Populate a server

[JBRAA]

Player / Servers ratio in 2004:
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I am under the impression that a few years back, say about 2004-ish, you could get a poular/populated server if you had these:
- a new game just released, with lots of players wanting to play
- good CPU in your serverbox (no cpu lag)
- good broadband connection (2Mbit connection with 0% packetloss).
- no or little official server were around?

Player / Servers ratio in 2007:
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Today, is it harder to populate a game server? What would be the reason for this?
- More people got good serverboxes & good broadband, making it more servers per player than years back?
- Less players of the particular game, in your country / geopgraphical zone?
- The big-mass of "just want to play a quick game", that are not interested in being a part of a "local" gaming-community, tend to play on official servers / ranked servers.
- Too many official servers?
- Its just beta2 so far? Things will be different for demo / released game?
- Not enough people have the hardware to play this new game = less players overall?
- Many people want to get a e-rank, for them as a player. Only playtime on ranked servers can give you a newer/higher e-rank. Your rank is shown in the game, next to your nick when pressing tab. The challenge to get a higher rank is very attractive to most, even if they say otherwise.


Easier to populate / make a server popular if you are out early with your server, when the game release.
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- I've always thought since like 2005, that when ET:QW demo / full game is released, it will be ybereasy to populate your server, if you run a server from the beginning, since you are so early.
- As compared to starting a server 1-2 years after release as would be in general a bit harder to populate. Or so is was impression.


The joy of ranked / official servers VS Joy of community servers
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- Official server are for free for everyone. You get to play on a server that should be laggfree. If you are in a gaming community, your commity have not paid a cent for it.
- It tends to be harder to have a gaming-community if you dont have a community-server.
- Official servers arent yours. You cannot change maps if you want to. You cannot run events on them, like a "fun-skins/sounds weekend".

How does official / ranked servers effect the communuity-servers?
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A: Why arent you playing on the community server?
B: Nobody is on it.
A: Where is everyone?
B: Everyone is on different servers.
A: What servers?
B: GSP Ranked #104, GSP Ranked #54, GSP Ranked #76, and GSP Ranked #14.
A: Oh...
A: Hmm those are all full, where my friends are. No reason to wait in line for just one friend. I'll join GSP Ranked #22
- As far as I know, if you have a community server, and all your friends are there, people will wait in line if the server is full, for up to 30 min or more, and be on Teamspeak / ventrilo in the meantime while waiting.
- Does ranked servers directly effect community servers to be empty?
- I am more or less hopeing it wont be hard to populate a server.
- Can there be too many official servers? I'm not sure, but I think so, if certain amounts of community server are completely empty.


My real consern is perhaps that:
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- Will community servers have no, or little chance to get used/populated the first *6months if there is 500 ranked servers and 100 unranked ones.

*I'd guess thats who long it takes before custom content is availble, and to spread as common knowledge that community servers can have new content.



What do you other serveradmins / players think?
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- This is not a "I hate ranked servers" thread.
- This is perhaps a "balance between ranked and unranked servers" thread.
- What would be best for ET:QW? How many ranked / unranked server should there be?
- Please reply to any of the stuff I wrote, just not the last question.

Thanks for replies.

[darthmob]

no server will populate on its own just because of a nice bandwidth or something like that!
you will need active players who play on it regularly. people will connect and do so again if they were satisfied. after a certain time (~ some weeks?) the server will nearly run for itself (connect alone and few minutes later it is full for hours). it worked that way in Enemy Territory.

some things that may help getting a successful server:
- remarkable name
- fair & friendly admins
- special maps / settings (though it is not needed. I think you will find players for any kind of server!)

PS: my personal opinion:
there are not enough small server (12 - 16 slots max) for ETQW at the moment!

[Inermis]

the not ranked server will be populated only when:
1 - there is good popular mod on it, that people want to play
2 - the server have an special special rules, like infantry only
3 - the server have particular type of players on it (like many clan players) so there is high level of skill and team play there.

the 1 - it easy, if mod is popular the servers are populated

the 2 and 3 types of server can be easily founded in games that does not have an rank system (like CSS, RO)
in games with rank system, the server probably need to be mix of 2 & 3, like 'Lehnitz infantry server' in BF2 - high skilled BF2 (top clans) players practising their skill. - if its full you just wait until there is a place.

[JBRAA]

Haha, ok, why is my "16 slot Infantry only" server completely empty then? :)

[SQGiz]

@JBRAA

Ranking is a good way to push people fast into "how do I play qwet?" -> Servers are full, fun is here, and you learn fast. So, yes, at the beginning, Unranked servers might be affected by that.

But, long term, when people start to know how qwet works, interests will come to play it differently, namely in a clan, where you are responsible for the way you play. Then, Unranked (Clan-) servers will start to fill up. The question is, how much time is this "phase" going to take?

See BF2, everybody played BF2 Ranked for 1-2 years, lately, a lot of people are playing BF2 competitively, means THOSE players do play also on Unranked Servers (Training, Clanwars), like with any other game.

I do not think Ranking handicaps the growth of clan play (unranked play), but only makes it a bit slow at the beginning only.

My thoughts.

ie: but still, is the gameplay of a new game not touching the nerv of the time, it's not going to create a community/clan community, nervermind ranks or not.

[Inermis]

because it do not have any prestige? :>
and no one knows about that kind of server in beta2.

about that kind of servers ( 3 ) you mostly get know from other players, not from in game browser.

[Awol]

Well in BF2 people I feel people wanted to play ranked servers cause they could get the unlocks and other fun stuff. I know I did it was fun and exciting building up XP and stuff to unlock a new gun. ET:QW doesn't have that so ranked servers are only for the stats page. I plan on countering that with my own stats program for my server(s) might not be as detailed but its still fun seeing how you compare to others on the same server. Will my server be full like it has in past games... I do not know, but I know I will be doing the same things I have in the past to get a small community game server going. Which is usually some sort of fun game night and just general good sportsmanship rules I usually enforce on my servers.

It hard to tell at this point though cause its a limited beta. I only see 300+ people playing at night and with 500+ servers to pick from spreads the players out too much. If this game does well and I think it will I don't think we will have problems getting people to unranked servers.

[Mordenkainen]

Too few people playing the beta to tell.

Personally, I don't care about stats so I will play on either server type, however as you said ranked servers guarantee (kinda) a smooth playing experience so I tend to gravitate towards those.

But as a mapper I also like playing on custom maps so I'll be on unranked servers too.