The geniuses behind Quake Live thought there were too many players, so they added an option to vote-kick people out of public servers. They use a sampler system to entice people into buying accounts, which has never worked and still doesn't, and yet, like insane people, they continue using it. The sampler servers are usually populated, but the rest of the time, no one plays the gametypes.

The point i'm getting to, is that instead of designing the system to bring in as many players as possible, Quake Live is designed to kick people off servers. It's completely backwards. There are almost no players, and the players that do exist get kicked off the servers. Do you not see the problem? The 'premium' gametypes attract players, but then, id software essentially kicks those players off the servers. I do not understand the obsession this community has with destroying itself, but maybe it should try adding players instead of subtracting them?

Public server games are not official matches. They're not the championship game of a $50,000 tournament. They're just stupid, meaningless pub games. It's an excessively foolish idea to treat pubs and pub games as if they are official matches. If you limit spec slots and get rid of vote-kicking, public servers would be fine. If, in addition, you replace the sampler system with something functional, accessible and permanent, all the players on sampler servers would remain on the permanent servers. Or, do you honestly think it's a good policy to drive players away from the game?