If not gamesurge, you could put it on quakenet with mix.

its not that inconvenient to have 2 networks, but i'm not sure why it was done in the first place either

Part of the reason is that GeeksIRC automatically hides IP addresses for all users (I think), reducing the attack surface for DDoS. One of the ways that attackers got players' IP addresses was from #tf2.pug.na and other GameSurge channels.

To hide your IP on GameSurge requires both authenticating to ChanServ and setting mode +x on yourself, which most people either don't know how to do or don't bother.

Hold monthly regulated pug.na cups with good management. Start off small, with big names, and slowly move up growing traction in the community. Might be a huge flop, but could be the thing to set pug.na apart and get it active again.

edit: reread what I wrote and feel differently now.

My views on why it's become less active is because it's been seen as a place for invite gamers (Honestly probably closer IM++, but regardless)

What I think helped it get there is top tier gamers playing their mains regularly.
No open gamer wants to have their entire team wiped by yz50 playing scout in a pug.

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I want to be clear that I'm not proposing invite gamers can't play their main, I'm sure that can be a lot of fun in a pug environment.

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Is it possible to implement an additional 'mode,' in addition to the "random" | "captain" team drafting to include something along the lines of "skill" ? (Skill sounds dumb, "main-classing"?)

Skill 0: IM++ no main classing - maybe throughout the day when the IRC channels are likely to be slower/dead
Skill 1: IM++ gamers are allowed to main class (Obviously not forced)

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Finally, I think going to GameSurge makes sense.

Having all the tf2 channels on the same network was kind of convenient. I don't really care what network it's on but all the relevant irc channels should still be on the same network. Since mix stayed on gamesurge while pug.na moved it seemed like a lot of players just started playing in mix since it was still on the old convenient network and therefore pug.na started to become less populated.

Another thing about this is http://atf2.org and when pugna switched ircs it was no longer shown on this simple easy web irc that cinq developed. Now that atf2.org back up it might be time to look at switching back to gamesurge to get featured on it again.

mix is still on both quakenet and gamesurge, in fact most of the users still use gamesurge. I think it's retarded they didn't force the switch, especially considering the bot can't seem to handle both because it always sends me jumbled output on quakenet.

Isn't this what mix is for? There is a much smaller amount of players 'good' enopugh to play in Pugna versus mix. If you make the skill level of Pugna lower, it's just mix, right?

The problem with pugna is with the mentality surrounding it, people don't seem to be making the step from mix. Six months ago there were plenty of high openish players, since then there haven't been very many new faces and the double season meant that nobody had time for them. I can't help but think that people are paranoid of playing with high level players, or that they will be too bad and cause a roll, etc.

If the people who spend their time rolling mixes and generally making those worthless to new players were to start playing pugna, both channels would benefit.

Also, what happened to announcements? iirc some people used to make announcements, that hasn't happened for a while.

From what I've seen, the biggest issue isn't not having enough lower level players playing in pugna, it's that the top level players have stopped playing it. Pugna is supposed to be for top level players, so if they stop playing it it's obviously going to die out. If pugna is just filled with tf2mix players, they don't have a reason to play pugna, they can just play mix.

Six months ago, it would be pointless to even add up to the pug because everyone there was a surplus of invite players and if you didn't pick them, you were throwing. Occasionally there would be a mix of invite, IM, and open players that played but those happened pretty early iirc.

I think having everyone being afraid to captain and such was also a problem because I've seen 20+ people added before with like 1 captain.

I've been added for at least 3 nights a week pretty steadily since that time period, even when the games are mostly invite there's a solid chance of getting picked so long as people know you somewhat. The same holds true for now, at least for me it has. When pugna was running from 5 EST onwards, the occasional second games usually picked up everyone getting fatkidded.

I definitely agree with you on captaining, but there aren't even 12 people most of the time.

This is just how captain games work, if you aren't a captain or one of the top 10 players added you aren't going to get picked. Regardless, people getting fatkidded is better than no one playing at all.

Splitting up #mix and #pugna on different IRC servers was a shortsighted decision. Move back so they are on the same server.

cinq might be able to verify, but I believe the plan was that, channel owners (the HL pug channels, pug.na, tf2scrim, tf2mix) agreed to switch to quakenet, but most decided to go to geeksIRC. only tf2mix and tf2scrim are still on gamesurge, with tf2mix also having a channel on quakenet (this is what the atf2.org client leads you to).

