You guys are confusing different systems, here. The scoring system you are all speaking of was there to try and thwart fake player counts, sv_tags modifications, and other foul tactics.
It was outlined here, back in March of 2009. http://tf2.com/post.php?id=2338 This was before quickplay, and before free to play. Presumably, Valve didnt want operators knowing their scores specifically, and all delisting of low scores (which had to be REALLY low, not like -100) were done manually. This kind of worked, and was used for a few weeks, maybe a few months. Eventually, the troll server ops probably learned how to fake the response, or Valve gave up. But again, these scores were a metric used by Valve *three years ago* to delist servers manually. I highly doubt they have any use now, other than for current server operators to use as a measure of their own popularity. The quickplay system is still not entirely understood. There are different states (good, bad, etc) and different ways of them trending (up, down, neutral). However, it seems to randomly reset, the trends and statuses don't seem to make a lick of difference, and even when my server is good and trending upward, quickplay won't give it a single player for hours, even when 10+ people are playing. Other times you can reboot the server, and it'll be full before the replay bot even loads. Hell, I've had a server that quickplay was feeding for days, and it's status still showed that it was in bad standing, and trending downward fast. Valve has continually said that the only way to get delisted is to do some really shady things with your servers, and even then, they will delist them manually, not automatically. If you're trying to provide a good service that's in demand for players, Valve is going to leave you alone. On the other hand, if you're renaming bots and making them look like players, doing shitty redirects, faking player counts, changing sv_tags, or any other nonsense, I'd watch your back, for the banhammer be comin'! On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 10:26 AM, dan <[email protected]> wrote: > On 09/12/2011 09:55, Peter Reinhold wrote: > >> My servers have gained a (small) contingency of regular players, but, >> when one of these join and finds the server empty, maybe idles for a minute >> or two, and then leaves (and who can blame them), they are unwillingly >> punishing a server they would like to play on, and having 10-15-20 of these >> players doing this over an afternoon punishes the server HARD, as I >> understand it. >> > > You really do want people to join when it is empty because this is one of > the criteria that will send quickplay players to your server in preference > to completely empty servers, so it's not a good idea to discourage people > from joining your server based upon fretting about how it affects the score. > > If you get regular players, perhaps time to think about other community > things you could do to try and get more regulars or to keep a few around on > the server. Most of the servers that are full 'all the time' have lots of > regulars. (Although I don't think there are many genuine servers that are > full 24/7 except perhaps immediately after a big update) So this should > happen to everyone, meaning your score is no different than it would be > compared with others. > > The only use of the score is quickplay, so if you have a lot of regulars > you won't need quickplay players, so your score won't matter. > (It's true to say that if your server is nearly full people will join from > the browser too) > > I believe it only counts each player once too, so if you have the same > person joining and leaving to see, it won't impact it each time. > > But, it's not a question of whether your server is 'good' or 'bad' in > terms of what your intentions or the intentions of the people joining are. > It's a simple measure of how long each player stopped on the server used > to roughly gauge their experience. > > We have to take the negative scores with the positive, but this will > happen to everyone using quickplay, not just you. > > My experience is that the only interesting numbers to look at at are the > time of day and the current/peak players for TF2 on the stats page. > If the clock suggests most people in your timezone are awake and the > current / peak numbers are high, then it's more likely your server will > fill. > > The rest of the time, it's pretty moot what your score is. Not the least > because I think anyone playing TF2 at 3am in their timezone isn't using > quickplay. And the popular servers that fill first are not getting those > players from people hitting 'start playing' either. > > At the moment, I think TF2 numbers are affected by the skyrim effect (with > maybe a slightly smaller dota 2 beta effect as well) > -- > Dan. > > > ______________________________**_________________ > To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, > please visit: > https://list.valvesoftware.**com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/**hlds_linux<https://list.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hlds_linux> > _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: https://list.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hlds_linux
