looking forward to the event(s), nice map choice. i just hope that we'll have enough players around, so invite your friends and family (maybe grandpa wants some ze too ). i also like the idea to give the winners some reward for their efforts. i'll try to be there, overdefending as usual

Well, that’s a pretty precarious topic. Funny thing you posted this today, I also thought a lot about this during the last few days/weeks. Concerning ZE: I guess most of us agree that CSS-ZE is much more enjoyable than CSGO-ZE and our ZE community is based on our CSS server. But as Vanster already mentioned, CSS lost many players during the last years and the population is still decreasing. Having that in mind, I think we have to create some kind of alternative for the future. If we would have a CSGO server right now (next to our CSS server), I assume that some players would be torn between those two, leading to a low population on both of them. Additionally some players just don't like or don't have CSGO, so they won't join either. Consequently we would have to acquire way more players to fill the servers. Another point to think of are the competitors we would have on CSGO. We have them right now on CSS as well, which doesn’t make our lives easier, but because of EUFrag’s past, our great community and the fact that we are a nosteam server, we had a decent server population throughout the time. In CSGO on the other hand, there are not too much well-frequented servers that ensure a decent gaming experience at the same time (all within the boundaries of CSGO of course ). It’s hard to anticipate what could be if we had a server right now, but looking at the situation, it probably would be hard for us to compete with the ones already established. There is a reason why a lot of other CSS communities intentionally decided not to create a CSGO server or they switched to CSGO completly, leaving CSS behind. If you ask me, we should concentrate more on the CSS server we have right now. Watching the current server population brings tears to my eyes . I hope that it will recover by itself, but it feels like we reached a point where we have to take actions and try to change sth. If the server keeps on losing active players, we will also lose the foundation to create additional ones. IMO, the first step should be an extension of the current nomlist/mapcycle. We got to give the players more stimuli to join and the maps are a big part of that. I know that this isn't the reinvention of the wheel, the "map topic" has been discussed a lot in the past and I don’t want to annoy anybody with it (especially our beloved owners, who make all of this possible ) but I really think it’s about time that we react. It's worth a shot ! So like I said, I strongly believe that our community favors CSS-ZE to CSGO-ZE and thus we should reinforce the precious server we have e.g. like I mentioned above. When the time comes we'll still have the opportunity to switch to CSGO altogether, leaving CSS behind for good. Having both servers at the same time doesn't seem to be a good idea. Damn, I gotta learn how to keep it brief Thanks for reading and keep on sharing your ideas

Can someone close this pls ? Off-topic and I feel like being in pre-school again. Peace love and harmony

Heyya, Thanks for your suggestion. Unfortunately it's not that easy. Just having a small server where you can pick up items and try them out isn't a solution for this. When you are new to the game/a map, the best thing you can do is to spectate good players that are using the items and try to memorize the usage. It's mandatory to know when and where to use it and you won't get these informations from a small server like the one you suggested. As soon as you know what to do with the item, you are welcome to try it yourself. It could happen, that an admin punishes you for wrong usage, but that's just because it's hard to seperate the trollers from the newbies ^^. If sth like that ever happens to you, you can always talk to us. BTW, I'm glad that you don't pick up items and use them randomly, but sooner or later you have to try it out to get a hang of it. And remember, we all were (some still are^^) newbies in ZE and we all had to learn how to use items. Another thing I'd like to mention is that when you play on the server, make sure to type "!hud" in the chat. That allows you to see who picked up which item and also shows the item cooldowntime (works on most maps). Very helpful...