Here's various information that's come forward on the Valve mailing list about MvM so far. All quotes are directly from Valve employees.
Players can join your server through any means they can join PvP games: the server browser, ad hoc joins, or the new matchmaking system (quickplay beta).
To accept matchmaking traffic, you must select which sort of traffic you want. (Regular PvP traffic or MvM traffic.) Set “tf_mm_servermode 2” to be placed in the MvM pool.
For MvM matchmaking, if 6 players are sent to your server to start a new game, it will switch to whatever map the players selected.
You will need a TF gameserver account to accept matchmaking traffic.
You can switch the server in and out of any matchmaking mode pool or back to any regular game mode at any time. .. this was later corrected to:
If the server is EMPTY or has fewer than 6 players, yes, there are no problems with switching --- that is true. However, in general, switching from PvP to MvM is going to cause several problems. (I believe that what would actually happen is that the 7th, 8th, etc. players who connect on a map change will be forced into spectator. At any rate, we don't officially support that, so if you do it, you're on your own.) So, you should expect to segregate your servers into MvM and PvP. Don't just put the MvM maps into the mapcycle file, that won't work. (Actually, the mapcycle file is slightly different for MvM because you really are cycling through missions, not the maps. Likewise, players can vote to change the "mission" even if it's on the current map...)
The CPU usage for a 6 player MvM game is about the same as for a regular TF server. (Yep, this mode requires significantly more CPU cycles per player than the PvP mode, that’s an unfortunate fact.)
Given the surge of players that comes with any major release, and the player / server ratio of this game mode, the demand for MvM servers will probably be high. We expect that a large number of players will want to try out the new mode, so we will be converting most of our servers to host MvM, and then adjust the allocation based on what players are playing.
You don't have to use matchmaking at all. You can host the server and play the maps just like any other gamemode. Players can join through the server browser, favorites tab, direct connect, friend invites, etc.
MvM matchmaking will be restricted to 6 players at launch.
The matchmaking also supports joining games in progress to fill an empty slot, in which case of course the current map will not be changed.
You actually have to set maxplayers to 32 to host MvM (to make room for all the bots). That's why the mode is expensive CPU-wise, to not only simulate all those players but run their AI logic as well... The server will need to launch with -maxplayers 32 to host MvM properly.
The server will show 6 max players in the server browser. (Same basic effect as visiblemaxplayers.)
You can hide your server from the server browser using tf_mm_strict. (The Valve servers will be configured this way.) However that setting is entirely unrelated to which matchmaking pool you wish your server to be in.
The MvM in-game voting system restricts the options given to players to change the map or mission. Similarly, PvP voting restricts the options to what’s in your mapcycle file.
So…
To host a PvP server:
No MvM maps in the mapcycle file.
Set tf_mm_servermode 1 (or 0)
Boot the server on a PvP map in your map cycle.
To host an MvM server:
Make sure maxplayers is 32!
No PvP maps in the MvM mission cycle file. (More details on this file will follow.)
Set tf_mm_servermode 2 (or 0)
Boot the server on a MvM map in your map cycle.
If you do the above, the server will essentially be locked in either one mode or the other, and players will not be able to switch. (Barring any use of rcon, etc.)
There is currently no way to select a particular server or server group in the matchmaking system.
The matchmaking system is not identical to L4D, because the gameserver and the party members are all chosen at the same time. It is not a two-step process where strangers trickle into a lobby and then you wait for a server. You will never be in a lobby with strangers, only invited friends. Each search party waits, and then and entire match (collection of 6 players from N parties) is started on a particular gameserver. This is how the current quickplay beta works.
Does NFO have any plans to scale back the pricing plan for a MvM-only sever? Of course the price of a server goes up as the number of player slots increase, and MvM requires 32 slots, but in actuality only 6 player slots are being used, the rest are for bots. Since the number of player connections is actually very low, will NFO be offering subsidized plans for 32-slot MvM server?
RaceboatRacerX wrote:Does NFO have any plans to scale back the pricing plan for a MvM-only sever? Of course the price of a server goes up as the number of player slots increase, and MvM requires 32 slots, but in actuality only 6 player slots are being used, the rest are for bots. Since the number of player connections is actually very low, will NFO be offering subsidized plans for 32-slot MvM server?
It is unlikely we will;
You actually have to set maxplayers to 32 to host MvM (to make room for all the bots). That's why the mode is expensive CPU-wise, to not only simulate all those players but run their AI logic as well... The server will need to launch with -maxplayers 32 to host MvM properly.
The CPU usage for a 6 player MvM game is about the same as for a regular TF server. (Yep, this mode requires significantly more CPU cycles per player than the PvP mode, that’s an unfortunate fact.)
As stated above, even though only six real players will join the rest of the slots will be filled by bots which take up a lot more CPU power then just a normal six slot server.
@Kraze^NFo> Juski has a very valid point
@Juski> Got my new signature, thanks!
@Kraze^NFo> Out of context!
@Juski> Doesn't matter!
@Juski> You said I had a valid point! You can't take it back now! It's out there!
RaceboatRacerX, we will be looking into it based on the performance data we receive following the release of MvM. Everything is conjecture at this point, and we need real estimates of CPU and bandwidth consumption to determine what kind of pricing level we can support.
To host an MvM server:
* Make sure maxplayers is 32!
* No PvP maps in the MvM mission cycle file. (More details on this file will follow.)
* Set tf_mm_servermode 2 (or 0)
* Boot the server on one of the MvM maps:
mvm_decoy
mvm_mannworks
mvm_coaltown
* Use the default mission cycle file (attached) or edit as you prefer
To host a PvP server:
* No MvM maps in the mapcycle file.
* Set tf_mm_servermode 1 (or 0)
* Boot the server on a PvP map in your map cycle.
A few last qestions:
We will host some “Boot Camp” (non Mann UP!) servers, but we are expecting that the demand for servers of both kinds will be extremely high, so we are moving most of our servers to Mann UP.
In summary: almost all of the “boot camp” players --- which is likely to be a majority of players today --- will be hosted on community servers.
Update is being rolled out now and most servers should have it by now.
@Kraze^NFo> Juski has a very valid point
@Juski> Got my new signature, thanks!
@Kraze^NFo> Out of context!
@Juski> Doesn't matter!
@Juski> You said I had a valid point! You can't take it back now! It's out there!
Now get rid of your old map cycle and replace with this;
mvm_decoy
mvm_mannworks
mvm_coaltown
Lastly set one of the above maps in your autoexec.cfg so the server boots on an MVM map.
@Kraze^NFo> Juski has a very valid point
@Juski> Got my new signature, thanks!
@Kraze^NFo> Out of context!
@Juski> Doesn't matter!
@Juski> You said I had a valid point! You can't take it back now! It's out there!
IcEWoLF wrote:Sweet thanks!
I didn't even get a chance to test this and the server is full already.
Wow..
Yea...that was what happened to me. As soon as it was up, I couldn't get in.
@Kraze^NFo> Juski has a very valid point
@Juski> Got my new signature, thanks!
@Kraze^NFo> Out of context!
@Juski> Doesn't matter!
@Juski> You said I had a valid point! You can't take it back now! It's out there!
Same here. Server was instantly full. So I created a second server. In the time I minimized my RDP and opened TF2 it was full also. You can still get in as a spectator, or kick if need be with HLSW. I used the waiting period for the servers to go online, I created my MOTD files for the servers. I think they came out pretty sweet.
. The last post I made.