Indeed. Steam can't be compared to Voobly lol. It's just the newer versions of AOE and contninous support of Microsoft that keep it alive.

Voobly is way better

I did not read all the comments here, so some of the things I’m saying might already be addressed.

I can see Chris bashing previous CS Leads and I agree with him, most of them were not fit at all for the job, but the question we have to ask here is how those people who were clearly lacking the basic understanding of CS and CS players got to be the CS Lead? All the guys I can think of, except for Dave, were pure 16xx players with no understanding and no communication with the active engaged core CS players. You can’t put a PE teacher as the head coach of a football club just because he fits the “image” you are searching for and expect him to do a good job.

There was a time Barry proposed a well-balanced CS Lead team, with me, Malte, Dave, Barry, Nhoobish and some others I can’t really remember anymore, but of course, we didn't fit the criteria the people in power had set in their minds, and we couldn’t be manipulated as pleased.

I remember when me and my clan of the time fought for a free NPL Lobby without the banning bs, the players that today are amongs the most active and best CS players are all from NPL, I’m myself from NPL.
“You just want to bash players, just go to play in the CS lobby”, if I wanted to bash players I could easily do it in CS lobby too. There are enough noobs.
I got interested in CS after Vezir (who at the time was one of the best players) owned me VERY badly in a Gwarz game in NPL. That’s when I started to host Gwarz in NPL and many people got interested. Su, Riven, Wolf, Evil Weasel and many others who today are the best CS players. We are all from NPL, more players were joining and learning. There could be a new me, new Su, new Riven but you stopped it from happening by not only banning us from joining the lobby but going as far as unrating CS in NPL and guess what, there was nobody left hosting Gwarz there anymore, only a few scarce Hero games. At the time, your only interest was how to make RM more popular, totally ignoring CS, so now you can’t put all blame on CS players.

Now we are all too old for this ****, ofcourse we are still around because we love Voobly, but it’s not the same.
Now coming to the present, how to revive CS?
First of all, we need 1-2 CAPABLE guys as the new CS Lead and the only two people that come to my mind are Coles and Justin, down to earth guys that are WILLING to listen to people who are more experienced and actually know about CS.

CS is in a complete mess, ladders with 0 activity left there, ladders with good activity being removed without notice, CBA Hero being edited without consulting the community or giving clear instructions.

You just can’t add new civs, a new patch and make everyone play it by giving out premiums, they will just grab the premium and go back to their old ways. You need a proper way.
What is the proper way?
A Ladder dedicated, A league dedicated. This is how you get good players interested, and once good players get interested, they can give you feedback and everyone else will follow.
I suggested Coles a Cba Hero League idea before, and now that I think about it, why can’t we do it with a new ladder, with the new patch and also the new civs?

Another thing I can think of, but I’m not sure how to make it work; The CS Community of DE.

I played for a bit of time in DE. In fact, we even did a Steam vs Voobly CS challenge there (it was even streamed by Dave). What I saw was some very highly skilled players, and a pretty active CS Community. And the funny thing is they don’t even know about Voobly… they never played here. There are also many old players from Voobly I found there… Sirwan, Efkan, Phurriz, Ben, Vezir and many others.

But why would they ever want to come back?
What CS community on Steam don't have that we have?
CLANS, RIVALRY, COMPETITION, RATE & TOURNEYS

These are the points we need to focus on.
Now I understand that investing in CS is out of the question, but I’m sure there are enough people, including me, who can toss up a few bucks to make something somewhat big happen, something that we can advertise in the Steam CS community to new and old players. Once they understand the competitiveness that we have and once they set their mind that Voobly is not that bad and old-fashioned, some of them might want to stay.

So the steps for a CS Revival should be:
Selecting a capable CS Lead Team and removing all the trashes asap > Fixing the ladders > A new ladder and tourney system league for the new patch and the new civs > Discussing with the good players before making changes (with good players I mean 2.1ks++ not 1.8ks) > Focusing more on us first, what will bring the most players back? TIW 2024? CS Nations Cup? > Once this is set, we can try to collect players from Steam and other platforms by hosting something big sponsored by people that love CS.
Because in the current state nobody would want to play here.

