Actually, if you'll look at the Steam stats, it's pretty obvious that overall TF2 traffic has taken a downturn. Add to that all the additional servers that went up after F2P went live, along with a pretty cluttered release schedule of new PC games (BF3, etc.), and I think what most operators are seeing is simply a symptom of less public players overall, and too many servers - not a problem with quickplay. With only 40k or so TF2 players to go around, if you haven't built up a relatively large group of regulars, you're going to be struggling.
We've seen a downturn as well (although, not in our UK-based servers, only in the US), but it's simply moving toward where traffic levels were prior to F2P/quickplay. Personally, I think operators that have been relying solely on quickplay to fill their servers are going to have a tough go at keeping full servers from now on (unless, of course, Valve has another big update up their sleeve to kick TF2 in the pants again). TF2 is a 4 year old game - and without a large group of regulars already built up, I doubt I would launch and TF2 servers today. Building consistent traffic takes a ton of time and dedication - even when a game is new. Quickplay is a crutch, and if your servers can't fill without it, you're already sunk. On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 12:57 PM, Tyler Davies <[email protected]>wrote: > I'm having the same ordeal with my servers. And I know that it's totally > unrelated to the amount of time people have been playing in it because over > 10 people (almost constantly) had been connected for more than one hour on > the day of the most recent update. Everyone who connected to the three of > my servers stayed in for an avg. of 45 minutes to an hour and a half. Yet > the next day, not a single soul from quickplay to be found, only the > regular players. This all started happening after the Halloween update. > This is very bizarre because we're normally full and people stay on for an > extended amount of time (I'd say about 45 min - 1 1/2 hours) give or take > 65-70% of the time. Maybe this should be looked into? I don't know. But I > will say that people play on the servers quite a bit and now quickplay is > discriminating my servers. I've seen other servers that cannot hold a > single person in for more than 45 minutes yet quickplay keeps them full all > day and night. I don't like saying there is something wrong.... but I think > there is something wrong. > > On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 1:12 AM, Team BOOM! <[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> I'm seeing the same thing as msleeper. I have 7 TF2 servers and all of >> them >> were running totally full of players until the day after Halloween. In >> fact >> they've been running full for months. Now all but one or two usually sit >> empty. It's like quickplay is not directing traffic to them anymore. >> Something is weird here. I don't get it. Is anyone else seeing something >> goofy like this. >> >> Mike >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: [email protected] >> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of msleeper >> Sent: Thursday, November 03, 2011 3:09 PM >> To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list >> Subject: Re: [hlds] TF2 Quickplay Server Capacity Penalty >> >> So I'm not sure if this is related to quickplay or not, but I've >> noticed the past 2 days that my (pure vanilla, no SM or anything) >> quickplay servers have gotten next to no traffic. Which is very >> strange considering at least 1 of them usually is full of players, and >> since the start of the Halloween event they've been full nearly 20 >> hours a day. Am I just drawing the short stick getting quickplay >> players, or are people just bored with the Halloween stuff already? Or >> was there a change in the backend that I might be affected by? >> >> On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 6:03 PM, Fletcher Dunn >> <[email protected]> wrote: >> > Quickplay operates based upon the same data used by the server browser. >> So >> > whatever the max player count is as reported to the server player. >> > >> > >> > >> > Of course, the current player count is also relevant! :) >> > >> > >> > >> > - Fletch >> > >> > >> > >> > From: [email protected] >> > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Terry >> Robinson >> > Sent: Thursday, November 03, 2011 1:43 PM >> > To: [email protected] >> > Subject: [hlds] TF2 Quickplay Server Capacity Penalty >> > >> > >> > >> > Does the quickplay penalty apply to servers with maxplayer set above 24, >> to >> > servers with sv_maxvisibleplayers above 24, or to servers whose current >> > player count is above 24? >> > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, >> > please visit: >> > http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds >> > >> > >> >> _______________________________________________ >> To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, >> please visit: >> http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, >> please visit: >> http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds >> > > > _______________________________________________ > To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, > please visit: > http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds > >
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