I'd love to know how your server is filling. Quick play is enabled on mine but it will never see players. I believe Valve has servers in New York which I'm losing out to (mine is in New Jersey).
On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 2:51 PM, doc <[email protected]> wrote: > I've been running a 24 man Vanilla server since late 09 and what I've > learned through this server (and my many other servers) is there is no > shortcut to a great community. Recently we've turned on Quickplay and > I'm having second thoughts about it just because my server is now > filled 100% of the time, hard to find a slot! > > We also have a fair amount of (good) custom maps on our server, and we > also run a weekly event (Alpha Test Tuesdays), to test new custom maps > people are working on (and we let anyone test free of charge!). Sure > during the times we are on a custom map the server may not fill up as > readily - but that's when having a good community comes into play. Put > up a steam group for your server, and actually invite people you see > coming back now and again. Over the last year or so we now have enough > people in our group to keep the server ready to go all hours of the > day (mostly). > > Also it's a broken record but TF2 is "designed" for 24 players, so > with the glut of new servers I can see it might be harder to fill up a > server that has increased_maxplayers, especially on de_jeepathon2k or > whatever custom map you're playing. > > > What I'd like to know about the quickplay system is how the grading > goes. I know I can see how well we're trending, but are there any > plans in the pipeline to have more server reporting tools re: > quickplay, available? I'd like to see how I rate with other servers, > how much further we have in CRUSHING THE COMPETITION IN FUN. > > On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 3:53 PM, Sir Jake <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Very good points, another thing that would be wonderful to see is having > the score board it self support 32 players not sure why this was not put in > years ago. > > > > As many people here have said 24 slot servers just fail after any type of > roll or map change as sometimes half the server can leave in just a few > minutes and then it just dies off. I noticed this a lot when we tried our > servers with only 24 slots. > > > >> Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2011 01:32:19 +0300 > >> From: [email protected] > >> To: [email protected] > >> Subject: Re: [hlds_linux] A few more TF2 quickplay answers > >> > >> I see a slight problem in one thing. While the custom map is on, any > >> custom map, unless your server is extremely popular at any time of the > >> day, it will lead to drop of players aka lack of players. Not everyone > >> wants to play custom maps or download a new one because they still have > >> slow connections, some of them. Situation regarding people's online > >> connections has improved in past years but thats still the case for > some. > >> > >> But anyway, as the quickplay does not drive traffic to these servers > >> that do not run particular maps on, it's an issue at late time of the > >> day and early on when the servers are just filling up. This isn't a > >> major issue right now, but after couple of months, it could be. At this > >> point, either the server has to change through configs to run regular > >> maps or stay empty untill more people are getting into their games. > >> Would you join to empty server, from which you need to download a map to > >> play or a cp_dustbowl with 22/24 players on? I'll give an comprehensive > >> example. Got 2 servers running custom maps, the one that is very popular > >> and the other that is not as popular as the other. Also i have 2 > >> "quickplay" enhanced ones that fill up first and stay populated last. > >> (now that things have actually little quite since the first peak when it > >> was 24/7 full for all). > >> > >> So the ones that run custom maps, empty first and get filled up a bit > >> later as soon as map changes to some quickplay supported than the ones > >> that are running settings that quickplay is wanting (unless the regulars > >> play late, like friday, saturday). If you see where i'm going, it's > >> pretty frustrating to change mapcycle so that you get traffic driving > >> in, despite how much reputation the server has. 6 000 000 reputation is > >> more than enough but it still doesn't make me any happy, no matter how > >> much there is if the players aren't getting in as long as there are > >> custom maps at certain time of the day. > >> > >> This is not a huge issue now but quickplay makes people wanting to have > >> run basic maps to get their servers filled. So who will want to run > >> custom maps, no matter how good they are if that results to empty > >> servers. It's pointless to make every community map official too. I know > >> this quickplay is there to make people more happy as some people run > >> pretty bad server mods and such but how about adding some options to it. > >> Like into the quickplay search window. "Allow custom maps" and "Allow > >> more than 24 slot servers". It's more harder to get 24 slot server > >> running custom maps to stay populated than 30-32. I know over 24 slot > >> isn't exactly preferred but what can you do. People want what they want. > >> Quickplay is great to fill up servers but i'd like to see that only as > >> addition to existing way - if you have basic regular players on a > >> server, it gets filled but quickplay could be used to fill up the rest > >> of the slots. It works like this but only after the certain penalties. > >> > >> Just some thoughts that came out 1:32am to my mind. > >> > >> -ics > >> > >> > >> 11.7.2011 19:24, Fletcher Dunn kirjoitti: > >> > Just a few more answers to commonly-asked quickplay questions: > >> > > >> > All of the quickplay deal-breakers are tested on the client at the > moment of quickplay searching. You can flip them on and off and start/stop > receiving quickplay traffic. > >> > > >> > The reputation system is an input to the quickplay scoring system, not > the other way around. Doing quickplay-illegal things does not affect your > reputation. If you have a thriving community playing custom maps, you are > building your reputation. If you suddenly turned the server into a > quickplay-eligible one, you would be just as good of a quickplay server as a > server who had been vanilla the whole time. > >> > > >> > But to repeat: the reputation system still needs some tuning, and is > only a small part of the total quickplay score. It's mainly designed to > help avoid sending traffic to really terrible servers. > >> > > >> > Quickplay, with its minimal set of options, is currently targeted at > totally new players. However, we know that some experienced players use it > and have had fun playing maps they haven't played in a while. (Or just > beating the heck out of noobs.) Sometimes it's just fun to spin the wheel. > We have considered a "medium" search mode, somewhat of a cross between the > raw server browser and the one-click-no-options quickplay. No timeline or > promises, of course. > >> > > >> > We get *huge* value out of good server operators. While we do want to > control new players first impressions of the game, the goal is to have new > players find all the diversity out there and get into a community so they > can kill each other in the way they most enjoy. Having a set of servers > with known characteristics is good, to ensure that if you want to play you > can always find a server with a good ping, etc. But keeping all the traffic > on generic servers that we have to maintain and host is not really a huge > win for us. > >> > > >> > I would post these answers to the FAQ and just send a link, but the > details are of course subject to change without notice. :) > >> > > >> > Hopefully most of the big quickplay questions are answered. I'm > working on a lot of game server related stuff, so I'll probably be on these > lists again. > >> > > >> > Cheers, > >> > Fletch > >> > _______________________________________________ > >> > To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, > please visit: > >> > http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds_linux > >> > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, > please visit: > >> http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds_linux > > > > _______________________________________________ > > To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, > please visit: > > http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds_linux > > > > _______________________________________________ > To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, > please visit: > http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds_linux > _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds_linux