I personally would like all channels to come back to Gamesurge or at least agree on one network completely. the competitive and pug communities are too small to be split up like it currently is.

is there any way to integrate something like pug.na onto teamfortress.tv or some kind of pug system that links with your tf.tv profile which would be shown in the pug or something like that? just throwin ideas out, it's impossible to find pugs anymore.

I feel like people don't add up to play much anymore because they don't have an incentive to (as though having fun wasn't enough). Then again, ESEA pugs over time gave us "free" items but look where that's at now.

I've already thrown this idea out there back when pugna was still on gamesurge. teamfortress.tv could put a hyperlink or integrate atf2.org somewhere.

Edit: a problem I see with this is randoms adding up and ruining pugs/making pugs overpopulated with newbies.

i think which server pugna is hosted on is irrelevant. if people wanna pugna, they'll pugna regardless which server it's on. it would be fine if we just promote it on tf.tv with clear instructions on how to connect via irc client, perhaps a sticky under general discussion? we should also utilize the steam group and put out announcements for when pugs are starting. a little exposure is all we need.

I'd love to see a website that removes the entire IRC component of pugs and makes it visually pleasing and easy for players to join. Maybe pug.na could become that dream.

I think there might be an inverse relation between prettiness of a pug site, and quality of the pugs, like tf2center/tf2lobby

Maybe TF2Center (or whatever it's called) is more your thing.

Anyways, I decided to jump in on here and talk about some of the current issues (from a operational perspective) and the reasoning for some things.

Perhaps the biggest issue that I notice right now with the channel is that the sub bot is non-existent in the channel. This is currently something out of my control because the only person with the root password is jaybenaduchi (I've appeared to have lost it along the way between computer upgrades). I need root access to turn on the necessary components that make the sub bot work.

With the whole Gamesurge vs. Quakenet vs. GeeksIRC, I could go on about that forever, but I can give some explanation to why we went with GeeksIRC. The biggest reason we had was the support from the IRC server operators. With Gamesurge, we were getting very little support regarding consecutive connections, adding additional connections, among other things. GeeksIRC was able to make everything seamless, and brought some really nice features to boot like unlimited message sending (we were able to decrease the amount of bot messengers to just the one), default hidden IPs, 24/7 support access, etc.

As Lange already mentioned, the default IP hiding was essential to stop a vector of people grabbing IP addresses and DDoSing people who played on the channel. When I was active with pug.na, I tried to make it a priority to protect the IP address of our players as DDoS was becoming more and more prevalent.

Another big factor in choosing GeeksIRC over Quakenet was the compatibility with the bot between Gamesurge and GeeksIRC. A couple simple changes to where it connected to and we were able to start everything up fine. Converting the bot to work with Quakenet (according to my knowledge at the time) was going to be a lot of work and time to get it to play nice with the Quakenet auth system. I simply did not have the time and energy to undertake a task like that, as I was a college student dealing with many personal things outside of school.

Finally, the big thing that convinced me to make the switch was the other channels who were moving from Gamesurge to GeeksIRC. It was simply too big to ignore that a sizable amount of the pugging community (HL was a big thing) would be moving over. It was kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of deal for me.

Now I'm not saying I handled everything well, or that I'm even getting all of my information correct. At the time, I believed that it was the right way to go (and let's face it, the channel was on a decline before we made the move to GeeksIRC). From an operating point of view, I still view it to be the right way to go. I can see from a players point of view that it could be viewed as a mistake.

For a long time, #tf2.pug.na has been stagnant and on the decline. We didn't have the dedicated staff. We didn't have the time to put into making it better, and we didn't have the drive to improve everything.

I'm glad that cyzer is willing to put the effort into making #tf2.pug.na a better place, but I don't know if it will work out in the end of it all. This is nothing against cyzer (I wouldn't have given it to him if he wasn't able to do the work), but there is A LOT of work that needs to be done to make it what it once was. I'm hoping that I get proven wrong here.

tf2center is a lobby where there are no captains... therefore it's not a PUG.

The servers have been having some issues lately as well, not that it's related.

You must smell really good Cyzer

I think most times the picking turns out to be a popularity contest. You can't get much new blood when the same players add up for every game and 8-10 of them just finished the last pug and got picked again instantly. I would bet many players like myself, who can play solidly against just about anyone, gave up on pug.na because it was a waste of time to wait for picking and see the same names picked again and again.