre just getting bored because you have had no scandals lately, you unban me and I assure you I can stir the Pot of Discontent quite easily Yellow_Flash_Colorz_PDT_02

I would advertise more. I'd try to expand from two thousand to twenty-thousand.

Not the most ideal or easy goal.


To be honest Corpse I'd probably just try to continue your way.

I would ban Greaterbad from the forums and servers if it was mine.

lol, who would have guess greaterbad would say something about the poor admins we have here. im with super one this one