As of 25th August we have introduced some changes towards the official servers that we provide.
These changes include some features which we expect will be welcomed warmly such as AFK kicking. We opted for this over vote kick to prevent groups dominating servers preventing solo players from being able to join official servers that could be deemed to be under control of a group of friends.
We have also introduced some new modded maps created by @Spealer . Some of us met with him at TooManyGames and really kicked it off (Much love to you!). As such we have introduced some servers with their maps for your enjoyment.
We also introduced new EA slots above the normal server player limit. This idea comes from the feedback of our EA members (who help to cover the costs of running BeamMP). Previously we used to run EA exclusive servers for them alone, however the feedback was that these lacked what you are all here for; a multiplayer experience that didn’t remove them from other players. As such taking this feedback we opted to introduce slots in the normal servers for them to be able to join above the normal player limit.
This idea however introduced a new problem, performance. Though some of you have amazing setups and systems many of the player base do not. As such many of these players struggle to run a session with 10 or more vehicles (which can generally be also translated to players). As such we opted to reduce the general player count of these servers by a small margin so that the overall experience was not impacted for the average player.
We did expect that some may feel that this meant there were “less” slots available for the average non-EA player, however we have also converted all of the EA-only servers to be accessible by all players, to counter the decrease of the player server limit to 8.
Moving forward we will continue to hear out the community’s feedback on the changes we have implemented and improve things as we move forward, however I ask for a brief pause before you decide to provide your thoughts on the matter. We, the team that run BeamMP are all volunteers, even myself the individual who started this wild idea of multiplayer back in 2019. We are not paid and we do all of what you see in our free time around our families, jobs and lives. Please keep this in mind.
Also, before we hear the idea of “remove guests”… or “Guest are a pain in the a**”, we hear you and we are looking into options around this too. Our current thoughts are to revise the number of servers guest players are able to access. What do you feel about this?
On another note, if one day we were able to reach a level of support on Patreon that meant we could help to financially reimburse our team members for the time and dedication they put into the project, that would be absolutely wild. It is honestly crazy the number of hours that the team put in to help support and maintain the safety of the community, not to mention the continued development and improvement of the BeamMP mod itself that you all get to enjoy for free (though we are a LONG way off of that).