These ideas are helpful and have a strong base.

Although let's not use the term "CS Leads", instead myself and Justin are volunteering to help CS and you can redirect requests/suggestions very easily to us. Although this is volunteering, it's not our obligation, just for the notice

So you're advocating for more competition, clan wars etc. to try and get players to Voobly.

Let me ask you, why do you think there is a distinct lack of this kind of competition? particularly clan based. We've been having the same conversation for 10 years or more. I felt like this in 2016 let alone now.

My view is that it's far too toxic and has been for too long. During TIW 2015 it got very toxic with Eot vs 7th, 2016 TIW after 7th won, loads basically left CS due to the toxicity and not ever wanting to re and potentially risk losing.

To try and increase competition and stimulate clan wars, I switched from 7th to eot; as did other people for various reasons, some to dv8 and other clans too.

Fast forward to 2019/20, same position, xCs and Eot only clans, I left Eot and tried to make a new clan which was always going to be a huge challenge with most pros already comfortably in their clans and have been for years. I did this not because of ego, because it'd help CS, which it did. We were able to have TIW as we had 4 'clans' with a real shot at winning.

Now we have xCs only and you're still taking people like there's no tomorrow. Part of caring for CS and driving forward CS activity, especially when it comes to clan wars, is to leave and start something new. It's horrible, hard and lonely at first, but it's worked for me for many years. It's almost impossible now as not many players left and you as the only main clan/active clan left are taunting CS with your challenge of 1-2 maps vs. any, in the full knowledge there aren't other clans here/active, and those independents like a range of maps.

Why a range of maps? it stimulates players to try new stuff, and stay longer in CS. Random ladder was great for this and provided re-birth to CS for many years.

So what I'm trying to say is, if you really care, start something new, promote a range of maps and don't overly taunt those who try to keep the community alive by training weaker/newer players & challenging the established clans. It makes it a horrible task when it shouldn't be.

Next war should be either steam vs voobly or oldschool vs newschool as no clans left. I'm sure xVeni may want a 2v2 war with xCs if possible too but this'd be small potatoes.

Ideas please on how we achieve the oldschool vs new, prizes, formats and how we can reach out to steam players

Does anyone remember when we used to play Graves or Chaos in CS?

Fairly balanced, easy to learn, when played on 2v2(v2v2) suitable for competitive match making and even CBA players could like it. I haven't seen the map being played on Voobly in the past 10+ years.

Over the years you've been a cause of 'toxicity' many of us were. The **** talking brought more competition and clan wars and made TIW one of the most watched events as it was essentially multiple different clan sets in one tournament.

I dont think or see people leaving because of any of that... we all just got older and had more things happening and less time to play. We only managed to get TIW 2020 because peoples responsibilities went away for a short time as the whole world shut down.

I'm referring a particular toxicity, i.e. from the insane amount of trolling which happens after a loss or people actually quitting/not playing anymore after winning a war to 'go out on top'.

I know this happens, I've been in the discords/WhatsApp's etc. when it has.

If there's one thing you can't accuse me of, it's giving up on CS, quitting, or ever turning down a war/tournament/competition (when I was free to play)... regardless of when, which clan I was in or if I'd just won the last one.

Of course people don't have time & grew up. It comes down to whether or not you have some time & still enjoy playing the game. I'm referring to those who either still play or play casually of which we still have some, but I think being held back by the above. In any event, was fun while it lasted.

I am banned in NPL, i would like to play CS in NPL. can i enter NPL as CS player. i am ok if i am allowed only to play CS in NPL.

aoe2 is basically abandonware at this point so if you want people to return offer them an option to safely download this game

+1. where safe links

It always seems impossible until it’s done.

Yes?

good job killing cs with adding decay then removing it, now some **** noobs sit on top of ladders and refuse to play

I say we flip the ratings